VideoGame_Discussion

Growing up my parents would always rent a video game at the local video rental. The two NES games I remember most were GI joe and Power Blade 2.

I made a deal for a power blade 2 on NintendoAge like 8 years ago for $65 (market price at the time, so maybe a little longer than 8 years). When it came time to accept he asked for $70, claiming the price didn't include shipping. I was stubborn and said he was just trying to nickel and dime me. We ended up never making a deal and that's the closest I got to ever owning a copy. I think it's like over $400 now?

There are several NES/SNES games I'd like to own but refuse to pay what they're going for now. Those don't bother me quite as much though, since I'm mostly switching to using Everdrives. The main thing that comes to mind though is the Gamecube component cables. I remember them being around $40-50 for quite some time. I kept putting it off because I didn't want to pay that much for a set of cables, and hoped to luck into finding a pair at Gamestop. Well, that never happened, I stopped following the prices for a while, then when I checked again they were going for over $100. I still didn't bite the bullet, then before I knew it, they were going for over $200.

Thankfully there are some solid alternatives for aftermarket gamecube cables now. I still don't care enough to buy them instead of using a Wii, but they exist. The Prism cable is like $60 and seems fine.

Like @Scott I don't mind pirating old games. I enjoy collecting but Snatcher for instance is a game I've never owned the US release of and don't care to given the price. It depends on your goals and why you are buying things. My main personal example is the Magic card The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. If I were investing I would have no problem buying and holding the card. But for what it is as a game piece (one I would admittedly love to have) it's just not worth it at the price point, especially when you consider crap happens and playing a card leads to putting more wear on it.

So that card is probably my top example. If it was like $500 I wouldn't mind having it as a game piece. I can't think of any video games that I'd like to own if they were less as I am getting away from super old disc collecting with my oldest stuff now being PS1 in that regard.

Fire Emblem Path of Radiance - I had a friend who had a copy, and I was confident he'd eventually break down and sell it to me, so I never super pursued picking it up. I assumed at the time it was one of those games that is expensive but not rare, so I'd inevitably eventually find a copy for cheap out and about.

But nope - i've never came across it.

bumsplikity wrote:

Finding PoR for $8 from a rental store selling off some games was actually what got me hooked on Fire Emblem. I since sold that copy, and rebought/sold it off many times. Beat it over 5 times and honestly if I want to play it again I'll fire up Dolphin.

@Gypsy I now have it on the steam deck and look forward to trying it, as i've heard it's one of the best games in the series.

@bumsplikity personally that and Radiant Dawn are my favorites but there is a bit of bias there as I started there.

bumsplikity wrote:
Some years ago, I was looking for a new copy of Path of Radiance. It had already gone up in price a bit, but not crazily. Someone on here offered it to me for $100. I didn't take it. Probably should have, as it's a great game, but yeah, hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

I'm cheap and most every game/system pre PS3/360 era is too much for me. The other issue is finding systems that actually work. I have gotten a couple of N64s for varying prices over the years with varying issues.

I think the biggest one for me though is Rock Band/Guitar Hero. My kids are now 5 and 8 and are big into gaming. My wife is not but grew up a musician, playing multiple instruments. I think it would be really fun to play these games as a family. Finding a system to do that would be no problem really, PS3 and 360s are relatively cheap and I've read you can actually play some of the newer games in the series on the PS5. The problem is finding instruments. I get that it is a niche market at this point, but you would think someone would sell replacment instruments at a decent price.

I had a hard time finding decent deals on the instruments too. The dongles for them are the craziest part. You can get a guitar for $30-$40 off Mercari, but you need the dongles (which I've seen regularly go for $80 or more). I eventually bit the bullet on the best I could find, but it wasn't cheap.

beavis wrote:

bumsplikity wrote:

I was looking at my trade history here and I traded:
Tales of Phantasia (Game Boy Advance), Gran Turismo 4 -- Strategy Guide (guide)

for Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Gamecube) & the Nintendo Player's Guide

ToP was brand new from Circuit City clearance. GT4 guide was definitely a Best Buy penny guide.

I have a nearly-complete NA Virtual Boy collection. Just need to get Panic Bomber and... ugh... Waterworld. I can get one of those for a tolerable price. Honestly, I'm going to treat my collection like it's complete once I have Panic Bomber.

There's also my Kirby collection. I've got every game in some form, barring Kirby Slide (no one cares about that) and Kirby Air Ride. That game gets pricier every time you blink, so I might not get it. I think someone offered to trade it for my newly-acquired F-Zero GX, but I'd rather not trade a great racer for a lesser one.

I bought Air Ride in high school for $20, then foolishly sold it back the next day when I discovered how bad it really was. At the same time, though, I used the store credit to buy some GBC games, one being Game & Watch Gallery 3. I formed some awesome memories with that one, so much so I had to buy a new cart this year so I could replay it without overwriting my old scores. The moral of the story is: Stop worrying about expensive games and form precious memories with cheaper ones--those'll be more valuable in the long run.

For the most part, I've stopped collecting games unless it's a new release special edition for a specific game series (Zelda, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Metal Gear, amiibos).

I actually want to sell off the majority of my collection, but it's a lot of effort and I want top dollar. I will probably wait until they rise up in value even more and sell them off when I'm near retirement and have the time.

@SupremeSarna virtual boy... Ugh another painful memory. I had the console, boxed, and most games. Sold ages ago, and always wanted to rebuy. That ship has sailed...

Sun wrote:

Kinda in the same boat. I almost want to get rid of everything to stop the fomo and additional spend. Yet, after it happens... I know I'd regret it.

Sooo much work to sell it all, ugh.

I genuinely had no idea so many old games are so expensive now

As someone who just traded for a copy of Earthbound on here, never underestimate what you can find at a yard sale and what someone else is looking for -- but you are going to have to give up expensive things from your collection that you might not come across or own for a very long time. Nevertheless, I will probably never own a copy of either Panic Restaurant or Little Samson.

Pokemon Crystal CIB comes to mind. It is quite pricey now and I'm not sure I can stomach spending $500+ for it.

Cevil wrote:
This hurts. Around 10 years ago, I sold a sealed Gold, Silver, and Crystal, together for about $200.

Rhythm Thief on 3ds. Its one of the few games on the system that i still want. It was like $75 now its hundreds. I have tons of games to trade toward it but just cant find a match and i refuse to pay hundreds of dollars to satisfy my OCD.

Damian254 wrote:

That's an awesome trade!

And yeah it's always going to take good stuff to get good stuff dealing with peer to peer transactions. If you wanna trade in junk for something good you just have to take the value hit and dump it at a store while also waiting for them to get something good that you want in. I had a trade here somewhat recently for Solotarobo. Don't think I would have bought that game given what it goes for.

sa330206 wrote:
Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure? Hundreds? Wow. Had no idea. I remember briefly considering that game awhile back. The title caught my attention. Sounded unusual. Didn't buy it though in the end.

nonamesleft wrote:

Yeah thats the one. Price charting has it at 365 complete right now!

$250 is probably my limit. Luckily nothing on my to buy list is over that limit unless I want it pristine or something.

Honestly I've been so apathetic to it all since around 2015 that I don't really pursue it anymore. I stopped going to thrift stores as most of them (all around me) check internet prices. Same goes for garage sales. Don't want to spend 100's in gas in the hopes of finding a great deal on something I'll likely never play. I don't like reselling, so I'll leave it to other lucky people.

I'd kill a man for Monkey Island 1 and 2. Thankfully they're easily accessible on GOG and the Talkie mod restores them to their pre-re-release state so it's not like they're unplayable, I just really want to own it physically but the insane pricetag on all of the old LucasArts point-n-clicks is super deterring.

Gypsy wrote:

Dolphin is the better way to play PoR and Radiant Dawn anyway

The speed up feature is honestly really nice

@flamingtoastjpn Sounds like it. I've already done the hardest difficulty with "bad" characters so I'm not sure how much left there is for me to try but yeah if I play again I'm doing it that way.

flamingtoastjpn wrote:


Oh hype - i was wondering about that exact thing.

I played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance recently and used the fast forward feature. It was a game changer.

For me it's definitely anything complete prior to the PS1 era. Even PS1 stuff is eye watering now, but I can't stand loose discs.

Some loose titles are out of the question too. I love playing Pocky & Rocky 2 and Aero Fighters on my flash cart, but they're going to stay on the flash cart for the forseeable future.

bumsplikity wrote:

found this in a tub in mint condition at a pawn shop years ago.

My regret is this, after school one day (middle school) I rode my bike to goodwill on the way home and saw in the front glass case an insane amount (50+) of sealed, but Greatest Hits copies of Final Fantasy VII going for $3 a pop. I left them all there because I had already played FFVII

I need Gitaroo Man back.

RainMoN wrote:


One of my favorite games and soundtracks.

Kicking myself for buying Castlevania Chronicles at retail (i think it was $14 or $19 at retail price) and then selling it later on.
The majority of my retro games im kicking myself for selling way cheap (especially on here). I go back and look at my prices and I'm like "oy, what was i thinking?"

Don't do what i just did and go to VGPC, choose a console and then list the games from highest sold to lowest sold (i know the percentage averages are off)...
I didn't know Dragon Fighter was that rare, i've owned 2 COPIES in my lifetime, both bought by my grandparents in the late 90s...
$550 average...loose

beavis wrote:

Check Pawn Shops and disc exchange like stores.
Also flea markets. I've found 360 era Rock Band/Guitar Hero instruments for $20 and under.
I go home and test them, if they don't work, i just keep exchanging until i find one that works.

If you're interested I have Guitar Hero Live (for Xbox One) with one guitar and 2 USB dongles that i'm willing to sell for WAYYY UNDER market value.
I also have multiple copies of DJ Hero and DJ Hero 2 for Xbox 360 with the turntables, i think i have 4 sets of turntables.
It was our party game and that fact that you could hook a mic up and sing/rap along with the mixes made it that much better.

Simon_Belmont wrote:

Yeah like many things pricecharting is a useful tool but it's not a perfect be all end all. Some stuff requires additional research. Anything with cardboard you can't trust it at all because there is so much variance for condition.

Simon_Belmont wrote:

I'm actually moving in August and decided after I posted to check the Seattle area Facebook Marketplace and there seem to be a lot of potential options. If I don't end up getting anything I'll hit you up.

Gypsy wrote:

What? That's news to me!

You mean lowest on Pricecharting doesn't assume it's MINT and LIKE NEW?

Simon_Belmont wrote:

Wow, I didn't realize this game was going for so much. I think when I finally got around to buying it, it was going for around $40-50, but I managed to get a copy for like $30.

Lunar wrote:

Please sell to me your mint condition game at the fished it out of the trash price.

Gypsy wrote:

By my calculation, GTZ deserves Pricecharting - 20% for fees and - 20% for bro pricing, remember: mint games only.

Gypsy wrote:

still, looking at the ballpark prices scares me.
i had an ALMOST complete set of NES games.
I think i was missing like 26 or 28 (not counting variables and promos and the competition carts)
i don't want to look at the PS1 list either. I had hundreds of complete PS1 games.
Now that i learned that normal everyday PS3 consoles can play PS1 games, i wish i kept a bunch of them.

Scott wrote:

thankfully they added it to the PSP Castlevania Collection (among other collections), so we can actually play it.

Lunar wrote:

yeah for GTZ i do 20-25% off sold Ebay prices
i dont even really check VGPC except for curiosities sake.

beavis wrote:

yeah, keep me posted. i'd rather sell them here than Ebay.
all music games are still going for rediculous money thanks to the pandemic

Simon_Belmont wrote:

I remember seeing TONS of Castlevania Chronicles for $19.99 at numerous GameStops. Probably should've picked it up at some point.

Staraang wrote:

I think that was the retail price new. It was a budget collection near the end of the PS1's life.

Simon_Belmont wrote:

That's correct. It was indeed a budget title. At the time it seemed like they had more than they knew what to do with. I remember often seeing them on the small standalone racks placed randomly on the floor.

I bought a loose copy of a rare Wii U game for $3 a month ago. Sadly, the only way to make it worthwhile to Wii U collectors is to find the case and manual, which aren't sold anywhere without buying a complete copy. That's too expensive to justify doing. So I basically wasted $3.

This thread is making me think back to walking into Toys R Us and seeing the rows upon rows of games and consoles. Deliciousness.

Taking the shrinkwrap off a game box and opening it up was a great experience. I miss those manuals. I used to read them cover to cover before playing a game.

When I was young I collected Atlus games. Just bought them all no matter quality. That was wise.

Feeb wrote:

I bought Disgaea on a whim cause I loved the art lol. This was way way way back shortly after it came out. Before I had joined this site even. I sold it for an absurd amount before the reprint.

SupremeSarna wrote:

I would disagree, loose games are still worth money. What game is it? I bet it's worth more than $3 if it's rare.

I regret trading my complete copy of Metal Gear (NES)

But I did find a compete copy of Persona 2: Innocent Sin (PSP), probably my greatest find.

sa330206 wrote:

The game is Hot Wheels: World's Best Driver. I believe it's a generic licensed game that is only worth keeping to bolster your Wii U collection. Worth $20 loose, $40 CIB. I'd sell it for about the former if anyone were interested.

I had been holding off on picking up Keio Flying squadron for about a decade when it hovered between 200-500. Bit the bullet as a birthday gift to myself when it was around $750. Would likely be out of my range today. Interesting perspective though, depending on what type of merchandise/games people buy. I think Keio would be considered chump change to the Neo Geo AES crowd.

I got a deal on a copy of Keio locally when it was around $900. Got it for $450 and I wanted to throw up. It has skyrocketed since then. The manual looks like it came fresh off the press. The disc has some light scratches, but it plays well.

Ugh, Keio. Yeah, I'm seriously debating if I want to continue toward a full US Sega CD set because of that. For the longest time, it was hovering in the $1000-1200 range, but then the pandemic hit, and blew it up. I'm not paying $3000+ for it, that's for sure. And if it never comes back down... expect my next purge to have quite a few SCD games...

dunno001 wrote:

Happy birthday! Hit me up, what Sega cd you got?

ChronoLe wrote:

It's all relative for sure.

One I just remembered...

Air Limited Edition. Back in the early to mid 00s I started importing Dreamcast like crazy. I had a chance to buy this, I think on eBay and passed for some other titles instead. Had I known how freaking rare it is, I would have bought it instead. It's not about price with this one but availability. Even back in 2011 or so this was basically impossible to find (had a couple people in Japan look for me, for like a $250 bounty back then). I searched regularly for 10+ years and it didn't come up. I'm not as persistent with it now but I look sporadically and still nada.

Also I don't mean just the standard "first print limited edition" that has a slightly different disc art, but one that came in a deluxe box with a jigsaw puzzle. I have confirmed with a couple Japanese collectors that it does exist (yay I'm not crazy) but they also confirmed that essentially, it basically never comes up for sale.

dunno001 wrote:

Yeah unfortunately after the pandemic, I think a lot of full sets went out of reach. I can only imagine how pricy something as niche as SCD games are now days. Even stuff like the Wii U, which isn't even 10 years old, has plenty of $100+ games for it now. It used to be super cheap and many people went for full sets before prices skyrocketed. Either way, hope u find the game at a good price and you can continue on with your full set!

What's so special about this sega cd game, did it only have a limited release or something? Is it any good?

Even a few hundred bucks seems crazy to me, let alone 3k.

sa330206 wrote:

Still undecided on it right now. I did give up on Vita, though that was an experiment on collecting for an "in-print" system. (I declared it a failure; too many Japanese only games that never get cheap and LRG's BS preorder system.) I decided that I would never collect because of Stadium Events and I would never collect TG16 because of Magical Chase. Interestingly, at the time I decided no to those, those both were, in the conditions I would want, around $3000... But since I did start SCD, it's a little tougher to give up. 32X is in the same boat because of Darxide.

Saturn, well... it's never been cheap. I think I have all the games that are currently 4 digits, though. And I'm still slowly working on 5200, 7800, CD-i, 3DO, Game Gear, and N64 Japanese exclusives. And my completed VB, 64DD, PC-FX, and US N64 sets...

Oh, and @Lunar , I'm not giving up yet.

I praise my OCD that full set collecting never appealed to me. It nags at me in plenty of other ways though.

DrizzDrizzDrizz wrote:

It's an average shoot em up with some nice art direction. Low print run as far as I know. When I was finally ready to buy, there was a point where there was never more than 1 copy available on ebay for purchase, typically never for auction, only buy it now. Once the price hit $1000, it appeared that more people were willing to let it go, as I noticed several became available during that period and it has pretty much stayed that way for the past few years. I only wanted to pick it up because I enjoy shmups.

Low print, niche system, decent game = $$$

@dunno001 How many left for SCD, both US and JP? If you've got most of the heavies out of the way, I would say keep on trekking :) I don't have any complete sets myself. If I ever did pursue one, it might be a smaller library like NGPC.

ChronoLe wrote:

Ah, I knew I forgot some systems I was working on, though they are lower priority. I am also collecting NGPC, WS (& WSC), and even game.com, abortion as that was... (And I'm prolly still forgetting something...)

You also remind me that I need to make a final SCD list. I'm only going for a US set, so no Japanese collecting... yet. My Saturn list still does look daunting by size, too...

Keio is a solid game. I seem to recall reading there were about 10,000 copies. Don't quote me. Mine was stored vertically, hence the perfect manual. When they lay horizontally, the manual is long enough that it bows over time and wrinkles the spine.

I played through it for the "beat a game for every console" thread and was glad it was at least fun for the price.

I got lucky on owning Power Blade 2 as a kid.

I bought Shining Force CD about 2014ish for $40 on Sega Age, and Terminator for Sega CD on ebay for $30 on the same day.

I haven't really looked through Sega Saturn in years, but I'm going to assume Three Dirty Dwarves, Die Hard, and a few others have went up a good bit. I bout a stack of 15 games for $45 from a guy who just wanted rid of them.

Panzer Dragoon Saga has been my biggest want for years. It wasn't that long ago it could be had for $500.

The retro market is nonsensical and based more around the hype of a game more so than it's rarity.
IIRC, Burning Rangers has HALF of the production run Panzer Dragoon Saga does, (5k vs 10k), yet for the longest time was less than half of it's cost(That changed after the stimulus of course, but it's still far lower than PDS).

As for games out of reach, none quite yet. Even Snatcher seems feasible to an extent, though at the rate everything is going it's either only a matter of time before it crashes into the ground or becomes unobtainable.


I remember when i tried to go for a DC and 64 fullset, got most of the rares for DC then i saw just how much shovelware was left and gave up on it.

Jesus. Random lookup... Lunar Silver Star Story (sealed), last one sold for & 800. I grabbed this for $20 when Sony was purging inventory! Never opened it, nor played it... Always wanted to.

I'm hoping to see Keio make the cut for the Mega Drive Mini 2.

Also, our copy of Shining Force CD was $5.

Man... I sold Dragon Force, Guardian Heroes, Shining Force, first 3 Suikodens for about a grand, that I used to build a pc many years ago. Horrible decision.

Missile wrote:

Hype from youtubers and such is definitely the biggest price driver.

I had well over 200 Dreamcast games at one point before getting rid of almost all my US games. Kept only the stuff I truly cared about.

Don't remember what I needed for the full set but I had a lot of fuggin junk as evidenced by this trade.

Received $220 PP, Ten No Koe Bank, Puyo Puyo PCE CD CIB, R-Type I PCE Hu CIB, Cadash Turbo Grfx Hu CIC, Dragon Spirit PCE Hu only, Sys Card 3.0 hu only for 102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue (Dreamcast), Chicken Run (Dreamcast), Fatal Fury: Mark of The Wolves (Dreamcast), Flag to Flag: Cart (Dreamcast), Grand Theft Auto 2 (Dreamcast), Illbleed (Dreamcast), Incoming (Dreamcast), Industrial Spy: Operation Espionage (Dreamcast), The Last Blade 2: Heart of the Samurai (Dreamcast), NFL Quarterback Club 2001 (Dreamcast), Rayman 2: The Great Escape (Dreamcast), Re-Volt (Dreamcast), Sega Rally 2 (Dreamcast), Spider-Man (Dreamcast), Tech Romancer (Dreamcast), Toy Commander (Dreamcast)

I did replace all the fighters there with Japanese copies. Functionally the same to me.

MrBean wrote:

Great game. Opening it at this point would be pretty dumb but I would recommend playing it. I've beat both Lunars a few times each.

MrBean wrote:

All that matters is you got joy out of the pc build. I'm selling off some games right now for extra bluray buying power. Not playing the games, will watch the blurays. No regrets tbh.

@Missile I never understood the market for Burning Rangers either. It stood in the sub 200s for many years, even though it was scarce on ebay. However, I think there are a fair number of examples in the previous generation. Maybe people had not yet caught up to the Saturn yet. I recall Zero Kamikaze squirrel or whatever not being pricey for ages.

ChronoLe wrote:

I didn't think it would be to the extent that it is now, but I always figured Gamecube, PS1 and PS2 had a lot of room to grow price wise up until about 2018 or so. I think without the pandemic we still see those rise, but not quite to the same amounts. We had been seeing cart only NES commons/uncommons dipping in price before that. Typical collector cycle where NES was falling out of favor and became "too old". Don't think it quite would have went to Atari depths.

I sold Jack Bros for my VirtualBoy back in the day, I think for like $50 or something. It was the NA version. Recently I wanted to build up my VB collection again, and well ya I am not paying going rate for that game...

I've been selling off my Neo Geo MVS collection in order to buy all of the nearly out of reach items before they become totally out of reach. Games like Mega Max x3, Mega man 7, Chip & Dale 2, Duck Tales 2, Powerblade 2, Final Fight 3, even Musha because it has sentimental value.

All good games mind you.. I can't justify spending a fortune on rare and crapty games.

The only game I'd really like to have but just seems too far out of reach is Snatcher.

Snappy wrote:

Nice way to do it honestly, by selling stuff you aren't as attached to that also made big jumps in value.

Right there with you on the bad rare games thing. I don't buy any game I don't like (outside of obvious flipping situations).

ETA: Snatcher is awesome. That said I didn't want a US copy when it was under $500. If I was going to collectard it, I'd spend a bit on YAJ and call it good.