On January 17, 2008, G.Rev is set to rerelease Border Down at Messe Sanou game shops in Akihabara for 7140 yen, which is about half as much as a used copy fetches in Akihabara's retro game shops. Other than the release date and MSRP, details are scant. For instance, G.Rev is not commenting on the number of copies produced for the rerelease or whether the second print will have some sort of distinguishing feature enabling collectors to differentiate between an original Border Down and a reprinted copy.

So should you sell your copy of Border Down before January 17th? When Guitaroo Man and Rez for the PS2 were reprinted, much to the dismay of collectors, the value of those games plummeted. The price was affected by the large number of copies reprinted combined with the fact that the first and second print runs were indistinguishable. So a rare sealed copy of Guitaroo Man suddenly became a common find at your local game shop.

But before you rush off to sell, consider the example of Judgement Silversword for the Wonderswan. Similar to Border Down, the first production run of Judgement Silversword was quite small, and the collectors market quickly pushed the price of a used copy up over $200. Seeing an opportunity to make a quick buck, publisher HFP reprinted Judgement Silversword. While the price initially dipped with the increase in supply, it was not enough to satisfy the growing demand and the price quickly rebounded back to the $200 level for both the first and second editions.

Moral of the story? Border Down is an excellent game. If you've got it hold on to it. If you don't have it, you probably have a short window of opportunity to purchase it at a discounted price before the value shoots back up to the $150 level. As the game is being released at a single retail outlet, we expect the second edition print run to be relatively limited and any effect the increased supply has on the market should only be temporary.