Chaos Control

I just saw this thread and as a CDi collector I wanted to verify that Dorwena is indeed completely legit, and a true treasure that anyone with an interest in the CDi would do well to buy a system from. He is indeed a former Philips tech who still provides service for these CDi players, and to my knowledge is the only person who can properly repair and restore them for future preservation. There's no better person to buy a CDi from, or to have yours refurbished by. As for the discs, those are indeed legit. All of them. I also got a few and they all checked out. I hope this reassures anyone reading this thread.

I shared this a while back on another Forum and with the CDi community, but also wanted to post it here given the mild CDi interest that the Nintendo connection can sometimes lead to. The earliest CDi releases in the US came in very nice hard plastic longboxes with outer cardboard sleeves. When I realized there wasn't any full list of them to be found, I decided to go for the full set and be the person who would verify them all. As far as I can tell, there's 97 different US longbox CDi releases. This was a surprisingly fun set to go for and to my knowledge I'm the only person to have accomplished this set. In addition to sharing this list and a short guide, I wanted to see if anyone here knows of any longbox releases that I missed. I hope you all enjoy this information! As with any other collection, there are several titles that are vastly more difficult to find than others, rare due to low print runs, poor sales, or some other reasons. The following are the 10 rarest US Philips CDi longbox releases, in order of their rarity. If anyone reading this decides to go for the set, these are the ones that you should be willing to buy entire large lots just to obtain. You will be waiting a very long time for them to come up for sale by themselves, if they ever do. Anne Willan Presents The Food of France. This the rarest CDi longbox title, and one of the rarest US CDi releases period. It did have an overseas release. The ACT College Search '92. US exclusive CDi. This was also released only in longbox format. Easily the 2nd rarest longbox CDi. CD-I Music Book: Classical Guitar Volume 1. This is different than the other, more common Classical Guitar title. Very rare, possibly a variant. David and Goliath. The rarest of several rare religious CDi titles. Fairly expensive, too. Berenstain Bears: On Their Own and You On Your Own. Not tough to find in regular jewel-case format, but rare in longbox format. Sailing: A Guide to Sailing and Seamanship. Still available on Amazon, but it never came up on Ebay in over a year of searching. The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe. Possibly the most expensive longbox title. Cinemassacre has an amusing video of this CDi. While this CDi is possibly the tamest CDi in terms of content, be warned that Googling about the artist will result in some highly NSFW results. DO NOT look this title up on anything other than your personal device. More Dark Fables from Aesop. Sequel to The Dark Fables of Aesop. I only saw two copies pop up in over a year. Moses: The Exodus. Moses: Bound for the Promised Land. Now, those are just the rarest 10 CDi longbox format releases in comparison to all the rest of the longbox releases. About half of the other CDi longboxes only have one or two copies available for sale at any one time on Ebay or on Amazon. It does help to type in the name of the CDi, without adding "CDi" or "Philips" when searching for some of these titles on Ebay. There's a stunning amount of very poorly listed copies for otherwise very rare CDi longboxes, and CDis in general. And at last, the complete alphabetical list of all confirmed 97 Philips CDi US longbox releases: A National Parks Tour A Revolution in Color A Visit to Sesame Street: Letters A Visit to Sesame Street: Numbers A Visit to the Valley of the Pueblo and the Amparo Museum Alice In Wonderland Anne Willan Presents the Food of France Backgammon Battleship Beauty and the Beast Brer Rabbit and the Wonderful Tar Baby Caesar’s World of Gambling Cartoon Jukebox CD Shoot CD-I Music Book: Classical Guitar Volume 1 Children’s Musical Theater Classical Guitar Classical Jukebox Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia Connect Four Cool Oldies Jukebox Dark Castle David and Goliath Defender of the Crown Dutch Masters of the 17th Century Earth Rhythms Escape From the Cyber City Gardening By Choice: Flowers and Foliage Gifts to Behold Girl’s Club Golden Oldies Jukebox Harvest of the Sun How the Camel Got His Hump How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin How to Photograph Nature International Tennis Open James Brown Nonstop Hit Machine Jazz Giants Jazz Guitar Jigsaw Laser Lords Lords of the Rising Sun Louis Armstrong More Dark Fables from Aesop Moses: Bound for the Promised Land Moses: The Exodus Mother Goose Hidden Pictures Mother Goose Rhymes to Color Mozart: A Musical Biography Mystic Midway Rest in Pieces NFL Football Trivia Challenge Noah’s Ark Paint School I Paint School II Pavarotti Pecos Bill Pegasus Pinball Power Hitter Prelude Rand McNally’s America: U.S. Atlas Rembrandt: His Art and the Music of His Era Rhythm Maker Richard Scarry’s Best Neighborhood Disc Richard Scarry’s Busiest Neighborhood Disc Rock Guitar Sailing: A Guide to Sailing and Seamanship Sandy’s Circus Adventure Sargon Chess Stamps: Windows on the World Stickybear Reading Story Machine: Magic Tales Story Machine: Star Dreams Tell Me Why I Tell Me Why II Tetris Text Tiles The ACT College Search ‘92 The Art of the Czars The Berenstain Bears: On Their Own and You On Your Own The Best of Draw 50 The Dark Fables of Aesop The Emperor’s New Clothes The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe The French Impressionists The Palm Springs Open The Renaissance Gallery The Renaissance of Florence The Riches of Coins The Story of Jonah The Story of Samson The World of Impressionism Time Life Photography Treasures of the Smithsonian Video Speedway You Sing Christmas Favorites Zombie Dinos from the Planet Zeltoid

One thing worth remembering about 360 collecting is that not all of the online lists seem to have been kept up to date towards the end. FIFA 19 did indeed have a physical NTSC release, and is the rarest NTSC title for the system. Yet it is often left off the various lists. Whether it was only in Mexico and Latin America or made its way into specialty US shops still hasn't been cleared up. There may also be a few late releases that flew under the radar. PS3 might also have a few, FIFA 19 again among them for that system. If one wants to be picky, there's also the 360/Xbox One combo releases that quite a few popular games saw later re-releases in. But those should just count as variants. One other thing to consider is that this was the very last generation where the the majority of releases contain entire game, sans any later DLC, can be played offline in full. If you have the disc you have the full game, without any bullshit day-one patches. Also, when collecting, try and buy the games that have all offline Achievements and Trophies. A lot of games have already had online cheevs rendered impossible by server shutdowns, and games with everything obtainable offline will command a premium from the Achievement hunters in the near future. The corollary is also obvious: there's a LOT of titles that amazingly enough still have active servers, but won't forever. Focus on getting their online cheevs/trophies while it can still be done. Oh, and for specific titles, the one that really stands out as a future hidden gem/ Holy Grail is Project Sylpheed, a 360 exclusive. Square Enix space combat game, graphics showcase, all offline cheevs, and the controls are fully customizable AFTER the tutorial.