What's the rarest game you own?

[ninjainspandex]

whats my rarer game? panzer dragoon saga, hyperduel, or magic knight rayearth on the saturn?

[Breetai]

whats my rarer game? panzer dragoon saga, hyperduel, or magic knight rayearth on the saturn?

I *think* Magic Knight Rayearth is, as long as you are talking about the US version (I imagine the PAL one is as well).
Panzer Dragoon Saga, if I remember right, had a slightly larger print run than Rayearth did.

Unless you have the Japanese versions of those. Then they are common. Rayearth is VERY common.

I do not imagine that Hyperduel is nearly as rare as those other two, although it's not common either!

[ninjainspandex]

ya my rayearth is ntsc-u and minty with all the stickers looks like it hasnt been touched by human hands

[mjmjr25]

I suppose my Sapphire (PC Engine Arcade) boot is at least uncommon. Despite what some here think, the average person cannot just go buy one online.

Dunno, after the last thread on this, I pm'd a buddy and said i'd like to give a few of these away, to try and prove a point. He sent me (5) free of charge to give out. He said there are still hundreds and hundreds available, sitting on spindles. I don't collect PCE at all and I have (2) contacts that say they can get as many as they need. After I gave a handful away last week, I pm'd a few of my buddies on racket and said, "Hey, surprised you didn't pm on the sapphires?" The reply from almost all of them..."Already have one." How many guys say that about HyperDuel?

As for Ninjainspandex - i'd say Hyperduel is the rarest in print run and the hardest to acquire stateside.

I've owned multiple copies of MKR and PDS, though i'm down to (1) of each currently. PDS and MKR are often up for auction and certainly appear on the forums more often than Hyperdule. Hyperduel is not up for auction often, in fact, it's only been at auction a handful of times all year, and almost all by the same JP seller-middleman, qwerqwer.

[sabrage]

But in terms of actual print runs, which game is more scarce?

[ninjainspandex]

you know what game im having a hell of a time finding is megaman 8 ntsc-u for the saturn its rarely up for auction

[Stark]

you know what game im having a hell of a time finding is megaman 8 ntsc-u for the saturn its rarely up for auction

Tell me about it.

[mjmjr25]

But in terms of actual print runs, which game is more scarce?

Dunno, numbers vary on PDS and MKR, and i've never seen any reputable numbers on Hyperduel.

Print run is only part of the factor. How many copies survived? How many copies survived intact / complete? How many regions was it released in?

PDS may have had smallest print run in North America, but it had a large print run in Japan, and a small, but existent print run in Europe. So you have (3) print runs to service the gaming community.

(almost) No one in Japan is competing with you for that copy of MKR.

Hyperduel's JP print run has to service all of Asia, Europe, and N. America (as well as S. America, etc).

The reality is, for me anyways, ebay / amazon / online gameshop availability is much more of a rarity guide than print run.

As for MM8 SAT-US, yeah, market has dried up recently. That one has jumped all over the map, was doing only $45 not 18 months ago, spiked to $80 6 months ago and now it's doing over $100. Just a natural flow of the market and Mega Man is doing well across all platforms right now.

[Stark]

Isn't Psychic Taromaru or whatever the heck it's called, rarer?

[Breetai]

I suppose my Sapphire (PC Engine Arcade) boot is at least uncommon. Despite what some here think, the average person cannot just go buy one online.

Dunno, after the last thread on this, I pm'd a buddy and said i'd like to give a few of these away, to try and prove a point. He sent me (5) free of charge to give out. He said there are still hundreds and hundreds available, sitting on spindles. I don't collect PCE at all and I have (2) contacts that say they can get as many as they need. After I gave a handful away last week, I pm'd a few of my buddies on racket and said, "Hey, surprised you didn't pm on the sapphires?" The reply from almost all of them..."Already have one." How many guys say that about HyperDuel?

As for Ninjainspandex - i'd say Hyperduel is the rarest in print run and the hardest to acquire stateside.

I've owned multiple copies of MKR and PDS, though i'm down to (1) of each currently. PDS and MKR are often up for auction and certainly appear on the forums more often than Hyperdule. Hyperduel is not up for auction often, in fact, it's only been at auction a handful of times all year, and almost all by the same JP seller-middleman, qwerqwer.

I don't doubt your story at all, but when you are PMing people here, this is a niche market. I DO believe that there are probably enough Sapphire boots to fill most of the demand in the more hardcore retro gaming scene (not talking hardcore like some of the guys at Neo-Geo.com, Tatsujin's PC Engine's collection or BlueBMW's crazy PCE spending habits, but even the more "casual hardcore" you find here). Still, there ARE plenty in this scene who would like a copy that don't have one. I know this because I see people looking for it sometimes. They CANNOT just go out and grab one. Like I said, they need to know where to look and who to ask (both you are I now, apparently, as we both have had spindles given to us.... but FIVE?, why did you take so much? haha, it's just silly but I guess fun, too).

Again, I really have no idea who many Care4Data boots are out there. I've heard there might have been 30,000 or so copies of NTSC-US Panzer Dragoon Saga out there. Do you really think there are that many Care4Data Sapphires floating around? I don't really think there are, in all honestly. The reason why you and I have been able to get spindles of them from someone with a box/ or boxes, is because the demand for this is low overall. The people with the money to burn go for the retail printing of it. The people without the money to burn take the Care4Data version, but often eventually do save the money for the retail copy. The demand just isn't there, and as a result there are copies floating around that people who know where to look (anime4ever, for example).


Of course Hyperduel isn't on eBay much. Why would it be? eBay is not for the Japanese market, which is where you find Hyperduel. All the copies on eBay were taken out of their native market. For any of the top tier collectable JP games, you need to go through places like Rakuten or Yahoo! Japan, unless you physically go to Japan yourself. Once there, you can walk into most main retro stores and just buy it without even looking. Perhaps the total worldwide printings of PDS are more than HD, but I don't think HD really had a super low print run compared to other games within its market (there are way less Taromaru's floating around than HD. Not sure about Super Tempo, but I saw that WAY less than HD despite me finding 5 copies for a pittance).

The reality is, for me anyways, ebay / amazon / online gameshop availability is much more of a rarity guide than print run.

Sure. Then again, that is just rare in the west. So rare in Japan? That's another factor.

If you are JUST considering the ease of finding it from, say, N.America or Europe, then yes... Hyperduel is harder to find. I guess that means it is rarer to come across for someone who only can look in their region.