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Post by ash888 on Feb 14, 2010 10:43:59 GMT 2
From what one recalls 1985 or 1986 there was a fire at California toy store or toy store warehouse. Fire did not destroy the games but the water sprinklers damaged the boxes. Their insurance company asked if they would repackage them so they could recover their loses. They said no because of possible internal damage. The insurance company probably sold them off in these boxes and just added the model number. That's an interesting theory, something I would have never guessed in a million years, but two things make me think it might not be OEM boxes that the Nintendo employee was talking about. 1) Super Mario Bros. New Wide Screen wasn't released until 1988. If the fire happened in 1985-86, the most prevalent OEM version (SMB) wouldn't have been released yet. Of course, he could have gotten the year wrong since it was so long ago. 2) Why would they take the time to include the batteries and other inserts, but leave out the instruction manuals? I suppose some manuals could have been damaged by sprinkler water, and others weren't, which would explain why some OEM boxes include the manuals... Anyway, that's an interesting bit of information you got there. Thanks for sharing.  |
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Feb 14, 2010 23:28:45 GMT 2
Thanks for the information! From what I can gather this guy doesn't know for sure but he's making assumptions. At least that's my impression.. Besides the obvious problem with the super mario release, one more thing to note is that oem boxes usually come with white on green battery packets which appeared after 1989. We haven't proven with absolute certainty that oem boxes came without instructions but if they were damaged by water wouldn't the water also damage the other leaflets (caution etc)?
The theory that Nintendo wouldn't produce boxes with the brand name missing isn't so far fetched. Nintendo were very careful with their releases, always assuming copyrights and using their logos on everything. The oem boxes could have been created by a distributor or supplier to replace damaged boxes. After all the whole design indicates that they were created in a hurry and Nintendo have never done that with their boxes..
Michael
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Post by Aris on Feb 15, 2010 12:48:49 GMT 2
As some of you may know here in Vancouver BC Canada we are hosting the winter 2010 Olympic games. On Thursday evening at work I had several customers from Nintendo at my counter ( due to privacy laws in Canada I cannot say who they are or what I do just so I don’t lose my job ) I tried to act calm as I was helping one of them and asked if any remember or know of game & watch‘s. I had so many questions to ask but only managed to ask one because I had to show them on eBay what I was talking about. I showed them gameclubretro listing with the oem box. I asked was it maybe a promo of a gift/prize? They seemed puzzled because they said anything from Nintendo would be stamped Nintendo on the box as well as made in Japan before it leaves the country. It was weird they kind of went in to a huddle and came back to me and said that they think is must be from an insurance company selling them off. From what one recalls 1985 or 1986 there was a fire at California toy store or toy store warehouse. Fire did not destroy the games but the water sprinklers damaged the boxes. Their insurance company asked if they would repackage them so they could recover their loses. They said no because of possible internal damage. The insurance company probably sold them off in these boxes and just added the model number. They congratulated the fellow with the good memory and left. Over the next few weeks I will keep an eye out for them again so I can ask them more. I just have to be careful so I don’t lose my job. KS, Oh, is that where the 2010 Winter Olympics are being held? I knew it was somewhere west of us....  Privacy laws in Canada? Who do you work for? CSIS??  ;D Well, I'm not aware of any laws that forbid someone from telling anyone else where they work, but yeah, you wouldn't want to disclose personal information (experience) related to a business transaction on a forum such as this. I guess the laws can get tricky depending on one's interpretation.... Anyway regarding this "interaction" you had with these Nintendo employees, and you'll have to forgive me for being a bit skeptical, given your "Nintendo Salesmen kit" purse/bag auction, as well as your nintendo job lot of games that included an OEM Egg and Mowgli games. LOL! Mind you, you did stick to your word and put that Egg game up for auction for $1 (or whatever it was, b/c I think you ran into some problems with the dollar amount or something...) and I actually did quite well selling it, as someone paid $200 USD for it! I think this story sounds interesting too, but, it does have some holes in it....  For starters, unless this store/warehouse that caught fire stored only SMB (even though they weren't released yet) and the odd DKII and Black Jack games, I can't believe we haven't seen other games in OEM packaging. I mean, really, if this did happen as they recall it did, all sorts of different games would have been damaged, not just the three known OEM games. Also, if the sprinklers caused the majority of the damage, then everything would have gotten soaked and damaged, with, perhaps, the plastic bag and game being salvaged, since water doesn't really damage plastic, and the game was inside the plastic bag. However, I'm no expert on this sort of thing, so, whether water permeates plastic after a certain amount or time or not, and whether there should have been damage to the games because of surrounding water exposure etc... I'm not sure.  The paperwork, foam and batteries is another problem. Where did they get all the extra replacement pieces from? If Nintendo would never allow games to be released without their logo being stamped on the product, box, etc... Then, I find it hard to believe they would have provided foam trays, instruction booklets, battery packages, pink caution sheets, etc... For someone else to basically package up their games in a different box and resell. The other thing I question is the whole insurance thing. I mean, okay, so, a store or warehouse catches fire. Sure, that happens. So, they have insurance and everything that is damaged is covered and losses get recouped, again, not unusual. But, the insurance company decides to recoup its own losses on the payout to the store/warehouse for the damage to all these games by salvaging what might still be good, repackaging them, and selling them in OEM boxes? Wouldn't that be illegal? Again, I'm not familiar with Insurance laws, and what insurance companies can and can not do with such items. Perhaps once the payout is made, the products become the sole property of the insurance company, and they're free to do as they see fit? But, the game carries the Nintendo logo on it, and if they're selling games that were potentially damaged in a fire/flooding type of event, and if people that bought the games, have problems with the games due to the fire/water damage, it could seriously damage Nintendo's reputation. Lastly, I also find it quite the coincidence that the huddling Nintendo employees recall the fire having taken place in California. The same place this Crebs1975 guy is located in. Tell me you're not making this up Kirk! AC |
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Post by rensmits on Feb 15, 2010 15:17:08 GMT 2
I like the insurance theory.
I know that insurance compagnies have some sort of loteries for their employees. The prices are the goods that the compagny has "bought back" by setteling the damage.
So, if they were given to the employees, maybe the compagny made some kind of box, because the original boxes were too much damaged. Maybe they had a lot of foams from the dk2 and bj games and used those foams to pack the mario games.
Very well possible and the most plausible theory so far I think.
Stays the weird problem of the instructions.
Why add a pink slip and not the instruction booklet?
If you drop water on both of these items, the pink slip will be worthless and the instruction booklet not.
Can anybody confirm that the pink slips are originals or maybe very good copies?
These big compagnies have the printers to make a good copy.
René
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Feb 15, 2010 19:03:17 GMT 2
As far as I could tell they were original. The multiscreen foam is probably justified by the size of the oem box. A widescreen one wouldn't fit properly in it..
Michael
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Post by Aris on Feb 16, 2010 14:57:10 GMT 2
Yes, I think so too. (that they're original) And of course, the fit of the MS foam is more ideal than a WS foam, but, if this insurance theory is indeed what had happened, how did they get all these foams, as well as the other contents?  Am I the only one that finds it odd that only SMB, DK and Black Jack were the only games affected by this theory??? AC |
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Post by rensmits on Feb 16, 2010 16:33:19 GMT 2
Yes, I think so too. (that they're original) And of course, the fit of the MS foam is more ideal than a WS foam, but, if this insurance theory is indeed what had happened, how did they get all these foams, as well as the other contents? Am I the only one that finds it odd that only SMB, DK and Black Jack were the only games affected by this theory??? AC Who's saying that it were only these 3 games? Maybe there were many more. We've only seen one or two of DKII and BJ. Maybe the oem-boxes of other games were just thrown away. Just think about it. How many boxes of stuff you buy or get do you preserve? I'm trowing away every box. It's all speculation, I guess. Just like this theory. I even found another hole in the insurance theory. How does one person gets his hands on a lot of this oem games if they were given away to several people? René |
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Feb 16, 2010 23:27:44 GMT 2
I think it's safe to say that the possibility of the existence of more oem boxes is extremely close to zero. If a lot of different games were put in these boxes we would have seen at least another one.. or two..
Michael
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Post by andycole on Feb 17, 2010 12:42:46 GMT 2
You said that about DKH until it appeared! LOL But in this case, I think you're right, I mean we've seen dozens if not hundreds of OEM boxes over the years, and only these same models. I think the insurance story is very dubious. Aris said it all Andy |
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fredolococo
Full Member
J.i21 full set : 25/25 . Rain shower pub Coral
Posts: 249
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Post by fredolococo on Feb 17, 2010 16:11:52 GMT 2
Hi !
just a question :
on ebay, they have a lot of 'game & watch' professional seelers, why don't you ask information about OEM at these guys ?
Perhaps one of them, know information, or the story of these boxes ?
Thank you !
Best regards from France
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Post by Aris on Feb 17, 2010 16:21:00 GMT 2
Maybe we'll see more OEMs now.... Well, within the database I've been working on, there are 20 OEM game serials. 1 for Black Jack, 2 for Donkey Kong II and 17 for SMB. I'm sure there are quite a few more I can add if more collectors provide me with their serials, but, based on those numbers, SMB holds an 85% stranglehold on all OEMs, with DKII lies in a distant 2nd place at 10%. Finally!!! Someone besides myself that finds the story a little more than just slightly far-fetched!!! LOL! AC |
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Feb 19, 2010 0:01:56 GMT 2
Yeah well the difference with the DKH is that we have only 3 micro vs games and noa releases are extremely rare. If a lot more than the 3 known oem games existed we would have seen at least another game in oem form all these years. Don't forget that everybody uses Internet and Ebay nowadays as opposed to 7-10 years ago. If there are other oem games out there, it can't be more than one or two maximum although imho the chances for that are slim.
Michael
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Post by sinkbaek on Feb 23, 2010 20:00:21 GMT 2
Hi guys
As I see it the "sample-theory" makes most sense (at a first glance that is).
When companies sends out samples of their products it's quite common that these samples are clearly marked as samples. The most obvious way to mark a sample as just that is to...well...physically mark it "Sample". Another way is to omit the usual packaging - an example could be the games in question.
The reasons for this is that the brand quite often is the most valuable commodity, a company has. Take Coca Cola for example...they loose blind-taste tests (more or less on a routine basis) to Pepsi. Still Coke is selling way more sugared water, than Pepsi.... Why? Because of the brand they have build and continues build/protect.
In some ways this is the same with the brand Nintendo. Therefore it would be a problem if Nintendo products starts to surface under circumstances that could harm this brand. These circumstances could be the selling of current products from shady vendors at prices below normal retail-value....and so on.
Therefore it would make sense for Nintendo to take the appropriate meassures to (very) clearly differentiate the approved vendors and stock from everything else.
With that being said I'm afraid I still think the OEM-stock is fake. The games and what not a probably genuine enough. But I'm convinced the boxes are fake.
The reason to my belief is that I was curious about both the deal with the foam inlays being from multi screens and the serial number found in the boxes.
Firstly the inlays led me to wonder why Nintendo just didn't get a box made that fit the original inlay. Secondly the serial number led me to think if actually it could be a serial number for the box, rather than what is in the box.
So armed with nothing but my curiousity and the serial number I started "googling"....and - lo and behold - if a tweaking of the serial number didn't turn up an interesting hit! The original serial number i lifted from the forum was this: TO6FO3FO1F. It didn't give me anything though. So what I did was to change the O's into 0's.....and BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! The serial number T"ZERO"6F"ZERO"3F"ZERO"1F is the serial number of what? .....Yup, you' ve guessed it - a serial number of a product from an American producer of various cardboard products.
Whether or not the insurance theory holds water....well, I'm not convinced. It could be true though. But what we CAN say is that Nintendo DIDN'T produce the boxes - they are produced and sold by Orange County Container Group.
The next step now would be to send OCCG a mail asking when they started producing the box, to find out if this is a hoax or if the different theories can be left standing.
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Post by sinkbaek on Feb 23, 2010 20:16:59 GMT 2
Oh....and on that note I think I've got an idea of why it's been those three games that we've been seeing as "OEM". If you think about it there really is a lot of loose SMB's and DKII's around. Also it isn't impossible to find a loose inlay.... So my guess is that it's just that more easy - and not to forget profitable - to buy a generic cardboard box, smack a stencil on it, throw a loose game in it and then sell it as a "rare" "OEM" version, than it is to russle up an original box and then sell it on. As for the Black Jacks I'm thinking you could actually profit by throwing the original box away and sell in the generic box as the allusive "rare" "OEM". But....as long as we don't know the specifics about the production history of the OCCG boxes this is just speculation. I personally wouldn't let the doubt serve the sellers though. So I for one is definitely not touching these "OEM" versions before there has been shed some more light on the subject |
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Feb 24, 2010 0:50:31 GMT 2
Well, this theory has two obvious faults. One is that dk2 and blackjack oem boxes are very very rare (but the games aren't) and second one, how much a company would make out of this by selling just 3 ordinary games? If you're implying that the boxes were made the last, let's say, 10 years then where did they found all the new games, batteries, leaflets etc? Getting them from other boxes wouldn't be profitable at all.
The oem boxes aren't fake in the sense that someone created them in order to sell these games for more money. Another company could have created them of course but.. rights to model numbers are still owned by Nintendo so they could risk getting sued if they didn't have their endorsement at least.
Michael
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;D Well, I'm not aware of any laws that forbid someone from telling anyone else where they work, but yeah, you wouldn't want to disclose personal information (experience) related to a business transaction on a forum such as this. I guess the laws can get tricky depending on one's interpretation....
The game itself however is in superb condition (not even a scratch). If it is the game you need, I have it right here.