We launched the mobile version of PriceCharting a little more than one year ago. At that time we disabled the historic price charts on mobile devices because they didn't fit into the smaller screens very well. Mobile users would see something like this:
In surveys of mobile users adding the charts of historic prices was the single most requested feature. Mobile users now have the ability to see the same historic prices that desktop users do.
All mobile devices now have a "Show Chart" link under the image. Here is what it looks like:
After clicking this link you will see the historic prices.
Click it again and the chart will be removed.
This change gives mobile users the option to keep the page compact or view historic prices if they want.
Nearly 25% of all visits to PriceCharting occur on a mobile device. Join the crowd and let us know what you think of the change.
The long awaited Jade Flashwing is going to be released as a Target exclusive.
The images emerging show the Jade color variant of Flashwing with a 'Only at Target' symbol on the packaging. Target hasn't started selling the figure to the public so for now eBay is your only option.
Rumor has it that Jade Flashwing will appear in the Target weekly flyer releasing on St. Patrick's Day (March 17th 2013). Consider it the luck of the Irish if you find one at a Target near you before St. Patrick's Day.
Last year we purchased PowerFest 94 and said we planned to dump the ROMs and make a reproduction cartridge. Below are the ROM files from PowerFest 94, but we have run into a bit of a snag with the reproduction cartridge and are offering $1,000 for the gaming community's help.
The SNES emulation community will need to do their magic to get these ROMs working correctly on emulators.
To help speed up the process we are offering $200 to the first person to release an emulator that successfully plays PowerFest 94. Please contact us to claim the bounty and be sure to include links to the emulator so we can verify the claim.
PowerFest 94 Reproduction History
For the last seven months I have been trying unsuccessfully to get a reproduction cartridge made so other gamers can enjoy PowerFest 94 on their Super Nintendo systems.
I spent four months in contact with one reproduction company with experience making SNES games. They even ordered a custom circuit board to meet their design specs, but were unable to get the PCB working.
I've contacted five other reproduction shops and all of them have said they cannot make it work either. Usually the problem relates to Super Mario Kart, which requires a DSP chip to play. They tell me that this chip makes reproduction much harder.
We even contacted circuit board design companies to see if they could help us on a contract basis. None of them would do it because the circuit board design is officially property of Nintendo. Even though we would be designing a new circuit board, none of them wanted to reverse engineer the reproduction.
$1,000 Reward for PowerFest 94 Reproduction
We are still very interested in making a PowerFest 94 Reproduction so other collectors and gamers can play this fun competition cartridge. We are confident there are some gamers, electronic nuts, or other do-it-yourself tinkerers that can get a reproduction working. So we are offering $1,000 to the first person/company that successfully makes a PowerFest 94 reproduction.
The reproduction much meet a few criteria:
It must be the same size as a standard SNES cartridge for NTSC regions
The cartridge must play on a standard Super Nintendo console without any modifications required
The game play must be like the original with 6 minutes 21 seconds to play all three games with a combined high score. See video below for game play footage
It must be reproducible at a cost of less than $50 per circuit board
To sweeten the pot a little bit more, JJGames.com guarantees they will purchase 100 units of the reproduction cartridge at $50 a unit. The winner is not required to sell units to JJGames, but they have that option.
Good luck with the emulation and reproduction. I'm hoping we pay these bounties very quickly.
The most recent episode of Pawn Stars featured both Nintendo World Championships Gold and NWC Gray cartridges. The video is pretty bad quality, but the segment is entertaining.
The owner is Pat the NES Punk and the appraiser is the owner of Toy Shack, a vintage toy shop in downtown Las Vegas.
The pawn shop offered $15,000 for the two rare games, but Pat said he wouldn't take less than $32,000.
Like most high value items on Pawn Stars, it was definitely staged for the show and publicity for the owner. Pat helped expand the mystic surrounding the World Championship cartridges and maybe video game collecting in general. He also received a bit of publicity himself and had a chance to be on a popular cable TV show. I don't think he was looking to sell but I'm glad he went on the show.
I recently bought Fire Emblem Awakening for 3DS. In the Fire Emblem series it is always frustrating to raise the level of a character and then only one attribute increases. The opposite is also true when a character levels up and six or seven attributes increase. I compiled this list of the characters so you know which to keep and which to bench.
About Growth Rate in Fire Emblem
In all Fire Emblem games each character has a hidden stat for every attribute called "growth rate". The growth rate determines how quickly a character grows in each attribute - Strength, Magic, Skill, Speed, Luck, Defense, and Resistance.
The growth rate is the percentage chance that the character will increase that attribute when they level up. For instance if the growth rate is 60 for speed. Every time a character levels up there is a 60% chance that speed will increase by +1.
Any growth rates above 100 will automatically increase by +1 and the number over 100 is the chance it increases by +2. For example, 120 growth rate for HP will always increase +1 for HP but also has a 20% chance that it will increase +2.
Why Donnel Grows So Fast
As you can see in growth chart Donnel naturally has a growth rate of 325 overall. For every level up he will increase and average of +3.25 overall. A respectable number, good enough for 5th best.
But Donnel also comes equipped with the skill 'Attribute', which increases growth rate by 20 for every attribute. With this skill factored in Donnel's growth rate is actually 485. By far the best growth rate in the entire game.
Fire Emblem Awakening Character Rank
Name
HP
Str
Mag
Skl
Spd
Lck
Def
Res
Total
Tiki
80
40
40
35
30
80
45
45
395
Nowi
70
45
35
30
30
65
50
35
360
Emmeryn
45
15
60
45
45
75
30
30
345
Walhart
75
60
15
30
30
45
45
30
330
Donnel
50
45
15
40
45
80
35
15
325
Panne
60
45
15
50
55
40
40
15
320
Anna
45
30
30
35
35
80
30
30
315
Yen'fay
60
45
15
45
45
60
30
15
315
Aversa
45
30
45
30
45
60
30
30
315
Flavia
50
35
20
45
45
55
30
25
305
Chrom
45
40
10
40
40
70
35
20
300
Kellam
50
40
15
40
35
35
55
30
300
Henry
45
35
35
45
40
40
40
20
300
Gangrel
45
45
30
45
45
30
30
30
300
Lon'qu
40
35
20
50
50
55
25
20
295
Cherche
55
40
20
40
35
50
45
10
295
Say'ri
50
35
20
40
40
45
35
30
295
Basilio
65
45
10
40
35
45
40
15
295
Avatar
40
40
35
35
35
55
30
20
290
Sully
40
35
20
40
40
60
35
20
290
Vaike
60
50
10
45
35
45
40
5
290
Sumia
35
30
20
45
45
60
25
30
290
Maribelle
30
20
40
40
30
80
10
40
290
Cordelia
50
45
15
35
35
45
40
25
290
Olivia
40
35
25
45
45
60
20
20
290
Frederick
60
40
10
40
35
40
40
20
285
Ricken
50
20
35
30
30
65
30
25
285
Libera
45
25
35
45
35
45
25
30
285
Virion
35
40
30
40
45
40
25
25
280
Stahl
50
45
10
35
30
50
50
10
280
Lissa
35
25
35
30
35
65
15
35
275
Gaius
50
45
15
45
45
35
25
15
275
Gregor
60
40
10
40
30
45
40
10
275
Tharja
40
25
45
25
45
40
35
20
275
Miriel
35
15
40
40
40
50
20
30
270
UPDATE: There is a character with a better growth rate than Donnel - Nah. She is the child of Nowi and is also a Manakete. Her base growth rate is 375. If you make Donnel the father she can inherit 'Attribute' skill as well and would have a real growth rate of 535. Every turn she will increase an average of +5 to +6.
The difference is Donnel is a playable character after Paralogue 1, but Nah is only playable after Paralogue 16.
Collecting Super Nintendo Not For Resale (NFR) games is a nearly non-existent niche hobby even though you can easily and regularly find these games on eBay for the exact same price as their normal counterparts. People just don’t know about these hidden gems.
These Not For Resale items were given to stores to display in kiosks. Prospective buyers could come into the store and play around with the game a bit and then decide whether or not to purchase it. After a certain point, the stores were supposed to either return them to Nintendo or destroy them. Most just gave them away or threw them out. The exact numbers of these cartridges that survive today is unknown but is expected to be rather low.
What you need to know about these NFR carts is that they are exactly identical to their retail counterparts in every way except for a different front label and a sticker stuck on the back saying NOT FOR RESALE DEMO GAME ONLY PROPERTY OF NINTENDO”. Unlike Nintendo 64 NFR games, SNES NFR games have the same content as the regular versions. There is no hidden beta content, no unique save states, nothing really unique about them except for the front label.
The front label of every NFR cartridge is identical to the final retail release label except with two notable differences. The first difference is a uniform diagonal white box with the words “Not for Resale” in red on the right hand side of every label. The second difference is the at top of the label at the part that folds over the top of the cartridge, instead of the usual name of the game we instead find a white top that simply states “Not for Resale - Demo Only” in red. This is a lie, it is the full game not a demo.
Opening the cartridges themselves yields little clues. Some of the cartridges do have what are known as “glob tops”. Glob tops are what were used before the the Super FX chip was finalized. Some retail copies also contain glob tops as opposed to the finalized chip. This is more of an interesting aside and does not affect the value, so please do not try to pry open your cart. I have seen way too many damaged pieces.
Here is a list of all 14 the SNES NFR cartridges that have these unique labels along with an average price range for which they sell for on eBay:
There are only 14 pieces to complete the set, which makes it a relatively easy goal for collectors. There are a few other NFR games but they are just normal carts with the back sticker attached. I have never known anyone willing to pay any more than the average price of a normal cartridge without the sticker for these NFR’s so I chose not to include them in this article. That and there is no agreed upon list of those type of NFR cartridges with only the back sticker.
SNES NFR cartridges are cheap, they are under-appreciated, and they will go up in price for a few reasons: they are Nintendo, they are hard to find, and they have a unique story.
It will be easy to go onto eBay and corner the market on these items. They are often listed improperly and they are often listed for low prices. I suggest that any beginning collector stake their claim and consider this as a possible first “complete set” to strive to complete. The price is low, the supply goes unnoticed, and these are some truly unique and rare items. Good luck finding all 14, it shouldn’t be that hard. This article chose not to include the two competition cartridges, Donkey Kong Country Competitionand StarFox Super Weekend, even though they both say "Not for Resale" on the front cover. We did this because they have very different origins than other Not for Resale games and the content on the cartridges is completely different than the regular game.
Ni No Kuni is a Japanese role-playing-game developed by Level-5 (makers of Dragon Quest IX and Inazuma 11 games) and published by Bandai-Namco. It has received greatreviews with the gaming press. Unfortunately the special edition has turned into a public relations fiasco for Namco, but a collector's dream.
Ni No Kuni's special edition is called the Wizard's Edition and includes the usual special order type items - music CD, guide book, custom character figure, and the game itself. Namco originally started selling the Wizard's Edition in August 2012 on their e-commerce website.
On January 22nd the game released and the regular edition and Wizard's Edition were supposed to ship to customers. Besides small isolated stock issues, the standard edition has been readily available. The game resells for about $8-10 less than original MSRP, which is normal for a game four weeks after releasing. Wizard's Edition is a completely different matter.
On January 25th Bandai-Namco announced they had oversold the Wizard's Edition. Their website partner had continued accepting orders for the limited edition after the release date even though every copy had already been sold.
Namco said they would cancel all orders beyond what they could fulfill and they would offer $20 credits and free player's guides to all those customers.
At this time prices for the Wizard's Edition were $300-350. The $20 credit didn't sound like a very good deal compared to an item worth 15x that amount.
This same problem occurred with Kingdom of Amalur Signature Edition. They inadvertently sold 12 extra copies of this edition. Instead of canceling orders and sending token refunds, they created 12 "Exclusive Signature" editions that were even more rare than the originals.
Many people have asked Namco to do something similar, but at this point they have refused. If Namco ever does make new copies of the Wizard's Edition resale prices will plunge. In the mean time, Ni No Kuni Wizard's Edition is one of the most valuable PS3 games ever made.
Almost a year and a half ago, we added DVD and Blu-Ray prices to the site. Unfortunately, over this time period the movie price features have not caught on with users. We have decided to close the movie site on February 19th.
The movie database is much larger than the game database and costs us several hundred dollars every month in server fees. When you include monthly costs for development time and maintenance, we are spending nearly $500 a month operating this portion of the site.
We plan to devote these resources towards video games instead by adding new features, improving our database, and potentially hiring some developers for future projects.
Thank you to those users who did use the movie prices. We are sorry we need to close it, but hope you can understand.
Our price list pages for each console now show the new condition price along with the used price.
This was the second most requested feature of our users. Thank you for letting us know you wanted it.
In addition to viewing new prices, you can also sort the price list by highest new price. New condition listings are much less common than used condition, so new prices are much more volatile. And VGA graded games can inflate new prices too. Please keep this in mind when looking at the new prices.
The 2013 Toy Fair in NYC, Activision is again handing out a limited edition figure. This time it is a metallic blue Chop Chop.
People on the show floor report that Activision is not actively giving these figures away at their booth. Attendees may need to ask multiple people, multiple times in order to receive the figure, but it is there.
Only a couple of auctions have ended for this rare Skylander, but so far the average price is about $260. As more Toy Fair attendees return home from the convention we will see more auctions for the blue Chop Chop. With the increased supply prices are likely to drop over the short term.
Why is it so hard to find Fire Emblem Awakening for Nintendo 3DS? The game 'launched' on February 4th, but GameStop is sold out, Amazon is sold out, and none of the Best Buy's, Wal-Marts, or Targets near me have it in stock either. The game is selling for $50+ on eBay. For a $40 game this is a very good indication that it is hard to find.
My local GameStop even told me they didn't get enough copies in to satisfy pre-orders.
Do you think Nintendo just under estimated demand, but if they don't make enough to satisfy pre-orders something else must be afoot. Maybe is was some manufacturing snafu. Or a distribution issue with their shipping provider. Or maybe Nintendo decided to see how many people would download the game from the eShop if it was hard to find a physical copy.
Whatever the reason, I am still waiting to find a physical copy of the game so I can start enjoying Fire Emblem. Have you had a hard time find the game or did you download it?
I recently purchased six Nintendo Promo VHS tapes from a fellow collector. They are all from the early 90's and were generally made for retailers, promotional partners, licensees, and other businesses Nintendo worked with.
Three of them are promotional videos for different Nintendo competitions like World Championships 1990, Nintendo PowerFest 91, and Campus Challenge 92. I think the PowerFest 91 video is the most interesting because they are trying to get promotional partners with the video but the event they describe never happens. They describe it as a bigger World Championships with 100 cities, 10 semi-final cities, and a grand championship to be broadcast live on network TV. PowerFest 91 became known as Nintendo Campus Challenge 91 instead with a much smaller scale.
All six of the videos are great bits of gaming history and nostalgia. Some of the commercials, clothes, and haircuts make you cringe a little bit but they are very entertaining. It is also very obvious that the art of a promotional video has changed a lot in the last 20 years.
I've recorded all six tapes and uploaded them so everyone can enjoy these fantastic/awful videos.
Nintendo World Championships 1990 Recap
Nintendo Campus Challenge Sales Presentation
Nintendo PowerFest 91 Sales Presentation
Nintendo SCES (Summer Consumer Electronics Show) 1994
Ken Griffey Jr Baseball Promotional Video
"How We Do It" Promo (Basically why retailers should work with Nintendo)
According to sources speaking with EDGE, the next Xbox console (sometimes referred to as Xbox 720) will require an online connection and not allow second hand game sales. If there are two worse features for game collectors I can't think of them.
The majority of the readers on this website probably have an NES or other classic console hooked up to their TV right now and play it 20+ years after it was launched. This wouldn't be possible with the next Xbox.
Soon after Microsoft cuts support for the Xbox, online servers will be turned off. Original Xbox was no longer supported on Xbox Live about five years after the 360 launched. If the console can't connect to the online servers because they don't exist, the console no longer works.
Stopping second hand game sales would hurt collectors as well. At some point Microsoft will stop selling the Next Xbox and retailers will stop carrying games. At that point the resale market becomes the only source of games. The last remaining new copies floating around will be the only ones you can actually buy to play.
You could buy used copies for display and collecting.. One of the great things about video game collecting is the ability to play what you collect. Next Xbox games would become like art, coins, or baseball cards - meant for display only.
As a game collector I hope Microsoft listens to all the negative press they are receiving for this decision and changes their mind before the console launches. They still have nine months or so fix this before the console is released.
Collecting “Not For Resale” or NFR versions of games has recently cropped up as a bit of a niche collector’s market. This category is usually for the more hardcore collectors as most people aren’t even aware that collecting these demoed version was a thing. One of the areas that NFR collecting has really blossomed is with the Nintendo 64 due to abundant information, tons of nostalgia, and a good supply of these carts to fuel demand from collectors. This article will go into a bit more information on some of the rarer and in-demand N64 Not for Resale carts.
What Makes a Game Not for Resale
What denotes an NFR version from the normal version is usually just a sticker on the back of the cartridge reading “NOT FOR RESALE DEMO GAME ONLY”. Below this is the ominous “PROPERTY OF NINTENDO” warning along with a serial number and some place for store information to be written.
NFR cartridges were meant to be either destroyed or returned to Nintendo. Nintendo wasn't proactive about this so many of these have slipped out of the hands of the store owners who were demoing the games and into the sticky, sweaty palms of niche game collectors. Most NFR copies were just stock copies of the game with an extra sticker on the back.
Not all NFR games were made equal though, some are very rare and worth a large bounty to completist collectors. Some of these NFR carts had a unique front label instead of the normal stock one that would often include a small red box with the words “NOT FOR RESALE” also in red. The placement and size of this box differed on different games. Most of these NFR games with different front labels were just that. They had no beta content, they weren’t even really demos. Some were and those are worth far more.
It is important to keep in mind that the cartridges with these unique front labels are worth around twice as much as a normal stock version. There are a few exceptions though, some of these NFR games are worth much, much more.
Due to a lot of used game shops not paying attention to their own stock, Not for Resale carts often sell for well below prices people are willing to pay. Shops often price them at the same price as a normal copy or even less due to them being only a 'demo' version.
Rare& Noteworthy Not for Resale N64 Cartridges
Here are a few of the exceptional NFR copies that are worth several times more than their retail counterparts.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (Grey) | Price: $600-$1200 This is probably the holy grail of N64 collecting and is rivaled only by a complete copy of ClayFighter: Sculptor’s Cut. What makes this so interesting that it is chocked-full of beta content, has numerous demo points to start from, and it is a Zelda game. This award-winning combination of features provides that this item will literally be worth its weight in gold. Gold Not for Resale versions also exist but are only worth a fraction of the price and not sought after as much as this version. Keep an eye out, they show up every once in awhile for dirt-cheap mislabeled on eBay auctions.
Donkey Kong 64 (Grey Cartridge) | Price: $350-$400 There are two NFR versions of this game, a grey one and a yellow one. The yellow one was released much later on and is worth far less than the earlier grey one. It contains a lot of beta material that was removed later on in development. The cart contains three different demos from various parts in the game, two boss fights and a minigame. A lot of really interesting content can also be dumped from the ROM of the game. All of this unused content and an interesting story behind one of the best-selling games for the console have really promoted this piece of Not for Resale memorabilia to the forefront in reputation and in price.
Pokemon Snap (DEMO ONLY) | Price: $400 Buyer beware on this because there exist not one but two different NFR versions of this title. They also look very similar. The difference is in the color of the box on the front. There is the red version and the black version. The red version is worth around $125 dollars but the black version is worth much more at around $400. The black box “DEMO ONLY” version came exclusively from the special printing kiosks at Blockbuster stores across the US and are a lot harder to come by. The content is also radically different. The black box version contains only a demo of the first two levels while the red box version is functionally identical to the retail version.
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil | Price: $150-$400 With a fully monochromatic front label that is radically different from the final version, this item sports a unique look. Several things in the demo are also different from the final version. It is an interesting item that commands a high price due to how different it is from the final version. There is also a European version that is nearly identical to this except for on the bottom in fine print the USA version says USA while the European version says PAL.
Yoshi’s Story | Price: $200-$300 There is a unique history and story behind this item. This NFR is actually the Japanese copy of the game that was taken apart and had the backplate of the cartridge replaced with the backplate from an American game so that it could be played on American consoled. A special front label was also printed off with the words “INTERNATIONAL VERSION” above the title of the game and was then applied directly on top of the original Japanese label. How interesting!
Excitebike 64 | Price: $40-60 This is another unique cart that has quite a few differences than the final release. A lot of the content is locked and there a few minor tweaks. Most people overlook this one due to it being a game that is often overlooked.
Jet Force Gemini | Price: $40-$60 Rare produced a lot of the NFR cartridges due to their games being high-profile and also due to their stupidly long development times. Not much is different in this NFR other than a panel missing at a certain point in the game that prevented you from moving any further and effectively turning a full game into a demo. There is also some beta content contained in the game’s code.
List of Not for Resale Nintendo 64 carts with unique front labels:
1080 Snowboarding
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Tooie
Diddy Kong Racing
Donkey Kong 64 (Grey)
Donkey Kong 64 (Yellow)
Excitebike 64
Goldeneye 007
Jet Force Gemini
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Grey)
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Gold)
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Mario Kart 64
Mario Party 2
Mario Party 3
Mario Tennis
Perfect Dark
Pokemon Snap (DEMO ONLY) (Black Box)
Pokemon Snap (Red Box)
Pokemon Stadium
Pokemon Stadium 2
Starfox 64
Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Super Mario 64
Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil (USA)
Yoshi Story
Here is a complete list of N64 Not for Resale games that only have an NFR sticker on the back. It is hard to validate these because the stickers were only on the back and can fall off or be worn away.
Diddy Kong Racing
Donkey Kong 64
Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of Time
Mario Party
Super Smash Bros
Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey
WWF Warzone
WWF Wrestlemania 2000
Good luck hunting down all those Not for Resale games! There are a lot out there but it is an undeveloped market which means that people have not yet realized how much these games are really worth, and let me tell you right now, they are worth quite a bit.
Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii has been steadily increasing in price and now sells for almost $100 in used condition.
Right now the game is selling for almost double the retail price. I am a huge fan of the game and think it is one of the best games I've played in a long time, but I'm very tempted to sell my copy for $100.
The big question is: will Nintendo reprint the game in light of these high prices?
Xenoblade might have only sold tens of thousands of copies. Maybe reprinting isn't worth the investment (Note: I do not know the number of units sold for Xenoblade but I'm confident it sold less than Mario All-Stars).
What do you think? Will Nintendo eventually reprint Xenoblade? Or will the game continue to increase in price and become the Earthbound of the Wii?
Activision regularly releases rare variants of Skylanders figures in order to keep people interested in collecting the toys. These types of Skylanders are often referred to as "chase figures" because they encourage people to go to multiple stores trying to chase them down. Activision and retailers hope that during these multiple visits you will buy other Skylanders figures, some toothpaste, a DVD, pack of gum, or anything else.
What Is Unique About the White Flocked Figures
They are called White Flocked because they are a solid white color and they have a fuzzy texture to them (process is called flocking). The fuzzy white Skylanders behave just like normal Skylanders in the game.
How to Find Fuzzy White Skylanders Figures
This is the tricky part. If you see them in a store you will definitely notice them, but they are very rare. These variations were randomly inserted into boxes for the standard figures. A retailer might receive a box with 20 Eruptor figures inside and one of them could be a White Eruptor.
The exact ratio of standard figures to rare figures isn't know, but it is probably very low based upon the resale prices these figures are fetching online. See pictures of the White Flocked Skylanders below and the most recent resale prices.
The second most requested feature on our website is for us to separate Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. We had always grouped them together into Game Boy Color, but for obvious reasons this was confusing.
We have now moved all Game Boy games into a new Game Boy category. All GB games should be grouped correctly at this point, but if you spot any errors please contact us and let us know.
Thank you to Jone for submitting this feature request. And thank you to everyone who voted on it as well. We didn't realize how much people wanted this changed until we heard from you.
If you think of any other features you would like to see on the site, please visit our feature request page and create your own or vote on ones others have asked for.
. For a $40 game this is a very good indication that it is hard to find.
