+sixersfan105 Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Curious as to everyone's thoughts on this. I'm obviously referring to the blue box Atari XEGS line of games. Let's keep it to the officially released games. Here is my suggested list, with #1 being the hardest to find in the wild: 1. Summer Games 2. Into the Eagles Nest 3. Karateka 4. Airball 5. Crystal Castles Choplifter, Crime Buster and Donkey Kong seem to be on the rare side, too, but not to the same extent as the ones above, at least in my experience. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic Knight Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Mario Bros? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred_M Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) In Europe Into the Eagles Nest is not that hard to find, it is not rare here. It is almost impossible to find Karateka, Airball, Crystal Castles, Choplifter and Summer Games in Europe. Edited February 8, 2019 by Fred_M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 In Europe Into the Eagles Nest is not that hard to find, it is not rare here. Can you give some examples of that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred_M Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) Not at the moment. I (Rewind Games) have sold a lot of them sealed for 12 euros each. Sadly I am out of them. The only sealed cartridges I have in stock are Barnyard Blasters. Into the Eagles Nest was one of the titles that had a big stock here in The Netherlands after Atari moved all their European stock here in the nineties. A large chain of toy stores sold a bundle of a 65xe/800xe plus 10 cartridge games and a lightgun for about 50 dollars. Into the Eagles nest was present in many of these bundles. So this cartridge pops up often on the Dutch equivalent of Ebay (it is called marktplaats). Average price is around 20 euros. A few titles were harder to find in the bundles, that were the lightgun games (Barnyard Blaster, Crime Buster, Crossbow). I have never seen Choplifter, Karateka and Summer Games in these bundles. Crystal Castles and Airball were present in a very limited number of bundles. My own copies of Crystal Castles and Airball came from Atari Netherlands too. We found it in the stock we bought (as ANG Software) from Atari. There are more examples of Atari 8-bit stuff that was not rare in Europe and rare in the US and vice versa. Edited February 8, 2019 by Fred_M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) Not at the moment. I (Rewind Games) have sold a lot of them sealed for 12 euros each. Sadly I am out of them. Into the Eagles Nest was one of the titles that had a big stock here in The Netherlands after Atari moved all their European stock here in the nineties. A large chain of toy stores sold a bundle of a 65xe/800xe plus 10 cartridge games and a lightgun for about 50 dollars. Into the Eagles nest was present in many of these bundles. So this cartridge pops up often on the Dutch equivalent of Ebay (it is called marktplaats). Average price is around 20 euros. OK... interesting. Thanks for the info. The reason I asked is because this was all I could find on Ebay: Into the Eagles Nest And I have sold copies of Eagles Nest to European buyers before (I'm in the U.S.). Edited February 8, 2019 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred_M Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 OK... interesting. Thanks for the info. The reason I asked is because this was all I could find on Ebay: Into the Eagles Nest And I have sold copies of Eagles Nest to European buyers before (I'm in the U.S.). Yes, I saw that auction too. That German seller is always asking ridiculous prices for his products. A lot of his stock came from me (Rewind Games), but when I found out he resells them for ridiculous prices I stopped selling to him. The stock of Atari Europe was mostly sold to Dutch, French and German companies. So Europeans in other countries did not benefit from these low prices. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Really, none of the XEGS games seem to be comparatively common on the resale market even though they had a fairly wide commercial distribution for two or three years. You certainly don't find many of them at used game stores, in lots, or online, even though brown and silver label Atari releases are still readily available. I'd pick Crystal Castles as the rarest North American release, as I only did see one lonely unboxed copy for sale after its release, and that was at a Miami flea market in 1992 (I bought it). I don't recall ever having seen it for sale in a local store, or I would have bought it when it was released. I bought Into the Eagles Nest, Airball, Crossbow, and Food Fight new from a Toronto-area dealer in 1989, so they were definitely in stores at the time. People were distributing MIDI Maze at the local user's group, but I can't remember if that was before or after the decision to release it was cancelled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted February 8, 2019 Author Share Posted February 8, 2019 Thanks for the input thus far, everyone. I don't know how I forgot about Summer Games! That is definitely #1 on my list. Editing now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted February 8, 2019 Author Share Posted February 8, 2019 Mario Bros? I agree that Mario Bros is on the rare side but there always seem to be a handful of listings on eBay at any one time for Mario Bros, so I refrained from including it on my list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Yes, I saw that auction too. That German seller is always asking ridiculous prices for his products. A lot of his stock came from me (Rewind Games), but when I found out he resells them for ridiculous prices I stopped selling to him. I'd definitely call that overpriced; although, a lot of sellers put overinflated prices when they take offers. Back when I was collecting more, in about 2011 - 2013, they were going from about $50 - $125 on Ebay U.S. for a loose copy -- depending on the condition. Boxed would have been about $75 - $160, and sealed... I can't remember seeing a sealed one back then. I know prices have tamed down in recent years, but I've not looked at prices for several years now. So I have no idea about the current market. The stock of Atari Europe was mostly sold to Dutch, French and German companies. So Europeans in other countries did not benefit from these low prices. I see. More good info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted February 8, 2019 Author Share Posted February 8, 2019 I'd definitely call that overpriced; although, a lot of sellers put overinflated prices when they take offers. Back when I was collecting more, in about 2011 - 2013, they were going from about $50 - $125 on Ebay U.S. for a loose copy -- depending on the condition. Boxed would have been about $75 - $160, and sealed... I can't remember seeing a sealed one back then. I know prices have tamed down in recent years, but I've not looked at prices for several years now. So I have no idea about the current market. I see. More good info. I wound up having an extra Eagles Nest *box* a few months ago that had some flaws and managed to get $50 for it. I was pleased. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scooter83 Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Summer games number 1 Crystal castles Karateka Thunderfox / airball And into the eagles nest is hard to come by. Also the atari xe demo cart is much rarer than the in store demo cart cxl4019. Wanted to make mention to that too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted February 9, 2019 Share Posted February 9, 2019 Must be a US thing, I don't recall Eagle's Nest being rare at all here in Canada. I still have mine, although no box. I thought it was a quite a good game, and I puzzled over what gfx mode they had done it in because of all the colours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted February 9, 2019 Share Posted February 9, 2019 I am rich, because of the (non-prototype) XE cart. titles only Choplifter and the XE Demo cart. are missing in my collection. The demo cart. was once in my collection, but I gave it away, since I have the included four titles as separate carts and I am not really missing that one. But I would like to add Choplifter XE (cart only or cart+manual, since I am not a package collector) to my collection. Alas, only Video 61 seems to have it still, for such a nice price of 125USD plus shipping costs and thats a little too much for me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted February 9, 2019 Share Posted February 9, 2019 Must be a US thing, I don't recall Eagle's Nest being rare at all here in Canada. I still have mine, although no box. I thought it was a quite a good game, and I puzzled over what gfx mode they had done it in because of all the colours.I'm also in Canada, and BITD I acquired an Eagles Nest cart from a friend with an XEGS. Traded them a Rana 1000 and a bunch of pirated games on disks for their light gun, and some of their XEGS carts, including that one. (Bug hunt, flight sim 2) Win win! The light gun was new and fun to learn how to make lightpen type drawing programs in BASIC. It fascinated me that they managed to fit Flight Sim II into a cart, since I had spent many hours with the disk version. In fact, if you put the flight sim II disk in a drive and turn it on after booting the cart, it would continue loading from disk it as if nothing hapenned 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 9, 2019 Share Posted February 9, 2019 How about Final Legacy? Probably sold poorly thanks to having a preliminary leak as well as not being well promoted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted February 9, 2019 Author Share Posted February 9, 2019 I am rich, because of the (non-prototype) XE cart. titles only Choplifter and the XE Demo cart. are missing in my collection. The demo cart. was once in my collection, but I gave it away, since I have the included four titles as separate carts and I am not really missing that one. But I would like to add Choplifter XE (cart only or cart+manual, since I am not a package collector) to my collection. Alas, only Video 61 seems to have it still, for such a nice price of 125USD plus shipping costs and thats a little too much for me... I don't think Video61 has any Choplifters left. I got mine from Lance a while back but I'm not seeing Choplifter listed on his site anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted February 9, 2019 Author Share Posted February 9, 2019 How about Final Legacy? Probably sold poorly thanks to having a preliminary leak as well as not being well promoted. Final Legacy is a fun game but isn't considered one of the XEGS blue box games. It is, however, one of the 11 8-bit carts that had a cart variant of the gray XE-style cart (in a small silver box). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted February 9, 2019 Share Posted February 9, 2019 Must be a US thing, I don't recall Eagle's Nest being rare at all here in Canada. I still have mine, although no box. I thought it was a quite a good game, and I puzzled over what gfx mode they had done it in because of all the colours. Summer Games was sold here, too, but who wanted it at that point? The Epyx release was long cracked at that point, and I certainly wanted new games in ‘88, not something from 1984. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted February 9, 2019 Author Share Posted February 9, 2019 Summer Games was sold here, too, but who wanted it at that point? The Epyx release was long cracked at that point, and I certainly wanted new games in ‘88, not something from 1984. I hear ya. It's still a quality title, though. A good "party game," if you will. Not that I've ever played it at a party. But I would! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted February 9, 2019 Share Posted February 9, 2019 Don’t get me wrong — it’s a great game — but it was very widely available on the A8 and most other platforms by ‘88, so the market for a cart version would have been pretty small. It just seemed like filler at the time, and not something that I was itching to buy. Perhaps that’s why it’s so hard to find now: everyone already had a copy, and so few people bought the XEGS release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted February 9, 2019 Author Share Posted February 9, 2019 Yeah I feel like it was really only made for the XEGS. Add in the fact that it cost $10 more at original retail than most XEGS games ($34.99 vs. $24.99) and we may be on to something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted February 9, 2019 Share Posted February 9, 2019 (edited) Rarity fluctuates yearly, as when someone gets word that a cartridge sold for a high price it brings everything back out I remember when "Into the Eagles Nest" (as was mentioned) there were dozens that hit the market at once, all NIB. Everyone jumped on that. But before that occurred, loose copies were hard to come by. Just recently quite a few Mario Bros. NIB were on eBay for $100-125. Donkey Kong shows up time to time. Summer games had a couple dozen available a few years ago, and we all jumped on that. The consistently rare ones to find are Karateka (NIB) and Crystal Castles (NIB). But that can change if another seller, or sellers, start putting them out there. Even the XE demo cart had a run on eBay where quite a few came out a years back. It's all about either waiting for it to cycle back around or paying the current prices... Here are some, if you're looking. The plastic tends to fall apart, or strangle the boxes to death. At one point I cut a slit on the top of the NIB's to avoid self crushing Edited February 9, 2019 by Atari8bitCarts 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 9, 2019 Share Posted February 9, 2019 (edited) when multiples show up, they normally go down to what retail price was back in the day, sometimes you get them for whatever the clearance or the yard sale price was marked on them- sometimes less. I know cart traders and dealers may want them All to be 100 to 300 dollars, but you will always find honest and decent people to get them from for more realistic pricing. Don't forget the real world exists and there are tons of shops selling all kinds of stuff, there are yard sales, flea markets, auctions, with straight up sale tables in the back, all kinds of online sell it apps and sites, not to mention word of mouth and old schools and shutdown schools (you can get permission to pick) that you can find all this stuff at... not to mention good folks on Atari forums and the like. Have fun, don't get taken. Most of these guys snatch up entire collections for nothing and price stuff like they really sunk something into it. They will hound the survivors of the recently deceased telling them how they will love and care for the stuff. Then they strip off the best one or two things for themselves if they even are a collector and run to ebay... you mission is to beat these baddies to the punch. You will enjoy it far more than they will since they are never happy with what they get and the money is always gone too fast for them. Hustle and keep an eye out and don't forget thrift stores and ecycle sales... Edited February 9, 2019 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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