The Media Games Official SNES "Indian Version"

[bowser | 598]

Till recently I was of the belief that Nintendo only released the NES in India through a partnership with Samurai. After poor sales because of extremely high prices, they left the market. You can read more about the Samurai NES here: https://www.videogamesage.com/forums/topic/4498-the-samurai-nes-indian-version/

But I recently made a huge discovery with what seems to be an SNES that was officially released in India. This appears to be in partnership with Media games. The SNES itself is an Asian Version. The console, manuals and game pak all have ASI codes. However, there are stickers with Media branding covering large parts of the box. So Media games imported these units and applied their branding on them. 

I don't have any more information or insight into what exactly this means. Perhaps Nintendo released the SNES this way at the tail end of their presence in India? It's just my speculation and I have no proof.

As of now, this is the only known seemingly complete CIB unit. I only know of one other and it belongs to a dear friend of mine. But unfortunately that one is not CIB and has a mismatched console. So overall only 2 known boxes exist.

I dare say this is WAY rarer than a boxed Samurai.

Here are the pictures of the Media games SNES:

Front:

Huge Media banner across the top.

 

Back:

Small Media banner across the bottom. What's with the label on SMW? Does anyone know if all Asian boxes were like this?

 

Sides:

One of the short sides completely covered with Media branding.

Small Media sticker on the other short side with serial number info. This serial matches the console and the serial in the manual. There is also a date of July 1994. Could be when it was imported.

 

Box contents:

(Ignore the cartridge converter. I doubt it came with this set.)

Matching serial on box, console and manual.

 

I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart two friends who made this possible (they know who they are  ). One of them gave me a lead to the seller and the other one went out of his way to go and pick it up. This one is not in my hands yet and I can't wait till the day I receive it.

 

PS: Fun fact - Both Samurai and Media games sold their own versions of famiclones in India. Whether it was with Nintendo's knowledge or on the sly is unknown.

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by bowser

[bowser | 598]

I imagine @ThePhleo and @Joshua Rogers will find this very interesting  

Hell, they might even have more information on it.

Edited December 4, 2021 by bowser

[RickyTheCollector | 0]

And notice how it says, "For sale and use only in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia only" and how the box is a localized variant of the German and GPS variants of the Console. So pretty much a recycled release from two viewpoints. Pretty cool what you have there though mate!

[RickyTheCollector | 0]

And as a side note, you should really consider sending this over to the folks at consolevariations.com

Edited December 5, 2021 by RickyTheCollector

[bowser | 598]

8 hours ago, RickyTheCollector said:

And notice how it says, "For sale and use only in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia only" and how the box is a localized variant of the German and GPS variants of the Console. So pretty much a recycled release from two viewpoints. Pretty cool what you have there though mate!

Yes, this is an Asian release because of the ASI codes all over the manuals and console. Console Variations doesn't seem to have this in their database either. It was further localized for sale in India.

[Joshua Rogers | 77]

I have no doubt that this is a legit collaboration between Media and Active Boeki. Unfortunately, I have no information about the SNES in SEA (except for HKG), and I can say I've never seen this before.

Very cool

[RickyTheCollector | 0]

23 hours ago, Joshua Rogers said:

I have no doubt that this is a legit collaboration between Media and Active Boeki. Unfortunately, I have no information about the SNES in SEA (except for HKG), and I can say I've never seen this before.

Very cool

I don't know, it might be a recycled release brought straight from Nintendo from the looks of it. A rushed one too it seems.