Hardest system to find complete games for?

[ceti alpha]

I always had a hard time finding TG16 Hu-card games in general when i started collecting years ago especially complete with the box, so i just gave up on the box and went for card, case, sleeve and manual, easier to display and store as well. The CD/Duo games are toughies to.

Of my complete collection of the US TG16 hucards (minus most boxes) surprising i have never found one in the wild, loose or complete!!!
Maybe with only Radio Shack selling TG16 stuff back in the day there seems to be not much on my Canadian home land to be found

I hear ya Sparks. It's a virtual TG wasteland up here in the Great White North.

[DreamTR]

Black Tiger, I am talking US releases. And it's not true that any system with a "larger library" is going to be harder to find games for.

Try collecting Japanese MSX PaLCOM LD games. Those aren't easy to find sometimes.


A US TurboGrafx collection is very easily obtainable. There are no "impossible" to find titles at all for that system. Magical Chase and Dynastic Hero are the closest, and those pop up on ebay moreso than titles for other systems.

I think a lot of people really just don't collect for other systems and know what is tough to get. Try collecting boxed original B & W Game Boy games. WHo kept the boxes for those? The value is not even high on those. Same for Game Gear. Those are way harder systems to complete than TG16. All you really need to complete TG16 is money, that's about it. The others (especially Atari 2600) you have wait and wait and may never get another chance. Video Life? Gauntlet? We're talking less than 20 of each that exist. I think 3,000 (smallest run of a TG game) is far more than 20 in terms of collecting.

Also, about Laseractive, are we talking US or Japan here? US can be hard. Road Prosecutor, JB Harold, 3D Museum, those are not easy to find. Time Gal is usually just expensive, but I'm telling ya, some games you can go YEARS without seeing boxes for other systems.

Also, Black Tiger: Space Fantasy Zone someone just made on CDrs. That's actually $150 and quite easy to find, looks just like a real TG game cept for the CDr bottom, but that's not even an official release.

[geepee16]

i don' even know if a print run of 20 should / would count as an official release but i guess it's a different debate altogether. 

of mainstream systems, i still have to go with the turbo/pce route as being the most difficult.  you have games that had low print runs (dead of the brain 1&2 and all of those hudson special editions), games that few want to part with (coryoon) , fakes to sort through (sapphire), games with lots of packaging (spine cards, posters, etc) rare accessories (try finding a SGX powerbase or pce speakers),  and ridiculously hard to find/overpriced games like indo no honou which , the last time i saw it, was $4,500. (i have only ever seen it twice and i have been to my share of stores in europe, north america and japan). we can take money into account too but also TIME and availablility.  there are many stores out there you could drive to and perhaps find that snes or genny game you were looking for.  how many people ever carried and how many stores ever had turbo stuff? radio shack? the sears catalog? eb? toys r us? select kmarts?  factor in the fact that lots of turbo stuff was wiped in when telegames usa ws hit by that tornado which destroyed their warehouse and the fact that whatever TTI bought back from retailers and/or couldn't resell had to be destroyed and it was a LOT of stuff.  basically, whatever telegames usa and uk, tzd and the LA based turbo re-seller (whose name escapes me at the moment) and others didn't buy was destroyed. 

so, as long as we are talking mainstream, the turbo/pce library takes the cake with the neo geo the more expensive (and there is SUCH a big problem with fakes there too). 

if we leave the mainstream, then it's all just about impossible.  there were only like 54,000 pippins even released in north america and japan. laseractive, pippin, cd32, marty, playdia- i would rank as follows from hardest on down:

pippin
laseractive
marty
cd32
playdia (i think i just completed my playdia collection this week but need to confirm it)


in the end, it depends on our locations, experiences, available funds, language ability (it's easier to find some stuff on jp sites if you speak the language) and so on...

[SignOfZeta]

Wait, where are you buying loose LaserActive games? I'm pretty sure I've never seen a loose LA game in my life.

I'm not talking about loose, I am talking about simply being able to find a copy of a specific game you want in the first place.  It can be damn hard to find ANYONE selling some titles.

Well the original post wasn't about the hardest collection to complete, but rather the system where most of the time the games themselves aren't "complete", his definition of "complete" including the useless US-only cardboard boxes that everyone threw away the minute they got the game. I tend to agree with him thinking its US-TG16 because all that super rare shit is usually found complete from my experience. I have never seen a loose Playdia game for sale. Not even once.

[Michael Helgeson]

the fact that whatever TTI bought back from retailers and/or couldn't resell had to be destroyed and it was a LOT of stuff. 

Everything from TTI that they still had left over got split between SmartWorks and TZD. Nothing was destroyed.

[geepee16]

that is incorrect.  there were truckloads of inventory that TTI was left with.  it was not given to charity let alone to any business.  the guys who became tzd bought what they could and smart works bought some software and a bunch of duos.  telegames bought stuff then and even before that.  when TTI was liquidated, remaining unsold stock had to be destroyed and it was.  the name of the person who ordered it (based on the advice of lawyers ) was a guy named takashi shingu (originally from and still with nec) who was on the original tg16 team in woodale, illinois and then moved over to the newly-formed tti when they set up shop in california.  over twenty truckloads of full pallets of new inventory were crushed by d9 caterpillar bulldozers.  i'm told that the polaroids of that day still exist.

and while i am 100% certain of the above i am less certain about this: smart works didn't buy very much and never can be said to have had all that much in the way of turbo merchandise. however, i may be wrong on that.
   

[Michael Helgeson]

My understanding of this all was from TZD and Smart Works themselves. Back in the early days,95,when TZD was friendly they told me they nabbed it all software wise when TTI closed out. I dont know how many were supposed to be,but at least acouple of the TZD people were from TTI. Smart Works got ahold of most all of the remainder of the hardware TGCD wise and a ton of Duos due to the falling out of the development of the DUO to PC card that wa sneve rmarketed.

Due to this they also had  a agreement with NEC that was on legal contract that they were the only ones allowed to sell said hardware,not TZD, and that TZD could only trade out Duos for TGcd decks via trade in with cash until the contract expired. This was supposed to help aid in them making back money that was spent in development on the Duo to PC card.

So really what you are saying really contradicts what TZD themselves had stated,so yea if you have proof with pics,that would be a great find info wise. Id also love to see the crushed pallets pics. That would be interesting.

[SignOfZeta]

that is incorrect.  there were truckloads of inventory that TTI was left with.  it was not given to charity let alone to any business.  the guys who became tzd bought what they could and smart works bought some software and a bunch of duos.  telegames bought stuff then and even before that.  when TTI was liquidated, remaining unsold stock had to be destroyed and it was.  the name of the person who ordered it (based on the advice of lawyers ) was a guy named takashi shingu (originally from and still with nec) who was on the original tg16 team in woodale, illinois and then moved over to the newly-formed tti when they set up shop in california.  over twenty truckloads of full pallets of new inventory were crushed by d9 caterpillar bulldozers.  i'm told that the polaroids of that day still exist.

and while i am 100% certain of the above i am less certain about this: smart works didn't buy very much and never can be said to have had all that much in the way of turbo merchandise. however, i may be wrong on that.
   

Hm...am I the only one that has never heard this story before, or anything like it?

[Michael Helgeson]

Same here,to this day I dont think anyone has heard this story until geepee16 posted it here. For that matter I tried to look up anything related to it on google,ect,including the name given (takashi shingu ) in diff searches which came up with no results. Considering what I was told by actual TZD people along with the people who pointed them out to me from the NEC help line back then,and Smart Works,Im not very inclined to give that story any credit without some documented proof and pics of the stock being destroyed.

[DreamTR]

geepee: 20 games via Mail order even= official release, just not available in stores, but that is back in the 2600 days. THe thread really was about US Turbo games, not PC Engine in general, which is a whole other beast, so I stand by in terms of US systems to collect for, the TG 16 is further down the list in terms of difficulty. Game Boy is a much higher beast in terms of completeness.

AS far as Sapphire goes, that second print run is real, it's not a CDr, just a second print run, so I'm not sure why anyone honestly thinks that is a bootleg. Do we consider SNES Majesco or Game Gear releases that have far worse box art and cart label stickers "bootlegs" as well? Really baffles me the logic on that one.

[spenoza]

I am inclined to believe geepee16. There are a number of corporate and insurance reasons companies must destroy merchandise, and I doubt the TZD crew ever had enough investment capital to truly buy every piece of unsold inventory.

[Michael Helgeson]

I am inclined to believe geepee16. There are a number of corporate and insurance reasons companies must destroy merchandise, and I doubt the TZD crew ever had enough investment capital to truly buy every piece of unsold inventory.

Im less likely to believe it due to the fact that I fail to see why ex-TTI employees starting TZD would pass over quality stuff about to be destroyed to instead purchase pallets of Turrican,TV Sports,Power Golf,and Andre Panza. Not only that,but the print runs for the TTI released titles were not that large......and its mostly the TTI titles that were sent back in 93-94,not the old stock titles as they had been sitting in storage already for  a very long time due to low demand for them and no shelf space as it was dedicated to new titles.

 None of the stores near me even sent anything back. They discounted it and it all sold out,and even before the systems death when they sold out of  atitle they never got more in,they just gave the shelf space up for a newer one. Only Toys R Us,EB,Babbages and Software Ect. sold Turbo stuff here. No one else did. And again,no one as of yet has mentioned this mass destruction story,not even TZD's Steve who was the last functioning employee at TTI.

[geepee16]

Due to this they also had  a agreement with NEC that was on legal contract that they were the only ones allowed to sell said hardware,not TZD, and that TZD could only trade out Duos for TGcd decks via trade in with cash until the contract expired. This was supposed to help aid in them making back money that was spent in development on the Duo to PC card.

So really what you are saying really contradicts what TZD themselves had stated,so yea if you have proof with pics,that would be a great find info wise. Id also love to see the crushed pallets pics. That would be interesting.

it's pretty unreasonable to put me or anyone to task of unearthing photos and documents relating to those days.  almost no one could do it and a lot of those things wouldn't be easily made available.  furthermore, guys like shingu-san have long since moved on.  he, for example was - last i heard - selling monitors or something like that for nec in europe.  so, if you're waiting for me to open my magic box to produce the proof you need, well, don't hold your breath for very long, please.

the fact that you have never heard the story has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not it is true.  until very recently, i don't think ANY of us knew that there were two shooters hidden in tokimeki memorial- a game we've had under our noses for 15 years.

destruction of unsold merchandise is extremely common- especially when a business is going under.  in order to have debts forgiven and be liquidated, all assets must be sold.  whatever is not sold may NOT be kept in most cases because that company has to be zeroed out without and value on the books.  you can't just keep your products lying around and make profit in the future when you owe money now.

TZD was a private company which had to buy wahtever it had.  NEC gave them almost nothing except for authorization and the responsibility to meet the 7 year product service requirement for the turbo.  had TTI not been around, NEC would have HAD to keep an office open to handle product service.  since they wanted out, they made the two guys who started tzd (we know one, i cannot say the other's name because he is still very much around) a good offer to bear that responsibility but could not give them unsold stock because that stuff had to be accounted for in TTI's liquidation.

the guys guys who started tzd bought as much as they could but -and they BOTH have told me this- did not buy everything and at the end of 1993/early 94, stuff was destroyed.  it happened to the colecovision. it happened to several atari games (mostly notoriously ET).

believe it or not.  heard it or not, that is the truth.  i am not given to making stuff up because i feel like it.  i have met, talked to, interviewed and had dinner with lots of people who were there including the kudo family (hudson's founders), ikeda, takahashi and several others who would not like to be named.  take it as you will but you will never be able to say again that you have never heard the story because you just got it.

[Michael Helgeson]

Just because you put up a wild tale does not make said wild tale true. You cant offer a shred of valid proof to back up your stories,yet you are sitting here saying you wined and dined with the best of them... who are you exactly? What makes you so important,and why is it you had all of these experiences you can recount yet cant prove any of it happened? Why exactly should we believe any of this?

See,its quite the opposite,why should anyone here just suddenly believe some wild unheard of story you just decided to spit out there. Its not unreasonable to ask someone to provide some kind of proof to back up such a wildly fantastic,or horrible, story as the one you provided.

[vestcoat]

Great story Geepee.  Thanks for the info!

AS far as Sapphire goes, that second print run is real, it's not a CDr, just a second print run, so I'm not sure why anyone honestly thinks that is a bootleg. Do we consider SNES Majesco or Game Gear releases that have far worse box art and cart label stickers "bootlegs" as well? Really baffles me the logic on that one.

There were heated debates about this when that guy sold a box of them on here a couple years ago and it's my impression that bootleg believers won out.  The fact that it's a real CD doesn't mean anything. 
Support for the 2nd printing argument basically amounts to "well, it looks fairly professional."  Most of the people who maintain this stance are either sellers trying to sell a bootleg for too much money or collectors who can't bear the thought that they got ripped off and their collection is incomplete.
I too would prefer to own a "2nd printing" but, without one shred of evidence to back the theory, the following points make me believe otherwise:
*Rarity and market conditions sufficient motivation for bootleggers.
*Inferior quality printing and static pop before the first cinema
*Manufacture of real PCE format CDs still possible when the bootlegs began to appear around 2002-03
*A board member (whose name escapes me) described his shopping experiences while visiting Japan awhile back and reported general knowledge of the Sapphire bootleg among store owners.
*Suspicious "care4data" origins.
*No evidence of any "re-release" through official channels or established outlets.  Instead, people started to show up with weird, different looking copies that bought on ebay, a forum, or a store that happened to have one copy.