I have a Famicom and Disk System that probably should find new homes. The Famicom is the very rare, first release square controller button set. It's CIB, with the matching box and instructions. I also have 2 Disk Systems that are also the first releases in the side opening boxes. Both are CIB, although 1 has a few more pieces of paperwork than the other, including a registration card with matching serial number. The FC works, and 1 of the Disk Systems works, but the 2nd Disk System needs some work (probably just a new belt, but I don't have any on hand). I also have a step-down power converter so that both systems will be running on the correct voltage.
Also included would be two dozen or so games for the systems. I have a handful of baseball titles and RPG's for the FC, and quite a few brand-new, still sealed Disk System games. Some highlights are Metroid, Kid Icarus, most of the titles that were released in America as "black-box" games, and Super Mario Bros.
Lastly, I have a CIB Satellaview add-on for the Super Famicom. This was mounted underneath the system and used a modem to download games to the unit. It's a pretty niche piece of Nintendo history, but they're very difficult to find outside of Japan.
The Famicom bundle by itself (3 systems + games) would be ~$700 + shipping within the US, and the Satellaview would be $250 + shipping by itself. I could offer a slight discount if someone wanted to take both off my hands.
Thanks for looking!
Probably only going to bump this once. If nobody is interested, it'll go into storage for a (long) while.
Whoa square button Famicom! By all accounts it's just a design flawed Famicom right? Wasn't the reason for the switch because customers complained that the buttons would get stuck or become unresponsive? That's very cool though. Can you provide pics? How much for just the Famicom?
Also correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Satellaview akin to the Sega Channel adapter in that it's virtually useless dead tech now? IIRC, the Stelleview had no storage medium. Therefore, you're selling a hunk of plastic that's only value now is in it's history and only purpose is that it's a conversation piece.
Still, cool stuff man.
Quote from: satoshi_matrix on December 11, 2010, 01:56:38 pm
Whoa square button Famicom! By all accounts it's just a design flawed Famicom right? Wasn't the reason for the switch because customers complained that the buttons would get stuck or become unresponsive?
Worse than that. The initial "square button" model has a fatal error with cartridges that caused specific games to crash, thus the recall and the redesign.
Really? then why is Epic_Lotus selling it for so much money? If it's a defective model, shouldn't be be worth less than a normal CIB Famicom?
It's RARE and ... well... yeah, it's only rare.
I'd only buy one for my collection if I found one very cheap (i.e. the seller doesn't know about the rarity :P).
Is there a list or an article anywhere about the Square Button Famicom and what games it doesn't work with? I'd love to learn more about it.
It's not just a case of one or two games not working, the initial motherboard the system shipped with had problems, causing any Famicom games during the 1983 release year to either experience freezes, lock ups, or the games wouldn't boot at all. David Sheff's book
Game Over (which I recommend anybody interested in Nintendo or the Famicom to read,) goes into this a bit more specifically:
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Pushed by a barrage of advertising, 500,000 Famicoms flew off the shelves in the first two months. Six months later, however, a catastrophe occurred before the Japanese New Year, the toy industry's busiest season.There were at first a few calls from retailers. Then a few more. Masayuki Uemura and Gunpei Yokoi were called into Yamauchi's office. They were told that certain games for the Famicom caused the system to freeze.
The engineers nervously returned to their labs and worked on replicating the malfunction. Finally, there it was, trouble with one of the integrated circuits that got locked when certain information traveled on certain pathways, like a multicar pile-up on a badly designed freeway.
They trudged back to Yamauchi's office and explained the problem and the required solution. The circuitry on the chip had to be corrected. They expected Yamauchi to go into an explosive tirade. This was extremely expensive news.
Yokoi suggested that the company could replace units when customers complained. Hiroshi Imanishi, who was working on the marketing of the new machine, said that the problems could be more severe than whatever number of units had the defective chips; it could cost more than the hundreds or thousands, maybe millions, it would cost to fix or replace the machines. Imanishi said it would hurt customers' opinions of Nintendo. Worse, much of Yamauchi's window of the year-the year that it would take competitors to try and copy the Nintendo machine and get it out the door-would be lost. QA delay would allow competitors to swoop in and capture the customers that Nintendo had worked so hard, and spent so much money, to win.
Yamauchi listened to the opinions of his staff but ignored them.
"Recall them all," he said.
/sigh... Okay, while I appreciate the attention my interest check thread is getting, I'm a little bit miffed. This is the second time this week (once on NintendoAge and now here) that Satoshi_Matrix has popped into my sale threads and commented on how useless he thinks my sale items are. Knock it off, man :-[! If you aren't interested in something I'm selling, please stay out of my threads. Telling people that my Satellaview is a worthless hunk of plastic and that my FC is just a defective model is pretty damn rude when I'm possibly looking to sell them. These are worth what they are because of the collectibility, rarity, history, whathaveyou. Just because you don't think an item has no value doesn't mean you need to share your opinion with everyone else!
It's also wrong: First, the boards with problems are not, as far as I've *ever* seen, the Rev 5 boards, which Nintendo used for a good while and the problems with the early boards, such as the Rev 04 in my post about the early boards some weeks ago, aren't common either. It has to do with certain sprite routines, if I remember what I read from one of the Nintendo team in an interview a while back correctly, and only a few games at that time would *occasionally* glitch.
But that was enough, especially given how new it was, to recall the systems to replace the PCBs. Keep in mind that at the time of the recall, only the boards were changed, and the systems went back with square-button controllers. The controller replacement wasn't a recall, but a customer option that happened later, due to complaints from heavy-fingered users.
I have played with my SB Famicom systems extensively, as did the original designers. While the buttons have a different feel, the idea that they become stuck or break too easily is very over-popularized and even if they do, you can pop them back with a little nudge. The main concern is getting replacements in the future (I am working on making them) if you want to use it daily, as with any other rubberized membrane, they will eventually disintegrate and need to be swapped for a new set, like the rubber contact inserts underneath the normal, round buttons.
That isn't the point of owning one though... Just like you dont buy a Gold Rockman 4 cartridge to pop it into your Famicom, these systems are collectors' items, not playing consoles, and a boxed SB FC is superbly rare. Many people don't understand collectible values, so it's not really worth going into how rare something is if the individual reading doesn't care about rarity. My C1 doesn't play every game, either.
Clearly I do, or I'd have chosen a different industry, and that sort of thing irks me just as much as it does you. I get lowballed all the time, and it stinks... With that said, I'd be interested in the boxed SB FC and possibly the Satellaview, but not as much in the rest. Condition is everything, so I'd appreciate some photos, including close-ups of the controllers, box, literature and the system serial number. (You can see photos of my own gem system in my older thread (http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=5346.0) about it and my links therein.)
Please PM me for my e-mail address to which you can send any photos...If only a bundle-sale is an option, please send me a list of everything included via PM and I will consider it.
If you do decide to store them, please remember to use acid-free archival plastic to protect everything, pack it against water and keep it away from heat. Rare systems, and especially boxed rare systems, should be given the utmost respect in storage: A lesson I learned the hard way in the past.
If you want to discuss any of this or other options, please send me a PM. I am also curious which logic board revision is inside the SB FC, for that matters to me as an obsessive-compulsive collector. I can tell you the two-minute way of checking if you need to know, so that you only need to gently remove the bottom half of the case, and not disassemble the entire system.
I'm interested in the Satellaview! Does it come with the BS-X cartridge and/or 8M memory paks, or just the base unit itself with the connections?
Thanks Xious. You have a PM :)
Yukima, if Xious passes on the Satellaview, I'll be dropping you a PM shortly thereafter! Thanks ;D
Quote from: Epic_Lotus on December 12, 2010, 12:20:20 am
/sigh... Okay, while I appreciate the attention my interest check thread is getting, I'm a little bit miffed. This is the second time this week (once on NintendoAge and now here) that Satoshi_Matrix has popped into my sale threads and commented on how useless he thinks my sale items are. Knock it off, man :-[! If you aren't interested in something I'm selling, please stay out of my threads. Telling people that my Satellaview is a worthless hunk of plastic and that my FC is just a defective model is pretty damn rude when I'm possibly looking to sell them. These are worth what they are because of the collectibility, rarity, history, whathaveyou. Just because you don't think an item has no value doesn't mean you need to share your opinion with everyone else!
My apologies, I wasn't trying to accuse you of peddling junk but rather trying to learn more about what you are selling. Re-reading what I wrote, i guess I can see how they could have came across as attacks of sort. Truly sorry for that, I think you're stuff is cool and would maybe like to buy some of it myself, but I need more info.
My primary questions are:
Why are you selling the Defective Famicom for so much? Is it simply because it's a rare revision and akin to how Stadium Events is so valuable yet the game is just World Class Track Meet, which in itself is a ho-hum game? That seems to be the only answer I can think of.
Does the defective Square Button model of the Famicom suffer from the same yellowing normal models do? I wonder if the fire retardant was added for the later revision.
Since the Satellaview service ended years ago, is there anything you can do with it now? Meaning, is there a storage medium of sort sort that allows you to plug it and use it?
I assume you're selling these for people who dont actually play them as Xious said but I'd still like to know more about the Square Button defective Famicom. With the Square button one, do game cartridges "click" into place like they are shown in early Famicom commercials?
Quote from: Epic_Lotus on December 04, 2010, 10:31:29 pm
I have a Famicom and Disk System that probably should find new homes. The Famicom is the very rare, first release square controller button set. It's CIB, with the matching box and instructions. I also have 2 Disk Systems that are also the first releases in the side opening boxes. Both are CIB, although 1 has a few more pieces of paperwork than the other, including a registration card with matching serial number. The FC works, and 1 of the Disk Systems works, but the 2nd Disk System needs some work (probably just a new belt, but I don't have any on hand). I also have a step-down power converter so that both systems will be running on the correct voltage.
That price for the bundle is not that "far away". I was expecting something around $500 when I was reading the first post. That is, according to eBay prices.
Also, the first famicom has the "flaw" in the hardware, and I would love to own it, or just the first "flawed" PCB from it. I've read the article about specific game glitches, can't remember where though. But it's cool to see such a famous console to suddenly freeze or glitch a game without interfering. At least I think it's cool.
Satellaview sold. Thanks!
Also, if anyone's interested, I'd trade my Square-button Famicom for a regular CIB Famicom + $125 cash, or I'm currently looking for a CIB copy of Earthbound (I'd trade the system + cash for it).
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Why are you selling the Defective Famicom for so much? Is it simply because it's a rare revision and akin to how Stadium Events is so valuable yet the game is just World Class Track Meet, which in itself is a ho-hum game? That seems to be the only answer I can think of.
Yes: That's exactly right. Rare stuff is more valuable...and mate, please listen... Unless it is a Rev 4 or earlier, it's not 'defective'. (That's the most objectionable word here.) Even if it was a R4, the correct term is 'early'. Would you call a R7 Famicom 'defective' because they redesigned it again in 1988? The board in this, assuming it is a Rev 05 (most are) was issued all the way through serial # 3-Million or so. They never recalled it, only the earlier boards, which is why my photos are the first ever put on-line of a pre-Rev-05 unit (that some people here didn't want to believe existed at all without proof)...
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Does the defective Square Button model of the Famicom suffer from the same yellowing normal models do? I wonder if the fire retardant was added for the later revision.
All plastics of this type suffer from yellowing. It's the nature of the chemical structure of the polymer, and how it reacts to UV light; Most early FC units are 'more yellow' (they call them 'Suntanned' in Japan) than later ones simply due to more years of exposure, and often, boxed systems are cleaner because they were stored away from light. Sunlight and fluorescent are the worst, and firelight is actually the best way to avoid yellowing, although direct contact isn't advisable.
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Since the Satellaview service ended years ago, is there anything you can do with it now? Meaning, is there a storage medium of sort sort that allows you to plug it and use it?
If you have Satella games on memory cards, they will still play but you'll need all the parts of any given downloaded game. You can play any game, but the intrinsic collectors' value and the curiosity value are what make the SatellaView expensive.
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I assume you're selling these for people who dont actually play them as Xious said but I'd still like to know more about the Square Button defective Famicom. With the Square button one, do game cartridges "click" into place like they are shown in early Famicom commercials?
If you push them hard enough, they'll click. :) There is nothing different about the way the cartridges insert compared to any other R&W Famicom (well, the VCCI model's shielding adds some friction, but not enough to notice). As I said, most of the early 'bad' boards were swapped by Nintendo, so if you have a SBFC, chances are it'll play identical to any other version, except for having square, rubber-y buttons like a Game & Watch.
Frankly, I've yet to see my Rev 04 crash from anything, so it's possible that the real problem boards were even earlier, and quickly changed out. FYI, the Rev 05, which is in most SBFC units, is also in round-button units. I have a pile of them. The cut-off for Rev-05 is around Serial 02.9-Million, IIRC. After that is a brief Rev-07, then around ten-million units of Rev-07, followed by the design change in 1988 that produced around another 3-Million units before finally releasing the New Famicom (A/V).
( It's hard to place a point of origin on Rev 05, as it was issued to resolve minor flaws and was placed in units with serials that predated it, but I can safely say it is after around unit 01.1-Million, as it has to proceed my Rev 04, and that means that there are around 2-Million Rev-05 FC units, a handful of which still have square-button controllers. )
Anyhow, in terms of playing your games, nothing is different save the feel of the controller. It's purely an interest to collectors, and especially those with a budget that allows for an expanding museum. (Although I still plug mine in, on occasion, for old-times sake.)
mod edit: Fixed your quotes. -ND