GBA Nintendo Power inserts

[Puraimu | 0]

Aside from the expected game-related paperwork, GBA games would usually come with a Nintendo Power subscription insert. Can these vary depending on when a particular copy of the game was printed? When browsing for games on eBay, I often see the same game include a different slip.

Sorry if this is the wrong subforum to ask this.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Puraimu

[AdamW | 714]

Yes. Absolutely. There are tons of them.

Many games had game-specific ones. Then there's a common style of generic one which has an image of a Nintendo Power cover on it, but they frequently changed out the issue shown. If a game has print runs done more than a few weeks apart, it's entirely possible that the ad included would change.

I don't know if anyone's done a comprehensive cross-game/cross-time-period survey of these. I have done a very detailed survey for Pokemon games, but not for others.

It's also worth noting that the GBA-era Nintendo Power ads usually have serial numbers also. There is a 9-digit serial number, on the MY NINTENDO side, which just started at 000000001 for the very first copy of that ad ever printed, and went up by 1 for each copy printed. Then there is also sometimes a 7-digit serial number on the other side (image side), which I believe to be a counter within a particular print run of that leaflet. Each time they did another run of it, that counter got reset to 0000001.

If you do very detailed research on a game, you can draw some conclusions about what boxes should have what serial numbers on the inserts. Specifically, for Pokemon LeafGreen and FireRed, there are six prints of each game, and I know which range of serial numbers is plausible for which prints.

A lot of people might not care much about this, but if you do care, there is a lot of detail there.

[Puraimu | 0]

Wow, it's kind of crazy they would bother with serial numbers. Thanks! Now I'll have even more nonsense to OCD over, haha.