Mid 80's to Mid 90's Namco games, rare to find in the US?

ifkz

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Mid 80's to Mid 90's Namco games, rare to find in the US?

I have been browsing system16.com under their Namco museum section a lot lately. I have come across neat looking games I have never seen or heard of before. Quick searches in the for sale section get zero hits. Did Namco not send many games over from Japan until the mid 1990's (1996 and beyond)?

Namco boards also seem to be hard to find, compared to Sega, Capcom, Atari, Taito, and Konami.

What do the Namco collectors in the audience think?
 
Yeah, lots of great Namco stuff never made it over. It's really been going on since the early 80s, great titles like Tower of Druaga, Phozon, Toy Pop, Libble Rabble... the list goes on and on. I think a lot of it depended on what the companies here thought would sell and therefore bought the rights too, and apparently some of the Japanese only titles (like Druaga) did terrible in location tests and were dubbed unwise to distribute here. Sad, because there are a lot of Namco games that I would love to have better access too (as in, them having come out over here) or a dedicated cab for (most 80s games were put in the generic namco cocktail and 90s games in candy cabs).
 
Atari had the ability to select which Namco titles would be released in the US during that time. It was an arrangement that started around the time of Dig Dug, as part of the settlement from a lawsuit which punished Namco for making bootleg versions of Atari games sold in Asia. If it was too weird or didn't tickle Atari's fancy, it didn't get a release in the US...

Lee
 
I had an Outfoxies PCB. It was very reminiscent of "Super Smash Brothers", only with better graphics (compared to the original Smash Bros.) and a little more raw/realistic. I sold it to a collector on the internet, but probably should have kept it. This was around 1997-ish...

Lee
 
I have been browsing system16.com under their Namco museum section a lot lately. I have come across neat looking games I have never seen or heard of before. Quick searches in the for sale section get zero hits. Did Namco not send many games over from Japan until the mid 1990's (1996 and beyond)?

Namco boards also seem to be hard to find, compared to Sega, Capcom, Atari, Taito, and Konami.

What do the Namco collectors in the audience think?

I think every company has it's 'rare' years. But I agree I think Namco is the most enigmatic.

My opinion...

Sega - early B&W, also some of the mid 80's stuff
Capcom - never really followed too much besides the late 80's stuff
Atari - early B&W
Taito - definitely the late 70's to real early 80's
Konami- - some of their late 80's jamma stuff is not an easy find....
 
Most of the really late 80s Namco titles that Atari packaged for US release are rare to find in their dedicated form. Stuff like Galaga 88, Dragon Spirit, Assault, Pac-Mania, etc. There are runs on those titles ranging from around 150 for some to around 1000 for others. But nothing that got produced in massive quantities that I'm aware of.
 
Yup, I'm having a difficult time finding a
Dragon Spirit or Saber for my kids..
 
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