Rare Video Games Auctions, Sales & Pricing

For many video game collectors, there is no item more desirable than their own authentic arcade machine. NOW IT IS THE BEGINNING OF A FANTASTIC STORY.....it's Arcade Weekends.

I will point out every week that arcade units purchased from auction sites usually have inflated prices -- unless you live close enough to the seller that you can pick the unit up yourself. Many sellers know this and list their items as Local Pick-Ups only (marked here as LPUs). If you DO live near any of today's sellers, some of these deals aren't bad.

From Carol Stream, Illinois: Super Hang-On from Sega, BIN at $299, seller will ship for $380.

From Indianapolis, Indiana: Cruis'n World, BIN at $650, buyer arranges shipping if needed.

From Millburn, NJ: The Simpsons, $495 LPU, screen needs some adjustment repair.

From Ringgold, Georgia: Mario Bros. spotless, $900, will ship from North American Van Lines at buyer's expense.

From Mount Zion, Illinois: Marvel vs. Capcom, BIN at $575, seller will ship COD.

Same seller, same price, same deal: Donkey Kong Jr.

From Chicago, Illinois: Pac-Man and Mario Bros TOGETHER in the same auction, buyer arranges shipping if needed, reserve not met at $500.

Tune in next week for more!

...he said sarcastically. You may recall that a year ago, someone acquired one of the 26 Nintendo World Championships Gold carts and then -- to the great wincing pain of every collector watching -- dismantled it, then had the VGA laminate it in pieces. He claimed that framing it this way would keep it preserved longer, but others argued that wasn't true.

The dismembered cart then went up on eBay, and now it appears to be up once more -- unless this is a different cart; it's hard to tell from the description. God help us if there are two of these now, or if this becomes a trend. Pat, don't ever even think about it.

1990 Nintendo World Championships VGA Graded Near Mint

Also in the news:

1991 Nintendo/Pepsi Giveaway Sign A sizable artifact from Nintendo's dominating years.

Tagin' Dragon No, I didn't misspell that. They did, but I didn't. An unlicensed NES game with what is debatably the worst-looking cover out of any of them.

Pac-Man and Donkey Kong Jr. Cereal Boxes, with premiums included

Turok 2 Demo Cart Contains beta material, and current price is cheap. It's the European version, however, and I only know of the US version's value.

Super Mario World Game and Literal Watch
Same product, only in less fancy packaging

Happy Birthday, Princess Toadstool! Pretty darn overpriced...

Finally, if you have a Wii U, I'd like to remind you that today Super Metroid goes on sale for thirty cents. If you can only buy one item today, forget the watch, make it this.

Last minute post for this rare box set.

Auction Here

Awesome PAL NES Nintendo System / Game Bundle I have never seen before.

Auction Here

Also:

Pac-Man The First Family Of Video Games Store Display NEW IN BOX
RARE NINTENDO DISPLAY CASE 1980'S
PRE ORDER - DEAD ISLAND RIPTIDE ZOMBIE BAIT EDITION - French Exclusive Edition.
Sega SONIC Vintage VERY RARE Welcome To The Next Level 100% Silk Tie
Tekken Tag Tournament Winner's Jacket Lamb Skin Leather
XBox Original Launch Pillow Cushion Japan Promo
Jak and Daxter RARE 10th Aniversary Precursor Egg Statue
Pax East 2013 The Elder Scrolls Online Tamriel Beer Garden Tankard
Nintendo World Championships 1990 Original Lot Poster Ticket VIP Pass Powerfest
1982 Nintendo Donkey Kong Video Game Trash Garbage Can
Nintendo Of America Unopend Parcel With The Words "SUPER MARIO ALL STAR"
Bioshock Infinite Promo Wallet - Portfolio France Exclusive
Tomb Raider Lara Croft Memory Card PS1
Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Eau de Toilette
CAPCOM PROMO MEGAMAN BLUE DIGITAL CLOCK NIB GAMESTOP GIVEAWAY
Sega Sonic the Hedgehog SegaSonic Zippo Lighter Cigarette JAPAN IMPORT SEGA Dreamcast HKT-01 Dev Kit
FULL THROTTLE—1994 PROMOTIONAL BANNER
Atari items - stock certificate, annual report and game brochure
Donkey Kong animated art - two pieces from cereal commercial
Pacman animated art cels 6 different ones from cartoon show
Playstation Final Fantasy X2 Hori Tiny Bee Controller
Wholesale FAMICOM DISK Lot 100 Nintendo Disk System
MASS EFFECT 3: M-3 Predator Full Scale Replica
Need For Speed Undercover Steelbook SEALED VERY RARE Spain Exclusive
Super Mario Bros. 2 BRAND NEW FACTORY SEALED UNOPENED FOR NINTENDO NES
Elder Scrolls Online Dice tamriel beer garden - Did you miss the 347th annual tamriel beer garden after party at pax? Now you can feel like a drunken nord with this rare memorabilia from the party!! You get... 1 Wristband 1 coin 1 set of dice used at one of the two actual gambling tables in the party! The wristband has faded a little in one spot from me washing my hands. The set of dice were given to me by a Bethesda developer and were NOT available to guests at the party! At the end of the night I had a long and very enjoyable conversation about fallout with a Bethesda employee and when we where done talking he gave me this set of dice. They were used at one of the two actual gambling tables in the party and are super rare! I've tried some online searches on the dice and couldnt really find any info on them. I believe they were made specifically for the party by Bethesda.

Ended:

Frog Feast limited edition # 012/100 for the Sega Dreamcast
OG NES 80s Nintendo Fun Club Binder -- Mint, with forms
Clay Fighter SCULPTOR'S CUT Nintendo 64 INSTRUCTION MANUAL
Nintendo Super Famicom Majyuu Ou MAJUU OU King of Demons Complete
Rare And Collectable Gold Playstation One Ten Million Model

In this post I'll be sharing a few Famicom games.  Here we have Mother for the Famicom.  It wasn't released outside of Japan, however a finished USA prototype was found entitled Earthbound.  Here is an original copy of Mother complete with all the inserts as well as a strategy guide.  Of course, you will need to know a bit of Japanese to play it, but if you're an Earthbound/Mother fan, here's an item you can add to your collection.

Famicom Mother CIB with Map & Strategy Guide

Also:

Time Zone CIB signed by creator - Quirky, yet fun game.  Signed by the original creator!

Final Mission/SCAT Famicom Prototype - Fairly cheap prototype of an excellent SHMUP.

Sansuu 5 & 6 Nen Keisan Famicom Prototype -

Banana Famicom Prototype - Low price

Puss N Boots Famicom Prototype - Low price

Temple Del Sol Famicom Prototype - Released as Tombs and Treasures outside of Japan.

Family School for Famicom - This was a limited promotional game given to Daiichi Life Insurance Corp. customers.

Fresh box full of 20 NIB copies of Lode Runner for Famicom - In original shipping box.

Super Pro Fighter Q for Super Famicom - A backup unit released in 1993 for the SNES. It essentially saved ROM files to a 3.5" diskette.

Famicom Wars Promo VHS - A promotional VHS for the war simulation game Famicom Wars.

Recently Ended:

Bird Week prototype for Famicom

Goal Moero Pro Soccer prototype for Famicom

Tri Star Super 8 - Allows you to play NES and Famicom games on a Super Nintendo.

Famicom Kousen Juu Western Zapper - I thought you couldn't sell weapons on eBay... OH, that's a kid's toy? Comes with a holster belt too (which I assume isn't original, though it says made in japan)

Famicom Game Carrying Case

This item is truly a piece of history. To celebrate its 500th issue, Famitsu created the special "F-02" model Game Boy Light, which could be obtained one of two ways. A mail order model came in a rather bland package, marked as an F-02 "Skeleton" model. The second "event" model, shown here, was distributed at an event known as Game Circus, held on (according to this package) August 26, 1998 in Tokyo's famous Akihabara district. While only 5,000 of these units were produced, it's the signatures on this unopened package that make it one-of-a-kind. While age has made some of them hard to read, a few that could be made out by the owner are "Miki Watanabe" and "Paxel" - take those as you will.

The price on this item is incredibly high, but there's just too little documentation on the this particular model of Game Boy Light to tell how much it's actually worth. Combine that with the signatures, and I still think it's worthy of a headline.

Auction Here

Other Auctions:

Vectrex Video Game System - Just the same old Vectrex we know and love, but currently at a good price

NES Nintendo Entertainment System with 59 Games - Solid lot of NES games for a good current bid. Metal Storm and the many manuals caught my eye here

SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color Pocket Linker DEV KIT w/ 32m card - Development tool for the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Note that the auction description may be erroneous - the memory card pictured appears to be 16m, not 32m.

Brand New Pokemon Mini Smoochum Purple Pinball Mini - Nintendo's effort to expand on the success of the Pocket Pikachu virtual pet line, the Pokemon Mini was a small black-and-white handheld with a meager handfull of Pokemon minigame cartridges released for it. The only place I saw the Mini sold in person was at Pokemon Center NYC (now Nintendo World) - god knows where else they sold these

Super Metroid Poster - The Return Of The Mother Brain - Store Promo - A high asking price, but I've found nothing on this poster. Absolutely beautiful print of the box art.

PC-Engine PCE SHUTTLE Console System - Strange spaceship-shaped rendition of the PC Engine, sold only briefly in Japan. Not compatible with any of the CD-ROM2 addons.

SEGA ARCADE SPECIAL SUPERPLAY LASERDISC - In the heyday of LaserDiscs, which were primarily a rental medium in Japan, game publishers like Sega would send out promotional LaserDiscs to rental stores, showcasing their newest arcade titles. This is one such LaserDisc, which has footage of OutRun, Galaxy Force, and Thunder Blade. Condition of the disk may merit the price, despite it looking a bit steep

Sony PlayStation EMPLOYEE ONLY Custom Bar Set - The set itself is kind of bland, but that wooden case with the PS logo is snazzy...

This post includes what I think is extremely rare and absolutely amazing, a working and complete SNES kiosk. The link is below to follow, and trust me, if the asking price wasn’t so high, this post wouldn’t be shown because I would be buying this beauty:-)

RARE!! Super Nintendo Nes Store display kiosk!! FULL working display! This is absolutely something rare, the majority of the time this console’s kiosk display being sold off as just the table top half missing the plexiglass that covers the console, the original monitor not surviving the years and being replaced, and so on. This comes with it all, though the original key has not been mention. It’s a buy it now auction and the asking price is quite steep, so it will be interesting to see the kind of bites that might come along.

Nintendo 2001 NMI Meeting VHS Tape Set Rare Vintage Original Mario  Cool man! These tapes are from 2001 and are of the annual internal Nintendo Merchandising Inc. meetings. As described by the seller, they were only made available internally and showed the meeting and what was involved then. Cool little tidbit about Nintendo.

Nintendo 1996 POP Merchandising Manual Rare Vintage Original Another really sweet deal, this time from 1996. This was a training binder which was from Nintendo’s retail merchandisers training, and it includes internal information of what was going on behind the scenes at the time, as well as nifty little training info for doing a good job for the Big N.  There’s six days left to bid.

NEW Whac A Critter Sega Genesis Unreleased Game Cartridge EPROM Only Rom Chip An unreleased, but interesting unlicensed game that was designed for the Genesis. According to online research it had a couple different names depending upon where it was released, including names such as, Mallet Legend, Whac-A-Critter, and Mallet Legend’s Whac-A-Critter. It’s an exact clone of the arcade game, however as my memory serves me, there was a board you bought with a fake mallet and you would bash these buttons which corresponded to what was on-screen, the controller peripheral was unlicensed as well. This sale is JUST for the eprom cartridge only and is going cheap for buy it now, whereas you could perhaps make an offer as well.

Star Wars Store Display Sample Presentation Boards Rare Vintage Original  Once again we’ve got really rare internal marketing samples of the the 1998 game “Star Wars Rogue Squadron”. The material auctioned here was used to figure out what would be good to use for the in-store marketing, which at that time depended heavily on the retailer, as there was quite a large slew of video game retailers at the time.

The Hi-Saturn, a Saturn variant that you don't see every day of the week, was created by Hitachi in order to try and market the Saturn as an all-in-one media center. It built in the Video Decoder Card that the normal Saturn required to play VCD standard MPEG video, and allowed for the piggyback-style connection of a (non-included) karaoke unit made by Hitachi themselves. There were even several varieties of Hi-Saturn, one of which was meant for your car - complete with a TV tuner and GPS antenna!

Auction Here

Other Auctions:

Boxed BANDAI Playdia Console System - Part 1 of the Gallery of Failed Bandai Consoles: A 1994 CD-based console aimed at the kids market. Library was almost solely licensed quiz games... but hey, the console proper looks cool!

BANDAI / APPLE - PIPPIN ATMARK CONSOLE SYSTEM BOXED - Part 2 of the Gallery of Failed Bandai Consoles: The more infamous 1995 effort at a 3D game console with Apple. In reality, was just a reskinned PowerMac... you could even run a Mac OS desktop on it, with a little work. Low price

Metroid Samus Aran Pin Limited Edition E3 '02 Promo

Sonic the hedgehog retail display neon coming soon - Pretty unique store display sign. Worth the price? You decide

Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Silver Pendant

SNES HYPERBEAM KONAMI WIRELESS CONTROLLERS - The most cockamamie scheme I've ever seen for an infrared controller - reciever dishes. Listed for sheer absurdity

N64 Not for Resale NFR Demo Cart Jet Force Gemini Nintendo 64 - NFR prerelease version, much like the DK64 listed here not too long ago

 
Ending Soon/Recently Ended:

N64 Millennium 2000 Nintendo 64 Controller - The holy grail of N64 controllers. Claims of only 1000 made. Act fast!

Halo 2 Mylar Print Autographed - Autographed by Bungie artist Lorraine McLees

GAME BOY Pocket Printer Pokemon Pikachu Yellow

Hyper Shot with Space Shadow Set(FC) Famicom/NES J - Not gonna lie, this is one BADASS light gun

Back in 93/94 I was enthralled with the Atari Jaguar.  As I thumbed through a four page spread in GameFan Magazine, I dreamed about accurate arcade translations and some innovative titles that took advantage of the sprite engine and huge game controller of Atari's renaissance hardware.  Seventeen years after the dream ended some talented people are showing the machine still has lots of life.

Homebrew team Reboot recently announced on their Facebook page that their tribute to Jetpac, Full Circle: Rocketeer, is about 99% complete.  A definite throwback to the 1980s, Full Circle: Rocketeer has you racing around a single screen play field blasting at different enemy types as you build and fuel a small rocket at the bottom of the screen.  If you're a big Atari collector head over to Retro Collect to see the demo video and game features.

The Pluto isn't the only rare Sega item to come out of Assembler.  For those who may not remember, about two years ago a former Sega employee sold a beta copy of Geist Force to a group of Assembler members.  These guys then worked tirelessly to get the beta up and running on a production Dreamcast.  During the process, the guys needed new equipment to get it running so offered a professionally produced copy of the game to any members who contributed money to the effort.  Those copies were finally distributed in mid 2012 with few of them making it to any auction site.  I've only seen two up for sale with the second one up on Ebay right now.  It may be a bit expensive, but for any collector who missed out on the Assembler crowd source and doesn't know how to burn game files this is a perfect piece to flesh out a collection.

If you're reading gameSniped, it's a safe bet to assume you play games. For killing time with online flash and arcade games, everyone has their favourite site.

While you may not have heard of it, one decent little site is Playberry.com. Dedicated solely to browser based games, each is handpicked by the staff and well organized into categories.

Most popular genres are covered; Action, Adventure, Driving, Multiplayer, Puzzle, Shooting, Sports, Strategy. Some of the cool games they have available are Mario ATV Skill, Zombie Express, 3D Rookie Cop, Go Kart 3D.

If you're got some time to kill, than try to play games on playberry.com.

For many video game collectors, there is no item more desirable, no monolith more awe-inspiring to a man-cave, than their own authentic arcade machine. Get ready to drool like you're 18 weeks old....it's Arcade Weekends.

I will point out every week that arcade units purchased from auction sites usually have inflated prices -- unless you live close enough to the seller that you can pick the unit up yourself. Many sellers know this and list their items as Local Pick-Ups only (marked here as LPUs). If you DO live near any of today's sellers, some of these deals aren't bad.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: I wrote this anticipating it'd be posted on Saturday morning. Apologies if half of them are expired by now.

From Portland, Oregon: Asteroids, $800 BIN, but ends soon with no bids at.......$100?!? GREAT SCOTT, MARTY! (Okay, you're probably not going to get it for $100. Note that a set reserve price has not been met yet.)

From Walled Lake, Michigan: After Burner, BIN at $518.70, but ends soon with no bids at $399. LPU.

From Hagerstown, Maryland: Pac-Man Jr, very low BIN at $285, seller will ship if requested through North American Van Lines.

From Huntington Beach, California: Super Pac-Man, current high bid as of this moment is $224; LPU unless you arrange shipping yourself.

From Bridgeport, Connecticut: Deluxe Space Invaders from 1979; installed with the Braze Multi-Game Kit which plays eight variations of the game; ends soon; current high bid as of this writing is $152.50.

From Waterford, Michigan: Area 51: Site 4; ends soon; current high bid as of this writing is $110. Seller will ship for an added cost of $350.

1940 "Shoot The Mother-In-Law" Rifle Game Only $2,995, and it "almost works."

Ninja Gaiden, first released in arcades in 1988, and later on NES in 1989 (North America), is known for its innovative use of cutscenes and notorious difficulty. Prototypes of NES games are commonly sold for high prices, and are also highly coveted by those who don't want to own simply retail versions. Often times, a prototype will contain unfinished content, cut content, and edited content. These edits may be censoring of certain text and pixel-violence, or simple color swaps. This prototype of Ninja Gaiden already has 12 bids and is up to $770 USD, so if this is your "holy grail" of NES games/prototypes, you're going to have competition.

Video from seller

Auction for Ninja Gaiden Prototype

I have found some more arcade cabinets for sale, but I wish I knew more about them. I can not ensure that these are reasonably priced, but they are some easily recognized games.

NBA Jam Arcade Cabinet - Local pickup or have a shipping company take it to you

1979 Space Invaders Cabinet - Plays 8 games, has worldwide delivery

Donkey Kong Arcade Cabinet - Has free shipping, but the price seems pretty steep at $2,500 USD

Super Pac-Man Arcade Cabinet - Local pick-up in California, definitely has seen better days but does have bids

 Star Wars Trilogy Arcade Sit Down 1 / Star Wars Trilogy Arcade Sit Down 2 - I have found two auctions for the Trilogy Arcade, and they both seem to be in good condition.  They are both in the $2,000 USD range, and it seems like they might not be worth that much. One has bidding starting at $1,500 USD and the other is a buy-it-now or best offer at $1,995 USD -- both have a freight shipping option.

On to some other auctions

Exile: Wicked Phenomenon - A hard to find game for TurboGrafx-CD, one sold for only $45 USD last year and this one is up to $150 USD

 Signed Gold Legend of Zelda Game Boy Advance SP by Shigeru Miyamoto - This is something I wish I had the money for, as Miyamoto does not sign very many items.

Toys 'R Us Gold Nintendo 64 System In Box - Includes everything to operate, and includes Mario Kart 64