RE: Virtua Fighter 2 Earns Ring Out Victory on Sega Saturn – Today in History – December 30th, 1995
I picked up a Saturn around that first Christmas. Electronic's Boutique was having a trade in deal - any Super Nintendo game was worth $10 trade in. I went to another local game store that was selling Rocket Ranger for SNES for $2 and bought enough of them (they had probably 200 copies) to get a Saturn and some games (EB was offering a package deal just to get the console moving).
EB was offering your choice of 3 games from a set of 6. It cost me like $80 or so in Rocket Ranger games. I was friends with the EB staff there at the time and I asked prior if they allowed duplicates, they said sure, the current high score was like 20 copies of one game (some B.S. sports game).
Once I heard that, it was on.
I would have gotten a PlayStation at that time but they were sold out and, of course, their next shipment was after this weekend trade-in deal. They knew what they were doing though as it was store credit for that purchase right then - you couldn't stack the credit and wait.
Looking back, I figure they were trying to make room in the back for the console that was selling like hotcakes for them. One of my friends there told me they only moved like 10 Saturns during that sale. Such a shame that such an awesome console was cut short like that but it is not like Sega is free and clear on the blame here.
I love Sega games, the games made for their platforms have a certain charm that is simply not available elsewhere.
i was just thinking that they certainly wouldn't accept so many copies of the same game but then you chimed in with that you knew the staff there. That's probably correct that they were willing to accept whatever just to get the Saturns out of the back. I have heard the story many times... the Saturn was a great machine but at 100 dollars more than the PS, Sega didn't stand a chance.
The no restriction on number of copies was for everyone trading in games. I was just a regular at that location (I was one of the few customers allowed to go in the back for instance). I was dropping at least $100 to $150 a week on game, mags, etc at that location. Then I got married.
Their back area was smaller than most multiple user bathrooms so they were constantly trying to move product. It was a mess back there. Several of the people that worked at that location were able to parlay their jobs and higher education into jobs in the gaming industry.
I remember those crazy trade in days though - some were awesome. They would have bonus case on trades if the game name had a Z or some other letter in it. Just weird stuff to get people talking and coming in.
One friend there actually talked me out of buying an Atari Jaguar. He literally refused to sell me one saying "it is not doing well, and EB itself is only ordering one copy of each game available per store" and other things. I wanted one so I drove home (about an hour or so) and figured I would sleep on it and check back later that week. I ended up not getting it and instead bought some discounted games for the 3DO (one being a Shanghai game my father got addicted to before he passed). So that worked out well, I think. Lol.
Sadly we don't have relationships like that with sales staff at game stores anymore. I am not saying we were drinking buddies or anything but how many employees at Gamestop would flat out stop a customer from buying a console they know is shit and not going anywhere?