Chad's Holy Grail Games

Rarity and collectibility of vintage used video games is a topic I have long flirted with and have only recently written down my thoughts on the matter. Many games are highly sought after, but only a very select few can make it to the top of the list.

The games listed here are not based on original production runs or current price, but rather on how hard they are to obtain. While price may be a good indicator of an item's popularity, availability is the determining factor for the discerning collector.

An interesting example is Stadium Events, NTSC release, on the NES platform. Only 2000 copies were originally produced, and of these only about 200 were shipped before the entire batch was recalled. To make it even more interesting, about half the of the original purchasers returned the game, leaving about 100 in the wild, with far fewer in existence today. While this makes it the rarest commercially available game for the platform, the PAL release sold normally, without recall. It is still considered rare, but the collectible value is much lower. The only distinct visible difference is the 2mm orange line around the box of the North American version.

NES

This category has no real competition with the 1990 Nintendo World Championships Gold Cartridge easily claiming the spot. Considered by many to be the "Holy Grail" of game collecting, only 90 grey and 26 gold versions of the games were produced for the event. The 26 gold charts were given away in a special contest and are nearly impossible to find. The low numbers and high number of collectors pursuing it have brought it to the to of the list. Trailing close second is the gray version with its slightly higher number of available copies.

SNES

Terranigma was released in four languages for its PAL release: English, German, French and Spanish. Each language variation had only 1,000 copies produced, for a total run of only 4,000. On the other hand, the Super Famicon release was widely distributed and is not difficult to obtain.

Sega Genesis

Mega Man: The Wily Wars was only avalible in the U.S. as a Sega Channel release. It had poor sales elsewhere due to several design flaws. Another top contender for the top billing is M.U.S.H.A. due to its high desirability and extremely hard to find nature.

Nintendo 64

The non-European release of Bomberman 64: The Second Attack suffered from horrible sales and a limited release making it very hard to find. Another game that makes the list is International Superstar Soccer 2000. As a PAL only release only it is rather difficult to find and I think deserves mention.

Chad Fawcett, Contributing Author