Is the Mattel NES rare?

[iamlost_]

I've been wondering, i got a boxed Mattel NES in good condition a while back and have been under the impression that they are rarer, because i have never seen them at bootfairs, before i sell it and all my other games am i deluding myself?

[importaku]

I wouldn't go as far as rare but they are very uncommon. It depends on the saturation where you live.

Some people tend to be falling over them where as others have not ever seen a single one, in leeds i have only ever seen 4 of them & all unboxed. All the rest were the later versions.

[chaoticjelly]

Yes they are a lot rarer, they were only made for a limited amount of time when Mattel took over from Nintendo for a bit. I've had two loose ones, one came off eBay, and t'other I got t'other week, only just looked at it yesterday, in a sorry state it is, to find its a Mattel unit, and then I found it had the obligatory cart in the slot, allthough nothing rare mind you, just Bart VS the Space Mutants.

Oh they're not worth anything though, just a curio I suppose.

[lettuce]

Well it was so much that Mattel took over from Nintendo, more the other way around. Nintendio didn't hold any interest in the Euro market at the time (probably why it took almost 2 years for the system to come over here after its release in Japan), so they franchised the system for Mattel to produce and market, i believe it was only when the system started becoming more popular, the Mattel company were in financial difficulty, and Nintendo finally had a euro based department, that Nintendo took over in the very early 90's. Some even say that the Mattel version had better components and were put together better than the later 'NES' versions, but dont know how much truth there is in this though!?

[MattyD]

I thought the Mattel version was sold in Canada?

Also I'm pretty sure that Bandai were the franchisee for Nintendo in the UK at least until 1990 when Nintendo Europe opened. Mattel must not have been producing the machines here for very long before they took over, which would explain why there are few of them around.

[J0e Musashi]

Does the Mattel one look different?

[lettuce]

Nah looks identical apart from where it says NES on the cart flap for the Nintendo produced consoles, and Mattel for the Mattel produced consoles