The quest for Sky Skipper, the rarest Nintendo arcade machine in the world
Nintendo’s arcade games were hit and miss in early days, with titles such as Monkey Magic and Space Firebird failing to leave much of a lasting impression. That all changed in the summer of 1981 with the release of the all-conquering Donkey Kong (designed by a young Shigeru Miyamoto), which went on to become one of the bestselling arcade games of all time, as well as marking the debut of Mario.
But that same year, Miyamoto worked with director Genyo Takeda on an arcade game that has since been all but forgotten. Sky Skipper featured giant gorillas, just like Donkey Kong, but here the player was piloting a biplane and collecting anthropomorphic playing cards.
The story goes that Sky Skipper was produced in limited numbers in 1981 for testing in Japanese arcades, but the response was poor. Around a dozen cabinets were then shipped to Nintendo of America (NOA) for testing in the US, and the reception was similarly lukewarm. Howard Phillips – as being “trippy” and “not very good”.
