The Retrogame Bubble Thread - "that's worth HOW MUCH now?!"

[Kazin]

Rather than continue to derail the Neo Geo Pocket Switch thread, I thought this might deserve it's own thread.

The prices of retro stuff have all shot up over the past year as people look to comfortable nostalgia while stuck in side due to COVID (and I've absolutely fallen prey to this bubble, with my particular niche being modding retro handhelds. I've spent hundreds on it).

I've got a 32X on sale for $400 right now. Yeah, it's got Kolibri and Knuckles Chaotix in the lot, but half the value is the system itself with all the hookups. Why would anyone want a 32X at all, much less for that much money?!

I'm curious - what other crazy prices have you seen lately? Honestly I'm kind of fascinated by this whole thing.

 

[Phantoon]

I've got a copy of PAL Panzer Dragoon Saga. Judging by eBay I could likely sell it and get two ODEs from the proceeds. To be honest, I'm struggling to put the case to not do that.

 

[Sprite]

I’ve spent way too much on Neo Geo Pocket Color games and am probably done for at least the end of the year because sellers are listing them for insane prices now. A few of the games were already REALLY expensive but now people are looking at Cotton going for $400 and assuming every game will go for that much.

All of which means that very little is actually selling. I don’t actually know how much Evolution is going for, because no one has bought it in the last 90 days and the only listing is asking for like $750.

 

[Beowulf]

I apparently could have gotten even more for my Virtual Boy if I'd held onto it until this past year. Ones with a single game are going for $500 on eBay, and I had the full suite.

 

[Phantoon]

Ones with a single game are going for $500 on eBay

That's completely crazy

 

[Kazin]

Yeah, I sold most of my collection at the end of 2018, and figure I could have gotten a lot more had I waited for the awful global pandemic. It's why I'm trying to get the rest of what I have out the door - moving with all that crap was a huge pain, and I barely used it with emulation being more easily accessible (and in some cases, portable).

Game Boy Advance systems went from like, $20 tops for the first model and maybe $40 for SPs up to $50 for the first model and if it's a backlit 101, $100+, while the frontlit ones go for maybe $60, I think? Even the prices of the backlight kits themselves have gone up about $10 since I first started doing the mods, as so many people are getting into it now.

I'd like a Virtual Boy again (having sold mine before the flash cartridges started coming out for it), but I may have to wait a long time to see if the prices ever come down. I'd kind of like to get a cheap broken one and see if I can fix it, but even broken ones are going for $100+, and even if I dropped that amount on a broken one I have no idea if I'd be able to fix it anyway.

 

[ThornGhost]

Geeze man, somebody gave me a 32x like 3 years ago.

With the pandemic I haven't been yard sale hunting at all in the last year. 80s/early 90s stuff was getting pretty rare to find in the last few years anyway but I imagine as word of these prices get out this will quickly reposition all of what's left out there into the eBay pipeline.

 

[Kazin]

Geeze man, somebody gave me a 32x like 3 years ago.

That's about the right price for a 32X imo lol

With the pandemic I haven't been yard sale hunting at all in the last year. 80s/early 90s stuff was getting pretty rare to find in the last few years anyway but I imagine as word of these prices get out this will quickly reposition all of what's left out there into the eBay pipeline.

Yeah, I was experiencing that 5+ years ago and basically stopped going to yard sales, since 80s/90s stuff is what I wanted anyway. And if I felt that way 5 years ago, I imagine it'll be increasingly rare to see any 80s/90s stuff at yard sales at this point going forward, yeah.

 

[Sprite]

I tend to oscillate back and forth between selling everything valuable because I don’t think I’ll ever play it again and nursing regret over selling something I get an sudden and intense desire to play, because I’d really rather not steal them.

 

[Kazin]

I'm still mad Nintendo never released Virtual Boy games on 3DS. I would have bought every one! Yes, even Virtual Lab!

 

[Phantoon]

I suspect it's a processing power thing. New 3DS could just handle the SNES, but the Virtual Boy was a lot beefier than the SNES.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I sold off my N64 and a bunch of games for a pittance a few years ago, which was probably a bad move, financially speaking. Practically, though, I wasn't touching that stuff, it was taking up space in my house and most of my games were former rentals in rough shape. Even so, the copy of Ogre Battle 64 alone is probably worth more now than what I sold the whole lot for.

I had Dragon Quest IV and V on the DS, and those games apparently are somewhat valuable now? I sold someone DQV for a reasonable price ($30-40), but it's worth well over a hundred now. I've still got DQIV, so if that one ever gets really valuable I might sell it.

But the biggest score I've ever made, at least that I'm aware of, is my Famicom copy of Metal Storm. I picked it up for 500 yen about 10 years ago, and apparently it now sells for something like $150+ for a bare cart? That said, the copies I see on eBay don't actually seem to be moving, so I'm not sure I could really get that much for it. If I ever see a good opportunity to cash out for that game I might take it - it's cool and all, but not $200cdn cool.

 

[Phantoon]

erk, I have copies of those games and now I'm worrying about what my collection is "worth"

 

[Kazin]

Holy crap, the 3DS versions of DQ7 and 8 have jumped in value, too - I still have those! 8 is going for about $100 CIB and 7 is going for about $65. Wow.

 

[Patrick]

I've been thinking about selling my SNES and games. I have:

The console, cords, 2 controllers, Super Mario All Stars, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Super Metroid, F-Zero, Final Fantasy III, Uniracers, Mega Man X, Earthworm Jim 2, NHL '97, Mickey's Magical Quest, Mortal Kombat 3, and Maximum Carnage.

Some of these games are going for pretty high prices right now. If I'm going to sell these, should I do it ASAP, or is SNES kind of evergreen? Previously I've only sold stuff via this forum or locally with Craigslist. What's the best market to sell old games? (and if anyone here wants to make an offer on some or all of these, feel free to reach out.)

 

[YangusKhan]

Hmmm, when did Square Enix stop selling their back catalog of games? I remember a few years ago you could still buy DS and Playstation games from their store directly...

 

[Kazin]

I've been thinking about selling my SNES and games. I have:

The console, cords, 2 controllers, Super Mario All Stars, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Super Metroid, F-Zero, Final Fantasy III, Uniracers, Mega Man X, Earthworm Jim 2, NHL '97, Mickey's Magical Quest, Mortal Kombat 3, and Maximum Carnage.

Some of these games are going for pretty high prices right now. If I'm going to sell these, should I do it ASAP, or is SNES kind of evergreen? Previously I've only sold stuff via this forum or locally with Craigslist. What's the best market to sell old games? (and if anyone here wants to make an offer on some or all of these, feel free to reach out.)

Probably eBay, though if you've never sold anything on there, know that they take a cut and for new sellers, you'll have to wait a while (iirc, about 3 weeks) to actually receive your money.

SNES seems evergreen to me, the prices for those games keep steadily climbing, but the pandemic has caused a bit of a spike, so now's probably a good time. Who knows how long the bubble will last.

Reddit also has a trading community - r/retrogameswap - that I've used a few times, though they also have r/gamesale, which is for just straight up selling your stuff. YMMV though on both, as they don't have eBay's buyer and seller protections, obviously, though you can get a little more for your stuff because you're not paying listing fees to eBay and whatnot.

Hmmm, when did Square Enix stop selling their back catalog of games? I remember a few years ago you could still buy DS and Playstation games from their store directly...

They still do, and part of the reason I'm considering selling my Square 3DS stuff right now is that they could probably still reprint them and sell them on their shop, dropping prices. I'm not aware of whether or not 3DS cart manufacturing is still going on, but if so, they'll probably reprint their stuff.

 

[ThornGhost]

It seems weird to me that a system with an active digital storefront like the 3DS could see games spike in value like that? Presumably that cuts out what I would imagine would be the lion's share of the market, namely people who just want to play the game, and restricts the reasoning for the price increase to those specifically interested in physical media for whatever reason. Seems suspicious, like market manipulation or speculation.

 

[Kazin]

If the games had low print runs (which was probably the case for the Dragon Quests, at least in English), that's probably what's going on with the price spike on the physical stuff, but who knows.

 

[conchobhar]

DS games in general have been absolutely skyrocketing in the last few years. It used to be that Etrian Odyssey III went for about $80— expensive, certainly, but 'reasonably' so. These days, though, you'll be lucky to find it for $200… and I've seen listing as high as $500.

 

[Falselogic]

Listings that sold? $500 for EO3 has me tempted.

 

[Falselogic]

It's not just old games though! When I picked up my PS4 at the end of 2014 beginning of 2015 I also picked up the PS4 Godzilla game that was in the bargain bin at the time. I couldn't have paid more than $30 for it. It's now going for between $150 to $400 depending on what state it is in?!

 

[Kazin]

DS games in general have been absolutely skyrocketing in the last few years. It used to be that Etrian Odyssey III went for about $80— expensive, certainly, but 'reasonably' so. These days, though, you'll be lucky to find it for $200… and I've seen listing as high as $500.

WOW. I had two copies of that at one point, because I didn't want to delete my save! Never would have thought EO3 would exceed Earthbound prices from when I started collecting.

 

[conchobhar]

Did a bit of digging and found that I still have the screenshot of that listing:

That said, this is CAD, so for you Americans it's a much more reasonable $424

 

[Falselogic]

Insane. But then it looks like they went through the grading process and everything. Which is always a good sign that we've moved from people collecting to use and people collecting to collect.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I'm not sure I could ever part with my copy of EOIII. It's probably the best game in the series?

 

[Tato]

I sold off all my NES/SNES/Genesis/N64 stuff a couple years ago and made a bunch, I really don't feel the need for physical ownership of things that are 100% emulated at this point. I've kept the original hardware though, both out of sentiment and due to cool things like multicarts and drives.

If Nintendo had taken the opportunity to put any VB stuff on 3DS I may have sold it off, but now I can't see myself ever getting rid of it since there's no way to 100% replicate the experience. I sent it off to get soldered and fixed a year ago and am now trying to talk myself out of spending 200+ on a fancy new VB Flash Cart, even though I have a OG Flashboy and the only reason for the new flash cart is to play the Street Fighter port.

Bought the damn thing for 20 bucks with birthday money as KB Toys was trying to liquidate. I think I got every game out for like $30 total .

 

[Kazin]

I'm not sure I could ever part with my copy of EOIII. It's probably the best game in the series?

It's absolutely the best game of the series imo, yeah. Though I haven't finished Nexus yet (barely touched it, in fact).

I sold off all my NES/SNES/Genesis/N64 stuff a couple years ago and made a bunch, I really don't feel the need for physical ownership of things that are 100% emulated at this point. I've kept the original hardware though, both out of sentiment and due to cool things like multicarts and drives.

If Nintendo had taken the opportunity to put any VB stuff on 3DS I may have sold it off, but now I can't see myself ever getting rid of it since there's no way to 100% replicate the experience. I sent it off to get soldered and fixed a year ago and am now trying to talk myself out of spending 200+ on a fancy new VB Flash Cart, even though I have a OG Flashboy and the only reason for the new flash cart is to play the Street Fighter port.

Bought the damn thing for 20 bucks with birthday money as KB Toys was trying to liquidate. I think I got every game out for like $30 total .

I got my Virtual Boy in the mid-2000s for my 21st birthday, because I've always been cool as hell lol. Only ever had the five games that came with it, Wario Land, Teleroboxer, Mario Clash, Mario Tennis, and Red Alarm. All were complete in box, and I had the VB box with all the manuals. Sold it off in 2018 with most of my other stuff, and that sale at the time was $7,000. As of this year, the guy who bought all that stuff from me got a great deal lol. It had my entire collections of NES, SNES, Genesis, PSX, PS2, Gamecube (which has also spiked in prices, I've heard), and so on and so on. Basically I got rid of everything that wasn't Saturn, Sega CD, 32X (because I forgot about it lol), Wii, and current gen systems.

Oh well. I paid off some bills, got a nice PC, and was able to save a bunch of money, which was handy for when my wife was unable to get employment when she finished grad school in May of 2020 (perfect timing lol).

 

[John]

I've got Dragon Quest IV and V DS sealed, bought new copies for $30 each when Amazon had some stock come in about 4 years ago. I see used copies going for $100, and sealed set for Buy It Now prices of $180/200. I had already culled most of my DS games a while back, so don't have that much sitting around. I do have a sealed copy of Tactics Ogre PSP with the tarot cards preorder bonus, but it looks like PSP games haven't inflated as much.

 

[Sprite]

Etrian Odyssey is my favorite RPG series ever, and really reliant on original hardware, so it would take a mighty high price to get me to sell mine. I should probably get protectors for the boxes, though...