Anyone know why, exactly F-Zero GP Legends is a common sealed title?

[RH | 4,965]

Heck, even I have a copy because maybe 4-5 years ago, someone sold it too me at a cheap price of around $20 shipped.  I've left it on my shelf, but I have not attachment to this game.  Occasionally I look it up and the ratio of sealed vs CIB/cart-only copies always seemed high.

Checking the Wata pop reports, 66 sealed copies have been graded and it's the first game on the list that's a non-heavy hitter by way of historic popularity. Basically, it's only beat by pokemons, Zelda and a very common Yu-Gi-Oh! game.

This is just an odd, one-off game that seems to have been "average" at release but a bunch of sealed copies are floating around.  Can anyone recall, is this because a pallet was found somewhere and sold off 5-6 years ago, or was it mass produced, poorly sold and Wal-Marts across the US put it on the $5 bargain bin for ages?  I doubt it's something like the later, though, because many of these sealed copies are price sticker free.

Anyway, I know that there are always a few instances of certain games where finding sealed copies is easy compared to the relative quantity of games available.  Most have some minor back story.  Since this is the odd, one-off common game on my shelf, I'm curious if anyone knows why this game is so easy to find sealed.

[Tanooki | 4,950]

From what I can remember it was very mass produced and under sold.  F-Zero fans didn't jump for joy over it exactly and the sales blew especially since the other catch would have been the fox kids anime cartoon translation that went up in flames and ran very briefly before being canned.  The garbage sales and I'm sure due to that very unsold overstock both caused what you're seeing in lack of value vs pop reports and keeping the one and only great F-Zero on GBA to stay in Japan, Climax which was the real victim in the whole mess.

Nintendo doesn't usually whiff out on handheld first party stuff whether they made or just published it, but there are instances such as Elite Beat Agents on DS and STEAM on 3DS where they just made a bunch, they were either quirky or junk (or both) and sold so badly they were easy finds anywhere for years in clearance bins.  I remember those just there with F-Zero showing up in big box stores etc dump boxes for $5-10, stacks...no takers.

[RH | 4,965]

7 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

From what I can remember it was very mass produced and under sold.  F-Zero fans didn't jump for joy over it exactly and the sales blew especially since the other catch would have been the fox kids anime cartoon translation that went up in flames and ran very briefly before being canned.  The garbage sales and I'm sure due to that very unsold overstock both caused what you're seeing in lack of value vs pop reports and keeping the one and only great F-Zero on GBA to stay in Japan, Climax which was the real victim in the whole mess.

Nintendo doesn't usually whiff out on handheld first party stuff whether they made or just published it, but there are instances such as Elite Beat Agents on DS and STEAM on 3DS where they just made a bunch, they were either quirky or junk (or both) and sold so badly they were easy finds anywhere for years in clearance bins.  I remember those just there with F-Zero showing up in big box stores etc dump boxes for $5-10, stacks...no takers.

Ah, that's the type of info I'm looking for.  When this game was being dumped it was probably the time I was most out of the gaming world, so I wouldn't have known or noticed.  I say I paid $20 for it, but it might not have even been that much. I  just recall someone had a stack of them on NA and I just said what-the-heck and bought one since it was so cheap and a first party title.  I even think I intended to possibly open it, if I got around to it but never did.

[Tanooki | 4,950]

No problem.  The annoying thing is, that game rotted for years in the $10 loose range, maybe $15-20 complete, but since the gameboy exploitation that was long overdue kicked in about 2 years ago now the loose game hit a point I don't even want to buy it which says plenty ($30 loose $50 CIB now).   I didn't think it was bad, it's pretty good, but it's not a stand out either.  At the time I liked it more than the original launch game which just handled and looked weird as it's more of a black sheep.

 

Steam and EBA have seen the same kind of recent 2-3 years pop in price where they just got ignored other than for complete collection types and random other reasons.

[RH | 4,965]

9 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

No problem.  The annoying thing is, that game rotted for years in the $10 loose range, maybe $15-20 complete, but since the gameboy exploitation that was long overdue kicked in about 2 years ago now the loose game hit a point I don't even want to buy it which says plenty ($30 loose $50 CIB now).   I didn't think it was bad, it's pretty good, but it's not a stand out either.  At the time I liked it more than the original launch game which just handled and looked weird as it's more of a black sheep.

 

Steam and EBA have seen the same kind of recent 2-3 years pop in price where they just got ignored other than for complete collection types and random other reasons.

I can't remember who (maybe it was a Retro Digital Foundry post?) but some YouTuber posted a review of all F-Zero spin-off titles, or maybe it was all of the handheld titles.  Anyway, they mentioned that this one "wasn't that bad" and I guess it didn't do well because if there was a companion show and it was a flop, then that taints the game.  Anyway, the review called it good and it made me interested.  At that point, it was too pricey for me to want to open so I looked for a cart-only and I was surprised at the price.  I wasn't THAT interested in trying it out.  Maybe for $10 shipped, but not for something like $25.

[phart010 | 1,708]

This game was readily available until like 2017, maybe even 2018 at Deal Tavern. I picked up a few copies for myself.

Deal Tavern had a lot of sealed GBA games that were available for like $30 until around that time

[captmorgandrinker | 1,650]

This one showed up in large quantities around the same time Donkey Kong Land III on Gameboy and F-Zero (players choice) for SNES were available in sealed bricks

[Tanooki | 4,950]

It's common basically, the fomo barrens basically have caused the problem here.  And no it's not bad, it's just not as good as the SNES 64 or GC/Arcade games is all.  I'd call it better than the gba launch title.

[austin532 | 467]

Drill Dozer was another game that was very common to find sealed and was cheap forever but now it's gone up.