Rarest Mega Drive title ever?

So I read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecmo_Cup_Football_Game

its listed on Sega-16 but not on Digitpress or guardiana. AFAIK there are no know copies even among hardcore collectors.

Does anone recognice the gameplay, maybe it was released under a difrent title, or maybe its just a fanmade rom?

Any help would be great.

I wouldn't trust information on wikipedia - especially concerning wether a megadrive game is released or not, theres so much wrong information out there. I would say its an unreleased prototype devloped by Tecmo, and because the rom has been dumped and on the net for years and years people just presume it must have been released. I've just given the rom of it a play, and its an awful game, plays like an FMV game, you just press buttons occassionally while the game animates confusingly, hardly the sort of game that would have sold well in europe, or anywhere for that matter.

Ninja Gaiden was also under development for megadrive by Tecmo, but that was unreleased too, theres also a rom of that avaliable which also has dodgy translation and poor gameplay. Lots of websites say that Ninja Gaidern was released, it definitly wasn't, many sites even claim its a compilation of the three nes games, which its not at all - its a bad version of the original walkalong beat-em-up arcade game.

Well, according to this site it had a spanish release:

http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_ar...=art&c=1&pos=4

And ive seen it beeing mentioned on other spanish sites aswell. I know the NES version was indeed released as stated on the same site:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Juego-NINTENDO...mZ300145876832


Edit: I see you edited your post. Anyway, it would have been great fun if it was indeed released. Something rare to hunt for.

Tetris is still more rare.

For pretty much every unreleased megadrive theres a whole bunch of sites with people claiming it was released, yet strangely enough nobody can ever show the box art or anything. There is so much wrong information on the net, just because a rom dump exsists people just say it was released, I guess this stems from the fact that these roms were dumped a long time ago in the early days of the internet, so it was never properlly documented that the dumps came from prototype cartridges - from the developers themselves in a couple of cases.

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Originally Posted by 108 Stars

Tetris is still more rare.

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Now, lets pressume there is in fact a release for Tecmo. So far not a single one have been found meaning there could be as little as 1 copy still intact. Or there might be a spanish warehouse full of unopened boxes. So it would be pretty hard to say that tetris is rarer without knowing.

Unless you wanted to say that its the rarest confirmed title? And just out of curiosity. How many known copies of Tetris are there?

Yeah, I believe Tetris is far and away the rarest game around for G/MD.

Besides, the Wiki article only says that the game is unheard-of to hardcore fans, not that it's necessarily rare.

There are 5 copies of Tetris afaik. If the whole run of that Soccer game has not been destroyed for some reason it is hard to be any more rare than 5 copies.

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Originally Posted by playgen

For pretty much every unreleased megadrive theres a whole bunch of sites with people claiming it was released, yet strangely enough nobody can ever show the box art or anything. There is so much wrong information on the net, just because a rom dump exsists people just say it was released, I guess this stems from the fact that these roms were dumped a long time ago in the early days of the internet, so it was never properlly documented that the dumps came from prototype cartridges - from the developers themselves in a couple of cases.

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True true, but on thing strikes me as odd. Guardian does not list this game amongst the unreleased titles like all other prototypes:

http://www.guardiana.net/MDG-Database/Unreleased-Games/

I know a guy that makes reproductions of unreleased protypes for the megadrive. I think he is a prototype collector aswell. Ill see what he have to say about this title.

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Originally Posted by Genesis Knight

Yeah, I believe Tetris is far and away the rarest game around for G/MD.

Besides, the Wiki article only says that the game is unheard-of to hardcore fans, not that it's necessarily rare.

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Once again assuming that the game does in fact exist. Not beeing listed on guardiana would make it pretty darn rare imho. There are some hardcore collectors on that site.

Edit: And yes, they have tetris listed.

Guardiana also lists Command & Conquer as an unreleased prototype although it is only a homebrew.

Yeah, I was about to ask when Guardiana became so hot. =P

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Originally Posted by 108 Stars

Guardiana also lists Command & Conquer as an unreleased prototype although it is only a homebrew.

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Hmm? Its clearly marked as Bootleg/Pirate.

Oops, sorry.
Although it is still a bit wrong...I mean, it´s not a pirate because it never was released on cartridge either, but I guess they just don´t have a homebrew-section.

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Originally Posted by Genesis Knight

Yeah, I was about to ask when Guardiana became so hot. =P

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Well, their listing is WAY more accurate that the one on this site, and like I said they have some hardcore collectors there. Like Adol, the guy that collects and have complete freaking sealed sets for various systems.

Dont get me wrong, I like this site better for the forum and the reviews. But the the seriosus collectors dosent visit here AFAIK.

I fired up a 4-in-1 cart last night for the first time and found that Tetris was one of the games. I played it for a bit and it was okay, although the pieces 'pull' down too fast for my liking.

I had no idea that the original was so rare.:p

Tetris is on Guardiana... I quit using it because the English version sucked ass, and it was too PAL/JAP orientated, plus it wouldn't let me change my collection anymore. And it IS the rarest game... Bootlegs are out there, but there is no rom dump of a legit copy.

I hear there are 10 copies of Tetris for the Mega Drive.

Supposedly there are two copies of Virtua Hamster for 32x.

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Originally Posted by j_factor

Supposedly there are two copies of Virtua Hamster for 32x.

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Well, it wasn't released in any shape or form... Tetris was, but recalled and many copies where destroyed.

From what I've heard Tetris was the rarest, but heard there were 6 copies. Fido Dido looked awesome - I wish it had been released.

I heard that there was only 6 known copies aswell, but at that point does it really matter if there is another game with lets say 4 known copies? Since these are not exact numbers i think its kinda splitting hairs.

Just rememberd. Bug Blaster and Star Strike are pretty rare in its PAL version. Only 5 copies of each were ever made, just for fun and giggles.

So thats 2 confirmed 5 copy games for the Mega CD ^^

Why would there only be five produced copies of a game?

I mean, okay, let's say they produced about 1000 copies, sold 5, recalled the rest and destroyed them... this still sounds highly unlikely in my ears (not to mention not profitable... recalling the games alone must be a real chore, not to mention everything that went into production etc.)

Limited editions, okay, that I can understand. But even those should usually range somewhere in the thousands, not only in a handful (considering the market, "a thousand" should count as a handful nevertheless).

So what's the story behind Tetris, for instance? Just why are there only 5 or 6 or whatever known copies?

Because of licensing issues the game was immediately pulled back. Only 10 copies were able to escape from the Doom of Destruction.

Yeah theres an interesting story behind the battle developers and publishers fought to get their hands on the Tetris license, with KGB spies involved, unlicensed games being made etc.
There was an interesting documentary on TV about the history of Tetris not so long ago, which is no doubt avaliable to download somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Phantar

Why would there only be five produced copies of a game?

I mean, okay, let's say they produced about 1000 copies, sold 5, recalled the rest and destroyed them... this still sounds highly unlikely in my ears (not to mention not profitable... recalling the games alone must be a real chore, not to mention everything that went into production etc.)

Limited editions, okay, that I can understand. But even those should usually range somewhere in the thousands, not only in a handful (considering the market, "a thousand" should count as a handful nevertheless).

So what's the story behind Tetris, for instance? Just why are there only 5 or 6 or whatever known copies?

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As far as star strike and bug blaster goes, these games were actually US releases, but the developers printed an additional 5 copies in PAL format aswell. They were snatched up instantly. As to why the hell they did it, I dont know. But its been confirmed.

So many conflicting numbers: the sad thing is, as reliable figures from the time are near-impossible to find, it'll most likely stay a mystery forever so all we can really do is argue at each other :(

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Originally Posted by Phantar

Why would there only be five produced copies of a game?

I mean, okay, let's say they produced about 1000 copies, sold 5, recalled the rest and destroyed them... this still sounds highly unlikely in my ears (not to mention not profitable... recalling the games alone must be a real chore, not to mention everything that went into production etc.)

Limited editions, okay, that I can understand. But even those should usually range somewhere in the thousands, not only in a handful (considering the market, "a thousand" should count as a handful nevertheless).

So what's the story behind Tetris, for instance? Just why are there only 5 or 6 or whatever known copies?

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well for one thing the company that released both Bug Blaster and Star Strike is base in the US new york

streets of rage 3 would have to be the hardest for me to get hold of

Reminds me of the Tengen Tetris craze...

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Originally Posted by conando

streets of rage 3 would have to be the hardest for me to get hold of

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I was looking around for Genesis games on eBay recently and was surprised at how much that one goes for. Not wallet-busting by any means, but $25-$30 was the average for the cartridge alone. I guess it really didn't sell that well originally, otherwise it'd probably be easier to get.

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Originally Posted by conando

streets of rage 3 would have to be the hardest for me to get hold of

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Streets of Rage 3 isn't rare - there are always copies knocking about. The problem is they cost so much. In saying that, the investment in SoR3 is well worth it as the game is awesome.

Tecmo bowl!

Anyone know how rare this game is?

http://cgi.ebay.com/SEGA-MEGA-DRIVE-...QQcmdZViewItem

And what a great game it is! Doesn't it just answer the phone when another Mega Drive calls? Or maybe it is used for online banking. I think I'd rather have the Dreamcast Zip Drive.

Maybe i'm overly picky, but for $1200 it should at least come with a manual.

And for some reason that cover screams "bootleg" to me.

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Originally Posted by dark & long

Maybe i'm overly picky, but for $1200 it should at least come with a manual.

And for some reason that cover screams "bootleg" to me.

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http://sega.jp/archive/segahard/md/answer.html
http://sega.jp/archive/segahard/md/answer_t.html

For $1200 they should at least print out the manual for you!

People need to understand that even "Fantastically RARE" doesn't necessarily mean "High prices".