CorndogSTEVE99 | 157 Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 What are the rarest boxed gba games to look out for while game hunting? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RH | 4,898 Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 (edited) I'm far from an expert, but after hanging around here for a while, my guess would be that if you mean any specific software, I think there are some extremely rare video cartridges. I mean, I think there are some where only a couple of cartridges are known to exist, so a CIB would be exceptionally rare. Those that know could correct me if I'm wrong. Of course, there's rare and then there's uncommon-with-high-demand-thus-high-prices. If you want that game, it's probably still Ninja Five O. Edited June 17, 2021 by RH 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamW | 713 Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 Demikids Dark version should be in the running, though not sure which of@RH 's categories it falls into. It fails the "can you just go out and buy one?" test - there are two or three copies on eBay, with very high BIN prices. But if you check past sales there are very few. There's some very late life shovelware which isn't that common. Last time I checked eBay had no boxed copies of The Bee Game at all. Word Safari: The Friendship Totems is also a contender, last I checked there were two left on eBay I think. (There are a couple of people selling sealed copies of the companion game Math Patrol: The Kleptoid Threat, so there may be a crate of copies of Word Safari lying around somewhere too I guess, who knows). 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DefaultGen | 5,401 Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 Unless there's some kind of 1-off, this is the rarest game. Go find one. I see the GBA crowd posting weird rare variants all the time. There's definitely niche stuff rarer than the top tier expensive stuff like Ninja Five-O and Pocky & Rocky with Becky. Although Ice Nine and Sega Rally Championship are two hype games that genuinely seem pretty damn rare CIB. 4 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamW | 713 Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 Yeah, if you wanna get into variants, I'll go to bat for the PLAYS ON DS* print of Pokemon Emerald (I have still seen only two, and I own one of them). BTW, a handy very rough test is just to look how far back the sold listings on a price tracking site go, because it always shows the same number of listings (as long as there are at least that many); the further back they go, the fewer sales there are. Ninja Five O's CIB sales on PC only go back to November 2018. Demikids Dark go to 2016. @DefaultGen's thing has exactly one tracked CIB sale, in 2013, and 4 tracked 'new' sales back to 2011. The Bee Game has no tracked CIB sales, quite a lot of new sales but mostly 99 cent sales from 2009-2010 when inventory was burned off. The tracker sites don't catch everything, but it's a useful quick check. It's always funny when you look at the sales of 'rare' games and there's so many they only go back three months. Super rare! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bowser | 598 Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 Karnaaj Rally seems to be pretty rare. I look on eBay and there are only a couple of active ads similar to Sega Rally Championship. Maybe it's not on people's radar yet? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverspoonGaming | 332 Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 2 hours ago, AdamW said: Yeah, if you wanna get into variants, I'll go to bat for the PLAYS ON DS* print of Pokemon Emerald (I have still seen only two, and I own one of them). So is this basically a GBA game that isnt supposed to work on a DS but if you have one that does... ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamW | 713 Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 1 minute ago, SilverspoonGaming said: So is this basically a GBA game that isnt supposed to work on a DS but if you have one that does... ? No, it's just a box print. Nintendo did fairly small print runs of a handful of games in 2007 with a "PLAYS ON DS*" blob at front top left of the box instead of the usual "ONLY FOR" triangle. See my thread about it: It's hard to know exactly how rare they are but none of them pop up very often. Since they're very late in the lifecycle there could well be dead stock boxes lying around, of course, that could show up on the market any time. There was a guy who sold a couple of the Mystery Dungeon ones from a weird mixed case (he said it had 4 "ONLY FOR" copies and 2 "PLAYS ON DS*" copies in it) recently. I track the Pokemon games pretty hard, and Emerald is the one I've seen the least (two copies). I've seen 6 copies each of the LeafGreen and FireRed, and I think four or five of Mystery Dungeon in total. The other games I don't track as hard and haven't been looking out for as long, but none of them pops up very often. The Word Safari and Math Patrol games are "PLAYS ON DS*" prints, which is where I came across them first I also came across The Bee Game while looking for "PLAYS ON DS*" prints - it's not one (it's the other late style where there's nothing at all in the top left corner, no "ONLY FOR" triangle or "PLAYS ON DS*" blob), but I figured it was uncommon when it took me a while to find an actual picture of a real box to confirm which it was. Other late games seem to be easier to find. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Centroid | 79 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 10 hours ago, DefaultGen said: Unless there's some kind of 1-off, this is the rarest game. Go find one. Pretty sure Ultimate Beach Soccer is still far rarer than that variant. Hell, a CIB copy of UBS seems to pretty much beat everything on the GBA in terms of rarity. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart010 | 1,706 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 (edited) I wonder if the rares are actually rare. I’m sure Nintendo had minimum order quantities for GBA games, just as they did with all other systems since NES. Maybe the “rares” are actually all sitting boxed up on a few pallets in some warehouse and the few that are in circulation are just the few copies that got pulled out of one of the boxes. If they truly are rare, something extraordinary must have happened, like the container that they were shipped on sunk to the bottom of the ocean or the warehouse that was holding them caught on fire Edited June 18, 2021 by phart010 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naked Warrior | 288 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 And @Sir Centroid is the winner (well, close enough anyway)! I have been actively seeking out boxed GBA games since late 2016 and I have never seen a boxed copy of Ultimate Beach Soccer on eBay or in real life... For some context, I think I'm about 20 boxed games short of a full GBA set (but most of these are just commons that I refuse to pay $15 for...) There are 3 (kind of 4) that I'm having a hard time finding... Yeah, I'm sure there are rarer variants - like that Dexter's Lab/Power Puff thing, but that isn't a game, it is just a box with two cartridges and two manuals in it...there are like 4 or 5 of those "double pack" things and they are all pretty rare. There are also Big Box variants that were sold at Costco I think - (there are pics of them on the site here - @RpgCollector has a couple of them), and games with toys/collectables that are rare...but as for your "run-of-the-mill", standard issue GBA games, the winners are... Little League Baseball 2002 - I've seen one for sale once...it was sealed and it was $400...wish I would have bought it now... Ultimate Beach Soccer - Mentioned above...I have the only North American manual I've ever seen, and like I said, never even seen the box...one did pop up on eBay a year or two ago, and it sold in about 4 seconds... And the #1 Rarest game: Nicktoons 4-pack (Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie/Hey Arnold!: The Movie/Wild Thornberrys Movie/Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius) - Finding just a cart of this is actually pretty tough...interestingly this eBay auction had one thrown in, and I almost bought it just to get the cart... https://www.ebay.com/itm/154486141855?hash=item23f817739f%3Ag%3AgXQAAOSwt21gwBS~&nma=true&si=aIbWKF99McchAr9r%2BTDfZ3SuAyw%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 Some of the other games listed by other posters are either pretty rare (Several of the GBA Videos- especially Nicktoons Vol 3, Word Safari, Ice Nine, Bee Game (there used to be a guy on eBay named dextersjerky who only sold homemade jerky and sealed copies of The Bee Game...for $300 - I bet he lives an amazing life...that's where I got mine...but I have seen that for sale CIB maybe twice otherwise...) or just expensive (Demikids, Ninja Five-0, Pocky&Rocky) - I actually have multiple copies of all those, some sealed...but of course to buy them you're forking over $600-$1200 nowadays. Here are a few more exceedingly rare ones: Army Men: Turf Wars - Only ever seen 1 for sale, it was in terrible condition, bought it anyway Tweety & The Magic Gems - Never seen it for sale on eBay or Amazon...got my copy from a local gamestore somehow (and pieced together a second copy from lot of boxes only where I also got the box for... Sega Rally Championship - I've actually seen this for sale 3 or 4 times now, it is borderline common at this point Ozzy & Drix - Go ahead and find one...seriously try to find one. Top Gear GT Championship - I think I've seen this for sale twice now...the first time the guy had 3 of them...now I have 3 of them. MLB Slugfest 2004 - This is kind of turning into the "expensive" category as you can get them off eBay right now (and for only $280)...but I think I went my first 2 years without seeing one for sale. Spirits & Spells, Tiny Toon Adventures Scary Dreams, David Beckham Soccer, Soccer Kid...I could name probably 30 games that you'd have a tough time finding over a 6 month period even if you were searching every day like it was your job. There are probably another 50 that are really tough, but not "ultra-rare". 7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,931 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 (edited) Good list there, agree with it. I wish I still had sega rally, it was so backwards in its design to the point I think the track turned not the actual car, but it was still decent. Of the GBA video that one the hyperspace monkey or whatever it was, that's the worst one to try and get, it was like a $50 one some years back when you couldn't get $5 out of the others more or less. I think I've actually seen that 4pack of those Nick games on GBA, I know I have, problem is if it's still there as i'm talking months, yaers ago, just sitting forever rotting in a case because to 99% of people it's filler crap. I can't recall if it was the game only, but they had it and others like the one with all the GT racing+rally 4pk cart too and that one was complete in box. You probably won't like me getting into foreign stuff, but trying to bag Pinball Challenge Deluxe or Pinball Advance which were seemingly smaller run UK only releases can be a real bitch. If you like/love old amiga/dos pinball tables, they're awesome. Edited June 18, 2021 by Tanooki 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tidaldreams | 654 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 12 hours ago, DefaultGen said: Unless there's some kind of 1-off, this is the rarest game. Go find one. I see the GBA crowd posting weird rare variants all the time. There's definitely niche stuff rarer than the top tier expensive stuff like Ninja Five-O and Pocky & Rocky with Becky. Although Ice Nine and Sega Rally Championship are two hype games that genuinely seem pretty damn rare CIB. 25 minutes ago, Naked Warrior said: And @Sir Centroid is the winner (well, close enough anyway)! I have been actively seeking out boxed GBA games since late 2016 and I have never seen a boxed copy of Ultimate Beach Soccer on eBay or in real life... For some context, I think I'm about 20 boxed games short of a full GBA set (but most of these are just commons that I refuse to pay $15 for...) There are 3 (kind of 4) that I'm having a hard time finding... Yeah, I'm sure there are rarer variants - like that Dexter's Lab/Power Puff thing, but that isn't a game, it is just a box with two cartridges and two manuals in it...there are like 4 or 5 of those "double pack" things and they are all pretty rare. There are also Big Box variants that were sold at Costco I think - (there are pics of them on the site here - @RpgCollector has a couple of them), and games with toys/collectables that are rare...but as for your "run-of-the-mill", standard issue GBA games, the winners are... Little League Baseball 2002 - I've seen one for sale once...it was sealed and it was $400...wish I would have bought it now... Ultimate Beach Soccer - Mentioned above...I have the only North American manual I've ever seen, and like I said, never even seen the box...one did pop up on eBay a year or two ago, and it sold in about 4 seconds... And the #1 Rarest game: Nicktoons 4-pack (Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie/Hey Arnold!: The Movie/Wild Thornberrys Movie/Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius) - Finding just a cart of this is actually pretty tough...interestingly this eBay auction had one thrown in, and I almost bought it just to get the cart... https://www.ebay.com/itm/154486141855?hash=item23f817739f%3Ag%3AgXQAAOSwt21gwBS~&nma=true&si=aIbWKF99McchAr9r%2BTDfZ3SuAyw%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 Some of the other games listed by other posters are either pretty rare (Several of the GBA Videos- especially Nicktoons Vol 3, Word Safari, Ice Nine, Bee Game (there used to be a guy on eBay named dextersjerky who only sold homemade jerky and sealed copies of The Bee Game...for $300 - I bet he lives an amazing life...that's where I got mine...but I have seen that for sale CIB maybe twice otherwise...) or just expensive (Demikids, Ninja Five-0, Pocky&Rocky) - I actually have multiple copies of all those, some sealed...but of course to buy them you're forking over $600-$1200 nowadays. Here are a few more exceedingly rare ones: Army Men: Turf Wars - Only ever seen 1 for sale, it was in terrible condition, bought it anyway Tweety & The Magic Gems - Never seen it for sale on eBay or Amazon...got my copy from a local gamestore somehow (and pieced together a second copy from lot of boxes only where I also got the box for... Sega Rally Championship - I've actually seen this for sale 3 or 4 times now, it is borderline common at this point Ozzy & Drix - Go ahead and find one...seriously try to find one. Top Gear GT Championship - I think I've seen this for sale twice now...the first time the guy had 3 of them...now I have 3 of them. MLB Slugfest 2004 - This is kind of turning into the "expensive" category as you can get them off eBay right now (and for only $280)...but I think I went my first 2 years without seeing one for sale. Spirits & Spells, Tiny Toon Adventures Scary Dreams, David Beckham Soccer, Soccer Kid...I could name probably 30 games that you'd have a tough time finding over a 6 month period even if you were searching every day like it was your job. There are probably another 50 that are really tough, but not "ultra-rare". There's a game called Ice Nine? Does it contain a bunch of philosophical mumbo jumbo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naked Warrior | 288 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 @Tanooki - There are actually 3 different variations of those Nicktoons 4-packs! I have the other two, which include the games "Rocket Power Zero Gravity/Spongebob Squarepants Supersponge/Nicktoons Freeze Frame Frenzy/and either Fairly Oddparents Shadow Showdown or Fairly Oddparents Enter the Cleft". I want to believe you saw that other 4-pack (colloquially know as "The Movie 4-pack") so badly!! But my guess is it was one of those other two 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamW | 713 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 (edited) @Naked Warrioryeah, the sealed Bee Game guy ran out of copies a week or two back, it seems like. That's the listing I eventually found where I could check what the box actually looks like. I almost bought one, but $300 for a crappy game you can get on DS for a lot less is a tough sell. @phart010 I do wonder about that too. But it's possible that even if they produced X thousand of all these games, they didn't all make it to market, or they may have sat around not selling for a few years then just been disposed of. Someone could be sitting on a shipping container of 'em waiting for the right moment to sell, they could be in a forgotten corner of a forgotten warehouse somewhere, or they could've just been junked. How do you tell? Curious if anyone knows how these things ever get found out. Edited June 18, 2021 by AdamW 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart010 | 1,706 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 7 hours ago, AdamW said: @Naked Warrioryeah, the sealed Bee Game guy ran out of copies a week or two back, it seems like. That's the listing I eventually found where I could check what the box actually looks like. I almost bought one, but $300 for a crappy game you can get on DS for a lot less is a tough sell. @phart010 I do wonder about that too. But it's possible that even if they produced X thousand of all these games, they didn't all make it to market, or they may have sat around not selling for a few years then just been disposed of. Someone could be sitting on a shipping container of 'em waiting for the right moment to sell, they could be in a forgotten corner of a forgotten warehouse somewhere, or they could've just been junked. How do you tell? Curious if anyone knows how these things ever get found out. It’s possible that they got junked, although I think it’s much more likely that they would give them to a liquidator to resell. Junking them, you have to pay someone to haul it off. If you call a liquidator, they will happily take it off your hands for free and you might even get paid a little 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamW | 713 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 Sure, but if the liquidator can't sell em, what then? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorndogSTEVE99 | 157 Posted June 18, 2021 Author Share Posted June 18, 2021 @Naked Warrior Thanks for the knowledge! I haven’t even heard of most of those I love learning what is actually rare on a system not just what someone can google search and put a list together in 5 minutes, really appreciate it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamW | 713 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 @Naked Warriorbtw, since you've been doing this so long, have you seen any "PLAYS ON DS*" boxes besides the ones I knew about already? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naked Warrior | 288 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 3 hours ago, AdamW said: @Naked Warriorbtw, since you've been doing this so long, have you seen any "PLAYS ON DS*" boxes besides the ones I knew about already? Thanks! You know, I'm not a big "variant" guy...I mostly go for standard issue stuff, but I saw your comment and tonight I'll take a look thru my collection and see if I find any more...I don't spend a lot of time in the "Collecting Guides" section...but I'm still surprised I missed your post from last month - I usually try to weigh in on GBA posts when I can! 4 hours ago, CorndogSTEVE99 said: @Naked Warrior Thanks for the knowledge! I haven’t even heard of most of those I love learning what is actually rare on a system not just what someone can google search and put a list together in 5 minutes, really appreciate it No Prob! Happy to help! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamW | 713 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 Thanks! I just figured you might remember even if you weren't specifically looking out for them. There's no good way to find them besides...staring at tons and tons of GBA listings, at least not that I can find People don't generally mention it in the listing, and image searches don't really seem to cue on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naked Warrior | 288 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 1 hour ago, AdamW said: Thanks! I just figured you might remember even if you weren't specifically looking out for them. There's no good way to find them besides...staring at tons and tons of GBA listings, at least not that I can find People don't generally mention it in the listing, and image searches don't really seem to cue on it. Well, after searching thru a couple thousand GBA boxes, I did not find anything new on the "Plays on DS" box variants...I only had the 3 "always" ones and one Pokemon Mystery Dungeon...did find a couple of stickered ones tho: 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamW | 713 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 (edited) thanks! Yeah, the sticker shows up on quite a few games actually. I haven't made a list of that yet as I'm more interested in box/manual/cart variants than external stickers. Thanks a lot for taking the time to look! edit: it's actually kinda interesting to see the sticker on a minor game old enough to have the old SoQ (Super Dodge Ball Advance). You do see it on Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire too, but I know they were printing those games (still with the old SoQ) several years after release; I wouldn't have thought Super Dodge Ball would be a game that got late reprints. I wonder if rather than being applied at the factory Nintendo just made them available for retailers to slap on games they already had? That would explain why they're often very haphazardly applied as well Edited June 18, 2021 by AdamW 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,931 Posted June 19, 2021 Share Posted June 19, 2021 22 hours ago, Naked Warrior said: @Tanooki - There are actually 3 different variations of those Nicktoons 4-packs! I have the other two, which include the games "Rocket Power Zero Gravity/Spongebob Squarepants Supersponge/Nicktoons Freeze Frame Frenzy/and either Fairly Oddparents Shadow Showdown or Fairly Oddparents Enter the Cleft". I want to believe you saw that other 4-pack (colloquially know as "The Movie 4-pack") so badly!! But my guess is it was one of those other two You PM me maybe a picture of the box, cart sticker, and a game list. If I can get down in that area tomorrow morning if I'm not tied up with stuff, I'll see about trying to pop into where I think I saw it. I can guarantee you they have it, it's cheap, like $5-20 range which I'm sure would make you happy. If so, maybe a finders fee for the headache being solved. ...if it's not one of the others obviously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart010 | 1,706 Posted June 19, 2021 Share Posted June 19, 2021 12 hours ago, AdamW said: Sure, but if the liquidator can't sell em, what then? If a liquidator can’t liquidate, then they file for bankruptcy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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