Warehouse Find? An Unopened Case of Famicom Choujin Ultra Baseball!

Just a couple of weeks after complaining about how Yahoo Auctions no longer has any deals I find myself in the awkward position of having a deal that I scored on Yahoo Auctions to report.

My score was the following box, full of the above pictured copies of Choujin Ultra Baseball!!

This is a fully intact factory case of Choujin Ultra baseball containing 20 brand new copies of the game.  Back in 1989 when this game came out this is what the clerks at Japan`s department stores pulled the games out of when they put them on the shelf.

It is exceedingly rare to find intact cases of Famicom games like this, I suspect that someone must have found a few gathering dust in a back corner of some store`s warehouse because cases of a few games have popped up on both Yahoo Auctions and even Ebay recently.  Anybody fancy a case of Super Chinese 2?  300$ on Ebay right now!

Anyway, open that case up and presto!  20 beauties all lined up in a row.

It is cool to have these because you can line the individual boxes up to recreate a 1980s store display atmosphere in the comfort of your own living room, like so:

The seller I got this off of actually had cases of 3 or 4 other titles, like Super Chinese 3 and Fighting Wars which I could have chosen from.  I zeroed in on Choujin Ultra Baseball though.  If it had been any other baseball title - or sports title for that matter - I probably would have gone for Super Chinese 3 instead.  But as I wrote about in a post a couple of years ago I absolutely love the cover art on Choujin Ultra Baseball.  I think it is far and away the best cover art on any sports game ever made - the colors are fantastic and it has a kind of pop art look to it which just really appeals to me.  10 Yard Fight is the only sports game I can think of which gives this one a run for its money.  Also just look how determined that batter looks

The case itself is also pretty neat.  It is of course just a cardboard box, but in addition to the cool FF Famicom Family logo on the top it also has the game logo on the side.

I am really curious about how this (and the other games which have unopened cases showing up on auction sites) survived so long intact.  There are a couple of things that puzzle me.  I would have expected that any dead stock Famicom cases would have been either: 1) games which there are a ton of (like Family Stadium or something) which they may have produced too many of, or 2) games released late in the Famicom`s lifetime when the system`s popularity was plummeting as the next generation Super Famicom took over the market.

Choujin Ultra Baseball doesn`t really fit into either of these categories though.  It wasn`t an overproduced game - loose carts pop up in game shops here and there but I`ve never seen them in bulk like with other Famicom baseball games.  Also it was released in 1989, a year before the Super Famicom came out and when the Famicom was still the king of the consoles in Japan.  It is a bit of a mystery.  I assume, as the title of this post suggests, that it was part of a warehouse find that somebody stumbled across.

Anyway, it is kind of a neat thing and I`m not exactly sure what I will do with it.  I definitely will NOT be breaking it up.  This sort of thing just demands that it be kept together - the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts.  Still, what do you do with 20 copies of the same game?  I mean, other than playing 1980s Japanese department store with them.

Nintendo in the 60s, Man, the 60s! Ultra Machine!

As I have stated on here numerous times, I like to go to a store called Omocha Souko on a regular basis in order to hunt for retro video games. I go so frequently that I now have an awkward time answering the question "what is your hobby?" If I were to answer honestly I would say "I go to a store called Omocha Souko 3 or 4 times a week to look through their junk bins for old video game stuff that I collect and then write about on my blog. That is my hobby."

As this answer provides too much detail on too obscure an area of interest, I usually just say "hiking" instead.

At any rate, what I don't write about too much on here is the fact that Omocha Souko is not just a video game store, it is also a big used-stuff store. The name "Omocha Souko" actually means "toy warehouse" in Japanese. About half of the first floor is, in fact, taken up by toys.
Usually I bypass this area and head straight to the second floor for the video games, but on occasion I will browse the toy section before heading up there. Yesterday I did just that and it was a good thing I did, for on one shelf they had just put this baby out:
The Nintendo Ultra Machine!!!

This thing is so awesome I don't know where to begin. Until about a year ago information on old Nintendo toys like this was hard to come by, but now thanks to Erik's excellent Before Mario blog the entire world now has a wonderful archive of information about these things which I will now blatantly rip off by quoting a few facts that he put up there.

Released in 1967 this toy was designed by none other than the late Gunpei Yokoi, perhaps better known to video game history as the creator of the Game and Watch and Game Boys!

OK, enough of the ripping off (but do check out Before Mario if you haven't already, its really a great blog). Lets look at what I got.

Opening up the box the first thing we have is:
A totally awesome Ultra Machine flyer! The reverse of this has the instructions on how to set up the machine. Note in the lower left corner there is an ad for replacement balls (100 yen per box). This is actually quite cool though and probably worth what I paid for the thing (2000 yen) itself. I might frame it someday as a piece of pop art.

Under that we have:
YES! Everything is complete!! Even the balls are all still there!

This made me quite excited as about a year ago I actually purchased another later version of this same toy that was released in the late 1970s:
The Ultra Machine DX. It is very similar to the original Ultra Machine, but as you can see from this photo the box on it was almost destroyed. It was also missing the balls and had a crack on the blue plastic part. It was only 800 yen though so I was quite satisfied with it at the time.

My new Ultra Machine though is not only complete but in pristine condition.
I love that blue Nintendo bat:
The bat that came with the later Ultra Machine DX is gray, nowhere near as sexy.

The box is pretty cool too:
Anyway, I just love this thing. It was quite the bargain too for only 2000 yen. An Ebay search just turned up one with a BIN price of 300$. That is on the high side, but still, what a bargain.


More of my Old-School Nintendo Finds from the 60s and 70s:
-Mandarake Finds: Kousenjuu SP Gun and Old School Star Wars Stuff
-Flea Market Finds: Nintendo Batting Practice with Koichi Tabuchi and Sadaharu Oh
-Nintendo Color TV Game 15
-Mega Bargain of the Day: Kousenjuu SP Electro Safari

Flea Market Finds Part 2: Nintendo Batting Practice with Koichi Tabuchi and Sadaharu Oh

This is the other thing I bought at the flea market yesterday. We were wandering the vendors when I spotted this in the middle of a bunch of junk at one of them run by a cheerful middle aged woman. It was only 800 yen (about 10 bucks) so I snapped it up, even though the box (and the thing itself) is in pretty rough shape.

What is it, you may ask? It is Nintendo's Ultramachine DX, a batting practice game for kids. I've wanted one of these since I saw it on Erik's great Before Mario blog, where he has done an excellent write-up about it with some good pics of the other versions released.

Not wanting to repeat what Erik has already written I'll just add a few observations of my own about this thing. As the box indicates, it was released in 1977 by Nintendo:
Mine was not complete as it didn't come with any of the ping-pong balls that they originally came with. It seemed to have everything else though:
My favorite part is the telescoping Nintendo bat. Now it is full length:
And blammo - now it is half size:
I think just this bat with "Nintendo" written on it like that was worth the 800 yen.

Anyway, the two players on the box are Sadaharu Oh of the Yomiuri Giants and Koichi Tabuchi of the Hanshin Tigers. These are actually two of the greatest players in Japanese baseball history, so this is of interest not just as a Nintendo thing but also as a piece of baseball memorabilia.

Sadaharu Oh is particularly well known as the world career home run champ, having gone deep 868 times in a 22 year career, over a hundred more than Hank Aaron and about 400 more than Barry Bonds hit before his head ballooned.

I particularly like this photo on the side of the box:
This shows off Oh's unusual batting stance perfectly. He used to stand with one leg raised and wait for the ball to come, something very few players have ever done.

Both of these players, incidentally, at one point managed my local team, the Hawks. Tabuchi managed them in the early 90s, before my time, but Oh managed for several years and only retired after the 2008 season. So I have an extra bit of interest in this thing.

I'm not too sure if it works or not, it needs batteries which I don't have and, as I mentioned above, I don't have any of the balls it came with. Either way though I'm pretty happy with it. It just looks kind of neat.

Related Posts:

- Flea Market Finds Part 1: Epoch Cassette Vision
- Famicom Baseball!

Famicom Baseball! Reflections on the Art and More Japanese Video Game Slang

Spring is my favorite season of all. Mainly for the warm weather. But also because it is when my favorite sport of all starts up again: baseball!

The Famicom has an awful lot of baseball games for it. I'm pretty sure there are more Famicom baseball games than any other single type of game. This makes sense as Baseball is definitely the most popular sport in this country (yet another reason why I like living here).

In the comments section of my last post on Ice Climber Nate astutely pointed out that there are a lot of interesting Famicom slang related to Namco's Family Stadium series of baseball games, which were the most popular baseball games on the Famicom (Jaleco's Moero Pro Yakyuu was also popular though). So I thought I would do a post here about Famicom baseball. In the first part of this post I offer some thoughts on the genre of Famicom baseball games and their artistic qualities. In the second part I offer a continuation of my series on Japanese Famicom slang with some entries on baseball games.

First, a little word about Famicom baseball and Family Stadiumin particular:
If you were a baseball loving kid in the English speaking world in the 80s as I was, you probably longed to play this game's American release, Tengen's R. B.I. Baseball. This is a really great game, partly because it just plays well, but also because it was the game that used actual Major League player names rather than just generic ones.

I didn't have this game as a kid. Instead I had Bases Loaded 3, which used generic teams and player names, much to my disappointment. That game had its predecessor on the Famicom in Jaleco's Moero Pro Yakyuu:Not a bad game. This one holds the record for being the cheapest Famicom game I have ever purchased: 10 yen. It actually had a "10 yen" price tag on it and everything.

Anyway, a lot of people criticize older Baseball (and other sports games) for not aging well. The clumsy graphics and controls are no match for today's games. I have to admit that this is one of the few genres (along with racing games) where I fully acknowledge and embrace the newer consoles. About the only games I play on my PS2 are Baseball and racing games. Still though, I could never completely abandon my old Famicom baseball games.

One of the main points of brilliance in the early baseball video games is their coincidental similarities with American folk artist's rendering of baseball games. Look at this painting by the brilliant Ralph Fasanella ("Night Game - 'tis a bunt"):
Doesn't that field with those players bear a strong resemblance to the way early baseball video game designers made their field's look? The simplicity brings to mind Nintendo's first baseball game on the Famicom (the descriptively titled "Baseball"):The elements of folk art aren't just found in the games but on their labels as well. Probably the best in my opinion is an obscure old game called Chounin Ultra Baseball:
The use of color is perfectly balanced on that cover art. The simplicity of the background and the bold, yellow letters perfectly compliments the detail on the player's jersey and the look of determination on his face. I really love this cart.

OK, now on with the baseball slang. Courtesy of Tatta Hitori no Famicom Shonen's excellent glossary of terms. In no particular order:

コントローラー落とし　("Controller Otoshi") - when you are about to lose, you drop your controller on the Famicom, causing it to stop working, thus nullifying the game's results. Literally "Controller drop".

侍打法 ("Samurai Dahou") - I have a little trouble understanding the precise meaning of this as it is written, but basically this is a type of hit where you stop the bat at one of the corners of the plate. Literally "Samurai hit".

ハットリ打法 ("Hattori Dahou") - another name for a hit similar to Samurai Dahou. The name comes from the game Ninja Hattori Kun.

ピッピ ("Pi-pi") - The sound the pitcher makes in Family Stadium. Can be used in a sentence like "Does anyone want to Pi-pi?" (ie does anyone want to pitch?). Of course in English if you ask that it sounds like you are asking if anyone wants to urinate, so you should probably use this with extreme caution.

武士なさ (Bushi nasa") - This took me a bit of time to figure out, but basically it means to have mercy on your opponent. Like if it is the 9th inning with two outs and your opponent hits a fly ball to right that will end the game, you might choose to let it drop instead. Comes from an old Samurai expression ("Bushi" is another word for Samurai).

雨天中止 ("Utenchuushi") - literally "game called due to rain". Use this phrase when you are losing (and frustrated) and hit the "reset" button. Can also use "teiden" (blackout), "Bochittona" (a word that mimics the sound of a button being pushed) or "hekkushon" (Achooooo!).

Related Posts

Dining a la carte: Ice Climber Famicom Japanese

Famicom History Part 2: Japanese Famicom Slang 101