The Story of Nintendo’s Virtual Summer Camp 

I still have my Stumpy t-shirt from the year I did this and my cabin won!

That dude at the end, ShadowMario41, used to host this super popular Mario Trivia contest on the Nsider forums (which Camp Hyrule was attached to) back in the day before they closed. I never got a single point in them but I remember winning them being a pretty big deal. Those forums were another huge piece of early 2000s Nintendo history that nobody talks about. I still remember coming home from school in like 7th grade, opening the forums like I did every day and seeing they were closed and being so sad lol

i was a part of the last 'proper' camp hyrule (2006) and i recall when the wormhole event happened everyone was making joke posts on the forum section pretending like it was 1998 and they were like 7 years old excited for ocarina of time to come out or something like that. then one person made a thread about visiting the world trade center and that was controversial to say the least

32:30 this is actually a Japanese TV show called GameCenter CX of comedian Arino trying to beat retro Famicom and Super Famicom titles. From what I know it’s very popular, and he’s done tons of collaborations and promotions with Nintendo higher-ups. He appeared on Masahiro Sakurai’s RU-vid channel just a few months ago!

I actually still have my Stumpy shirt from 05. It's unfortunate I didn't have much time to actually participate, so my memories from it are pretty vague, but it was definitely fun to mess with NOAShaun.

No matter the topic, this guy never misses at being an absolute fire RU-vidr 🔥

"mario hoops basketsphere" is such a gas name i can't get over it

There was a (minor) follow-up held during Miiverse with various activities at the end of summer. It didn't hold a candle to Camp Hyrule, but is worth covering.

This is the kind of thing that can slip through the cracks for people who know retro gaming, but just weren’t around to see it. I’ve NEVER heard of Camp Hyrule, let alone seen it with my own eyes. It’s crazy to think that Nintendo was really experimental with this, especially considering the difficulty of running something like this in the 90’s. Thank you, Carlito, the video goes hard as always. I also have a video idea: “Every Nintendo Staff Member Ever.”

Man I wish camp hyrule was back it was just a thing of its time

I went to Camp Hyrule in 2004 onward I believe that it flooded as a tie in to the Wind Waker.

this reads as a huge 'my dad works for nintendo and made camp hyrule' type website

Aye! I also recently made a video exploring Camp Hyrule, glad to see it finally getting more attention!

Damn never thought I would hear about king nintendo fan again, use to watch him back in the day. Great video as always!

this is so surreal that i seriously spent 15 minutes thinking you just made these up and this was some sort of meme video

also that channel logo redesign is fiiiiiiiiire Yooo!!!

Wish I knew about this as a kid.

Somehow, Palpatine has returned

Awesome video I love early 2000’a and late 90’s internet. The websites were so cool with a bunch of stuff to do and they had so much personality I miss it. Great times growing up in the early 2000’s

say what you want about nintendo but they had reall interesting marketing strategys

15:42 This is just like how they gave Rick from Fortnite his own TV show called RIck and Morty.

10:19 these are great names.

Map changes and events Nintendo battle royale would go hard

Great video!!!❤

Oh fuck yea, new Carlito banger

Yo Diddy D. Luffy goes so hard

Holy fuck I got the guessing game with the ghost right

That's really cool.

Carlito my man, you need bigger, easier to read text in your thumbnails to drive up views. Compare your most viewed to lesser viewed vids and you will see that bigger, opaque text is key. Not enough people saw the kremling vid because the text is to small and not clear. Banger vid tho!

another certified carlito banger

im edging to this rn

23:14 BASED

Do you remember the Pokemon summer camp flash and html games?

they made twitch before it was twitch, they missed out

Can you guys do every single toad It would be intersting to see

How the heck was Nintendo this cool of a company? "Stumpy"? Why can't they still be fun?

Where can I watch this movie of dude playing dkc until he beats it 😅

👍

More Carlito lfg

I’m the 420th like

Thank you for helping with preserving this awesome media! Can’t believe Nintendo used to have their own kind of ‘Club Penguin’

To think that Star Fox was at one point so huge they put Fox McCloud on Nintendo's Mt. Rushmore alongside Mario, Link and Samus, and that's after only two SF games released at the time.. That franchise sure has seen better days.

7:43 "The camp also includes an introduction to Pokemon, the popular Japanese character" Hell yeah man, love that guy

Ready for another Carlito Banger 🔥

Fantastic video. Also wanna know where I can watch that DKC movie.

I could have never known about the most important nintendo character, Stumpy. Thanks for another banger carlito.

It's rare that I have ZERO idea of a piece of Nintendo history these days, but this is one of them. I'm actually surprised I never heard of this before, but it's a lot more effort than I was expecting. I really though I'd gone to Camp Hyrule back in the day, but maybe it was just too late at that point since my family got internet sometime in the early/mid-2000s I believe.

Thanks for this video. I’m a big Nintendo fan and grew up as a kid and young teen during the times this existed, yet I have never heard of it this in my life. This looks so awesome and I felt so much nostalgia just watching this even though I never participated. Very cool seeing the actual prizes given out. Those posters, shirts etc have to be some of the rarest official Nintendo merch in existence.

You're telling me the moon assist trophy in smash ultimate isn't a reference to majora's mask?

Your passion is so genuine, the research is amazing, and your videos have such a fun style to them. Fantastic as always!

i joined nsider late 2006, so i remember during the summer of 2007 everyone looking forward to camp hyrule only for The Link Statue news to instantly bum everyone out. pretty bummed i never got to give it a shot, so thanks for going over its history

Dude this brought me tons of memories here I made a thousand online friends there.

It’s always a day whenever Carlito uploads

this dude carlito the goat. nice vid bro

I wish I was alive/not a literally baby at this point In time so I could have played this game in all its glory

honestly didn’t realize i clicked onto a carlito video til i heard the voice, thumbnail game gone crazy

HOORAY CARLITO UPLOAD DAY

I wish I'd signed up for camp hyrule as a kid. I remember looking at the map for the Majora's Mask year and thinking it seemed cool, but I don't think I ever tried to get in any of the following years.

CARLITO YOOOOOO DOES HE EVER MISS?

Yo, didn't Goobenvy just make a video on this, a couple weeks ago I think? Interest in Camp Hyrule is on the rise I suppose.

FINALLY! Someone else remembers about this! I spent my whole middle school years on the official Nintendo website, back when they had their own message boards and live chat rooms. I started attending Camp Hyrule in 2001. Played all the games, did all the contests, never won a single thing, unfortunately, but being able to hang out with people and earn points and create was just so awesome. We'll never have that experience again. And I could have sworn that the grand prize one year was a life size statue of Twilight Princess Link cuz I really, REALLY wanted it. I wrote my own stories about Camp Hyrule and pretty much kept a journal about it for each year. It just felt like a fun clubhouse for Nintendo fans.

I won one of those stumpy t shirts, it was so cool and no one knew wtf it was, I need to see if it's still hiding at my parents house

Ballz 3D namedrop, I love you. Literally mention that game at any point any fighting game is brought up. It's goated.

I never did Camp Hyrule, but I miss those old Nintendo chatrooms and forums dearly. Looking back, it's insane how close a big company was to its fans during that time. Thank you for spreading awareness of this little piece of gaming history!

Bro is NOT goobenvy

Carlito, how do you keep making such high quality, informative, yet entertaining videos to share with us? How do more people not subscribe to your videos? I cracked open a cold one and thoroughly enjoyed this. I had *no idea* this existed, and I was just the right age to be into something like Camp Hyrule. Dang.

How have I never heard of this before?!?! Dude, this was an awesome vid!! Great research.

I’d love to see a video about Nsider

Sources? Thinking about it earlier tonight when talking about CH videos popping up but not remembering seeing any sources cited for the videos,

I wonder if there are any married couples out there that met at Camp Hyrule

Clayfighter Retrospective when???

How have I never heard of this but now…

15:42 pretty sure that's just a reference to majoras mask, which the camp hyrule event was also a reference to

Absolutely shocked I never heard of this until now. Amazing work.

Hey, I'm honored that you used one of my old clips from Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour. If you ever want to touch base to discuss this or other related gaming topics more, please don't hesitate to reach out! Best wishes!

i love the way you say golf

Never heard of this at ALL and yet it still feels nostalgic hearing you describe it 😭 Just found your channel and all the videos are so interesting! Glad we found you!

This is the VR we need. Tying it in with hidden things in the actual games is really clever. Imagine what could be done with online updates today?

i love this. i remember toei or shonen jump in japan having something like this with goku & luffy (& boruto's dad??) i think around 2005, and i went on there despite not knowing any single kana at the time or hell, barely even one piece aside from finishing up through logue town, but in 4KIDS snippets. even though the series would then change my life permanently in 2010 upon full completion of Enies Lobby

Club Nintendo. That one thing I seen on manuals but keep forgetting about. Mom hated the internet back in 200X because of barely realistic controversies.

wow i havent thought of this in ages. i went to it in the later years. maybe 04 to 06? i dont remember much about it, but i remember being stoked as hell.

How come I never heard of this? I would've loved this as a kid!

This is badass :Cool:

Mattel, Nintendo, and Type-Moon's own Camp Hyrule has full of flash games.

Absolutely fantastic video. I grew up in this era and I'm really sad I never got to experience this. I had never even heard of Camp Hyrule till today. Love your vids, really glad Coney show cases your videos and I was able to find you through him.

I used this one summer. It was just a giant chat room filled with rude kids and no moderation whatsoever.

Never got to do CH, but I was on those forums from like 2004 till they shut down. So many good memories and basically got me truly acquainted with the internet. I was banned from there no less than 20 times. They just don’t make them like they used to.

This seems like something I would've liked a lot as a kid. It's too bad this kind of thing really can't happen on the modern internet, you just know it would get messy fast. Really solid video, definitely something I haven't seen covered before.

It's weird Camp Hyrule had stuff related to Final Fantasy in the late 90's considering that Square at that point basically stabbed Nintendo in the back and moved over to Sony.

LOOOOST BROOOWSER GAAAAME PIKMIN SPAAAAAAAACE FORRRRRCE (pikmin fortnight)

19:26 Whoever got this might be the person who got Colonel Noodle from PaRappa the Rapper 2 on Coney's Twitch series Who Asked

The fact that they just have the fucking moon from Majora’s mask destroy the camp one year is so funny. That moon scared the hell out of me as a kid, so for it to be in this goofy online summer camp is very surreal.

0:07 I want more websites like this, creative and not oversimplified

Never heard this mentioned before once. Even googled it cuz I thought maybe this was a fake vid. Won sub from me!

Why not enlist the help of "lost media" RU-vidrs? This type of material is what they specialize in.

Wow, I have genuinely never heard of this! I thought I knew everything there was about Nintendo history at this point

if anyone besides Carlito was telling me this id probably bring them to see a doctor for insanity. great work on the vids bro

Wow wish i participated

God dammit... why the actual hell did I get the Luigi mansion ghost blur right

I was in the winning cabin in 05. I still have my stumpy shirt.