Value of Tengen Tetris today?

[vanderveen88]

This morning I bought a copy of Tengen Tetris on eBay. Being in Canada, my choices are limited, but I found a seller based in Ontario. For the loose game, the total came to $38.99 in US funds, including shipping.

 

This seems quite reasonable to me, certainly compared to the prices at which other sellers had it listed. I'm sure I could have found a marginally better deal if I'd waited longer or bid on an auction instead of buy-it-now.

 

I'm curious to know, however, what the folks here would pay for it.

 

When I first started paying attention to NES collecting about 10 years ago, it seemed like Tengen Tetris was the system's "Holy Grail" -- certainly in terms of its notoriety and relative scarcity. I know I haven't seen one in the wild and I have spent my fair share of time at thrift and pawn shops, game stores and yard sales.

 

But I don't know if it still has that same reputation. All the talk now is about Stadium Events, it seems. Perhaps Tengen Tetris was akin to Chase the Chuck Wagon in that its notoriety overshadowed its actual rarity and drove up prices.

 

I'm happy with the price I paid -- I haven't received it yet, of course, but being a big fan of Nintendo's Tetris I'm looking forward to trying this one.

 

So what would you pay or demand for it?

[Armonigann]

From my understanding, it was never really that rare to begin with. Just very sought after for the two player mode. I've had two since collecting, one I paid 5 bucks at a flea and the other I got in a lot that I sold for 50 bucks on ebay.

[vintagegamecrazy]

It's still a fairly rare game to come across outside of online sales. I don't think you overpaid for it, that's a fair price. You could get it cheaper but it's not as often that a lower price comes up. It's worth the price though as it's a darn fine game!

[+atari2600land]

Why do people like Tengen Tetris so much? The action stops abruptly every 30 lines to tally up your score!

[Malc74]

As has been mentioned, it appears to be nowhere near as rare as was once thought (I remember when the retro scene really started to kick off about ten years ago, magazines like Edge Retro going on about its rarity). I picked my copy up for a couple of bucks in Value Village of all places. Excluding shipping I'd imagine you paid $25-$30 for it? If that's the case it sounds like a reasonably fair price to me.

[AlvinKarpis]

Thats a fair price

 

I would pay that much for it

 

The one reason I dont own it is because I dont watch for it very often on Ebay and when I do remember to look for it its always a bunch of Buy It Now listings that ask to much for it (in my opinion)

[fiddlepaddle]

It's not that rare, I'm sure. Back in the 90's, I ran across them on a regular basis (before NES games were generally individually priced at second-hand venues). Once collectors decided it was a desirable variation, I think the demand went up, and the the price began to climb. I know I thought it was the same game in different shells for a long time.

[+thegoldenband]

I think the high prices of this game go back further, actually. I remember it was running around $99 from the Funcoland catalog in the early 1990s.

[+Charlie Cat]

Hi guys,

 

Its a fairly rare game! The price you paid is still good!

 

Anthony....

[CGQuarterly]

The game is definitely scarce. I believe that 100,000 copies were made before the cease & desist happened, and who knows how many were recalled and destroyed. And the high prices of this game go all the way back to the days of the NES. Once it was recalled, it became a sought-after game. I remember it being the most expensive game, by far, on the price list of my local used game store back in the late 80's.

 

The game is not worth what it once was, but I think that has to do with demand. There are just so many iterations of Tetris out there. I still loce this one though and would never sell my copy.

 

Chris

[SoulBlazer]

Adding on to what Jibba said, that sounds about right from what I've heard. The unsold copies from stores were sent back and (presumaly) destroyed, but I think about three months had passed between when the game was released and the C&D was issued -- enough time for people to buy the game, especily considering the good reviews that it got. Really, Tengen Tetris is a FAR better version of the game then what Nintendo 'officialy' released later on, and not just for the two player mode. It was a very good port of the arcade version of the game, had superior graphics and music, and more game options. If the version of the game had sucked, demand wouldn't be so high -- but I recall the game always being highly sought after. There are rumors of a warehouse or building somewhere where a lot of the recalled copies are still stored and were never destroyed, also. I saw a sealed copy on EBay last year sell for several hundred. Luckily, Nintendo redeemed themselves with the Game Boy version of Tetris, 'borrowing' several features from the Tengen version.

 

Ah, gotta love the complicated and messy history of Tetris.

[Classic Pac]

I know for a fact at one time that game was actually going for as much as $1,000 but that was during the days before the internet got big and many more copies began to be found.

[fiddlepaddle]

 

 

The game is definitely scarce.  I believe that 100,000 copies were made...

100,000 is A LOT of copies. Lots of people bought it in that 3 month window so they could play that game at home. Maybe the very small percentage of NES owners who were knowledgeable collectors would snag it for its rarity when they saw it, most owners would just let it go like another game along with the system when they dumped it at Salvation Army or sold it at a garage sale. In the mid-1990's, every other garage sale had a Nintendo and a stack of games dirt cheap, and I saw that game many times. Even now with the maturation of the NES collector market, I doubt if there are 100,000 people who would pay the original retail price (approximately what it goes for today) for that variation of the game, except for nerdy collectors like us. Undoubtedly, many collectors have more than one copy, and there may be a stash of unopened copies somewhere as well.Yes, it is more rare than most games, it has a story behind it, making it interesting to collect, and the game play is good. Also, the collector market may grow to the point that sale prices for NES games continue to go up; maybe even a lot. But collectible markets are notoriously fickle, and there are many copies out there. I am absolutely sure you could find it in the wild eventually (I did). Of course, if you want it now, you can find it for the going rate, which will continue to fluctuate with DEMAND.

[TheGameCollector]

The real question is how much is a complete in box copy of this game worth?

[peeingas]

I know for a fact at one time that game was actually going for as much as $1,000 but that was during the days before the internet got big and many more copies began to be found.

Someone might have asked that much for it, but no one would have paid it. There was a time when this game was thought to be insanely rare, but I don't think it ever was worth that much. It was worth about $50 on ebay around 2002, but it seems to have gone down in value to about $30, when most other nes games have gone up in value.

[vanderveen88]

Well, thank you all for your input. I expect the game will be arriving shortly, so I guess I'll wait to see how much I like it before I declare any "buyer's remorse."

 

By the way, I recall reading (on TSR's site, maybe?) that as many as 300,000 were made, but only 100,000 were actually sold. I guess that's still quite a large quantity in the grand scheme of things, but I suspect many of them have been snapped up by collectors by now. I'm happy with the price I paid but as others have said, I'm sure it could be had cheaper with a little patience and a bit of luck.

 

Then again, last night I snagged Zombie Nation for $5. Perhaps that evens things out a little bit?

[Cynicaster]

Saw this game for $10 at a game store a while ago, guess I should have grabbed it.

[Gabriel]

Saw this game for $10 at a game store a while ago, guess I should have grabbed it.

 

I saw three of them lined up in a row for $5.95 each at a local store. I knew they had allegedly been "rare and valuable" a few years ago, but I assumed the bottom had simply dropped out of the market for them. When I saw the intial post of the thread, I assumed that $40 was the price for a complete but used boxed copy.

 

That said, the $5.95 bare carts were gone the next time I went into the store, so someone wanted them.

[+wood_jl]

I, too, remember reading about these being "rare and valuable and going for $100+" until I found mine for $10 and have seen them for that or less, ever since.

[DemonoidTentacle]

I think you paid a fair price for it. It doesn't seem as rare as it used to be. I think the consensus was that because there was the recall, there weren't many left. But since the rise of the internet and the behemoth that eBay has become, there's a lot more than what people thought. There's been 9 listings on eBay over the last month. One CIB in a group lot of boxed Tengen NES games.

[atarilovesyou]

I paid about the same for my cart, loose, in pretty good shape. Sealed, it's still one of the more tough to get games. I can only see it's rarity going up, because there's just not that many NES games that have that kind of history. In terms of rarity though, rarely are the 'good' games all that collectible.

[RupanIII]

100,000 units is a pittance compared to a machine that was at one time literally, statistically, available in 1 in 3 United States Households! I think that was a 60M unit system selling machine.

100,000 is kind of rare in that perspective.

[SiLic0ne t0aD]

NES Tengen Tetris has always been around $40, give or take.. I sold mine about a decade ago for that and it hasn't changed much in value. That's what I'd expect to pay nowadays too..

Edited December 16, 2015 by SiLic0ne t0aD85

[7800fan]

I remember when Funcoland was selling it for $400 but paid pittance if you sold it to them. A few months later they stopped buying it because of Nintendo.

 

About 10 years later, at about the time Funcoland was being bought out by Gamestop, I found one at Saginaw store and bought it for only a few dollars. At that time no one working there knew there was 2 versions of Tetris for NES or that Tengen version was technically illegal for them to sell.

 

I sold it on eBay a few years later for about $50. It's been around that mark for a decade now and I doubt it's going to go up much so it is actually bad investment when you factor inflation.

[CatPix]

100,000 units is a pittance compared to a machine that was at one time literally, statistically, available in 1 in 3 United States Households! I think that was a 60M unit system selling machine.

100,000 is kind of rare in that perspective.

I guess that 100 000 copies of a game is in that dark area where you don't know if a game is either rare (as in, rare, not Ebay rare) or just a low quantity.

And of course, there is the question of demand.

FIFA 2005 is the last Playstation 1 game sold. Is it rare or not? The sure thing about it : nobody cares. There might have been only a 3 000 copies run before they decided it was enough, or maybe threre is 600 000 of them.

 

Such figures are hard to wrap around your head.

According to many sources, only 250 000 Atari Jaguar were sold (that figure might be for the US only - but I hightly doubt that European sales were much higher if they aren't counted in that figure). It sounds ridiculously low.

Yet I already saw multiple people owning a Jaguar, and on AtariAge, while people certainly doesn't see them in every place or thrift shop, it doesn't seems hard to acquire one (finding one for a decent price is another story).

 

On the other hand, the Amstrad GX 4000 was a short lived console that sold 150 000 units in the UK and France only.

I never saw any, and never met any one that actually owned one.

Edited December 17, 2015 by CatPix