While Nintendo has been a prominent force in the game industry for decades, it took some time before they became the absolute powerhouse they are today. Long before their dominance in home consoles, Nintendo manufactured playing cards, toys, and various gadgets–and, during the 1970s and 80s, they invested heavily in creating coin-operated entertainment for arcades. Even years before Donkey Kong became a company-defining hit, Nintendo was doing some wild things in arcades.
Wild Gunman ’74, named such by gaming historian Kate Willaert to avoid confusion with other Nintendo products bearing the same name, was engineered by Nintendo’s legendary creator and inventor Gunpei Yokoi. It was a massive lightgun game that used full-motion video to depict Wild West quick-draw shootouts with outlaws–an absolute technological marvel for the time that earned a lot of fawning press in coin-operated trade magazines. Unfortunately, that impressive technology did not translate to sales for the expensive cabinet, with roughly 100 units being sold, making Wild Gunman ’74 extremely rare. Because of the machine’s age, size, proprietary technology, and obscurity, working Wild Gunman ’74 units are practically impossible to find–only one original machine is known to exist, in the hands of a private collector.
But when Canadian arcade collector and repair expert Callan Brown got ahold of some of the original Wild Gunman 74 film reels used in the arcade machine from an eBay auction, he felt a need to try and restore it to its full, working glory–which he documented in a detailed YouTube video.
In the video, Brown discusses his historical find, describing the original technology for how the game would utilize film reels and showcasing samples from the film he was able to obtain. As he points out, the film could degrade very quickly depending on how much the game was played, and some reels were in better condition than others. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to obtain all of the known film that exists for the game, but has preserved the best cuts of what he received. Then, consulting original service manuals and utilizing a combination of modeling, modern software, programming, and sewing by his wife Natasha Aziz, Brown was able to fabricate a full-size housing and gun unit for the game to be played on. While it’s not original hardware, it’s still a stunningly impressive recreation of an experience that wowed fortunate arcade-goers of the mid-70s.
We reached out to Brown to get some more details about his creation. Asked if he has any leads on where the cabinet the original reels came from may have been installed, he said he’s still trying to find the cabinet where the original reels came from.
“The original auction said it was from a long-retired operator’s warehouse in Saskatchewan, Canada,” said Brown. “Both the auction and user are gone from eBay, so I wish I had asked more questions earlier on! I have received several comments on different forums about places people played this game in their youth, so I’ve started recording those to make a map.”
“I do have to shout out Raf Everett, who appears in the video, for scouring the net for tidbits of information on ancient forums and the like, on who might have other films and original cabinets,” he continued.
What inspired him to go all-out on building a dedicated arcade cabinet for Wild Gunman? “I really, truly was just going to build the scale model that I used for the fakeout in my video,” he said. “I started modelling the cabinet from the available pictures and dimensions in July 2025, and began to realize there was nothing preventing me from just creating the whole cabinet. It was finished in about February 2026, and I had been working on the video until the release on April 16. I have lots of experience with CAD, 3D printing, and circuit board design. So the design and execution were all done by me, except for the shroud panels that my wife lovingly sewed. I had used Unity previously to create some VR simulations, so that was a natural choice for reprogramming the game.”
Brown said he’ll take the machine to the Ontario Pinfest, taking place on May 30-31 in Stayner, Ontario. Does he have plans to showcase the setup anywhere else? “Not currently, but I will keep my eyes and ears open for opportunities.”
Finally, will the film reels be made available online for perusal by amateur Nintendo historians? “This is of course what everyone’s asking,” he replied.
“All I can say for now is that I vow not to let these films and scans disappear.”
