The Price of Old Video Games
Posted: May 16th, 2017, 2:46 pm
I just saw an auction of 5 NES loose cartridges (with black jackets) that went for $76, or about $85 with the shipping. There was a 3 screw Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Super Mario 2, Super Mario 3, Contra and and the pack-in Duck Hunt/Mario Bros.
Now, kids who grew up with the NES may be nostalgic for them and have the money to go and rebuy them. On the other hand, its also the age when people who had these as a kid are dumping them back on the market as they move on to other parts of their lives. Also, these things stay in pretty darn good shape. Even loose carts in some old cardboard box for decades often look just fine.
Prices of things are funny. I could understand something rare being valuable, like a Laser Disc version of Star Wars A New Hope, but there are 17 million copies of Super Mario 3 sold, and that's just the legal ones. Imagine all the Famicom cartridges out there with it on there also. Contra, Super Mario 2 and 3 should be as worthless as Duck Hunt. Price Charting has the Mike Tyson cart at about $20 for a loose one.
What is holding up the price of these old video game carts? Look at comics. Like video games, a comic has some intrinsic entertainment value - its art, story, characters, ads, etc. Yet today we see a glut of those comics on the market as people that age dump their long boxes. In addition, new fans of comic characters should be a source of interest in older comics, although like emulation, there are also digital versions of comics as well as physical reissues.
We should be seeing a glut of NES dumping too, lowering prices. There were millions of many of these made, and unless they were trashed, there are still millions of these durable plastic ROM cartridges out there - millions. Of course there are rare ones, but the defining games of a library are the common games were mass produced by the millions.
In addition, video gaming is technology linked. Comics are still basically comics, from 1938 to today. The only technology it takes are eyeballs. Things do change of course, from the paper quality to the artwork to the stories, but its not at all like how drastically video gaming changes. NES era games are dinosaurs in so many ways.
I was going to make the case that Atari 2600 games are so cheap, but according to Price Charting I'm out of touch. A loose Adventure cartridge is listed at $9. A loose Defender is $4, which is $3 more than I thought it would be.
Why are these old video games still so valuable?
Now, kids who grew up with the NES may be nostalgic for them and have the money to go and rebuy them. On the other hand, its also the age when people who had these as a kid are dumping them back on the market as they move on to other parts of their lives. Also, these things stay in pretty darn good shape. Even loose carts in some old cardboard box for decades often look just fine.
Prices of things are funny. I could understand something rare being valuable, like a Laser Disc version of Star Wars A New Hope, but there are 17 million copies of Super Mario 3 sold, and that's just the legal ones. Imagine all the Famicom cartridges out there with it on there also. Contra, Super Mario 2 and 3 should be as worthless as Duck Hunt. Price Charting has the Mike Tyson cart at about $20 for a loose one.
What is holding up the price of these old video game carts? Look at comics. Like video games, a comic has some intrinsic entertainment value - its art, story, characters, ads, etc. Yet today we see a glut of those comics on the market as people that age dump their long boxes. In addition, new fans of comic characters should be a source of interest in older comics, although like emulation, there are also digital versions of comics as well as physical reissues.
We should be seeing a glut of NES dumping too, lowering prices. There were millions of many of these made, and unless they were trashed, there are still millions of these durable plastic ROM cartridges out there - millions. Of course there are rare ones, but the defining games of a library are the common games were mass produced by the millions.
In addition, video gaming is technology linked. Comics are still basically comics, from 1938 to today. The only technology it takes are eyeballs. Things do change of course, from the paper quality to the artwork to the stories, but its not at all like how drastically video gaming changes. NES era games are dinosaurs in so many ways.
I was going to make the case that Atari 2600 games are so cheap, but according to Price Charting I'm out of touch. A loose Adventure cartridge is listed at $9. A loose Defender is $4, which is $3 more than I thought it would be.
Why are these old video games still so valuable?