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What has been the game you’ve completed the most number of times? Completing through to the big bad final boss, and then happily replaying it again, again, again and....again! What is it about this game that made you want to keep replaying it? The true definition of 10/10 if you were to give it a review “replayability” score!

My fave shooters from a personal timeline: - Space Invaders - R Type - Contra 3 - Gunstar Heroes - Gradius/Parodius - Raiden, Truxton - Axelay - Raystorm - Einhander (my favorite shooter) - Ikaruga - Radiant Silvergun - Geometry Wars 2 Einhander was an unbelievable game both in graphics and gameplay. The combo system is unbelievably deep and it always feels different each time you play it.

I just find it odd how an offer is known to Deniz but not mentioned by the seller. That to me smells a non-legit offer. And I agree with you that verbal offers need to be mentioned in context, because there is a genuine difference between an actual offer to be carried through, and an offer which then turns out to be “oh sorry, I changed my mind”. Regarding your “it feels like $250,000”, I think this is why a lot of people are feeling frustrated with the situation. Anyone throwing in their opinion on the current value of the Mario-graded game in this topic, are all basing their opinions from the small group of people all known to each other, who are dictating arbitrary numbers. Personally, I think it feels like $50,000-$75,000. I’m taking into account that it took 3 people to pay the $100,000.

Rick: “I know WATA are the people you trust for grading”, following it up with “I don’t know anything about this Mario graded game”.

Yeah, what the guy above (OptOut) just said.. I think where the N64 has failed as a platform was the fact there were no killer third party games. Sure there were some nice third party games such as the Rare games eg. Banjo, Conkers and Diddy Kong Racing. Otherwise kind of average to good titles from other companies that don’t really scream out “pick me!” Though Mario 64 is still a badass game!

I think any “rarest” list needs to be taken into context the market they’re referring to. Examples: - English releases (US/UK/Australia) - European releases - Japanese releases - Worldwide releases (all countries) Also, it depends on the level of experience the collector has with tracking of all the games showing up. Every rarity list out there will likely differ from person to person and country to country. Even if you know the exact numbers produced for a title, you won’t truly know how many still exist today.

I can’t be a hoarder because I genuinely feel pain for my games stacked in boxes! Hoarders won’t give a shit how their games are suffocating.

Buying a new home with much larger space would be the first thing I’ll spend on. Then buying bad-ass shelves to finally put my games on a proper display where they belong. Most of them are suffocating in silence in dark space within boxes, some within boxes within boxes. I’ll likely then buy some expensive stuff I’ve been eyeing on for a fair while. The majority of money will go in banks with holidaying/investing in mind. I use to be a fullset collector, but now I’m more selective in what I want to buy and the condition I want them in. I think my collecting philosophy/strategy won’t change all that much.

The Saturn was/is a very underrated console. I feel a lot of gamers misunderstood its selling point, which was: - a Sega console to play 3D games (not many highlights other than by Sega eg. Virtua Fighter, Fighters Megamix, Die Hard Arcade, Virtua Cop, House of the Dead). - to maximise on 2D gameplay with true arcade qualities; this was where the console was head and shoulders above the competition ie. N64/PS1. Some amazing arcade beat’em ups and shooters eg. Street Fighter Alpha series, XMen Children of Atom, Galactic Attack, Radiant Silvergun. Tons of others that were Japan-only, where the system carried on for much longer than the Western versions.

Lately, there has been a few articles/videos talking up on the increasingly expensive nature of retro games. This thread isn't about the validity of the speculation, but rather, it's about sitting back and doing a little bit of daydreaming... Imagine you somehow got given a million bucks (cross lotto win; you've been a star worker and you got a promotion etc..), how would you go about with your normal collecting routine? Would it remain the same goal you've been setting all this time? Or will it steer to a completely different path?

Grading CIBs would essentially be the same principle as grading sealed games: - authentication (for the condition and authenticity of the item) AND - saves collectors on potential time wastage; times where people buy “brand new, unsealed” or “mint in box” and only to receive a “crappier-than-described game” by seller deceit/incompetence in description. ————————— The reselling part is then up to the consumers to smarten up on what to grade and what to sell for profit. Regarding the new decision on IMP, about time! Why would anyone bother to buy a graded-IMP, when you can buy more cheaply a non-graded-CMP (correctly married parts)?!

I think I need to clarify from the outset that I don’t have a personal vendetta against WATA. I believe I will use their service one day as I have some nice CIB worth considering to be authenticated/graded later on. Now with the above in mind, I’m giving my current opinion based on hopefully an unbiased point of view. Your argument is partly true in that everyone is potentially biased towards their estimation. However, each individual has a different magnitude of bias, and rightly or wrongly, the public’s perception of bias will be different for different people in various fields and/or experience. Subsequently, who speaks out on their estimation, will garner different sway in public confidence. To cut to the chase, what would have made me believe more the hype if: - Deniz talked about the rarity and whatever else associated with the sticker-sealed Mario BUT...he should not have commented further on a price estimation. - the $300,000 offer should really have come from the mouth of the seller, not from a representative of WATA. - why no mention of $100,000 sale? What about past previous sales including past sales of other sought after sealed Mario Bros. I genuinely don’t know, but also genuinely keen to know. - the seller coming down with his original asking price, would have made it appear more legit. Instead, nope! Still sticking with $1,000,000 in asking price! ———————— It’s nice to keep things simple “in the end, it’s worth what someone pays for it”. But when the value of a game is overlapping with the prices of housing, it’s sensible to evaluate the situation in a bit more detail.

Ask a person who has been collecting sealed for a long time independent of the seller and the grading company. If I was to sell you an expensive graded coin, would you go and ask the price from a coin collector or the coin grading company?

More marketing and hype propaganda. In evaluating a price, they needed to go to a long time collector, independent of WATA. Too much potential bias going on, particularly when there was no mention of actual sales prices (only a verbal $300,000 offer was mentioned, but how legit?). Still sticking to the million dollar asking price at the end, makes the guy seem like an attention seeker/price pumper/shill bidder, or all the above.

I like how you’re showing some silver Ozisoft games as a potential preview to the next big post.

My personal take on “Golden Age” of: 1. Arcades - 1980 to 1995 Personal highlights - Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Shinobi, Golden Axe, Final Fight, Streetfighter 2, Turtles. 2. 2D - 1985 to 1995 Personal highlights - Nes Mario, Super Mario World, Sonic, Donkey Kong Country, Zelda Link to the Past, Contra 3, Super Castlevania, Streets of Rage 3. 3D/Modern - 1995 to 2005 Personal Highlights - Mario 64/Sunshine, Zelda 64/Wind Waker, Tekken, Einhander, God of War, Wipeout ————————— Each type of gaming in the above has their own separate global impact for varying reasons, and they bring in different demographics of consumers. For basic generalisations: - arcades are for gaming geeks outdoors - 2D era: gaming geeks/children playing at home - 3D era: gaming for geeks/cool kids/adults/family (including your grandparents)

Still good either way for the general public to know of the “breakability” of the cases, so to have a better informed opinion of what services to use and on what items. Gives sealed collectors something new to think about!

Hong Kong dollars maybe?

Don’t get me wrong, I can tell Deniz seems the type to know a lot about sealed games. The point really is about different fields: - understanding sealed games and grading scores - understanding price evaluation Seeing a few current sold prices doesn’t mean you’re a price expert, you need to take into account global sales from past data as well. Also one can argue that there will likely be confirmation bias from a WATA marketing angle.

I don’t mean to call you “delusional”, but with the aim for a full mint VGA95 GBA collection is possibly realistically unachievable. I don’t collect specifically sealed GBA except for a few titles, so I don’t really know the challenges involved. Just going according to personally knowing how hard it is to complete a full sealed set of anything is already a tough ask. Then aiming for VGA95 level across the entire board seems quite daunting! Good luck with the endeavours in any case!

This just takes the shenanigans of hype to a comical level (pun intended). If he really wanted to know the value of the WATA game, then he needs to talk to a collector expert who tracks the values of games in sealed (graded and non-graded) to give a proper analysis. Not talk to the person who grades the games.. It’s like me wanting to know the price of a rare coin, I speak to the coin collectors, not the people who produced the coins.

Looks quite a clean break! This thread has become interesting. Would love for someone to do more research on VGA/WATA to see which one is more prone to damage/breaks.

Seems like you're suffering from withdrawal symptoms with the craving for the letters "NA"...? Maybe give it some time, and this eventually might become NA ver. 2.0? If anything, this already looks more like a Nintendo Age + Sega Age => babies (and still in infancy stage)

Great job @RoyalT ! I now have a proper grasp of the distinctions between US/Canadian genesis games! Being more a Pal collector, I previously thought the US and Canadian versions were one in the same, and both come in several variants. So a short summary of what I’ve seen/read on this thread: - Canadian game covers are a hybrid of the US and the Euro versions at the front. The spine of the boxes all slightly differ to the US counterparts in both the font size as well as the color of the words. - Manuals appear to be more the Euro versions - Carts being likely the Genesis versions but sometimes come in the Pal Megadrive form, or sometimes both.

I'm starting to understand why you call yourself the "Sign" Collector Guy..