nick

There's a few problems/challenge with the above approach I just suggested, which would still require some human being personal interpretation/opinion and intervention to make it work fully:

1) if the same algorithm is used to determine a R1-R10 rarity value for older systems like NES and newer systems like Switch, there is inherently going to be a LOT more games in circulation for a lot of modern popular Switch games despite there are usually a lot less of it in the world. The supply of what is available inherently slowly dries of over time, even if more are produced and out there in the world somewhere, should that also mean it's more/less "rare"?   Is rarity based on how many are in circulation in the world, or how many are available to buy in the current modern world?

2) When getting to the REALLY rare high-R8, R9, and R10 values, there's so few of them that a lot of them would have between 0 or MAYBE 1 available at any given time, despite that some of those are definitely WAY more rare/common than others, and they shouldn't all get the same rarity value.    For example, NWC Gold and Cheetahmen II or Challenge Of The Dragon are all very rare and would show a similar number available within a 30 day period for each, but they definitely should not have the same rarity value relying on the rarity value the algorithm spits out and that's it -- some human personal interpretation would probably be needed to sort out which of those would fall into a R8, R9, or R10 category for the ones that only show that 0 or 1 are available. But ,by the time it gets into more the R7/low-R8 range there's enough out there that a pretty accurate rarity value can be determined based on the math of how many are available in the statistical analysis

Have you ever considered the idea of to plug the numbers of how many are available for each game into a normal distribution algorithm and calculate the R1-R10 rarity values that way?

Then you could determine the R1-R10 values based on wherever in the bell curve you decide to make the cut-offs be for each rarity value.

For example, something to the effect of:

R5 is somewhere below the mean within a % that you decide
R6 is somewhere above the mean within the same % that you decide as the R5 (so R5 and R6 are both above or below "average" by the same amount threshold)
R1,R2,R3,R4=These 4 values are below R5 and are exponentially more common for each one. By the time it gets to R1 very very few games get the R1 due to how few games fall in to that level of common-ness. Games like Tetris for Game Boy or SMB3 or SMB/DH are what the R1 games would be. VERY scarcely seen.
R7,R8,R9,R10=Same exact thing as R1-R4 but on the more uncommon side of the spectrum. By the time it gets to R10, very very few games fall into that R10 category.

^ This would allow R1 and R10, R2 and R9, R3 and R8, R4, and R7, and R5 and R6, to each be common/uncommon equivalent opposites. So with this system automatically if a person sees a R5 or R6 rarity value, that alone can easily and quickly tell a person if the game is slightly more or less common than average compared to other games, based on math and statistics (not personal opinion).

PS: I took a Statistics 101 class in college so I'm pretty smart. (barely passed it with a C!)

Awesome! Congrats on the fantastic pickup!

On 5/7/2023 at 12:45 PM, N64Cortex said:

Nice MSA games! I think this is the set that surprises me the most, as everytime a new discovery pops up! I share my set with you

YO! Good stuff, @N64Cortex!! Very cool to see a bunch of them in a single pic like this. How much longer til you have all of them?

On 3/29/2023 at 5:11 PM, JVOSS said:

Finished Set #10 for the world set. Big help from a few personnel shoppers for finding the last game to make a full set. This was a very difficult set to complete due to the difficult in the shipping and buying process in Brazil game market. This was an 8 year venture.  Now sure how may full sets are out in the wild.  but I HAVE ONE.....

AMAZING!!! AWESOME!!!

These are the ones I have right now. I'm not super mega attached to these so if anyone is interested I'd probably be okay with parting with a few.

Here's a few I just found just now available CIB without even hardly doing much effort:

https://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-2046051339-007-the-world-is-not-enough-n64-top-loja-campinas-_JM#backend=item_decorator&backend_type=function&client=bookmarks-polycard

https://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-1679080071-jogo-quake-nintendo-64-_JM#backend=item_decorator&backend_type=function&client=bookmarks-polycard

https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.mx/MLM-1990702704-mortal-kombat-4-de-nintendo-64-n64-original-caja-instructivo-_JM#position=29&search_layout=stack&type=item&tracking_id=4f35b588-6928-4c0e-9678-645b6dc5b22e

https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.mx/MLM-722174545-mortal-kombat-mythologies-sub-zero-nintendo-64-en-caja-_JM#position=13&search_layout=stack&type=item&tracking_id=4f35b588-6928-4c0e-9678-645b6dc5b22e

So, they definitely pop up, they're out there and you can find them, but don't expect to find any listed on USA eBay or anything like that very often. For those that are collecting them, it also helps that pretty much nobody else is really trying to collect them.

Here's my list of Nintendo 64 MSA region coded video games. As someone else said in this thread, MSA stands for "Mexico and South America". I have a few of these, like 5 CIB. You can find them on MercadoLibre.com.mx (Mexico) and MercadoLivre.com.br (Brazil) from time to time. When they pop up, they typically sell for the same price any N64 game sells for (except for WCW Backstage Assault which sells for a lot because the N64 cart color variant collectors have resulted in that one becoming more well known in general). But WCW Backstage Assault I don't think is any harder to find than any of the others. They're kind of rare-ish, but not really super mega rare if you know where to look. Not really anyone is looking for these or seems to care much.

007 The World is Not Enough
Aerofighters Assault
Bio Freaks
California Speed
Duke Nukem: Zero Hour
Gex 64 - Enter The Gecko
International Superstar Soccer 98
International Superstar Soccer 64
International Superstar Soccer 2000 - Box Only??? (Not sure)
Mace The Dark Age
Mortal Kombat 4
Mortal Mythologies Sub Zero
Off Road Challenge
Quake
Rampage 2 - Universal Tour
Rampage World Tour
SCARS
San Francisco Rush
WCW Backstage Assault

On 3/30/2023 at 11:47 PM, ProtonX said:

I had the manual in the photos, and found it several years ago at PRGE. Sold it on eBay back in 2018/2019 I think. Still a very cool item.

Before it was sold, it was borrowed and used by Frank Cifaldi for scans in the megaman legacy collection that came out last generation. 

Awesome! Do you remember who you sold it to by any chance? How many total boxes and manuals have you seen of the original NES-G6-USA Capcom-published release do you know of?

17 minutes ago, spacepup said:

Let's all remember, this is a FS thread so let's keep the discussion related to the sales.  If you'd like to discuss the other topics elsewhere on the forum you can do so.

Agreed 100%, good luck with the sales, Hubz. Here's a link to his GamingAlexandria Shopify again:

https://gaming-alexandria.myshopify.com/

15 minutes ago, BlackVega said:

I heard another version of the story that all of that involving Byuu's suicide was a spiel and people checked police records and there were no reports of US emigrants being dead during that time? Oh well but after all this gets into off topic territory

Oh yeah I heard that theory too. I checked the US Travel.State.Gov to see if there was any validity behind it. Checked 1 US Citizen that I knew personally and like 5 more US citizens I heard about that died overseas from news stories, and they were all listed successfully. Just the date of death and a vague cause of death is listed, but that's enough to match things up usually.
If BYUU is not listed for some reason, there could be a few legitimate reasons for that, I'm not sure why, I think it's probably a bit much to jump to some conspiracy, but I don't know.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/while-abroad/death-abroad1/death-statistics.html

In any case, sorry not to derail off topic, BYUU scanned the entire Super Famicom set I believe. He scanned them in a lossless PNG format I believe, though they weren't made into super HQ 4K 'future proofed' quality they way Kirkland's amazing scans are, but they are still really nice quality, and just a great resource to have, thanks to his very good work.
https://archive.org/details/near-snes-scans-png

Hubz/Gaming Alexandria has been doing a lot of great work scanning as well.
https://www.gamingalexandria.com/
https://scanning.guide/

On 3/28/2023 at 5:46 AM, dr_orangejuicer said:

I remember a guy on Digit Press years ago who had done this with the SNES library through acquisitions, sold the set, and then moved on to the SFC library. Any chance that was you?

Sounds like BYUU who did that, most likely. And yes, BYUU an hero'd himself sadly. :'-( Is no longer with us, but his good work scanning the Super Famicom set is left behind (among other good work that he did), and we are better for that. We are grateful for that good work left behind.

A guy named Kirkland scanned the entire North American SNES manual set at 4K future-proofed quality. These are AMAZING and they are available on Archive.org and you can easily download the entire set in a single torrent just by clicking a few buttons on your computer, and then you get everything downloaded and saved for completely free. I'm happy that I contributed in an extremely small way by scanning like 3-4 manuals for it. But he did all the work. It took him like 3 years to complete this to my understanding.
https://archive.org/details/kirklands_manual_labor_-_super_nintendo_-_usa_-_2k_version/2020 Super Baseball (USA)/

And Hubz/Gaming Alexandria has been scanning and doing amazing work scanning a lot as well!

.

Some pics

^ The PlayTronic (left), is completely different from the NES-G6-USA (middle), is completely different from the NES-G6-USA-1 (right). All 3 of these were sold in South America, specifically Brazil. When you purchased this game back in the day in Brazil, the box/manual/packaging would _ALWAYS_ be the PlayTronic, but the cart you got inside would be 1 of these 3 basically at random. Each of these has a sticker on the back denoting that it was part of the PlayTronic release

^ Backs. Please note that only the left one (PlayTronic) has the PlayTronic back-sticker. I personally swapped the back of the NES-G6-USA (middle) to a USA Mega Man 6 back sticker, because I wanted it to be more original to how it would have been if it was released in USA. But when I got it, it did have a PlayTronic back sticker too. Call that sacrilege if you want, but that's what I did.      And, the NES-G6-USA-1 on the right is just a regular USA Mega Man 6.

^ 100% CIB PlayTronic (Brazilian) release of the game, with the matching PlayTronic cart (very cool).    Please note, that the NES-G6-USA and NES-G6-USA-1 carts sometimes came with this instead of the PlayTronic matching cart, but the back-stickers would always have a PlayTronic back-sticker.     Nintendo did NOT care very much about Quality Assurance in Brazil and South America.

^ Back of the PlayTronic Brazilian release CIB.



I _WISH_ I had a correct NES-G6-USA box and manual, but I've only ever seen 1 box and 1 manual in my life of that, so I'll have to settle for just the loose cart now. I'm happy to have at least that. 

On 1/15/2021 at 6:20 AM, Hollywoodcaddy said:

All I want is the cart haha...if I have to get it cib then so be it, i will...but yeah...i mainly just need the cart...any condition is fine with me, it doesn't have to be in perfect condition...any condition will work for me...just getting someone that has one to speak up is the hardest part of all of this...

The cart is definitely attainable. I have a cart. And, I gave my duplicate cart to a collector friend a few years back when it was still pretty cheap. I paid around R$ 250-300 BRL for each of the 2 I had - that's around $50-60ish each, sometime around 2018ish.

Regarding boxes/CIBs - I've only seen 1 box in my life (that sealed one in the pics above above - I believe it popped up on eBay like 10ish years ago and basically nobody noticed it except the lucky buyer), and 1 loose manual (also in pics above). That's it! If there are other boxes or manuals that exist too (as some people are saying there may be in this thread), then GREAT! I hope there are more. If there are, and you have one, or you know someone that does have one, can you please post photos here of the box/manual we can see more of it? We'd LOVE to see that. Thanks!

So, as far as I know pretty much all of the boxes and manuals were destroyed. BUT, when it came to the carts, a lot more of the carts survived, because the carts got shipped down to Brazil and South America and were sold there, instead of destroying them, as a way to save on production costs. The carts got saved, the boxes/manuals got destroyed (except for just the few that miraculously survived).

The problem is you can't trust a single thing any of the "news" people say. They all just lie about everything, literally all the time.

Comedians are the ones you can trust.

Awesome item

NintendoAge was some good times man.

2 minutes ago, MinusWorlds said:

That’s the one! Salami SOQ!

Ahhh the Salami SOQ. Of course I should have known. Too bad it's not the parallelogram SOQ, though, but the Salami SOQ is pretty special too man not gonna lie.

1 minute ago, MinusWorlds said:

That’s the one! Salami SOQ!

Dude you quoted me as I was in the middle of editing my post. Now my original unedited version of my post (not as funny.... I added more dumb arbitrary specifics) is EXPOSED!!!!!!! Thanks a lot!!!

On 12/4/2021 at 5:44 PM, MinusWorlds said:

Pop 1 BABYYY!

Is that a population 1 of the sealed 4 1/2th print run with the no code version on the front, code on the back, yes code on the side, no sticker , parallelogram SOQ, hangtab, TM, non-REV-A, 12 screw, no ham and cheese sandwich on the side release? WOW!!!! Now with that level of specificity... that's special.

1 hour ago, Gloves said:

 

Wayyyyyy ahead of ya.

Smart man.

1 hour ago, AnimalHouse said:

Did anyone notice Garry Kitchen's Battletank title missing from the pop report?

I didn't notice that, but I didn't see any population 0's, so I was thinking that the population 0 ones probably just weren't listed. So there likely hasn't been a sealed copy of that pretty-common-game that have been sent in yet to be graded.

Al Unser Jr Turbo Racing is a POPULATION 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guys, there's 4 sealed copies of Myriad 6-in-1 that have been graded, but only this one single copy of Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing. I think we all should be frantically scooping up Al Unser Jr Turbo Racing now because of the rarity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!