NeoGeo Aero Fighters 3 cart sells for 30K

[RCM]

According to the Internets. Anyone else hear about this?

"There's a Neo Geo game called Aero Fighters 3. Until this month, it was assumed that it had never been released in the US. It never was, officially. But at least three copies are now known to exist anyway, and one of them just went for over $30,000.

Reader Michael DiCioccio, a hardcore Neo Geo collector, says that he found out about the copies of the American edition of the game - of which there were only three ever made, presumably as testers/demos and never publicly released - from an ex-SNK USA employee, and that they've been sitting in storage for 16 years. He got hold of two (that's it pictured above), had them verified as authentic and sold one for at least $30,000. At an airport. Hopefully in an aluminium briefcase, wearing a trench coat.

Neo Geo games were expensive enough when they were new at retail. They're no slouch now, and for a game as rare as this, $30,000 (or the ballpark, Michael understandably is reluctant to reveal the exact tally) seems almost a steal."

SOURCE: http://kotaku.com/5889143/this-video-game-just-sold-at-an-airport-for-over-30000

[Guntz]

I was there reading the source thread on Neo-geo.com when it was first posted. Heck I even guessed what the big news was correctly before it was posted (Aero Fighters 3 AES). That thread is way more entertaining than the lame-o Kotaku article. In fact, I bet most people who found out from the Kotaku article don't even know the full significance of that discovery.

[FLYBOMBER]

But if they're not even full games, and just tested or demos they shouldn't be worth that much.

you would have to lie on sites like Ebay and not mention that at all in order for something to sell that high.

[Guntz]

^wut?

The big deal in question is a formerly-only-known-to-be-unreleased English version of a Neo Geo AES game called Aero Fighters 3. The Japanese title is Sonic Wings 3. Adol, a French Neo-Geo collector, says he had seen at least one AF3 AES in a game store back in 1995 (I think). Apparently AF3 was at one point on the Neo Geo Master List when Neo-Geo.com first opened, but it was removed due to a lack of evidence that the game existed.

The meat of the discovery goes deeper than just that though, you'd have to be familiar with the Neo Geo scene to really understand. Try reading the official thread for the game on NG.com.

[RCM]

@ Guntz: Do you have a link handy to the thread you mentioned? I'm interested in checking it out.

EDIT: found it.

[Miss Boris Yeltsin]

And somewhere out there, somebody literally is saying to themselves "and if it hadn't already been dumped, it'd have sold for $60,000". :roll:

[davidbrit2]

Too bad it didn't have a UPC sticker. He could have gotten $31,000.

[Graham Mitchell]

I payed about $50 for the MVS cart, though the label says "Sonic Wings 3". It's a pretty cool game, but not worth THAT much. AES prices are nuts.


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.125836,-118.158294

[fahlim003]

Interesting, the pictured item on kotaku looks pretty authentic, but yeah, it's really for the diehard Neo-Geo collector since as mentioned it is already dumped and playable in emulation/etc. I quite enjoy this particular game although I will say Sonic Wings 3 is the easier version. All the same, thanks for sharing - SW3/AF3 is a great game.

[madman77]

Interesting, the pictured item on kotaku looks pretty authentic, but yeah, it's really for the diehard Neo-Geo collector since as mentioned it is already dumped and playable in emulation/etc. I quite enjoy this particular game although I will say Sonic Wings 3 is the easier version. All the same, thanks for sharing - SW3/AF3 is a great game.
I'm not disputing the legitimacy of the cart, but that photo isn't enough to prove it's legit. I've seen fakes that would look good at that resolution. And in many cases, up close. You'd be surprised at the fakery surrounding Neo Geo AES (home) releases.