Production run on UK releases

Anyone know approximately how many of the rarer UK games like Faselei and (curiously) Pocket Reversi were produced?

Ouff, I think 5,000 or 10,000 of "Faselei!" and some hundred (maybe 500 ??) of "Pocket Reversi".
Correct me if I'm wrong help

PEACE

Brittney:
Anyone know approximately how many of the rarer UK games like Faselei and (curiously) Pocket Reversi were produced?

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Well, we all know from the world famous Edge article that there's only 3 to 15 copies of Pocket Reversi in existence.

Seriously, though, suicidekiller's "5000 to 10,000" is probably a good one and anyone that tries to tell you anything more difinite than that is most likely talking out of their ass.

I'd say his estimate of 500 for Pocket reversi is way way too low, though. Keep in mind that the so called "UK" releases were actually for the UK as well as the rest of Europe and all through Asia (except Japan), they were all part of one production run. Reversi is a pretty obscure game in the west, but it's very popular in Asia, so SNK would have made quite a few copies of the game for distribution in Hong Kong and Singapore (and maybe Taiwan, Korea, etc...I'm not really sure where axactly "Asia" refers to in distribution terms). Also, board/puzzle games have a good success rate on portables.

There's probably fewer Reversis than Faseleis or Last Blades, but still in the mid-thousands, I'd say, while Faselei, Last Blade and Evolution are probably more like in the high-thousands. But see, now you've got me talking out of my ass; the truth is no one here (let alone on eBay) knows the actual production runs, it's just speculation. A run of anything less than a thousand for any game too unlikely, though, just for commercial reasons.

Hmmm... There's been more or less 5000 produced copies of each game.

Although, most Pocket Reversi copies got re-sent to Japan and recycled, before SNK closed... I don't know how many exactly, but over 90% of the games produced got sent back to Japan...
And now, There's less than 100 copies still existing of the game.
Hence the fact it gets sold for around $400 on ebay.

Stifu:
Hmmm... There's been more or less 5000 produced copies of each game.

Although, most Pocket Reversi copies got re-sent to Japan and recycled, before SNK closed... I don't know how many exactly, but over 90% of the games produced got sent back to Japan...
And now, There's less than 100 copies still existing of the game.
Hence the fact it gets sold for around $400 on ebay.

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So, where are you getting this figure of 90% of the games being returned to SNK? That wasn't my experience at the time, what I found was that despite the recall almost every store still had carried Neo Pocket games before still had them. I woldn't wager a percentage, but I think far fewer than 90% were actually sent back.

Anyway, even if 90% *WERE* sent back, that would still leave 500 copies out of an original production run of 5000. 100 would be 2%.

And the ridiculous prices of games (for the Neo Pocket or otherwise) on eBay has no causal basis in a game's actual rarity.

90% was a guess, and I don't have anything to prove that number...
Also, take note I said "over" 90%...

I know ebay isn't really a reference for that kind of things, but still... Pocket Reversi is the rarest UK NGPC games, hands down.

You make it sound like it's more or less easy to get, do you own it yourself ?

For the moment it is very easy to get there are like twenty copies on ebay and all with a reserve of 25 bucks...they are with out boxes and manual tough

Are those even the UK ones ?

Stifu:
90% was a guess, and I don't have anything to prove that number...
Also, take note I said "over" 90%...

I know ebay isn't really a reference for that kind of things, but still... Pocket Reversi is the rarest UK NGPC games, hands down.

You make it sound like it's more or less easy to get, do you own it yourself ?

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Along with a number of other people I know, I bought it for $20 from Toys'n'Joys (not even that long ago, though they're all out of it now), but I decided it really wasn't a very good game and not worth owning just for "collectibility's sake" so I traded it to 2D along with Evolution for about $100 worth of Dreamcast and Saturn stuff a couple months ago.

I certainly wouldn't say that it's easy to get, but I'm unconvinced that it's any harder than a number of other obscure games which simply aren't considered "desriable" and so don't sell for $400 on eBay.

I would guess that there's far more copies of Pocket Reversi available in Hong Kong and other "Asian" places where the English version was ditributed than in the the West, but those copies are somewhat out of our market since there's still not a lot interchange between gamers in Europe and North America and those in Asia and Japan.

And yes, the copies on eBay are apparently English, but I'd be surprised if many people were interested in them because a)those copies are cart-only and so not worth much to collectors and b)Pocket Reversi is a pretty lame game and so not worth much to gamers.

Yes, I know the game sucks.
Only a collector would get it, and collectors would want the complete game...

Well, I've already been buying stuff from Hong Kong and all, but Pocket Reversi never was in the list of available games.

With Faselei, 10,000 copies were produced for Europe.
All of these seem to still be in existence.

As for the late un-released games, it is vanishingly unlikely that less than 5000 were produced of each, so it only remains to decide how many were sent back and re-writen.

There are 'probobly' thousands of most, and probobly at the very least many hundreds of even the rarest 'Reversi'.
Which incidentally is an absolutely brilliant and compulsive game that will test your skills for many hours.

Yeap, the games on ebay are the UK editions, but it is interesting to note that if they did recall the games, then they originally went out with both instructions and boxes.

If the carts have appeared on the market, is there a warehouse out there with a load of boxes sat around doing bugger all as well?

Will the flood of the single cart games drive down the full issue games, more than likely i think. spock

Oh well, i will just have to keep hold of Last Blade, MS2, Faselei and Pocket Reversi...... just for a while. wink

Finally, are there games in Kong Kong that never even got released.......? glee

Someone was selling Pocket Fighter 2 yesterday....

lol lol

He did email me today to say that he has been ill and made a mistake though.

Going back to the main question, the release will probably depend on market research. The Metal Slug series (particularily MS1) would have got a massive release as they would have calculated that it would do really well. Pocket Reversi, Picture Puzzle, stuff like that, maybe not so.

Here an interesting one as well, there are probably a lot of actual Neo Geo Pocket Systems out there, i would say 300,000+ or possibly a lot more! Someone on this board definately has a million plus number and i have had unit in the 900,000. Anyone know how many were actually released (roughly) or the start number of the units (to give us a guide)?

I remember reading from a neo pocket fan site that there were 250k+ sold in the US

So thats just in he US? Then we are probably talking half a million plus....... Not enough games to go around then...... spock

I remember that over a quarter of a million systems were sold in the USA.
And Sonic was the biggest selling US game, at 210,000 copies.
Allegedly.

In the UK, I remember that the biggest selling launch title was Pac-Man, or so I was told.

Metal Slug:
I remember that over a quarter of a million systems were sold in the USA.
And Sonic was the biggest selling US game, at 210,000 copies.
Allegedly.

In the UK, I remember that the biggest selling launch title was Pac-Man, or so I was told.

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How does that stack up against Gameboy? quarter of a million seems pretty good for a console that was released only for 1 year in America.

I cant break it down I just dont remember the figures for that period or the first year of the GBC. Or Gameboy.

The best figures for NGPC/GBC sales were around 11% of the handheld market share in Japan. I dont think it ever quite got there outside of Japan.

But to put it into perspective, from the March issue of Nintendo Mag (UK):
In This Year 1991.
"The GameBoy sold 4 Million units, which was the same amount as Super NES sales for the time too. No wonder that Nintendo overtook Toyota as Japan's most profitable company with an estimated $1,500,000 earnings per employee."

Hmm, does anybody know of a person that would know the exact number produced? The only thing I can come up with is a guy who took inventory at SNK, or where ever at the time before PR shipped, and was the inventory list was probably thrown away anyways.....Unless I see it on ebay.

Well, as i said earlier, one of the members has a million plus number so i would take a guess that they started at quite a low number (like zero? Not Sure).

So i would guess that it is probably close to this amount that were actually produced, both in B&W and Color versions.