You could call that a "full retail set," since that game was never sold in stores. Similarly, a full retail set of NES games wouldn't have NWC in it and you could legitimately claim to have every game ever sold in stores.

On that note, has anyone ever confirmed that Stadium Events made it to retail store shelves before it was recalled or whatever? I always had the impression that it only went out through alternate channels before the retail release was canceled/retracted, like mail-order record clubs and distributors shipping to rental stores and such. Never even heard an anecdote of it being seen at a retail store back in the day.

My brother and I qualify for a ton of them but we never ask. Both of us getting a kiosk badge for the same kiosk or whatever from the same collection doesn't seem fair, but I never asked even when it was just me here (first post was a proto with pics and video). Just wasn't interested in that.

Stadium Events was on the shelves for at least six months, and likely closer to a year.  There was no mass recall either, that's just an urban legend.  The FFF pad didn't sell well, but Nintendo saw it as a way to market the system as more than just sitting on the couch in front of the TV, and thus licensed the pad and SE, leading to the Power Pad and World Class Track Meet.  The best parallel to use for it would be Gyromite and Stack Up.  Every Deluxe Set sold had a copy of Gyromite and ROB, much like every FFF pad came bundled with Athletic World.  Stack-Up is rare because ROB was a POS, so nobody bought it.  Stadium Events was similar - Everyone with a pad had Athletic World, but very few people liked the pad enough to buy the only other game for it at the time.  The reason Nintendo chose to license SE instead of AW or one of the FFF games (there were several already out in Japan at the time) is, to my knowledge, unknown, but likely had something to do with the limited exposure SE actually had in comparison to AW, and to bring over another game would mean an extended localization process.  With SE they just had to change the title screen and voila! New game.  But yeah, it was released pretty much anywhere third party NES games were sold (although likely only in stores that actualy carried the FFF pad as well), and there was no recall when the deal was struck - they simply let the initial batch sell in the months between releases.  The real question is just how many copies were in the initial batch.  That we most likely will never know, but my guess is only a few thousand copies made it to retail to begin with, hence the overall rarity.

Yeah, I feel the same way.  One of the mods who knew of my collection asked if I qualified for any and then stuck 'em up there.  I do have all the stuff, but I don't particularily care to show off or anything because my collection is for my enjoyment, not the internet's  

If this was the case for almost all people buying retro games, I wouldn't nearly have the disgust as I do for this 'hobby'.

Why do you think I disappear so often for months on end? I get burned out by the "retro scene."  I still play and collect, but I need to take a break from all the "OMG MONEYZ" bullshit.  And I flat out hate the threads where people show off their shit to get their e-peen stroked.  Oh, you got a great deal on 50 games that you'll never play because you don't actually care about retro gaming?  Good for you, now fuck right off.  Of course, I've been collecting for 20 years now, so it's more likely just me being a grumpy old fart  

The only reason why I really bother with this site, is because there are quite a few people who are really good at these old games and I care more about figuring them out and enjoying them with others that are doing the same. And figuring out some nintendo qwirks like when they decided to switch the back labels or screws. But thats me.

Yeah, the knowledge here is incredible. But the crap you have to wade through to get to it...ugh!

Because the box says "Series 2" I always assumed it came out later. Do you have any other reason to assume it was available beside the FFF bundle from the start? Athletic World seemed to sell well enough as a stand-alone too, since most copies are the Power Pad label.

Well, in Japan there's a whole series.  "Series 2" is basically a form of Engrish.  See, in Japan, Athletic world was #1 in the Family Trainer series. Running Stadium (aka Stadium Events) was #2.  Had Nintendo not acquired the North American rights from Bandai the series would've continued in the same vein (assuming Bandai didn't just scrap the NA localization due to how poorly it was selling) with Aerobics Studio (Dance Aerobics) as #3, and so on.  That said, even with Nintendo taking over, Bandai only released 5 of the 10 games they made for the pad in North America.  But yeah, that's what "Series 2" refers to.  As for Athletic World, the FFF variant was ONLY sold with the pad, so it makes sense that you'd see more of the Power Pad version floating around.  The only reason it did better however was because Nintendo had their might behind the Power Pad.  How many times do you see the stand-alone pad available vs the pad with the Power Set?  Not often, as evidenced by the relative rarity of the WCTM stand-alone cart compared to SMB/DH/WCTM.  And if someone bought the system and had this pad and all they had was WCTM, but they enjoyed using it, it stands to reason they'd get something for variety.  And at the time of the Power Pad's release, the only other option available for several months after was Athletic World.  So again, there's your reason. 
 

Good point, but the FFF box said Athletic World was the first in a series of upcoming "soon-to-be-available" games. Seems a bit odd to ignore another launch title and discourage sales if they launched together. Due to Nintendo's minimum orders to start production I would expect at least as many copies to be in the distribution pipeline regardless of popularity at that point (six months in) and if they weren't recalled then they would have filtered through eventually. Granted, the order probably hadn't been fully fufilled yet.

Like you, I think Stadium Events is a lot more common than people realize. On the other hand, I'm not sure it was common enough to have had multiple copies available everywhere the FFF bundle was sold for the duration of the bundle's availability.

Kudos to having a thread where discussions occur, and I can learn some useful information!

The main gist of this thread is a little confusing, as there are some glitches in logic in some of the OP statements. Mainly
regarding rarity and that it affects sellers/resellers. It's all to do with the buyers and their consensus in which items to fork out more money. Rarity is but one of many important factors.
As for the main point of the topic, I think for the purpose of discussing/gloating of "fullsets", then the onus is for the person to define to others what these fullsets entail. If others are curious or have doubts then the onus is on others to question more on any specific details of omissions.
Though I would strongly argue that the only real way to impress as a collector is to show nice pictures and a touch of humbleness. Who really cares if you have a "full set" or 10 "full sets"? Particularly if you belittle others, or show no real passion in the games you have.

Wait, it's acceptable to fake a full set these days? Here's my full set.

And Stadium Events was the second.  They may not have launched simultaneously (I'd have to look up the launch dates and shit, and I'm lazy right now), but it was definitely the first stand-alone FFF game released (as the pad was bundled with Athletic World).  And you hit the nail on the head there - they put in for the mandatory minimum order, but that order didn't specify how many had to be released at any given time.  Likely it would've been spread over a timeframe to keep copies on the shelves.  Also, if Nintendo was interested in licensing the product, they may have been a bit more inclined to produce fewer than the minimum order so as not to have to recall them down the road.  They did have a pretty good working relationship with Bandai (the first third-party publisher on the NES by the way), and we'll never know the details of the negotiations.  For all we know, the whole FFF run was simply Nintendo gauging interest in the product before committing to releasing it themselves.  They did launch the Power Pad around a year later, give or take, so it stands to reason that if they were going to license a competitor's product, they'd want to make sure there was enough time for the competitor's product to clear off the shelves, as well as not having too much overstock - manufacturing cartridges are a HELL of a lot more expensive than manufacturing costs for games nowadays, and it was not in either company's interest to manufacture a product that might not be on store shelves very long.

What we know is that SE received a retail release.  What we're not sure of is whether it was a full release or a test-market type of release.  The data either hasn't turned up or simply no longer exists.  All we know is that SE is rare as fuck, and there's logical reasons as to why.  We know it was released around 4-6 months before the switch from 5-screw carts to 3-screw carts, yet (as far as I'm aware) only a single 5 screw cart has turned up in collectors' hands.  I would speculate that the original release may have been a test market, and then the next (larger) run was done after the holidays, which is why the 3-screw cart is significantly more common.  Sometime after that, Bandai and Nintendo reach a licensing deal, production is stopped, any stored inventory is likely sent back to Nintendo to be recycled, and the copies already on store shelves would've been sold off in the interim.  I doubt there were so many copies out at this point to leave much unsold inventory on store shelves, especially if Bandai and Nintendo were brokering a licensing deal.  Barring someone finding old sales documents in the archives at Bandai and actually realizing there's people that give a crap about it, the actual numbers are lost to the sands of time.  And copies still turn up from time to time in thrift stores, pawn shops, garage sales, etc, so yeah, it's not "holy grail" rare.  Hell, the belief that it's the rarest US retail release is incorrect (although it's far and away the rarest LICENSED NES game). 

By the way, I'm actually enjoying this conversation.  Funny how every time I have a good conversation on NA, Dave's the one who starts the thread.  Hopefully this one doesn't get locked like they usually do  

I don't know if this thread is a competition, but if so, you won!

Just waiting on my icon.   
 

While I can disagree with some semantics (calling anyone's collection a "full set" is a particular bone of contention, as you've probably read before), I fully agree with your sentiment.  If your collection doesn't make you happy, then you're not doing it for the right reasons.

Also, why does anyone feel the need to impress anyone with their collections?  Sure, some people do have impressive collections, but those are the guys that aren't advertising them.  I would love to never see a picture of another collector's collection.  What I WOULD like is to visit them, to have them show off their collection in person, to share the pieces that they hold truly dear.   Why?  Because that's what I love most when people come over.  They get the wonder, they look around for their favorites, maybe fire up a game or two that they haven't seen in decades.  I love when my nieces visit...they're 5 and 4.  They always want to play games.  Sometimes it's Minecraft, sometimes they wanna fire up Dora on the PS2, or Barbie on the Genesis.  Hell, they even love the much-maligned Color A Dinosaur!  THAT'S what I like most about collecting.  I could care less what other collectors think.  At the heart of it, I love games, I love gaming, and I'm passionate about it.  I love sharing that passion with people.  I just can't stand when the discussion gets to the dollars behind it.  And I'm not out to impress anyone with it. 

Sorry for the rant, I was just gonna leave a line or two, but then I got going.  It happens sometimes  

USA North American released set = all the game released in North America during the initial life cycle of the NES. This has been this way for awhile. The unlicensed set includes stuff like Cheetahmen II (which was borderline) Color Dreams, Tengen stuff, etc, but not Sachen just because it all had to be imported and there were so few games (almost large question marks) that were even discovered in the USA. Most of them video rental etc.

USA set does not include NWC Gold or Gray, those are contest carts.

The reason this post was made is that people are saying "they have a full set" but are missing SE and other high end stuff or replace with repros.

Nintendo released their games by region and this is/has been set in stone for a long time.

No one will ever have a "full set" because you can make your own one off NES games, etc. That's "homebrew" = meaning after the life cycle of the NES.

Yes, people can "collect what they want" but the definition of licensed set and unlicensed set for North America have been set in stone for ages. Sachen has its own category just because most of the games were imported in later.

True this conversation comes up a lot! I see it all the time on groups and here for sure.
But it does not bother me at all. I personally have over 700 CIB NES NTSC boxes, 700 carts that have
uniqueness to the set. That includes box variants, cart variations, seal variants, miss prints, etc.. and oh and yes have a CIB SE.

And I still believe I am not complete but that's me. I love finding cool differences.

I have the feeling that the intent of OP was to say that a full set means everything ever made on Earth for NES/Famicom, or at the least, everything made during what we could coin as the « active » years of the NES/Famicom as a major home console, including every unlicensed and pirated games.

This is what I was under the impression of.

I don't think that would even be possible with pirates because the sheer number of pirated games in China alone back then were astronomical. There is no record or way to keep track of anything like that.  I mean how many 52 in 1 , 161 in 1s have you seen? There are a gazillion different versions. 
 

I agree with you on that, but I think that is what fcgamer (Tracker) meant anyway (or something near that), cause you know, he's constantly talking about this on the forum.

On a side note, I don't think the problem in saying full set is the word 'full' but rather the lack of specification of the set in question, because this is what a set is anyway. If someone says he has a full North American NES licensed set, there's no problem in the 'full' used because he clearly defined which set he meant.

Seems contradictory, as you would already be putting a restriction on what qualifies as counting. Why stop there. If you're going to put a restriction on it, why have a problem with someone putting further restrictions like saying "licensed".