The games that got away (missed opportunities)

[Phosphora]

I'm sure most of us can think of at least one occasion where we passed up the deal of a lifetime, please share your your tales of woe. 

I think my biggest gaming missed opportunity was at a flea market a few years ago. I spotted a USA Gamate console with about 20 loose games. I asked the lady how much she wanted for it and she was asking $40. At the time all I knew about it was that I remembered seeing an ad for the system in an old EGM magazine (September '92). I was tempted to pick it up as a novelty, but $40 sounded way too expensive. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. Not only is Gamate stuff insanely rare and expensive, but I can't even think of one collector that owns even a single USA version game let alone the USA system (US version has a broken up D-Pad like that on Playstation controllers). I went back to the the market the next week and it was already sold.

Well, what brought this topic to mind was when I was searching for a game on ebay this morning. Years ago I sold off my entire NES/Famicom collection, and I've recently been getting back into it and rebuilding my collection. When I sold off my games, I listed them as a huge lot on ebay. There were about 250 loose carts, so instead of typing out a list of the title names, I just took photos of the top labels. I didn't own a Bubble Bobble 2 or anything that stood out in my mind as being particularly rare, so I just figured that a lot was the easiest way to sell off such a large quantity of carts. So this morning I typed in the name of one of my favorite games that I would play often, "Zombie Nation". I thought I'd be able to pick up a cart for about $7, I didn't know it was special at all. To make matters worse, I think my giant collection of carts sold for about the value of this single game alone.

[FamicomFreak]

Hmmm good topic honestly I can't remember any deals I could have let go...I mean probably one time I was at the flea market and this guy was selling a lot of games for 30 bucks and there were lots of kewl ones like the Marios and such but I decided to let it go and come back later. When I came back, they were long gone... Can't think of anything oh wait yeah I didn't bid on a CIB Captain Tsubasa 2 on ebay that ended at 99 cents...been wanting that CIB for a long time!!! ^_^' I always say that even if you missed some chances there are a hell of a lot more to come so don't worry about it.

[FamicomRetroGamer]

Sonic 4. It has wonderful graphics and music but the gameplay is just too slow and to make matters worse it requires to push a button to aim and crash it.

This isn't the Sonic I used to know, even Sonic Generations plays 1000000x better than Sonic 4 does.

[FamicomFreak]

I don't think you understood the topic...it's about games you had a chance to purchase but skipped on them only to regret them later on. AWAAAA!

[FamicomRetroGamer]

Ah, I just read the title, oops, sorry.

So, games that got away from me?
- "Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure" costed new at Amazon £4.00 brand new back in 2009 or 2010, but now it's friggin' £30+

- "Sonic Generations" (360 format) it was at £9.95 on Zavvi/TheHut but now they increased to around £16, I want to play it and own it, but I'll wait for the decrease.

An other game, would be Dragon Ball Z cartridge for Famicom, I sold it with other Famicom carts, I should've kept the DBZ cart at least 'cos I collect DB stuff.

Dammit, if it wasn't for PS3 I would still have my Famicom and etc retro consoles. God dammit, I still regret for selling most of my retro collection for PS3, because now I don't really use PS3 at all, just Xbox 360.

[Drakon]

Back in the day before I got into rgb modding nes and famicom systems I saw a lot of like 10-15 playchoice pcbs on ebay all with ppus being sold together for like 30$.  So I figured playchoices would stay cheap and didn't bother buying it.  Oops, my first playchoice was 60$ shipped just for the one and after I started building them people started going crazy over bidding on them.

[DDCecil]

Back in 2000, I found a store selling $5 boxed/complete ex-rental NES games. I bought a couple, but if I could only go back in time, I would have bought them all!

TC, I did once own complete copies of Time Warrior and Pharoah Revenger for a Gamate, but never the system.

[son_ov_hades]

Two years ago I passed on a NWC(a real one) that was offered to me by a collector I sort of knew. He wanted 5 grand for it, and being a broke college student at the time I just didn't have the money. I could have easily flipped that on ebay for 10 grand profit. 

[FamicomFreak]

Yup depending on which one it was the gold or regular copy you would have at least gotten twice as much. Sucks to be broke

[UglyJoe]

A number of years ago, my local Funcoland-turned-Gamestop was liquidating their NES stock -- 50% off sticker prices plus buy-2-get-1-free.  Good times!  In my early NES collecting naivete, however, I passed on a sub-$10 copy of Little Samson

[FamicomFreak]

Good thing I didn't know about game prices back then...I'm sure I let go some awesome titles! :p

[L___E___T]

I once missed out on 12 brand new 'Mario the Juggler' Game & Watch, at the price of £30 each.  
They're worth more than £300, but I didn't know enough about them at the time and the day I had the cash they'd already gone (that same day).

I don't necessarily regret it - it meant I never travelled to teach english in Japan (the proceeds would've funded) and instead landed a great job with Eidos due to having a free Summer and a foot in the door.

Also wish I'd have bought a brand new Famicom Titler when they were readily available at $200.  Shame.

[fredJ]

I don't regret anything... je ne regrette rien...

[Drakon]

I don't regret anything... je ne regrette rien...

uhhh...is that swedish?

[FamicomRetroGamer]

I don't regret anything... je ne regrette rien...

uhhh...is that swedish?

Pretty sure it's French.

Update: Bing Translator confirms it's French.

I wish I didn't swap French for Spanish 'cos Portuguese and Spanish are relatively similar and easy to learn, so I really shouldn't have gone changed, well, I did but I'm still able to recognize some French sentences and words.