This is the 26th Electronics Boutique catalog scan I've posted. I declared many of them to be the last one I'd upload. When I posted the March 1997 catalog, in March 2022, I meant it. I had no catalogs left to scan. Zero, completely zero.
I still have an ebay search going for these though. It's rare for one to appear that I haven't already scanned. When one pops-up it's either listed for $5 or $60. There's no consistency or logic in what people list these for.
It's especially funny to see catalogs I posted here being listed for $60. I don't know why they do that. The content is literally free here. I'm not ripping off Electronics Boutique by posting these for the low cost of nothing. They aren't a company anymore. GameStop owns the Electronics Boutique IP and I suppose it's theoretically possible they could reprint these for profit? Like if they sold a giant >1000 page book of all the old catalogs for the many brands they absorbed I would buy it. If you're visiting this page you probably would too. We'd each drop $100 on something like that. I don't see it happening though. I guess the only people I'm harming are those that think old catalogs are worth $60.
Since, again, I'm posting these completely for free there's a limit to what I'll spend on them. My upper limit is well below $60. If I ran ads I'd probably break even on a $60 catalog, especially the ones that get linked to from some larger site. I'm not running ads. I did over a decade ago. Now I'd rather delete this site than run ads on it.
All of this means it's a long shot that I'll add more Electronics Boutique catalogs. There are very few I haven't posted and I'm not giving someone $60 for a missing one. I got lucky recently though. In early 2023 I scored three(!) missing catalogs each for a low price. One of the other two will be my annual holiday feature (this is a hint to the date it's from). The third is kind of a meh one for me but I'll post it anyway.
This one was a little elusive. It appeared in late 2022 listed at $5. I bid that and it ultimately "sold" at the last second for $36. A few days later I received a notice that it was re-listed. I again bid $5 and it "sold" again at the last second for $48. A few days later... there it was again. Two people with sniping bots were going after this and apparently getting sticker shock when they won. The third time around they didn't bother anymore. I got it for $5. Either of them could have won it for $5.01 if they were smarter.
I don't see the point in sniping bots. My ebay strategy is to bid 20% more than I'm actually willing to pay for an item. If someone gets it at the last second, good for them. They overpaid by 20% in my estimate. If I get it for my max bid I'm annoyed but will pay anyway. Not these two would-be catalog snipers. I hope the seller reports them both.
This is an exciting catalog for me because it's from right around when I started dating my wife. Neither of us remember the exact date of our first date but it was summer 1993. If this catalog says "October" it's really more like "September" which is when things were definitely official. It doesn't feel like it's been that long... Most days it's like we're still two junior college students trying to figure out our futures.
So fall 1993 was obviously a memorable time in life for me. Since I'm almost out of catalogs to scan (again), I'll include larger-size images than I usually do. I'm posting both 1200 width and 2400 width versions. One is 4-6mb and the other ~4 times that. If you're posting these to a thread about video game prices you probably should link to the smaller one.
Alright, that's more than enough introductory notes. Let's hop back to 1993 for a while...
Page 1: Video Game Cover
I don't think we ever had that sports bag in the store. No, I'm positive we didn't because I don't have one today. Pre-ordering sports games wasn't common then. Pre-orders were still a new-ish idea. Also stores received so many copies of Madden 9x that it was pointless. Combined that would mean a lot of sports bags going home with the staff.
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Page 2: Video Game Contents
I wonder what arcade cabinet was the prize for this contest? If they ever told us I forgot. Either the internet doesn't know or I'm bad at searching for things. It couldn't have been something awesome.
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Page 3: Genesis
Forget inflation, $130 for a Genesis with Sonic 2 in 1993 is a solid deal. The Life Savers promotion was more popular than you probably think. We sold a metric ton (not literally) of them.
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Page 4: Genesis
You know what's weird about this catalog? There are no Mortal Kombat sightings. It was easily the highest selling game this month.
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Page 5: Genesis
Really, it's not here either. And "Streetfighter" II is buried at the bottom of this page. The catalog editor must have disliked fighting games.
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Page 6: Genesis
Old pro-wrestling game covers are always depressing.
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Page 7: Genesis Accessories
This is a neat game history page. There's the Genesis AV adapter in the original packaging and the RF adapter in the new color scheme. Hopefully that makes one change in the console revisions obvious.
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Page 8: Sega CD
Vaporware alert - Young Indiana Jones for Sega CD. Also this is not a bad scan, the Spider-Man box art is washed out on the original page.
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Page 9: Super Nintendo
The Super Nintendo set with Super Mario World is a great deal for the time too.
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Page 10: Super Nintendo
Hmm... the description for Link to the Past says you're playing as the ancestors of Link and Zelda.
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Page 11: Super Nintendo
This is probably the page that will get shared by someone trying to make a point about historical game prices.
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Page 12: Super Nintendo
This mini Jurassic Park feature is odd too. They could have done a full page of Jurassic Park games if they wanted to spotlight it.
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Page 13: Super Nintendo Accessories
The Jet Fighter control pad looks incredibly uncomfortable.
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Page 14: Game Gear
I won't say the Game Gear sports pack was a great deal... but it's not bad either. The case it came with was indeed huge.
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Page 15: Game Gear
The balled-up cable on the Game Gear AC adapter is triggering anxiety in me. It needs to be more like the cable on the car adapter.
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Page 16: Game Boy
The Game Boy was an all-around good deal. I know you have to adjust for inflation and all that but the system and games were cheap for the time.
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Page 17: Game Boy
The game selection here is amazing. It's rare to see a page where I can recommend trying everything on it.
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Page 18: Handhelds
You can poke fun at the quality of these games, whatever. They're neat collectibles to have today.
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Page 19: NES
The NES is not quite done just yet. Picking-up that challenge set in 1993 and putting it away until your first system died would have been wise.
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Page 20: NES
Here's another page where every game is worth playing. I assume everyone reading this has already played these many times of course.
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Page 21: TurboDuo
The TurboGrafx-16 manages a little more page space than the August 1993 catalog. Just half a page more but that's something. In the Christmas 1993 catalog it's bumped back down to half a page. In the first catalog of 1994 it's totally gone.
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Page 1: PC Cover
Like the August 1993 catalog this is split into video game and PC sections. There are technically two front covers for anyone keeping track.
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Page 2: MS DOS 6.0
This is another weird page. MS DOS 6.0 is featured like a new product but was several months old and the 6.2 upgrade was already out.
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Page 3: PC Games
The storyline of Blue Force sounds very plausible.
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Page 4: PC Games
The effort to make those Flight Simulator scenery packs in 1993 must have been incredible.
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Page 5: PC Games
I have zero recollection of The Red Crystal so I just watched a video. It's a bit of a "gold box" AD&D knock-off. It looks like the kind of thing that would be ported to the Genesis.
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Page 6: PC Games
The Strategy Game wins for most words on the front of the box.
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Page 7: PC Games
Having a funky box, like The Incredible Machine, was a good way to ensure your game would be crammed in the worst corner of the store.
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Page 8: PC Accessories
Imagination by Sierra is basically what Facebook has spent $80 trillion or whatever trying to build. I suspect Imagination is a much more fun place to hangout.
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Page 9: PC Edutainment
It seems unlikely anyone is interested in this page.
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Page 10: PC Edutainment
Same for this page. I dunno, maybe there are some Mavis Beacon fans out there.
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Page 11: PC Edutainment
It occurs to me that Reader Rabbit hasn't been ported to the Switch. Don't laugh, I'm 100% serious in that observation. Other semi-educational games of the CD ROM era have Switch ports.
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Page 12: CD ROM
I recall the Creative Omni CD selling alright. It didn't come with a lot of extra stuff in the comparatively more expensive sets. A lot of people just wanted the basic setup and didn't need a pile of miscellaneous software.
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Page 13: CD ROM
This is the "bunch of random stuff on CD ROM" page.
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Page 14: PC Family
No, that can't possibly be legal.
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Page 15: PC Productivity
The guy on the Sound Pro box looks to be in considerable pain.
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Page 16: PC Productivity
Speaking of ebay nonsense.. As of this writing someone thinks WinProbe is worth $60.
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Page 17: PC Productivity
I wonder if there's some WordPerfect fan community that totally geeks out over these pages?
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Page 18: PC Productivity
So many different tools to "double" your hard drive space. If you made it this far you're probably old enough to remember how expensive storage was in 1993.
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Page 19: PC Personal Finance
We never had a line of people that long for the latest version of Quicken.
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So that wraps up October 1993. I'm just now realizing it wasn't very Halloween-y or fall-y. If I didn't see the date I'd assume this was from the spring. It was still a good trip back in time, thanks for joining me on it.
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