I have been into Nintendo for quite some time.  I first got the Deluxe Set with ROB the Robot for the NES back in 1986.  Unfortunately I did not find out about the Nintendo World Championships 1990 until after the event was over.


However I did hear about the StarFox Super Weekend Competition that took place at the end of April in 1993.  I went to Carousel Mall in Syracuse, NY.  Two stores in that mall were holding the competition so I would walk back and forth between the two stores all day on Saturday and Sunday.  I ended up getting second place in that competition.


After the competition ended I really wanted to get my hands on the competition cart.  I was thrilled when I saw they had it available in the Nintendo Power Supplies Catalogue.  I bought my copy and I remember some people thought I was crazy for paying $45 for a game that was not even a full game.  I wish I would have had more money back then, because I would have bought more then just one.  After I got that cart I became a member of the Gamers Guild at the college I was attending and hosted a competition using that cart along with other games.


The next competition I heard about was the Nintendo PowerFest '94.  I went to Albany, NY to play in that competition.  It turns out I got 1st place and the friend I went with got 2nd place.  I won a Tornado's Team Jacket for the PowerFest '94 and a trip to San Diego, CA to play in the World Championships at Sea World.  My friend won a StarFox Jacket that was left over from the Star Fox Super Weekend competition the year before.


I had a great time in San Diego and unfortunately I did not win there, however I sat next to and talked with the guy that did win.  His name was Mike Iarossi.


Of course I wanted to get the PowerFest '94 cart.  Unfortunately unlike the NWC 1990 they were not giving out the carts to winners of the competition.


The final Nintendo Competition I played in was the 1995 Blockbuster Championships using the Donkey Kong Country Competition cart.  I won in two stores.  I kept on calling Blockbuster to see if I made it to the top two scores in the US.  I did not make it to the top two but they did tell me I had gotten the highest score in New York State.


Of course I wanted that competition cart as well and was keeping a close eye in the Nintendo Power Supplies Catalogue.  As soon as it showed up I bought it for $35.  Again I wish I had more money back then as I would have bought more then just one.


I continued my search for the Nintendo PowerFest '94 competition cart.  I even went as far as calling Nintendo Customer Service and telling people that worked there if they could find one of the PowerFest '94 carts I would give them $1000.00 for it.  Unfortunately none of them were able to track it down.  I did however manage to talk one of them into sending me the Tornado Team Photo that was taken at Sea World.  Nintendo took tons of Photos and video at the event and as far as I know they still have never released any of it except for the one photo they sent me.


Well I had just about given up hope of ever finding the PowerFest '94 cart when Jollyrancher showed up saying he found a bunch of stuff at a garage sale from a former Nintendo Employee.  DreamTR bought the 1991 Nintendo Campus Challenge from him for around $6,000.00 and I bought the PowerFest '94 from him for $10,000.  My long search was finally over.  You can view a photo of me receiving the PowerFest '94 cart in person from Jollyrancher at my website:  http://www.snesmaps.com..." target="_blank">http://www.snesmaps.com... (under the PowerFest '94 link).


Shortly after buying the PowerFest '94 I bought the 1992 Nintendo Campus Challenge cart for the SNES from Jollyrancher as well.  I had not heard of that competition when it took place, and even if I had I would not have been able to attend because I did not start College until the fall of '93.


I decided to buy the 1992 Campus Challenge cart so I could say I owned one of every single SNES competition cart ever made.  I am the only person in the world who can proudly make that claim.  I ended up paying $4,000 for the final piece of my collection.


I would love to someday hold a competition using all the competition carts the two for the NES and the four for the SNES.  I talked with JJGames about possibly holding this at his store.  Time will only tell if that will come together at some future point or not.  Also I would love to find someone closer to Upstate NY who has a Video Game store that would like to host the competition.


Be sure to check out http://www.snesmaps.com for more info on the 1992 Campus Challenge and the PowerFest '94 carts.

interesting read indeed thanks for posting it do you recall what your score was that made you the best in all of NY state?

Very interesting, should be an ezine article! However wrong category, these aren't prototypes

yeah I kind of have to take the blame for that one I asked if he would't mind posting alittle info about them here extremely rare item one of a kind for now... close to a prototype I'd say

Agreed.  That's a great story, and completely worthy of an ezine write-up, but those are comp carts and not prototypes.

Now a prototype competition cart, that's something I would like to see!

Rick good stories. Maybe you could share some more on your first experience with a story in the ezine? Not sure if you remember anything else or what details you may have left out, but we here love stories like this.

Thanks for sharing

Way cool. Thanks for sharing!

looks alot like a prototype though
http://www.snesmaps.com/maps/1992...
http://www.snesmaps.com/maps/1992...

Excellent story! Definitely an ezine-worthy article. Thanks for sharing.

A competition with all the carts at once would truly be epic. I believe someone joined the site a few days ago who owns a Video Game store in NY. I'll see if I can find who it is.

EDIT: It was mrgarbonzo.

You are in luck, I had a text file I kept track of how my points things where and what scores I got at what stores. My High Score was 3826 at the Blockbuster in Vestal, NY. At that time I did not know about the trick of staying in the first level to get the most points, so that was just playing through the game making it as far as I could.

Encase anyone is interested here are the points for things I kept track of during the competition:

Bannanas = 1pt

Box with Animal = 10pts

Enemys = 10pts

Letters = 10pts

All Letters = 100pts

Barral with friend = 10pts

1up = 10pts

6up = 200pts

Bonus Levels = 50pts

Finishing a Level = 250pts

It would be fun to do a story in the ezine. Just let me know who to talk to to get started with that as I am fairly new to this site. There are lots of details I left out, but could be added in if there was interest.

Like I found the bug in the Donkey Kong Country Competition while I was playing at Blockbuster. If you loose all 50 lives (this can be done), you get the game over screen, and then go to the title screen. Then once you start the game again, the clock is showing weird characters. I thought for sure I had found a trick to get a ton of more time on the competition, however even though it was using weird symbols for the clock counting down, it was still 5 minutes, so there was no advantage of using this trick

Exactly what I was thinking too.

Very interesting to hear all of that, wish I was around to take part in those contests. If only they happened modestly in local little stores like they used to...

nice story. is this the only 1994 powerfest competition cart that has been found??

Yes, from what I heard Nintendo used the rest of them for parts and this was the only one to survive.

wow... thats amazing, i pm'ed you about where i live, im about 1.5 hours from you and recently opened up my own game store, if your interested in getting a something together let me know and im sure we can work soemthing out

that truely is an amazing collection congrats

Nice soldering job on that sucker!

I was gonna do one on Powerfest, but hadn't gotten the time to get together yet...

Pretty cool story. Thanks for posting it!

You have a nice story. Should be put in the Ezine.

Awesome stuff. I've been to Carousel many times. It's less than an hour from where I live. I never even knew there was a competition held there when I was a kid.

I think there was a small article in Nintendo Power about the Starfox Competition being held. I only found out the location from calling Nintendo and asking where I could go to find that competition. They certainly did not do that great of a job advertising most of the competitions.

For the Starfox competition, stay tuned to next month's NA e-zine. I'll say no more.