I know my Gameboy stuff fairly well as it's my key system, has been ever since N64 struggled well in the middle of the back end of the 90s and has ever since. I did play a good bit of DS, but it never got the total hours or buys that GB/C GBA ever did. The games were always cheaper, notably any decade if they were game alone and up until say 5 years ago, no one gave a shit about charging more for paper either which I miss (pre-greed era.) So when I know of a game I want is around I do look into prices to see if it moves or stagnates. Double Dragon Advance has sat where it has for quite awhile, anomalies aside (quality factored in) so it's not on the rise, it just has sucked for a little while now, far more than RCR and insanely so compared to Super Dodgeball which gets no love, that's a $10 game complete in the box which on one hand is cool and the other criminal. Kunio pricing is odd: DDA->RCR DX--->SDB
Also if you want to get into other weirdness, try this one out. SNES vs GBA releases (not including Mario Advance vs SMAS.) Try pricing out RType3, Super Ghosts n Goblins, Phalanx, Pocky & Rocky(and Becky), and a few others. You'll see there's no consistency to any of it.
casterofdreams wrote:
Some obscure stuff that makes little sense to me can either have a very low price or a ridiculous price. I've been looking for Yggdra Union for awhile but I don't feel the need to spend close to $30 for it.
Ouch, I didn't realize how much that game's price has risen. I don't remember what it was going for loose, but I guess it wasn't that bad since a few years ago I bought a sealed copy for a little under $30.
I'm good, I just wish I held onto Kid Dracula for GB as that one has for some odd reason a high price tag tied to it compared to the Castlevania games it parodies while the Famicom release is pretty cheap.
The one thing I held on to for the GBA are my Pokemon games and my Game Boy Micros. I have the Famicom one from Japan where it has the Mario 20th anniversary logo.
Say what you will about the GBM. It may be inferior with no backwards compatibility and has a tiny screen, but it's sleek as hell, has a head phone jack, and has a metal body.
Edit: I just took a look on eBay for the Micros. Holy shit those prices!
Tanooki wrote:Also if you want to get into other weirdness, try this one out. SNES vs GBA releases (not including Mario Advance vs SMAS.) Try pricing out RType3, Super Ghosts n Goblins, Phalanx, Pocky & Rocky(and Becky), and a few others. You'll see there's no consistency to any of it.
Yes, crazy how much some of those SNES-->GBA ports go for. Plus there's the story of how R-Type III had to be ported with no original source code by an Italian development studio, *looks at average* $35! Maybe not that so much as the fact that the original SNES cartridge is at an average of $120. I can't vouch for its ported accuracy.
Here's the story from the Italian developer I found on the Shumps forum, the original post was on a GameSpy hosted forum that has been since long gone, so this isn't even the whole story:
I read your comments on RtypeIII and would like to explain couple of things on the development of the title.
First we closed an agreement with Phantantagram interactive which went bankrupcy during the development of the game and didnt pay us. then we found DSI Games (the publisher) that paid very low and wanted the game in very few weeks.
Please consider we get no reference art or source code or any kind of support from Irem Software, the only reference was the Snes game. You all can understand we rewrote the code from breginning and ripped the graphic from the snes emulator. also we had not enought time to work around many details as point system, collision, R-90 zooming intro and so on. last...the game was finished months ago, we still owe money from pubisher.
it seems that Irem lost [the source code].
yeah, we started very good and with very good intention...we also made a CG movie for the intro (presented at E3 2002, maybe you can download somewhere on the internet) and other cool staff, but Phantagram bancrupcy and DS low money and very few development time had a very bad influence on our work.
many times behind a bad game there is the hand of marketing, few money and time.
PS we have the zooming intro sequence ready, but not enough time to put in the game, as other things, sorry.
I was lucky to score well on SGnG (average $25) by getting it from a forum member here. I missed getting P&R (average $67) for a better price than it does go for at a game store here. Now that I looked at that average, I see I really would have done better, it was slightly above half that. Oof.
ElkinFencer10 wrote:What do the prices for Maru's Mission look like these days? A buddy of mine had that game back in the day, and I've had a hankering to play it.
VGPC has it as a loose average of $9 with recent completed auctions anywhere from $5-$10. Not bad!
Xeogred wrote:The obvious answer is that it's time for the Dreamcast 2.
ElkinFencer10 wrote:I looked at VGPC, but I know that for obscure games, it can be a bit wonky, and (at least from my experience) Maru's Mission is a fairly obscure game.
Remember that VGPC pulls from eBay completed auctions. It's not 100% accurate (it will list manuals only sometimes w/no games for example), but I went to eBay proper and selected Completed Auctions for Maru's Mission and the same thing I see, many of them went for $10 or lower, loose cartridge only. So you'll still find the same prices there, I imagine.
Xeogred wrote:The obvious answer is that it's time for the Dreamcast 2.
VGPC isn't a good source, often they end up higher than reality as they have a broken algorithm that doesn't account for anything abnormally listed nor the condition rating the games are given on site too. You could have a dog for $10 and a gem sell for $5, perhaps a bunch of $50 games with $40 manuals sell for $80-90, but since they only do loose, complete, and new, it gets lumped. That's why when I find someone selling used games if they say that I'll point it out, and if they don't care, I don't care to buy as they're always always higher, sometimes by a good fair margin so it's not worth bothering.
Maru's Mission is a safe bet at $10 shipped, but not much off that. The other re-branded solid Japanese centric semi-cute looking ninja game we got from Japan got tagged as Ninja Taro and it ends up going for $10-15 but it's worth it too. I know this only as I've been watching them along with Trax and a few others and keep procrastinating on buying as I have enough to do as it is.
Kunio pricing is odd: DDA->RCR DX--->SDB
