A Nintendo DS development cartridge believed to hold a long-lost Pokémon game has been sold on eBay for £8,136 (€9,505). The cartridge is thought to contain PokéPark: Fishing Rally DS, a spin-off so obscure it has long been considered lost media.
A temporary download from 2005
PokéPark: Fishing Rally DS was never sold at retail. It was only made available in Japan and Taiwan in 2005, and only as a temporary download at certain physical locations. The game would disappear from the console when the DS was turned off or after a time limit expired, which is why the Pokémon community regarded it as lost.
Last week, an eBay listing for a Nintendo DS Development/Test Cartridge began circulating among Pokémon fans. According to Tiramisu090401 on X, the Japanese text on the cartridge mentions 'Poké Park Let's Play DS.' With no other game matching that description, the immediate assumption is that the cartridge contains the DS game itself, or the software used to distribute it.
What the cartridge says
"It says ‘Poké Park Let’s Play DS,’ so it’s definitely related, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s really a cartridge with the function to distribute the software itself. It says ‘Ranking Ishin’ on the screen, so there’s also the possibility that it was a cartridge for managing the ranking reception and transmission," explains Tiramisu090401.
The cartridge was sold for €9,505 (about £8,136) to an unknown buyer. The hope is that whoever bought it will share their findings, potentially allowing the game to be preserved or even become more widely playable.
What is PokéPark: Fishing Rally DS?
As the name suggests, the game is a simple fishing title in which players catch various water-type Pokémon and are graded on the size and rarity of each one. It is described as being as deep as the shallow end of a swimming pool, but rarities of this kind can command high prices.
Nintendo has produced some of the rarest cartridges in gaming history through event-only distributions. A notable example is the 1990 Nintendo World Championships NES cartridge, which contains modified versions of Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and Rad Racer. One eBay listing for that cartridge was priced at $175,000 (about £130,000), while a rarer gold variant was marked at $207,400 (about £154,000) in 2024.
