This Long-Lost Nintendo Knitting Machine Would Have Let You Make Sweaters With Your NES

Nintendo launched several peripherals for the NES back in the 1980s. Most of us remember, or at least heard of, the power glove and the light gun. But then, there were the stranger attempts, like Nintendo Knitting Machine, designed to help you make those oh-so-delightful ’80s sweaters. And no, I am not making this up. “Gamemaster” Howard Phillips, who worked for Nintendo in the decade running from 1981 to 1991, recently shared this brochure from the late 1980s on his Facebook page, confirming that the prototype, at least, did indeed exist. Phillips had to give a demonstration of it to the chairman of Toys R Us. “Likely one of my least genuinely enthusiastic demos,” Phillips added.cnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({"playerId":"e3616d04-4972-4839-a63a-c6975e2e9731","settings":{"advertising":{"macros":{"AD_UNIT":"/23178111854/od.kotaku.com/article","CHILD_UNIT":"article","POST_ID":"5939210","POST_TYPE":"post","CHANNEL":"uncategorized","SECTION":"","SUBSECTION":"","CATEGORIES":"uncategorized","TAGS":"nintendo","NOP":"0"},"timeBeforeFirstAd":0}}}).render("cnx-player-main")}); The full text of the handout reads: You’re looking at the Nintendo Knitting Machine. It’s not a game; not a toy; not something a young girl can outgrow in three or six months or even a year. It’s a machine that interacts with the powerful Nintendo Entertainment System to actually knit sweaters: and not just one or two patterns but a multitude of different and unique designs. The Nintendo Knitting Machine is just one more example of the innovative thinking that keeps e19 Nintendo on the cutting edge of video technology. And your customers on the betdog edge of their seats. Of course we should probably mention that no other video game system offers anything even remotely similar. But why needle the competition? I could point out that girls actually used the NES for playing video games on, that boys might have liked to knit, or that the “needle” pun in the last sentence is just terrible but given that, happily, the device never made it to consumers, that really just seems like piling on. The Nintendo Knitting Machine has apparently not been seen or heard of since, and existed only sbfplay as the most vague of rumors. And so, the world was deprived of Knitendo puns… until today. Scroll down for the full, weirdly amazing, image. The Nintendo Knitting Machine [Facebook, via Tiny Cartridge]