My friend gave me a cr*pload of his old PSX and PS2 games yesterday as he's decided to "weed out" all his last-gen consoles (says his living room entartainment center was looking too cluttered.. his loss.. my gain) and now all he's interested in is his 360. He gave me his "release day" model of the PSX long ago (one of my prized possessions.. everything he owns always looks like new) and several of these PSX games were the longbox editions.

Anyways.. his copy of wipeout looks like brand new (It was a release title wasn't it? Along with Battle Arena Toshinden?) and it's the longbox (cardboard) one with a slipcover as well. I saw it in the DP guide.. but my question is was this the FIRST released way it came? Where in the wipeout "timeline" did it appear? And of course.. how rare is it?

I also got a mint copy of Destruction Derby in the cardboard longbox. Other titles in the longbox PLASTIC cases were:

Battle Arena Toshinden
Ridge Racer
ESPN2 Xtreme Games
PGA Tour 96
Power Serve 3D Tennis

How many of these were launch titles? Is there any truth to something I read of Sega selling all their Saturn and Sega CD cases to Sony for the PSX launch? I REALLY need some nicer cases for some of my SCD and Saturn games (Snatcher's needed a home for a long time) and ALL of these cases are immaculate. Which of these titles should I toss and use the cases for? Basically.. are they worth anything? I'm thinking the cases alone are worth more to sprucing up my SCD and Saturn collection than the games inside them are. Any SCD and Sat games I'm using them on ARE complete with the back inlays and such.. but some of the cases are very scratched (a couple cracks) and would look a lot nicer in what is essentially.. brand new cases (they're not brittle either).