Quote Originally Posted by xelement5x View Post
All trolling aside my theory was that the spike in Earthbound sales was due to the release of Smash Brothers Brawl (March 9, 2008 in NA according to wiki) and the inclusions of Ness in that game.

Brawl was an extremely popular game on an extremely popular console, and Ness could be considered an "unknown" to many people compared to the likes of Mario, Link and Kirby. Players wonder about the "unknown" character and the game he's from and want to buy the game, demand can't keep up and prices spike and continue to stay artificially high even though there was a decent number of copies of the game produced.
Only thing I'd argue with is the words "artificially high", the fact is that the game is one of the most bizarre RPGs ever made. At this point I doubt $50 prices will ever return, I seem to remember Suikoden III did the same to the first 2 and while the somewhat more common one is back down to average prices for RPGs of that type, Suikoden II is still 2x higher than it otherwise would be. Dragonball GT Final Bout was another example involving a genuinely rare game and an anime/manga, and that was sometimes going to the $1300 range before the reprint and loss of interest in an otherwise mediocre fighting game. It is still about $80, a bit high but still.