Rare Nintendo DS dev cart listed on eBay for $9,000+ could contain a lost Pokémon game unplayable since 2005
Retro video game preservation fans may have reason to celebrate as an eBay seller has listed a Nintendo DS cartridge that could contain a rare Pokémon game no one has been able to play since 2005. The cartridge, listed by seller “catbearpaws” on eBay, is priced at €7,999, or about $9,100. But the price isn’t what has people interested; it’s what the cartridge boots up to. Many believe it may contain PokéPark Fishing Rally DS or, in Japanese, PokéPark Tsuri Taikai DS.
The seller has been fairly transparent about what they actually know about the test cartridge. “This listing is for the exact physical development/test cartridge shown in the photos. Acquired as a private lot, no further history or provenance documentation is available. It’s in working condition, and when tested on a retail Nintendo DS, it boots to a Japanese-language screen indicating a high-score ranking communication program.”
The listing went viral after Pokémon preservationist Professor Rex shared it on X, writing, “Long considered lost media, the software for the PokéPark Fishing Tournament has become available for sale… Hopefully it will fall into the hands of someone who wishes to preserve it so everyone else can experience it once more.”
The game in question is PokéPark Fishing Rally DS, a rare Pokémon fishing mini-game that briefly appeared in Japan in 2005.
It was temporarily distributed through DS Download Play at the PokéPark theme park in Nagoya, Pokémon Centers, and Pokémon Festa festivals from May through September 2005. Players would cast a fishing line to hook and reel in Water-type Pokémon like Feebas and Magikarp, earning leaderboard points based on each Pokémon’s level, size, and rarity.
The catch is that PokéPark Fishing Rally DS was only available as a download at select booths, so players never received a physical copy of the mini-game. Since then, no ROM of the Pokémon fishing title has surfaced online.
This was largely due to the way DS Download Play worked: the game would be automatically deleted from the Nintendo DS’s storage when the system was shut down or after 12 hours had passed.
Despite this, the development cartridge may not be the breakthrough fans are hoping for. Fans like Triamisu090401 have translated the Japanese text shown in the seller’s photos as “Ranking Transmission,” which could mean the cartridge may only contain leaderboard data rather than the actual PokéPark Fishing Rally DS mini-game.
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