Nowadays, gamers don’t have to worry too much about losing their saved game data. With the advent of cloud uploads and hard drive storage, it is very difficult to actually lose your saved data, outside of files becoming corrupted. Preserving your saved data just isn’t something most people have to worry or think about anymore.
That isn’t the case for Twitter user Wanikun however. As reported by Rocket News 24, his man has gone beyond what is expected even of hardcore gamers and has left his Super Famicon (Super Nintendo in the West) on for nearly 20 years to preserve saved data for the popular Japanese game, Umihara Kawase, which was released in 1994.
ちなみに、20年以上SFCの電源を入れっぱなしにしてある初代 #海腹川背 は、稼働時間は 18万時間を突破しているものと思われます。 電源落とすとリプレイデータは消失します。たぶん pic.twitter.com/6ZJfLi997x
— Wanikun (@UMIHARAKawase) September 30, 2015
“Incidentally, I’m pretty sure my first generation Umihara Kawase, which has been on in the SNES for over 20 years, has been in operation for over 180,000 hours. If the power is tuned off, I’ll lose all my replay data. Probably.”
That’s pretty insane, but considering the circumstances (and his apparent love of the game), he had no choice but to take this drastic measure. Back in the day, some games featured Static RAM (SRAM) combined with lithium-ion batteries. If the batteries stayed charged then one’s saved data would be preserved. However, if that battery died, they unfortunately had to kiss their saved data goodbye. Wanikun wasn’t about to let that happen to his precious saved data so he went to an extreme to preserve it.
It should be noted that Wanikun hasn’t exactly left his console turned on for 20 years straight. He did unplug it once when he moved to a new place. Fortunately for him, the saved data wasn’t lost. He was asked what he’s done during blackouts but he claims that as far as he can remember, he hasn’t had any. The gaming gods must surely be looking over this man.
Another interesting thing is that Wanikun owns Sayonara Umihara Kawase Chirari for the PlayStation Vita, which actually contains the original Umihara Kawase on it. He could just start over again from scratch to create saved data which would be much easier to keep. If he loves this game so much, I don’t see that as being unreasonable. But it’s not my place to tell this man how to do his gaming.
So the next time you see someone talking about how much of a hardcore gamer they are, make sure to tell them this story and put them in their place. No one is as dedicated a gamer as our pal, Wanikun.
Source: Wanikun on Twitter via Rocket News
