Earlier in the year I noted finding three un-scanned catalogs. The first was from October 1993 and I posted it in January just because. The second was from summer 2004 and rather than wait for it to turn 20 I also posted it in January. This is from December and I decided to save it for my annual holiday feature. Or at least, I've been posting annual holidays features for a few years in a row now. Maybe it will continue beyond this, maybe not.
When I scanned this, it was the 30th Electronics Boutique one I did. At this point any that I scan could be the last one I ever do. I don't mean that grimly, I mean there are only so many left. Because of that I'm going to again include two sizes of pages - 1200 width and 2400 width. They are 4-6mb and 16-20mb a page respectively. The former being larger than the entire available storage space of the 1990s proto version of this site. The latter being larger than the entire available storage space for the actual first version of this site.
I'm posting this in December 2023 although it would make sense to wait a year for the big round number anniversary in 2024. Tomorrow is not guaranteed and all that. I didn't want to wait in case the unforeseen happens, or I forget about it, or I lose interest in doing stuff like this (unlikely as that is). You're probably reading it at some future date and not even during the holiday season. Whether it's 29 or 30 years old doesn't matter.
As for December 1994 thoughts... it's a fun time to look back upon. The 32X was a fairly hot system then. Trust me, it sold well. The launch lineup helped for sure. I would rank it among the top 10 launch libraries without hesitation. The 3DO was getting some interesting games but not flying off the shelf. The Jaguar was roughly in the same position. The 16-bit systems had a solid selection anchored by Mortal Kombat II. This is the last catalog to feature an NES game (unless I find an early 1995 one maybe). I wouldn't call this an awesome time for PC games but some noteworthy CD titles were new. 1994 is also when Electronics Boutique still sold business applications and programming IDEs. That's neat to me at least.
Alright, that's enough stalling. Let's get to the scans...
Page 1: Cover
I'll take their word for it that this is the largest catalog to date. Next year's catalog has just a couple more pages.
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Page 2: Handhelds
Two of these handhelds are the same concept as the Microvision. I bet the cartridges are totally interchangeable.
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Page 3: CD ROM kits
This is pre-Windows 95 so these kits required a lot of patience to install.
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Page 4: Sound cards
I'm having flashbacks of trying to explain the differences between these to customers. I can't today either.
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Page 5: CD drives
The early CD ROM era was as confusing as it was exciting. I can't figure out what the "Explorer Multimedia System" actually does for example. It just seems like an external CD drive.
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Page 6: PC CD games
Every time I go through one of these I see some game I forgot about and now want to try. In this catalog it's Noctropolis.
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Page 7: PC CD games
I probably saw the box for Millennium Auction a couple thousand times and never read the description. It sounds like an OK idea. I'll add it to the endless list of games I want to try.
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Page 8: Microprose games
I feel like Colonization is a game that would not be made today. Or not with that title. I'll explain the premise to my kids and report back on their reaction.
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Page 9: PC CD games
It's weird, good weird, to remember that Stonekeep has a sequel on the Wii.
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Page 10: PC CD games
Yeah, I guess 11th Hour was like $70 when it was released. Great game though. If I ranked these kinds of things it would probably be my favorite in the genre.
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Page 11: PC CD games
That celebrity poker game has an odd assortment. How did those three meet?
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Page 12: PC CD games
Legions must not have had sample box art yet.
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Page 13: PC CD games
Operation Body Count is the best title of a game I don't remember.
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Page 14: PC CD games
I never played it, but I assume National Lampoon's Blind Date is the worst game in this catalog. I know there's a whole Edutainment section coming but I'm feeling confident about that statement.
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Page 15: Edutainment
Things are going to get rough for a while now. I don't think anyone visits these pages for the Edutainment and reference sections. Why they're before console games is a mystery.
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Page 16: Edutainment
I will admit the Putt-Putt games aren't bad. They're like a LucasArts/Sierra game but at a novice difficulty.
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Page 17: Edutainment
The Power Rangers are an odd inclusion on this page.
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Page 18: Edutainment
The Street Fighter collection is also a total misfit in this section. If you open this page, make sure to see what's included in that bundle. Wow.
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Page 19: Stuff on CD ROM
As of whenever I am writing this draft, there is a marketing site for that Wrath of the Gods game.
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Page 20: Broderbund
The Print Shop line had a respectable lifespan. It was a given that if you owned a family PC you had a copy for at least a decade.
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Page 21: Stuff on CD ROM
I'd give that Radio Active game a try. I'd probably go into it all confident but tank on anything older than 1983.
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Page 22: No one looks at these pages
Huh, so the Discovery Channel fascination with sharks goes back to at least 1994. Maybe everyone else knew this.
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Page 23: Seriously, no one
I have a bad feeling that JFK interactive CD thing is a bunch of loony conspiracy theories.
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Page 24: Prove me wrong
Selling a CD with data about 150 million people seems kind of shady now.
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Page 25: Humorously obsolete software
A CD with 70 million phone numbers - half as many people but equally shady. I'm trying to figure out how it could enforce "5,000 inquiries for one full year" or why that would matter. It seems like if you were determined to lookup 5,001 numbers this would be easy to circumvent.
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Page 26: More humorously obsolete software
That $50 internet thing seems like a rip-off. I can't imagine it's too different than the dozens of free CDs the various internet services gave away.
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Page 27: Various CD ROM things
That Seinfeld CD is shockingly cheap on ebay. I thought people would be selling it for a gold mine. I see a potential review in the future...
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Page 28: Mostly drawing programs
If you're wondering why Electronics Boutique is selling Corel Draw 3 and 5 but not 4 at all, you're not alone. I didn't understand why in 1994 either.
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Page 29: Microsoft
Microsoft's early entries in the "random stuff on CD ROMs" genre. That is sadly a genre that will never exist again.
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Page 30: Microsoft
I think we've come full circle with some hardware prices. In 1994 a $104 keyboard and $54 mouse were absurd but expected. In about 10 years they'd drop to about half of that thanks to cheaper manufacturing. Then regular (and sometimes irregular) inflation over time brought these prices back to 1994 levels.
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Page 31: Productivity
I probably said this 25 times already but buying a database in what was predominantly a video game store made perfect sense at the time.
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Page 32: WordPerfect
I assure you that PerfectOffice box is as heavy as it looks.
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Page 33: Microsoft Office
One of the offers from Microsoft here is a free long distance calling card. There was a brief period of time when we sold them at Electronics Boutique but I don't have a catalog with an example.
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Page 34: Personal productivity
Hmph. Uninstall-it! came with some kind of "octane booster" which sounds like a totally legit thing that definitely does something good for your car.
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Page 35: Personal productivity
I like the OS/2 Warp description - how it explains that you can run Windows programs if you're running Windows. I could write descriptions like that all day. "With the PlayStation you can run Xbox games if you also have an Xbox."
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Page 36: Personal productivity
I wish I had a Far Side screensaver today. I suppose I could with a little effort.
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Page 37: Quicken and Turbo Tax
Alright, officially running out of steam for these pages. Fun fact, I don't scan/crop/resize these in page order because I would quit around this page. It's sandwiched between two things I find more interesting.
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Page 38: Screensavers and stuff
I realize screensavers aren't a thing people buy any more. It feels like they're due for a comeback. Everything on this page would sell today I'm convinced.
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Page 39: Utilities
I was going to lookup what happened to Stacker but apparently there is a new-ish company using that name now and they have better SEO than a defunct piece of software.
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Page 40: Personal productivity
I don't remember seeing Never Lock in our store. It looks like a flat-out copy protection cracking tool. I assume one or more game publishers got wind of this and politely asked Elbo not to sell it.
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Page 41: Personal productivity
Yeah, OK.
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Page 42: Edutainment
Somehow we're back to edutainment titles. I swear fun things are coming up soon.
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Page 43: Edutainment
Yukon Trail, Amazon Trail... I wonder what other trails they considered? I will non-sarcastically offer "Lunar Trail" which is about early space missions. People will be upset about a game where astronauts die but real actual people also died on these other trails.
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Page 44: PC games
Alright, we're starting to transition into un-educational games. A couple of these are in my 3DO backlog.
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Page 45: PC games
The fine folks at Giftmaker sent our store some sample coffee mugs. I still have it today. I should check the ebay rate on those. I bet it's around $0.
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Page 46: PC games
There are a couple wild descriptions on this page. The editors sure had fun here.
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Page 47: Hint books
The Myst hint book sold about 1:1 with the game. King's Quest V is the only other game I recall having the same hint book attach rate.
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Page 48: PC Accessories
That PC Radio looks totally awesome to me. I mean, it's QuickShot so it's garbage. Still, it looks fun to try out.
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Page 49: Internet and books
Early internet was such an exciting time. I can't imagine what future technological revolution would feel the same.
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Page 50: Prodigy and controllers
Very stylish speakers, I don't mean that ironically.
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Page 51: PC upgrades
Both of those hard drives combined could not store these scanned pages.
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Page 52: PC accessories
I owned a pair of those Labtec speakers and probably used them until 2010. I finally parted with them purely out of desk space. I now think that was a mistake. The replacements are smaller and higher quality but lack a certain charm.
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Page 53: PC accessories
I don't remember those DC 2120 data cartridges being in stores.
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Page 54: Tiger
I found one of those Mortal Kombat Tiger games at an estate sale a few years ago. The Sonic ones would be neat to have too.
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Page 55: Sega
The form factor of the Sega Pocket Arcade game is nice but they are less fun than the Tiger competitors... not a high bar to meet. I would gladly own them all.
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Page 56: Bad controller ideas
We had all of these in the store. I can't recall one ever being sold.
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Page 57: 3DO
Guardian War.. do I own that? No, I don't expect you to know. Lemme check... and no. I think I'd like to track that down.
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Page 58: 3DO
Star Control II had a strong cult following, even in 1994. It didn't help the 3DO much though. You have to really like a game to buy an entire system to play a variation of it.
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Page 59: 3DO
Samurai Shodown on 3DO was a rock solid port. I'm not a huge fan of it but was quite impressed with it.
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Page 60: 3DO
This page both shows why the 3DO wasn't a hit and why it could have been. FIFA and Road Rash were big upgrades over other consoles. The other four games are just, meh.
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Page 61: 32X
The 32X launch lineup was amazing for 1994. Motocross is the only weak link here and it's not even very weak. Yeah, I've played the 32X port of Doom. Considering the other console options in 1994 it was a good port. Star Wars Arcade by itself sold many 32Xs.
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Page 62: Jaguar
Like the previous 3DO page, this shows why the Jaguar failed and could have been successful. Tempest 2000, AvP, Doom, and Wolfenstein 3D were outstanding. On a scale of 1-10, the other three games are a combined -1.
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Page 63: X'Eye and some games
The placeholder art for Rayman is something.
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Page 64: EA Sports
I have a funny feeling the $70 Shaq Fu scans will be shared on at least one forum. Wait, are forums still a thing? Whatever the equivalent is now, that's what I meant.
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Page 65: Konami
I think this page has the highest number of exclaimation points in the game descriptions.
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Page 66: Supposedly hot games
I can't tell you how many times I have tried to like Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. I probably played the first stage 30 times and can't get any further.
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Page 67: Acclaim
This page is making me question the prices. There is no way WWF Raw on Super Nintendo was $77.99 in 1994. Full stop there. $69.99 was the cap outside of RPGs and typically they were $10 off within a month. Maybe in one market they hit $77.99 so the catalog has the maximum possible price to avoid complaints?
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Page 68: Acclaim
Mortal Kombat II was $5 more on the Super Nintendo vs the Genesis and 1000x worth it. I could write a 100 page thesis on how this was the moment the Super Nintendo took the lead in the 16-bit war.
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Page 69: Supposedly hot games
You ever see a Game Gear game mocked-up to be in a Sega Genesis box? Now you have. Now you sure have.
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Page 70: Supposedly hot games
Go ahead and make fun of me, I couldn't care less. I liked Wheel of Fortune on Sega CD. I own it today and fire it up once in a while.
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Page 71: Sports games
From the era when multiple companies could make licensed sports games.
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Page 72: Mickey Mania
Sony publishing Disney games... oh, crazy thought - what if Sony and Disney merged? I don't know who buys who but it seems not implausible nowadays.
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Page 73: Earthworm Jim
My memory is of course not perfect but Earthworm Jim launching at $70 checks out. It was $50 in short order and stayed around there for a while. I heard someone once tried to launch an entire console on the promise of it having a new Earthworm Jim game. The series was never that popular.
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Page 74: Super Nintendo
Maybe one person out there is interested in this Super Punch-Out!! pre-release box art.
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Page 75: Donkey Kong Country
The simplicity of this page makes it my favorite in this catalog. This could be made into a poster.
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Page 76: Super Nintendo
Until this very moment, I didn't know the full title of Ken Griffey baseball. That's a mouthful.
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Page 77: Super Nintendo
Here it is, the last licensed NES game and the last appearance of any NES game in these catalogs (that I know of so far). And here you thought I was going to talk about the "Sorry, Not available" note on the Magic cards. TL;DR - it must have been a late edit because we sold out of them faster than anything I can remember. I think we sold them for a lot less than comic book stores because as a chain we got them at a better price than various independent stores.
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Page 78: Super Nintendo
What is more interesting? Final Fantasy III for $79.99 or the wrong title & description for it?
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Page 79: Super Nintendo
Super Return of the Jedi is good right? I haven't played it but should sometime.
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Page 80: Super Nintendo
Robotrek is way overdue for a remake.
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Page 81: Super Nintendo
Mario Paint is kinda buried in this catalog. It was a big seller this holiday season.
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Page 82: Super Nintendo
I don't remember either of these Ultima games being on the Super Nintendo. That brings me to like 100 new backlog entries in this catalog.
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Page 83: Sega CD
I can't get over how bad the Sega CD box art template is.
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Page 84: Sega CD
So this page doesn't have the bad box art template. Weird. Also, this is the only Falcom sighting in this catalog.
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Page 85: Various games
The "Interactor" is just a giant speaker you strap to your back. It deserves an Angry Video Game Nerd episode.
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Page 86: Sega Genesis
What a tease, the preview Phantasy Star IV box is a regular hard case. It was a bad choice to ship a $90 game in the cheap cardboard packaging.
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Page 87: Vaporware gold mine
Not one but two pieces of vaporware on this page. Lufia was on the Super Nintendo and would have probably sold OK enough on the Genesis too. Side Pocket on Sega CD might not have been a big hit but I'm positive the soundtrack would have been great. The sort of sequel, the Minnesota Fats game that is mechanically identical, maybe inherited some of these tracks on the Saturn.
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Page 88: Odd assortment of games
I just had to check if Math Blaster for the Genesis was also vaporware. I recall seeing the Super Nintendo version in the store but not Genesis one. It is real though and fairly cheap which is a surprise because I can't imagine there were a ton of copies sold.
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Page 89: Odd assortment of games
This is an odd place to put Flashback for the 3DO and Jaguar.
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Page 90: Super Gameboy
The Super Game Boy is one of my favorite ideas from this era. I definitely put a lot of hours into mine and its later Gamecube variation. I wish there was something like this for the Game Gear and Lynx too (at the time - I know both can be played a dozen different ways today).
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Page 91: Game Boy
The Game Boy was down to $50 in 1994?! I forgot that. What an incredible deal. The library was already packed at this point and there were still a couple years to go.
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Page 92: Game Gear
Meanwhile the Game Gear is $130. Yeah, better hardware and a good pack-in game, I get it. To the average person looking for a handheld system it's not much of a debate. I legit like the Game Gear but can't argue for picking it over the Game Boy.
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Page 93: Sega accessories
The Sega Arcade Stick is one of my favorite controllers. I'm kind of weird in that I prefer joysticks over d-pads for any game. Even RPGs where there is zero difference.
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Page 94: Controllers and hint books
Mixed bag here.. the asciiPads are about as good as a first party controller. The Fighter Stick is loose and isn't particularly good for its stated purpose.
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Page 95: Hint books and accessories
So many things on this page do not look familiar and may not have been in stores. The Video Jukebox for example, I don't think I could forget seeing that in person. Those flaming red Game Gear accessory boxes must have been in different packaging. Then again, that stuff tends to blend together.
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Page 96: Back cover
I did not error check the page numbers on this fax.
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Page 97: Discount games
Who has a stocking that can fit a freakin' Super Nintendo or Genesis box?
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Page 98: Discount games
Overall these aren't bad deals for the time. Most would be another $10 off very soon though.
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Page 99: Discount games
I have zero recollection of Battle Blaze. The description sounds like a 1:1 fighter, I guess it's worth trying.
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Page 100: Order form
I don't know why I scan and post these. I can't imagine anyone is looking for this.
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Page 101: Envelope back
I'm sure I mentioned this one of the previous 30ish times, but the extended service agreement is the only thing we earned a commission for selling. That's how I knew they must be a bad deal.
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Page 102: Envelope front
As of whenever I'm typing this, Google Maps lists that address as "Building". There does not appear to be a business there. Very anti-climatic.
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So there's xmas 1994. This was one of my favorite catalogs to look at. I don't think we knew it yet but an era was ending. In 1995 the Saturn, PlayStation, and Windows 95 all launched. Nearly everything in this catalog was obsolete by xmas 1995. The 1993 xmas catalog isn't all that different from this one, while 1995 is an entirely new world. These are the last days of the 16-bit era and we didn't even know it.
If you're reading this during the holiday season - I hope it's a wonderful one for you. If it's the middle of summer or whatever, I also hope things are peachy.
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