New! Sealed!

[JayWI]

Has there been a rash of this recently? I've been looking at some Intellivision games on Ebay and there are more auctions for "factory sealed" games than ever. Is it possible that so many different copies of the same games are still "factory sealed" 25-30 years later?

[Reaperman]

I've been wondering that myself since I picked up a Ms. Pac-Man and Jungle Hunt for 2600 that were sealed. I Found them at a local game shop for practically nothing. I sure don't think they were part of any giant warehouse find or anything.

 

I'm not sure what magic controls the video game market, I just know it follows no logic at all. For example, a sealed NES common is fairly big bucks.

Edited October 17, 2010 by Reaperman

[eightbit]

Maybe people have finally perfected the "art" of re-sealing!

[SoulBlazer]

I don't have any hard evidence to support this, but my 'gut' feeling is that a LOT more Atari 2600 games were made then NES games.

 

One of the factors that helped to lead to the game crash was too many games being made and in too large ammounts for the market to handle. A lot of games were made that were not as good as eariler releases, as 'fly by night' companies looking to make a quick buck flooded the market. At the same time, the games were produced in large ammounts. I don't want to say people were burned out -- both Phoenix and Ultimate History point out that the sales of games actually ROSE in 1983. The problem was too many games out there, in large ammounts, for cheap prices, and too many systems on the market. Combine that with the rise of home computing and the decline of arcades, and it all helped to cause the crash (among other things.)

 

When Nintendo brought back the video game market in the States, they took steps to try to make sure that a crash did not happen again, and to avoid the mistakes that Atari had made. One key decision was to regulate third party companies. A third party company had to be licenced by Nintendo, with Nintendo making the game carts and controlling just how many copies of a game were made. In addition, a company could only release five games a year. These steps helped to keep the product in short supply instead of flooding the marketplace. Kinda bad for the consumer, as prices stayed high and there were often shortages, but many games DID drop in price eventuly, especily the games that weren't as good. There were still many crap games made in the NES era -- the licence just ment that Nintendo had playtested the game and aproved. But not as many copies of them were made.

 

All of this taken together ment that less game carts were made for the NES then the 2600, meaning not as many NES games are new or sealed today. Plus 2600 games were made in such huge ammounts that warehouse finds would be made for years to come, meaning sealed games were often released to be sold.

[jaybird3rd]

Video game distribution in the pre-crash years was very different. Major publishers were focused entirely on securing big purchase orders from retailers and stuffing the sales channels with product. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that there was much more product being generated (by them and everyone else) than the fledgling market could absorb, and not nearly enough of it sold through to the customers. They also started building up more and more inventory in their warehouses as a hedge against integrated circuit shortages, and in anticipation of future 1983 sales that never materialized. So, when all that excess product was pushed back onto the manufacturers, they found themselves with a multi-million-dollar glut of merchandise, and that's one of the major factors that lead to the crash.

 

That's probably also the reason why it still isn't too hard to find new/sealed games some twenty-five years later: hidden stashes in forgotten corners keep cropping up, and I think there are still more out there waiting to be rediscovered. The most recent wave of sealed 2600 and Intellivision product is probably from a recent warehouse find in Venezuela. In contrast, Nintendo was much more careful (and more heavy-handed) in how they controlled game production and distribution, so you don't see the same levels of excess new/sealed NES product.

 

EDIT: Looks like SoulBlazer beat me to it!

[Video]

There is tons of sealed stuff for atari. I know Ms Pac-man, and I think Jungle Hunt were both sold by Sean Kelly (maybe wrong name0 who bought several warehouses FULL of atari games that were produced, but never even shipped anywhere.

 

Atari shitting out millions of copies of games at a time is part of what caused the crash IMO. I mean, back then, they didn't typically have "second" and "third" printings of games. They usually printed however many they planned to sell and that was it, so they simply printed an absurd number of many games that honestly, should have never seen the light of day in some cases, but certainly not been nearly as many over all.

 

By the time Nintendo came along, chip printing was much cheaper, and they could afford to print games in 10,000 and 100,000 chunks, instead of printing 10,000,000 in a shot.

 

Atari and Nintendo had fairly close librarys (as far as numbers of different titles made) but Atari flat out won with the number of carts made.

[OldAtarian]

Has there been a rash of this recently? I've been looking at some Intellivision games on Ebay and there are more auctions for "factory sealed" games than ever. Is it possible that so many different copies of the same games are still "factory sealed" 25-30 years later?

 

Anyone can buy a shrink wrap machine.

[jaybird3rd]

Anyone can buy a shrink wrap machine.

Yeah, but most of the cheap ones aren't as good as the originals. The shrinkwrap is usually much too "crispy."

[JayWI]

Has there been a rash of this recently? I've been looking at some Intellivision games on Ebay and there are more auctions for "factory sealed" games than ever. Is it possible that so many different copies of the same games are still "factory sealed" 25-30 years later?

 

Anyone can buy a shrink wrap machine.

 

Yes I know this, hence the quotes around "factory sealed". It just seems to me that these type of auctions are a lot more common now then they used to be. Perhaps sellers are doing their own shrink wrap trying to squeeze a few more bucks out of an item? Maybe there are actually loads and loads of games that are still sealed, as others have noted. I don't know. What I do know is that "factory sealed" doesn't carry anywhere near the weight with me as it used to.

[jaybird3rd]

Yes I know this, hence the quotes around "factory sealed". It just seems to me that these type of auctions are a lot more common now then they used to be. Perhaps sellers are doing their own shrink wrap trying to squeeze a few more bucks out of an item? Maybe there are actually loads and loads of games that are still sealed, as others have noted. I don't know. What I do know is that "factory sealed" doesn't carry anywhere near the weight with me as it used to.

There are more than enough genuine sealed copies of these common titles, so I doubt that anyone would bother doing the work to re-seal opened ones in a convincing way and market them as "new/sealed." It would be like counterfeiting $1 bills.

[+Psionic]

Has there been a rash of this recently? I've been looking at some Intellivision games on Ebay and there are more auctions for "factory sealed" games than ever.

Other than all the stuff coming out of Venezuela (which has increased greatly), I've seen no recent spike in the number of sealed games. I've actually seen less.

 

Is it possible that so many different copies of the same games are still "factory sealed" 25-30 years later?

Yes, and the fact that it is usually the same titles you see all the time only reinforces the fact that they're warehouse finds or old stock that's been sitting around, not reseals.

[+save2600]

Maybe people have finally perfected the "art" of re-sealing!

Exactly. There's this huge antique mall that has a video game section in it down in Volo, IL. Guy who runs it is super nice and has been around the Chicagoland area for as long as I can remember. Stopped by the other day and to my horror - spied that he'd shrinked EVERYTHING he possibly could. Yep. Really bad practice if you ask me. Yes, most of us can tell the difference between new and old shrinkwrap, but when browsing around, ever notice how shrinking old, dirty 'things' makes 'em look all nice and attractive? I've been duped a couple of times. Guess if someone is interested in something, they should ask if they could remove the shrink for inspection. Can't do that over the 'net though

[SoulBlazer]

Quite allright, Jaybird -- looks like we were punching in our info at the same time.

 

Believe me, as a kid, more then once I cursed Nintendo about not being able to find games. They always underproduced a popular game like a Mario or Zelda game and then it was hard to find for months to come. I can remember shortly after getting my NES trying to find a copy of Castlevania (circa 1988) and not have any luck in the stores, so I wrote to Nintendo about it. They indicated in their response back to me that the game was 'not in production at that time' and that it might be re-made in the future 'if supply and demand and market conditions supported it'. Frustrating to me, but I finally found a used copy somewhere.

[Rik]

I've been wondering the same thing with all the vast amounts of absolutely mint boxed ColecoVision games at Ebay a while ago....is there still vast amounts?, haven't checked lately.Anyway, before that all i'd see are loose CV games.Then boxed games came in a higher demand, thus seeing more boxed CV games.Sure some are legit, but crisp, new smelling, factory fresh game boxes after 30+ years, as i've seen many advertised? I am justifiably suspicious.We do now of course have top notch state of the art printers and equipment that can fool the sharpest eye.

Edited October 19, 2010 by Rik

[SoulBlazer]

Just came across this old thread again -- I was thinking about it due to the large ammout of NOS (New Old Stock) that seems to be turning up in South American these days for the Intelivision and Colecovision. It's very strange how during the golden period Atari and other companies dumped off games in countries outside North America just to get rid of them compared to how Nintendo and other companies that came later on handled supply and demand. The sellers of these NOS are being carefull not to flood the market either -- even they learned from Atari.

[Vaughan]

Without a doubt I think the vast majority of the sealed stuff has been shrink wrapped at a later date.

[jaybird3rd]

Without a doubt I think the vast majority of the sealed stuff has been shrink wrapped at a later date.

I disagree. As I mentioned in my earlier post, most of these sealed titles exist in such large quantities that re-sealing them wouldn't be worth the effort.

 

Genuine sealed NOS games are noticeably different from newly manufactured product, and even from old product that was opened and re-sealed later. I've inspected the sealed games that I've received from Venezuela pretty closely, and they look exactly like the ones that I have personally removed from original sealed Atari master packs. I've opened hundreds of these over the years, so I think I know an authentic sealed NOS game when I see it.

[Lentzquest]

There was quite a surplus of unsold Atari games. Atari crashed hard, multiple times. In contrast, when Nintendo phased out the NES they gradually controlled and sold off all their stock with the SNES stepping onto the scene. With so much surplus there's bound to be times where pockets of sealed Atari games hit the market. These times will be fewer and far between, but still out there.

[Rik]

Sorry. posted in wrong thread.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Rik

[edintv]

Just came across this old thread again -- I was thinking about it due to the large ammout of NOS (New Old Stock) that seems to be turning up in South American these days for the Intelivision and Colecovision. It's very strange how during the golden period Atari and other companies dumped off games in countries outside North America just to get rid of them compared to how Nintendo and other companies that came later on handled supply and demand. The sellers of these NOS are being carefull not to flood the market either -- even they learned from Atari.

 

Well, there is no "Dumping off" of games here in venezuela. There was a guy that sold Video games (among many other stuff) and since here in Venezuela the market did not crash like in the US (even increased with the lower prices) that saw a very good deal on the many clearances companies do.

 

I have a list of Clearance that I know he bought:

 

-Musicland Stores (some Sam Goody) clerance, mostly Computer games

-K-mart Clearance: Some controllers, and i have seen a few Intellivision games with K-mart Stickers.

-Softsell (A distributor of computer software that after the crash they migrate to only Bussines Software)

-Activision (I don´t know if the clearance was from Activision itself or a distributor) was in the time they distributed Imagic, Tnt and Absolute possible overstock

-Intellivision Stuff. Not very sure. The stuff was in a warehouse in new jersey that was unpaid and the owner sold the stuff. many Parts for Service and the later items are from '88 Some games are abundant some others where depleted years a go

-Atari Stuff: Not sure. Probably came from Different sources at different times. Also probably most items where not Clearances just regular distributor prices.

-Taiwan Copper: Directly from manufacturer in taiwan, full priced

-Coleco Stuff: Not sure, some games (Very few for Colecovision itself) I got the suspicion that came from the same place of the Intellivison Stuff.

 

Those purchases where oportunities that everyone could have take it but no one want them and the offer spread overseas, probably in conventions or from contacts in the industry. But many people in the US had purchase many of these "Clearances" but they had sold them all this time. You could name many people, Classic-games-Source, best Electronics, and a big Etcetera that you do not notice because they where in the Scene all this time.

 

The difference in venezuela is that the stuff do not hit the market until recently.