Hot on the heels of a mega-game collection that recently sold for over a million bucks (sorry, we’re keeping ours), a lister recently put up an auction for a one-of-a-kind prototype cartridge for the NES, one that features an American version of Final Fantasy II, a game that never officially released.
After the somewhat average sales of the first Final Fantasy, Square opted to skip releasing the relase Final Fantasy II here in the States and instead moved on to the SNES, where the series found better sales footing with Final Fantasy IV (renumbered II). That didn’t stop Nintendo from making a demonstration cartridge for the unreleased U.S. version of the game, originally shown at the 1991 Winter Consumers Electronic Show; we can only assume that this is the same game.
But it’s not a fake. The seller recently posted a video of the game in action, which you can view here on youtube.com. It definitely looks like the real deal.
Ah, but there’s a catch: the price. The seller has set a Buy It Now standard on the auction, and is looking for $50,000. So if you have some change lying around and want a piece of history, have at it. We’ll be playing some of the more affordable Final Fantasy games, thanks.
UPDATE: Apparently we went to check out the auction (http://www.ebay.com/itm/140827892276?afsrc=1#ht_1551wt_1315) and have found out that the item has been removed. A request from Square Enix? A fault against eBay standards? Or maybe the seller wants to keep it for himself…?
We’ll keep you up to date on this story. For now, we’ll just dream about the game I guess… or play another one.
Published: Aug 24, 2012 05:03 pm