Support NeoGAF

[Vitten]

Tell me about it. I weep at the thought of all the nice NES stuff I butchered when I was a dumbass irresponsible kid. So much valuable games that got lost because of neglect

Don't see the same thing happening though for sixt-gen games ( PS2 and contemporaries ) and everything after except for the niche games with cult following. The gaming audience was a lot bigger and older meaning there are more copies of games and also more well-preserved copies as adults tend to take more care of their shit + it's a lot easier to keep a CIB game pristine in a plastic case than in a carboard one.

 

[RodanCeros]

It's definitely not a bad time to start thinking about rare Xbox/PS2 games as potential investments. I don't consider my copy of Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (2003, Xbox) as 'retro', but now it sells on ebay for anywhere from $50-150 USD. Go figure.

 

[Daniel R]

I just sold a copy of Super Metroid in very good condition for the equivalent of $240 here in Sweden.

 

[Cucurbitacée]

It's definitely not a bad time to start thinking about rare Xbox/PS2 games as potential investments. I don't consider my copy of Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (2003, Xbox) as 'retro', but now it sells on ebay for anywhere from $50-150 USD. Go figure.

It reminds me when I bought Rez, PAL Dreamcast version, for 20€ in a bargain bin at a local video game store. Now it sells for 3 or 4 times this price...
But at the time nobody would have bet on it. Trying to guess what will be rare seems to be very risky to me...

 

[terrisus]

But at the time nobody would have bet on it. Trying to guess what will be rare seems to be very risky to me...

And the problem is that some people will buy up every game when it comes out to protect against a game going up in price, while probably 90% of them are going to go down in price.
So, even with the 10% that go up in price, they would've saved money just waiting on all of them, paying a bit extra for those games that went up, but saving a pile of money on all those games that went down.

 

[ys45]

Where I live (Canada/Montreal) trying to find retro games cheap is near impossible there is so much reseller at flea market they are all aware of the eBay prices and some of them are even selling more than eBay (Saw a Turtles in time cart for $80 last week end)

 

[The Blue Jihad]

Any advice on a GBA NES SP, with charger and original box, but no manual? System in great condition, box is PRISTINE, however.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

But those had bubbles?

I dabbled in both and looking up my childhood favs in eBay and I'm shocked how cheap they are.

Golden and Silver Age stuff, though. Did retain value, especially stuff lie Action Comic #1.

Those are retro comic books. They never lost any of their value.

 

[MikeXXIeaf]

I'm currently on the search for Super Famicom games and I see random favorites (Super Metroid, Mega Man X, etc.) listed for as low as $10.

EDIT: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Stree...7622?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item4d2338f716

Granted it's a bidding price, still.

 

[Rygar 8 Bit]

getting core games for retro systems at this point would madness i was lucky and jumped back into collecting right before these dark times

 

[Damaniel]

It reminds me when I bought Rez, PAL Dreamcast version, for 20€ in a bargain bin at a local video game store. Now it sells for 3 or 4 times this price...
But at the time nobody would have bet on it. Trying to guess what will be rare seems to be very risky to me...

That's why I don't purchase games as an investment anymore, and haven't in years. There's far too many variables in determining what will make a game desirable down the road, and for every $100 NES game, there's still a half dozen $2-$3 pieces of garbage that nobody -- not even most collectors -- want. Modern games are even harder to figure out -- people keep their games in better shape than they used to, and CIB is now the norm, not the exception. Most games are published in sufficiently large amounts to ensure available supply, and digital distribution will ensure that modern games will be generally available going forward. Collector's editions can work as investments in certain cases, but even many of those don't hold any appreciable value after the game is forgotten.

It's best to buy games to play, not with plans to resell them later. It's hard enough to find deals out there, and even harder to find deals worth flipping for profit.

 

[entremet]

Any advice on a GBA NES SP, with charger and original box, but no manual? System in great condition, box is PRISTINE, however.

They sell manuals on eBay. If you can get one for cheap, you can easily sell it for more.

This is actually very common. Resellers buy loose systems and then buy or obtain the boxes and manuals and resell for higher.

 

[NinjaMouse]

I've got a bunch of CIB NES, SNES, and N64 games that I've been toying around with the idea of selling, but I can't make myself do it. I didn't realize you get get this much for them..maybe it's time to reconsider.

 

[entremet]

I've got a bunch of CIB NES, SNES, and N64 games that I've been toying around with the idea of selling, but I can't make myself do it. I didn't realize you get get this much for them..maybe it's time to reconsider.

You can always wait longer and they'll only get more expensive. No one is remaking these old cartridge format games.

 

[MikeXXIeaf]

You can always wait longer and they'll only get more expensive. No one is remaking these old cartridge format games.

In theory, shouldn't it be fairly easy to reproduce carts?

 

[Jarlaxle]

I've got a bunch of CIB NES, SNES, and N64 games that I've been toying around with the idea of selling, but I can't make myself do it. I didn't realize you get get this much for them..maybe it's time to reconsider.

I'm in the exact same boat. I've never sold any of my games and almost all of my old games, I still own in the original boxes (some might be a little beat up). I have a real hard time letting go but in all honesty, I don't play them and the one's I really want to play I wind up getting on the virtual console, etc.

I could really use the money but don't even know where I would start. I've never sold anything on ebay before.

 

[Vark]

Any advice on a GBA NES SP, with charger and original box, but no manual? System in great condition, box is PRISTINE, however.

I sold a sealed one for $400, probably could have gotten more but that was already ridiculous to me.

 

[havokt]

That's why I don't purchase games as an investment anymore, and haven't in years. There's far too many variables in determining what will make a game desirable down the road, and for every $100 NES game, there's still a half dozen $2-$3 pieces of garbage that nobody -- not even most collectors -- want. Modern games are even harder to figure out -- people keep their games in better shape than they used to, and CIB is now the norm, not the exception. Most games are published in sufficiently large amounts to ensure available supply, and digital distribution will ensure that modern games will be generally available going forward. Collector's editions can work as investments in certain cases, but even many of those don't hold any appreciable value after the game is forgotten.

It's best to buy games to play, not with plans to resell them later. It's hard enough to find deals out there, and even harder to find deals worth flipping for profit.

I do not agree with the idea that more complete copies of newer generation games will exist. Ask yourself who does the most video game business and trading? GameStop, and they love to throw cases and manuals away towards the end sale of a system.

I am more interested to see if sealed disk games start to spike in price even more due to bootlegging and disk rot. No one really knows but it is fun to speculate.

 

[Dicer]

God damn it Magical Chase...

I just might go for that too, so sad

 

[Petrae]

Tell me about it. I weep at the thought of all the nice NES stuff I butchered when I was a dumbass irresponsible kid. So much valuable games that got lost because of neglect

Don't see the same thing happening though for sixt-gen games ( PS2 and contemporaries ) and everything after except for the niche games with cult following. The gaming audience was a lot bigger and older meaning there are more copies of games and also more well-preserved copies as adults tend to take more care of their shit + it's a lot easier to keep a CIB game pristine in a plastic case than in a carboard one.

As a former gaming retail employee who regularly handled trade-ins for Gen6 systems and games, I can tell you that cases don't matter much. I saw so many coasters, despite games being in their cases. People cleaned discs with their shirts, tried fixing scratches at home with DIY resurfacing machines, spilled stuff on the discs, and so on.

Carts actually hold up a bit better because the contacts are usually protected by a plastic shell. I've got some five-screw NES games in my library from early in the platform's shelf life that still fire right up, despite years of being idle somewhere. Conversely, I have some PS2 games from just a few years ago that struggle at times because the prior owner treated the disc poorly.

 

[Cucurbitacée]

[...]Most games are published in sufficiently large amounts to ensure available supply, and digital distribution will ensure that modern games will be generally available going forward.[...]

That makes me wonder how games with season pass and exclusive preorder DLC will hold value in the future. I guess that one game with unused codes will worth more... But then if you use these codes to play the game, the value will drop.

These kind of games could become pure speculative products.

 

[Mzo]

I've considered Kickstarters to reprint identical runs of older games. Just need an in with local manufacturing, the logistics of dealing with out of the country stuff would be a pain.

It'd be great because people that want them would get to play them AND collectors would cry that we'd be ruining their investments. Win/win.

If I could oversaturate one market and make it accessible to everyone, it'd be the Neo Geo AES scene, followed by Turbo stuff.

 

[Noisepurge]

I was looking for a copy of Mega Man 8 for Saturn--Complete in Box (CIB) and prices were around 300 bucks for the US version. Mega Man stuff is insane in the retro market.

i kno man, i've opted for japanese versions as they are sooo much cheaper

i can sell you the Rockman X3 for the saturn if you want!

My pack of Blue Bombers,

 

[terrisus]

God damn it Magical Chase...

I just might go for that too, so sad

That's just what someone's listing it for though, not what someone has actually paid.

It sold for around 2% of that price recently

 

[MikeXXIeaf]

I've considered Kickstarters to reprint identical runs of older games. Just need an in with local manufacturing, the logistics of dealing with out of the country stuff would be a pain.

It'd be great because people that want them would get to play them AND collectors would cry that we'd be ruining their investments. Win/win.

If I could oversaturate one market and make it accessible to everyone, it'd be the Neo Geo AES scene, followed by Turbo stuff.

I'd definitely invest in this. Please bring us to the mountain top.

 

[Cucurbitacée]

I've considered Kickstarters to reprint identical runs of older games. Just need an in with local manufacturing, the logistics of dealing with out of the country stuff would be a pain.

It'd be great because people that want them would get to play them AND collectors would cry that we'd be ruining their investments. Win/win.

If I could oversaturate one market and make it accessible to everyone, it'd be the Neo Geo AES scene, followed by Turbo stuff.

Wouldn't the licensing fees be a problem? I guess you could enter a grey area for publishers and developers that are out of business. But I'm quite sure all Neo Geo rights owners are still there.

 

[MikeXXIeaf]

i kno man, i've opted for japanese versions as they are sooo much cheaper

i can sell you the Rockman X3 for the saturn if you want!

My pack of Blue Bombers,

Do you have any Super Famicom?

 

[cheststrongwell]

Makes me sick thinking of all the classics I traded in or pawned. Sick!

 

[entremet]

In theory, shouldn't it be fairly easy to reproduce carts?

Yes, but you need circuit boards, plastic shells. Much more hardware than discs, which are dirt cheap.

 

[Mzo]

Wouldn't the licensing fees be a problem? I guess you could enter a grey area for publishers and developers that are out of business. But I'm quite sure all Neo Geo rights owners are still there.

The licensing fee would be part of the Kickstarter fee. I wouldn't try something if it wasn't 100% legal, official, and indistinguishable from the original production run. Tracking down the license holder would probably be the biggest issue in the case of some games.

 

[terrisus]

I've considered Kickstarters to reprint identical runs of older games. Just need an in with local manufacturing, the logistics of dealing with out of the country stuff would be a pain.

It'd be great because people that want them would get to play them AND collectors would cry that we'd be ruining their investments. Win/win.

There have been websites that will create reproductions of games for years.
You're way late to the game on that.

As you can see, it hasn't affected much of anything.

 

[Dicer]

That's just what someone's listing it for though, not what someone has actually paid.

It sold for around 2% of that price recently

Jap vs US version, Japanese version can be had cheaper.

US one was a small print, but still...

 

[terrisus]

Jap vs US version, Japanese version can be had cheaper.

US one was a small print, but still...

Ah, didn't notice that.

Still, until someone actually buys that listing, the price someone lists something for doesn't mean too much.

 

[Mzo]

There have been websites that will create reproductions of games for years.
You're way late to the game on that.

As you can see, it hasn't affected much of anything.

Games Quest Direct did it right, and they definitely had an effect on prices at the time.

 

[Krejlooc]

Almost everything on GB/GBC/GBA is still cheap

You can thank piracy for that

 

[Noisepurge]

Do you have any Super Famicom?

X1-3, 7 and Rockman&Forte i do as you can see, but i'm not selling those gems

 

[Teknoman]

Time out, Goodwill is opening a game only store? The hell?

 

[Futaba]

I have the awesome benefit of living in japan where pretty much everything retro but the super-obviously-rare is dirt cheap.
Last story Wii? $4 boxed
Chrono trigger snes? $1 cart only, $2 boxed
N64 with GBA player addon, boxed? $20

 

[Jimez]

It's ok at the moment in the UK, i managed to snag 3 Gamecube games for around £12 (which were Rouge Squadren II, Sonic Adventure II: Battle and Star Fox Adventures). eBay and places like that are a sweet haven for some great retro bundles.

Even so, looking at N64 stuff, that's pretty ok. You can get a console with controllers and leads for about £20-£40. Games vary, but they are getting up in price. Some going for £15-£40 each.

 

[havokt]

Ah, didn't notice that.

Still, until someone actually buys that listing, the price someone lists something for doesn't mean too much.

Apologies for the long link. Cart and manual (missing box) for $ 2501.01. Thats a bit of money I would say.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...ical+chase+ntsc&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc

 

[Cucurbitacée]

The licensing fee would be part of the Kickstarter fee. I wouldn't try something if it wasn't 100% legal, official, and indistinguishable from the original production run. Tracking down the license holder would probably be the biggest issue in the case of some games.

You could ask Tommo how much they paid to be able to produce the Neo Geo X. Joke aside, I'm really curious about how much they actually paid and if they made money back.

 

[Damaniel]

I do not agree with the idea that more complete copies of newer generation games will exist. Ask yourself who does the most video game business and trading? GameStop, and they love to throw cases and manuals away towards the end sale of a system.

I am more interested to see if sealed disk games start to spike in price even more due to bootlegging and disk rot. No one really knows but it is fun to speculate.

I've been collecting games forever, and CIB copies of PS2 and newer games are far more available than they are for older systems. Sure, newer games aren't exclusively CIB (and I never said as much), but they're so common, relative to disc only copies, that I can find any PS2 game I want, CIB, for very little premium (if any) over the disc only copy. Of the NES games in my collection (I still have about 450, even after selling 100 or so of them), 90% of them I've never even seen CIB in the wild, and of those I have, the difference in price between the cart only copy and CIB version is generally at least 3x, and often more.

There will always be disc/cart only copies out there, but the combination of sturdier and smaller packaging, combined with the increased awareness that results from the retro game boom, will ensure that collecting CIB will not be the chore for newer systems that it was for old ones, nor will it be significantly more expensive.

(And I agree that sealed collecting will always be a hassle. It's more accessible for newer systems, but still more expensive than buying non-sealed games. The only sealed games I have in my PS2 collection, for example, are the ones I bought myself new with the intent to buy, but never got around to opening.)

 

[Mzo]

Time out, Goodwill is opening a game only store? The hell?

http://imgur.com/a/YEMPF

WARNING: May induce uncontrollable vomiting

 

[Rezae]

I gave up a year ago and sold off most of my stuff. It was nice playing on authentic hardware, but my wallet couldn't handle it, along with the maintenance. I was soldering on a new battery to DKC and realized I don't feel like doing this anymore. Plus it was too much clutter.

If you're diving in though, I do recommend Japanese versions for a lot of titles, much cheaper.

 

[WeakerYouth]

There are a few good deals to be found out there on Craigslist and at rummage sales/flea markets for sure, but the competition to get to them first is pretty stiff. Just today I saw an SNES with Mega Man X3 and a few other lesser, but still decently valuable games on Craigslist for $85. Mega Man X3 is going for roughly $150 loose on its own currently I believe. There was enough extra in the bundle to resell and basically keep the Mega Man X3 for free in the end. The listing was an hour old, but long gone by the time I texted the seller.

If you keep an eye out and get a touch lucky you can still do some retro collecting at reasonable prices. Just be patient and don't jump at over-inflated Ebay buy it now prices.

 

[ZedIndyLil]

I used to obsessively check the value of my game collection, cackling with glee a la Scrooge McDuck. I eventually realized it's an empty pleasure, however, especially since I wasn't even playing them anymore. So I now try to get them to folks who will get more genuine happiness from them.

 

[terrisus]

Apologies for the long link. Cart and manual (missing box) for $ 2501.01. Thats a bit of money I would say.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...ical+chase+ntsc&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc

Indeed, certainly quite a bit of money.

Although I think everyone would fully agree that collecting CIB stuff is significantly different than buying just games (and there's a $10,000 difference in price between those two if that original one did sell, which would in theory just be based on the box).

 

[Starwolf_UK]

You can always wait longer and they'll only get more expensive. No one is remaking these old cartridge format games.

In theory, shouldn't it be fairly easy to reproduce carts?

Counterfeit carts are a thing that has been happening recently. Particularly high end stuff like Earthbound. It is the same way "repros" are made. Some worthless Madden 96 cart is killed, its circuit board has some chips replaced with NANDs which boot a different ROM, computer then prints a label.

It isn't just SNES games. Capcom arcade boards are being hit. Common games like Street Fighter Alpha 2 are being bought up and being overwritten with ROMs for much more expensive games (it is a double edged sword as these particular boards had an encryption key and games are essentially dying due to the key corrupting but this revival method stops this being an issue).

That makes me wonder how games with season pass and exclusive preorder DLC will hold value in the future. I guess that one game with unused codes will worth more... But then if you use these codes to play the game, the value will drop.

These kind of games could become pure speculative products.

That is assuming the server still accepts the code. Some of the codes do have expiry dates making them paper in the end. Maybe in that sense an account that has activated the code is the prize here. Also there is that weird inherant value in a piece of paper with foil covering it much like a celphene sealed game has more value even they it could be DOA.

EA online passes though are worthless as the servers die quickly.

 

[Adam Blue]

I've never stopped buying for the older systems, but I have noticed the increase. I'm glad I have what I bought a while ago, but there's still a lot I don't have and the pricing is crazy.

This summer I've been buying Wii games from GameStop because they are incredibly cheap there, but you can see they are starting to increase in price online.

I beat Web of Fire 32X back when it first came out, then sold it. Now it goes for way too much...

My friend found me a copy of Demon's Crest for less than a dollar. You could still run across those random finds.

 

[Mzo]

There are a few good deals to be found out there on Craigslist and at rummage sales/flea markets for sure, but the competition to get to them first is pretty stiff. Just today I saw an SNES with Mega Man X3 and a few other lesser, but still decently valuable games on Craigslist for $85. Mega Man X3 is going for roughly $150 loose on its own currently I believe. There was enough extra in the bundle to resell and basically keep the Mega Man X3 for free in the end. The listing was an hour old, but long gone by the time I texted the seller.

If you keep an eye out and get a touch lucky you can still do some retro collecting at reasonable prices. Just be patient and don't jump at over-inflated Ebay buy it now prices.

Patience is definitely the key, but you have to also be sociable these days. There are people who spend all day every day combing your area for old video games. Competing with them is almost impossible if you have a job, but they're not all monsters. Make some contacts and you might be surprised by how much help you get and how generous people can be.

I am pretty charming, though, so this might not apply to everyone =3