Bandai Baseball (LED)

[phitter]

Looking at the page for Bandai Baseball (LED) it appears that the game might have two different versions that were packaged in two different sized boxes.

These are scans of the game I own:

Front (Notice lack of black sliders under home plate and location of strikeout at the pitcher's mound):


Back:


These are Rik's photos:

Front (Notice the three black sliders under home plate and addition to the box of the phrase, "For KIDS 6 and UP"):


Back (Notice differences in copy, size of box and color of phrase "Compete With Yourself and Your Friends!"):


As you can see, these games are very similar but there appears to be two different versions - one without any indications as to men on base and another (presumably later) version with manual slide levers to show men on base. Also, the LED indicators are arranged differently (with the strikeout moving from the pitcher's mound to the outfield) and the "Home Run" LED getting a much fancier graphic. Finally, the helmet and shoulder of the batter encroach into the border around the plastic game window on the bottom version, but not the top one.

Additionally, it appears that the game was sold in two different sized boxes. The one I have is more square in shape. The back of the box shown on the game page is rectangular but has the same model number.

Finally, that is definitely Hall of Famer Rod Carew depicted on the front of the box, despite the artist's attempts to obscure some of the identifying details.

Does anyone have the smaller/rectangular box version and can post a picture of the front of the box?

[Rik]

The ones pictured on my site are mine, and it's the same box... It has a large 'flap' on it, so from the front it looks the same size as yours, but from the back you can see half of it is just a flap... That's front/back of the same box though.

Interesting design variations though, never noticed that. I have a large and small box version of one game (not sure if it's baseball though), I think they did that with a lot of them... But honestly never looked at the game all that closely...

[phitter]

Well that solves the mystery for me - I thought your picture of the back of the box showed the back of a small box and the side of the small box but now I see that the smaller portion is the back of the flap.

I guess I am surprised that Bandai made the improvements to the game and bothered to change the packaging but didn't rebrand it as Baseball II or something similar.

Geez and to think I have been ignoring auctions for this game for years because I had crossed it off my list. Now I need the flap box/revised game version too!