iam8bit Wants $100 for a New Sonic Genesis Cartridge, and Fans Aren’t Buying It
iam8bit's new $99.99 physical Genesis cartridges of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 have drawn heavy fan backlash, since the originals are among the cheapest, most common carts around.
iam8bit has announced new physical Genesis cartridges of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and the reaction has been about what you would expect when the price is $99.99 each. A Time Extension poll on the announcement had 89% of more than 300 voters answer a flat no.
On paper, this is the kind of thing I usually cheer for. They are real cartridges, manufactured by Retrotainment Games, that run on an actual NTSC Genesis. You get a see-through shell, a printed manual, and premium clamshell packaging with foil, and one in every eight carts hides a translucent ‘Chaos Emerald’ glow variant for the chase collectors. New runs of games on original hardware are exactly what keeps these consoles worth owning.
Here is the problem, and it is a big one. Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 are two of the most common, most reprinted, most easily found cartridges on planet Earth. They sold in the tens of millions. You can buy an original, complete in box, for a fraction of a hundred dollars, today, from a dozen places. Charging $100 for a brand-new copy of the single easiest Genesis game to track down is, as more than one person put it, embarrassing.
The intent is right and the target is wrong. If you are going to press new Genesis carts and ask collectors for real money, press the games that are actually lost or actually expensive. Nobody was lying awake worried they could not find a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog.
