Unappreciated Asset: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle (U.S. Edition)
Every now an again, we plan to write about a game that seems to be flying under the market's radar. We will call these features Unappreciated Assets. The idea is to spotlight a game that has some characteristics of being valuable and collectible, but for whatever reason still has a relatively low value.
The first game on that list is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle (U.S. Edition). For everyone's sanity, let's refer to it as ASB.
The game is a fighter. A sequel of sorts to the Capcom Fighter JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, itself a valuable and collectible game released for PS1 and Dreamcast. Both games are based on characters from a Japanese manga series of the same name.
The game was released by Namco in 2014 for the PS3, which was a dying system at the time. The PS4 had been released in late 2013, which made ASB one of the later PS3 physical releases for the system.
As far as I can tell, the physical game was never released in brick and mortar stores. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is popular IP in Japan. As such, sales there were strong. But Namco seemed to understand that the game had a very limited appeal in the U.S. It looks like ASB was available only online via Amazon and Namco. The release numbers are not available.
However, even a cursory look at eBay makes it clear that the game is not readily available. At the time of this writing, there is one copy available on eBay. To illustrate the rarity, I found that there are currently 7 listings for complete in box M.U.S.H.A. (Released in 1990) copies on eBay right now.
I think it is clear that the U.S. version of this game is rare. But that alone does not mean that it is primed for a price increase. There are some things working against it. First, when you search on eBay you will find dozens of listings for the Japanese and European versions of the game. PS3 is region free, so those games will work on U.S. systems.
Additionally, the game is still readily available as a digital release. As we know, the digital availability of the game can hold the price of the physical release down.
So what do you think? Is the game primed to increase in value? Or will the factors noted keep the price down? Let us know what you think in the comments.