celophane wrapped (Y-folded) vs. seamed shrinkwrapped

I've noticed that many people seem to view the Y-fold celophane wrapped titles as being more desired, and I was wondering why that is?

for instance, when an original, black label final fantasy vii shows up for sale, that's almost one of the first questions that pops up if the pictures don't show it clearly.

in this case [knowing that my copy of ffvii is from the original shipment as it was a review copy sent to me], my copy is not Y-folded, but rather shrinkwrapped with seams at the top and bottom (with the factory vent holes found in the wrap).

j.m.ratkos wrote:I've noticed that many people seem to view the Y-fold celophane wrapped titles as being more desired, and I was wondering why that is?

for instance, when an original, black label final fantasy vii shows up for sale, that's almost one of the first questions that pops up if the pictures don't show it clearly.

in this case [knowing that my copy of ffvii is from the original shipment as it was a review copy sent to me], my copy is not Y-folded, but rather shrinkwrapped with seams at the top and bottom (with the factory vent holes found in the wrap).

that was originally how its supposed to be. some publishers does the shrink wrap sealing to save money (nintendo titles is notorious for this).

shrink wrapping is also easy to do and can even be done at home. you just buy the supplies on ebay. as for your copy of ffvii its probably one of the first copies of the game. the game sold so many copies that in order to meet demand, they probably did the shrink wrapping to reduce the cost and to gain more profit. im not an expert on production but some publishers im sure they do their own printing of the games themselves. you can kind of tell that some sealing methods are different from one another.

just to point it out, both final fantasy vii and tactics were publshed by sony computer entertainment america and not squaresoft. so, it would have been sony themselves attempting to save the fraction of a cent.

j.m.ratkos wrote:just to point it out, both final fantasy vii and tactics were publshed by sony computer entertainment america and not squaresoft. so, it would have been sony themselves attempting to save the fraction of a cent.

yeah thats a real shame.