How popular is the Genesis these days?

[Rickstilwell1]

Pilotwings is also a bit more unique in terms of gameplay. Altered Beast is just another one of those random side scrolling combat games. A genre that had spread like chicken pox by the time Pilotwings came out.

[IrishNinja]

yeah, Turbo games (like Saturn ones here) at least had a lower print run, but even then i don't think prices are outrageous, for the most part...some stuff i looked up like Air Zonk was way higher than id've expected though. shopping for PCE (and JP saturn, for the same reasons) is way cheaper/better, when possible!


I was under the impression that higher prices = higher popularity regardless of rarity. Just look at Earthbound and Suikoden II. The games are merely an R4 and they are worth more than most R5's, R6's and R7's. Even an R8 game system is worth less than them because it is not popular.

pardon my ignorance here, but i've not seen the R4/5/etc distinctions prior; what is that?


"Properly"? Ugh. I don't like Sonic 1. You're just gonna have to deal with it.

that's fine, and i wasn't trying to be snooty - there's a notion in recent years that sonic is about pressing right to win; classic sonic titles had multi-tiered levels with several ways to finish them & lots to explore, if you were so inclined. I was just pointing that out because i think a lotta people missed that until about Sonic 3 (secret stages) or Sonic CD (future/past signs).


• I pointed out that AB is sorta crummy
• Someone else excused its crumminess by citing it as a pack-in
• I brought up SMW as an example of why being a pack-in is NOT an excuse to be a crappy game.

...
I'm not at all trying to make this an SNES vs Genesis thing. I only ever brought up the SNES because of the idea that a pack-in game gets a free pass to be crummy because it's "free". But since you went there, all 3 SNES launch titles are still considered good games (SMW, Pilotwings, and F-Zero). Sure, there were only 3 launch titles, but I know that I will always choose quality over quantity.

Are you excusing the overall poor quality of Genesis launch titles based on the fact that they are launch titles?

someone else mentioned how your original statement seemed to imply post-launch stuff, but i do find your fixation with launch titles troubling. Personally, i don't think ive seen a great console launch lineup since the Dreamcast, and that had a huge lead in japan to get them out the door. I'd even go so far as to say all 4 gens of Playstation have had medium to okay launches at best, but who focuses on this when looking back at any of them? The N64 had one of the best launch titles of all time, but not much for a great deal of time after that...it's a weird criteria to focus on, i think.


Pilotwings is phenomenal. Seriously, it's 100x better than Altered Beast. Maybe AB is an acquired taste, but I see no reason to pursue it further with the 100+ better Genesis games out there.

haha this is a weird comparison but yeah, id agree Pilotwings is way better. it's a mode 7 tech demo basically but ends up being fun, whereas i didn't get that from the 3DS game sadly.


I love how people are ignorantly arguing against wiggyx and are making his point for him. Bravo, Genesis fanboys. Way to give fans of one of the best consoles out there a bad name.

if you've been following, the ignorance was pointed out multiple times regarding his statement about arcadey titles with no replacy value (which somehow incorporated Shinobi) and conflated launch lineups with other titles. if discussing something rationally & pointing out mistakes "gives things a bad name" or makes fanboys of people, i suppose i'm on the wrong forum?

[calgon]

So I mentioned this before but I want to add more to my genesis library this year as well as play some neglected games I hadn't gotten around to. I'm thinking it's best to compliment the loose games I already own with their cases and manuals (see my post in the orphanage) before I go on to buff my collection up. So after digging through my closet I found a game I didn't realize I even owned which is the genesis version of Ys III. Anyways, I went on a tear last night and ended up getting to the mountains and dying. It somehow slipped my mind to save frequently and my last save was way, way back at the tigre mines several levels lower! I have to re-adjust myself to play old school again :D

[o.pwuaioc]

haha this is a weird comparison but yeah, id agree Pilotwings is way better. it's a mode 7 tech demo basically but ends up being fun, whereas i didn't get that from the 3DS game sadly.
Well, we're just talking about launch titles, so that's the comparison. Pilotwings may have been technically a tech demo, but it's a superb one at that. I never spent much time with the N64 or 3DS version. I demoed the 3DS version back during launch, but the 3D killed me, and after turning it off, I thought it was only OK. I'd give it another shot.


if you've been following, the ignorance was pointed out multiple times regarding his statement about arcadey titles with no replacy value (which somehow incorporated Shinobi) and conflated launch lineups with other titles. if discussing something rationally & pointing out mistakes "gives things a bad name" or makes fanboys of people, i suppose i'm on the wrong forum?
You're not really correcting, though. The original mistake isn't there. I can see how out of context the statement can be taken, but in context it seems pretty clear to me.

[Koa Zo]

You're not really correcting, though. The original mistake isn't there.

for the 3rd or 4th time:

In the late 80's and early 90's the graphics improvement over the NES was everything.(...) So many of the games were terrible or had about 60 minutes of play value attached (...).
"In the late 80's and early 90's ...so many of the games were terrible"

Are you still pretending that the discussion was about launch games?

[Gameguy]

pardon my ignorance here, but i've not seen the R4/5/etc distinctions prior; what is that?
Those are rarity ratings from 1 to 10 as described from this site's rarity guide, which was pretty useful and relevant about 10 years ago give or take.


that's fine, and i wasn't trying to be snooty - there's a notion in recent years that sonic is about pressing right to win; classic sonic titles had multi-tiered levels with several ways to finish them & lots to explore, if you were so inclined. I was just pointing that out because i think a lotta people missed that until about Sonic 3 (secret stages) or Sonic CD (future/past signs).
If you play the Sonic Advance games on the GBA, many of the levels are basically press right to win. I've passed at least one whole level just by holding right, and occasionally pressing jump when stuck at a wall or small ledge. There was no real skilled platforming required like in the original Genesis games.


"In the late 80's and early 90's ...so many of the games were terrible"

Are you still pretending that the discussion was about launch games?
He said many, not most. And I'm pretty sure he said early 90's so we'd be including the SNES which came out here in 1991. Most of the good games that everyone remembers on the Genesis or SNES came out in 1992 or later. So any game pre-1992 would be considered for his statement, and plenty were bad, though several also were good. If you're altering the quote, remove "so" as it's out of context. Many of the games were terrible, that's true, or at least mediocre if terrible is too much. That's still not even saying most of the games. I just disagreed with his specific view on Sonic 1.

[IrishNinja]

Those are rarity ratings from 1 to 10 as described from this site's rarity guide, which was pretty useful and relevant about 10 years ago give or take.

ah, a shame it's not current cause something like that'd be pretty useful, at least in determining legit low print runs from weird retro bubble prices.

[segafan1989]

I'm glad that the Segalicious Genesis is unpopular with a lot of people. It makes it easier and cheaper for me to obtain the games I want for a most beloved system. Model 1 attached to a Model 1 Sega CD owner speakin from the heart. :)

[Rickstilwell1]

ah, a shame it's not current cause something like that'd be pretty useful, at least in determining legit low print runs from weird retro bubble prices.

As far as print runs go, the numbers on the rarity guide should still be accurate. The number of games printed has not changed. The only thing that really changed are the prices on the guide. If you want to see how high or low the games' print runs were, the rarity guide is still a great place to see the games' relations to each other.

Certain titles bubbled just because more people are adults and collecting now. You'd be surprised how young some of the nostalgic kids are too. Some kids most definitely grew up playing their dad's old Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis in the last decade among other consoles. Now they want their own.

When I have a kid they'll get to play Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Playstation etc. and they will get their own system from me. They're going to want games and in 20 years you other collectors and myself included better watch out. He or she is going to be bidding against us. I'm lucky I don't have the same hobbies as my dad or I'd be competing with him on all those nice looking ebay guitars.

[FrankSerpico]

A lot of the nonsense about the Genesis not having as strong of a library as the SNES comes from Square/JRPG fanboys who perpetuate the myth that not only was the Genesis deficient in this genre, it was in a ton of others as well. When it comes to shmups and sports games, the Genesis easily outdoes the SNES. It wasn't until Madden '96 that I played an EA Sports ttitle on the SNES that didn't have piss poor AI compared to its Genesis counterpart. When it comes to fighting games released on both consoles, the Genesis ports almost always ran quicker, and just as with the sports games had more challenging AI. The "lack of JRPGs" myth has a lot to do with misperceptions from people who got into that genre with FFVII. Because Sega still had that early '90s mindset that "gamers in the West never buy RPGs", really good franchises like Langrisser, Phantasy Star etc. that produced some of the best titles on the console never were carried on correctly into the 32 bit era when demand for RPGs on this side of the pond exploded. Every Genesis Phantasy Star title, including 3 imo, surpasses any SNES rpg I've played aside from the Final Fantasies, Chrono Trigger and Ogre Battle. Yes, including Earthbound, which is easily the most overrated game in the whole SNES library

[MidnightRider]

RPG's were never in demand outside of Japan. FF7 just had that good a marketing campaign, and the internet never, EVER, represents a majority in any fashion.

Hell, even the Japan/RPG thing seems a bit questionable. The best Selling SNES RPG was Dragon Quest 6. ~17 million SNES's were sold in Japan, and of that 17 million, 3.2 million copies of DQ6 were sold. A great number of sales for the time to be sure, but if the RPG genre was that massive, what happened there? Each family that bought it had 5 other families they'd eventually lend it to? 14 million casuals?

I mean it really makes you wonder how overstated that genre is across the 'net.

[o.pwuaioc]

"Casuals". Really, this. 3.2 million is quite a lot, but of everyone in Japan, the ones who really want to talk about games on the internet are the ones who are most passionate about it. People who bought SNES's for Mario, Madden (all my brother played), and a few others probably won't go to gaming forums to talk about their love of Mario and Madden. But RPG fans have that extra passion for gaming that makes a good number of them over-represented on the internet.

In my opinion, that's a good thing. I don't give a shit what someone who hasn't touched a Super Nintendo in over a decade thinks about it. It's irrelevant to me.

[Rickstilwell1]

I have to admit Sega RPGs are not as bad as they look. Even Miracle Warriors for Sega Master System can be addicting and that game is pretty ugly until you get into battle where the backgrounds have far more detail than Dragon Warrior. And this game was released before Dragon Quest was released in Japan! The Phantasy Star games don't really look as visually smooth as the Squaresoft SNES games, but they probably still play very well.

[ifkz]

From what I am seeing locally, just these past few weeks, the Genesis market is pretty hot. Supplies of boxed or better games are a lot harder to find than they used to be when I started collecting casually for the Genesis in the late '99s. This past week I'm having to pay a lot more for nice complete titles than earlier. Some examples for the bored:

I am trying to find a few of the Renovation titles that slipped through my hands over the years: Elemental Master was $37 shipped CIB. I would like a complete copy of Arrow Flash, but the lowest CIB price I found was around $40.

I feel lucky nowadays when I can get a boxed game for the price of a loose cart if the game is rare enough, my Moonwalker in this example. Prices have cooled off a bit for this title.

Obscure shooters: Task Force Harrier was $40 CIB. The only way I could get a CIB Hellfire somewhat within budget was to order a 12 game bundle. On it's own that is fetching...$45. Stupid Seismic and their low print runs.

Just yesterday I found Data East's Atomic Runner locally; it is a hybrid platform shooter that is even better than the original arcade game. Unfortunately my CIB copy has a wrinkled cover and the backside of the paper has major dried up mold. I think for health reasons I'm going to toss the original cover and repro one on my laser printer, (thoughts?). Anyhow, I mention this because online this title is spiking too, well beyond my budget to try and find another original cover/better copy of it.

As a final example (since this is getting rather long winded), look at Vapor Trail. Complete copies of that are very scarce and expensive. It is now another $40-50 game for those that want boxed or better.

Wrapping this up, I feel lucky these days if I can get any complete Genesis games for the $10-$12 range. It's just amazing since the days of Funcoland, thrift stores, and other local huge supplies of Genesis games are fresh in my head. Times have changed and pretty quickly too. Titles I thought back then would explode into very high dollar games (Toe Jam & Earl, PS IV) have stayed about the same prices as back in the early '00s, so there is some good news for new collectors. It's clear someone besides me is buying Genesis and in a big way. I credit sega-16.com and online youtube review sites like Classic Game Room for getting the word out.

[Gameguy]

Unfortunately my CIB copy has a wrinkled cover and the backside of the paper has major dried up mold. I think for health reasons I'm going to toss the original cover and repro one on my laser printer, (thoughts?).
You might be able to clean that up. Take out the paper and wipe it down with a paper towel wet/damp with Windex. It should clean up, I've cleaned some manuals like this before(even just with water instead of Windex to save a bit on costs), going through every single page.

[zakthedodo]

There is a huge fanbase for the Genesis/Mega Drive
The Genesis is as expensive as you make it.
I liked games CIB and most of the time, I went for the Japanese Mega Drive games because I liked the cart design better and most of the manuals were full color throughout,..just a better presented product in general.
Some games I needed 4 to 6 weeks to stash enough to pick up something like Pulseman or Battle Mania.
It's pretty much now an investment.

Imports is where you can get into deep prices, and say RPGs.
When the Genesis launched in the U.S., advertising was top heavy on sports and arcade titles.
Early on Phantasy Star II was Segas biggest and maybe only RPG.
There are a lot of consoles in good shape and I suspect this is due to Sega targeting teenagers and people in their early 20's with the advertising campaign.
First series of any game console where so many who wanted the system probably used their own cash to buy and didn't feel the need to draw and write all over carts and manuals.