Two unreleased NES titles are now up for grabs on eBay and could end up fetching thousands of dollars. Vintage video games can go for a lot of money and are usually purchased by collectors and those looking to preserve older games. Whenever a unique piece of video game history hits the market, it's a chance for eager gamers to own a piece of truly unique video game nostalgia. Still, depending on the price tag, it may not be obtainable for many. These aren't the first rare Nintendo games to hit eBay in recent years; there are many rare Nintendo titles out there.The NES, or Nintendo Entertainment System, was Nintendo's first-ever home console release. It hit markets in Japan in 1983 under the name Family Computer, aka Famicom. This all occurred during a time known as Video Game Crash, which was a time period that almost ended console gaming as gamers know them today. The NES went down in history as one of the best-selling consoles of all time and breathed new life into the US video game industry following that uncertain time.There are two specific games gaging interest online. First is a prototype cartridge of a real-time strategy game called Battlefields of Napoleon, including the original packaging design. This title never got a formal release in North America; it was, however, released in Japan for Famicom as Napoleon Senki. The second title up for grabs is a Consumer Electronic Show demo game called Scanner, developed by Rare for the Nintendo Power Glove. Rare went on to develop extremely popular games such as Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64, and Goldeneye 007 is returning to Nintendo Switch soon.
Enter The Video Game History Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to solely obtain, celebrate, protect, preserve, and educate the public on the history of video games. In a Twitter message by their founder and co-director Frank Cifaldi, the foundation hopes to secure the money through crowdfunding to purchase these unreleased games. According to Cifaldi, their resources are "stretched thin" and could use help. Raising funds to secure a true piece of history will undoubtedly keep them out of the hands of those who only look to profit, such as what scalpers were doing with Pokemon cards.
The Rare prototype is currently going for over $5600 with 29 bids and ends on Friday. The game designer's wife put it up on eBay, and it's from his own personal private collection. According to the listing description, the game never hit the market because of the failure of Mattel's Power Glove. Ironically the Power Glove wasn't Nintendo's only failure, as many gamers would say the Virtual Boy received a far worse reception from the public. Retailers lost interest in anything to do with the Power Glove, so development on the game was unfortunately canceled. It will be interesting to see who ends up with these rare games.