Why are imported retro games so cheap?

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Arseen:

--- Quote from: lotusoftheleaf on July 25, 2010, 04:39:02 AM ---Ah. Well, that's a good reason. That's not much of a problem for me since I've played the English versions of the games I intend to buy so I know the story already. I guess not many other people are willing to buy a game in a foreign language if they already own their native language's version.

I know there's some games that never made it to America like Mother and Mother 3 that I've been wanting to play for years. I guess for those I'll have to rely on sites like GameFAQs. Hopefully there's some spoiler-free, basic walkthroughs, or better yet, some script translations on the web. It's always more fun when you explore and find things on your own than having things written out for you step by step. That's how I feel, anyway.

--- End quote ---

Mother is available as Earthbound zero in cart form in English unofficially.

shenske:
The reason why some games are so cheap is simply because they sold much better in Japan. Games like Crono Trigger and Earthbound didn't catch on well to the mass media at first in the US. Even though the games are highly regarded as some of the best RPGs on the snes they didn't sell well because it wasn't in the interest of the average snes consumer.

Later on people found out what great games these were and simple supply and demand took place. The demand is huge and the supply is small here in the US so that's why our copies of the game cost so much. In Japan Crono Trigger and Mother 2 sold like hotcakes. There is an abundance of those two games in Japan so the demand is not very high thus making the price lower significantly.

I bought my copy of Crono Trigger shipped from Japan for $5 (eBay). I also got Mother 2 shipped with 9 other super famicom games for $25(eBay), cool part is I resold Mother 2 for $55 and kept the other 9 games w/ profit :)

argobeat:
I mean just look at Panzer Dragoon Saga, $200+ here, $25 Japan... it's irritating, to say the least haha

Doom:
I wish Nintendo would release Earthbound on the VC. Copyright concerns with the songs in the game is probably the reason we haven't seen anything yet.

shenske:

--- Quote from: argobeat on July 25, 2010, 02:59:02 PM ---I mean just look at Panzer Dragoon Saga, $200+ here, $25 Japan... it's irritating, to say the least haha

--- End quote ---

Yeah it can be irritating but same story as before. The saturn actually did quite well in japan and a lot of people bought the system and the games. In America the saturn was pretty much a failure and there weren't nearly as many games sold comparatively. Supply and Demand ;)

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