What's the rarest game you own?

Sealed collecting and rare are two completely different things. I don't equate rarity and value but there are times when they go hand in hand. A good example of a rare game that's worth a lot (mostly inflated pricing) is something like my copy of Little Samson, only a couple thousand were made and it was a late in life NES game, one of the last 25 ever released for the system. I definitely consider something that old where production numbers were below 5,000 to be legitimately rare. There are still lots of rare games not worth shit like Eek the Cat on the SNES. Retro collecting is a mess right now so I can speak for the rarity of titles and a good majority of rare retro games are also pretty valuable.

Anything after the sixth generation of gaming, the word rarity changes drastically due to production numbers being largely increased and gaming was more wideacceptedly as a form of legitimate entertainment or art, and people were somewhat aware that older games retained value. Flash forward to the PS3 and 360 and it's hard to find something truly rare that cannot be purchased digitally. Most "rare" modern shit are limited and collectors edition junk sets that are packaged with a ton of worthless plastic and art books.
Weren't there 250,000 little samsons made. And I am pretty sure it wasnt in the final 25 nes games.
 
Weren't there 250,000 little samsons made. And I am pretty sure it wasnt in the final 25 nes games.
It was nowhere near that, I'm not sure if it falls into the final 25, but I know it did not have more than a couple thousand released in the US, 250,000 world wide sounds about right since it was released in at least 3 major regions (North America, Europe and Japan) but it's highly argued that Little Samson was never released in retail stores in the US and was a Blockbuster exclusive and only able to be purchased at their stores, hence why a couple thousand exist. There's a lot of speculation about their numbers and original availability on NintendoAge and AtariAge.
 
It was nowhere near that, I'm not sure if it falls into the final 25, but I know it did not have more than a couple thousand released in the US, 250,000 world wide sounds about right since it was released in at least 3 major regions (North America, Europe and Japan) but it's highly argued that Little Samson was never released in retail stores in the US and was a Blockbuster exclusive and only able to be purchased at their stores, hence why a couple thousand exist. There's a lot of speculation about their numbers and original availability on NintendoAge and AtariAge.
It wasn't a Blockbuster exclusive, some guy said that his sealed copy came from some independent store.
 
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It wasn't a Blockbuster exclusive, some guy said that his sealed copy came from some independent store.
It's highly argued and there's little concrete proof to back any substantial claims of it. It's the same story with Flinstone's Surprise at Dinosaur Peak, hardly anybody was archiving or keeping track of these late in life obscure NES releases.

There is this guy Tim Atwood who claims to have sealed cartons of them though, but he's not given much info about where the shipping cartons are from, he's apparently got dozens of factory sealed rare games sitting in boxes from suppliers and publishers. He has SEALED boxes of Stadium Events and the rarest games you can think of. I'd love to have a conversation with the guy about where he got these to fill us in on the history of these games.
 
It's highly argued and there's little concrete proof to back any substantial claims of it. It's the same story with Flinstone's Surprise at Dinosaur Peak, hardly anybody was archiving or keeping track of these late in life obscure NES releases. There is this guy Tim Atwood who claims to have sealed cartons of them though, but he's not given much info about where the shipping cartons are from, he's apparently got dozens of factory sealed rare games sitting in boxes from suppliers and publishers. He has SEALED boxes of Stadium Events and the rarest games you can think of.
Little Samson wasn't a Blockbuster exclusive.
 
Little Samson wasn't a Blockbuster exclusive.
You're more than welcome to show proof, I said it's highly argued. I just have never seen anything concrete that it wasn't. Sure, mom and pop rental shops may have gotten them from distributors, but it's widely known you couldn't walk into a Toys R Us or Kaybee Toys and find one sitting on the shelf.
 
You're more than welcome to show proof, I said it's highly argued. I just have never seen anything concrete that it wasn't. Sure, mom and pop rental shops may have gotten them from distributors, but it's widely known you couldn't walk into a Toys R Us or Kaybee Toys and find one sitting on the shelf.
No sources say that it was ever a rental game, while a lot of sources said that dinosaur peak was a Blockbuster exclusive. Also Little Samson was release in late 1992, while dinosaur peak was released in late 1994, so I think that it could be bought in chain stores. But then again, this is disputed.
 
No sources say that it was ever a rental game, while a lot of sources said that dinosaur peak was a Blockbuster exclusive. Also Little Samson was release in late 1992, while dinosaur peak was released in late 1994, so I think that it could be bought in chain stores. But then again, this is disputed.
I really would love to talk to some older collector's like Atwood or people who worked at Taito to find out, it's just damn near impossible, a lot of those people just don't care or are dead. We just take for granted how documented vidya is in the internet age and you can find the most obscure shit that never even got released. You can track the history and development of even cancelled stuff now.
 
I really would love to talk to some older collector's like Atwood or people who worked at Taito to find out, it's just damn near impossible, a lot of those people just don't care or are dead. We just take for granted how documented vidya is in the internet age and you can find the most obscure shit that never even got released. You can track the history and development of even cancelled stuff now.
There are some collectors on NA that may know.
 
I'm not sitting on anything rare, but I've got a handful of "money games" I guess. Mostly uncommon N64 games that got pricey during the retro bubble.
Most uncommon thing is probably Gotcha Force which for some unearthly reason is sitting at $130 on Amazon but price =/= rarity.
 
A Hong Kong bootleg of Pokémon Gold. Bought it for $5 at a flea market. Black cartridge, and the startup is ripped from Crystal. But switches to gold at the start menu. Other than the dodgy translation to English, it's playable.
 
i own cubivore on gamecube with the manual, i also own a black box melee and pokemon XD, which are surprisingly all rare for a mix of first party games
 
I have a physical copy of Jedi Knight 2 stashed around somewhere. Fairly sure it's limited edition since it came in a big shiny tin and everything, but I'm fairly sure I've lost all the goodies it came with. I have a bunch of old SNES games, probably none rare though, would have to go back through the collection again. Axelay is probably the rarest that I can think of. Off the top of my head, the rarest thing I own would probably be some obscure and poorly rated N64 game called Knife Edge. Yeah, I was pretty mainstream back then.
 
I have a copy of Haunting Ground. I remember buying it for 5 bucks at a big box store ages ago.
I also have a copy of Haunting Ground - bought it when it first released in 2005. It's a great game so if anyone finds a copy you should snatch it up.

I also have many games from the now bankrupt company 3DO such as Dragon Rage, Portal Runner, Heroes of Might and Magic: Quest for the Dragonbone Staff. Afaik they are pretty difficult to find.

My rarest game is easily Mainichi Neko Youbi - a 1998 Japanese PS1 cat-raising game.
 
I didn't really start collecting until I got my DS lite, I grew up really poor, but from what I've been told my copy of Ace Attorney Apollo Justice is pretty rare. I have Ace Attorney Investigations too. I'm guessing they'll both become more and more rare as time goes on, like a lot of niche Nintendo games.

I haven't seen Persona 3 PSP physically in years, not since I got it actually. It's still $40 on Amazon so that says a lot.
 
I didn't really start collecting until I got my DS lite, I grew up really poor, but from what I've been told my copy of Ace Attorney Apollo Justice is pretty rare. I have Ace Attorney Investigations too. I'm guessing they'll both become more and more rare as time goes on, like a lot of niche Nintendo games.

I haven't seen Persona 3 PSP physically in years, not since I got it actually. It's still $40 on Amazon so that says a lot.
Nah, unfortunately the Ace Attorney games had quite a few reprints and can still be purchased for around $20-$25 brand new off Amazon.

It's hard to find legitimately rare games in the modern era. It's not impossible, but in the 3-6th generation of gaming a rare game would get anywhere between 2,000-50,000 printed copies, 7th gen and up would get hundreds of thousands of games most people would consider "rare".

I guess a better term for games like these would be uncommon.
 
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