Shanghai

Shanghai is one of the first video game adaptations of the tile-based game played with the Chinese mahjong stones - essentially a puzzle game that has little to do with real mahjong rules.

The gameplay involves 144 tiles, each depicting different images, which have to be removed by matching them into pairs.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (1983 in Japan, 1985 in the West) revived the North American video game industry after the 1983 crash and established conventions — cartridges, licensing seals, save systems — that shaped the industry for decades. NES collecting is one of the most established retro markets: common titles remain cheap, but a well-known handful of low-print-run games (many from smaller third-party publishers) are among the most expensive video games in existence.

Gamevaro tracks Shanghai for Nintendo Entertainment System with separate market values for loose, complete-in-box (CIB) and factory-sealed copies, sourced from real eBay sales. Prices also vary by region — PAL, NTSC-U and NTSC-J releases of the same game often sell for different amounts due to print run sizes and regional collector demand.

Adding Shanghai to a Gamevaro collection takes seconds — search by title or scan the box barcode, and the app fills in cover art, release details and current pricing automatically. This NES release dates back to 1986.

Market insights

Shanghai has a steady sales history on the tracked marketplaces, meaning enough copies circulate to establish a reliable market price.

Complete-in-box (CIB) copies typically command a premium over loose cartridges/discs because the original box and manual are more fragile and get discarded or damaged over time — fewer complete sets survive.

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