Slashdot Mirror
Rare Recalled NES Game Stadium Events On Ebay For $99,000
An anonymous reader writes Via Eurogamer comes news of possibly the rarest of all NES games selling on the auction site Ebay for a staggering 99,000 Dollars at this time, with 4 days left to go. The game in question the 1987 NES game Stadium Events was released then pulled only 2 days later. Stadium Events was released by Bandai as a test title for its Family Fun Fitness Control Mat — an early version of the technology now found in Dance Dance Revolution floor pads. But Nintendo acquired the technology for itself, just as the game was being released. The company ordered an immediate return of all copies so the game could be rebranded with Nintendo's version of the controller mat, now named as the NES Power Pad .
Rare? They were my favourite Nintendo game developer!
Wired's take is that the price is heavily driven up by trolling bidders
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/s...
Favourite quote from the article:
What can be especially frustrating about these trolled auctions is the inevitable wave of incorrect news reports that follow, suggesting that the item in question has “sold” for the wildly inflated, unrealistic, fraudulent bid amount, without even a caveat.
It's turtles all the way down.
I guess you're new here.
Rich people have been spending incomprehensible sums of money on luxury goods for a long, long time. The only difference is that now some of the geeks are among the rich, and have tastes that extend into obscure and rare video games, rather than the classics like jewelry, yachts, planes, or supercars.
Or perhaps you meant "us" as in the western world? I can assure you that the elites in any given impoverished country are busy wasting wealth, too (though they tend to prefer the classics, as well). I've walked through some of Saddam's old palaces, and the amount of money he probably wasted on that stuff while the rest of the country rotted is just staggering.
This site fucking sucks.
3 days ago, I saw the same story on a video game news site. Only then, they made it very clear in their story that the ebay sale was probably a fraud. The bidding was much lower until an anonymous ebay troll with no feedback kept artificially inflating the bid.
So thanks for the news which is both incorrect and old.
Instead of bitching and moaning about it, why didn't you just submit a better summary yourself 3 days ago?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It's worth whatever some idiot is willing to pay for it. If that idiot can later sell it for a tidy profit, well..., I guess then that was what you would call a slick entrepreneur.
I've walked through some of Saddam's old palaces, and the amount of money he probably wasted on that stuff while the rest of the country rotted is just staggering.
Yeah, but unlike Saddam I'd like to think we're not a bunch of assholes who would put an old video game ahead of the well-being of kids.
You know how many schools you could build in Kenya for $100K? How many goats you could buy for needy families? How many girls you could send to school in Afghanistan? How many life-saving vaccinations you could dispense? How many malaria nets? How many wells you could dig?
Amount of money spent on a rare collector's item, makes not one bit of difference for how much money goes to <insert favorite charity here>. Why?
Buyer could sit on the money instead of buying this item - like anyone else having that amount of $$. Or spend it (perhaps, possibly, some to that charity). Same goes for the seller.
What matters is who holds the money, and whether he/she is inclined to spend some on your favorite charity. So in fact: if seller is more inclined to give money to charity than buyer is, then a high price for the item would be good news for that charity.
But lacking such info about buyer or seller, there's no way to know. So from your charity's point of view, nothing changes except for who gets to decide where the money goes.
I have read this three times and I still have no idea what you are talking about.
Option 1: Spend your space $100K on this piece of grey plastic.
Option 2: Spend your spare $100K on food for your local food bank to help families in your community that are feeding their kids Cheerios for dinner. Or worse, sending them to school hungry because this month they had to put a new muffler on the car that they drive 20 miles to work.
I assure you that makes a "damn lot of difference."
Yeah, but unlike Saddam I'd like to think we're not a bunch of assholes who would put an old video game ahead of the well-being of kids.
That is just wishful thinking.
Ahmed Wali Karzai for instance, the brother of Hamid Karzai, was the largest warlord and drug trafficker in Afghanistan during his brother's presidency. It's not because someone is on our side, that they're suddenly saints. In fact, Saddam was described in glowing terms by some of our politicians, to defend him against claims of genocide made by the Europeans, long before his relationship even went sideways with the US.
Also, I can assure you that many world leaders have people in the US, that can procure things for them in the US for the right fee. So even if an Ebay auction is purposefully limited to the US, it doesn't mean you're bidding against just US residents. In any case, that's probably a moot point anyway. The probability that the bidding is driven by fraudulent accounts, like someone else said already, is probably even higher still.
Do you know how much better you could make the world if you go volunteer instead of post on Slashdot?
Love sees no species.
Yeah, but unlike Saddam I'd like to think we're not a bunch of assholes who would put an old video game ahead of the well-being of kids.
Because you spend every cent of your disposable income on charity, right?
If not, I'd love to know what you think is more important than starving kids. Is it a snack from the convenience store? A trip to the movies? The latest novel from your favorite author?
I also presume you live in the cheapest possible housing, subsisting on the least expensive food you can find, as you prioritize the well-being of other so much that you dare not waste a penny that could go to better the lives of poor, disadvantaged, children.
Really, if you don't, you must be some kind of unfeeling monster!
Required reading for internet skeptics
Really, if you don't, you must be some kind of unfeeling monster!
You're trying to be sarcastic, but isn't that what we are? We've deliberately hardened our hearts over the years to permit us to engage in as little charity as possible, citing responsibility. Guess we're not our brothers' keepers.
Obviously I use the we and us quite deliberately, I ain't perfect either.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's your own fault. Don't buy hardware that's tied to a "free" online service. The cost of maintenance is built into continued sales. Once those sales stop, so does the funding. And definitely don't be surprised when the inevitable happens.
The same is also true of any home automation hardware you find in the big box stores. API points to a server run by the manufacturer or it requires an iOS/Android app or both.
No such illusion here. But when it's "free" some people forget that everything still costs money and that it's paid from somewhere.