Retro game prices on Ebay

[Tanooki]

ebay illegal yes, but they don't do much to stop it. From the complaining I've seen about it in the NintendoAge rant thread for ebay among others that slide by unless someone does some footwork and discovers through the blocked name a bunch of bids that coincide with what you're bidding on there's not much that can be done and they don't care since they get a cut on everything including the shipping which is garbage. Shill bidding works in their favor now since they block bidder IDs, as in the past when they weren't you could see someone doing it, report it, and they'd get booted.

[Rickstilwell1]

I wouldn't say Atari 2600 is dirt cheap or out of the interest of collectors. Lately I've noticed you're lucky to find a tested working system of any model system under $50 (because of shipping). In 2009 you could easily find a $10 2600 Jr. with a game. Even untested or non working systems are around $20-30. Large lots I used to see for $40-50 are $100-200.

Just the other year I had trouble selling complete in box games with a system.

I think maybe these prices have gone up because of increased shipping costs though.

[o.pwuaioc]

I think maybe these prices have gone up because of increased shipping costs though.

That's primarily it. I can sell my current light sixer on the cheap side, but shipping is going to be ugly regardless.

[calgon]

I was joking with a friend the other day about how the e-bay experience has changed so much within the past ten or so years. For example, It was a regular occurrence finding great deals by searching for "ninetendo" and "seag". Starting to get nostalgic for the methods in which I used to hunt for retro games. Good Lord....

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

Bacon it's just those and you're right. Sonic is the nastiest. Funny story I bought Sonic 1 from the UK, ended up of all things getting the US UPC version for like $10. When I got that around 2 years back the two most recent ebay paid sales, one from within the US in fantastic shape was barely shy of $1K, and one as nice but going to the US from the UK was a little over $500. ALL FOR THE STICKER. The others don't come near (GAW, Spiderman and Strider) but there is a premium.

I sold mine when I got rid of the SMS and I worked a deal with a guy through hours of chitchat over ebay internal mail as I had it OBO. My sticker was missing like 15% of it and it had (dead) mold and water damage. I still got $300 for it and other than the jacked sticker mine was very nice too, so even hosed up it was worth a lot.

Also you're a little off, not everything Nintendo is bad. Most of the N64 stuff is lower priced still, few of them are in that original $50 retail and higher club for loose carts. The DSI mini set (has like 4 games only for it) is stupid cheap even sealed, and if you ignore Jack Bros almost all the Virtual Boy US releases are cheap too. What is bad is the popular stuff -- NES, SNES, and even the Gamecube where a good bit is rising in value sadly. Everytime some fools get into wanting to monetizing something the cancer spreads.

I don't think NES is that bad, right now. Sure, theres enough games on the system that are ridiculous now, but u can still collect the bottom 3 or 400 games on the system without spending that much money. Most still sell for less than $20, and a lot of the real "essentials" like Mario, Mega Man, Metriod, Zelda, Contra, etc. are still selling for around this price, like the N64. I buy 90% of my games at flea markets and stores cuz then u can actually deal with people, and most retro game stores have somewhat fair prices. Somewhat. SNES and Gamecube seem to be getting out of hand right now, where any game thats had even the smallest attention is selling for around $30-$50. Ridiculous.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

Ultimately, I don't think game collecting is thaaat expensive a hobby, if u know where to shop, most of ur games can be picked up for less than $10, so who can really complain with that? It's only a small fraction of games that have made those monetary leaps on Ebay.

[DigitalKarma]

wow $300 for a copy of Daytona usa for the Sega Saturn when it only cost less than $3..lmao

Is someone actually stupid enough to buy it?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Video-Games-...nesales&_sac=1

[Tanooki]

I don't think NES is that bad, right now. Sure, theres enough games on the system that are ridiculous now, but u can still collect the bottom 3 or 400 games on the system without spending that much money. Most still sell for less than $20, and a lot of the real "essentials" like Mario, Mega Man, Metriod, Zelda, Contra, etc. are still selling for around this price, like the N64. I buy 90% of my games at flea markets and stores cuz then u can actually deal with people, and most retro game stores have somewhat fair prices. Somewhat. SNES and Gamecube seem to be getting out of hand right now, where any game thats had even the smallest attention is selling for around $30-$50. Ridiculous.

I get what you're saying, but when you consider the bottom 3-400 of them are range from so completely awful to just downright mediocre(if that) it's just pissing money into the wind unless you're some pokemon gotta catch em all system collector. The gamecube is hardly out of hand, though there are a few annoying games, little is over the original retail value, but I totally agree the SNES has become just downright disgusting in how the stuff is priced, even a good bit of the junk is on an up swing which is amazing.

I've quit actively buying NES and SNES games, same with the N64 and Cube too. I've got more or less anything I'd want thankfully barely beating out the curve in trying to restore my desired games of my old collection that went to bad times. The last physical game I'd grab back is Aerofighters and the price loses me somewhere between infuriating and nauseating. I'll grab a game I want if I can find it cheap, but I don't go in with any hope or expectation anymore as it's better to get a random happy albeit rare surprise. I've converted over to buying Famicom games. Most of them are super cheap since most Americans don't care or don't want to deal with Japanese menus and converters, and a few gems that are spendy you can get famiclones for a 1/3 or less of the price of a real cart which I've done in a few cases.



It's a bit of a stretch to say that depending where you shop game buying hasn't become a problem. Prices are regional if you take the internet out of the equation of just you clicking ebay/amazon and being done with it. Some areas are flush with games, others are not. Some are loaded with predatory reseller scum who swoop up everything and use sleazy tactics and others have few to none. And then places that have stores many or few, some still price by the local market within reason not to be pillaged for online, and others will ask over ebay because it's a local sucker trap. Since I started buying back stuff I've split my time between CA and KY and CA has more reseller trash, but the flea markets are consistent weekly in getting a least and item or two where I lived, but in KY here fleas have more or less nothing and are only parts of the year due to weather and the local shops which used to be cheap and plenty are not getting dusty with no turn over due to dickery on pricing that only keeps them afloat moving the Marios Zeldas and other big name stuff thats easy turn over.

[SparTonberry]

wow $300 for a copy of Daytona usa for the Sega Saturn when it only cost less than $3..lmao

Is someone actually stupid enough to buy it?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Video-Games-...nesales&_sac=1

I was about to say it's probably the rare variant. But nope, the person is just a moron. Star Fox loose for $520 (hey, he's a generous guy who knocked $130 off his normal price) :P

[xelement5x]

I was about to say it's probably the rare variant. But nope, the person is just a moron. Star Fox loose for $520 (hey, he's a generous guy who knocked $130 off his normal price) :P

Heh, I was thinking the same thing. I'd spend $300 on a Daytona Netlink in a heartbeat at this point.

[Rickstilwell1]

This is part of the reason I mainly only collect games I've actually completed before or really really liked when they didn't have definite endings. Shaving off thousands of games from my want list makes spending the money I have to to get what I want later on down the road a bit less scary. I want games I collect to mean something to me, not just take up some space. Generally if I beat something once, I will want to play it again. There's never been a time where that hasn't been true.

I'm starting to miss some of the systems I had for a long time but sold and I enjoyed plenty of arcade type games on pre-NES systems to make me want to buy them again too. I just got an Atari 2600 again, and I'm missing a lot of common games I could probably find for $2 or $3 each somewhere.

Looking at my completion list from last year and this year so far, I think it's going to take a lot of time and money to even get caught up with my current want list. I mean that's up to 132 games and I don't have all that many yet and only few are CIB yet. I collect a loose copy and a CIB copy.

There are some games though that just cost way too much loose (Bucky O 'Hare for NES is a good example) where I might just want to buy the more expensive CIB copy and just call it a day on that title. I'm sure it'll be a nightmare when I finally get around to playing through Dragon Warrior III and Dragon Warrior IV. Of course if I play my cards right I'll have enough money saved by then to not flinch at its probably insane price.

[Gatucaman]

I Myself will try to do a little experiment............mainly to see if the shillbidding issue on NES games is true or not

[Gatucaman]

Well, what i did is that i founded a Shatterhand in bad condition that was going at 3 USD but i tought it wasnt the real price, i suspected it would been something higher, but i keep pushing the bid us more button (i bid 5 USD at first), and i have it at 8.59 USD.



But then LITERALLY at the last 5 seconds bam!



Now i am not sure how bad it gets for most people and heck, not even sure if this is even shillbidding, since it was only 5 USD difference, but i wanted to share it with you guys, i mean the cart itself didnt even had the top label (and the description claimed it was "Just a little Rough") and..........truth be told, this was just a test to see if it's really difficult to get american NES games from US sellers there, because of the shillbidders and the hipsters, i already own the game in MUCH BETTER CONDITION, and i bought it for dirt cheap in 2011 at a flea market, i planned to gave it as a gift to a friend, but send him a better label that i could scan myself.

[xelement5x]

Gatucaman, there are a lot of people who don't bid on items until the last 5 seconds. Many don't even manually bid, they use bid sniping services which will automatically place your max bid with however many seconds you want left. I use them all the time on low profile stuff so I don't tip my hand early. It's kind of a waste on heavily watched items though in my opinion.

[Daria]

My mom uses a sniping bot.

Let that sink in, the woman's like 63. Lets just assume everyone's using them now.

[bb_hood]

Now i am not sure how bad it gets for most people and heck, not even sure if this is even shillbidding, since it was only 5 USD difference, but i wanted to share it with you guys, i mean the cart itself didnt even had the top label (and the description claimed it was "Just a little Rough") and..........truth be told, this was just a test to see if it's really difficult to get american NES games from US sellers there, because of the shillbidders and the hipsters, i already own the game in MUCH BETTER CONDITION, and i bought it for dirt cheap in 2011 at a flea market, i planned to gave it as a gift to a friend, but send him a better label that i could scan myself.

That shatterhand is pretty beat but it sold for less than all the other complete copies on ebay, it seems that shatterhand now goes for 20-30$. Considering its a really good game its not outrageous that someone would pay about 16 bucks for a beat copy to play. It was a sleeper game for a long time and im not surprised it jumped in value.


I was recently outbid by someone with a sniper bot. I was so pissed. I had the 'one click bid' window open and everything. I got outbid at the last microsecond.

[PizzaKat]

Im one of those people who bid in the last 5 seconds. Its a waste to do it beforehand with lot of time left in the auction.

[Tanooki]

I bid by hand in the last 3-5 seconds and queue it up in one window, then have an alt-tab away another to watch the counter and have another bid in case I change my mind to throw a little more on it. I refuse to use asinine sniper tools. There's too many people who drop a bid with 3-5 to go so I try and get as close to 3 seconds as possible given any delay lag on it going in usually amounts to 1-3sec.

[chriswy27]

Now that I have a real job I have been buying all the older games I wanted as a kid. Probably many others doing the same.

[Tanooki]

Sure people of the era, then you have the younger exposed kids/adults and then the hipsters who follow the fads to look cool. The problem is on the whole a lot of them are impatient and stupid, want it now, don't bother to research or go for a good price and it causes the ebay pissing match of always trying to get $5 more than the next guy and then we're where we are now.