GX4000 CARTRIDGE RARITY & EBAY GUIDE

Welcome to Xyphoe's rarity guide for GX4000 carts on Ebay. The prices and rating are for the following conditions -

• The game is in full working order
• The cart itself is the original
• Box and original sleeve in at least good condition
• Instruction manual in good condition

The prices and rating are purely my opinion and observations of over 14 years watching and trading on Ebay in completing my collection. I still check all GX4000 auctions at least once a week. Please note over in the late 2000's bootleg carts have been appearing on Ebay (although in the last 4-5 years seemed to have stopped). Most were initially just for games that were never officially released on the console (eg Gryzor, Chase HQ, Fluff, etc) however bootleg carts for some of the rarer official releases started appearing. These include Panza Kick Boxing, Copter 271, Pang, Dick Tracy and Super Pinball Magic, and have been priced around £20 - £30 each and are just loose carts that once were other games. Whether you just want to have the game on cart regardless of whether it is the original cart or not is up to preference, but don't be duped into thinking you've got an original for a cheap price. Use wisdom and common sense judgement - if it's too good to be true... it often is! Some notes regarding bootlegs -

• Bootleg carts are existing carts that have been cracked open and their ROM replaced/reflashed. No-one is currently making the casing of the rom board anymore, so essentially these are probably Burnin' Rubber/BASIC carts being done! Some tell tale signs that it is a bootleg cart are -
• To open the case, one of the catches on the side will have to be permanently broken and snapped - this is unavoidable. The cart will either be loose slightly along the seem or they will have superglued it shut (in which case you might be able to still smell the glue!). From an Ebay auction you probably won't be able to tell this.
• The label will have been re-printed, matching the type of paper and the printing process and ink used back in 1990 is near impossible. So comparison to an existing original cart in your collection up close you'll notice this, however it's hard to tell from an Ebay auction of course! But you might be able to spot a missprint or the image on the label is slightly off if you compare to the picture of the carts on my gamebase on this site.

Update May 2015 - Recently eBay sellers have been asking higher prices for the games in general, but most with 'make an offer' option. I still maintain that for example the top value of "Robocop 2" is £25 but as I type two sellers are asking £40! So some values have been slightly adjusted, whilst others have had bigger adjustments due to their increased rarity!

Game	Rarity Rating	Value (£)	Comments
		£15 - £30	Surprisingly common occurance on Ebay, one of the earliest and most popular games released on the console - Ocean managed to get this well stocked in the shops at the time, and for a while was one of the primary carts to own. So there's quite a lot of these boxed + instructions coming up quite often.
		£10 - £25	Like Robocop2 and Operation Thunderbolt, Ocean probably got thousands into the shops at the time, comes up quite regularly on Ebay - probably once a month or two. No difference to the tape/disk original hence low value.
		£10 - £30	Another common Ocean release, comes up fairly regularly on Ebay. A great game, but no different to the tape/disk original meaning quite a low value.
		£200 - £1000	WOW! OK... here's the big one, the holy grail of GX4000 games. See the section for it on the Gamebase, but essentially there's only currently two known copies in existence. Rare as rocking horse shit! Value ... well the one and only time it has appeared on eBay it went for £908.67...!!
		£80 - £200	Probably the 3rd or 4th most rare game on the system, was released very late (last cart commercially released) in few numbers. Does seem to come up slightly more regularly than Panza and Dick Tracy though. Most I've seen it go for was near £400, I paid about £100 about 4 years ago.
		£10 - £25	Fairly common occurrence of a dull game that was already available on tape/disk. Yawn. Try not to go above £15 for it.
		£80 - £140	Surprisingly rare!! I guess not enough people were fussed enough, after the tape/disk original being crap and the movie being distinctly average. Tons probably got returned by the shops and sent to the land fill. It's not too bad, but you might be a bit gutted having forked out £100+ for it...
		£10 - £25	Another fairly common Titus release, one of the very first commercially available games probably given a great boost by Amstrad Action rating it 94% in their first review!! Thankfully they came to their senses later on and re-assessed it at 55% which is accurate for a fairly dull plod.
		£25 - £50	This appears occasionally on eBay, wasn't a popular cart due to being a direct CPC port. Definitely one to own but try not to go above the £50 mark if you can!
		£60 - £120	Ooooh! In my opinion THE best game on the console and an essential purchase. It's rare as people who have it want to hold on to it!! Can't blame them! A few years ago I saw it go for prices reaching near £200, recently it went for as low as £70ish. A fair price is around £90-£100 in good nick.
		£70 - £120	A very rare French release, not appeared on eBay for many years (7 years I believe) until recently when two copies went up for auction! First one sold for £112.49! I don't think it was released in the UK so make sure you're checking for this overseas!
		£20 - £45	A brilliant game, very hard, but essential to own this. Comes up once in a while and doesn't go for a too high price.
		£20 - £40	Probably the crappest game on the console, utter rubbish. It was fairly rare but has appeared for auction quite a lot recently though, but it's with much annoyance and gnashing of teeth that you may have to fork out a bit just to add it to the 'collection', but do try to get it for under £40 though!
		£10 - £30	Another mass released Ocean product, that was originally a tape/disk game. They've beefed up the colour pallete and HUD, but little else to recommend and increase the value. £15's a fair price.
		£80 - £200	In the top 3 rarest games on the console. Went for a staggering £400 6 years ago. Its a pretty good beat em up, but won't hold your interest for too long. Fully complete and in good condition, if you get it for under £100 you've done very well.
		£60 - £120	Quite rare this one, I guess either no-one really bought it initially and many games were just sent to the dump - pinball on a console at £25-30 back in 1991 was hardly enticing. It's hardly enticing now seeing as it can go for over £100 ... it's still quite fun though. Twice a year on average it surfaces on Ebay.
		£30 - £80	Relatively rare, but a rather dull puzzle game. Nicely presented and all that, but not much to keep you addicted like Tetris. Pops up on Ebay once or twice a year, getting it for £50 seems fair.
		£10 - £30	Fairly common game, and a decent tennis sim for sure. You shouldn't have to wait long for this to pop up on eBay - £15 a fair price.
		£15 - £30	An essential game for any GX4000 owner!! Comes up for auction at least 2 or 3 times a year. Goes fairly cheaply too, probably helped/hindered by the fact it was released on tape/disk.
		£20 - £50	Another great tennis sim on the console! Good laugh is this one, probably pops up 2 or 3 times a year on eBay - although not for high prices. £30 sounds about fair.
		£25 - £50	Pretty flimsy excuse for a game, unless you're a toddler you'll complete this on your first or second go. Not too rare occurance on eBay in the last few years, but the game quality affects the price. Try not to go above £40.
		£25 - £50	Appears 2-3 times a year for auction. An average game with little replay value, try and get it for around £30.
		£10 - £25	The events on offer in this sports package are great - but there's only 4 of them!! One of the weakest releases on the console and one you'll forget about. Comes up quite often, get it for a tenner.
		£50 - £300	Ultra rare package. Very few of these in circulation, last seen on Ebay back in 2005 going for near £100. Not seen again for 10 years!! About 6 years ago the Polish bootleg factory converted the old Magnum gun (see Gamebase for more details) which is in fact what these guns are - just packaged Magnum's with CPC+ connectors.