Completed the Super A'can set!

[DarkKobold | 191]

Well, it finally happened. The one owner of REBEL in the US decided to part with his copy. There's apparently 2 boxed copies known worldwide, and 2-3 loose carts known worldwide. It's never been dumped, so there's no ROM floating around out there. (I intend to change that)

I wish there was a better story beyond "It popped up on eBay, and I bet the house on it." I'm just super thrilled, as I've been talking about this game for the last 8 years of collecting. This is the peak of my collection, and I can't imagine adding anything I would value more than this. I paid a lot of money for this, but still feel like I got it for an insane deal, given how it's the only copy that's ever been on eBay. A complete in box Magical Chase sells for more than this, and that's on eBay 1-3 times a year.  My final bid was.... much, much higher than I won it for. 

 

 

 

[Khromak | 769]

Well, I had no idea this system existed so that's cool. Are any/all of these games fun? What language are they in? Are they playable if you only know English? I have so many questions.

Either way, neat item! There's almost no feeling better than finally getting your hands on a grail. I've had it happen at least a couple times and it's always amazing.

[Ankos | 444]

That was from the diskman auctions right? Congrats on completing the set. I've heard a lot about this system, but have always been put off by the high prices. A decent chunk of its library has counterparts on PC if I recall correctly, or at least games made by the same devs. It's a shame it didn't take off considering that there were quite a few other Taiwanese game systems that did sell internationally

[DarkKobold | 191]

31 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Well, I had no idea this system existed so that's cool. Are any/all of these games fun? What language are they in? Are they playable if you only know English? I have so many questions.

Either way, neat item! There's almost no feeling better than finally getting your hands on a grail. I've had it happen at least a couple times and it's always amazing.

There's a handful of RPGs, including REBEL, which is still easy enough to play. The RPGs are fun if you can get past the language barrier. 

Speedy Dragon is a fun Sonic Rip-off. Hilarious how many shameless parallels there are. C.U.G (or Journey to the Laugh) is a fun platformer, with some pretty cool boss fights. Boom Zoo is a Bomberman clone with 2 player goodness. It's super fun. The baseball and pool games are competent for what they are, and Formosa Duel is a ripoff of Puyo-puyo (?) but does it right. African Adventures is a weird board game that's impossible to play without knowing Chinese, and really is only notable in having Hitler as a playable character. Sango Fighter is a horrible port of the PC game, and is probably the worst title on the system (aside from Mahjong), but also one of the more well-known titles. 

[fcgamer | 4,729]

2 hours ago, Khromak said:

Are any/all of these games fun? What language are they in? Are they playable if you only know English? I have so many questions.

There's several "problems" with the Super A'Can, which western A'Can apologists such as the OP seem to gloss over.

The games on the Super A'Can fall into a couple categories: there are ports of games on other machines, derivatives, text-heavy games in Traditional Chinese, and then the others.

So there's a language hurdle to overcome for about 1/4 of the set. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of foreigners learning Chinese opt for simplified, so even if one were learning Chinese, there's yet an additional problem.

Then there's the ports: everywhere I have read, the consensus is the games that appear on the Super A'Can and elsewhere do it much better elsewhere.

We also have games like mahjong that might be amazing as far as mahjong games go, but we are ignoring the elephant in the room that at the end of the day it's a mahjong game.

This leaves us with about 1/4 of the set that would actually be enjoyable to westerners, and those games - well, they're all derivatives, more or less, of other popular titles.

And that is where the Super A'Can fails, there's not enough software on the machine to begin with, and with most of the software being a struggle for those who don't understand Traditional Chinese, the library then dwindles to a few mediocre seen-it-before titles. There's no bangers.

Pair that with the toxic price caused by westerners viewing the machine, for who knows what reason, as some sort of epeen status symbol and I just couldn't recommend it to anyone, except for perhaps the intended audience who would have had nostalgia seeing adverts and hearing hype growing up. Just a case of national treasures should stay put. $5000+ bones for a shelf piece is a lot.

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by fcgamer

[fcgamer | 4,729]

1 hour ago, Ankos said:

That was from the diskman auctions right? Congrats on completing the set. I've heard a lot about this system, but have always been put off by the high prices. A decent chunk of its library has counterparts on PC if I recall correctly, or at least games made by the same devs. It's a shame it didn't take off considering that there were quite a few other Taiwanese game systems that did sell internationally

Yeah, it's not worth it at all. 

[DarkKobold | 191]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

There's several "problems" with the Super A'Can, which western fullset apologists such as the OP seem to gloss over.

And that is where the Super A'Can fails, there's not enough software on the machine to begin with, and with most of the software being a struggle for those who don't understand Traditional Chinese, the library then dwindles to a few mediocre seen-it-before titles. There's no bangers.

Pair that with the toxic price caused by westerners viewing the machine, for who knows what reason, as some sort of epeen status symbol and I just couldn't recommend it to anyone, except for perhaps the intended audience who would have had nostalgia seeing adverts and hearing hype growing up. Just a case of national treasures should stay put. $5000+ bones for a shelf piece is a lot.

 

  

On 1/19/2023 at 9:42 PM, fcgamer said:

With only twelve games having been known to exist (the eleven CIB games, and then the twelfth which many consider to have gone unreleased, with a few sample copies leaked out), people who own the console are likely to try to obtain a full set much in the same way that Virtual Boy owners might (or anyone who owns another machine with little software). It's not necessarily about getting a full set, rather about having software to play on the machine, allowing one to explore the machine and its library. I'd reckon Casio Loopy collectors would feel the same way, too - at least I do, and I'm not even a hardcore Loopy collector, just a guy that happens to own one, but would like to explore the machine further.

So why you're trying to be a bit degrading or dismissive towards the whole thing, you've completely missed the mark, and even your comparison to fart-sniffing sealed guys falls flat, since the guys going after A'can sets can't just be grouped together easily into one set group like sealed collectors can (i.e. investors, for example). You've got gaming historians, sixteen bit fans, bootleg fans, old time collectors, even those with historic ties to the island of Taiwan all interested in the machine for various reasons, and that's not even considering other diversity amongst those that would be collecting the machine, either.

Holy. Fucking. Shit. 

You were all about calling me one of your "A'can boyz" when you wanted a charm made for your Super A'can -1 set. This, by the way, is the ultimate e-peen demonstration. Note that I qualify for many charms, and have zero, because I don't give a shit about e-peen stuff. I just wanted to share in my happiness. You, however, threw an absolute tantrum about how little everyone knew about the merits of collecting for the Super A'can so you could get a badge made.  

These two statements were made by the same person: 

• "since the guys going after A'can sets can't just be grouped together easily"
• "westerners viewing the machine, for who knows what reason, as some sort of epeen status symbol"

You were desperate back in January of this year, lauding the efforts of Western Super A"can collectors, when you wanted recognition for your set. Now, we are called "western fullset apologists." Once a western collector gets the grail game, "national treasures should stay put."

Anyone who wants to see the massive hypocrisy in action should read this thread. 

https://www.videogamesage.com/forums/topic/2469-baubles-charms-discussion-thread/page/18/

 

[Tanooki | 4,939]

Yawn... throwing around money like water, the thread.  How's your traditional chinese anyway?

[Tyree_Cooper | 757]

sometimes i feel like the vgs forum revolves around taiwan. it was funny at first, but not anymore.

but congrats for completing the set. do you have all cib? are there any leaflets included, like flyers or return cards? just curious.

i do agree that like the ique, the a'can prices exploded because of westerners. in hindsight, it was sort of obvious it was going to happen, and i missed a million chances of buying ique hardware and games. i had basically 10 years and just looked at the stuff going for cheap around me. now i only have my eyes for crying, like we say in italian.

[OptOut | 8,889]

2 hours ago, Tyree_Cooper said:

sometimes i feel like the vgs forum revolves around taiwan.

I'm cool with that! 

[Tyree_Cooper | 757]

you've got a big thumb, that's all i know

[OptOut | 8,889]

Just now, Tyree_Cooper said:

you've got a big thumb, that's all i know

You know what they say about blokes with big thumbs... 

[Ankos | 444]

8 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Yeah, it's not worth it at all. 

I try not to think about if something is "worth it" or not. While though I have some level of appreciation for things that people value highly, like a Mahjong NES cart or copy of Little Samson, those games don't have enough personal value to me to justify the high price tag because I don't collect NES format stuff. There's going to be stuff that I'd pay more for than most people because I have developed a fondness for it over time (there's not that many people in the USA hunting Gameboy stuff from Mainland China)

While though I agree that it is a pretty poor decision to go and try and pay full value on some really rare game just because it is rare, I don't know if I'd say that is quite the case here since @DarkKobold did mention hunting this game for eight years. That's a lot of time to just go after something because it's trendy. Getting the game dumped also seems to be going above and beyond for someone who is just trend chasing

I see where you're coming from with stuff getting bloated prices for dumb reasons, but I don't know if I'd disagree with DarkKobold's reasons for hunting this stuff down (not that I have the full picture of his collecting experience)

[fcgamer | 4,729]

5 hours ago, OptOut said:

I'm cool with that! 

Do you know something I don't know? Is that the chairman there?!?

[spacepup | 2,405]

@DarkKobold Congrats on completing your set!  I know how difficult it is to complete this set, so I'm sure it must feel incredibly rewarding.  Don't let other people's negativity, jealousy, and/or whatever it is, undermine your accomplishment here.  We all have various collecting and gaming goals, and it's nice when we can achieve them, and it's very cool to see people sharing about it.  That should be something we can all understand and can be supportive about.

 

[fcgamer | 4,729]

1 hour ago, Ankos said:

I try not to think about if something is "worth it" or not. While though I have some level of appreciation for things that people value highly, like a Mahjong NES cart or copy of Little Samson, those games don't have enough personal value to me to justify the high price tag because I don't collect NES format stuff. There's going to be stuff that I'd pay more for than most people because I have developed a fondness for it over time (there's not that many people in the USA hunting Gameboy stuff from Mainland China)

While though I agree that it is a pretty poor decision to go and try and pay full value on some really rare game just because it is rare, I don't know if I'd say that is quite the case here since @DarkKobold did mention hunting this game for eight years. That's a lot of time to just go after something because it's trendy. Getting the game dumped also seems to be going above and beyond for someone who is just trend chasing

I see where you're coming from with stuff getting bloated prices for dumb reasons, but I don't know if I'd disagree with DarkKobold's reasons for hunting this stuff down (not that I have the full picture of his collecting experience)

Years back I read an article by a buddy, who lives in Japan. We are talking circa 2012 or 2014, sometime in that range. Sean's article discussed the depletion of and lackluster fillage in Super Potato's glass cases in their shops in Japan. Essentially, the truly rare items got snapped up, generally by westerners with deep pockets, and by now lower-tier items sit in the cases. I cannot comment 100% on this, as I only make it to Japan every few years, but I have noticed similar patterns. It stopped and gave me pause, and recent exhibitions that I have attended locally are somewhat lackluster and sad, as they don't have such local products as they have mostly been snapped up and sent abroad. This makes me feel really sad. To put it into perspective, the cost of this game is literally between 1/4 and 1/5 of an average Taiwanese person's yearly salary.

On a different note, congratulations DarkKobold on your purchase and for completing your set. Are you planning to send this in to Wata for grading?

[Splain | 2,571]

Awesome!!

[Khromak | 769]

38 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

On a different note, congratulations DarkKobold on your purchase and for completing your set. Are you planning to send this in to Wata for grading?

[Khromak | 769]

You could look at it as: these Taiwanese people can't afford their local video games anymore, because they're so expensive because foreigners are coming in and buying them for obscene prices!

OR

Isn't it nice that people are taking interest in our random crap? Now we can earn 3 months' salary by selling a single video game. How pleasant that other people are finally paying attention to our history and care about our obscure consoles.

It's kind of a double-edged sword isn't it? You go on rants about how important all these random bootleg cartridges are and wonder why nobody else seems to give a crap about them, but then when someone from the "first world" starts caring about these things and collecting them, you complain that people are driving up prices for stuff. What's your ideal solution? People research and document this stuff, but don't buy it? They only pay 1 month's Taiwanese salary per item, maximum? Ban international commerce? Should I not be buying Famicom carts, because it's depriving a local Japanese customer from buying it, or raising the prices over there?

IDK...I get the problem you're trying to bring attention to, but I think that demanding that foreigners stop buying your stuff and let it stay locally in the 21st century is rather silly. Maybe talk to those shopkeepers who are selling all their stock overseas and tell them to take 10% of the value of the game so that they can keep things local. Until the guy who bought the game turns around and sells it online for a profit so he can feed his family.

[DarkKobold | 191]

2 hours ago, Ankos said:

 

While though I agree that it is a pretty poor decision to go and try and pay full value on some really rare game just because it is rare, I don't know if I'd say that is quite the case here since @DarkKobold did mention hunting this game for eight years. That's a lot of time to just go after something because it's trendy. Getting the game dumped also seems to be going above and beyond for someone who is just trend chasing

The part that is missing from this is that it had no established value. It's never been for sale before on eBay, and in all likelihood, never will again. This wasn't just paying for a rarity, this was the once-in-a-lifetime chance to own it. To me, that means going all out. I am by no means rich, but I did everything in my power to make this happen. 

What do I mean by that? Well, I got incredibly lucky. The Utah retro gaming swap meet was the Saturday before. I sold as much of my PS2 collection as I could, knowing that I wanted to go all-in on that bid. The picture below shows what my PS2 heavy hitters USED to look like, before I sacrificed them to the almighty A'can god. (Note, these are just a few of the many games I sold. It's just the picture I had taken to show friends.) I had arranged with a reseller friend to buy everything that didn't sell, if I needed it to further cover my costs if the hammer price had been closer to my insane final bid. 

I also promised a close friend, so long as I won it, and that no matter what price I won it at, I'd sell him a CIB he'd been after to finish a set for a decent price. That also covered the ability to put in a stupid high bid. 

So despite the snide comments about deep pockets or throwing around money, I sacrificed other collections to own this game. I don't care if someone thinks I'm not "worthy" of owning it, I was willing to go all out on this, and I'm beyond happy to own it. I love the Super A'can, and no amount of gatekeeping bullcrap will change that. 

[DarkKobold | 191]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

Years back I read an article by a buddy, who lives in Japan. We are talking circa 2012 or 2014, sometime in that range. Sean's article discussed the depletion of and lackluster fillage in Super Potato's glass cases in their shops in Japan. Essentially, the truly rare items got snapped up, generally by westerners with deep pockets, and by now lower-tier items sit in the cases. I cannot comment 100% on this, as I only make it to Japan every few years, but I have noticed similar patterns. It stopped and gave me pause, and recent exhibitions that I have attended locally are somewhat lackluster and sad, as they don't have such local products as they have mostly been snapped up and sent abroad. This makes me feel really sad. To put it into perspective, the cost of this game is literally between 1/4 and 1/5 of an average Taiwanese person's yearly salary.

 

Dude, you are pretending like this hasn't been sitting in a closet in California for the past 13+ years. The A'can has only been gone since 1996, so almost half this game's life has been tucked away in an American collection, never even seen or photographed before this auction. Also, Taiwan isn't like, that much poorer than the US. Maybe like half the average salary. (https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-taiwan/) You're pretending like America is some predatory nation, pilfering games from Taiwan, while in reality this game maybe crossed 3 state lines. 

I'll ignore the snide WATA crap. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by DarkKobold

[fcgamer | 4,729]

35 minutes ago, DarkKobold said:

Also, Taiwan isn't like, that much poorer than the US. Maybe like half the average salary. (https://www.timedoctor.com/blog/average-salary-in-taiwan/) 

Wait, so the average Taiwanese person earns around 4 or 5k USD a month? Yeah, that's not correct at all, and it's even somewhat insulting to suggest that. Doctors earn about 4.5K a month but not the average person. I'll give you a pass though since you don't live here.

Anyways I wasn't trying to be snide about the wata comment, it's a real question, as honestly if I paid 5000+ for a game I'd probably want it protected; however, seeing rares entombed and unplayable, yeah that's sad.

[Khromak | 769]

I mean...it also quotes the average salary in the US at 9k/month, and I know most people aren't making that here either. Averages are skewed by high paying industries, and your experience will vary greatly depending who you associate with. Medians are also more useful, which brings the US figure down to ~6k/month and Taiwan down to ~3.5k/month.

These are statistics though, it's not a matter of opinion.

Edit: depends which source you use. Google suggests it might be more like ~2k in Taiwan? IDK, I'm not going to spend all day trying to figure this out, it's not important.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Khromak

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

Wow $5600 for one game sure is a lot.

[fcgamer | 4,729]

9 minutes ago, Khromak said:

I mean...it also quotes the average salary in the US at 9k/month, and I know most people aren't making that here either. Averages are skewed by high paying industries, and your experience will vary greatly depending who you associate with. Medians are also more useful, which brings the US figure down to ~6k/month and Taiwan down to ~3.5k/month.

These are statistics though, it's not a matter of opinion.

Edit: depends which source you use. Google suggests it might be more like ~2k in Taiwan? IDK, I'm not going to spend all day trying to figure this out, it's not important.

Yes, it's more about 2k. Minimum wage is about $807 a month, average is about 2. Doctors earn about 5. People are really struggling and scraping here. I understand the OP is excited to complete his collection, but as I mentioned earlier, it's incredibly frustrating to see these kinds of stupid price sales. For the record, I did not bid on this auction.