How Many Boxed Games Are Still Around?

[Tempest]

I recently inherited a nice set of 2600 game boxes that I've decided to keep. While it didn't include any rare titles, it did include a few uncommon ones like Miniature Golf, Star Ship, and Mega Force. This got me thinking, how many boxed 2600 games are still left out there? I know the amount will vary for each title depending on the rarity. But for example, how many boxed copies of Combat or Football are still floating around out there? What about uncommon titles like Miniature Golf or Oink? What about some of the more rare titles like Roc n Rope or a silver Gravitar? Thousands for the commons? Hundreds for the more uncommon games? Less than 100 for the ER titles? I know loose cartridges will probably be around forever, but boxes wear out and get destroyed faster.

 

Just curious as to what everyone thinks.

[spacecadet]

Definitely thousands for the commons. And the O'Shea titles, probably even more than that. They had 1.3 million cartridges and something like 26 unique titles. So that's about 50,000 copies per game on average. And I'd say most of those boxes still exist. Tens of thousands per game. A lot of them are even still floating around unopened.

 

Older commons, probably a lot less because people didn't save boxes in the old days like they started consciously doing in the 90's. But still probably thousands even for the very early commons, just because of how many were sold.

 

Otherwise, I don't know. ER titles probably had very small runs to begin with, so I think less than 100 boxes probably sounds right. In some cases I'll bet it's less than 10.

[Shawn]

Anything that is R6 and up is in low quantity CIB for sure. Some of the R4's and R5's are pretty scarce CIB as well.

[hizzy]

I don't see a ton of boxed games, and when they're boxed the boxes are often wrecked

[jhd]

Remember too that some boxes are sturdier than others; Parker Brothers, for example, had much more solid boxes than Atari-made games.

 

While Star Raiders, for example, is not especially rare, I expect that its large box would be harder to find, due to the amount of space it consumes and/or it suffered greater wear-and-tear from storing and retrieving the keypad controller.

[hizzy]

Remember too that some boxes are sturdier than others; Parker Brothers, for example, had much more solid boxes than Atari-made games.

 

While Star Raiders, for example, is not especially rare, I expect that its large box would be harder to find, due to the amount of space it consumes and/or it suffered greater wear-and-tear from storing and retrieving the keypad controller.

 

Do you ever go through times where a games just seems to follow you? I can't turn around without finding a mint star raiders, lately. Can't find a nice Warlords to save my life, though.

[Shawn]

 

Do you ever go through times where a games just seems to follow you? I can't turn around without finding a mint star raiders, lately. Can't find a nice Warlords to save my life, though.

 

There are still cases and cases of sealed Star Raiders. It won't ever be rare or expensive to find in a mint box.

[jhd]

 

There are still cases and cases of sealed Star Raiders. It won't ever be rare or expensive to find in a mint box.

 

It must just be where I am looking then; I have not seen a boxed copy since about 1983.