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Work In Progress: Complete List of NA(US) Game Boy Cartridge Variants


RH

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Editorials Team · Posted
6 minutes ago, RH said:

Yeah, in the mean time I found it.   I had my saved eBay searches to tight because there are just so many SMLs coming up.  Ugh... Anyway, if you'd consider and if I find one in lesser condition, I might throw some cash your way to make a trade if you'd take a down-trade.  That's a nice copy!

It started to get annoying because listings for New Super Mario Land on SNES were coming up, and always lots of SML2 and SML3 stuff, but I figured it's better to comb through lots of false results if it means I don't miss the gold. Unfortunately that means I don't check as often if I don't feel like sifting through it all. And after seeing so many hashed-up SML2 rev-2s, I was worried that when I finally found SML, it would look like garbage and cost way too much. Definitely a lucky find, but the real luck was finding out that this revision even exists in the first place.

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1 minute ago, Splain said:

It started to get annoying because listings for New Super Mario Land on SNES were coming up, and always lots of SML2 and SML3 stuff, but I figured it's better to comb through lots of false results if it means I don't miss the gold. Unfortunately that means I don't check as often if I don't feel like sifting through it all. And after seeing so many hashed-up SML2 rev-2s, I was worried that when I finally found SML, it would look like garbage and cost way too much. Definitely a lucky find, but the real luck was finding out that this revision even exists in the first place.

Aye, but I think @acidjaguar actually had one, which he showed off waaaaay back in the early days of Nintender Age thread.  I've asked before, but if anyone has old game magazines that might have advertised for the Game Boy (especially Nintendo Powers) it might be worth thumbing through them and seeing if there was an article on a re-release of "classic" Game Boy titles.  Between this, SML2 & Dr. Mario, I can't help but wonder if other classics were released and might have a "Rated-E" cover.  I assume if they do exist, they are probably all Player's Choice titles, but there's no way to know for sure... when I think about it to long, I imagine that miiiiiiiiight be a Rated-E Baseball or Alleyway.  As cool as that would be, that would be a true nightmare to find because, let's be honest, who would buy a new copy of those games in 1995/96 when you could get a decent copy at Funcoland used for $3.

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43 minutes ago, Splain said:

It started to get annoying because listings for New Super Mario Land on SNES were coming up, and always lots of SML2 and SML3 stuff, but I figured it's better to comb through lots of false results if it means I don't miss the gold. Unfortunately that means I don't check as often if I don't feel like sifting through it all. And after seeing so many hashed-up SML2 rev-2s, I was worried that when I finally found SML, it would look like garbage and cost way too much. Definitely a lucky find, but the real luck was finding out that this revision even exists in the first place.

Was that with something like this:

super mario land -snes -"golden coins" -wario

That has worked pretty well for me when trying to look for Zelda 1 variants (which have the same problem).

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10 minutes ago, acidjaguar said:

Well didn't we determine that there were a few black Rated-E covers:  SML, SML2, Dr Mario, DKL, DKL 2, Pokemon Red / Blue / Yellow. 

 

I always thought that maybe some of the real original releases might pop up eventually, like Baseball or Tennis or Alleyway, but they have yet to come forward.....

Tennis is an odd one.  The Player's Choice is a Rated-E and it's quite common.  I've only skimmed once or twice through all eBay listings and JJ Games, but I've never found Rated-E Baseball or Alleyway's.

Regarding DKL, DKL2 and the Pokemons, I think those black Rated-E's were just a by product of when they were released and still salable.  I think the Game Boy Player's Choice threshold was 100,000 so all they had to do was breach 100,000 units moved after 1995 (IIRC), or whenever the ESRB went from the gradient-style ESRB logos, to the solid-colored letters.

EDIT

Ok, I mis-remembered.  The Rated-E Tennis is not a black E, but it did make it to greatest hits.

s-l1600.jpg

Edited by RH
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Just now, acidjaguar said:

@RH so you're saying the Black E on DKL and DKL 2 are just a repackaging / re-release when the rating scale changed or something like that?

 

 

Correct.  In my casual observation on these type of variant revision changes, Nintendo was big on keeping up with the changes to these standards.  So, when games went from Rated-E, Gradiant style, to Rated-E, solid Black Style, it seems they used up the old labels and printed new, updated ones. The same was true for Rated-KA to Rated-E.

I had found a reliable page detailing when that styling had changed for the ratings, took place but so long as they were distributing those games, if they were still manufacturing them to meet demand, there's a good chance that marketing would have updated the labels and sent them to production.

This is just an educated guess.  It'd be nice to crack some of these open and actually check the manufacture dates on these chips. I based my research on when the logos changed for the ESRB and looking at when certain games were released.  If the transition happened within a year or two of the ESRB update, I assumed Nintendo just kept there games current.  This seemed to be generally consistent.

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Editorials Team · Posted

The thing I'm paranoid about, is that something I want will either be called the wrong thing, or it will randomly contain a search term I'm filtering out, in an effort to reach more people. I can imagine someone tossing "wario" in the listing so that it comes up in more searches. Or if someone is selling SML bundled with SML2, I want to see that, not filter it out. With something as uncommon as SML rev-2, I tried to keep it as vanilla as I could, but I had to at least filter out "3D" because the 3DS results absolutely dominate everything else.

I'm looking at esrb.org, at their list of all GB releases, and it's an absolutely worthless list of like a half-dozen games. Thanks a lot, ESRB.

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I had no clue that the official ESRB page kept an updated list of games.  Hahaha, well, they aren't thinking like obscure collector's who look over this minutia.  All they know is that specific games were registered as certain rating and when they migrated from KA to E, they probably just updated all of the KA games to Rated E, as well as any of the other titles that had their rating identifiers fine-tuned.

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Editorials Team · Posted

Hmm, maybe it's less worthless than I thought, I was just searching wrong. It doesn't list anything for Alleyway aside from the 3DS VC release. Give me a few hours to sift through the "baseball" results.

Edit: welp, it lists every GB game with "baseball" in the title (that got a rating), but no vanilla "Baseball." So maybe it's a good resource, if I can figure out how to scrape all the info.

Edited by Splain
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34 minutes ago, Splain said:

The thing I'm paranoid about, is that something I want will either be called the wrong thing, or it will randomly contain a search term I'm filtering out, in an effort to reach more people. I can imagine someone tossing "wario" in the listing so that it comes up in more searches. Or if someone is selling SML bundled with SML2, I want to see that, not filter it out. With something as uncommon as SML rev-2, I tried to keep it as vanilla as I could, but I had to at least filter out "3D" because the 3DS results absolutely dominate everything else.

A way around this is to check the version with all the excluded words frequently and check the version with those words occasionally. The inverse search would be this:

super mario land (snes, "golden coins", wario) 

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The solid E change happened between September and October 1999. Here's the games released around then. 

All gradient: Monaco Grand Prix (Sept), NASCAR 2000 (Sept), Goemon's Great Adventure (9/15 or 9/22), Army Men: Sarge's Heroes (9/29)
Solid cart + gradient box: Destruction Derby 64 (10/2), Winback: Covert Operations (Sept)
All solid: Knockout Kings 2000 (10/3)

I don't have notes for the K-A to E transition. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Alright, I found a no-error, Bill & Ted for sale in the UK and picked it up.  I worked out a deal with the seller to save a few pounds on shipping too, which was nice.

Anyway, you guys who've also been collecting and looking for these variants for a while, can you think of any other variants that are typically found only/mostly outside the US? I might make an updated column on the spreadsheet noting that you might have to look for external sellers.  This B&T seems next to impossible to find in the states but since three of us have found copies outside the US, I think it might just be "uncommon" in the UK, but that's still an annoying pain to have to deal with.  I honestly wonder if they started with the base art/assets for the US, fixed the LJN logo and forgot to update the serial number.  We may never know, but I wonder if this is actually a UK release and simply another "error".

Since my copy might not be to my  door in 2-3 weeks, you guys with  no-error B&Ts, you mind posting the stamp on the label sticker and maybe the internal date codes on the chips for your error and non-error variants?  Maybe we can piece some info together with those details.

It seems like such a weird questions to have to ask, but I recall this not being the only game variant that tends to strictly be found outside of the US, but I can't remember what the other one was. You guys have any recollection what that game, or games, were?

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 minute ago, ThePhleo said:

Yo @RH look what I’m gonna open soon...I hope you have to hunt for a super rare variant game now because I spent a pretty penny to get this...

 

CB1D8BC9-91C9-4608-8007-21270E475F6E.jpeg

IS that the one that's been on the bay for ages?  Did they reduce the price?  I messaged them within the week seeing if they would drop the price.  I never got a response.  Still, it's tough for me to pull the trigger on opening a sealed game, even if it's "for science"... or history.

Regardless, I kind of hope it's not rare.  I compared the dates on the back of the box and it looks like Electrobrain scooped this up very quickly. My guess is that maybe MB found it tough selling it and then somehow got in contact with ElectroBrain to see if they could recoup costs.  ElectroBrain re-issued so many games, it's kind of crazy.  Or, I guess there is a small chance that this just a box variant.  Maybe they contracted ElectroBrain to develop the game and after the release, they realized that publishing wasn't their thing and outsourced it to them.

But, oh, I'm excited.  Post all of the contents when you open it.  I'll definitely add all of the detail to the gallery.  If you don't mind taking board pics, I'd appreciate it.  Maybe we can compare date stamps.

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6 minutes ago, acidjaguar said:

OPEN IT NOW

Yeah, I had the same response on the inside.  I should have led with that.  I mean, had I been the one who bought this, I would have had to have fought really hard the urge to tear it open immediately, rather than getting it ready for a decent photo session.  

@ThePhleo I know I asked if that was the one on eBay, but how did you get it?  I checked and I couldn't find it on the eBay sales history, but it's definitely not their any more.  You must have succeeded where my attempts have failed over the years.

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This is the one that’s been on eBay for ages. I was serious when I wanted to go halfsies with whoever was interested in the contents and I didn’t want to wait anymore 😛

It was being sold by the Digital Press store in Clifton, NJ so I just messaged them and asked if I can pick it up in store and if they could give me a break on the price. I live in NJ so it’s only an hours drive from my house.

They knocked off 10% for me so it went from $125 to $112. Still a heck of a lot of money for a crappy condition game with a cheap variant, but it is absolutely a “for science” purchase and I had the extra cash on hand....plus I’m going all out with the Milton Bradley collecting. I even picked up half of the Milton Bradley MicroVision set CIB while I was there in the store.

Ill post a video when I get the time. I want to make it nice but I have work.

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7 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

Ill post a video when I get the time. I want to make it nice but I have work.

Good for you.  And if you don't mind taking hires photos, that'd be great too.  Videos are good, but it's good to be able to zoom in.

I'm excited...  I've eyed this one a long time but $125 on a whim, and a chance of it not being special was more than I could go for.

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7 minutes ago, RH said:

Good for you.  And if you don't mind taking hires photos, that'd be great too.  Videos are good, but it's good to be able to zoom in.

I'm excited...  I've eyed this one a long time but $125 on a whim, and a chance of it not being special was more than I could go for.

Gonna do both. Also, does an NES bit open these games as well? Hope so otherwise you’ll have to wait on the date codes.

Just now, Splain said:

Hoo boy, I'm glad you bought that! But deep down I hope the cart doesn't say MB on it, lol

😛 Well we will find out soon enough! I’m at work right now so I can’t post yet but I’m super excited to open it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Soooooo.... what was in the box?!

EDIT

Also, look at this idiot.  This price is so stupid, I'm not even panicking.  And if he does manage to sell this at this price (he won't, just going along with the stupidity), I have quite a few very rare GB variants I'll stop collecting these and just sell them.  I don't mind calling it quits if I can make 100x what I payed for my rare variants. Hahaha.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lock-N-Chase-Gameboy-rerelease-SUNSOFT/254527365904

Edited by RH
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