Not too many stories from this weekend’s yard sale outing. The most interesting find for me was the “Legend of Dragoon Collector’s Video” VHS tape that I found early in the day at a church sale. It has a gatefold cover that folds out with more artwork and screenshots of the game. I don’t know if this was a promo or perhaps a reservation freebie? I can’t find any info about it except that there’s a copy for sale on Half.com for $15. If you know more about it, please leave a comment.

Final Fantasy VII and Guitar Hero III came from a pawn shop on the way home from my ’saling. Needless to say, a $5 copy of FFVII turned a mediocre yard saling day into a great one!

• Legend of Dragoon Collector’s Video VHS — $0.50
• Final Fantasy VII — $5 (pawn shop)
• Resident Evil 2 N64, complete — $3
• Super Mario 64, complete — $3
• UFC Sudden Impact PS2 — $3
• Guitar Hero III PS2 — $12.50 (pawn shop)
• Mega Man X4 PS1, disc only — $1
• Fat DS Mad Catz case — $0.50 (will go well with the $5 fat DS I got a couple of weeks ago)

I mentioned a few weeks ago about a rare Aerith’s Theme music box from Final Fantasy VII. Well, one has just shown up on eBay with an opening price of $1000 and one bid so far.

The box is larger than I thought it was, measuring 10 inches on the longest side. The seller says this music box is an edition of only 500, with this one being #044. Here’s the seller’s description:

If you look at the silver part with the six screws and the strips, it is made to look like a piano and as the music box plays, the strips move just like it’s playing a piano (looks amazing). At the front of the music box there’s a gold harp shaped piece that if you move to the left it stops and if you move to the right it plays. The dimensions of its box are 10 inches by 4.25 inches by 6.5 inches. The reason why it’s so expensive is that the music box has 50 NOTES. Most music boxes have only 18 notes, and play only 1 tune. The music box is made out of curubixa wood which is supposed to be one of the best woods for music boxes (curubixa wood is an exotic type of wood : dense and excellent for sound insulation). This is very high quality item. Don’t miss out on this super rare FFVII item. Auction started from $1,000 (no reserve) and buy it now option $1,700.

I keep having an impulse to bid, but then I remember what an obscene amount of money that is.

Final Fantasy VII Aerith Music Box Limited Edition

I was pretty excited to receive my Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII European PSP bundle today. I had been seriously coveting the Japanese version for a few months now, but couldn’t stomach the $500+ price tag.

I decided to document the unboxing for you, in case you’re curious to know exactly what’s inside. Also, I should note that this is the UK version. I don’t know if there are any substantial differences from the other European versions.

This came from National Console Support, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago.

Back when Square Enix announced the limited edition Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII bundle in Japan, it seemed nifty, but it also seemed like a steep price at around $250 last year. Little did I know how good Crisis Core was going to be. The Japanese system was limited to 77,777 copies (Tetsuya Nomura himself said in an interview that he wasn’t able to buy one) and showed off a special Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary logo.

Now that I (and if prices are any indication, many others) have played and beaten and loved the American version, I’ve been uncontrollably coveting this limited edition. Prices have spiked to over $600 on eBay for the Japanese system, meaning that I really couldn’t justify buying one.

Sony Europe to the rescue! Just 2 days ago, Sony Europe announced that this hot item will be seeing a European release in just a few short days on June 20, showing that Europe doesn’t always get the short end of the release stick.

The MSRP is 189 Euros, or about $289 US. The problem is, many of the big European online retailers (Amazon France and Germany included) will not ship outside of the system’s intended region.

Long-established import shop NSCX just emailed me today to say that they have put the Crisis Core bundle on pre-order at $329, a bargain compared to some of the recent eBay prices for the Japanese system. Needless to say, I just put in my order for mine. They’ve also been very friendly in answering my email questions, so thanks guys!

If anyone finds another place where this can be ordered and shipped to the US, leave it in the comments.

The Final Fantasy VII Official Strategy Guide has been out of stock at Amazon.com and BN.com for weeks, which could mean that it’s now out of print after an amazing 10+ year run.

Bradygames first published the Final Fantasy VII Official Strategy Guide on August 2, 1997, and was still in print as recently as November at Amazon. That would mean that the guide had been in print for 10 years and shifted over 1 million copies by itself, a mind-blowing feat for any game-related product, let alone a simple strategy guide, and really a testament to Final Fantasy VII’s popularity even a decade later.

Final Fantasy VII’s guide still shows up as available on Bradygames’ site, but from personal experience, they’re slow in updating items that go out of stock. Perhaps worth a try if you want a new copy before they’re extinct. Meanwhile, 3rd party prices for a new copy are starting to climb above $20 both on Amazon and eBay.

For what it’s worth, the Final Fantasy VIII guide appears to still be available and in print. Go figure.

As for Final Fantasy VII the game itself, it has been out of print since 2003, when Sony gave it its last “Greatest Hits” run. Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics’ publishing rights were held by Sony, and thus Sony made the call to end the print run — some might argue, prematurely. Later Square titles like Final Fantasy VIII and IX were published under a Square EA joint publishing deal, which explains why you can still buy new copies of Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX from Amazon for the why-don’t-you-own-this-already price of $19.99.

That’s perhaps a good lesson for game makers — don’t license out the publishing rights for your console generation-defining masterpieces. Given that used copies of Final Fantasy VII easily top $50 and $60 on eBay, Square is certainly missing out on potential revenue from a “Greatest Hits” reprint.