What happens to games that dont sell?

[garyfoo182]

Specifically PAL SEGA ones. I mean they have to go somewhere and there was that guy that found a warehouse haul of Megaman The Wily Wars PAL last year.

Anyone know? They clearly did not make 2 copies of PAL T-Mek 32X and call it a day

GARY BROWN

[Femtosecond]

The desert?

Seriously though, I wonder the same thing, but about magazines, since they have an even faster rate of turnover. I keep meaning to go dumpster diving behind the local Indigo books, but I always have something else to do.

[garyfoo182]

Its just like the strangest phenomenon in the world. Wouldnt you just love to find a big box of Darxide tec on the 32X, Death and Return of Superman on the PAL MD and Fatal Fury Special on the MCD

Itd be ace

GARY BROWN

[Tan]

i imagine the majority of games and magazines are recycled in this age of enviromental awareness, whether it's plastic or cardboard or paper. i can think of a few magazines i could wipe my ass with. :D

[garyfoo182]

Hmm that doesnt explain people suddenly fining lots of copies in a warehouse etc though

GARY BROWN

[Tan]

well older games i can imagine have all kinds of ways of showing up, but new ones i'd think would be different, especially since they constantly revise packaging for things like greatest hits etc. and prefer to use new than old

[cyberfluxor]

At one of my friend's houses, there's a big ass barn in the woods that belongs to someone, but we don't know who. Back in high school though, we would go there at night and get inside it with flash lights. It was never locked so it was a fun adventure. Upon going inside, there was so much random crap stashed there and I'd say there was a good 5000 sq. ft. of 2 floors of junk. We would plunder through it and find random stuff from the 80's and even 70's. It was so fun and cool to be in a time warp. It looked as though it was a storage facility for a store a long time ago and was pretty much abandoned and sold to someone who didn't care to clean it out because there was also rusty farm equiptment sitting around the outside and all. Maybe I'll go back and check it out sometime at night again and see if it's changed in the past 6yrs.

[Ed Oscuro]

Wouldnt you just love to find a big box of Darxide tec on the 32X, Death and Return of Superman on the PAL MD and Fatal Fury Special on the MCD
Personally, I'd rather get something playable like a Comix Zone MD/JPN or Rendering Ranger (though I see no reason to think that any of these were left unsold, heh)

[Neil Koch]

When I worked at Target, the excess magazines were recycled. Any of the clearance stuff that didn't sell (including games) were sent back to the distibution centers... but we didn't send too much stuff back, people will buy most anything if you take down the price enough. Most of the stuff that got sent back to the DC was either destroyed or given to charity, both of which could be used for write offs.

[jajaja]

I bet alot of the games was sent back and destroyed, seriously. It really sux to think about.

[Leo_A]

Seriously though, I wonder the same thing, but about magazines, since they have an even faster rate of turnover. I keep meaning to go dumpster diving behind the local Indigo books, but I always have something else to do.

Cut out the barcodes from the front cover and send them back to the publisher, and toss the rest of the magazine into the garbage.

[Jumpman Jr.]

The desert?

I'm not sure if you were joking, but that's actually true in one case that I'm sure we've all heard of.
If you beleive it,
Which I don't.
/end small reference to The Simpsons.

[CosmicMonkey]

I've often wondered this too. But I suppose after the bargain-bin they either get sent back, or destroyed.

Makes you wonder where stuff disappears to though. Apparently people can remember being in Telegames around 1996 and there was a stack of about 14 AES Euro Kizuna Encounters!! Where the hell there have all vanised to I don't know? But surely you would have though that these Neo owners would at least be active on the internet. You don't have to go far to know a Euro Kizuna last sold for $12.5k. And a Neo really isn't the sort of system you pack away and put in the loft. and old MD yes, but not a system with games that cost you £250 each! Plus, iirc, 3 of the 4 known copies came from Australia, so where did those 14 copies in the UK go to?

Same with the rare 32X and Mega CD games. Obvioulsy, garyfoo182 is correct, there would have been a production run of what, surely 5k/10k T-Meks, or Darxides. I'd love to know what the production numbers were, but no factory is only gonna produce a hundred copies, it's not econimical. Now, a 32X is the sort of thing you could pack away, and never get out till CarBoot day. But surely more random copuies of these games would have turned up, from people who don't know what they have? But they don't. Odd.

After all this time though, people still come accross sealed shipping containers of StarWars toys. Not nearly as ofter nowadays, but it still happens. So the chance is there. I don't know how Sega shipped games, but imagine finding a sealed shipping carton of, say, 20 copies of PAL Panzer Saga!

1 or 2 for me, the rest £75 + shipping.

EDIT: As for the whole ET in the desert business, what would you do? You've got a couple of lorry loads of crap games no-one wants and a large desert nearby. Best get digging!

[Ed Oscuro]

...surely you would have though that these Neo owners would at least be active on the internet. You don't have to go far to know a Euro Kizuna last sold for $12.5k.
If I had a $12.5K game in my house, I sure wouldn't advertise that, even if it was in a bank vault deep beneath another state.


And a Neo really isn't the sort of system you pack away and put in the loft. and old MD yes, but not a system with games that cost you £250 each!
What do you think I did with mine? Or better yet, that 12.5K game...people who own copies are not sliding them into and out of the system every day; that's just obsinately stupid because you're decreasing the value by wearing out the board and the plastic case. So actually NG systems tend to get packed away a lot, I'd imagine; it's the MVS carts that get a lot of playtime - MAME cabinets, too.

[XianXi]

So actually NG systems tend to get packed away a lot, I'd imagine; it's the MVS carts that get a lot of playtime.

I play MVS games on my AES. I only own like 5 AES games and a growing number of MVS carts. I'd rather pay 1/10th the price to play something on my NG.

[Mr.collection]

For one thing though if they were set to a garbage place they are picked out 75% of the time so they are some where. My friends dad was one of those people that check for hazardous stuff and he found me a couple of systems. I know a guy who found an AES in the trash too. To bad they didn't slap a GPS traker on 'em as they were tosed

[Haoie]

Well, sometimes it's cheaper to dump stuff rather than storing it or selling at a loss.

I still have doubts about how true the ET story is though.

[CosmicMonkey]

...surely you would have though that these Neo owners would at least be active on the internet. You don't have to go far to know a Euro Kizuna last sold for $12.5k.
If I had a $12.5K game in my house, I sure wouldn't advertise that, even if it was in a bank vault deep beneath another state.


Oh yes, I'm not disputing that; I wouldn't shout about it either. But considering Kizuna isn't really the best example of a Neo fighter, and the Japanese version (Fu'un Super Tag Battle) is available for $600, you'd have thought more people would be willing to sell.

After all, the only difference is the insert, sticker and manual. For $12.5k! I'd certainly have mine sold in a flash.

[ProgrammingAce]

What happens to games when they don't sell?

Two words.... Whisper Chipper. Really.

The atari story is true, but the games were ground into dust before they were dumped. Take a look around and you'll see devices made for grounding entire skids into rubble. I watched skids of Kasumi xboxes get ground up once the production number had been reached. A lot of LE systems have extras made incase some of the units are defective. Once the production number is reached, the rest are destroyed. Same thing happens to old games.


Wisper Chipper....

[CosmicMonkey]

I watched skids of Kasumi xboxes get ground up once the production number had been reached.

I'm sure that's upset a few people. Heh :D O_O

How much is one of those systems worth now?

[ProgrammingAce]

I watched skids of Kasumi xboxes get ground up once the production number had been reached.

I'm sure that's upset a few people. Heh :D O_O

How much is one of those systems worth now?

Lol, the only reason i saw it was because on of my friends called me down because of an "emergency". He thought it would be funny to have me watch those consoles get ground up.

And i've had offers of $800 on my sealed unit...

www.gamerhistory.com/hardware/kasumi.html

[diskoboy]

I guess different stores have different policies. I do know my Circuit City by my house still had Dreamcast games and a few VMU's in the clearance bin until around November.

I bought 2 of the VMU's :)

I know for a fact they still have a several boxed PSones. They had 10 when I went game hunting, the other day. I'm probably gonna buy one, this payday, simply to mod. And maybe get a spare (they're 40 bucks, after all) to keep in the box for collector purposes.

Some places, here and there, still have sealed N64 games and accessories.

[Yamazaki]

I watched skids of Kasumi xboxes get ground up once the production number had been reached.

I'm sure that's upset a few people. Heh :D O_O

How much is one of those systems worth now?

Lol, the only reason i saw it was because on of my friends called me down because of an "emergency". He thought it would be funny to have me watch those consoles get ground up.

And i've had offers of $800 on my sealed unit...

www.gamerhistory.com/hardware/kasumi.html

Damn! I bought a sealed systgem here in Japan for 200, and I could have got 2 more systems! DAMN!!

must really hurt to see kasumi get grounded. They could have save the cushion at least.

how did your friend know they get grounded? that's probably something that doesn't happen in public.

[thetoxicone]

Seriously though, I wonder the same thing, but about magazines, since they have an even faster rate of turnover. I keep meaning to go dumpster diving behind the local Indigo books, but I always have something else to do.

Cut out the barcodes from the front cover and send them back to the publisher, and toss the rest of the magazine into the garbage.

I knew a guy who ran a cd store and would get in 4-5 copies of rolling stone a month and would just cut off the barcodes and give them away so he could just say he didn't sell them

[vulcanjedi]

Well, sometimes it's cheaper to dump stuff rather than storing it or selling at a loss.

I still have doubts about how true the ET story is though.

This was finally confirmed in a G4 expose in 2004. Even Warshaw himself was talking about it. But they were shredded first. Something about realizing there were more copies of ET produced than there were 2600's estimated to still be in use.

M