Have you given up on buying SNES?/Cheap SFC recommendations

[Betagam7]

Yes indeedy! Anyone got a cheap copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga and Little Samson they want to let go for... say $50 each? That seems pretty reasonable.

The point being made is that PDS had a print run of somewhere between 3000 to 15'000 copies (being generous).

Zelda 3 in comparison sold 4.6 million copies!

PDS will never be ported to any other console. The code has been lost.

Zelda 3 has been ported to almost every Nintendo console made over the last 15 years.

Zelda 3 should not be selling for the same price as PDS...ever.

Nobody begrudges paying high prices for rare games. But when a game has already been owned by everyone in the universe it should be selling for over a hundred dollars just because of someone's OMG R@RE NINTENDO! millennial crap.

To be fair, it looks like cart-only sells for around $30 on average. Certainly not optimal, but I would expect something like that for a very popular Nintendo game.

Also, the ones that sell for over $100 are complete copies. And the thing with complete copies on Nintendo systems is that most folks threw out the box, manual, and inserts. Just part of collecting for a Nintendo system. Finding complete copies is far less common, despite that 4.6 million in sales.

Of course, I'm not advocating that Zelda 3 sell for the same price as PDS, but it's not right now, and it likely never will.

As far as OMG NINTENDO, that's been a thing for a long, long time. I don't even think it's a millennial issue... even if I blame them for all of society's ills. (I kid, I kid.)

Maybe the market is even more inflated in Europe then because I can see cart only copies going for £35 right now.

How many people honestly "threw out boxes"?

A few stupid mums here and there? Even if a million such mums existed there are still 3 million boxed games existing.

But I just had a look at what PDS goes for these days, remembering that I paid "premium" £80 for a complete copy some decade ago feeling safe that i would always get my money back.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Well I guess I can let my remorse at selling that mint copy of Zelda go for cheap then

[MrPopo]

I'm going to go with the vast majority threw out the boxes. Think like an 8 year old rather than a collector. What is the box doing for you?

[Sarge]

All you really need to do is look at the ratio of boxed to cart-only. I know I see far more unboxed copies in the wild, in collections, and on eBay. I'm quite confident that the vast majority of carts for the game out there don't have the boxes. You can also see this on the NES as well. The gap between cart-only and complete copies reflects the relative rarity of complete copies on the market. I wouldn't be surprised if 90% or more copies are cart-only.

As MrPopo says, remember that most of the games weren't bought by collectors, and during a time where games were seen as mostly a kids-only endeavor. Most kids lose all sorts of stuff, and the idea of keeping around a box? Anathema. If you were like me and kept them, then you were one of the weird kids. And parents? Boy, they'd throw stuff away like that just as quickly, just to keep the clutter down. These weren't seen as an investment... which is why in retrospect they have value now, because no one expected them to be collectible. It's never the stuff that's marketed as collectible that ends up actually being so.

An example of parents throwing stuff out? My grandmother. Dad was working on an offshore oil rig back in the early '80s. He found out how much some of his comic books were worth, so he calls back home to see where they're at. Turns out she had thrown them out years ago. He had the original Spider-Man, the original X-Men, the original Superman, the list goes on. (Of course, this also means that my parents have vowed not to do the same to me!)

As fastidious as I was, though, I still didn't keep the boxes to all my Transformers. Doh.

Oh, as far as PAL prices... was there a more limited run for SNES in Europe? It wouldn't surprise me if the regional variant is a bit more rare. Dunno, though.

[Betagam7]

In the UK, where home computers were big we were used to our games coming on cassette tapes. You didn't throw out cassette tape boxes they were there to protect the heads of your tapes from getting dirty.
Maybe this attitude transferred to carts for me...or maybe it's because my parents taught me to take care of my things but I not only kept boxes, I cherished them. I don't recall there being anything "weird" about this. Games weren't cheap toys that you'd tear open and discard the packaging. Console games (at around six times the price) were anything but!

What did I do with my boxed games, I stacked them together, alphabetized them and idolized them as prized possessions, that's what! Anyone who did less than this was "weird" in our view.

Thankfully my parents were always wise to the idea of things being "worth money one day" so were very good at protecting my stuff long after I moved out. About the only minor crime my mum ever did was to throw out the white inner boxes for my N64 cases and carefully flatpack the rest and she kind of knew this was a bad call but needed the space.

[Exhuminator]

I have a cheap SFC recommendation for you importer types:



Awesome mode 7 racer that doesn't need strong Japanese skills to enjoy. If you enjoy F-Zero you should enjoy this guy.



It's cheap. Like a complete box set is $11 on eBay right now:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Astro-Go-Go-Sup ... SwHnFV2-wj

[SNESdrunk]

That's awesome, Ex. Hadn't heard of that one. Thanks for posting. FWIW the full title is Uchuu Race: Astro Go! Go!

[Sarge]

Ha, glad they taught you the worth of stuff, Betagam7. My parents were the same way. Mainly because we didn't have much money to begin with, so video games were a precious commodity. Mom saved for I don't even know how long to buy me a copy of Dragon Warrior IV for Christmas. I still have all the packaging for that. Most of my games, though, came from chipping at the margins via pawn shops and yard sales.

Your anecdote about cassettes is interesting. It could very well be that more Europeans held on to their boxes than we did. I wish we had some hard numbers to go off of!

Speaking of the UK, one of the things I tried to find while I was there in 2001 was a copy of Terranigma. I was unsuccessful, but the hunt was fun, at any rate! (I did eventually acquire a copy on eBay, think I forked over $50 for a Australian copy.)

[BoneSnapDeez]

There are still plenty of great Super Famicom JRPGs that can be found cart-only for under $10. Many for under $5. This is a good time to get into the Famicom (and FDS) RPG scene as well.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Many for under $5. This is a good time to get into the Famicom (and FDS) RPG scene as well.

Yep. You can get all of the Romancing Saga games, shipped, for less than $25, and I paid only $13 to get a copy of Seiken Densetsu 3 shipped to my house from Japan.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yep. You can get all of the Romancing Saga games, shipped, for less than $25

Did ya get 'em all at once? I did that a year or two ago. Most likely from eBay seller hit-japan.

On a related note, I do want to mention that when visiting a site like ROMhacking.net it's worth checking out what games have "unfinished" in addition to "fully playable" translation patches. Games like Romancing Saga 2, Xak, and Eien no Filena have their menus translated and can be completed by those with no knowledge of Japanese - as long as you don't mind missing out on the story elements.