| abstract | - On October 20, 2005, prominent gaming website joystiq.com published an article regarding an alleged beta cartridge of a third Zelda game for the NES, titled The Legend of Zelda III: The Triforce Saga. This cartridge was found via an eBay auction by a Richard Vialoux. Though he originally claimed not to have access to an NES to test the cartridge, he managed to find one the following day and posted a picture of what appeared to be the game's title screen on his television. At the time of the auction's completion on October 22, the game had sold for close to $3000 to a person with the username "Knight 7". Richard Vialoux later posted that he believed the buyer to be associated with the development studio Silicon Knights. Later that same day, however, the president of Silicon Knights wrote in to Joystiq, confirming that the company had not authorized such a purchase, and that the company was currently looking into whether anyone using the name Knight 7 was associated with the company. Zelda fansite thehylia.com later investigated the issue, and came to the conclusion that the cartridge was a fake. They noted that real NES beta cartridges could not be played on an unmodified system, and that reliable sources note that development of the real third Zelda game had already been green-lighted to move to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System by 1989, contradicting the 1990 date on the hoax cartridge. : Non-canonical information ends here.
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