Do You Think A Price Crash Is Coming?

[Keatah]

<snip>

For many emulation is more of a gateway drug that makes you want something more pure. Here is the thing emulation has been around for a very very long time. long before the prices rose. I believe prices are rising simply because the idea that all these games are valuable has hit the mainstream. That combined with resellers buying up and hoarding all the popular titles has simply made the idea of value become a reality. Most of these games are not rare at all, most are not really even all that uncommon. The truly rare ones will maintain value and likely rise. The vast majority I believe will fall from where there current perceived value is down to it's actual value. Which is a long way down.

 

Emulation just recently evolved to a point where it could be considered a replacement for real consoles. Things like Nesticle and the Activision Action Packs were pre-Alpha. And that's being generous.

 

I agree it is the resellers and ebay in general driving up the prices, that and anything old has perceived value.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Nesticle, LOL! I remember playing Super Mario Bros and the emulation was so piss poor that I could not complete World 3-3 because the platforms failed to generate propely, leading to an impossibly long jump to the flagpole. Tons of horrible artifacts. And this was SMB, not Castlevania III or some super advanced game. My friend and I used to call it "crapulation."

[Torr]

I see these kind of threads/topics on youtube/whatever TOO often.

 

I think people are HOPING for a Neo-Crash so they can all buy old games at dirt cheap prices again... But as long as people keep buying, there won't BE a 'Crash', no matter how much you try to 'make it happen'!

 

The only way to make it happen is to STOP PAYING RIDICULOUS PRICES that re-enforce sellers to keep their prices where they are.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Torr

[Austin]

I think we could eventually see a burst of the retro gaming bubble. We're at that point where most the people making money off of it are speculators. Now it's just a matter of the general buying public losing interest.

 

I always thought prices would keep rising, but then I watched this documentary yesterday and immediately saw how the classic gaming bubble could burst. "When" it will is another story all together though, it could be a while. The doc is called "Boom Bust Boom", and it's on Netflix streaming. I highly recommend checking it out: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3332308/

[Schizophretard]

I think prices will eventually drop by something like this:

 

There is a huge demand for game X which makes its price go up. Then the price goes down because everyone that can afford it at that price already bought it which means it won't continue to move at that price, more of that game enters the supply because people saw it going for the high price which creates more competition creating competitive prices, and all those who aren't willing to patiently wait for the game to drop to the price they are willing to pay will just opt-out to playing it on flash carts, emulators, and reproductions which would decrease the demand. Then with the new lower price it goes down again for the same reasons to another new lower price. The cycle continues until it is dirt cheap if it is a common game but still stays kind of high if it is an extremely rare game. In other words, all games that are common enough that there is at least one for every person that wants one will eventually drop to dirt cheap. The richest person of that group will get it first for the highest price and the poorest person will get it last for the cheapest price.

[Clint Thompson]

It depends on the machine I suppose as well. I'm seeing an increasingly number of Jaguar consoles hit eBay and because people know they can get an easy $100+ from it - but I've also seen some much better deals as a result of it lately, especially buy it now. But, it's too soon to say about the Jaguar and Lynx because both are highly desirable for the foreseeable future. With both having ways to flash games and play the entire library and then with the Lynx having the upgraded LCD screen, it's an amazing time to be a Jaguar/Lynx owner if you're really in it for the games.

[icemanxp300]

The richest person of that group will get it first for the highest price and the poorest person will get it last for the cheapest price.

 

The person willing to pay the most will get it first for the highest price and the person willing to pay the least will get it last for the cheapest price.

Fixed.

 

Just because you are well off does not mean you throw your money away. Just because you don't earn as much does not mean you can't ever buy anything expensive.

[Professor Gull]

Fixed.

 

Just because you are well off does not mean you throw your money away. Just because you don't earn as much does not mean you can't ever buy anything expensive.

I have seen that in person way too many times. Worth of something always depends on how badly someone wants it. Its not all about having the funds but the willingness to part with them.

[Keatah]

The richest person of that group will get it first for the highest price and the poorest person will get it last for the cheapest price.

 

Kinda like tech moving into the bargain bin at wal-mart?

Edited July 7, 2016 by Keatah

[Mayhem]

2600 prices have already dropped off. I don't know if Nintendo prices will because, well... Nintendo. The NES is holding firm still, and the SNES era is now on the increase.

 

Vectrex is gaining popularity now, probably because it's an unusual system with some great games, so prices there are starting to creep back up again.

[godslabrat]

I don't know if the NES/SNES will drop in price, but I do think they'll dip a bit. And they sure won't go much higher, except perhaps for very specific games. We're already seeing the N64/PS2-era games start to become the really desirable "trendy retro" commodity. We're starting to hit the point where the people who played those as kids are out of college and have some discretionary income.

[Keatah]

The NES crowd will be getting old soon.

 

And another thing, with re-releases like stuff from AtGames, especially the new portable VCS, the demand for the original consoles isn't going to be increasing..

[+save2600]

No, I don't think a plane crash is coming. Sorry, but it's what I keep seeing when I read the subject heading!

 

Agree about 2600 prices dropping off, especially in the forums. Can hardly give this stuff (i.e.: break even) away anymore.

 

Jaguar and Vectrex have been continually on the rise for some time and don't seem to be showing any signs of slowing down. Same with SNES and TG-16 games, holy cow I can't believe how much some titles fetch!! :shock:

[Professor Gull]

I think it would be nice to see some of the 32-bit or Fifth Generation stuff to drop some more as well but I sense that its still strong for the high demand titles. And I have found it odd how Genesis has become a little more pricey lately as well for select titles or even common ones. Even 2 years back I remember coming across a box of boxed Genny games at a flea market and it was a reseller and all he wanted was a couple of buck for each game and they were not crappy sports titles. Now his NES stuff though was primo priced.

[Cynicaster]

If I were sitting on a large pile of pre-crash stuff (I’m not, by the way), I’d sell it all and buy flash carts tomorrow, because I think pre-crash prices are going to plummet in the next 5 years or so. I can see it happening quickly, too, because it will be a snowball effect. As interest fades and large collections get sold, supply increases, placing downward pressure on prices, which triggers more panic-selling, which results in more supply, which triggers more price drops… before you know it, that $100 “rare” Atari game can barely command enough to buy a Happy Meal.

 

I think NES era and 16-bit era stuff will drop in value with time as well, but I also believe it will hold value longer than the pre-crash stuff for a few reasons. First, the pre-crash stuff is—despite how much we love it—comically primitive in the eyes of most who weren’t there to experience it firsthand in its heyday. Consequently, it tends to get summarily dismissed by people younger than a certain hard-stop age. For evidence of this phenomenon, look no further than the much-maligned “gaming-started-with-NES” YouTube culture. A lot of those folks are young enough to have cut their teeth on N64 or PS1 – or heck, even PS2 – yet somehow they muster the willingness and curiosity to acknowledge games and systems as far back as the NES, but stop there. Why is that? Yes, NES stuff is primitive as well by modern standards, but I think it was the first generation to arrive after that tipping point where technology was finally able to provide that minimum level of depth and richness of audiovisual presentation needed to transcend the passing decades. Don’t forget the immutable logic of game popularity: better graphics means better games (calm down, I’m rolling my eyes too).

 

Second, the NES generation was, for all intents and purposes, the prototype for modern video games. That thread of continuity spanning the intervening years and connecting those generations provides an entry point for younger gamers. The game pad is far more familiar and approachable than the CX-40 or Intelli-phone. The “continue-and-finish” platform game paradigm feels a lot more familiar and worthwhile than the single-screen score attack.

 

Lastly, old Nintendo and Sega games have brand and legacy on their side to support longer term interest, whereas Atari and its contemporaries do not. Atari kind of peaked early with the 2600 and then fell to relative obscurity after that, despite several failed bids for renewed relevance in the following years. Mario and Sonic – as well as some persistent B-listers like Kirby – live on to this day. A 10 year-old in 2016 can play brand new, polished games featuring these characters. Some of those kids may – and probably do – become interested enough to go explore what their dad’s Mario games were like. When they embark on that journey, what they will find are games that are simpler visually, but provide a gameplay experience much the same as that provided by the modern versions.

[Flojomojo]

I applaud you for describing the state of things as you see them without resorting to bashing "kids these days" or "stupid terrible modern games."

[Andromeda Stardust]

Mario and Sonic – as well as some persistent B-listers like Kirby – live on to this day.

Agreed with almost everything you said, however Kirby is NOT a B-List game!!!

[zetastrike]

I keep saying this: I'm 25 and I love pre-crash consoles and games. I find the score-attack/arcade and simpler games on the VCS, INTV, and A8bit to be so more endearing and satisfying than slogging through some bloated NES/SNES collectathon-platformer. I'm a working adult with a life, I don't have the time or desire for games like that. I discovered AA, did a lot of reading, researched what to buy, and got it. There's nothing stopping anyone else in my age bracket from doing the same thing. It's easier than ever to get into really old games, with all the information out there now. A lot of young-ins don't know any better because none of the youtube-mouthbreathers give anything before the NES the time of day.

 

In my case, a price crash wouldn't be the worst thing. I would make things cheaper for me and anyone looking to get started.

[MotoRacer]

A crash isn't coming for the above reasons. Simply put. The games are simply too accessible, too polished, and too fun to drop off into useless-territory type prices.

 

Couple that with the simple fact that it's easy to argue that some of the gaming world's biggest IPs had their best iterations on the NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. and NOT modern day systems. Games like Mario, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, etc. can easily be argued to have had their best days in the past. Add in the fact that these IPs are still relevant today, and it creates a situation where people look for these games regardless of whether or not they grew up with them or not. A kid today can play Rondo of Blood. A kid today can't play Adventure on the 2600.

 

Old pre-crash Atari consoles had popular character-based games, for sure. But they aren't ever going to be the best versions of said game. People want the arcade games of Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, etc. not the 2600 versions. That points to why old Pac-Man arcade machines are worth so much money, while pre-crash copies of the game are near worthless.

 

That and, as fun as the games can be, no one is running to the store to find a copy of Frogs N Flies.

 

The pre-crash systems plummeted in value (well, most of them plummeted anyway...) for a reason. Expecting the same of the NES and SNES generations is a laughably hopeful idea. Could they go down a bit? Sure.

 

Will you see Final Fantasy III on the SNES in a box with manual for $15 in the next 20 years? Hahahahahahahahaha. No...

 

"Spectators" will always drive up prices, but that doesn't make up the majority of the people who want these games. Couple in the fact that Youtube channels make some of these obscure games widely known, you run into the obvious situation where there simply isn't enough stock to go around. Let's say there are 25,000 copies of Little Samson. 2,000,000 people want it today. Well.... do the math. You also have the opposite side of the spectrum, like Smash Bros. which was the highest seller on the N64 but still commands a lot of money loose. But it's still supply and demand. While there are a ton of those carts around, people keep them. The supply still suffers vs the demand.

Edited July 9, 2016 by MotoRacer

[Schizophretard]

The games are simply too accessible, too polished, and too fun to drop off into useless-territory type prices.

 

Add in the fact that these IPs are still relevant today, and it creates a situation where people look for these games regardless of whether or not they grew up with them or not. A kid today can play...

I think an important thing to consider is not if kids today would look for these games but how they would play them. A big difference between kids back in the day and kids growing up now is that kids now are growing up with the idea of downloading games or anything for that matter and conveniently storing them in one place. So, more and more as time goes by the more odd it will seem to them to buy a variety of carts. It would feel as strange as having separate SD cards for each app on a phone. Even when they do buy discs for modern systems it has less of that being excited to open the package, read the manual, look at extras like an included poster, etc. to it and is more about getting the disc in the console as soon as possible to get past that inconvenient step while expecting the included extras to not be in the package but on the disc. This is really apparent with music. CD's are still the current format for albums and there are a lot more people listening to portable music but I haven't seen someone carrying around a portable CD player in years. In other words, they are further removed from physical media than past generations.

 

More and more people are moving to emulation and it wasn't too long ago that there were only a few flash carts but now there are many with sometimes more than one for the same console. There are also a lot more clone consoles, clone controllers with USB connectors, more console modifications(It feels like just yesterday S-video mods were becoming popular and it seemed impossible to get more than that but now there are starting to be RGB and even HDMI), etc. And this stuff is mostly because of the demand created for them from us adults that did have carts back in the day. How much more will the demand for these kind of things be for those who are growing up now and especially when there are even better versions of these things? Kids today may still go as far as buying original hardware for the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis and have a high demand for carts to play these timeless classics on but the carts will be flash carts. There may occasionally be the exception of kid collectors but being a collector isn't necessary for playing "IP's" that are still relevant today.

 

In short, I think the demand for things like flash carts will increase for both adults and mostly for kids leaving the market for original carts mostly just to the collectors which by then wouldn't include the big collectors that pay high prices today because they already bought them for those high prices. Now, this may not be until 10 more years or so but, for someone like me that has been a collector for most of my life, I consider that soon. And I too could start collecting flash carts to kill the time.

 

 

[cybercylon]

For pre-crash systems, I can definitely see prices falling a lot sometime within the next 5 years with the exception of certain games, so I agree with the idea if you want to sell, one better do it sooner rather than later. There was a phase over the last two years where our local chain of retro stores used to buy the games and systems from people, and they did sell. I am not sure if they even take those systems in anymore, and I see them sit on the shelves.

 

I don't think we will ever go back to when a copy of SMB3 could be had for $5, but I don't see NES, SNES, et al maintaining those prices either. We all know what has been driving the prices.... adults that had those games and systems back in the day want to re-live that stage in life, and now that they have the income to buy not only what they had, but explore systems that they wish they had, but could not afford. So the prices will remain up as long as people are willing to buy.

 

One thing about many older games... they do not stand the test of time for a lot of people. There are exceptions of course (e.g., SMB3), but once the "nostalgia factor" wears off, some of the people that bought this stuff will want to unload it. That is when one might see prices go back down. In our area, SNES, N64, and GC prices have remained insane. Genesis stuff went up, but have never reached that level. NES game prices have been insane as well. That said, over the last six months or so, I've started to see some prices for NES games creep back down to a degree. Zelda 1 or SMB3 usually listed around $50, but these days, $35-$40 seems to be the norm. B list titles (and Kirby is not B list!!!!) have fallen a bit more. I don't know if this is a regional fluctuation or a general trend.

[Keatah]

The need for cartridges was a limitation of the tech of the day. A cartridge was the only way to package software in a kid-friendly manner. Or put another way, carts allowed a 7-year old kid to change out a ROM chip on a single-board computer safely and quickly. It's a glorified chip holder gussied up for marketing and retail sale, and it had real-world durability and practicality.

 

Today's sign of the times is memory that costs pennies per GB. And to not make use of that to store large games or many games wouldn't make sense.

 

But the idea of putting more than one game (Game Variations aside) in a machine was nothing new. I had a whole bunch of games stored on my Apple II ready to go at power-up, on an external drive. The idea of a portable Apple II machine (like today's stuff) was totally out of the question back then. But essentially my setup worked like a multi-cart where you would select your game and it would start instantly. Granted my rig's external HDD was 5 kilos heavy and impressive and all, but the concept was the same. All games in one area without swapping media. And it was chic to think of an HDD as "on-line" storage. Everything ready to download into main memory at a moment's notice.

 

As for emulation.. It's a must. It's a given. There isn't enough original hardware to go around. The older original stuff has too many practical problems a newcomer would have to deal with.

[icemanxp300]

I'm seriously considering stocking up on some everdrives and comparing playability. If I like them I could easily see myself dumping my collection and that would take a very long time. While I do like the massive wall of games they do take up way too much space. I would rather have a few pinball machines or room for my foosballs tables and such.

[Andromeda Stardust]

B list titles (and Kirby is not B list!!!!) have fallen a bit more.

Thank you. And tose guys were way overcharging for SMB3 and such. Those games were always creeping up, but never at $35-$50 level. At least not yet...

[Guest LiqMat]

I have started donating various mint and sealed items of my collection to The Strong in Rochester, NY for future generations to study and enjoy. One thing that turns collectors stomachs is they do break the shrink-wrap on sealed items due to off-gassing from the plastics and the warping effects of tension. I know nothing about the technical aspects of the off-gassing effect on paper boxes, but I know they take preservation of physical copy video games dead seriously. I figure in 50 years there are not going to be many mint copies of 20th century video games which means all that amazing box art lost due to mishandling and negligence. Their collection has many gaps and you can view it online.

 

http://www.museumofplay.org/online-collections/