Nintendo Powerfest 94 Map Select

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Level	Title Screen for Level	Image Size	Image Type
1. Super Mario Lost Levels Level 1 Objective One: Finish the First Level!		47 KB 3328 x 480	PNG
2. Super Mario Kart Objective Two: Finish Five Laps		36 KB 1024 x 1400	PNG
3. Home Run Derby from Ken Griffy Jr. Major League Baseball Objective Three: Hit as Many Homers as You Can!		Under Construction	PNG

Additional Screen Shots from the PowerFest '94 Game

I currently own the only know copy of the PowerFest ‘94 Competition Super Nintendo (SNES).  The rest of them were disassembled and used for parts by Nintendo of America. I bought the game from the lucky guy (Left on Photo) who got it at a garage sale from someone that used to work for Nintendo. We met in person to exchange the money for the game at Ananda Ashram because that location was between where we each lived.

Finally receiving the PowerFest '94 Cartridge after a long 12 year search! I'm on the right. Photo taken at Ananda Ashram in Monroe, NY

Here are what other rare compeition carts have sold for on e-bay.

If you are a serious collector and would like to own the only known copy of the PowerFest '94 cart, you can e-mail offers to snesmaster@yahoo.com
This won't be cheap as it is a one of a kind item. It is even more of a Holly Grail for collectors then the rare Gold Cart for the PowerFest'90. The PowerFest'94 is in fact 20 times as rare.

The PowerFest ’94 game is much bigger then the average SNES game.  It has a cord that goes out the back so it can network with up to 8 other games and it displays everyone’s score on a separate monitor and is set up with a timer that stops all the games after 6 min. It is the same design that the Nintendo 1992 Challenge cart uses.

The games on it are:
1.  Level 1-1 of Super Mario Lost Levels
2.  Five laps of 1st track on Super Mario Kart
3.  Finally, Ken Griffy Jr. Home run derby where all the real points come from by hitting home runs.

The name of this event was the Powerfest '94 also known as the Nintendo World Championships 2.

I participated in this competition in Albany, NY and I won a $3000 trip to San Diego, CA to play in the world Championships.  They did not even give the winner a copy of the game.  I heard the reason that all the winners did not get one was because they only made 32 copies and did not have enough to give out to the 132 people that won the trip.  I was on the winning team (The Tornados) but all they gave out for that was a special Donkey Kong Country t-shirt. 

The four teams were:
1. Cyclones
2. Hurricanes
3. Tornados
4. Typhoons

Tornados Team Photo taken at Sea World in San Diego, CA

The final two competitors where:
Mike Iarossi and Brandon Veach.

Mike Iarossi was the grand prize winner of the PowerFest ’94.

View a Schedule of the PowerFest '94 Events that took place at the finals in San Diego, CA.

View the Donkey Kong Jungle Safari Nintendo PowerFest '94 Schedule for Saturday Evening (November 19th, 1994) at the Finals.

Pictures of the PowerFest '94 Cart

	Top View of PowerFest 94 Cartridge connected to SNES
	Back View of PowerFest 94 Cartridge connected to SNES
	Top View of Circuit Board for PowerFest '94 Cartridge
	Top View of Game Chips on Circuit Board for PowerFest '94 Cartridge

Dip Switch Settings

There are 8 switches that can be either on or off.

1 = Up (On) & 0 = Down (Off)

The game time used for the competition is shown with a blue background (6 Minuets).
The Test Mode is shown in a purple background.

My Story

I first heard about the Powerfest ’94 in early 1994 through talking to people at Nintendo and asking if they were going to do another competition in 1994 like they did for Star Fox in 1993.  For a while they had some of the same people that answered the phones for customer service play and test the Powerfest ’94 game.  I would call into customer service and ask as many questions as I could to figure out what games were in the competition cart and what part of the game would be in there.  Then I worked on finding out what the objective was for that game.

I figured out you had the complete the first game in Super Mario Lost Levels from Super Mario All Stars.  Then I knew you had to play Super Mario Kart next.  However the person I was talking to did not know much about that game so he did not know the name of the level they used in the competition cart.  I asked him if there was a bridge at one point in the level and he said yes.  Along with other information I figure it was the 2nd level in the game.  However I later found that was in correct when I went to the actual competition and it was the first level.  That made me wonder where he imagined the bridge from since there is no bridge in the first level.

However that did not cause me too many problems since when I practiced I needed to play thought the first level in order to make it to the second level.

The third game was Ken Griffy Jr. Home Run Derby, where you had to hit as many homers as possible before the time ran out.

I owned the first two games and I barrowed a copy of Ken Griffy to practice with.  I used my VCR to record myself playing and would go back and watch to figure out ways I could improve how quickly I made it through the first two games.

At this point in my life I was 20 years old and going to college at SUNY Morrisville for Computer Science.  I had an interview with Jamesway (a local department store) for a summer job.  When I went to the interview I told them I had to have a certain weekend off when they were doing the Powerfest '94.
 
I went to the competition with a friend of mine from High School.  Chris and I set out early Friday morning to go to Albany, NY from North Norwich.  It was about a two and a half hour drive.  However it took us a bit longer then that.  According to the map the route we wanted to take started in Norwich and only went one direction.  However that was not where that road started and it turns out it went both directions and we did not discover that until around 40 minutes later.  Then we turned around and headed back to Norwich and went the right direction this time.  As we got close to Albany we stopped at a rest area and I used a phone to call Jamesway and found out I had gotten the job.

Arrival at the PowerFest '94 in Albany, NY

Friday

After all that we still made it to the Wall*Mart in Albany as they were setting up the competition.  The guy running the competition was named Tony. We got there a little before they started the competition, so we looked around at the various SNES games they had set up for people to play.  They had multiple games hooked up to a single SNES and you could select witch to play.

When it was time to start the competition Chris and I were the first to go up and play.  We were the only people playing at first even though they had it set up so four people could play at a time.  Tony said he was impressed with my score, saying he never saw someone get a score so high the first time they played.  I won a t-shirt and then Chris and I played again.  It was not until around third or fourth time playing that several other people started to show up.

It turns out Nintendo was leaving it all up to the stores to advertise for the competition.  Apparently all Wall*Mart did for advertising was in the newspaper. This weekend was also the Grand Opening of this Wall*Mart.   So not too many people know about the competition.  By the end of the day more people were showing up and we had to wait in line to play, but not more then one or two rounds of game play.  Chris won a t-shirt on the third or fourth round.

After the competition ended for the night Chris and I wondered around in the Wall*Mart.  We did not have the money for a motel, so we slept in my car.  At the time I drove a 1986 Honda Accord.  On our way back to the car we saw Tony and some of the people he worked with hanging out and eating pizza.  We thought about going over and hanging out with them and asking for some pizza, but we decided against it.

Saturday

The next day we got there as Tony was setting up.  We got to see what the competition cart looked like when it was hooked up to the SNES.  Normally it was in a cabinet so you could not see it.  Tony let us play a few rounds to test it out and make sure it worked good before it was time to start officially.  He told us our scores would not count for that time but it would let us get some practice in.  We also mentioned to Tony that we saw him and his friends eating pizza the night before and that we were tempted to come over and ask for some.  He said we should have come over and that he would have given us some pizza.  Then he said that he would take us out for pizza that night.

As the day progressed more and more people started showing up.  Word was getting around.  The main people of note were one kid from Canada there with his father and two brothers from around New York City.  They were known as the Getty Brothers. For a while the top score slot was switching between Chris, myself and them.  At one point mid Saturday morning I got tired of standing up all the time.  Chris and I went in Wall*Mart.  I bought a folding chair and Chris bought a stool.  That way we could sit down while waiting in line.  Tony even let us sit down in them while playing in the competition.  It was not long after that that several other players also bought chairs to sit on.

By mid afternoon it got to be over an hour wait in-between plays.  It was a nice sunny day and it was starting to get a little hot out there.  At one point someone from the Albany Newspaper came by and took a few pictures and asked some questions.  At that time I held the high score, so he came over and talked to me.  I told him how Chris and I had heard about the competition and how we were sleeping in the car.

That evening after the competition was over for the day Tony drove us over to the Crossgates Mall and treated us out to pizza at Uno’s.  He put the meal on his company card.  It was fun chatting with him and nice to get a free meal.

After dinner he dropped us back off at the Wall*Mart parking lot.  Then Chris and I went to bed.  At some point I woke up and I saw lots of light.  At first I thought it was the sun and that it was morning.  However as I came a little more to my senses I realized it was a cop car shining its lights into my car.  The officer came over and knocked on my window.  I rolled it down and he asked me what I was doing.  I said sleeping.  Then he asked why we were sleeping there.  I told him about the Nintendo competition and he told us that an alarm went off at a near by store and they were checking it out.  After that the cop left and let us get back to sleep.

Sunday (Final day of Competition)

That morning we got up an helped Tony set up for the day. He gave us some donuts.

...More information will be added when I have time to type it all

Additional Information:

Scores from the PowerFest '94 in San Diego, CA

Video about PowerFest '94 from Central Illinois

Video about PowerFest '94 from Baltimore, Maryland where John Bassin won the trip to San Diego

Article about the PowerFest '94 at SNES Central by Evan G