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

[Kazin]

I know you said upthread that you don't want to steal games, and fair enough, but DS flashcarts are like, $10 these days... in case you want to fund your NGPC habit lol

Speaking of NGPC... my listing ended up going for $247+shipping. Wow.

 

[Sprite]

Oh, I already have a flash cart to play fan translations on, and wouldn’t hesitate to put a ROM on there if an original card died. I really should look into digitizing my collection...

One thing I’m mulling over a bunch is selling off rare games because they got rereleases, not thinking that the new platforms would someday be retro as well. So now my Tron Bonne is stranded in digital PS3/Vita land. I mean, ethically I feel in the clear, but I don’t know if there’s a legal way to scrape ISOs off my PS3.

 

[Kazin]

I'll be going through that with Switch someday, I imagine. The way I justify it now is that I want everything portable - so if a game gets rereleased on Switch, I can always play that portably.

There are ways to pull your saves off your carts, too, I think - I believe you can do it if you have a hacked 3DS (I've not done this with original DS carts, but I know this can be done with cartridge-based 3DS saves, as I have done that).

 

[YangusKhan]

My most frustrating resale item is a copy of Lunar Silver Star Story for PS1, which I inexplicably have 2 copies of disc 1 but am missing a disc 2. But otherwise it's got the making of CD and the music CD, so it's a mostly-complete copy. My best bet would be to pick up a matching mostly-complete copy that's missing a disc 1...

 

[Kazin]

I had something similar with Enemy Zero on Saturn before I sold it - I somehow had two copies of disc 0 - which is, iirc, just FMV - and no disc 1s. Had to source a disc 1 separately, which I eventually did.

 

[Sarge]

I paid almost nothing for EOIII a while back. Cart-only, but dang, even that is running around $70.

I recommend using PriceCharting for getting ballpark figures on what games are pulling now. I've saved myself a lot of money in shops that tend to overprice (and found some deals where they're selling well under current market values).

Maybe I'm just rationalizing, but I don't have much in the way of qualms using ROMs/ISOs for dead systems. If they're no longer available from the original publisher, they're fair game until I can find a reasonable deal on them. In some cases, that may never happen - I'm not paying the going rate for Little Samson, for instance.

(And, I mean, I'll pick up games that I technically can't even play, like various Super Famicom RPGs, because I like the idea of owning those games, especially the ones with fan translations. I have limits on what I'll spend there, too, though.)

 

[Mr. Sensible]

I recommend using PriceCharting for getting ballpark figures on what games are pulling now. I've saved myself a lot of money in shops that tend to overprice (and found some deals where they're selling well under current market values).

Sometimes for fun I'll look up games I already own on PriceCharting or eBay Sold listings just to see what they're going for these days. Apparently my complete DS copy of Pokemon SoulSilver (including PokeWalker) could easily fetch upwards of USD$150! Of course Pokemon games are incredible at retaining their value, but that's still more than I expected. Cult-hit DS games with very limited print runs like Ghost Trick and Aliens: Infestation are also getting up around the $100-ish range for complete copies.

 

[ghosttaster]

Both Breath of Fire III and IV have about doubled in price from when I bought mine a few years ago.

Custom Robo for GameCube has also skyrocketed. You couldn't give that game away a while back. I think Cube is like the Saturn of its time both in its cool period weeaboo appeal and that most of the "good" games (outside yr hit blue chip titles) are quite uncommon. I could never find Gotcha Robo or Cubivore anywhere (even when they were new!) before they became crazy expensive.

I'd guess that, barring a [perhaps inevitable, sigh] major catastrophic financial event, retro stuff will continue to increase in value, particularly now that gaming has proven international cultural staying power. I think the broadening of interest in retro games the last 10 or so years will also continue to produce strange variants of collector who drive up the prices of niche items. Weirdos who collect every Capcom or IREM game or whatever.

 

[YangusKhan]

I do wonder how much money I'm actually sitting on given all my old consoles and games. My biggest single-ticket item is almost certainly a cart-only Earthbound, but I've got plenty of other moderately-wanted retro games across SNES, PSX, and DS, with a dash of N64 and PSP also...

 

[Mr. Sensible]

I think Cube is like the Saturn of its time both in its cool period weeaboo appeal and that most of the "good" games (outside yr hit blue chip titles) are quite uncommon.

This is anecdotal evidence, of course, but GC games are getting tough to find at all in my local retro game shops, and even on eBay most of the decent titles (even the more common ones) go for around $50 and up. The Saturn comparison is very apt.

 

[Kazin]

Wow, Cubivore is going for $300-$500 now. I found my eBay purchase email for $28 for disc and box art, no manual, from 2007 lol. Wish I'd have kept it now. Ah well.

Meanwhile, Solatorobo has stayed about the same in value - I sold my complete copy a few years back for $190, and it's going for about $200 now. Weird.

EDIT: Nvm, a few people got some good deals, they seem to be going for about $300 now

 

[John]

I think my most expensive single item is DuckTales 2 NES CIB, which now goes for $450 or more. It was a Facebook Marketplace purchase, where someone was just selling their NES, controllers, and all 5 of their games for $80. We snapped it all up, and at the time just the game was going for around that much. I think it's the best purchase we've ever made, percentage wise.

 

[Sarge]

I've not entered all my stuff into there, but a fair amount of my big ticket games have been added. Apparently, just from the roughly 1000 games I've plugged in, I'm sitting on around $50,000...

SargeSmash's Collection

See SargeSmash's Entire Collection Including the Total Value

www.pricecharting.com

Wait, a loose copy of EarthBound is almost $300 now? Dang, I remember picking it up in a pawn shop years ago for $6... and my complete copy of Chrono Trigger set me back $15.

 

[Mr. Sensible]

I think my most expensive single item is DuckTales 2 NES CIB, which now goes for $450 or more. It was a Facebook Marketplace purchase, where someone was just selling their NES, controllers, and all 5 of their games for $80. We snapped it all up, and at the time just the game was going for around that much. I think it's the best purchase we've ever made, percentage wise.

Unless someone here can claim to have found a NISB copy of Little Samson sitting in their (deceased) cool uncle's attic, I think we have a winner. Holy shit.

 

[Kazin]

I still have the list of games I sold from 2018, I'm terrified to plug them into that site just to find out how good a deal the guy I sold them to got lol

(also: sell those games, Sarge lol. 50k!)

 

[Sarge]

Wow, nice on the DuckTales 2 cart. I had a cousin of mine that we asked for him to sell his NES stuff to us if he ever parted with it... and he sold it years later to someone else for all of $20... including DT2. Killed me. Still kills me.

The one complete NES game I have in that territory is TMNT: Tournament Fighters. I picked it up in a Walmart in Tennessee while we were on a vacation for $13. And I almost sold it in a yard sale for $10! Talk about dodging a bullet. Not as impressive as finding it today, though - this was in the waning NES days, where bargains like this were still relatively plentiful. SNES was the hot ticket by then.

 

[Falselogic]

Do you ever laugh nervously when you realize that your grandkids when they get all this stuff are just going to toss it into the trash?

 

[Sarge]

Assuming I even end up having kids/grandkids... it has definitely crossed my mind.

 

[Kazin]

Do you ever laugh nervously when you realize that your grandkids when they get all this stuff are just going to toss it into the trash?

That's why you gotta sell now, before those jerks are even born!

 

[Mr. Sensible]

Just include links to your eBay searches in your last will & testament

 

[Kazin]

Just include links to your eBay searches in your last will & testament

"why did Grandpa buy so many Wonderswans in 2021?" - my theoretical grandkids

 

[Sarge]

Wait, why in the heck is Pokemon Blue selling for over $200 complete? Good grief.

 

[Kazin]

Wait, why in the heck is Pokemon Blue selling for over $200 complete? Good grief.

I wish I'd have known how valuable Pokemon games were going to be, because I bought or received every single one up until 3DS new. I tossed the boxes to Red and Yellow in the 90s! Stupid me.

 

[ghosttaster]

I can't remember the exact deets but I got a complete Metal Storm off eBay somewhere between '05 and '07 for around 25 bucks. It's worth, uh, more than that now.

I also got a CIB Magic of Scheherezade from the same seller which I ended up playing a lot more.

 

[Sarge]

Ooh, wow, complete Metal Storm. I have it, but cart-only. Think I paid like $12 or something for it. It's why I passed on that re-release, but I'm kinda regretting that now. That statue and everything else looks pretty darn awesome.

The Magic of Scheherazade is definitely a hidden gem. I had lots of fun with it back in the day. Might be Culture Brain's best output (along with the really fun Baseball Simulator 1.000).

 

[Mr. Sensible]

One that blindsided me was PS1 Symphony of the Night. A buddy of mine was trying to score a nice complete copy last year and I was like "oh, I got mine for about $50 in 2016, so I'm sure you can find one for around that." Then I started looking at listings and haha nope, more like well over $100 for anything halfway decent-looking.

 

[ShakeWell]

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.

It's all a bit crazy, because I still remember going to the Midwest Gaming Classic in like 2007 and thinking I might have overpaid getting Gargoyle's Quest II for like $12. (Bare cart is around $100 now.) And when I lived in Milwaukee, there was a locally-owned store that would take down your name for anything and call you if it came in. This is how I paid $5 for a complete-in-box copy of Splatterhouse 2. (One with a dinged-up manual and box is currently listed for $190 on eBay.)

But, uh, speaking of Neo-Geo Pocket Color games... I had the infamous Mad Gear (a.k.a. Carlson, if you hit the classic gaming conventions, you know him) looking out for a copy for me like eight or nine years ago. He snagged me a complete-in-box copy for $75. I said then, and for a long time after, this game would be worth a LOT more if people cared about NGPC collecting or wrestling games. Guess they started caring about one of those, because the listings on eBay now are in the $600-$800 range.

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?!

That's bananas! In part because that game is bad.

 

[Kazin]

One day, when this nightmare is over, I'll go to some retro game conventions. I've never been, they sound heavenly, frankly.

I've never even heard of that Godzilla game. I'm so out of the loop!

 

[Sarge]

One that blindsided me was PS1 Symphony of the Night. A buddy of mine was trying to score a nice complete copy last year and I was like "oh, I got mine for about $50 in 2016, so I'm sure you can find one for around that." Then I started looking at listings and haha nope, more like well over $100 for anything halfway decent-looking.

All of a sudden I feel really prescient for turning around after leaving the store and buying an extra copy of that game for $20 years ago.

@Kazin: I've never been to one, and yeah, I'd love to make it. I suspect I'd have an absolute blast. I'm just not close to any.

 

[ghosttaster]

Castlevania Chronicles has gone similarly bananas