The year was 2004. MOTHER 3 had been announced the previous year in a MOTHER 1+2 commercial, and as excitement rose for this upcoming Game Boy Advance title, the former Nintendo 64 incarnation was fading away into memory. However, as fate would have it, the tale of MOTHER 64 wasn’t quite over yet! In May of that year, one of Starmen.net’s most active contributors, Jonk, received a strange email from an individual labeled “Sourceperson”, claiming to be in possession of four Nintendo 64 Disk Drive development disks, labeled “M3-KM-0X”.  

“We thought we had found the EarthBound fans’ holy grail—the development disks which contained MOTHER 3 / EarthBound 2, a sequel for which we had waited nine years”, Starmen.net co-founder Reid Young announced in the site’s forums.

But what exactly makes these disks unique to the retail ones apart from the different coat of paint? Other than the possibility of containing unreleased software, a major difference lies in the manner of which disks are read, according to 64DD aficionado LuigiBlood: 

“It’s the System Area’s sector size being lower than retail, and the LBA 12 check. LBA 12 is read by the 64DD library. If the read is failing, it’s a retail disk, if the read is a success, it’s a development disk. If it knows it’s the wrong kind of disk then it freezes in an infinite loop. But to be fair, that’s assuming you can even get that far in reading the wrong kind of disk because otherwise, the drive makes a horrible mechanical noise and fails. We don’t really know what’s physically different between blue and grey disks”.

The “KM” label on these disks also remains a mystery, which LuigiBlood speculated on; “Maybe KM is shorter for KMC, which is Kyoto Microcomputer Co. Ltd. They produced some N64 development hardware”.

The original owner, Sourceperson, was unable to boot the disks, since he was missing the proper hardware needed. However, they were aware the staff at Starmen.net would be the most interested party in purchasing these disks, so with a couple hundred dollars in the site’s funds, Reid started a secret operation known as “Devster’s Lab: MOTHER 3 DeeDee” in order to discuss the funds, shipping, hacking, and all appropriate steps needed to successfully crack the code behind these disks. Alas, after a whole year of negotiation and with over thirty staff members contributing donations to purchase said disks, Reid lost contact with Sourceperson. It seemed like once again, MOTHER 64 had slipped past their hands! 

Not all was lost, however, when a few years later on January 23rd, 2006, a new member on the forums named Coreycorey2000 made a thread labeled “M3 in hand for the N64DD”. 

“That’s right. I have 4 N64DD Blue disks labeled M3. I’ve been asking around for help and was forwarded to this site. We are not sure they are MOTHER 3. But they were sold to me like that from a reliable source.”

Immediately, Corey was met with skepticism from members on Starmen.net. While Reid Young gave the benefit of the doubt and was open to discussion, many others would not give Corey the time of day. Truly eager to prove that he was telling the truth, later that same day Corey took a picture of the disks, revealing them to the exact same four that Sourceperson was in possession of. 64DD emulation at this point in time was non-existent, leading many to believe it wasn’t possible to boot these disks at all; however, members on ASSEMblerGames assured Corey otherwise. While he was in possession of an N64DD dev system, Corey still needed an IPL-ROM cart to boot the hardware in order to read the disks. Some expressed aggravation over how complicated this process seemed to be, even assuming that the entire thing was a hoax. Despite his frustrations, Corey assured everyone that this would be far too complex to forge. After discussion on the forums began to derail even further, Corey announced that he would be leaving the Starmen.net forums and continuing his pursuit on ASSEMblerGames, much to people’s dismay.

On December 1st, 2007 Corey had finally gained all the hardware needed to boot the disks, but the contents of them were not as expected, to say the least.

“I finally had a chance to try the disks yesterday. The first disk didn’t boot. It tried to load it and then stopped. The second disk booted properly. But it wasn’t MOTHER 3. It was Sim City 64. The third disk didn’t boot. The fourth disk booted properly. But it wasn’t MOTHER 3. It was Mario Artist. It was exciting and disappointing at the same time. They aren’t blank. Which was nice. But I was really hoping for MOTHER 3. The way the disks are labeled makes no sense. But I noticed that they once had paper labels on the back. That probably had the game name on them. All four disks contain content. They were last modified in 1999.”

Only two disks remained to be booted, although things seemed far less promising after discovering the contents of the first two. It wasn’t until another two years later in March of 2009 that he was able to do so, marking the end of The Blue Disk Saga. 

“Unfortunately I have more bad news. I finally got around to hooking the 64DD dev kit up again last night. I tried the two disks that wouldn’t boot previously. It was quite simple to get them to run this time. I was so excited when the first one booted up. But it turned out to be Doshin the Giant. I played around with that for a while then decided to try the last disk. Disk #1. I figured it was #1 it had to be something good. But no, it was another copy of Doshin the Giant.”

After six years of anticipation, drama, and speculation, none of the four “M3” disks contained MOTHER 64 data on them. Nonetheless, the tale remains a legend among the MOTHER community, some even to this day unaware of what the outcome was. Perhaps that hope of one day finding the game is best held on to; after all, some things tend to happen when you least expect it.