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Only English Final Fantasy 2 NES Cartridge On Sale for $50K

Posted by samzenpus on from the perfect-gift dept.

Croakyvoice writes "In what seems to be the 'in thing' at the moment comes another auction to add to last month's Zelda NES auction and that crazy million dollar collection. This time, for RPG fans, this could be classed as the Holy Grail of NES games. The game in question is Final Fantasy 2, which was never released outside of Japan, but luckily for the person who at this time is selling this on eBay for 50K, there was one made for the 1991 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by SquareSoft. Sadly, the U.S. version never had a release because they decided to work on the Super NES instead."

6 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Is it worth it? by joeflies · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I never really understood why these development cartridges fetch such high prices. Well, on a superficial level, I understand since it's a matter of supply and demand. But at a deeper level, it's a one off because it's an unfinished product. To me, I don't see any difference between a free fan-based english conversion vs an official "never sold to the public" version.

    Would you pay millions of dollars for a test version of Windows 98 developed for esperanto? The answer is no, because nobody cares. However, the same logic doesn't apply when it comes to toys and games

    1. Re:Is it worth it? by _Shad0w_ · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would and you wouldn't, because you don't care and I don't care, but I bet someone would and does. People like to collect all sorts of things and some of them have a lot of money to spare. Collecting game cartridges is no more stupid than numismatics, philately, or even cartophily - some cigarette cards have sold for millions.

      --

      Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.

    2. Re:Is it worth it? by realityimpaired · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't think anyone will give you shit for collecting vinyl records, as long as you're not one of those nutters who claims they are better at reproducing sound than a properly mastered CD

      I haven't heard a "properly mastered CD" in years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

      That's why vinyl sounds better... it's not that the medium itself is better, it's that it's not physically possible to press a record that's been as overmastered as the crap that they can do with a CD.

  2. Re:never released in the US? by retchdog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It was FF4 that was released as FF2 in the US.

    --
    "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  3. Re:He should have sold earlier by Smauler · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When did they do that? I personally hated 13, loved 12, liked 10, hated 9, loved 8, quite liked 7, and after (or before) this it's not about affection for the gaming public, because very few people have actually played 1-6.

    You'll get loads of people disagreeing with my personal opinion about FF, but IMO FF12 was the best they've done. Yeah, they fucked up 13 (IMO), but they've fucked up in the past and come back. It's still a franchise I'll buy into.

  4. I have an idea. by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Someone launch a Kickstarter project to buy this then put the ROMs out for the rest of the world to use on emulators.