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Post by barney on Feb 13, 2016 12:15:34 GMT
Definitely not the same copy, the condition of both the cover and manual are very different. I've just got a vague feeling that I've seen this combination before, so I'll keep an eye out for it in the future.
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Post by barney on Apr 17, 2016 8:04:45 GMT
So another copy appeared, and this time I got the seller to add a photo of the back of the game/manual - definitely an EU box with a US manual. It's now appeared too many times to be a coincidence, so I reckon some copies of the game must have originally been sold this way. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301931799174
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Post by retrokevretro on Apr 17, 2016 10:43:07 GMT
I must admit I thought that someone had just put a loose US manual in a euro box but like you say, this seems to be a common occurrence as many have turned up with a US manual in a Euro box. My guess would be that a third party importer put these together to sell in the UK (Hence the English only US manual) I recently bought a US Super Monaco GP 2 that was imported into Italy and sold with a translated Italian manual (Basic) There is a US copy of Paperboy with a similar manual from the same importer (Giochi Preziosi) on ebay now which goes to prove that there were companies out there back in the day unofficially importing, selling and writing manuals for the sms without Sega's permission? www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PAPERBOY-IMPORT-USA-for-Sega-Master-System-complete-CIB-photos-inside-/231910674788?hash=item35fef41164:g:LtEAAOSwZ8ZXDAts
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Post by bkk on Apr 17, 2016 15:44:13 GMT
Interesting, I haven't seen those Giochi Preziosi translations before. They were the official distributor in Italy, so I think it's more likely that this was a case of SoA clearing excess stock after they discontinued the SMS. A similar thing looks to have happened in Mexico, which like Canada first received PAL versions, then later also got US games, which are all either 1990/1991 releases, or older titles with "Sega for the 90s" stickers (which in turn were old stock rebranded in 1990). For some games both versions exist, you can roughly tell when the games were imported as they have importation stickers with the address of the exporter (SoA) which changed in the second half of 1991. Here's a Mexican "PAL" Power Strike with SoA importation sticker with the new address where they moved in second half of 1991. PAL Fantasy Zone with old address; US Fantasy Zone (Sega for the 90s) with new address; SoA eventually sold all of their old stock to a company called "Service Concepts" who ran "Sega-parts.com", they were then the official authorised dealer for legacy systems who SoA would link to from their main site. They were still selling their last few SMS games in 2005. In 2001 the list of games was quite a bit bigger. So there was still a lot of stock left a long time after SoA discontinued SMS.
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Post by retrokevretro on Apr 17, 2016 16:34:59 GMT
Thanks for sharing, that's another small piece of the jigsaw fitted into place. I always wondered why games meant for one region ended up in another in large quantities.
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Post by bkk on Apr 17, 2016 17:27:43 GMT
Carmen San Diego is another one which shows up in the UK so often that it must have had widespread distribution, it was also one of the games still in stock at sega-parts.com into the 2000s, so clearly a lot of stock of that game left over. There's also a lot of US releases in Germany with cheap black German manuals, along with a yellow sticker on the covers saying "with German instructions" (in German ). I had previously thought that these were probably from when Ariolasoft was the distributor (1986-1988), but maybe those were just old SoA stock imported a long time after by Virgin or SoE. Looking at the pictures of these that I have, I don't see any with Ariolasoft stickers on them. As for Power Strike, why didn't it get a colour cover in US? Maybe they came with PAL covers by mistake, so SoA just offered it as mail order and swapped covers with their home made ones when people ordered. If SoA still had quite a bit of stock left after their mail order offer, then that could explain those PAL covers with US manuals which show up in the UK. That's a lot of speculation though.
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Post by retrokevretro on Apr 17, 2016 17:40:50 GMT
I've been trying to get to the bottom of why some games came with black and white manuals sine coming across a copy of Tom and Jerry with a b & W manual in English. It sounds like the distributors replacing the manuals with cheaper ones?
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Post by rupert on Apr 17, 2016 22:10:04 GMT
Carmen San Diego is another one which shows up in the UK so often that it must have had widespread distribution, it was also one of the games still in stock at sega-parts.com into the 2000s, so clearly a lot of stock of that game left over. There's also a lot of US releases in Germany with cheap black German manuals, along with a yellow sticker on the covers saying "with German instructions" (in German ). I had previously thought that these were probably from when Ariolasoft was the distributor (1986-1988), but maybe those were just old SoA stock imported a long time after by Virgin or SoE. Looking at the pictures of these that I have, I don't see any with Ariolasoft stickers on them. As for Power Strike, why didn't it get a colour cover in US? Maybe they came with PAL covers by mistake, so SoA just offered it as mail order and swapped covers with their home made ones when people ordered. If SoA still had quite a bit of stock left after their mail order offer, then that could explain those PAL covers with US manuals which show up in the UK. That's a lot of speculation though. Have you ever thought about writing a book? You have some really good and interesting knowledge about the history of the SMS.
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Post by gallos_11 on Apr 17, 2016 22:24:25 GMT
Have you ever thought about writing a book? You have some really good and interesting knowledge about the history of the SMS. I'd be one of the first buyers! bkk has shared some really amazing info here and SMSPower, thank you!
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Post by bkk on Apr 17, 2016 22:30:53 GMT
Thanks, I'm not sure that enough people would find it as interesting enough as I do in order to make a book worthwhile I'd like to have a world history of the SMS though. There's still so much not documented, at least not in English, and not in one place. For example, the former Eastern Bloc countries ... there's practically nothing written about SMS getting released in those countries, but I've started to find out quite a bit about that recently. It amazes me just how widely SMS was officially distributed around the world, I think that it was even more widely available than the NES ... probably due to it not getting cloned.
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Post by flatapex on Apr 18, 2016 12:05:35 GMT
Mismatched boxes and manuals seemed to be a theme, I have a pal version of psycho fox, with us manual?
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Post by bkk on Apr 18, 2016 13:06:27 GMT
My copy of Carmen Sandiego, which I got in a UK bundle has "sega for the 90s" stickers, looking on Ebay UK, others have these too, so it suggests that these were imported sometime after the games' original 1988 release.
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Post by Maxim on Apr 19, 2016 12:38:40 GMT
Carmen Sandiego was on the shelves in Electronics Boutique, so pretty much nationwide, in the early 90s (I'm going to say 91 or 92). Whether that was via Sega/Virgin Mastertronic or independently remains to be seen. No doubt they made too many of them for the US and needed to offload at that point, similar to the Majesco GG dump via Game in about 98-99.
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Post by bkk on Apr 19, 2016 14:12:34 GMT
Thanks, are you sure that it was Electronics Boutique? The Wikipedia page says that they entered the UK in 1995 (Electronics Boutique UK was registered 31 Jul 1995), and I'd say that aligns with with my memory of it in my city, but they could have been in London or elsewhere before they came here. If so then that pushes the date right back to the end of the SMSs' life. Majesco didn't release the GG until 2001, so I guess that those must have been offloaded in the UK a bit later, or maybe even close to release.
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Post by flatapex on Apr 19, 2016 16:54:47 GMT
Thanks, are you sure that it was Electronics Boutique? The Wikipedia page says that they entered the UK in 1995 (Electronics Boutique UK was registered 31 Jul 1995), and I'd say that aligns with with my memory of it in my city, but they could have been in London or elsewhere before they came here. If so then that pushes the date right back to the end of the SMSs' life. Majesco didn't release the GG until 2001, so I guess that those must have been offloaded in the UK a bit later, or maybe even close to release. electronics boutique didnt exist in the uk until 1995, but they bought a share in future zone and rebranded all the stores. between 91 and 95 a lot of future zone branches opened (70-80) and they were kind of industrial looking places by design. That would fit in more with the lifespan of ms, plus when 95 came around and future zone was born (along with it the preowned section) then any unwanted ms stock could be classed as 'preowned' even if by definition the only people that owned it were the retailer. I seem to remember my local eb having preowned ms and gg stuff, and also the preowned games were in the same place and the same rack for about 10 years.
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