A few days ago when I walked into Omocha Souko I found that somebody had re-arranged the Famicom carts in one section of their rack so that the cart facing out on each peg was Jaleco`s Moero Pro Yakyu baseball game.I thought that was kind of amusing and made for an interesting photo opportunity. It isn`t often that you see so many copies of the same game in one place.
Moero Pro Yakyu (released as Bases Loaded on the NES) has got to be the most common Famicom game out there. They are just everywhere. The first Family Stadium is about the only other game I can think of that is anywhere near as easy to find.This fact acts as sort of a double edged tribute. On the one hand it indicates just how popular this game was back in 1987. They must have sold millions of copies of it for there to be this many still in existence 25 years later. Interestingly Family Stadium, the other most common Famicom cart, was also released in 1987, so that was quite a good year for Famicom baseball games.
On the other hand though it also indicates how poorly that popularity has held up over time. As with most sports games, I don`t think anybody has ever walked into a store specifically looking to buy a copy of Moero Pro Yakyu in years.
This also provides a little way of demonstrating how silly the pricing of games at Omocha Souko is. These are all the same game in basically the same condition, but the prices are all over the place. This one is selling for 100 yen (about $1.25), which is the cheapest price they normally put on any games (and it will be a hard sell even at that):
While this copy here they are asking 500 yen for (about $6):
The others all fit in somewhere between those two prices.Anyway, I just thought that was interesting.
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It seems as if the $6 one is slightly less faded. Not by much though, and certainly not for $5 less.
ReplyDeleteHard to tell, it could just be the angle I took the photo at. I think they literally just slap prices on games at random without much of a system. Sometimes that is good as you can score deals, sometimes though it just results in ridiculously overpriced games!
ReplyDeleteHaha, blimey! I can understand that many copies of a sports title - we have the same here with EA Sports games (grrr!) - but all at different prices? Are they all in different conditions or something? It doesn't look like it...
ReplyDeleteYes, sports titles are just everywhere. The prices on these are entirely random. Basically it just depends on who happened to be working when they got the game in. Person A puts 100 yen on it, but person B puts 500 even though they are identical. This is actually one of the things I like about that store - sometimes person A will put 100 yen price tags on some really good games! Conversely person B puts 500 yen on awful ones, but I just ignore those.
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