Would an OFFICIAL reproduction interest you? Explanation inside

Collecting something rare still doesn't mean it has to be expensive. If you are collecting for the value, you aren't a collector but a speculator.

If they released a new batch, the originals are still the original run and still just as rare. Sure its worth less, but I thought it was for the love and such?

 

Only thing that that needs re-production is the damn PSX Hard Disks. Or a tool to repair it, god damn it Sony who designed it?!

Bad has a point, the originals will always be valuable. It's reproduction NES carts, NWC is $50 has that ruined the value of the real NWC cart? Of course not.

 

Speculation isn't entirely bad, some stuff that was rare has been put on the market due to speculation. Also not everything can be supported by donations. Some people gotta make a living. You can collect, try out and resell.

Rare doesn't make me love it more. Cheetahmen II is super rare, and every collector has to have it, but I will never buy it or attempt to play it.

 

I'd like a Neptune or slightly better Game Gear.

 

I absolutely would be on board with a rerelease even if it were limmited production. Surely it would have to come in some slightly obvious packaging like a "greatest hits" title . With as much pissing and moaning as I read about sellers raping your wallet for second hand games/consoles you would think this idea has a lot more support here. I would much rather make my rerelease the workhorse and keep my originals on display and well preserved. If anything, I believe it would bring renewed interest in homebrew production since accessibility would become less of a factor.

 

As someone who doesn't own a Sega CD or a PCE CD-ROM2, I'd be very happy to buy a new one

Assembler is correct though, it will drive down the price of stuff that's already in people's collections.

How is that a normal price? New Nintendo games were never that cheap. New cartridge based games, especially on the SFC cost as much as $80. NES games usually topped off around $60. Making carts is way harder than pressing CDs. It will probably be even more expensive to manufacture and buy today, given all the overhead involved.

 

their are already lots of MegaDrive and SNES clones but they have not reduced the price of the originals at all so i dont see that a revamped console released by the original manufacturer would have any impact at all, if anything it might encourage more people to want to purchase old games, hardware, accessories etc.

people who want the original hardware will still buy it and people who arent overly bothered can purchase the revamped version or stick to emulation, considering how some consoles look when played for example on a 50" plasma (some look quite rough) then emulation is better for most people who want it to look as good as possible

 

FYI, the original He-Man figures were reproduced when they introduced a new toy-line, complete with repros of the original packaging. They added an additional packaging around that, and some print on the back of the repro packaging was missing (as were the pack-in comic books iirc) so you could easily distinguish between both.
That would be a good way to go in my eyes. Theoretically one could even create some kind of limited "master version" release of a console with beefed up connectors, AV circuitry etc.
What I would like would be a console that plays original cartridges, works like the original, but somehow "better" (better soldering, better shielding, more robust connectors etc) while still using original parts for the crucial chipset thingies so that there is no difference through some SOC shortcomings.

A 3DO Blaster that works with other CD-drives than the original (and nearly extinct) Creative units? Hell yes... although that would still make it a 3DO, so rather no

I would not want to replicate limited editions (like, say, a Panzer Dragoon Xbox), but I think that a standard Mega Drive with a easier to source output connector and better PSU options (wide range voltage converter inside so that you can use it with any laptop PSU and a SCART connector so you can hook it up via a normal SCART cable) would be very very nice! And through these modifications the repro would be dead easy to spot.

 

Yup, I'd be interested as long as the price is right.

 

How much was a basic phone in the 80s? Now how much is one now? Things get cheaper to make when its not cutting edge tech

 

i on the other hand would love this for the same reason. and also another reason being the old lasers failing.

i doubt they'd do it though.

 

^^^ Thanks Bad_Ad84 this is exactly what I wanted to say.

As a speculator you should hopefully understand supply/demand. If there is a great enough demand someone is going to try and fill that demand with a greater supply.

 

True, but that is when something is in constant production. Once something goes out of production for a while though factors such as loss of expertise, retooling, ect bring the price back up. They didn't just turn off the power and throw some dust covers over the equipment after all.

 

No ones stopped making PCB's AFAIK. Any PCB plant can make a SNES pcb and any chinese worker can solder in the parts. They obviously wouldnt just use the same chips as 5v is old and expensive. They would be new pcbs with new parts. a 4MB chip is much cheaper than it used to be.

So this isnt quite the same, as all the processes used for snes games are still in use today.

But yes, your general point (economy of scale, this wouldnt be anywhere near "full production" numbers - so likely more expensive as less being made) I understand.

RetroUSB are doing it RIGHT NOW - http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=33&products_id=115

So if they can do it for $40, Nintendo and co could do the same or less.

 

That's exactly the reason why is will never happen, at least not in the form of accurate replicas of the old products. Molds for cartridges are probably not usable anymore or have to be re-engineered, contracts with factories have long expired... even if we would get official reprints, there would be a noticable difference. Maybe the quality would be even better, but it would still be different. Thing is, it could look the same on some pictures (maybe just the cardboard is thinner/thicker or the print quality of the covers higher), so it would be really hard to tell a reprint apart from an old original.

That is correct. I was just attempting to estimate a possible equilibrium price for an old reproduction nowadays. Since most 1st-party games (the ones we could expect reprints from since all cartridges were manufactured by Nintendo) are not worth more than maybe $50 with very few exceptions (sealed does not count), which one would people pay more than $20 for? And if they wouldn't, what's the point in selling them to a very limited demand market for $80? Hell, I wouldn't even buy one for that price and I love my Famicom. I already have almost all of Nintendo's Famicom releases in their original form and I can tell you they were even cheaper than $20 per game. Reproductions wouldn't pay off for the companies that make them.

 

I see nothing wrong with Official repros. We're not all made of money.

 

A bit off topic but speaking of manufacturing does anyone exactly know where all this stuff was made and what companies made it? What companies made the packaging, Who molded the plastic shells and so on? For that matter does anyone know who does the current gen stuff and where? This is something there has never really been a discussion on as far as I know.

 

I'll go for it if they decided to do it, I want a few sega and nintendo game but their prices are way out of the topic and like GodofHardcore says I'm not made of money.

 

I'm all for it. If Nintendo decided to re-release the NES and SNES, I'd gladly buy them. Even with games. Some of the most sought after games fetch big bucks, and if they decided to release them again, that'd level the playing field. I can't justify $5k-$6k for a Nintendo World Championships cart. Very much not worth it. If they made a limited run of these for $30 or so odd bucks, I'd buy a few.

 

Why would they release it? It's just a compilation with limited playability of 3 cheap generic NES games... it's a pure collector's item, almost nobody buys it to play. And by the way, there are already websites that sell repros of it.

What most of you seem to neglect is that many of the really expensive NES/SNES games are NOT made by Nintendo. How would they reproduce expensive Konami, Taito or Capcom games (Contra, Dracula XX, Chip'n Dale 2, Bubble Bobble 2 etc)?? And back then, cartridges were all produced by Nintendo as a job order under license.