I don't think the collector's market for the MSX version of Metal Gear will ever get saturated. The more new Metal Gear titles Konami releases on other platforms, the more fans would want to own the real first 2 editions of the game.

With the prices like this, I am actually really surprised someone in China or any other country doesn't make fake MGS carts. It's very simple:

- order a number of bare PCBs, copied from original MG2 from a local PCB factory (let's say 10$ a piece);
- scavenge cheap SCC Konami cart-only games bought from eBay, most generic is probably Gradius 2 (another 20$);
- scan cart label, clean up and retouch in Photoshop, print out on good paper

Bare MG2 cart is sold for about 200 US$, it's about 150$ profit for the scamer!

And with more sophisticated resources one can fake manual and box, in which case item can be sold as mint complete MG2. Or if buyers get suspicious, just keep all the items under direct sun light for a week, and they will get this authentic "used, but in good condition" look...

I think there is probably about 100-200 potential buyers for high quality forged fakes

hm.. I think not a single SCC-Konami game is worth demolishing just for that

except for green baret, no originals should be demolished at all

I don't think Green Baret has SCC, does it? As of fake MG2, I think it's a good way to scare dumb collectors away

The korean Solid Snake has a SCC also. The box is the same as the original Japanese version only smaler.
The game is also japanese and ther is no difference between the original Japanese and the Korean one (only another cartridge).

@Dhau
Well, the idea is nice though off, but Chinese companies are really not interested in making a couple of thousand bucks
Besides that, development costs of the parts would make everythng a bit too expensive to win everything back with only a few 100 pieces.
If you can find a few 1000 people that are interested, let me know I might know some companies in China interested to do the job

Well, you can sell 1000 probably, if you come up with some good cover-up story a-la Tengen Tetris. Like two full truckloads of MG2 was burried in a landfill back in 1991 due to very low demand... Many years later two brave japanese users unearthed the games and now anyone willing to pay can get a copy from eBay

A no frills way: send any SCC cartridge and 60 euro to Manuel Pazos for MegaFlashSCC and ask for a bonus MG2 sticker. On arrival flash japanese MG2 rom and sell it on ebay with start price 120 euro. I think you'll make a moderate profit

Me was once given a Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake cartridge... I still have it but it don't work I have the cartridge only.

Sell it on eBay, with "Condition unknown" clause

I can bet most collectors don't even have MSX system to run it, so it doesn't matter if it doesn't work

Quote:

Me was once given a Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake cartridge... I still have it but it don't work I have the cartridge only.

Are you talking about the very first Metal Gear 2 prototype and demo that was shown by Hideo personally on the Tokyo International Computer fair in 1988? Wow! That thing will fetch a lot of PSX-money on ebay!

Hahaha now that should be cool, but I'm afraid it's just a normal version...

how hard would it be to reproduce a metal gear 2 cart? just wondering ...

I've just been reading over this topic and I wonder: what's the point?
I mean I can understand a certain demand for original MGS2 cartridges as a collector's item, but what's the point of a fake one?
You're not suggesting to sell them as being real ones, are you?
If it's just for playing the game, doesn't it make more sense to just fire up an emulator and drop in a nicely translated version instead of playing an unreadable copy of the japanese original using an old real MSX (which probably old enough to be about to break down)?