10 Of Nintendo's Weirdest & Most Forgotten Gaming Experiments
1. Nintendo Knitting Machine
Nintendo almost released a sweater knitting add-on for the NES. Seriously.
The NES had scads upon scads of needless gadgets - the Power Glove, the Speedboard - that you could probably make an entire article on that single topic. The Knitting Machine was built to create sweaters, in what was presumably a misguided marketing attempt to capture sales from young girls.
Although the device was never truly released in stores, prototype images from marketing materials do exist across the internet, and stories of unenthusiastic tradeshows and awkward sales pitches have floated into websites worldwide. Understandably, it seems Nintendo was a bit flummoxed by the challenge of selling a video games machine that knits shirts, and quietly axed the whole thing before it was even ready for market.
Nintendo actually did release one single game for the knitting machine: the "I Am A Teacher" series released Super Mario Sweater for the Famicom, a game that let you create sweaters for a device that didn't exist. To make up for releasing a game that literally didn't work, Nintendo would release a follow up, I Am A Teacher - Teami No Kiso, which taught players about knitting sweaters by hand.
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Learned anything new today? Got any weird Nintendo devices you want to talk all about? Go ahead and speak with us in the comments!