Quote Originally Posted by NerdXCrewWill View Post
Prior to this last post, you had put forth no evidence as to why we could not compare SMS and GBA games. Everyone knows you can't compare Atari 2600 small-scale releases to modern day bootlegs, and that was never in dispute. Thank you for clarifying your argument.

Regardless, the change from UPC to EAN13 took place much before the Sega Master System was released, so they can be compared. The other changes in the UPC system from Sonic SMS to Mario Advanced 4 have no bearing on what we're talking about.

I'm not the guy arguing that there was not intent to sell the product in the US. I think we all know there was intent to sell here, as it was indeed sold by Sega. I was just

I still maintain that the other interesting cases such as Radiant Silvergun must logically be accepted though, if we do take a UPC product code to be a logical determination of region.



This is not necessarily true. Rare things go for peanuts all the time. The value is associated with the demand created by the perception of the sticker being necessary for a U.S. SMS set.

Honestly, I couldn't care less about the value. I don't collect games in general, and the SMS is one of my least favorite video game consoles of all time. I was just getting in on the logical debate. :-)


EDIT: I suppose I should address one more thing in this post to be fair to Sunnyvale. I did say that the existence of a counterexample meant that UPC was shown to be too arbitrary to rely on. There are indeed country codes. I concede that point to you now. Now, I'm wondering why exactly SMA4 would have the same codes. Guess it's an exception, eh?
I think the problem is that people on the fence and people that think SMS Sonic should not be considered a U.S. release only see us saying the difference in the UPC is the key but that’s for this particular instance.

We all agree that Sonic without UPC sticker is different than Sonic with UPC sticker. Even if it is just the sticker you can logically tell them apart right? The non-sticker copy was only sold in Europe and the sticker copy was only sold in the U.S. right? The next logical conclusion to me is to say non-sticker copy = EU and sticker copy = U.S.

Now we put Radiant Silvergun (a game with a similar history) to the same test a U.S. purchased copy next to a Japanese purchased copy and can you tell what one is what? I say no they’re identical down to the last pixel in the last piece of Japanese text.

Then there’s things like the GBA games where they say “see the UPC doesn’t count for that much” and in the GBA games case no it doesn’t but when you put them through the same test low and behold you can tell what game is what without the need of the UPC.

Now with the variant argument I’ll say it again if SMS Sonic got a reprint in the U.S. that changed something on the packaging it would be a variant and if it was the same it would be a second print run.

So in conclusion I’m not saying the UPC should be taken as an absolute for defining what region a game was released in (in this case it just happens to work) but each game should be taken case by case. Seems most people agree with this for things like Atari but somehow after Nintendo everything has to be black and white?