Nintendo SNES BT Interactive TV Trial Console & Cart

Although there seems to be little mention of BTs involvement with Nintendo in the mid-nineties, it would appear the tele-communications company was trialling a United Kingdom equivalent of Japan's Satellaview service. Despite little record of BT's testing, one retro gamer has uncovered the Super Nintendo console and cartridge which would have served a digital-download based service for the 16-bit system and is looking for answers.

According to several sources online dug up by others researching the topic, BT trialled their interactive TV service to around 600 homes across two British towns around 1996. Using a mini-din port on the back of the accompanying cartridge, the console could connect up to a Voyager 2000 set-top box to provide a range of services. This would consist of various games, quizzes, advertising, and supposedly on-demand video content.

While it's yet to be known how this service worked, or how the Super Nintendo instructed the sat-box to play chosen video clips, it's rumoured that the idea was scrapped in favour of the Open TV platform instead. Although i's a shame to hear of yet another ahead-of-its-lime idea being lost to time, we're once again amazed fo see yet another piece of missing retro gaming history uncovered.

Although 600 units were trialled, it is thought that at the end of the trial, BT attended each household and removed the cartridge, further increasing the scarcity of this item.