Lakers Versus Celtics And The NBA Playoffs
Image: Electronic Arts

A rare European copy of Lakers Vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs has recently sold on eBay for close to $10,000 ($9,800/£7870) — as spotted by FusionrGamer and reported on by VGC.

The 32-year-old video game was released on the Sega Genesis in North America in 1991, but never saw an official European release, despite receiving a review in the UK magazine CVG (where it scored 88%). It's believed that licensing issues may have been the cause of this, with writers for The Complete Guide to Mega Drive offering up the theory back in 1991.

eBay Lakers Vs. Celtics
Image: rancidrobots/eBay

Nevertheless, some PAL copies seem to have escaped into the wild (under unknown circumstances) and are now ridiculously sought after by collectors. A Eurogamer article from 2017 estimates, based on an internal EA marketing spreadsheet, that 192 games exist out in the world, but only 13 had ever surfaced up to that point. According to the eBay seller rancidrobots in the item's description, this is apparently not one of those previously known copies.

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[source ebay.co.uk, via fusionrgamer.com, videogameschronicle.com]