The year is 1999. I'm in a GAME, in Loughborough town centre. The grey carpet is sticky, the awful fluorescent lights are so dim I can barely see, and everything sort of smells like stale sweat. I'm standing in the N64 section with my brother, both of us clutching a small fortune in pocket money, browsing games that we know nothing about, because we don't know that reviews exist yet. We are children, and our buying habits tend to be dictated by whichever colours are brightest, and what we can actually reach.
We buy a full-price copy of Lego Racers, because children are idiots.
The year is 2005. My brother and I are back in the same GAME. I'm squeezing a copy of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door so tightly that it might snap in two. Guitar Hero — which just came out this year — dominates the store, a huge tower of CRT TVs with plastic instruments attached by wires and security measures, because this is Loughborough, and the likelihood of a useless plastic guitar being nicked is surprisingly high.
I would play so many hours of Paper Mario that I'd get blisters on my thumb pads. Worth it.
The year is 2011. I'm at university now, no thanks to my hours spent playing games instead of doing homework. I own a Wii and a DS, both of which are my main source of entertainment between (and sometimes instead of) lectures and essays. I do not have a lot of money. I circumnavigate this issue by renting games I'm not convinced I'll like, and buying games I know I will. I then trade in the games at the nearby HMV, where I get a trifling return on my investment, but at least now I can buy toilet paper and instant noodles, the two things needed to survive.
I do not yet realise how much money my trading-in habit will cost me in the long run. I trade in Ace Attorney games, Zelda games, and — it pains me to say it — Ghost Trick. I loved these games, and there are times when I almost can't let go of them at the cash register. I use the fifteen quid I get in return to wipe my tears, and then spend it all on one-ply.
The year is 2015. I have a job (yay!) in games journalism (oh no). Jobs mean money, and money means buying things I don't need, like video games that I used to own off eBay. I buy a no-box copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for Game Boy Color, and then I buy a Game Boy Advance SP to actually play it. It is not the cool tribal SP that I always wanted, but I will make do.
I buy Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door off a guy who says that he doesn't have the box, the manual, or even anything to put the tiny disc in, so he sends it to me wrapped in bubble wrap and hope, and it's honestly a miracle that it gets to me un-snapped. It costs me THIRTY-FIVE BRITISH POUNDS for the honour of having a small piece of shiny plastic containing a game that I've played to completion more times than I've done anything that made my parents proud.
A few months later, I move to Canada, and leave the expensive bit of plastic in my dad's house for safekeeping, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure he was the one who sold my original copy.
The year is now 2021, and we're all caught up. Some brilliant games have passed through my hands across the decades I've been alive, and I've let them all slip away like diamond sand through my fingers. I curse the past version of me that didn't know what she had, although she also didn't have any money, so I can't really blame her.
You know who I do blame? Nintendo. Despite their games selling thousands, millions of copies, they insist that their prices should never lower, and they refuse to reprint old games, even though tens of us have been begging them to for years. As a result, GameCube games still cost as much today as they did at launch, and often more; a copy of Ghost Trick alone will set me back around forty quid without the box or the manual.
if a game is good, or rare, or old (or all three), then people can charge eighty quid and someone will buy it. It's the price of our childhood, the tax we pay on nostalgia.
But there's no real reason that these games should be this expensive. As Alex and Jon point out in their video above, they're expensive because we decide they're expensive. Supply and demand, baby. Money isn't real. Just like the GameStop stock price debacle, it's all about something's perceived worth — if a game is good, or rare, or old (or all three), then people can charge eighty quid and someone will buy it. It's the price of our childhood, the tax we pay on nostalgia.
There's no way around it, either. Second-hand game stores like CeX in the UK know the worth of their stock, charging £70 for a used copy of Pokémon HeartGold even though it doesn't come with the Pokéwalker add-on. I've tried to buy suspiciously cheap copies of games on eBay before, only to find out that they're fakes. One time, I bought a copy of Bowser's Inside Story only to find out that it was actually Alex Rider: Stormbreaker on DS, a game so utterly pants that it's sitting at a 48% rating on Metacritic.
Now, to Nintendo's credit, they are bringing out the occasional re-release, so I can actually play Bowser's Inside Story now, assuming I can find a 3DS copy. But some games remain perpetually unrecognised by ol' Ninty, and despite some, eh, pretty good Paper Mario sequels (do not talk to me about Sticker Star), nothing comes close to Thousand-Year Door. Plus, I'm fairly certain that Capcom is not going to release an HD Switch version of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, a game that is my personal favourite of the Ace Attorney canon, an opinion I am likely alone in having.
It's not surprising that people are clamouring for remakes of games like Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. A cursory glance at eBay shows that you'll have to pay around £40 for the game card, and £90 for a sealed box. Listen, Ghost Trick's price I can understand — that game is a gem, but it only sold a few hundred thousand worldwide. Pokémon Diamond and Pearl sold 17.67 million copies. It's honestly enough to make me want to break into Nintendo HQ and help myself to a sealed copy or two from their vaults.
Some people know the value of what they've got, and refuse to ever sell, but other people have absolutely no idea that they're sitting on a potential fortune.
The huge sales numbers of DS games mean that these pricey bits of plastic are just sitting around in drawers, cupboards, and huge plastic bins in garages across the world. Some people know the value of what they've got, and refuse to ever sell, but other people have absolutely no idea that they're sitting on a potential fortune. As Jon and Alex discuss in the video, your best bet for underpriced retro games is charity shops, garage sales, and maybe even estate auctions, but I can't say I've tried that last one. Even then, the likelihood of finding something you actually want is about as low as finding a pristine copy of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle in the bathroom of a Subway.
It's hard to know how to fix this. There probably isn't any fixing it, at this point. Some of you are likely sitting on thousands of pounds of games, safe in the knowledge that you weren't an idiot like me, and you held on to them through the years, and I don't blame you.
The worst thing is, once I own the games, I don't... actually... play them. I moved in with my partner recently, and he's one of those people that keeps everything. He has a Commodore 64 that he uses for decoration, and a GameCube collection that's better than the one I had as a kid. He owns every old Nintendo console, plus a bunch of controllers that don't — like mine — have weird nail polish stains. He dug out his in-box copy of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door when we were first dating, because he knew it was my favourite game.
In the four years we've been together, we have never played it.
Is it about nostalgia? Is it about owning small pieces of our childhood? Is it just about trying to claw back the years we've lost by constantly spending money to surround ourselves with props that make us feel a tiny bit of the joy we've long since forgotten? Are we all just trying to recreate a time when things were simpler?
It's hard to put a price on the value of memory, but some people have, and it's eighty bloody pounds. With no box.
Comments 219
Supply and demand explains the price perfectly. Especially once you abandon the absurd notion that there's an inherent price any purely discretionary good should cost.
@kategray I have been searching for years for a copy of DOOM for SNES that isn’t $600 trillion dollars, I feel your pain
Just look at Pokemon cards... talk about taxing nostalgia!
Sorry, slightly off topic as its not retro but does anyone know why the physical of Leisure Suit Larry on Switch goes for £100 on eBay?! I was wondering if it was withdrawn from sale due to the adult content or something.
Long time nintendo switch owner, I managed to sell my decent collection for a large chunk of change but heres the thing:
One of the games in my collect was worth about 200$, theres a company that does repints that run at 25$, I would IN A HEARTBEAT sell the official copy and grab the reprint.
People are crazy, collectors are crazy, there's a reason people use emulators
@JimmySpades in a way that is theoretically accurate, but it’s difficult to ascertain the demand of something that is essentially in high demand due to the forced artificial scarcity created by rigorous intellectual property defense
There are loads of mom and pop shops around that sell retro Nintendo stuff and the sellers don’t care about the games. All they know is there’s enough people paying their top eBay-comparable prices to get it. Do the people buying it care about the games? I’m sure some of them do..
@Clyde_Radcliffe switch physicals that aren’t Nintendo OG like Mario/DK are all limited run - Bayonetta and Doom ‘16 have already been out of print for over a year and get marked up on reseller platforms
@NinChocolate i run into that a lot too as a big record collector, I don’t want to pay $100 for something because I want to listen to it, not sell it later.
If someone have StarCraft 64 (PAL) please send it to me! OR send me a USA Nintendo 64 with StarCraft 64 (USA).
Any chance of Nintendo re-releasing the actual retro consoles and games (The actual consoles, not classic edition). I’m sure they would sell well.
@GannonBanned If you were truly versed in theory, you'd know that supply and demand are completely independent. And those collocations of buzzwords aren't nearly as significant as you seem to believe.
@GannonBanned Ahh, thanks, it's been so long since I've been to a physical games retailer (due to Covid) I didn't realise. 😂
I feel like I truly became an adult when I stopped viewing gaming as a lifestyle and instead viewed it as only a hobby to bring temporary entertainment.
Around age 32, I sold off a massive collection of games, systems, and figurines. I stopped being a collector (although I do keep my favorites), and instead I focus on PLAYING games. Particularly playing new games, rather than replaying my childhood ad nauseum.
I also stopped forcing myself to waste time on games I don't like just because I spent money on them. Wasting my money doesn't justify wasting my time.
And now I'm happier. But that's just me.
I tried to flog some old Xbox 360 games recently (just because they were taking up space) but apparently they are not worth much more than a quid as everyone else wants to flog theirs too and nobody is trying to catch up or build a collection of those games.
It’s the extreme opposite from a supply and demand point of view for Nintendo games. Nobody wants to sell their childhood memories and so supply is low. Also demand is through the roof as lots of people want to get in on building out collections of generations they missed or have nostalgia for in a way that doesn’t happen on other levels. As time goes by, the amount of people who were too young for these games back in the day but now have money will natural increase.
Depends on what games you are after I guess. I got a Japanese version of Pokémon yellow, complete in box in great condition for less than what most new Switch games costs here in Norway.
@GannonBanned This took me 3 seconds:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/DOOM-SUPER-NINTENDO-SNES-AUTHENTIC-GAME-TESTED/265004474290?hash=item3db37f5fb2:g:lT4AAOSwOxlf9mQH
Also why would you want arguably one of the worst ports of Doom, ever?
NINJA APPROVED, BUT FOR DOOM
I somehow have always been the guy that doesn't trade anything in. But also bought games I liked, yet weren't the Big Ones, and when I began to be interested in them, when they were already retro games, many of them were also really expensive.
Their price does depend on the demand, of course, but that doesn't make it any less painful. I could pull my hair every time some old magazine with game prices re-surfaces and see that Mega Man The Wily Wars was sold for 18 euro at some point, or the Turbografx with games was like 60. That's crazy. Yet we didn't know those things would be desired by all of us some day.
On the other hand, I'm starting to think that maybe a handful of games are worth their asking price, as long as it's not more than what they asked for it back in their time. And for them I could be willing to make the effort.
Many of them, though, are perfectly playable on retro collections or digital re-releases, and that comes from someone that considered himself a purist like 10 years ago.
But yes, it sucks when a game is expensive just because there aren't many copies around, despite its quality.
I really hope Ghost Trick gets a rerelease someday @KateGray! I played it briefly back in the day and have been kicking myself for never picking it up when it was cheap
It kinda has to do with supply and demand, but it's the nostalgia factor plain and simple. As each generation comes into disposable income for example they have jobs, they want to buy back stuff from their childhood that give them that warm nostalgia feeling. They want to buy back collections that maybe their parents forced them to get rid of maybe because they felt they are too old for them or they had to do to a move or maybe just lost the items over time. Whatever the reason is they want it back to capture that nostalgia feeling. The result is priced go up for that generation.
For me it was the price of NES and SNES games because that was the generation I grew up in so I wanted to buy games I never got a chance to own since I still had most of my collection. However over the past couple of years I have seen the prices of NES and SNES games drop and N64, GameCube and PS one games go up. Which for me don't interest me as much as NES and SNES games cause by that time I was starting to get out of gaming for a bit.
Nintendo has just locked all of its retro content behind a gate. It would be so easy for them to put their classic content on an emulator on the switch and let us play it - I'm sure a lot of us would pay a fairly decent amount for that! However, they've been greedy with the Switch, and instead of just putting it all on virtual console like on the Wii or Wii U, they've chosen to just put out NES and SNES games at a snails pace, and then release just 3 old mario games on an emulator for the price of a full game nowadays. It's ludicrous, bad business practice, and locks retro games away for newer generations to play.
I would be sitting on hundreds of pounds worth of GameCube games but was a moron and the discs got all scratched up. I don’t mind though, I got my fun out of them when I was younger instead of worrying about preserving them. Still though... Paper Mario, Skies of Arcadia, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance etc would have funded my move 😂
I've realized lately that Wii games (besides, inexplicably, Mario Kart Wii) are still quite cheap. It's only a matter of time, though.
Also, why hasn't Ghost Trick been brought to Android?
it was actually Alex Rider: Stormbreaker on DS, a game so utterly pants that it's sitting at a 48% rating on Metacritic.
@KateGray I have two questions, but I'm not sure which to ask first. I assure you that I have no intention to offend. Here goes:
@Averagewriter Doom runs on calculators and ATMs, I don't think it's really impressive that it runs on an SNES. It's nice! But there are far better ports, plus playing it on an SNES controller makes it feel like all your fingers are tied together in a clump, it's such a clunky mess.
NINJA APPROVED (of other DOOM ports)
If the only way I can buy an old game is to give a random member of the public a pile of money rather than a reasonable price from Nintendo then I will just download a ROM.
If Nintendo provide a legitimate way for me to pay for their old software and let them be rewarded for their hard work then I will give them cash.
Simples.
I have a Wii that can play GameCube games, but I was never able to try out those older games and now that I finally can, I have to pay inflated prices for them.
I just want to legally play Mario Party 4-7 and Paper Mario TTYD, is that so hard...?
Just release your games, Nintendo. And by that, I mean "don't you dare launch another N64 VC that's missing Mario Party 1 and 3".
I spent a bunch of money buying Wii controllers to play wii sports resort, (Ours are in the garage somewhere I'm sure well never find, and yes we've looked very hard) only to find out that they were crappy ones that had lots of problems. I'm quite dissapointed, but at least the game is somewhat playable.
It’s Nintendo’s use of cardboard boxes that makes collecting early stuff expensive. Finding a nice minty example of a game that’s not dog-eared, has a tear where the price sticker was taken off or has been crushed is very hard.
Ironically it’s often the crappiest games that end up the most expensive because no-one bought them leaving fewer copies out there to buy.
That's why I don't very often sell stuff out of my collection. Some games i own across various systems are like rocking horse ***** to find, or very expensive.
@JimmySpades it’s cute that you think that
I’ve always said you can get your money back or more with Nintendo games
Mostly because they don’t discount the product like third parties do.
Example :
Nintendo first party title is £40 since launch and still £40
Yet
Any Third party title £40 today £5 in 6 months
@BloodNinja ah, thanks Ninja - but my mental inflation index makes $60 into $600 million Gannondollars since I can play DOOM anytime I like on my switch and merely want the SNES port because I’m absolutely sick in the head and regret loaning my copy out 15 years ago and not getting it back - I pretty much use my SNES as a Zombies Ate My Neighbors machine now that I have all the SMB and Castlevania on my Switch
@GannonBanned $50 on ebay
@Averagewriter but how embarrassing is it that Doom can run on like, an X-Brain Yoyo but not an SNES without hardware reductions
@StevenG yeah but that’s $50, I can buy it 10x on my Switch for that and not have the lithium battery die in the next 5 years. I’m talking about $10 - I’m never gonna resell it, just play it, and I’ve already played it A LOT
@GannonBanned Dude, I understand. I did that once with a game called Brandish. It's easy to forget, sometimes. And here I am, 25 years later. No Brandish
NINJA APPROVED
@Axelay71 so curious what was censored there
@BloodNinja I also don’t have Chuck Rock anymore, so I can’t fire up my SNES and rock out to this great theme:
https://youtu.be/8rm0eTagViU
Sorry for your Brandish loss, my secretive assassin friend
@Averagewriter Geeze! Did you source-port Doom or something? No need to be so touchy. They used an FX Chip, that's not impressive. Why are you offended that there are better ports of Doom than the SNES version? It literally has nothing to do with you, unless you developed for it or something! Then I would understand.
NINJA APPROVED
@COVIDberry ahem.
1. Pants are where the bum goes. Bums are good in many contexts, but they are also the grossest part of the body.
2. It's pronounced "Luffbra" and it's actually where Nintendo Life is based, so you have to be nice about it (but I don't, because I grew up there). I don't know much about Scarborough, except that it is where the Barenaked Ladies came from, so it is basically a Canadian holy site. Loughborough does not have a BNL equivalent, but we do have... um... a statue called The Sockman?
@GannonBanned Okay, I'm very happy you sent me that song, this is awesome.
You have a mask, you must be a ninja, too.
I shall return the favor, in a ninja-like fashion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP21jPCJTUc&t=71s
NINJA VERY ******* APPROVED
Chrono Trigger DS is really expensive now. Glad I have that gem.
Sometimes even a piece of paper can be expensive. Konami's Castlevania: Vampire's Kiss is extremely rare by itself, but here in Nordic region, the official release also came with an A4 paper with Swedish quick star guide. That piece of paper is worth about 100€ now. Talk about rare.
Nintendo is too evil and greedy to make all their old games free on a virtual console.
@BloodNinja i know now why you ninja, but it is something I can never do ⚔️ ❤️
A fantastic article well written. Am having a sort out at the moment I have chibi robo GameCube and played and enjoyed it back in like 2006. Never played again, but just checked price on cex and that’s crazy! I don’t sell stuff. I’m considering hiding it in my loft, so one day years from now someone will find it, and hopefully wonder why it’s hid and check out the price. It’s weird, it’s like I have a connection to the future or something. That will please me more than the cash xxxx
@Dragonslacker1 Cheers, Dragonslacker
As the video says, sometimes the best deals you can get on these games is finding them in a charity shop where they don't know the value of what they've got. I reckon if someone found Chibi-Robo in a loft, they'd assume it was rubbish
I was trying to get Heartgold a few days go actually, and that stuff is so expensive. I really don't understand why these companies don't want us to access their back catalogs, even if we pay them to.
It's not even retro stuff. Go look on Amazon for either used or new wii u, wii, and 3ds games and they're outrageous. So I don't know what's going on.
I've been buying some n64 and cube games every so often if they're a decent price. But the 1st party stuff is insane.
Its crazy to see physical retro game prices continue to rise when access to emulators, everdrives, SD console mods, compilations, re releases & digital makes playing those games easier & cheaper, but I guess people aren't satisfied until they own the original artifact.
@NinjaWaddleDee Try getting a boxed copy with the lenticular cover
looks like paying 20 bucks a year does not seem so bad now does it? the switch online with all those super nes and nes games. over 80 and still growing. the online may not be perfect. but all those retro games for 20 bucks a year? sounds like a good deal to me.
I've got makeup bags (that my wife doesn't use anymore) full of GB, GBA, DS and 3DS carts. I've still got wallets full of GC and Wii games. A total reaching well into triple figures. I ditched all the boxes because I don't have infinite space.
But do I actually use all of them? Not even remotely, even though I still have the kit for it. I've dumped all the ROMs and just run them off USBs or flashcarts or whatever (naughty me) on Wii or 3DS.
I don't see myself selling the games, but equally hardly see me needing the carts ever again. Hoarder!
@BranJ0 I would love if Nintendo started the VC back up again, especially if they got the old Pokemon games on there. I would pay probably 20 to 30 bucks a piece for the DS Pokemon games again, because I want the convenience of them on Switch, and I also don't want to pay over 60 dollars for a legitimate physical copy.
I definitely enjoyed reading this article. I have spent the past few years reconstructing my entire Nintendo library, from the SNES to Wii U, which unfortunately I had sold off over the years. I wish I could go back and stop myself from selling all those games but the damage is nearly fixed after a few years. I’ve learned my lesson, when it comes to Nintendo I do not plan on selling games anymore unless I honestly HATE the game. If I tire of it I will safely store everything away and switch to another system until I tire of that system and switch again. There are so many gems on Nintendo systems and my fear is we are rapidly approaching a time where you will have to subscribe to an online service to have access to those older games or rebuy them at full price in a remastered version. We see it already with the Switch. While Switch Online’s price is not high there is no guarantee that it won’t jump in the future. And why pay for a service like that when I already bought the actual games to begin with? Further, why wait for Nintendo to release them slowly online when I can play them anytime? From here on out I will enjoy the collection I’ve built and I would recommend others do the same if you can.
@GannonBanned basically rocking horse poo mate lol 😆
@KateGray Poor Chibi Robo! Yeah your right will have to write a note on him! I have looked around a few charity shops before but all I could find was versions of fifa and Wii shovelware. Will look when lockdowns over. I’m not a collector at all but I got Ico on ps2 and am surprised that that is only 10 pounds or so. I got to play that again soon xx
@Beatrice WOW, I forgot I have this, still sealed with the lanyard
@KammyWh1te lol yep
People can downvote me for saying this, but this is the reason why I feel no guilt playing roms of Nintendo games on my PSP.
I will buy the games if there are legal and cheap means like the Virtual Console, Arcade Archives, or the NES or SNES online.
But there are hundreds if not thousands of games that not just Nintendo, but third parties have never brought to modern platforms due to various reasons.
That leaves playing these games on aging carts and hardware as your only recourse where you have to pay an arm and a leg.
It's why I get upset when Nintendo cracks down so harshly on rom sites.
I get copyright, but if these companies can't be bothered to bring their older games to modern hardware, what are gamers supposed to do unless they want to break the bank to play a NES games?
@BloodNinja I loved that song you shared - never played that game, that song rules.
Here’s my all time favorite video game song, from Perfect Dark:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5flytM-UJCc&feature=youtu.be
@Caryslan agree hard on this - it’s always confusing to me when people say it’s because Nintendo is “greedy” and I’m like - THEY AREN’T EVEN SELLING IT!!! Just hoarding!
As a 10 year old kid, I used to keep all my original packaging and instructions for my NES games. Then the genesis comes along, I stop playing the old NES games, and think I could really clear up some space for these cool clam shell genesis games. So I throw out all the old boxes and instructions 🤦♂️ I knew I’d want them again someday too...
@NinjaWaddleDee I play Pokemon Red on my TV with Super Game Boy - fun enough but not as ideal as a VC
@Andyliini Swedish Game Paper is notoriously hard to smith, it has to be folded hundreds of times to get the impurities out.
Check out the novel “The Girl With The Mario Hotel Manual” by Snes Larsson
Yes. Unless you had a crappy childhood you long for the simpler days of youth where you were free all summer to play with toys and games. The toy industry is thriving in part because of collectors, not kids. As for games, the prices may get worse before they get better. There are a lot of rich investors buying graded sealed games now, driving up prices across the board. It sucks.
Good stuff, really dig your writing. Vultures...
Not selling one old game ever! Trying to educate my son on the value of my collection which goes back to the 2600, but all he plays is call of duty lol. But he shows some interest here and there. When I die I told him sell it all and use the money for you and your sister Unless you want to keep some of it lol.
and piracy is freeeee!
Simple economics. As supply dwindles and demand goes up, the prices rise.
The lack of official re-releases for many titles combined by dwindling demand has pushed piracy and piracy discourages official re-releases. It's a problem without an easy fix.
Many people will happily pirate a game if it's easily done, even if it has an official re-release.
So true - I have a cellar full of CRTs set up with every retro game I’ve ever loved & I rarely play them
@BloodNinja Please never stop ninja-ing. It helps me go about my day knowing that whatever I've set about is ninja-approved.
There's this guy (girl?) on here called @NinjaWaddleDee, but I don't see them giving their ninja approval like you do. Probably not a real ninja.
@GannonBanned You find it cute that I understand the principles of economics and can recognize meaningless phrases? You do you, I guess.
@GannonBanned @BloodNinja
Nothing much to say to you both, except that you two sharing music in the comments has made my day.
@JimmySpades no I think it’s cute that you think scarcity is a buzzword that would have no effect on supply while chiding somebody else for not being informed on a BCE level microeconomic theory.
I’m a socialist so I’ll just leave off and let you cast any aspersions you’d like
@KateGray NintendoLife - come for the quality writing, stay for the MIDI swap.
Thx for making this a safe space for Ninjas and Nerds alike
Has anyone else noticed how Covid made the prices soar even higher? I have been an active collector since 2013 and I always, always argue for physical games. However, I couldn't believe the prices of the games compared to what I paid for them. Think about how cheap boxed GBA games were 8 years ago compared to now. In the end, I decided to ride the hot market and sell off my games. I still prefer physical but having thousands of dollars in the bank is nice, too! Heck, buy a modded 3DS and you can play 3DS, DS, and emulators. I know it's not the same as owning the physical carts but I'll always have pictures to remind myself of the wonderful collection I had! Now....what to spend the cash on hahah
@Dr_Corndog i’m always on the lookout for @BloodNinja to disapprove but either I missed it or they practice “if you don’t have something nice to say, say nothing at all”
Or of course, Ninjas might show their disapproval with silent darts and drops of poison trickling down a thread in the night
@Dr_Corndog Unfortunately my arms are quite stubby, so I'm not as good at throwing ninja stars or doing other ninja-like things. I am pretty silent though, due to not having a mouth.
@NinjaWaddleDee “I have no mouth, but I must Ninja”
@Mips man, a cellar full of CRTs is like a true crime podcast cliffhanger if I’ve ever read one.
Ii am a collector.
I buy and keep all my games.
I store them safely away from everything and have them all well protected.
I have a full Pal Australian N64 collection complete in their boxes with manuals etc, all 243 that were released here.
I recently sold off some of my PS1, PS2 and Original Xbox collection for a very nice profit
I look after every game I own and all of them are like new.
I play every game I own........ eventually.
Even my consoles are complete in their boxes.
I accumulated heaps of spare N64 boxes, manuals etc which I sell to fund my hobby.
I buy copies that have mint boxes but no manuals or mint manuals with rubbish boxes and make mint copies out of them then sell my spares.
It has worked for me and my collection is nearly all mint by collecting like this.
Here's a few pictures of my cabinets.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OMZe76yZRpGz-Gt1hZQ74CxLKZfiRNts/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OIYj11R9y6zVROIDpQH3XW-ancdGu8_j/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OCcE8eLbA8eYdxj-g6yLiQqfJbZoo9XN/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OWgL6LmEYkiQN31mf1eS-nws3c11k1pX/view?usp=drivesdk
I love the old boxart.
don't get me started on ds era pokemon games XD Jus wanna play black 2
My rarest games are:
Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness boxed with manuals which I bought for £100 (well £90 thanks to an eBay discount code) last year and enjoyed the hell out of. After checking eBay it seems like it's already skyrocketed in value since early 2020 and is now worth over £200
Ocarina of Time Collectors Edition which is also boxed with manuals and I won in an eBay auction in 2011 for £15. Now it's worth £150-200 depending on box condition
Fire Emblem Path of Radiance which is also boxed with manuals from CEX for £15 back in 2008 and I now see it for around £170
Pokemon Heart Gold which I managed to win by putting forward a best offer of £32 to a seller on eBay which they accepted, even though it was 'buy it now' for £39!
@BloodNinja By calculator, are you talking about the modern TI calculators I hear about (with color screen and I imagine ARM CPU or something relatively modern). Because those probably are a lot more powerful than hardware of the original DOOM era.
Now if you want to tell me that DOOM can run on the TI-84 Plus I own (the monochrome 2000s Z80-based version), then I'll take that as an impressive statement.
Likewise, let's not crap on ATMs as lower-power devices (again, relatively speaking to Doom). They have to home kind of advance security and such. Even if they tend to be built on newer OS and such, which necessitates better hardware than Doom needs.
For me retro gaming nostalgia comes in the form of playing them. You don't need to pay to play retro games. But if you're nostalgic about... buying them? I dunno. It's your money.
@GannonBanned Haha! Does sound like one doesn’t it? I only have 8 or so really - all hooked up in a big semicircle with different consoles on each.
@Purgatorium Definitely agree with this
@KateGray I was totally willing you on as I read through this lovely article. I too was in Loughborough in 1999, but I don't think I visited GAME.
And then you went and threw shade on Paper Mario: Sticker Star... just uncalled for. Been playing it this week and it's lovely.
@Dr_Corndog I don't know if you are the same dude, but my best friend goes by the same chat hand, Corndog, so you must be a good person.
NINJA APPROVED 100%
@GannonBanned Hilariously, that Perfect Dark song is going perfectly with this section of Dark Souls 2 I am working. And of course
NINJA APPROVED
(lol)
@KateGray TIME FOR MORE THEN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZUE2oZK6Cc&t=649s
NINJA APPROVED
@Mips dang, that setup sounds both inviting AND daunting - amazing
@BloodNinja @KateGray can’t ignore the CLASSICS:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tKYisJg89Ag
Dark Souls with PD soundtrack sounds like a dream come true
@KingMike I was making a joke that DOOM has been ported to literally every device possible, including a tiny printer HUD, and that I think it's more impressive that it made it onto other such things than a dedicated gaming machine.
NINJA APPROVED
@GannonBanned I do not wish to tell you how to handle hecklers, but I will tell you that JimmySpades makes a lot of extreme comments around here (at least he did before I ignored him). Anyone who disagrees with him is a monster, which... yeah, you get the picture. A refugee from Kotaku, or something.
I used to pirate.
Now I have a collection worth 4 figures at least. Nothing spectacular, but I do have Ghost Trick
@GannonBanned Oh! How that sings to my heart, I love that song so much. Easily the best traditional Castlevania game, too. Though, it's easily tied with Rondo of Blood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT6PC3z-BLA
NINJA APPROVED
@COVIDberry ahhh, that explains the condescending tone, thanks for the heads up!!
@BloodNinja RoB is so electric for a fake harpsichord banger, it sounds like something a goth robocop would set to their ringtone - excellent choice
EDIT: speaking of - https://youtu.be/b--tnmghlHU
Great piece Kate and being wrong side of 50 now since December last year, I can really sympathise with this article. I just brought a PAL version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Time for £73 and kick myself for not keeping my original SNES copy. I got fed up with waiting in the end for someone to re-release the original or the re-shelled version which unfortunately I missed. For me personally, since covid kicked off, my retro collection of games is going through the roof, especially on the WII when some are selling for £5-£6 each!! If Nintendo got their arse in gear and kick started VC again but bigger and better including all consoles and all the big games (no matter what legal problems there would be) then they would make millions and we could stop paying out millions to relive the good old days otherwise known as our childhood or in my case, late teens/early-mid twenties. Yep life was more simple back then and games were too, no such thing as DLC or patches etc and I think we are seeing a full circle in our gaming habits. After all they don't call it the circle of life for nothing. Happy retro gaming everyone and Nintendo...... re-open the online WII/WII U gaming servers for all games oh and if you have time....MIIVERSE too??!!!
@GannonBanned Such good taste. I'm impressed, I thought Gannon would like more melancholy music! hahaha...
I'll leave this here, and then it's back to Dark Souls 2 while I fight off this ridiculous Covid!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUrtgVdE6qc&t=471s
NINJA APPROVED
@BloodNinja good luck! I had Covid in December and just played 10 hours of Civ 6 all day for 2 weeks, time flew but now I find myself disliking Gilgamesh and Pericles for always beating me.
Stay strong!
@KateGray I still find the UK culture difficult to crack, difficult to comprehend, so I thank you for the explanation about... pants. At least you can furnish one - France still cannot tell me why they hate cows ("c'est vachement nul, ça").
It's pronounced "Luffbra" and it's actually where Nintendo Life is based, so you have to be nice about it (but I don't, because I grew up there).
Very well, I will speak with tolerance. Actually, now, I'm curious about the place. So, with your accent, it would be... love bra? Or, simply, luff-bra? That does not sound so ill. "Luff" can refer to "the roundest part of a ship's bow", so, that's perfect, isn't it? 🤣
(Since we're talking about music now, I will say that people now would know Scarborough for that pop star, The Weakened. But Rush is from there! I know it for the bad traffic and some neat beaches when I pass through occasionally...)
I really liked this article, even because I've been through it a few times. The best second-hand purchases involved finding Tactics Ogre (PSP), Final Fantasy Tactics (PSP), Zelda: A Link to the Past (GBA) and Chrono Trigger (DS) for very reasonable prices; the worst involved buying several counterfeit Pokémon cartridges that were deceptively advertised as original.
Nostalgia is indeed expensive, and we are often faced with games that have never been relaunched for other consoles. I agree with Kate, in part Diamond / Pearl remakes are so desired by Pokémon fans because the DS originals are very pricey (by the way, they are among the counterfeits I bought; luckily I found an original Platinum).
Although it was a nice store. Sadly the pandemic forced em to close like a bajillion other things
@daisygurl You're in Canada? All the stores I've spoken to here have told me that they're doing good business through the pandemic. That's very unfortunate...
I stopped caring about the nostalgia of holding on to old games I would almost never or actually never play about ten years ago and sold most of them. I made around $3,000 selling everything from NES/Master System games to PS3/Wii and everything in between.
I got some good deals. The two best sellers were Team Buddies and Suikoden II. And I don't regret it at all. Not one time have I wanted to play a game like that and regretted it. Some of the games I picked up digital copies of eventually, but for the most part.. I had my fill of them and was ready to move on.
As for blaming Nintendo for the prices.. it's not Nintendo's fault that buyers and sellers attribute these values to their games. And of course they're not going to reprint them. They likely no longer have the equipment or infrastructure to even do it without more expense than would be worth it. Better to just remaster, port, remake, etc.
@GannonBanned Its cozy in there with low indirect lighting - feels arcadey. I love having mates down there with all the CRTs on with a game on each from all gens so people can turn to whatever they fancy playing.
Ah GAME Loughborough in the late 90s/early 2000’s! Family is from there and my sister and I were children there at that time (and got quite a few overpriced N64 games there too!), although I can’t remember if Lego Racers (with that natty box) was from there or edgy independent Voodoo Consoles towards the bingo hall. That GAME is still in the same unit (or it was pre-covid, not been able to visit since then)!
@COVIDberry I can't claim greater insight than Kate, but technically it is pronounced 'Luff-burruh', but most people shorten it to 'Luff-bruh'.
@Deltath I agree, I don’t think it’s Nintendo’s fault either. I switched on the NES & SNES apps for the first tune in ages & was surprised at the amount of great games there. I personally prefer to own them physically so they don’t disappear one day but for the yearly subscription price I think it’s a good effort.
NOL is ok, but you can't beat that feeling of pushing a cartridge into a SNES or NES and playing the game on a CRT TV. That said, I really do believe that if Nintendo created a new VC with a bigger library of games than before covering all consoles SEGA included (with the games spruced up to HD standards), it would definitely be a gold mine for them. I just can't understand why something so obvious is not being seriously considered by them or being done at the moment half heartedly with NOL?????
@daisygurl Which Canadian city? I'm in Nova Scotia myself, but I haven't scouted out the local stores yet!
@gcunit heh, sorry! I just didn't like that all the boss battles were gated behind specific stickers
@COVIDberry I have it on good authority that the French hate cows because they are delicious.
@Grackler wait, that GAME still exists?! Good lord. Also, I wonder if you and I have any friends in common... Probably best not to find out, I don't think a lot of them read my work 😅
@Mips next time you have a cellar pal spot open shoot me an application!
@karatekid1612 Totally, they must be leaving so much money on the table.
@Mips Yep totally and beyond me???!!!!
@KateGray You don't have to apologize about Sticker Star! It is kind of a frustrating game. The boss battles aren't even real boss battles because you either have the right "thing" or you don't. It just guts a lot of the fun of Paper Mario and fills it with an anxiety building disposable inventory system. I'm sure it's my own neurotic quirk, but I virtually never use attack consumables in RPGs and Nintendo was like "Gotcha, bitch! The whole GAME is disposable attacks!"
@Mips Yeah, I mean, I know some people really want to own games (physically or digitally) and aren't down with the NSO versus Virtual Console, and that's totally fine, but I personally like this more. I can fire up any of a hundred old games on there and mess around as much or as little as I want and I'm paying $5 a year on a family plan with some friends. I owned probably 30 VC games on Wii and many more I considered getting but didn't because of cost. With NSO, it would take 50 years of the service (and it's more than just the classics) to cost as much as 30 SNES games on Wii VC.
But yes, the point being.. I agree, it's a good effort. More realistic and feasible than reprinting 20-35 year old game cartridges from defunct platforms.
@Deltath you nailed it. As someone whose Skyrim house is full of potions I really need, but am saving "just in case", I don't want to use disposable items for all my attacks! That's stressful, Nintendo! Leave me and my hoarding alone!
Well, I'm off to my retro man cave now (as wife and dog have gone to sleep) to play Lost Vikings on the SNES with a glass of wine, so good night if in your in Europe and good evening if your across the pond
EpicGames in Victoria, BC is an amazing retro game store. The prices are fair, but that means some very expensive games. Still they always price them on par with online prices, if not slightly lower.
@karatekid1612 Love that game - enjoy!
I've done two statistical studies on used game prices, have a look if you'd like to put some numbers to all this.
https://spritecell.com/MP2-Comparing-Price
https://spritecell.com/sp1-prices-year
Prices will always be high on niche retro stuff because the few people who want them really want them. I guess I just don't understand the mentality behind needing to specifically have the old plastic cart/disc. Emulators for most stuff up till 2006 can give you an equally quality if not better experience than the original hardware. Why spend out triple or quadruple the price of the original MSRP for a battered copy with no box, when you can just get the ROM on your phone?
imo, I have no interest in getting old physical copies. Old consoles will eventually die (capacitor leakage, degradation, etc) and old discs/cartridges will die if not well maintained. Along with used copies not giving the developer/publisher/legal owner money at all; not to mention costing an arm and a leg to give a random person funds for the game.
So I mainly emulate older games. Then if it rereleases, I buy it from the new release. Or I just buy a current game from the developer. Emulation gives superior ways to play games; from save states for harder games, cheatengine speedhacks for speeding through grinding, modding, visual upgrades, bug fixes that the original never addressed, and so forth. Roms/Isos/etc can be duplicated and thus never lost or decayed.
For more info, check out these GDCs from a guy who archives games and helped make the MegaMan Remasters:
https://youtu.be/HLWY7fCXUwE
https://youtu.be/dp-DRU24J18
The overpriced games i'm looking for :
1. Paper Mario The Thousand Years Door
2. Beatmania IIDX 16 EMPRESS PS2
3. Punky Skunk PS1
4. Pepsiman PS1
5. Mario & Sonic at Rio 2016 Wii U USA
6. Wii Sports Club Wii U USA
7. DDR X2 PS2 USA
8. Yokai Watch 3 3DS USA /PAL
Nintendo: We hate piracy. Lock up Melee!
Also Nintendo: Doesn't rerelease their gamecube/n64 games.
Gabe of Steam fame said it best: "Piracy is a service problem"
My mum through out of all my SNES and 64 boxes and kept the cartridges to save space, she was planning on giving them away. I sold all my old unboxed retro games, Wii and GameCube era earlier this year and it paid to repair my roof. Prime adulting 😭😂
@DiscoDriver44 Oh not this free melee dumbfoolery again...
I’m 38 years old. I’ve been playing games on Nintendo systems (and many of its rivals) since the late 80’s. I still had most of that stuff, until I started selling it five years ago. I made GOOD money! I understood why Nintendo was so strict when it comes to pricing. Their products hold value like no other (of the big three). Even old instruction booklets, old NES cart sleeves and some surprises in my collection. Like the going price for Frankenstein on the NES! And I didn’t even test it before selling it (had no way).
@gcunit ill be getting to sticker star soon myself. Let me know how it progresses for you and if it's the dumpster fire they all make it out to be
@Clyde_Radcliffe import it, UK have copies for like $50aud
I don’t blame companies for this. There is no reason for the second hand market to be so inflated other than greed. They charge what they hope someone would pay and not what it’s worth. Pure profit/greed driven. I usually will go get the Jpn version(often at a reasonable price) when NA sellers wanna be silly.
@COVIDberry It worth noting that when a British person uses the word "pants" (outside of its comedic meaning), we're usually referring to underwear, not trousers or the like.
@GannonBanned Doom on the SNES is about £25.00 on eBay without box and around £35-65 with box depending on quality, but I guess you may be looking for BNIB?
Ahem... flashcart
@Nin10dood love it my dude, just restarted collecting after life hit and had to sell my original collection. Just over half way on a boxed N64 set... What'd you pay for StarCraft 64?
@Ryu_Niiyama Same. Most of these issues aren't so prevalent for Japanese second hand games.
I got a Japanese DSI XL for about $40, outside of a single scratch on the camera, it's otherwise in like-new condition. $40 in the US second hand DS market gets me a worn out DS Lite with several dead pixels.
Call it a blessing or curse, maybe a type of self-defense, but any desire I have to own retro games is usually for obscure/unpopular games, these are typically no more than $20, and never get re-releases which also makes them targets for "just emulate it", but likewise the point of buying is usually to have the box+manual to look at. If it's just the cart/disc it is useless to me, because I end up emulating it anyway.
For a while buying used copies of GameCube games was worthwhile because of Devolution, where you'd get some outstanding enhancements (usually) but time has rendered it a fruitless endeavor. Unless you're in need of some very specific features you're better off using something else.
So yeah, call me when Nintendo decides to re-releases Hotel Dusk on Switch 2.
When I see grown adults have a large collection of what are essentially toys, it just strikes me as arrested development. Playing games as an adult isn't a bad thing. I have a Switch and Wii U, plus some of the minis, so I don't want to sound like a hypocrite, and video gaming has never been more accepted than it is now (despite the ridiculous articles from places like the New York Times complaining about the "dangers" of video games). But I also keep it in perspective. I have a full-time job, a wife, a family, other interests and hobbies. I honestly don't have time to play hundreds or thousands of games. It's fun in the morning before work or at nighttime after work to play for an hour, 2 hours, and then do other things.
I have like 30 game boy advance/color games mint condition with the boxes so I'm going to sell a few of those and buy a MiSTer FPGA unit and finally be done with collecting. I will have no more need for anything below PlayStation 2 other than the select games I decided to keep for those systems for display as I have the full library for literally every system below that so it doesn't really matter anymore to me.
You can try import the Japanese versions of some games which cost a lot less than Western versions. I know Zelda A Link to the Past, Super Mario RPG and Earthbound Japanese versions cost way less than Western copies. Yes it’s in Japanese but it’s an alternate way of owning an official copy of a retro game with box and manual without paying out the nose for it. Plus the Japanese box arts usually are superior.
I started collecting around 2008 . . . that was the time. Economic crisis thanks to bad lenders and financiers, I was still gainfully employed and eBay was full of NES and SNES deals. Didn't take long to surpass my childhood collection and build an N64 one to boot. But too many just sit on the shelf now in their custom UGC boxes I took such pride in creating. My best advice is ignore seeking a game merely because it's "rare" or will round out your collection (or sub-collection). Many of those types of games are pants (love that phrase!) and the ones that aren't are often available in other formats now (I'm looking at you, Wild Guns). And I've played the uber common and cheap Star Wars E1 Racer a thousand times more than Conker's and my more pricey games.
On the Switch, I've locked into ONE game for the past year plus (Asphalt 9). It is so refreshing to me to play a single game I truly enjoy and not be on the hamster wheel of game accumulation anymore.
Fun topic, good article, and as always, to each his/her own.
@sketchturner I'm with you on that. I just don't care anymore. Life didn't go as planned and now I'm stuck with all these games and game systems I'm getting rid of at the moment. there's some sadness I guess but the relief of ..."letting go" feels go. I guess I suffered from nostalgia.
I never traded in or lost a game in my life
I have all the boxes and manuals of the games I aquired that way.
Edit: ok I lost a few games, my baldurs gate collection and Golden sun Cart I lend to a friend and then his bag got stolen. He never took the trouble to replace it either, I haven't spoken to him in a decade or so.
This article is... weird. It's basically saying "There's no real reason game prices should be this high, except for the most basic, nigh-universal law of economics, supply and demand. Someone should do something about that."
High used game prices are great. Great for the owners to make a quick buck, great for brick-and-mortar ma-and-pa used games stores to keep up a business. The only ones who it's slightly less good for are the ones who want the games and don't feel like ponying up the cash, and it's hard for me to feel too sorry for them. After all, you don't need to collect retro games. It's not some human right like food, water, shelter. And the author doesn't even play them.
I finished my retro collection about 8 years ago. I was lucky to be able to get most of the SNES games I wanted CIB for £20-30 each and the GameCube games were dirt cheap back then too. Now I just collect for the last gen consoles that are out of fashion and doing the car boot circuit. It's a good place to be as a collector, not only is it getting ridiculously expensive it's also a dying hobby that's being spoilt by eBay, secondhand shops and digital distribution.
I miss the days when I could find copies of games like The Thousand Year Door for £3.99 in the local Oxfam or a box of NES carts for a tenner at a car boot sale. I am glad the switch has been such a success though and there is a fairly solid physical library as it'll give me a reason to collect for at least another decade.
@Willsy
Thanks man.
It has taken me about 8 years to get them all.
I bought Starcraft about 6 years ago for $90 Australian.
Bargain.
I bought most of the rarest ones first before they went up luckily.
The halfway mark is a good place to be, I wish you luck getting the rest.
Prices fluctuate all the time.
Half of the time being at the right place at the right time helps.
i dont care of the price if a want it ive buy it
@kingbk Yes, with no scorn or derision intended whatsoever, I would say that in your terms you’ve absolutely just described yourself as having arrested development . I don’t class it as such though - I have a wife, run a good business, have grown up kids, live in a nice countryside house as a result of years of property development. I also have a retro game & CRT collection. I stopped collecting years ago - it hardly takes up any of my time as I don’t game that much, but it’s nice to dip into the collection every now & then for nostalgia. Or just to have the occasional gaming evening with friends. Despite the stigma attached to adult gaming, I reckon as long as it’s not an addiction/problem, it’s fine to do what you makes you happy & not be overly concerned what other people think.
@bluedogrulez Good to see an N64 forever representative here - yes I agree. A good warning for people getting into this is not to fall down the rabbit hole too deeply. Just get a few of the games you love, a CRT or flat panel solution & enjoy. Get too obsessive & you’ll lose an element of simply enjoying in the games for their own sake.
I haven’t sold a single game since the late 90s. I go out of my way to buy obscure, limited release titles. I am sitting on a potential gold mine
@sikthvash nah I’d be good with just a red cartridge, I wanna pay like $10-$15 tho because I’ll never sell it just play it here and there
@kingbk hey there, Ward Cleaver - you could maybe play games with your wife and kids, idk just throwing out a hypothetical
@Wavey84
HDTVs have gotten much better in terms of lag. Typically the lag numbers that get published are lag in the middle of the screen. Screens still draw from the top like a CRT. If a CRT was measured for the lag in the middle of the screen is would be 1/2 a frame or 8.33 ms. I have a 10 ms gaming monitor. So the difference would be less than 2 ms which no one would ever be able to tell. It feels silky smooth. You are right about emulation adding lag. The best seem to add at least a frame and the worst much more. I do have a CRT that I game on some, but I also like to play either the original systems with an OSSC (microsecond lag device) attached to a low lag display or an analogue system (no lag).
@kingbk
I'm surprised you had time to read and respond on a gaming site with that busy life you have that you described. If you do have other hobbies, like many of us on here do, I'm sure you'd realize that gaming is the cheap hobby. I enjoy hockey, snowmobiling, and travel. Those all cost more than the thousand dollars a year I spend on gaming. But if you collected for the 15 years or so that I have you are bound to acquire a decent collection of games. Everyone makes choices with their money. We cut cable years ago and don't drink. Some people spend more on each of those than I spend on games. Those are probably the people judging me for what I spend on games. But my wife allows it and my kids love it, so I'll get over it.
@cleveland124 Well said
@kingbk Sounds like a bit of sour grapes, to be honest. I'm married, I'm a mom, I have a full-time job, and I have many other hobbies. That doesn't mean that I also haven't collected games over time, and that I can't enjoy those, sometimes by myself but sometimes with my family.
Btw, I enjoyed the article, but it's not like this is a new phenomenon, and it's not limited to Nintendo games (though those do tend to hold their value better than most). The secret to having the games you want in your collection is to avoid getting duped into trading them in for peanuts along the way. Sorry! I've made some mistakes in that regard in the past and paid for them too!
@Wavey84 I’m totally with you on CRT - that’ll always be my favourite way to play. Bizarrely, though, in the last couple of years emulation has progressed to the point that with new techniques like run-ahead emulation combined with high refresh rate monitors, it’s now actually possible to emulate some systems with less overall latency than a console+CRT setup. On the pro melee scene they sometimes actually have to build in a fraction of delay to keep parity with the CRT setups.
I’ll always be happy with my CRTs though - perfectly fast enough for me.
@Mips Except, dude, Zapper! CRT is must-have. And I enjoy remakes and upgrades as well as anybody, I think, but there's just something about playing original games on their original hardware. Even when it feels aged and flawed (looking at you, Atari 2600 and crappy joystick).
@Wavey84 I know what you mean, I want the game running perfectly as intended so I’m not interested in that stuff. And as you say, the perfect smooth motion clarity of CRT is wonderful. I also have an LG (CX) OLED buy still keep my Panasonic GT60 plasma for its perfect smooth rendering of 1080p with no blur.
@kirbygirl Yes! Another reason to keep one around. I do agree - i love using original carts on original hardware - gives the gaming session a sense of occasion I just don’t get with emulators.
@Mips I still play cylinders on my grandpa’s phonograph on occasion, so I’m probably not representative, lol.
@Wavey84 The GT60 has 23ms which isn’t too bad - and yes I never use BFI on my LG, it looks way too dim. I love modern gaming on the set though - I’m much less picky than I thought I’d be.
@kirbygirl I love that!
@Wavey84
To be clear, I'm talking about ways to use a scaler with original hardware or FPGA on HDTVs. They cost microseconds of lag. Not emulation. I've given up on emulation.
https://displaylag.com/benq-rl2755hm-gaming-monitor-review/
This is a review of a gaming monitor. This is from the review:
Measured input lag:
Top: 3.0ms
Middle: 10.2ms
Bottom: 17.7ms
The average input lag of the BenQ RL2755HM is approximately 10ms.
So we need to compare apples to apples. When you hear microseconds or 0 ms response time for an SD CRT, what that means is that is when the top of the screen starts to draw. It draws the full frame over 16.67ms. So if you were to test it you would get:
Top: 0ms
Middle: 8.33ms
Bottom: 16.67ms
Average 8.33ms.
So the difference between a gaming monitor and an SD CRT is less than 2 ms. Your OLED difference would be less than 6 ms because 14 ms is the average lag for that (60hz content).
There is no perfect monitor. Every CRT I've seen has geometry/color issues, doesn't come in large sizes, weighs alot, takes up alot of space, isn't bright, and is very reflective.
LCDs do use sample and hold which tends to create the impression of blurring. Have you tried black frame insertion? That would try to mimic CRT motion as the phosphors go to black inbetween frames which to your eyes looks like smooth motion.
Like I said, I use CRTs as well in my various setups. So if you're happy with that great, keep doing what you are doing. Modern TVs aren't perfect and it doesn't look like they'll be there anytime soon. But I do think they keep closing the gaps on motions which is good because they aren't making CRTs anymore.
It always feels weird that used nintendo games are so expensive because of demand, but Nintendo isn't getting any money when I buy an old ds game from ebay.
I wish they'd release more old games on the switch, like the Wii U's virtual console.
I've just read a quote on how something is exactly worth what someone is willing to pay for them. You could argue that's true if it's a rare item but also argue that it's not worth that high price so swings and roundabouts.
I mean just look at the crazy situation with scalpers on any new gaming product especially PS5 now, if people are happy/desperate to be ripped off then this practice will continue.
As for expensive retro Nintendo games, it's not just old games, even new or current gen Nintendo 1st party games are mostly never discounted, even a launch game like Zelda BOTW though to be fair Nintendo have only recently started doing some dicounts maybe due to the pandemic and people not being able to go out.
The irony is, articles like this push the prices up further.
I bought a complete and mint condition Ghost Trick for £25 three months ago. It seems I got there just in time, as prices have shot up since for some reason.
I'd never owned a DS or 3DS so decided to buy a 3DS along with a few games given it's such a unique console (though I can't see 3D so that's lost on me).
This game priced 3,200,000 IDR in my country.
I knew it was damn expensive but still cheaper a little bit than from Ebay price.
I believe it's because the children that played these games and were forced to give them up, one way or another, are adults with disposable incomes now. So people are capitalizing on, like others have stated, nostalgia. Or those douche b's that think "everything older is better". You know the people, "vinyl has a pure sound" or "CRT is the only way to game". THOSE people.
I don't know but TTYD is basically the best game ever.
But there is a way around it
just emulate
I used to be hell-bent on owning all my old games physical, but this year I transitioned to pure emulation and I’m a lot happier. I still maintain a very small Switch physical collection, but even that might go by the wayside for me next year. I just got tired of maintaining a ton of plastic cartridges. The accuracy and convenience of emulation is stellar in 2021.
Keep in mind, I am talking about old carts from SNES/NES. I emulate stuff like that, and I used to own every game I emulate until I sold the collection this year. If it’s a switch game, I buy it.
@Anti-Matter That’s one of the best IIDX console releases ever. I used to have it!
The last 2 years haven't helped either. I bought Paper Mario 2 again in 2017 for 35 pounds. I gave it to my cousin for her birthday the next year as I wanted it to stay in the family rather than be sold to a stranger.
I checked it on ebay a few months ago and it was at 60 pounds.
I'm as speechless as Princess Jasmine .
@BloodNinja based ninja
My collection is now exclusives, games too good to get rid or I'm attached too.
My best buy is Pocky and Rocky 2 CIB, got for £35 about 7 years ago, now it's a cool £300+, still play it.
My best bargain buy, a mint Japanese Dreamcast, by mint I mean it's white as snow. Got a gun and fishing rod and a couple of games. The guy didn't know if it worked and sold it to me for 300 yen (£2).
Now I only buy if it's bargain prices and from my hunts through auctions and carboots I usually come away empty handed
@Funneefox sorry, what does based mean? 😓
@sketchturner Same. I used to be obsessive, but realized in my early 30s that they got in the way of things that brought me true joy and improvement. Nostalgia, I've learned, is a dangerous thing for me. It prevented me from experiencing true joy as an adult. I now focus more on the world around me than my virtual world.
Of course, I still like games, but play no more than an hour or two a week.
@Burning_Spear Virtual Console doesn't have any effect on retro game prices. For example, Breath of Fire 2 has been available on every VC and it is available on NSO, it's still $80 loose. Shall we even mention Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Final Fantasy 3 (SNES) all of which have been released multiple times across various systems digitally.
There is no solution to this problem, collectors pay alot and if they ever decide to sell, they want to atleast make their money back if they can.
@BloodNinja internet term that means you are very cool and have good opinions👍
This is the prime reason we're seeing so many retro consoles pop up as of late ala the Steam Deck, GP-XP and the AYN Odin; there's a high demand in the gaming market for retro classics on consoles like gamecube and Ps2 and these manufacturers know that and it's why they're striking the iron now while it's hot with these beefy portables and they know that customers will eat them up because they know that people are not going to pay outrageous prices on second hand websites and they're tired of waiting for the main publishers to release them on a digital store front.
It's quite brilliant, actually.
Buying retro is an investment in my entertainment future. I also buy dvd/blu-rays, music CDs and books. I love the convenience of streaming and digital collections like NSO, but I don't want to be overly reliant on an internet connection to entertain me.
About fifteen years ago I started getting serious about building my Nintendo collection instead of reselling. I luckily got most of it when prices were low, but I'm still collecting. I won't say what I paid for my copy of Chibi Robo, but it was worth it. These are games that I'll go back to for years to come.
It may seem like an expensive investment, but once your collection gets to a certain size, you'll see a substantial return. Not in reselling, but in being able to stay in and be entertained without having to spend a dime. For the last month, I've been playing Earthbound on my Analogue Super NT on my days off. There really is something special about being able to play a game the way it was intended. I get endless satisfaction from my modest collection.
Retro game prices really do suck, honestly. I broke out my Wii to play Guitar Hero. One of my guitars is a little junky. I found out that it would cost hundreds of dollars to replace the guitar. It's kind of absurd.
@Funneefox I have worked my whole life for this status but thank you lol
@HexagonSun I've been playing Earthbound on my Analogue Super NT on my days off. There really is something special about being able to play a game the way it was intended.
Well actually, it was intended to be played on a real Super Nintendo hooked up to a CRT.
@PhhhCough "CRT is the only way to game". THOSE people.
Well retro games were meant to be played on a CRT without input lag and graphics smoothed out by the TV.
@Lyricana NSO is the most expensive and unreliable way to collect games.
I think the solution is open pre-orders by Nintendo for reprints of current most expensive retro games.
I'd happily buy a newly printed copy of Fire Emblem PoR and RD, Earthbound, or several others.
Heck, I also think the never-released games that have been localized (Earthbound Beginnings, Fire Emblem 1, Star Fox 2, Sin & Punishment, and a few others) should be given physical releases.
If people didn’t try to rip people off then after market prices wouldn’t be so high. This isn’t the fault of the companies. No different than now when people use bots to keep product to themselves. Greed shouldn’t be normalized but it is, and that’s sad.
@Moistnado I don't collect games, nor do I want to. It's also nowhere near the most expensive. That's heinously inaccurate. Many physical games cost hundreds or thousands to collect. Lately some have gone for over a million. $5-$10 a year on a family plan for NSO can fathomably be considered the "most expensive" way.
I will say it's unreliable from a collecting standpoint, but that's like saying Netflix is unreliable for collecting Blu-rays and DVDs. I mean, yes. It's technically true but it's irrelevant because that's not what the series does.
In the lifetime of the Switch I doubt I'll spend more than a grand total of $60 for the service. And that's generously assuming I keep NSO for four more years with the expansion pack and factoring in the previous two years without and the current year with. I bought $250 worth of VC games on the Wii over 2-3 years and never play them anymore because I don't want to use a Wii now. I'm not saying it's a perfect service but I have access to 5-10 times the games I had on Wii for a fraction of the price ($20 invested to date on NSO for 3 years on a family plan).
awwww you mean all the modern free to play garbageware isn't so great that we have so many people respect the good old days and pay a premium?
It's not worth it for Nintendo to do print runs of everything old so a few players can grab them in bargain bins. They protect their IP so maybe someday they bring it back the way they want to.
Nintendo only makes games so they have to protect their stuff more than the other companies.
@Meteoroid it is about ripping people off. The game is no longer of any use/desire to you. The fact it’s not currently available does not mean that you should charge double or triple the price for something that isn’t even in new condition(or even if it’s new). But all most people care about is profit. You didn’t make or have anything to do with the distribution of the game, you just want to rip someone off. You do you, I just think we should be better and I stand by what I said. Most scalpers and resellers are opportunists or in the case of bot users cheaters and I find that to be repugnant. Value is subjective and unfortunately most only care about money rather than helping out another person. Just because greed is normalized doesn’t make it the right choice.
@Lyricana it costs $50 a year for NSO plus "expansion". All of these games can be obtained in minutes for free online. I play Super Metroid on my 3ds once or twice a year and I don't worry about my save data "expiring". I paid less than $5 in a a sale for it. I'll pay a few quid for the convenience of an old rom I like, and already own in multiple ways to be on a convenient new platform but these games have little to no monetary value. I would only be paying for convenience. $50 is not the price of a coffee. I bought Metroid Dread for less than $50. You can buy a N64, controller and a few games for $50. As for suggesting that NSO is cheap because you can club together with friends and share the cost via a scheme is like saying stretched limousines are cheaper than buying train tickets. Based on 10 people sharing a stretched limousine, and booking in advance, it is cheaper than the maximum price for an individual train ride... who cares? Besides NSO doesn't even work properly. If you enjoy NSO, good for you. But it isn't cheap.
That's why I'm ok with retro emulation (in cases that the company doesn't release digitally). This money won't go for the rightful owners of the IP, there is no indication that I'm into they're product and I want a remake/sequel/reboot.
I think every company should let us buy digitally their games to show them our support and don't need to search them in the "shadows" of the internet
@Meteoroid I usually do give away games that I don’t want for free (or just have the new owner pay shipping) so cool it with the snark. If being snarky is the best response you have I would appreciate it you move along. My opinion has not changed. You place value on capital gains over people when you don’t provide any part of the product creation and distribution beyond second hand scalping and I don’t (outside of marketing my skills as an employee) so again if you want to be opportunistic that’s on you. I choose not to, simple as that. I feel if one has gotten enjoyment out of a product then it has served it’s purpose, no need to rip someone else off when you can pass that enjoyment on more easily. Have a nice day. Do something kind for someone tomorrow.
Had I never opened any of my childhood games from the NES on up, I'd be rich today, but my childhood would've been poor
I let GameStop totally disrespect me by letting them sell me a new copy of Ghost Trick without the box/manual, just a crappy CD sleeve and the cart.
It eats me up every now and then but I've learned from this mistake.
On the bright side I'm usually into games that don't fetch a high price, usually. Just last year I got the original print of GC Sonic Riders for just ~10 somethings, and Sonic & the BK for less.
Gems Collection though? Too expensive for what it is. If I got that one I'd have the complete set of GC Sonic games. I'd be missing about 6 spinoffs on Wii (and Colors which I have no intention of getting.)
It doesn't have to be this way....
@Moistnado First of all, if ten people shared a limo and it was cheaper than them individually buying a ticket for a train ride.. then yes, it would be cheaper. That's how basic economics work. That's like claiming that someone's living expenses aren't cheaper when they have roommates and split bills than if they lived in a worse place that cost them more individually.
Except here this is something specifically designed to be cheaper. The fact that you called it a scheme is laughably preposterous. It's a friends and family plan.
It's meant to support up to 8 people. I'm on it with my fiancée, my sister and five of our friends. Despite how angry and combative you are over this, it absolutely is cheaper for me and my friends/family than any other alternative beyond you advocating stealing games. It costs me $10 a year. If other people don't have the means to get together a group to do the friends and family plan and pay less and it doesn't work for them, then that's fine. But it does for me and there's no amount of your railing that will make it expensive to me. I'd much rather pay $10 a year for limitless access to the NSO games, have the free DLC and game trials, access to online, etc. Not to mention I can then play all of those games easily on the go and online. And it all works perfectly fine for me.
I'm sorry it isn't a good experience for you and you don't like the service, but that doesn't make the family plan expensive or a scheme.
Weird, they cost me nothing when unavailable at all or at a reasonable price.
I have a massive collection of original Wii games. Some are super rare and expensive. On my travels, I lost my original Wii and replaced it, only to find most of my games are region-locked out. I found that it was way easier and cheaper to buy a hacked Wii with the entire Wii back catalogue on a hard drive than to get a PAL Wii in Asia. Some disks work on the hacked Wii, with some tinkering, but there isn't much point when I have it on the hard drive anyway. With anti consumer practices like region locking and leasing out games for one year in NSO, I feel like it's totally fine to use unofficial ways to play old games, especially when you have already paid for them.
Yeah its crazy, my brother is a collector, has really old games still sealed. He even sold Zelda twilight princess (gamecube=not that old) for 600€
I was like what?
He has from neogeo, game & watch, atari and consoles i never heard of lol with many games sti sealed.
@Don I imagine one of the big issues is actually getting the hardware required to make the retro consoles.
Take the NES for example. It uses a Ricoh 2A03 microprocessor for a CPU. This was discontinued in 2003. So Nintendo would have to go out of their way to meet up with Ricoh, establish a new contract to make this microprocessor, somehow convince them to make a product only Nintendo themselves would ever want, and somehow make money off of a console that stopped being supported decades ago, with games largely available on other platforms.
Hell, look even something like the Wii U could be difficult to restart production for. Despite being relatively recent hardware, the "Espresso" CPU it used stopped getting produced in 2017. So even newer hardware can be hard to restart production for.
At that point, it is MUCH easier and cheaper to simply emulate the old hardware.
@Lyricana I don't ask my friends and family for money to play games with me. "I'd much rather pay $10 a year for limitless access to the NSO games" Ahem, one year sounds like a limit to me. My friends and family have the best deal because playing a game with me costs nothing, and I don't pay anything either because I paid over 15 years ago for these games. why would I pay again? If you think $80 shared among a group of people isnt very awkward, inconvenient and expensive, all power to you. Enjoy your janky rental games. I did not advocate stealing games, show me the missing games. It isn't copyright infringement to make copies of your own games that you purchased 15 years ago. Nintendo are only renting these games because reselling them yet again, repeatedly on each new console opens nintendo up to legal scrutiny.
Why is a mint copy of Uncanny X-men #1 worth 1000s of pounds? Same thing going on here. I'm sure the market will crash eventually as it becomes more saturated.
You guys can just skipped this article and watch the movie
8-bit Christmas
MiSTer FPGA, problem solved lmao. I have many rare near mint games and I just sell them when I want things now.
@NoTinderLife we watched this last week. Surprisingly enjoyable I thought.
In 1995 I made a mistake that I still regret having sold my SNES US version with Super Metroid, Final Fantasy III, Brain Lord, Donkey Kong Country, The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past, Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures, Mortal Kombat II, Top Gear 2, Vortex, Rise Of The Robots just to get enough money to buy a Sony Playstation with Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors and Battle Arena Toshinden 2. Now I don't regret it any longer though I've every means to obtain SNES console and each and every game I sold back then, I won't do it as it will be not "my nostalgia".
P.S. Now I won't sell any game in my collection ever!
@Ziondood
They actually did re-release Ghost Trick digitally. It's available on iOS
@Crono1973 Of course. I was referring to just plugging in a cartridge and turning on the power. It just works. I have an SNES and a CRT. I've since moved on to HD solutions with much success.
This is a pretty significant problem. How do we play our old games if they're basically inaccessible?
Hmm... If only there was a way to somehow play these games on modern systems. But I'm just dreaming.
Just use roms. Nintendo should sell stuff if they don't want us to emulate
One thing I never understood was why Nintendo and other companies didn't re-release games when they ran on the same console.
Why during the Wii era did they not release Paper Mario 2, Viewtiful Joe, Ikaruga, Luigi's Mansion 1 as Wii titles and just put a originally on Gamecube image on the cover.
I understood why they wouldn't do this with games being updated, eg Pikmin 1 and 2 but why not release the games again to give them that second chance.
Nintendo just like all other companies have to pay to have these games ported to newer systems using different firmware than originally first of all, that takes time and lots of it. They also have to pay for rights and licensing and trademarks etc etc. They also expect to make a profit off of everything they do just like everyone else. There is nothing wrong with the prices. If anything Sony is the one that milks everything.
Removed - unconstructive; user is banned
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