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Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Huge Console Auction Debuts 393

Posted by michael from the comic-book-guy dept.
neura writes "In quite possibly the largest console auction ever, someone is selling just about every development kit and production game console ever made in Japan. They also have listed tons (almost literally) of software to go along with the systems. Anybody ever seen the original Super Famicom development system? The pictures alone are worth taking a gander. :)"
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Huge Console Auction Debuts More

Huge Console Auction Debuts

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  • Let's get this out of the way (Score:5, Funny)

    by andy55 ( 743992 ) * on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:05AM (#9417631) Homepage
    Let's get this out of the way:

    1) This guy is the most dedicated console collector the world has ever seen!
    2) This guy is the most fucked up collector the world has ever seen!
    3) Imagine a Beowulf Cluster made out of them...
    4) (Obligatory MS dig for the white Xbox at the end)
    5) (Obligatory all you base belong to us joke)
    6) Sure, but don't they support Ogg!
    7) In Soviet Russia, the consoles buy you!
    8) I have an Atari 2600, you insensitive clod!
    9) Let's get this out of the way
    10) ???
    11) Not Profit!

  • Commercial posts on slashdot? (Score:4, Funny)

    by skywolf ( 757605 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:06AM (#9417635)
    When advertising, please place 'FS:' in the subject line to avoid causing offence. Thanks,

  • shipping! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Coneasfast ( 690509 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:08AM (#9417645)
    HIGH BIDDER HAVE TO HELP FOR SHIPMENT & PAY ALL SHIPPING FEE, DUE TO ALL ITEMS MIGHT OVER 100KGs !!! HIGH BIDDER MAY HAVE TO PAY SOME THOUSAND US$ FOR SHIPMENT

    that's gonna be one hell of a shipping cost. it may be cheaper to rent a ship and go to hong kong to pick it up yourself :)

    i guess if you are willing to pay 100k it may not be a big deal.

    • Re:shipping! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Richard_L_James ( 714854 )
      Jokes aside. I thought the use of capital letters like that in the actual advert in relation to paying for posting (and the way you quoted them here) makes this bit read like a 419 scam [google.com]. I don't honestly believe that this is a 419 but even for us geeks I guess it's easy for us to lose your guard when going:

      "...ooh a limited first edition boxed Biohazard LE (dark blue)...".

      Anyway must go back to drooling at that list. Ohhhhh lovely! 419 whatever... I want that stuff :)

    • Re:shipping! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Mean_Nishka ( 543399 )
      Probably the easiest thing to do is throw it on a container.. It'll probably cost about $3500-$5000 door-to-door, but when you're already spending $100k, what's the difference? :).

  • 100k??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by homb ( 82455 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:09AM (#9417654)
    The dude is selling this for $100,000 starting price. That's pretty insane. Unless you're a store wanting to resell this in a 3rd world country (even then, it'll be hard), you're not going to make your money back.

    Truly this is only for the insanely obsessed console freaks.
    • Truly this is only for the insanely obsessed console freaks.

      correction: Truly this is only for the insanely rich and insanely obsessed console freaks.
      • Should a civic or possibly even private organization get behind this auction and successfully acquire these items I am certain the financial and long terms benefits would be easily felt...

        For instance, a Tech Museum in Seattle, Washington could do more to firmly establish such a location as the seat of such software development in at least the U.S. In addition they could charge an admission fee to recoup the cost of the acquisition and curatorial duties associated with the maintenance and operation o

    • Re:100k??? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Justin205 ( 662116 )
      Truly this is only for the insanely obsessed console freaks.

      I'm sure we have a few of those somewhere around here.

      There's no group of people (no matter how small) that isn't represented somehow on Slashdot.

      • Re:100k??? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:29AM (#9417742)
        There's no group of people (no matter how small) that isn't represented somehow on Slashdot.

        Something tells me the Amish are not represented here.

    • Re:100k??? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Jardine ( 398197 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @02:44AM (#9417970) Homepage
      The dude is selling this for $100,000 starting price. That's pretty insane. Unless you're a store wanting to resell this in a 3rd world country (even then, it'll be hard), you're not going to make your money back.

      Maybe the guy just got married and his wife told him to get rid of all that electronics shit. So he comes up with a plan: auction it all off on ebay in one lump but with a huge starting bid. If no one buys it then he can go back to his wife and say no one would buy it. But if someone does bid on it, hey, $100000 is a pretty nice chunk of change.

    • Re:100k??? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75@@@yahoo...com> on Monday June 14, 2004 @02:46AM (#9417974)
      The dude is selling this for $100,000 starting price. That's pretty insane. Unless you're a store wanting to resell this in a 3rd world country (even then, it'll be hard), you're not going to make your money back.

      Yeah, a third world country like the USA...

      There are a lot of import and collector's shops in this country. Most of them that I've been to are lucky to have one of the items on this list, and it'd usually be the showcase item in the store. I mean come on, a Dreamcast dev kit? Any store I know of would die to get their hands on one of those, and they'd slap a nice $1,000 price tag on it alone, easy.

      In fact, this is obviously a HK retailer or wholesaler looking to dump a lot of stock quickly. It's not a collector, it's a guy who sells games for a living one way or another (he may not have an English web site or any US contacts; maybe this is the most convenient way for him to sell here). Look at his other auctions; no way he's got new, unopened copies of games (and systems) lying around because he's a collector. I collect games; this is not a game collector's collection, this is a game seller's collection.

      That said, some of this stuff would get him into a lot of trouble if some of these companies found out he was selling it. I'm not sure if Ebay's going to let this auction go through to the end; dev kits, in particular, are mucho taboo to sell, though the older ones he could probably get away with. Nothing recent, though.

      I will admit I'd give my left arm for this collection. If I had $100,000 to spare, I'd bid.

    • Re:100k??? (Score:5, Informative)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @03:15AM (#9418048) Homepage
      Thank you for clearing that up. Without that insight, I would never have realized that 100,000 dollars on consoles is only for insanely obsessed freaks.

      Let's break this down, shall we?

      PS2 development kit: 20,000 dollars
      M2 development kit: I don't think any of these have been sold, but let's estimate at 20,000 dollars for the extreme rarity.
      the 10 other development kits: about 2,000 each, or 20k for the lot.
      games: PC Engine games are a steal at 4 or 5 dollars each, and he's got over 500 of them. Neo Geo games still demand over 100 dollars each for most titles, so let's put a blanket value at 10,000 dollars.
      Special edition systems: Most of the 100 or so special edition systems he has would fetch 200 dollars each, so let's put another blanket value at 20,000
      Normal systems: The Bandai, Supergraphics, LaserInteractive, Neo Geo, Turbo Express and many of the other normal systems that he lists routinely sell for over 200 each. Let's put their blanket value at 10k.

      We're at roughly 100,000k already, without counting the value of the oddities in the collection such as the PSX / PS2 launch wines and the integrated televion set. 100,000 actually about right for a collection of this size, if not a little low. Of course, anyone thinking of bidding should do a more rigorous item-by-item breakdown of the value of the goods... after all, what would a collector do with a development tool? How many games for the various systems is he selling?

      100,000 is not insane. It's just a lot.

      • Illegal? (Score:4, Informative)

        by mike260 ( 224212 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @07:00AM (#9418636)
        100k is indeed pretty cheap, especially considering that a lot of this gear was never available to buy and sell normally.

        For example, I was under the impression that you can't buy PS2 devkits, only borrow them from Sony (and pay heavily for the privilege). I'm pretty sure you can't just sell them on...makes me wonder how he got hold of them in the first place.

  • Very impressive (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chewy_2000 ( 618148 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:11AM (#9417657)
    ..but I wonder how much more he would have made if he'd listed each item individually, instead of a bulk lot? It'd be a fair bit of work (not massive, since he's already got the details for most of the items), but you think it'd probably be worth it.

    • Re:Very impressive (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nanojath ( 265940 )
      I wonder at that as well as his decision not to give a complete listing of all the merchandise. Based on other comments here though, it sounds like he's counting on the value of a handful of really valuable items (like the developers kits) to affirm the value, and starting with a exceptionally high starting bid to keep any dilletantes out of the picture. It's a fair bet this guy wholly understands this market and I imagine there must be a small group of individuals with the money and inclination to make i
  • "..INTERNATIONAL BONK TO BANK TRANSFER.."

    I wish my bank offered Bonking services - maybe I wouldn't moan about their monthly fees if they did.

  • Actually a good investment (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:16AM (#9417680)
    1) Buy this whole kit and kaboodle for $100K
    2) Open the most bitching video game museum ever

    say it with me now

    3) PROFIT!!!

    Seriously, I would easily pay $10 or $20 to see some of this stuff. This is probably the best chance an existing computer museum has to get a piece of console history in one fell swoop.

    Of course, it's not like this guy couldn't have been so dedicated as to milk phones from a zillion different auctions and make up this whole thing as a prank.

    - JoeShmoe
    .

  • Trying to sell this stuff since last year (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:17AM (#9417689) Homepage
    This guy has own web site [sdk-team.com] and buys and sells stuff like this. Most of this stuff was offered for sale back in 2003.

    The images are coming from his own web site, which is now slashdotted.

  • the wheels are in motion... (Score:5, Funny)

    by vdoogs ( 765125 ) <justin,vieira&asu,edu> on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:17AM (#9417690) Homepage Journal
    Nice. Just a few more university japanese courses so I can read the development manuals, a couple (or 80) grand to hustle up before the auction ends, and my ultimate goal of porting Mary-Kate & Ashley: Magical Mystery Mall to every system ever made can be realized.

  • Can you overnight it? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'll gladly pay for it through my escrow account. ;)

  • Illegal to sell the dev. kits? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:26AM (#9417721)
    As far as I know, the development kits are still Sony's property - they're understandably rather touchy about their intellectual property and would not want such a machine to fall into the hands of the general public. Specifically: I thought all development machines were still owned by Sony, you just pay for being able to use them.

    I would not be suprised if he receives a visit from Sony's lawyers demanding the return of their development hardware...

    • Re:Illegal to sell the dev. kits? (Score:5, Informative)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @02:40AM (#9417956) Homepage
      Dev kits are illegal to sell, as Sony retains the property rights on all of them. However, the PS2 is far along enough in its lifespan that they don't worry so much anymore. They frequently wind up on Ebay, though they sell for a pretty penny. The Playstation 2 is well enough understood these days that there isn't any real reason to stop people from selling them. Ironically, a lot of those dev kits go to developers, as sometimes you NEED another tool to make a deadline, and sitting through Sony's lengthy approval process isn't an option. Plus the tools still cost several thousand dollars on e-bay, and don't even play games that well, limiting the audience to developers.

      Now, if he was selling PSP dev kits, he could be expecting a nice little nastygram.

  • That truly is a mighty console collection, although it's clear that this [ebay.co.uk] auction probably has better retro value, and is more affordable. Tis pity it's bigger than my house... :-(.

  • Definitely worth it (Score:4, Funny)

    by l0ungeb0y ( 442022 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:28AM (#9417737) Homepage Journal
    Hell at $100,000.00 US this is quite a bargain.
    I mean the Hello Kitty LE Dreamcast alone is worth it's weight in Gold. But with the N64 Pikachi-orange Limited Edition!?!?!?!?!
    Ohhhhhh Man! ;)

    • Most gamers won't give a second thought to the large lot of Apple/Bandi Pippin game console items since the Pippin never had a successful launch in this hemisphere (not sure it did anywhwere actually).

      There are still an army of Apple enthusiasts who would pay through the nose for the Pippin stuff if it had been sold bundled by itself.

  • Ownership/License doesn't allow sale of DevSystems (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PenguinOpus ( 556138 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:29AM (#9417744)
    My experience with console development systems is that you have almost no rights to transfer/sell. Everything must be handled through Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo. I predict that, if they want to, they can confiscate all of his development systems. Maybe the rules are different in Japan, but I doubt it.
    • I predict that, if they want to, they can confiscate all of his development systems.

      I've seen a number of dev kits sold on eBay without intervention from the manufacturer.

      It may be possible for them to confiscate the hardware, but would they really risk generating that kind of ill will from someone who is obviously a big gaming spender?

  • pretty obvious why (Score:5, Funny)

    by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @01:35AM (#9417766)
    It's pretty obvious why he's selling all of that. He must be getting married and the bride-to-be said "you can either play with SEGA, or play with me, your choice"
  • Looks like SDK will be turning a profit this quarter...

  • Tons of software (Score:2, Insightful)

    by blakduk ( 166007 )
    "They also have listed tons (almost literally) of software..". Not wishing to pass up this opportunity to be anal (no, not even almost literally), I'd like to (a) point out that something is either literal or it's not and (b) how much does a bit weigh (and how many bytes in a ton)?

  • for a museum (Score:4, Informative)

    by curator_thew ( 778098 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @03:30AM (#9418090)

    Anyone in London UK can view a selection of games consoles (and, even play some of them, including classic pong) at the design museum [designmuseum.org] as part of Sony's INTERACTION SPACE [designmuseum.org]:

    Rediscover your favourite vintage video games - from Pong and Pac-Man to Tomb Raider - by playing them in the Interaction Space on the second floor of the Design Museum. Visitors can also discover the work of the pioneering multimedia designers who are defining the images we will see on our computer and TV screens in the future in the virtual galleries of the Digital Design Museum. Or they can learn more about the designers, architects and technologies featured at the museum in Design at the Design Museum, our online research archive.

    It would be fantastic if these sorts of consoles could go to a museum to support future exhibitions of this kind.

  • >>PAYMENT:--- ONLY ACCEPT:--- 1/ INTERNATIONAL BONK TO BANK TRANSFER--- 2/ WESTERN UNION INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER

    This guy will accept his $100K the same ways kidnappers accept theirs!

    No sending an intermediate party after this guy to get your $$$ back (as one could with, say, a credit card)... and somehow I doubt Hong Kong's laws would protect an American buyer if something went sour...

  • Wot?No Play Station? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by carndearg ( 696084 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @04:00AM (#9418166) Homepage Journal
    Damn! I was hoping to see the famous Sony/Nintendo stillborn child, the Play Station (note before you flame:Play Station i.e.2 words not PlayStation!), and it seems to be about the only one he hasnt got! Or did I miss it amongst all the Slashdotted photographs?
    • Further to my comment earlier I decided to have a look for a picture of a Play Station on Google.

      The Play Station was a failed colaboration between Sony and Nintendo to produce a SNES with a CD-ROM. I remember when working for a PS1 developer in the '90s that sony used to get very upset with people who used the phrase "Play Station" instead of "PlayStation", there's the reason why.

      Edge magazine here in the UK had a picture of a Play Station a while back so pictures do exist but I cant find one on the we

  • Customs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by igrp ( 732252 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @04:55AM (#9418324)
    If any US-based /.'ers are considering spending their kid's inheritance on this just be sure to check with a lawyer before you bid (Europeans likewise, I guess).

    You're not just looking at the $100k pricetag plus S&H but also at spending quite a bit at customs (and it's going to be a b**ch to get some of this stuff cleared by customs in the first place). Oh, and be sure to tell the UPS guy not to leave the stuff on the front porch. ;)

  • Dear Sir... (Score:4, Funny)

    by punyhumanpromo ( 788019 ) on Monday June 14, 2004 @07:43AM (#9418814)
    ...I know you are a trustworthy man and am approaching you in the strictest of confidence.

    My name is Wan Dev Kit, son of Wong Dev Kit, Hong Kong's foremost exporter of video game systems and utilities. Following the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong, my father disappeared and his bank account has been frozen by the state. This has caused great hardship to my family who have been unable to access his account.

    However, there exists a loophole in the law which allows foreign companies to remove existing stock from Hong Kong following the takeover. To this end I am seeking a discreet, reliable foreign partner to provide the sum of $100,000 (ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS U.S.) in transfer fees which will allow my father's company to operate outside Chinese control. In return, you will be richly rewarded by the Dev Kit Electronics Company.

    THank you for your cooperation in this matter.

    Wan Dev Kit

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