Enternal

I unfortunately don't have a copy. A few years ago when I was trying to find more information on the games, I stumbled across a gamespot/IGN article again, memory is hazy here about wheere. It was one of the only articles that I could find that has information for the games. I saved the Samurai Shodown one. Off and on during work I've been trying to find that page on any archive site, hoping it would have pictures of other games but nothing. I did see that there is a Spanish Sink wiki website that mentions The Last Blade as having a Playphone game but the link for it is dead. Here is a 2004 gamespot article talking about the partnership but not the one I found the picture from. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-history-of-snk/1100-6089278/

Video of King of Fighters? https://youtu.be/wzcmJDOkH6Y?si=UlJpf1x5XUtZLoD7

This is to be taken with a grain of salt, but I thought there was another 2/pack with Centipede. But I could be mixing it up with the Asteroids one. There is a chance that I took a picture because a few years ago I sent a message to John Hancock on Atari Age asking him if he had seen them before and he hadn't.

I'm around 3000, not sure how that compares for my city/state. I'd like to trim it down to half, and try to only get games I'm serious about playing. Serious question, are some of you guys really selling because you are thinking you don't have much time left? I understand priorities and other life changes but being a future retired gamer sounds pretty fun to me. Can run around in a golf cart, hook up with some gilfs.

Crazy that this cart/ or related cart surfaced. I know @BlackbirdZero13mentioned he tried tracking people down, maybe the VHS has other information on the program or maybe it's just the cart running. I'm sure someone is still around that can be like, yeah we didn't make 10,000 copies but we made a few dozen to propose for a test market.

Wow thanks for creating this and linking it to me. Glad I jogged your memory. I don't remember seeing these back in the day. But found them a while ago in a box from a reseller that would buy storage units. There was a stack of 3+4 of these. Which I would have normally skipped over them (looking like budget of games) had I not seen King of Fighters which I purchased. Unfortunately I did not see Samurai Showdown or Metal Slug or I would have purchased those as well.

Went ahead and pulled my copy out. Rental link supported. I didn't even notice mine had a rental sticker under the game. I wanted to clarify that the sticker is on the insert in my original post I worded it weird. We will need maybe some other examples to. Maybe some people here have some of these in their collections that they can share. Though looks like in the imgur album some have the sticker on the outside of the case.

Adding Splatterhouse 3. I believe I remember also seeing Rolling Thunder 3 with a sticker but have been unable to find evidence.

Wow amazing work! Thank you for doing all that. When I was asking around and looking one of the responses I got on the Sega16 forums. Overdone @ Sega16forums "There was only one place that I saw that had a source of these when they were available bird, and that was Virgin Megastore. Fighting Masters was one of them, I know because I picked it up. I think I remember Rolling Thunder 2 being there as well but can't be sure. Interesting thread, probably not a lot of info about these stickered releases." @supergamboy It will be interesting to see how much more info on these will come out from the community hear, I think by far you have done the most research.

This is opening up another other rabbit hole of mystery that I have yet to see anyone tackle. Maybe perfect for someone in here? From my limited research there are a small number of titles let's say 25 (I'm guessing here) but you see the same ones, with Rolling Thunder 2 being one. They are Sega Genesis carts that got exported. These were possibly only distributed by Virgin Record Stores in the UK and Australia. And likely only games that did not get a mega drive release in their country. They were stickered prior to distribution then sealed and appear on the insert. (You can see this on the Ys III insert outside of the case) A related area of research is also needed to the Super Sega Rewards Club.

I have a sealed king of fighters cell phone game that I can barely even find any information on (I think 2 articles, never seen on eBay) see attached. I found this in a barn from someone that would buy storage units. A Samurai Showdown 3DO game that I think is a review copy. Doesn't look anything like the retail release and I can't find anything that looks like it. (In storage so don't have pictures) A Last Day Gears of War Cog Tag, these were randomly spread to different locations, random areas, some geo caching spots, and to press. They have different serial numbers and I believe unlocked information for everyone to see on the gears of war 2 website. Ive only see 3 in the last 10 years sell, 130, 500, and 2 days ago one of the press ones sold for 150. Here is one of the press ones.

Rolling Thunder 2 has a Gold sticker variant that is very rare. Similar to the Pac-Man 2 Lenticular it's stuck to the insert not the case.

Ah, yeah that makes sense to rebuild from scratch. Maybe to stop fights and disputes could just have Common, Uncommon, Rare. Instead of going on a larger individual 7-10 point scale. While that might make things like Jimmy Connor's Tennis and Caltron 6-1 have the same blanketed rarity. It would stop people saying arguing something like Sculptor's Cut should be a 6 and Super Bowling should be a 7. IMO i took the NA DB as an estimate of rarity.

I thoroughly used the DB, had my whole cart collection across multiple systems there, what I paid. And woke up one day to find it all gone, and the community scattered. I miss the place, miss the community. I used to be very active in the yearly NintendoAge group completion of the nes library. At least we have VGS and what remains of the community here. From my end, it seemed there was a synergy to all the events. NA goes to GoCollect, alternative physical investors start to come in to buy games, meanwhile longtime collectors start to leave the hobby. Game stores, flea markets, start to dwindle, physical carts become harder to find in the wild. Youtubers drop, or move on to other things. Feels like Thanos snapped his fingers and half the world just poofed. And since we can't travel back in time and take out GoCollect, or snap everything back to how it was, I'm on board for rebuilding it. I might possibly have captures of most of the NES DB and the rarities assigned to each cart. Can the internet archive / wayback machine be used to pull in stuff that we need.?

I wasn't taking a dig at the Neo Geo, and by Neo Geo I was referring to the AES and MVS. (Which I personally love and own both) The TS/OP asked the question are we in the last years of Atari and NES collecting. While I felt that starting to become true for the Atari I brought up reasons that I felt the NES had hope. The Atari and while I mean the 2600, we can include all their hardware and software. Doesn't have the strengths that Nintendo has for bringing in new collectors to the NES, again I'm answering ops question, I'm not trying to say the 2600 wasn't great. The newly released 50th anniversary was great for showing their legacy. And now back to the MVS/AES. SNK has faired lot better than Atari over the years, and even recently we have seen the popularity of King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown come back during the fighting game resurgence. But these games, a mini, and having active arcade cabinets, will do very little to bring Gen Z'rs and younger into collecting for the system. I wasn't knocking the system or its legacy, I was saying in the community the MVS/AES is niche, just like the other systems mentioned with it.

Last month found set of Series 3 Garbage Pail kids at a flea market so when I saw this (via JohnRiggs) I was already sold, even if the 80 dollar price and 14.95 shipping is off putting. But agreed, it being an official licensed product along with having cards pushed the me through that high price. I don't know if its active anymore as I ordered on the 30th but CEREALMONSTERS coupon code gave 10% off which also helped.

We are definitely not in the last years of the nes, Pre-Nes maybe. What Nes has going for it, Nintendo is still a successful gaming company putting out related IP. There will be young people that are playing Breath of the Wild or 2 when it comes out as their first Zelda game and will end up exploring the back catalog. Not all, but definitely some. This can be similar to finding a cool song, movie, book, etc and wanting to explore more. Even games like Smash has little kids knowing who the Ice Climbers are. Castlevania got a freaking animated series on Netflix. Video game collecting popularity among collectables has been on the rise over the years and has established a big market for itself. And all the politics and market manipulate furthers this point because it means the effort is worth it, and is seen in all other big collectables, cars, cards, comics, toys. Nes era games can be seen as 60's era for comics and cards. There are plenty of card and comic collectors today that didnt grow up reading Amazing Fantasy 15 or watching Mickey Mantle would consider owning an issue or a rc as the gem in their collection. Pre Nes will be hard to judge. I've seen the common opinion that the simplicity of many Atari games in either graphics or gameplay holds it back from gaining traction in adding a newer fanbase. I agree and feel thats a significant part, as well as having a mainstream character or even correct game recognition. Many gamers assume that Atari was just a 2600 nothing else beyond that. And that the Atari was that thing that played Pong, Pac-Man, and had that worst game ever ET. They have no idea about Asteroids, Combat, Warlords, Adventure (Though Ready player one helped), Hero, Pitfall...etc And this might be its fate, to be incorrectly remembered by those that even know what Atari is, and only those in the hobby will know the system, along who Bonk is, the mighty Neo Geo, 3do, Colecovision, Vectrex, etc.

Might be better to press it than ironing it. I did try to iron an already beat up popful mail manual and it caused the foil emboss to flake off.

NA Sealed Caltron 6 in 1 that I traded a Zelda Twillight Princess CD with Master Sword and Shield Set for Ebay, this one is a little difficult I have my copy of musha that I paid 60 for, a 130 mint space adventure.. but they werent huge saving for its time, just deals. I'm probably skipping better deals but off the top of my head right now maybe Little Samson for 225 when it 350. Wild. This was Earthbound for 75 cents but over the years is now a high grade sealed copy of pokemon gold for 3 dollars at a salvation army.