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More carts than systems?


Torr

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Its known about Atari's silly idea of making more cartridges than there were systems in some back-asswards way of sales reasoning, but this is different.

My ebay auctions got me thinking about another game that seems like there were MANY more printed than necessary.

 

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Game Gear. My ebay ad is basically mocking how common it is, and how I doubt it will sell, even at 99 cents; then I thought, "Yeah!.. it's TOO common!"

 

Anywhere you see Game Gear games for sale, you'll see Sonic 2;

If a Game Gear you bought had a cart included (or the seller didn't even realize there was a cart in it), it was Sonic 2.

If there's a lot cartridges, big or small, it has Sonic 2 in it;

Even if someone like me is selling even just 2 Game Gear games, you KNOW one of them is gonna be Sonic 2!

 

And anyone who collects Game Gear already HAS a Sonic 2 cart, probably multiple copies for those very reasons above.

We should be tripping over Game Gears by that logic.

 

Even if you wanna say that many Game Gears have died over the years...

Were there EVER enough Game Gears sold to warrant the number of Sonic 2 carts in the wild???

 

 

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Were there EVER enough Game Gears sold to warrant the number of Sonic 2 carts in the wild???

Maybe, maybe not--but if not, it probably has less to with the relative number of Sonic 2 carts produced than it does with the Game Boy just mopping the sales floor with the Game Gear. But let's flip it around--you say anytime you see a Game Gear system or lot for sale, it includes Sonic 2; how often do you see loose Sonic 2s (as in, sold independently of a console or lot)? Quite a few, no doubt, but you can also go on eBay and sift through pages of loose Missile Command and Space Invaders carts for the 2600. No one ever accused them of being overproduced.

 

I don't know but if I had to guess (and again, I'm not certain it's even true, at least in Atari's case), the thinking with "overproducing" a piece of killer-app or hotly-anticipated software is that it would drive demand--and therefore increased production--for the hardware. It's a lot cheaper to make software than hardware, even cartridges, so they'd want to have the hardware demand in place first, generally in the form of orders from retailers. If they had also produced the hardware to match, they'd be up shit creek in the event the software in question didn't sell systems as well as projected; by producing only the software, they're hedging their bet. That's my theory, anyway.

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I love it when common games also happen to be among the best games. Sonic 2 for GG is great, as is Space Invaders and Missile Command for Atari VCS.

 

What suuuuuuucks is good games fetching premium prices, like Mario Kart on DS, 3DS, or Wii. Everyone should be able to buy multiple copies of this without paying through the nose.

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Was going to say, I know for a fact that you could buy the "Core System" of the game gear meaning it was literally just the GG and no pack in game. So because of that, Sonic 2 was also sold separately. However, with that in mind, the question is:

 

Did Sega produce the same number of loose sonic 2 carts to match the amount of core systems made? or...

Did they produce less or more than the number of core systems?

 

I know we are using Sonic 2 for the GG in this example, but the same can easily be said of combat for the VCS as it was both a pack in and could be bought separately. Now Pole Position 2 for the 7800 is the real mystery to me because as far as I know, the 7800 wasn't sold without PP2 as a pack-in was it? In fact during the heavy clearance of the 7800 from stores in the late 80s early 90s, the systems were being sold for $50 buck with about a half dozen boxed 7800 games with them as well. So the only real mystery to me is why 7800 PP2 even exists as a separately sold item?

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Interesting question, but here's my pondering data point: I have more dead GGs than copies of Sonic 2. For years, either came from when I was at a thrift/yard/garage/flea and bought when it was super cheap ($1 or less), and by the way, most of the GGs worked fine when I got them but have failed since then.

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Sonic 2 for the Genesis seems to have a lot of copies, too. I see it a lot in cartridge lots and separately. It makes sense in both cases as the first Sonic was a good seller, so they would want to make sure they had plenty of copies of Sonic 2 available. (Something Nintendo has decided against doing. :grin: ) I haven't searched Game Gear games much because I don't have one... yet...

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