Hong Kong NES Mahjong ?? :)

[skeetskeetmoment]

Hi guys, I'm relatively new here, and have only started collecting retro games within the last year.

I'm a big GameChasers fan!, and love the Retroware TV team, as well as all of retro hunting / pickup shows all over youtube, seeing peoples awesome collections.
There are probably people on this forum I've watched and loved, and you guys inspire me to go out on the streets looking for sweet ass oldschool games!!

Anyways, when I first started out I randomly bought some Hong Kong NES games which I thought we're cool and interesting, only like 3 or 4 (From a re-seller T.T). I was clueless until I did a little research, and realized that Nintendoage classed this HK NES Mahjong as a 10/10 for rarity on its website. O.O

I don't even know if that means anything!!!, or if its rarity/value is in the ranks of an NES dinosaur peak, or if is it higher..... or lower..... I am really not sure.

So does anyone know its rough value given its condition ?

Thanks for reading my post.


Drew.

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh590/ITSMINENIGGAH/lolzs151_zps08a2d662.jpg (http://s1253.photobucket.com/user/ITSMINENIGGAH/media/lolzs151_zps08a2d662.jpg.html)
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh590/ITSMINENIGGAH/lolzs131_zps1e47635d.jpg (http://s1253.photobucket.com/user/ITSMINENIGGAH/media/lolzs131_zps1e47635d.jpg.html)
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh590/ITSMINENIGGAH/lolzs101_zps84319e47.jpg (http://s1253.photobucket.com/user/ITSMINENIGGAH/media/lolzs101_zps84319e47.jpg.html)
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh590/ITSMINENIGGAH/lolzs111_zpsaca09de9.jpg (http://s1253.photobucket.com/user/ITSMINENIGGAH/media/lolzs111_zpsaca09de9.jpg.html)

[Tanooki]

Well NA tries to keep their database up to date, outside of the NES it's lacking, but on NES it's pretty good and Mahjong is a very tricky one to come by so you got lucky. Nice way to start out and a little rubbing with a towel and some isopropyl alcohol should get a lot of that dirt off there too to improve appearances.

Oh and gamechasers is staged.

[SparTonberry]

I can only remember reading some video game sales chart site years ago (that I can't even remember the name) that claimed Nintendo sold 10,000 copies of Mahjong in the US.
Assuming that isn't complete BS (since of course the game was never released here) and that meant NoA made 10k copies for Hong Kong (which isn't implausable if we assume that only the Japanese and US branches existed at the time).
I'd imagine it being quite rare though as I hear the NES sold extremely poor in Japan (part because of piracy but also because gamers would prefer to import Famicoms rather than deal with the PAL format).
From the scans on NintendoAge, I'd assume it's probably the same as the Japanese version but with English box/instructions.

[skeetskeetmoment]

yeah there are a few different versions of Mahjong for the NES / Famicom, but I'm fairly certain the Hong Kong production was one of the smallest in licensed Nintendo history.

Below are some old topics about the Cartridge, all vague talk of rarity / scarcity, but no accurate price indicators:

http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=10&threadid=71058

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?125047-NES-Mah-Jong-Honk-Kong-Pirate

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh590/ITSMINENIGGAH/hongkongmahjong_zps9f3d93aa.png (http://s1253.photobucket.com/user/ITSMINENIGGAH/media/hongkongmahjong_zps9f3d93aa.png.html)

A quote from Nintendoage admin:

'Due to the number known to exist (1 thus far), Mah Jong is quite possibly the rarest game for the NES. Discovered in 2006, Mah Jong is the only Hong Kong exclusive (that we know of).

A few people have asked about chip information:

PCB: NES-NROM-128-02
PRG: PAL-MJ-0 (LH232644 8714 E)
CHR: HVC-MJ-1 (LH236783 8713 B)
CIC: 3196A (8712 A)

Mah Jong is one of only two non-US exclusive 5 screw games (the other being the Scandanavian release Devil World). '
http://www.nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Element.View&egID=2952&lgID=1276&sID=1276


So yeah, I guess it is all very subjective at the end of the day. I was just reaching out to see if I can gather some more information about this one.




Drew.