I love to play video games, but I also love to read about the video games we'll never get a chance to play.  Every successful game console has a trail of unreleased prototypes behind it, but it's rare that we actually get to see them.  While giving a presentation about the new Nintendo DSi at the Game Developers Conference this week, design director Masato Kuwahara showed off one of Nintendo's vaulted prototypes for the Game Boy Advance (in development as early as 1995) and a touchscreen adapter for the Game Boy Color (circa 1998)  and, later, repurposed for the Game Boy Advance SP.  MTV Multiplayer has the story.

The next prototype shown was a touch-screen adapter that Kuwahara designed to attach to the Game Boy Color. He said it was not “favorably received” by the software development team because the LCD screen didn’t have a backlight. He also revealed that Miyamoto liked the adapter when it was used on the GBA SP, but it was not brought to market. Kuwhara was disappointed but said, “I’d like to to think my prototype led to the appearance of the Nintendo DS.”

Development Hell stories and are my favorite kind of entertainment history. I'd eagerly buy a whole book full of photos of these protoypes and the tales behind them.  Proprietary-this and secret-that, I know, but is there still a confidentiality risk for discussing would-be products that are now obsolete?  Let's see some official high-quality photos of these kinds of prototypes and not just grainy scans and half-truths filled with speculation from old gaming magazines.