32 replies to this topic

[CincYnoTi]

several people have confirmed that a production version of NTSC asterix exists. so far, the following have posted about owning one of these:


myself
queen of the felines boxed
rick weis boxed
cpuwiz boxed
steve woita (and whoever else he has sold one to) boxed

anyone else here have an ntsc asterix?

[MegaManFan]

This has to be the easiest ownership list in history. All you have to do is call Woita for updates. Nobody's gonna have one any other way.

[sku_u]

Make it even easier. Just ask Steve Wiota how many actual copies of this game he has. There's your final number until someone discovers another case of Asterix carts.

I still don't see why these would be considered a 10 until there is actual proof of ownership from someone who owns a copy that cannot be traced back to Steve Wiota.

R had said that Rick got his copy 4 years ago. Was his also from Wiota's "case"?

Let's consider Red Label NTSC Yars' Revenge a 10 while we're at it!

so I can make a lot off it on Ebay

[MegaManFan]

sku_u said:

Let's consider Red Label NTSC Yars' Revenge a 10 while we're at it!

so I can make a lot off it on ePay

Somebody already got $7 for one off of me. *heh* Another red in my set though, I can't complain.

[CPUWIZ]

sku_u said:

I still don't see why these would be considered a 10 until there is actual proof of ownership from someone who owns a copy that cannot be traced back to Steve Wiota.  

R had said that Rick got his copy 4 years ago.  Was his also from Wiota's "case"?

Both Rick and Tony did not get theirs from Steve Woita.

[Marco]

Which is exactly why this probably isn't a 10

Cheers,
Marco

[CincYnoTi]

sigh.

i would say that among the games released by atari, it is more rare than quadrun and obelix, as of today, because there are far far fewer ntsc asterix discovered than those other two. it is undetermined if if is more rare than ntsc bmx and motorodeo. so, if we assign it a rarity, i would assign it a number more rare than quadrun and equal to motorodeo/bmx. use whatever scale you want to make that assignment.

i think debating which 10s deserve to be 10s and whether there are undiscovered hundreds of any title doesn't help putting this single title amongst its peers as we understand them today.

[MegaManFan]

CPUWIZ said:

Both Rick and Tony did not get theirs from Steve Woita.

:!: Damn. What are their sources, I wonder?

[Marco]

CincYnoTi said:

i think debating which 10s deserve to be 10s and whether there are undiscovered hundreds of any title doesn't help putting this single title amongst its peers as we understand them today.

I do think it is a useful discussion. Rarity, as we use it, is mostly equal to availability, since we hardly have any production numbers. So, we deterime rarity upon how often it appears, in thriftstores, on eBay, on newsgroups, in trade offers, etc. Over time, it has provided us with some kind of 'objective' measure of rarity.

However, we all know our system has a number of flaws. Therefor, I think that we should not ignore other sources, that might get us an even more corroborated indication of a game's rarity. It could be production numbers (Magicard, Video Life, Cubicolor, Atlantis II), historic events (a game being for sale for just a couple of days/weeks (Lochjaw)), or logic (how many people would actually go for a $100 monogrammed Space Chase or Birthday Mania).

What I'm trying to establish - through logic - is if it somehow makes sense that Atari would produce, say, only one or two cases of NTSC Asterix, BMX and Motorodeo. For now, I find that hard to believe. But I'm only trying to open a discussion, so if someone comes up with a theory or explanation (maybe they only made like a 100 copies for demo purposes?), I'm very willing to change my mind.

Cheers,
Marco


PS: it's obvious that people don't like the lowering of rarities sometimes, because they own the games themselves and they feel it might lower the status of their collection. I wanted to make clear that I'm not saying that NTSC Asterix is not a 10 because I don't have it myself (I reserved mine some time ago) or because I don't like those darn NTSC collectors

[Tempest]

Quote

how many people would actually go for a $100 monogrammed Space Chase or Birthday Mania

Has anyone actually found a Birthday Mania cart yet?

Tempest

[Marco]

Tempest said:

Has anyone actually found a Birthday Mania cart yet?

Yes, I know a (long time) collector who owns one. I had never heard about the cart, before he told me that he had it in his collection.

Cheers,
Marco

[sku_u]

Marco said:

Tempest said:

Has anyone actually found a Birthday Mania cart yet?

Yes, I know a (long time) collector who owns one. I had never heard about the cart, before he told me that he had it in his collection.

Cheers,
Marco

Is Birthday Mania an actual game or is it similar to the monogrammed Spacechase? You are the only person I've ever seen mention that they actually know someone who has this.

[CincYnoTi]

[quote="Marco"][quote=CincYnoTi]i think debating which 10s deserve to be 10s and whether there are undiscovered hundreds of any title doesn't help putting this single title amongst its peers as we understand them today.[/quote]

I do think it is a useful discussion. Rarity, as we use it, is mostly equal to availability, since we hardly have any production numbers. So, we deterime rarity upon how often it appears, in thriftstores, on eBay, on newsgroups, in trade offers, etc. Over time, it has provided us with some kind of 'objective' measure of rarity.

However, we all know our system has a number of flaws. Therefor, I think that we should not ignore other sources, that might get us an even more corroborated indication of a game's rarity. It could be production numbers (Magicard, Video Life, Cubicolor, Atlantis II), historic events (a game being for sale for just a couple of days/weeks (Lochjaw)), or logic (how many people would actually go for a $100 monogrammed Space Chase or Birthday Mania).

What I'm trying to establish - through logic - is if it somehow makes sense that Atari would produce, say, only one or two cases of NTSC Asterix, BMX and Motorodeo. For now, I find that hard to believe. But I'm only trying to open a discussion, so if someone comes up with a theory or explanation (maybe they only made like a 100 copies for demo purposes?), I'm very willing to change my mind.

Cheers,
Marco

[quote]

i agree on the interest value of a speculative discussion. "for today" with the confirmed information we know of "today", i was saying that with we should continue to rate games using the current system, with all its flaws. using today's rating system with known information as of today, i think ntsc asterix is roughly the same rarity as ntsc motorodeo and bmx, and less common than quadrun.

now if some event happens in the future to invalidate our assumptions of today, well, then we can update the rarity guide when that happens. that kind of event has already happened with berenstain bears and ntsc x-man, and thus their rarity is no longer a 10.

if atari was willing to make a limited production run of pepsi invaders...along with a box, it is not impossible to believe they made limited runs of other games also.

as of today, do you think it is more likely that a ntsc bmx or ntsc asterix will be found in a thrift shop or that a music machine will be found in a thrift shop (or ebay for that matter)?

[Marco]

CincYnoTi said:

If atari was willing to make a limited production run of pepsi invaders...along with a box, it is not impossible to believe they made limited runs of other games also.

Pepsi probably paid Atari a lot of money to release those. In general though, don't know Atari's strategy for a game's release. Does anyone have any knowledge about this? Did they produce one hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand copies at the launch date?

I'm still very much looking for a good theory on what could have happened with these releases. Why oh why would there only be a handful of them? Anyone?

Quote

as of today, do you think it is more likely that a ntsc bmx or ntsc asterix will be found in a thrift shop or that a music machine will be found in a thrift shop (or ebay for that matter)?

None of them are 10s in my book, but I get your point. However, replace Music Machine with Air Raid and my answer would be 'the Atari titles'. For some reason, I just cannot believe that Atari produced 2600 games can be that rare. Maybe I'm just silly or stubborn, or both

Cheers.
Marco

[sku_u]

Marco said:

I'm still very much looking for a good theory on what could have happened with these releases. Why oh why would there only be a handful of them? Anyone?

Some possible reasons:

1. The carts mentioned were specifically made with a Canadian audience in mind. Perhaps in Atari's later more desparate years, Atari made a more serious push into the Canadian market with mixed results.

2. These were test releases where Atari was trying to rediscover their target audience. Unfortunately, they were now competing with far superiour systems like the SMS and NES systems so they found that there is little to no market.

3. The carts were produced, but the popularity of these titles tanked, so Atari decided to reuse the cart cases for other projects, possibly even for 7800 releases.

4. These carts were actually released in the US first, and when Atari saw that they were not selling, subsequent pressings, whether they were NTSC or PAL, were sent off to Europe where the 2600 still had a relatively loyal following.

5. These carts ARE out there sitting in some reseller's warehouse (Odd Job or Job Lot, maybe?) and the reseller has no idea what they are or if they would sell if they were thrown into the stores.

6. These carts are sitting in warehouses lost and forgotton, waiting to be discovered.

7. You secretly bought all of them when Atari was going out of business and plan on holding onto all of them, only selling one a year so the games can retain their rarity.

I agree with you that Motorodeo, Obelix, Ikari Warriers, BMX Airmaster and Asterix are out there in larger numbers. They were not Atari Club releases, so there's no reason to believe that games that were designed to be released in large quantities would only be available in small numbers.

At the same time, until more is found out about these games, their rarities should remain as they are. Love it or hate it, rarity is a very helpful tool that can be used to help determine how much a buyer is willing to spend on a given item.

[Marco]

sku_u said:

I agree with you that Motorodeo, Obelix, Ikari Warriers, BMX Airmaster and Asterix are out there in larger numbers.  They were not Atari Club releases, so there's no reason to believe that games that were designed to be released in large quantities would only be available in small numbers.

That's what I'm thinking. I like some of your theories. I'm guessing that all these titles were made in similar quantities, but, for some reason, many of them never left the warehouses. Maybe they were even destroyed. In that case, perhaps these are indeed 10s (well, except for Obelix).

Quote

At the same time, until more is found out about these games, their rarities should remain as they are.  Love it or hate it, rarity is a very helpful tool that can be used to help determine how much a buyer is willing to spend on a given item.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't hate rarity ratings, I just believe that most Atari games are not as rare as we often want them to be.

Cheers,
Marco

[CincYnoTi]

Marco said:

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't hate rarity ratings, I just believe that most Atari games are not as rare as we often want them to be.

Cheers,
Marco

for the rare games i do not have, i find quite the opposite: they are not as common nor as cheap as i want them to be.

you could help though. each time you have an extra one of the rarity 9 or 10 games, post them on atariage at much less than what the ebay prices are and paraphrase yourself:

"this magicard game is not as rare as you think, so i'm going to sell it for $100"

[Marco]

Hahahaha, you wish! Luckily the AA database does not dictate market prices and it's us fools that determine the value of the goodies

Cheers,
Marco

[MegaManFan]

It's not hard to believe why 10's are indeed 10's.

* If they were print runs at the end of Atari's first light cycle, they were small at best.
* If they were print runs for a small market (religious or educational) there just aren't many.
* If nobody believed they were valuable, nobody bothered to save them. They got thrown away.
* If the manufacturers or the storage facilities didn't see value in them, they got destroyed.

You combine all these factors together and that's why a 10 is a 10.

[CincYnoTi]

Marco said:

CincYnoTi said:

as of today, do you think it is more likely that a ntsc bmx or ntsc asterix will be found in a thrift shop or that a music machine will be found in a thrift shop (or ebay for that matter)?

None of them are 10s in my book, but I get your point. However, replace Music Machine with Air Raid and my answer would be 'the Atari titles'. For some reason, I just cannot believe that Atari produced 2600 games can be that rare. Maybe I'm just silly or stubborn, or both

Cheers.
Marco

Well, it has been almost a year since that post. I have to admit that I am extremely surprised that:

2 Air Raid have appeared on ebay since that post
2 NTSC BMX Airmaster found (MattG and CPUWIZ)
0 NTSC Asterix have appeared on ebay since that post

I ended up buying NTSC Asterix from Steve Woita. So the number of Asterix cartridges has not really increased, just one changed hands from Steve to me. He said he only has one Asterix left which he is keeping for himself.

[sly]

Oh I forgot to mention that I am a proud owner of Asterix from the wild! Not from Steve.

[MattG/Snyper2099]

wow, you deserve congrats on that one for sure! where did you find it may I ask?

[CPUWIZ]

Marco said:

Which is exactly why this probably isn't a 10  

Cheers,
Marco

sly said:

Oh I forgot to mention that I am a proud owner of Asterix from the wild!  Not  from Steve.

Do you still think that?

[shadowdoggie]

This is an old post, so I don't know if anyone still cares, but I recently won a copy of OBELIX from eBay. Well, won if you consider spending $100 a win. It arrived today. I didn't have a 10 yet, so I figured I'd make the small investment. I assume that most people didn't bid because the label was a little bit worn. The seller was from Baltimore, MD if that means anything to anyone.

[Marco]

CPUWIZ said:

Marco said:

Which is exactly why this probably isn't a 10  

Cheers,
Marco

sly said:

Oh I forgot to mention that I am a proud owner of Asterix from the wild!  Not  from Steve.

Do you still think that?

Now more than ever!

Cheers,
Marco