Rarest games?

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spadgy
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Rarest games?

Post by spadgy »

Once again, I'm here with my press hat on, coming to you guys for some input.

As you may have remembered when I brought up 'hardest games' here in Off Topic, I write a 'top 6' games list that appears in the monthly technology supplement of a UK national newspaper (The Observer, AKA the Sunday edition of The Guardian). All quite abstract/academic etc. Before I've done 6 best game romances, 6 best game books, 6 most unusual game genres etc.

This time my editor expressed great interest when I mentioned we could do the '6 rarest games'.

Which is where I turn to you lot for suggestions (you know us journalist scum; when we're not rewriting a Wikipedia pages as articles we're asking other people to do our work. :) )

Now, I'm not looking to actually pick the top 6 by a quantifiable quality, such as 'in order of price' or 'in order of copies made'. Partly that's because it would be impossible to quantify, but the reality this list is really the 'top 6 most interesting rare games'.

So, I'm after unusual games, games with unusual stories, perhaps one that's famously faked to the point the fakes become a collectible, one with a dramatic story to the way a copy came to be found; that kind of thing. Obviously a couple do need to have silly, silly high price tags.

And it can be games of any genre, for any format! One could also perhaps be a game collectible, like a silly expensive bit of cardboard, but I'm far more interested in games.

Of course, Dodonpachi Campaign version should likely go in, if I haven't already featured DDP too much in these lists!
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by BrianC »

Tetris for the Megadrive is probably one of the rarest with only 5 legit copies known to exist. Not to mention that earlier console ports have an interesting history with the confusion over the legal rights. I think it's also one of those games that is as you said, "famously faked to the point the fakes become a collectible".
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by cools »

Fantasy Zone II System 16 version. M2/Sega made a couple of boards for the release event, and that's it. The ROMs are available to make your own, but original? Not going to find one.

Fighting Vipers 2 special version: http://collectedit.com/collectors/shou- ... -sega-9510

Sega Netmerc: http://collectedit.com/collectors/shou- ... lity-10089
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by Imhotep »

I find some of the unreleased / barely released Taito 3D games to be interesting:

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Re: Rarest games?

Post by spadgy »

These are perfect. That something as 'everyday' as Tetris could be so rare on the Megadrive, for example, might really surprise my readers. I just read up. It's gone for $6k before. A signed copy went for €11k! Interesting story too. Ideal.

I'll look into the other suggestions too.

Wasn't there a super rare NES sports game?
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by broken harbour »

You mean Stadium Events?
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by EmperorIng »

NES World Championship was made for some NES contest decades ago, and apparently only 118 copies exist. The (mediocre!) game commands prices in the 10s of thousands of dollars in the rare time it shows up. Some copy right now was won close to the $100,000, but I think the bids were done by fake bots (too large an amount at too fast a pace).

The cart is interesting in that the PCB has exposed 'dip switches' (or I guess I'm calling them dip switches).
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by BrianC »

The crazy thing about Stadium Events is that there is a version with an alternate name, World Class Track Meet, that is available for cheap and even packaged with SMB and Duck Hunt.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by spadgy »

EmperorIng wrote:NES World Championship was made for some NES contest decades ago, and apparently only 118 copies exist. The (mediocre!) game commands prices in the 10s of thousands of dollars in the rare time it shows up. Some copy right now was won close to the $100,000, but I think the bids were done by fake bots (too large an amount at too fast a pace).

The cart is interesting in that the PCB has exposed 'dip switches' (or I guess I'm calling them dip switches).
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by BrianC »

Not sure if this is interesting enough, but one of the rarest Atari 2600 games, The Music Machine, was a Kaboom style game published by a company known for Christian music, Sparrow. It was only sold in Christian Bookstores.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by spadgy »

BrianC wrote:Not sure if this is interesting enough, but one of the rarest Atari 2600 games, The Music Machine, was a Kaboom style game published by a company known for Christian music, Sparrow. It was only sold in Christian Bookstores.
Christian bookstores? That's great; a really interesting angle in a couple of words. Might be the best yet!
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by spadgy »

Oh, and I guess a NeoGeo super-rare title like Kizuna Encounter should go in. (Or there's Aero Fighters 3 US that sold not so long ago for $30,000 with much sensation; but I'm not sure how that apparent drama concluded).
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by dan76 »

I'm not sure if you were there when John from Casino said he had a hand in developing Mr.Do! I took what he said with a pinch of salt, though kudos to the guy for it being his favourite game. Anyhow, maybe he was talking about this:

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Electrocoin had their own version in 1988 - who knew. Probably no good for your piece, but a bit of Casino history and damn rare! Bet it was in the arcade at some point...
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by spadgy »

Hang on. So the Mr Do at Casino arcade in London was quite possibly a 'redeveloped' Electrocoin variant? Wow!

Probably not quite right for this piece, you;re right, but for anybody who knows Casino arcade, a wicked bit of back history. John, working on games! :shock:
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by charlie chong »

EmperorIng wrote:NES World Championship was made for some NES contest decades ago, and apparently only 118 copies exist. The (mediocre!) game commands prices in the 10s of thousands of dollars in the rare time it shows up. Some copy right now was won close to the $100,000, but I think the bids were done by fake bots (too large an amount at too fast a pace).

The cart is interesting in that the PCB has exposed 'dip switches' (or I guess I'm calling them dip switches).
is there not some gold variant of the cartridge that is mo money?
seems to be a bit of synchronicity going on as a few articles about this cart have all gone up in the last 24 hours.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/26/nint ... idge-ebay/

may i also submit the aerofighters 3 us homecarts (bootlegs?) as being worthy of some interest
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by dingsbums »

I would say one of the rarest games is PC Cocoron for the PC Engine Super CD Rom. It was completed & even reviewed by Japanese game magazines at the
time (late 1993 / early 1994). It was developed by Takara / Sur De Wave - Takara also made Cocoron & Little Samson for the Famicom and the Famicom version of Cocoron was actually released. But sadly the (better looking) PC Engine version was cancelled a few weeks before release for whatever reason.
There are two known copies which are both in the hands of two Japanese collectors (and both refuse to share the game or make selfmade copies with a nice packaging).
Some French hardcore collectors offered up to 20000 $ for a copy but they got no response :shock: Valuewise it's hard to pin it down because it's never for sale (of course with only 2 copies).
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Re: Rarest games?

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Re: Rarest games?

Post by Ruldra »

What was the name of that weird, creepy MD game about a guy in a haunted circus? IIRC the game was never released but some copies made it to Brazil somehow.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by spadgy »

More perfect stuff! I'll have to go with the gold cart, for sure. A really price figure on the price and so on, which really helps.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by Ruldra »

Found it: Nightmare Circus
Wikipedia wrote:The game was completed and ready for release, but the company pulled out at the last second. However, it was still released in South America (including Brazil) by Tec Toy, and eventually came out in North America via Sega Channel.
Not sure how many copies are out there.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by BulletMagnet »

Not sure if it counts, but GP's site has an entry on "Delisoba Deluxe" for the Saturn, which was a promo game given out to audience members at a taping of some Japanese TV show, and goes for several hundred dollars secondhand. I recall reading about some rare game or other released as a promo by a beer company for the Atari 2600 or some such system, as well...there are a fair amount of rare games from that era, which is the one where the cart has a handle on it?

If you're looking for piracy-related stuff, Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire on the PC Engine CD ought to qualify, as there are apparently quite a few pirated copies of that one out there.

EDIT: Then, of course, there are the special carts produced for PowerFest and other promo shows/competitions from back in the 90's, if they count.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by Ed Oscuro »

I hate the whole "rarest games" story flogging. Instead of writing about gaming issues with social importance, we're here feeding into collectors' complexes with stories about the random games that got no distribution and which got noticed. It's the gaming equivalent of a Style and Life section telling the plebes all about the dimensions of the latest celebrity yacht (except with more plywood shelving and moldy basement carpets). My helpful hint would be that I'm not sure why Air Raid merits more attention than Mangia or even Video Life. The Fisher-Price style blue handle on the game adds at most a quirky angle to the thing, but still nothing of real importance. (No doubt the other obvious journo angle, exposes of collecting, is just as exploitative.)

@ Ruldra: Tec Toy releases don't really count IMO - there's bound to be more than a few dozen of those out there. Sega Channel releases also show something wrong with the "rare game" mindset, since - how exactly would you gauge that? Unlike the Satellaview, Sega Channel games weren't written to flash memory, so the average user had no way to preserve them.

For my money, the "rarest games" are the development / beta versions left on on developer hardware that people find now and then. They're also much more interesting than the usual VCS suspects and tournament cartridges. And I think these actually lead into an interesting social issue, but I won't spell that one out here.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by BrianC »

I know Japan got a lot of contest games like Gold Punch Out, but I found out Gold Punch Out is not all that rare (10,000 copies). It's interesting since it's an earlier version without Mike Tyson added, though.

Some Famicom contest games like Rockman 4 Gold are much more rare. Rockman 4 Gold is a version of the game that was given as a price to winners of one of those robot master design contests. There were only 8 copies.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by Vexorg »

Some other rare ones that might be notable:

- The NES version of Mr. Gimmick, which only got released in Scandanavia (and which seems to have developed quite a following recently, owing mostly to popularity in the Speedrun community.) Even the Famicom version seems to go for several hundred dollars on eBay. Apparently a complete NES version can go for $1,000 or more. (It does look like there have been reproduction cartridges produced more recently though.)
- Darius Alpha (PCE) which only had 800 copies produced, and which can reach 100,000 yen or more. Several copies are currently on eBay between $800 and $1,800 right now.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

How rare is Super Turrican for PAL NES?
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by spadgy »

Ed Oscuro wrote:I hate the whole "rarest games" story flogging. Instead of writing about gaming issues with social importance, we're here feeding into collectors' complexes with stories about the random games that got no distribution and which got noticed. It's the gaming equivalent of a Style and Life section telling the plebes all about the dimensions of the latest celebrity yacht (except with more plywood shelving and moldy basement carpets). My helpful hint would be that I'm not sure why Air Raid merits more attention than Mangia or even Video Life. The Fisher-Price style blue handle on the game adds at most a quirky angle to the thing, but still nothing of real importance. (No doubt the other obvious journo angle, exposes of collecting, is just as exploitative.)
Fair perspective and I'm glad you shared it openly. I appreciate your point, I really do. I write a lot, and I hope some of that fits into the category you find more interesting. I certainly try and contribute some of that stuff to the world, and it's great when I do get to write about it. Arguably blogs and so on lead the field there.

But to defend my coverage here, I may be a little idealist, but I always hope it opens people's mind to the broader world of gaming and all the benefits that engenders. This is for a national newspaper, where a huge percentage of readers arguably define games through CoD, GTA, games and violence debates and Angry Birds. In letting me do these top 6 lists (alongside a retro review and a hardware/accessory profile each month), the paper has let me share obscure games and genres that explore fascinating ideas, detail books about all kinds of aspects of games, and now spotlight rarer games. I'm also confident in the variety of topics discussed on the paper's pages on games; they are informed and openminded. As such, this list panel is published 'along with' pieces of the kind of coverage I believe you're talking about Ed, rather than 'instead of'. Here's a very recent games piece from The Observer on how online games can assist scientific research; something that appeared in print. They do that kind of thing fairly often, and even sometimes on the same page as my list. In fact I'm pitching something not dissimilar to that piece in now. If it makes it Ed, I hope it's more in keeping with what you like to see; but it may run in the same issue as this or another list.

And...

Thanks to all of you for the additional suggestions. All very helpful.


EDIT: URL fixed, and grammar.

EDIT 2: Ed, I'm dwelling on your point about the inaccessible. I see that, and all I can say is with previous lists I've tried to concentrate on the accessible several times (for example with the gaming books). Again, I do want to expose people to more than just the familiar games and issues around games.
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

My understanding is that readers of the paper it's for don't seek education of "real importance" there. Giving them impression that they are being lectured may not glue together with advertisement.
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Re: Rarest games?

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Weren't there only around 100 Ibara Kuro's made, and then some were turned back into standard versions? Also, aren't there some other Cave matsuri games that there are only a few of, Futari red label? Maybe I'm making that one up (I blame sleep deprivation).
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by spadgy »

Obiwanshinobi wrote:My understanding is that readers of the paper it's for don't seek education of "real importance" there. Giving them impression that they are being lectured may not glue together with advertisement.
The Observer/Guardian are a bit better than that; it's a slightly left, slightly higher brow paper by UK standards, but still a large part of the audience know nothing much of games. Regardless, you're right... lecturing never goes down well.
chempop wrote:Weren't there only around 100 Ibara Kuro's made, and then some were turned back into standard versions? Also, aren't there some other Cave matsuri games that there are only a few of, Futari red label? Maybe I'm making that one up (I blame sleep deprivation).
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Re: Rarest games?

Post by system11 »

I think it's 50 or less Mushi 1.5s, but there are much rarer arcade items out there - mainly through lack of interest. I've got several PCBs where I've never seen another one or a record of someone even owning one.
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