PAL Nintendo NES Prices are Now Being Tracked

We've added a PAL Nintendo NES price guide to the site.

We're monitoring eBay UK, eBay Ireland, and eBay Germany for PAL NES sales. Just like NTSC, every PAL sale gets recorded and helps update our prices.

PAL has a number of rare exclusives that never came out in NTSC regions. Games like Mr Gimmick ($800+), Rodland ($250), Hammerin Harry ($150), and Trolls in Crazyland ($160).

Some games have different names in PAL regions. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and Contra is called Probotector. Boom, you just learned something new today :)

If you're a retro gamer in Europe or Australia, these prices will be more accurate than using the regular NES prices we've been tracking for years. Some games like Empire Strikes back sell for a lot more in PAL region while games like PAL Stadium Events sell for much less.

If you see any games we are missing or other corrections, please let us know in the comments below.

Nintendo NES Classic Mini's Impact on Original NES Cartridge Prices

Since it's surprise announcement July, 14th 2016, the Nintendo NES Classic Mini has excited nostalgia loving gamers. The teaser video has been viewed more than 2 million times and the system quickly sold out everywhere when it launched.

How has the Nintendo Mini impacted the prices for Nintendo NES cartridges?
Are people ditching cartridges for the pre-installed versions?
Is the hype for the console renewing interest in the NES?
Or maybe just sparking interest in the other 683 games not included in the Classic Mini?

We've analyzed the NES prices to answer these questions.

The Price Data

The Classic Mini let's you play 30 different NES games on a miniature version of the NES and all the games are pre-installed on the system. No need for cartridges if you want to replay some of your childhood favorites. And the $59.99 MSRP is cheaper than the cost of buying an NES and all 30 games (~$500).

We compiled the prices for all 30 games included in the Nintendo Classic Mini during the last 9 months. 4 months before and after it was announced and the announcement month itself. (See the full data set). The prices for November are from November 14th, two days after launch.

Prices After Announcement

The price for the average NES game was increasing before the Classic Mini announcement and continued to increase afterwards.

The average price for the 30 games included in the Nintendo Mini was decreasing before the annoucement and continued on the same trajectory.

It's easier to see the trends before and after the announcement by indexing both prices to 1 at the time of announcement. See the chart below.



The announcement of the Nintendo Classic Mini had no impact on Nintendo cartridge prices.

Prices After Launch

The Classic Mini launch has lowered NES cartridge prices at least in the short term.

See that little decline in the red line between October 2016 and November 2016? Prior to the launch, NES prices had increased 13 months in a row. After launch, prices dropped.


Two days is not enough data to see the full impact on cartridge prices, but initial data looks like there will be an impact.

Will the Mini launch continue to lower NES cartridge prices? Or is this just a short term blip? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Should you Buy Cubic Ninja and is it Worth Anything? No.

Recently, everyone in the 3DS and homebrew community have been freaking out over one game, Cubic Ninja. Never heard of it until recently? Yeah, me neither and I write articles on obscure video games for a living. So just what exactly is Cubic Ninja? It is a crappy, shovelware title first released in 2011 that has languished on bargain bin shelves ever since its initial release. The gameplay, graphics, controls, and sound were all very unappealing. Everything about this game was extremely subpar.

The game sold poorly and all the extra stock ended up in retail clearance limbo, being sold for as little as $5 new in some stores. This all changed on November, 17 2014. In a single night, the game became a sensation thanks to the release and publication of a programming exploit found in the game's level sharing feature. 

Student and hacker, Jordan "Smealum" Rabet developed NINJHAX, a neat little exploit that allows a Nintendo 3DS, 2DS, 3DS XL, New 3DS, or New 3DS XL console to run unsigned code. This means the console could now be used to run homebrew applications such as games, tools, and emulators. The exploit was incredibly easy to use, all you had was load a boot file onto the 3DS's SD card, and then use the level sharing feature of Cubic Ninja to scan a special QR code depending on your hardware's firmware. Scanning the QR code causes the homebrew program to download and run, and even saves the data from it to the game's save file.

This means you can finally play all of your favorite SNES, NES, and other ROM's on a 3DS. You could even mess around with all the Minecraft clones people have been making for the system. What is most interesting about the publication of this exploit is that Smealum waited until November to release all of this, when he had actually had the entire exploit working way back in July. Why wait? Well, he figured Nintendo would patch out the exploit as soon as possible so he waited until the latest iterations of the 3DS hardware were launched, the New 3DS and New 3DS XL, in Australia. He was right on the money about that.

Nintendo released the 3DS firmware update 9.3.0-21U on December 8, 2014 which (in their words) added:

• A Shuffle Favorites feature has been added under Change Theme in HOME Menu Settings. Users can choose multiple themes and have their theme change when the system is left in Sleep Mode from the HOME Menu or turned on after being off
• Available software updates can now be downloaded from the HOME Menu
• Users can now capture screenshots with both the upper and lower screens included
• Further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience

What they didn't list in their description of the update is that it also "fixed" the exploit. This was effectively a death knell for exploit but between November 17 and December 8, the price for Cubic Ninja skyrocketed. There was a run on the market and buyers, collectors, homebrewers, and the just-plain curious all got in on the action. Prices for the game went from single digits to as high as some copies selling for $500. Even GameStop got in on the fad, raising the price for a used copy to $39.99, despite the fact that their website still lists the price of a new copy of the game at only $19.99.

Needless to say, people lost their minds during this brief time and snatched up as many copies as they could, either to horde themselves or scalp on eBay (I personally restrained myself and only resold five copies). However, as general excitement died down and Nintendo patched the exploit, the price has plummeted back to the modest normal levels of about $10-20. You can still use the exploit as long as you don't update the firmware on the system to 9.3.0-21U or higher.

Despite all the notoriety and press about this little game, I foresee the price continuing to fall as the novelty wanes and more people move onto better ways of exploiting the 3DS hardware, especially as flash carts for the system are become more available. This game really isn't worth much anymore but it will surely have a long-standing niche somewhere deep inside the 3DS homebrew community. And for that, we thank you Cubic Ninja. You snuck into our lives just as quickly as you snuck out of it. You will be remembered.

The face of a market fad.

Two Wario Game Boys Surface

I must apologize but I'm on a Game Boy kick and nothing can stop me. Recently I received an email from a reader who saw my article on 7 Rare Game Boys. Apparently she's had two of those black Wario Game Boys in her attic for the past 20 years!

Satin curtains?

Turns out her two children won the Game Boys from a contest in The Sun, one of the UK's biggest tabloid magazines. The two Game Boys are pretty heavily-used and you can see the original paint under the black which leads me to believe that all these limited edition Game Boys were just painted over normal Game Boys. After talking to her for a while, she wishes to remain anonymous, she stated that she is going to hold on to them for a while before she decides to sell them. Sorry collectors, but we are all gonna have to miss out on this one.

A Look at the Limited Edition Kirby Game Boy

A few months ago, I wrote about 7 super rare Game Boys even I didn't know about. Recently an auction went up on eBay then was quickly deleted for the rare Kirby Game Boy. I managed to snag the photos though, so I thought I would share them and talk a little about the item.

RUN KIRBY, RUN.

Oh wow, you gotta love that hot pink paint job and rapidly-moving Kirby. Look at the speed lines on that baby. Also note that there is no "NINTENDO GAME BOY" painted on the body. I assume this console just had the case painted over and then painted on with a Kirby stencil.

Notice the sticker.

The auction even came with the box. Notice the Limited Edition sticker slapped on. That sticker is the same one on the Wario Game Boys.

The fine print says I won a lifetime of pain. :(

Now we are getting to the interesting stuff. The auction even included the paperwork! These little pieces of minutia are often missing and are hard to hold on to. They always increase the value of the item and are important for proving that the item in question is not a fake. Turns out that these Kirby Game Boys were a part of Prince Giant Mallows promotion sponsored by Jacob's Bakery, a British company.

More paperwork...

He even included the winning certificate! I love these little things. I think it is great that he kept everything. Sadly the auction went down very quickly and I'm not sure what happened to the Game Boy. If I had to put a price on it, including all the paperwork and the box, I think such a rare item would fetch for over $300.

Unreleased Mario Game for N64DD Surfaces; Collectors Panic, Die

[NEED TO KNOW MORE INTENSIFIES]

This is a copy of Super Mario 64 Disk Edition for the Nintendo 64DD, the ill-fated disk drive for the N64. This is important because this game is the game collecting equivalent of an albino unicorn. This is something that isn't supposed to exist. Super Mario 64 was never commercially released in this form. It was never announced, hinted at, teased, or anything. Now not only are there photos of this discovery, but there's even gameplay footage. Here, watch this and try not to question your beliefs.

WHAT!? UNRELEASED FIRST PARTY MARIO GAMES SURFACING FOR MY FAILED NINTENDO EXPERIMENT?! It's more likely than you think. So far the gameplay seems very similar, if not identical, to the normal cartridge version, but who knows what surprises might lurk in the code. Sadly, the exact story of how this abomination/holy grail came into this collector's hands is a mystery, and it's being kept a mystery by the cart's owner, Jimmy130. The origin may have something to do with this photo that surfaced in late 2013.

what filter should i use i want to look tan

OR WE CAN GO DEEPER. All the way back to Nintendo's Space World 1996, where this game was actually being shown played. I had no idea this was a thing, and it seems to have been developed as just a tech demo for showing off what the N64DD was capable of.

I would put money on this copy of the game originating from that expo, but I have no idea where it has been for the last eight years. Currently, Jimmy is doing his best to document the game and its interesting features here, on his blog.

Collectors are obviously freaking out. I wouldn't put a price on piece so unique, but I would love to see it put out on an open auction, just to see how many thousands of dollars it would sell for. The emergence of this game has elicited many cries of fake and fraud; even I am unconvinced that this is 100% the real deal. I would very much like to hear the whole story before I give in to the hype. This discovery should also give some other fandoms hope that maybe there are some other unreleased N64DD games out there waiting to be uncovered.

Two Rare EarthBound Keychains Located

EarthBound is one of the biggest cult classic video games in existence. Originally released in 1995, the game is a sequel to a Japanese-only game, MOTHER, but localization of MOTHER never made it past the prototype stage meaning that Nintendo was forced to launch a series in the middle of the story. They hoped a unique and unorthodox marketing strategy would help promote the game and so they came up with the "This Game Stinks" ad campaign targeted at grossing out and enticing boys and teens. They took a lot of inspiration from what was popular and on the air during the time like much of Nickelodeon's lineup (Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Ren & Stimpy, and Rocko's Modern Life). Their ads often employed scratch-n-sniff cards and some even included some pretty gross smells, like mushroom.

Someone was paid to design this.

Even the strategy guide smelled.

They pushed this game hard and even sent out special press releases in the form of pizza boxes based off the in-game pizzeria, Mach Pizza, because nothing is more radical and mid-90's than pizza. Inside these pizza releases were a few items: a copy of the game, the strategy guide, a fact sheet, an actual press release, a fake newspaper clipping, a ruler (this is an obscure reference to a rare in-game item), and a tiny keychain. You can read more about this at the EarthBound Central article on it but I'm more focused on one piece, the keychain.

The box itself has never been photographed or sold at auction but some of the items in it have been. The keychains were rumored to be included in the box but also just plain given away by Nintendo representatives to game store employees. Back in 2012, the first keychain went up for sale on eBay and sold for $535. The crazy thing was that the keychain itself was scratch-n-sniff and smelled like pizza.

It is also tiny.

More recently two other keychains have turned up in the hands of a private collector. The story behind them is that the original owner's mother owned a video game retail outlet and a Nintendo representative came by and gave her two keychains as promotional material. What is special about this is that only one of the keychains is scratch-n-sniff while the other one isn't. The owner claims that it came like that despite the back still stating "A Scratch & Sniff Game Take a Big Whiff".

Very interesting stuff and very rare memorabilia. Collectors have already shown that they are willing to shell out $500+ and I'm interested to see if any more of these keychains will come out the woodwork anytime soon. However, the keychains are just small fry compared to the pizza box. Lots of speculation takes place on that item and I have no idea what it would fetch on an open market but I'd assume it'd be upward of a grand. EarthBound is a good game with a rich and neglected history and I can't wait for these collectors to add more to it.

Foxdata N64 Controllers

SoCool.

I don't know what was with the 90's and bright colors but looking back on it all now, I can see that nobody had any sense of color and yet I'm gripped with so much nostalgia for the era. Another hallmark of this decade was Nintendo's N64, which also got on the neon bandwagon with all of it's "Funtastic" colors.

MY EYES.

Beautiful, isn't it all just so beautiful? No? Well, forget you. I'm here to talk about some of the rarest N64 controllers out there, the Foxdata Ltd. controllers. The British-based company started taking out full-page ads in the summer '97 offering chrome N64 consoles and controllers. They even offered to chrome your system if you mailed it in. The colors offered for these controllers were Chrome, Copper, Gold, and Electric Blue.

I have never in my entire life seen either the chromed N64 or any of these painted controllers come up for sale on eBay or anywhere else. I have never even seen any pictures of these items except for in these advertisements. If you have any more data, please leave a message in the comments. 

What I have seen are Foxdata's second round of radical paint jobs. Released for the following Christmas season, Foxdata offered up for sale four of the gnarliest custom N64 controllers to date. Moving from the top-right clockwise we have: Red Rain, Chrome Leopard, Purple Rain, and Desert Storm. All were sweet paint jobs applied to stock blue N64 controllers, except Desert Storm which was made from yellow controllers.

Their controllers were even sold in some stores but to say they are "official" would be misleading. They are just really mondo items of extremely high quality and are still sought after by N64 collectors even today. They usually sell for around $300 a piece but I have seen them sell for as little as $150. There are rumored to have only been around 500 of each type made.

In recent years, I have seen N64 controller collecting boom and for good reason. There are so many different colors and a lot have a really unique and interesting story behind them. A lot of the special ones come from Japan but the US has it's fair share of exclusives. I personally think they are really beautiful and I know a few collectors who wall mount them as art but I, personally, find it hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars on controllers but I can still see the appeal.  

It's like a rainbow had babies.

Monster Party Famicom Prototype on eBay

I know it doesn't look like much but this is one of two known prototypes for the Famicom version of Monster Party, known in Japan as Parody World: Monster Party. Your initial thought might be that there's no real point on buying a prototype of a released game but things get interesting when you consider that the Japanese Famicom version has significant differences and it was never commercially released in Japan, just in the United States.

This is actually a rather large point of contention in the prototype scene because the owner of the first known prototype (he paid around $6,000 for it) swore on his life that he would never dump the data on the cart. He would rather take it to his grave. A little crazy, I know. Well, this second cart has been uncovered in a box of crappy Kusoge games and now it is up for sale on eBay. This is an interesting auction and you can check out lots of photos of it here.

7 Limited Edition Game Boys You Didn't Know Existed!

The Nintendo Game Boy, occasionally referred to as the DMG due to it's model number, is an 8-bit handheld video game device conceived by Gunpei Yokoi as a follow-up to the Game & Watch series and was first produced in 1989. The machine was an amazing success and sold more than 86 million units. This dated piece of hardware has even received a new following as it has become a quintessential instrument in the chiptune music scene. For all of it's history and fame, it does have it's little secrets and as a collector, they fascinate me. We all know that there are often special or limited editions of games and consoles released but it was only recently that I stumbled upon some of the more rare versions of this notable gadget. I've come across 7 limited edition Game Boys I had never heard of until today. I hope you enjoy learning about them as much as I did.

Woah, Wario on a black Game Boy? This is a pretty cool device! What's interesting to point out is the "LIMITED EDITION" sticker on the front of the box and the fact that the Game Boy is missing the typical "Nintendo GAME BOY" printed on the front. This was a prize given away in the UK from the show Ghost Train in the early 90's. Weird show, cool prize. I've never seen one sell, ever. So pricing it is problematic.

The only Game Boy to prominently display a demon on the front, this rare edition is another UK only and was released alongside the other colors as part of Nintendo's "Play It Loud!" ad campaign. The crazy thing is that you can still find these, new, for around $200 and loose for half that. They aren't that rare in the UK.

Buy a car, get a Game Boy. This was a sales strategy in Japan employed by Toyota in 1992. It is kind of a lame edition. The logo just sort of slapped on there, no cool color scheme, nothing neat. Well, if you find one they are worth around $200 but they are stupidly hard to find, especially anywhere but Japan.

The Milka Game Boy is a sweet addition to any collection. This legendary collectible sports a tiny, purple, Milka-branded cow on a green pasture and was another contest prize, this time in Germany. There are rumored to be only 50 of these in existence and they sell for more than $230.

Remember Planet Hollywood? The well-conceived, and poorly executed restaurant chain that failed where Hard Rock Cafe succeeded? Well, for a while in the early 90's they were on top of the world. They had everything and even managed a deal with Nintendo to get Planet Hollywood-branded Game Boys. How crazy is that! They were sold in the gift shop of the restaurant and were rumored to be another European-exclusive. Occasionally they show up on eBay and would probably fetch around $200.

 

No, this isn't some hand-painted Game Boy, this is an honest to goodness game show prize Game Boy. I have no idea what show it was given away on and details are scarce but it was believed to be somewhere in the UK and the owner even posted a video online showing it off. It is missing the "Nintendo GAME BOY" printed on the front but it was professionally painted and in the video you can see that the serial number was added on after the paint job. I wish I knew more about this and feel free to post and tell us if you know. I have no idea what it is worth.

Well, that's all of them and that's all I have for you today... wait a minute, what is that on top! Is that a hot pink Game Boy with a Kirby on it. Yes, yes it is! There are no details on that item other than this photo which comes from Nintendo's official European website. I have never seen one and this is the only photo I can find of it. It is truly a holy grail of Game Boy collecting. If you know anything about it, please leave a comment.
[UPDATE: A reader left a comment and it turns out that it was part of mail in sweepstakes for a UK company called, The Jacob's Bakery Limited, and only 25 were given out. Also recently, one went up on eBay then was taken down but I grabbed the photos.]

I hope you enjoyed my list and check the blog often for more articles on rare collectibles you didn't even know to collect!

Pokemon Distribution Carts Pulled from eBay

Pokemon Collectors everywhere let out a collective gripe earlier this week as eBay has seemingly pulled all Not For Resale Distribution cartridges from their online auction site. Some background on these distribution cartridges is that these are special DS carts that are given to stores such as GameStop, Toys'R'Us, Walmart, etc. for event distributions of items and Pokemon. These carts are not sold commercially nor are they made available to the general public. They only contain information for the things being given away and have no actual game data, distributing via the DS Wireless Communications. After they are used for a certain amount of time, they are returned to Nintendo where they are destroyed or stored but occasionally they fall into the hands of collectors.

Collectors prize these items because of their rarity, association with Pokemon, and their practical use, as they can endlessly generate rare Pokemon and items for competitive use. They often fetch prices in the $100's of dollars but expect prices to skyrocket as they can no longer be publicly sold on eBay. I expect them to still turn up on sites like NintendoAge.com but you can also still get them through eBay, only if you buy them from International Sellers for INSANE prices ($400+). 

Begin hoarding now.

PowerFest 94 For Sale

We have listed PowerFest 94 for sale on eBay.....again.

Earlier this year we sold this one of a kind game from the 1994 Nintendo PowerFest competition for $23,100. The buyer was forced to cancel the transaction though after having some financial difficulties.

The game can be yours for $24,000 or make an offer if you think it is worth a bit less.

Collecting Panasonic Q Gamecube

I know it is bad to start off a collecting article with a warning but I am because I've been burned twice on this thing and I don't want anybody else suffering the same fate. The Panasonic Q  is a fragile and fickle machine. The disc drive is extremely prone to breaking or malfunctioning and easily cracks during transit. Since this is mostly an import buy, the "breaking in transit" is a major concern and insurance on the item is advised. Buyer beware.

Otherwise, this is an amazing and beautiful piece of interesting Nintendo history and hardware that makes a great visual centerpiece for any collection with its polished front and bright blue LED's. The Panasonic Q is a Nintendo GameCube/DVD player hybrid machine that is capable of playing DVD'S, VCD's, GameCube games, and MP3's on CD. There were two versions released, one for ¥41,000 JPY that played only JAP-region GameCube gamesand Region 2 DVD's while a modified version was priced at ¥46,000 JPY that played Region 1-6 DVD's and NTSC and JAP-region GameCube games. The modified version was intend to attract import buyers from the USA since the console was only released in Japan.

The history behind the creation of this machine is rather interesting. Nintendo worked with Panasonic to develop the optical drive for the GameCube but part of the deal was that Panasonic would be able to develop and sell a DVD-player that could also play GameCube games. Nintendo saw no problem with this and green-lighted the plan. Of the 4.04 million GameCubes that sold in Japan, less than 100,000 of them were Panasonic Q's, thus making it a rare and collectible item. The poor sales due to it competing with cheap DVD players and the standard GameCube culminated in the console ceasing to be produced in December 2003.

The Panasonic Q was a really powerful and cool piece of hardware. It featured a back-lit LCD screen, a front-loading (and extremely fragile) disk drive, supported Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, had a separate sub-woofer jack for more bass, and could be operated by remote that was shipped with it. The Q could also use the broadband and modem adapters and had the appropriate ports to use them. The long "feet" of the console prevented the use of a standard Game Boy Player so a special version was released specifically for the Q. This add-on is so collectible that it usually sells for more than the Q itself at around $500.

Another cool and collectible piece of Panasonic Q hardware is the special controller. It is just a standard GameCube controller with a special color and label but they can sell for around $50.

The console can easily be found on eBay for around $150 but complete in box with remote and controller will cost as much as $400. It is a cool, fun item but like I said in the first paragraph, be careful. These things contain a lot of moving parts and the more moving parts, the better chance one of them will break and you'll just end up with a very pretty paperweight.