The N64 ANA Console

Once in a while a console catches our attention with a story so unique, we just have to write about it. One of these exotic consoles is the Nintendo 64 ANA Edition. Why is it so rare? How could you obtain it? We will try to answer all the questions here.

The Story

The name of the contest was ANA 20th century legendary campaign with ANA Pokmon Jet Part 2. To win you had to be on a ANA flight within this time period and the lucky winner received it in a white shipping box with blue print along with 2 games. Hey You! Pikachu and Pokmon Stadium. It was most likely shipped to the winners home address.

The Rarity

As you can imagine these ANA N64 consoles are extremely rare, before 2010 only a hand full of collectors were known to have one in their possession. However, the awareness of these consoles has spread within Japan and it seems to be easier to pick one up today. You can find them loose on eBay occasionally and sometimes boxed. How many were made exactly is unfortunately up to speculation since neither Nintendo, nor All Nippon Airways released any numbers. But we would not be who we are if we would not enlighten you with a number crunch at the end of this article.

The true rarity of the console is the shipping box. To this day we only know 3 collectors that own one. Since the last one was sold with its original shipping box almost 4 years have passed. So having a complete set is ridiculously rare compared to other N64 consoles. It makes sense that many people through away the box (although it has Nintendo and ANA printed on it).

Fakes and Serial Numbers

Up to this day there were never any fakes spotted and this makes sense since despite its rarity the value is still on the lower side of the spectrum. The logo is extremely well made so it would not make a lot of sense to make counterfeits for this specific variation. But there are ways of checking if it is real by checking the serial number.

ANA consoles were given out in 1999, the N64 was released in 1996. Naturally the serial numbers of the ANA consoles are extremely high and actually among the highest of all N64 consoles in existence (The GamCube was already in the pipe by this time). All ANA serial numbers are within range of each other and usually higher than 14.602.000 or somewhere around that number.

All Japanese consoles came out with matching serial numbers on the console and their manual. If you get a boxed ANA version and the serial number in the manual is different, then someone swapped the expansion lid from an ANA console and put it on a normal charcoal boxed version. If the serial number is not around 14.602.000, someone also just swapped out the lids. This does not mean the lid is fake, but it means the original composition of the console has been changed to make it complete or at least more complete.

Here a comparison between the N64 ANA 1999 on the right and the N64 Pokmon Promotion 1996 on the left (The Pokmon promotion was the first release of the N64, maybe well get to that one another time) As you can see the gap is huge and shows how many consoles have been produced in between these 2 releases

How many were made?

Rumor has it that the ANA consoles were only winnable in one of the Pokmon Jets of All Nippon Airways fleet. Yes, this is actually a thing. Check out this image from Wikipedia. The name of the contest even includes the word "Pokmon Jet".

As you can see 4 new Pokmon Jets were introduced by the airline in 1999, the same year the contest started. This is surely not a coincidence since the airline had to profit of this partnership in some way also. And what better way to promote flying with All Nippon Airways then promoting the 4 new planes of the fleet to Nintendo fans, who could also win a console at the same time. We know for a fact that people were and still are desperate to fly with one of these Pikachu planes or at least spot one at the airport. (Hence more have been released, the newest in 2011) The entire fleet of All Nippon Airways consisted of about 200 Airplanes in 1999. The number of passengers transported annually was about 45 million. (Source: Estimated from Chart Wikipedia DE)

A realistic number crunch

1 plane

statistically transported

225.000 passengers per year

(45.000.000/200=225.000)

Of course the promotion was only held for 3 months, so we have to divide that number by 4. (225.000/4=56.250)

This equals

56.250 passengers transported in the promotion time period

of 3 months (We are ignoring seasonal fluctuations for the sake of simplicity)

An average ANA plane has about 200 seats, so there were

statistically 281 flights made by each of the 200 planes

of the fleet in 3 months (56.250/200=281,25)

Lets imagine 1 person per flight won an ANA console this would mean that

56.250 people would have received a console

Of course this cannot be the case, because it would not be rare at all and we would see ANA consoles everywhere. Also the logistics of shipping so many consoles would exceed any promotion deal. So lets get back to our original statement and suggest that only the Pokmon Jet flights were part of the promotion. At the time there were 7 of them in operation (3 existing ones from 1998 and the 4 newly added ones from 1999)

So the real calculation would be:

7 x 281 = 1967

. This means there are

roughly 2000 consoles made

To further support this theory there is also some more evidence. We have had 3 (and seen 2) ANA consoles over the years with the serial numbers:

14.602.079

14.602.294

14.602.518

14.602.701

14.601.786

The highest gap we get is just under 1000, so our estimate of 2000 seems pretty realistic. If anyone from our community could tell us their serial numbers we could narrow it down even more. So feel free to comment :)

Conclusion and Value

The ANA is one of the most unique N64 variations due to its history and foremost the very unusual way how it was distributed by a seat lottery. Prices tend to be around:

Loose:

Between 100$ and 250$

Boxed:

Between 200$ and 400$

With shipping box: If ever found again likely

over 1500$

(or you get super lucky)

I hope you enjoyed this very thorough full review of the very special N64 ANA variation and will leave you with a few more pics. Feel free to like our Facebook Page and share this article by pressing the social media links below.