CD-I rarity games and values.

[icemanxp300]

So I just got a Sega Saturn all set for selling and I had to dig around looking for my games to test. I seen the line of CD-I games and though eh it's been awhile since I looked them up. I'm 90% sure I purchased my cd-I about 3 years ago, although I am not sure it could have been like 5.

 

At any rate I got a sweet deal tons of games and the system for $225 or something silly. Well I had lots of games that came with it something like 35 or so. I remember a few games were selling pretty good the 2 tiles being Labyrinth of Crete and The Lost Ride.

 

Price charting says The lost Ride is worth $382 but that is based off 1 sale of 36 games the others seemed to have sold for $80. Now seeing how little CDI is actually for sale I would say this game is worth probably min. $100+ all day.

 

Now this other game Labyrinth of crete it says $50 but that is based on an incorrect sale of a windows version lol. So who the hell knows.

 

I have zero intentions of selling ANYTHING from that system but I am just amazed that doing a search on ebay for cdi has yielded hardly anything at all. I know for a fact that Hotel Mario "which I also have" is selling for $75.

 

CDI has gone up and I know for fact when I looked up the prices Hotel Mario was a $30 game when I got it at best. The other 2 were at least $50 back then.

[Austin]

The Nintendo properties have been going up steadily over the years. The rare CD-i fan wants them to play, but then the hardcore classic Nintendo fan and collector wants them to go next to all their other Mario and Zelda games.

 

A few games (like the Lost Ride) should probably be really expensive, but the fact is, not many really care about the CD-i. And like you mentioned, a lot of games don't pop up enough to get consistent data on them, so prices will be all over the place (especially in actual auctions). A rare game that might be worth a few hundred on another system might only be worth a third of that on CD-i, or considerably less.

[Rick Dangerous]

Lost lost ride was on eBay for $59 recently and no takers. I wouldn't expect to get rich on your CDi, but at least recoup your investment.

Edited September 10, 2016 by travistouchdown

[icemanxp300]

Lost lost ride was on eBay for $59 recently and no takers. I wouldn't expect to get rich on your CDi, but at least recoup your investment.

 

I didn't exactly buy them as in investment. I purchased all my games for myself. However if the price goes high enough for any game someone else can have them. I do remember seeing the Zelda games back years ago sell for like $350 and now it appears they can be had for $100.

 

It seems CDI is a very unstable system as far as prices go. Just as Atari there seems to be so many games that should sell for more, but if the market is not there then that's not really a bad thing for collectors or people who like to play.

[krslam]

The CD-i is a weird system. Between the large numbers of demo discs floating around, which were presumably freebies, and the tons of sealed games (obviously overproduced), it sometimes seems like Philips didn't actually sell much software. And they made, what, 17 different versions of the console? What kind of business plan is that?

 

On the other hand, as mentioned, the cd-i hasn't really caught on with collectors/resellers so you can get many games cheap, especially if you buy in large lots. I've got about 300 different titles and 4 different players and I'm into it for less than $500. Of course that total includes a bunch of infotainment dreck I'll never open.

[Austin]

And they made, what, 17 different versions of the console? What kind of business plan is that?

 

The business plan was that it wasn't just a videogame platform. Many models were created specifically for professional purposes, including education, public entertainment (DJ/karaoke), etc. There are only a handful of models geared towards home entertainment and videogames.

 

On a side note, it is known that Philips sold less than 800,000 units in the lifetime of the platform. I assume that's counting all of the variations and different market segments out there. The CD-i was on the market for at least seven years, so that puts it at just a little over 100,000 units sold a year. I wonder, of those numbers, how many CD-i units were sold for home use, and more specifically, for videogames.

[krslam]

It would make sense to come out with 3 or 4 models for the different market segments, but it must have become obvious pretty quickly that the hardware wasn't selling. Maybe you try to respond to criticism with an upgraded model or two and maybe even a cost-reduced model as manufacturing matures, but 17 seems excessive. Each model required at least some development costs as well as new manuals and packaging. Hardly surprising they lost $1B on cd-i.

 

I've also always wondered about the large numbers of demo discs in circulation, seemingly more than could be accounted for with review and dealer copies. Was Philips sending these out to registered owners back in the day?

[CatPix]

The thing is that the CD-i was super expensive. When it was released to the public in 1991, it was priced at 700$. Just imagine how much the pro models released the previous year could cost?

 

And there are different requirement for professionnal hardware, depending on the sifuation. A unit used for development or meant to be part of a larger setup must have a COM port at least and extension ports (one model od CD-i had connection for floppy and hard drives).

 

A Karaoke model must have a sturdier buildign that can stand being on for hours in a hot atmosphere and reading tiny bits of video very often, offer a microphone connector and more sound outputs for the different sound setups.

 

For consumer models there wa a high end model with extra connections, a middle range model with basic video and audio connections and a VFD for ths infos, and a cut down model with no display at all.

Renew this once in the product life and you get a rather large number of models.

 

It depends that if the figure of 17 model take in account the regional models.

For example in Europe the UK had a model with PAL I RF output and no SCART connector, while Europe had one with RGB Scart output and PAL composite out but no RF. That's two models already but the difference is mostly how you connectit on the TV, for those you can make a common manual. But in the Philips numbering system it count at two different models. And addd that this model of CD-i is also considered by philips as being different for the US market, that's one model of CD-i that count as 3 versions.

 

If you take this logic on the PS3 for example, it doesn't give us 3 PS3 models released but 9, and that's not even taking account of the hard drive variants that would make you think that Sony released about 30 different PS3 models, when in reality it was 3 but with minor variants

Edited September 12, 2016 by CatPix

[Austin]

It would make sense to come out with 3 or 4 models for the different market segments, but it must have become obvious pretty quickly that the hardware wasn't selling. Maybe you try to respond to criticism with an upgraded model or two and maybe even a cost-reduced model as manufacturing matures, but 17 seems excessive. Each model required at least some development costs as well as new manuals and packaging. Hardly surprising they lost $1B on cd-i.

 

As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and it's moot at this point to be saying what they should or shouldn't have done. Being they had their feet wet in many different markets with the same platform, they likely had their reasons to handle it the way they did.

[high voltage]

 

The CDi was ahead of its time, the problem was the that movies had to be put onto 2 CDs. Nobody was in the mood to get up from their comfy sofa in the middle of the film to change CDs. Wouldn't work.

 

On the other hand VCD became huge in Asia, films on CD were a huge seller. Even in Chinatown, London, they had VCD shops selling films on CD. I purchased Leon (Natalie Portman) uncut and some other beauties on VCD long before the release on any media in UK. All the Bruce Lee movies uncut for sale in Chinatown (and the UK versions of Bruce Lee films were awfully badly cut).

Edited September 12, 2016 by high voltage

[Seob]

But then again laserdisc was there with disc flipping and multiple discs to.

[Seob]

Games prices changing a lot. Would never pay 350 for Zelda although i'm a real cd-I collector myself.

Since i live in the Netherlands near Eindhoven, it's pretty easy to find cd-i stuff in the wild. Since a lot of employees from Philips bought a cd-i player with lots of discount.

Edited September 14, 2016 by Seob

[mehguy]

Is anyone even collecting cd-i games? Other than the Nintendo ones, I don't see anyone wanting to collect, what is for the most part, shovelware.

[Austin]

Is anyone even collecting cd-i games? Other than the Nintendo ones, I don't see anyone wanting to collect, what is for the most part, shovelware.

 

Hardcore CD-i fans are, but there aren't many of those.

[Blazing Lazers]

This thread has made me curious: is there anyone out there with a complete CD-I collections, or even a complete collection checklist? Something tells me that this would be one of the worst systems to try and complete a set for.

[tpugmire]

I try to collect for it, but it's hard since my only option is eBay. I have kind of a soft spot for the weird thing.

[Seob]

Well where do you draw the line with collecting cd-i stuff. There is a lot of educational cd-i's. Do you count them also for the complete list? I only collect games for the cd-i. I got about 85 games for the cd-i. But that is nowhere near a complete list. The're a lot of regional games in the market that didn't got released in other countries. Also there isn't a definitive list of games so collecting for the cd-i isn't easy.

[icemanxp300]

From my understanding you can not differentiate region either. I read even though all cdi's are suppose to be region free some games play diff. based on region. However doing research it appears there is no way to distinguish the region?

[Rick Dangerous]

Is anyone even collecting cd-i games? Other than the Nintendo ones, I don't see anyone wanting to collect, what is for the most part, shovelware.

 

I would say there are almost as many good CD-i games as there are truly good Jaguar games. People do collect for it, though its niche, but I don't own a single Zelda game for it. Why? Because they suck and i'm a gamer more than a collector.

 

CDi Games well worth owning and playing, IMO:

 

-The Apprenticce

-Burn Cycle

-Chaos Control

-Flashback: The Quest for Identity

-Go: Special Edition

-Kether

-Lemmings

-Micro Machines

-Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam

-Myst

-Tetris

-The 7th Guest

-Voyeur

 

There are a number of others that are okay as well, but the above is the cream of the crop.

[Austin]

 

-Burn Cycle

-Chaos Control

-Flashback: The Quest for Identity

-Lemmings

-Micro Machines

-Myst

-Tetris

-The 7th Guest

-Voyeur

 

You pointed out one of the main benefits of the CD-i, but also one of its negatives at the same time: Many of its "best" games are inferior to other versions available elsewhere (and more easily accessible as well). At least in the case of the Jaguar, a lot of its multi-plats were at least on-par, or in some cases superior to other versions, which makes the fact it has a lot of ports sting a little bit less.

 

That's not saying those games aren't worth playing on CD-i. However, it is a bit redundant playing them on CD-i in this day and age.

[krslam]

From my understanding you can not differentiate region either. I read even though all cdi's are suppose to be region free some games play diff. based on region. However doing research it appears there is no way to distinguish the region?

 

The packaging on Euro titles is sometimes different than in the US (somewhat larger cases) and sometimes the language is different, too. The discs themselves, at least all I've tried, will play in any region.

[icemanxp300]

 

The packaging on Euro titles is sometimes different than in the US (somewhat larger cases) and sometimes the language is different, too. The discs themselves, at least all I've tried, will play in any region.

 

Sounds like you would not be able to tell by just online pictures unless you had one of each side by side then.

[Seob]

Those longer cases are only used with the first games. Later on they switched to normal cd cases. A lot of games came with a outer sleeve, but most of them got trown away.

 

The 7th guest on cd-i is often seen as the best version available.

Other good games are:

 

Christmas Crisis

Lucky Luke the videogame

The apprentices

Secret Mission

Hotel Mario

PAC-panic

Mutant rampage bodyslam

 

The cd-i is also host to a lot of lightgun shooters. Best of all, the cd-i lightgun can be uses on a lcd tv. I like those American Laser games.

Also Fmv games like escape from cybercity, braindead 13, dragon's lair, space age, are the best versions available on consoles.

Edited September 16, 2016 by Seob

[Austin]

The 7th guest on cd-i is often seen as the best version available..

If constant pauses/load times and something like half the puzzles missing is your kind of thing, then I suppose yeah, it's the best version available.

[Rick Dangerous]

Best of all, the cd-i lightgun can be uses on a lcd tv. I like those American Laser games.

 

I didn't know this, interesting! Guess ill have to get Tropic Thunder for the CD-i sooner than anticipated!