Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA (lost unreleased demo of PlayStation Portable rhythm game; 2008)

Logo for the playable demo.

Status: Lost

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA is a series of Japanese rhythm games developed by Sega in collaboration with Crypton Future Media. The series makes use of the VOCALOID software, a virtual voice synthesizer, and songs created using the VOCALOID software.

About

In 2008, SEGA announced a new project known as 初音ミク -Project DIVA-, a website for the game was then launched on August 31st, 2008. The website contained information about the game, along with new content that was going to be featured in the game. In September 2008, a demo of the game was apparently leaked, then quickly got taken down by SEGA.

The demo supposedly contained five playable songs, and the animations were much choppier than the final version. Charts appeared to be different from the final version, as well. It may have been possible that you could change the sprite of the note to different things such as a star, music note, etc.^[1] Apparently, SEGA had different plans than what appeared in the final. There may have been plans for content, such as free DLC, an online VS mode, and a story mode.

Tokyo Game Show

In TGS 2008, SEGA showed off previews of what was to come of the game. It featured some content such as new PV previews, new modules and characters (Kagamine Rin and Len) and new animations created for the game, which appear to be motion captured much like the final version. Most of what was shown of was already featured on the game's website.

Song List

Apparently, the demo had about 5 songs, though some sources imply 8 songs appeared instead. In no particular order, they are:

"ストロボナイツ" ("Strobe Nights")
"貴方に花を私に唄を" ("Flowers for You, Songs for Me")
"恋スルVOC@LOID" ("VOC@LOID in Love")
"ブラック★ロックシューター" ("Black Rock Shooter")
"ワールドイズマイン" ("World is Mine")
"Last Night, Good Night"
"みくみくにしてあげる♪" ("I'll Miku-Miku You♪ (For Reals)")
"Dreaming Leaf -ユメミルコトノハ-" ("Dreaming Leaf -Dreaming Words-")

ProjectDIVA.net Thread

On November 6th, 2014 ProjectDIVA.net user St0n3 started a thread on the beta and claimed that someone had leaked the demo back in 2008 and that it was only available for a short period of time. They then asked if someone on the site had a link to it.^[2] Another user replies with clues on what the ISO name could be saying he has found share DB hashes that show when the file was uploaded (2008) but claims his PC is not set up to download from SHARE. He also claims he found another ISO which is 143MB in size on Usenet, a discussion platform. However, the ISO only had a video file. Eventually, it will ask the player to quit the game. If they didn't quit, it would crash the console. The video was over 13 minutes long and just showed preview footage. This ISO was claimed that it was up on the PlayStation Store in 2008 as a preview for the game but quickly got removed.

The Research

On December 9th, 2022, Lost Media Wiki user Sunny12557 started a search for the demo.

Around January 2023, fellow members of the Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Lost 2008 Demo Discussion Server on Discord^[3] started a big research about this demo. Most of the files were found by discovering the torrent links on some old Japanese blog websites and copying the hashes from the non-working torrent URLs to the torrent metadata search website.

Firstly, they've found the original torrent of the "13 minutes long preview video" and an ISO file which was uploaded in June 2009, turns out that this June 2009 ISO is the exact same as the full game, except that the PSP firmware update files were removed (possibly to make ISO take up a bit less space). This confirms that full game got leaked back in June 2009. After those, they've found another re-uploaded June 2009 ISO (only difference is the game intro being replaced with the advertisement of a Spanish PSP ISO website). Finally, they've found three more links that could possibly be the "leaked 2008" demo. One of them was an EBOOT version of the June 2009 leak, and another one was assumed to be another June 2009 leak or a fake ISO (since its size was 3.71 GB). But according to them, the most positive one was a dead SHARE link. After a hash metadata search, it turned out to be the same thing as the first "13 minutes long preview video." It had the exact same hash as the discovered preview demo. This particular one was the most positive because TheFuzzy's (the first person who claimed that the game was leaked back in 2008 on their blog post)^[4] friend got the ISO from SHARE.^[5] This confirms that the playable demo never got leaked to the public after all but is still lost.

Videos

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Movie file from the supposed game demo.

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Gallery

Demo Miku turnaround.
Demo Miku turnaround.
Demo Miku turnaround.
Demo Rin and Len.
Demo Miku in Valkyria Chronicles’ outfit.
Promotional material for the demo of the game.
Promotional material for the demo of the game.
Concept art of a demo module shown at TGS 2008.
Concept art of a demo module shown at TGS 2008.
Concept art of a demo module shown at TGS 2008.
Concept art of a demo module shown at TGS 2008.
TGS 2008 event.
TGS 2008 event.
Video of redone animations from TGS 2008.
Website preview from 2008.
Website preview from 2008.
Website preview from 2008.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo. (Showing if the player did good or bad).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo. (Showing if the player did good or bad).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (Results screen).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (Results screen).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of either story mode or a playable song.
Stage model created for the playable demo.
Stage model created for the playable demo.
Stage model created for the playable demo.
Stage model created for the playable demo (DIVA room).
Stage model created for the playable demo (Story mode).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (With Miku in the beta DIVA Room).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (With Miku in the beta DIVA Room).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (With Miku in the beta DIVA Room).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (With Miku in the beta DIVA Room).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (With Miku in the beta DIVA Room).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (With Miku in the beta DIVA Room).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (With Miku in the beta DIVA Room).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (With Miku in the beta DIVA Room).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (With Miku in the beta DIVA Room).
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo.
In-game screenshot of playable demo.
In-game screenshot of the playable demo (Showing if the player did good or bad) (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?)
In-game screenshot of playable demo. (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).
In-game screenshot of playable demo (New UI?).