Pros and Cons of Multiplats

[Tanooki]

The thing with Nintendo, though, is that this isn't anything new. Nintendo titles, even before the digital age, commanded a premium for a long, long time. And I see them quite often in stores for the full retail price, so it's not that there isn't stock. ... I see the same sort of panic that drives the NES market to insanity happening with even more modern games, and it's a bit ridiculous.

In principle I agree, but perspective is needed too. If you can reset the clock back as little as 5 years, there's a distinctly sharp divide between what rare then vs rare now did, faux rare hype vs rare hype(which was massively less), and then commons then and now.

Even Little Samson back in Jan 2010 was around $130 a bit more with some paper, now... 5 years later (Jan 2015) roughly 1K loose and triple that complete. For faux rare look where TMNT4 on SNES went from $20 to $55 in 2 years. And common original Zelda was a $10 game recently averaging $30, the paper would add then $5, now nearly triple and it's a common game. If you use price charting the uptick is entirely unnatural.

It's all that stupid panic, awareness videos, dangling stories of value to come and so on that did it and the profiteers who rolled in who cared little for games to really make bank. Digital Downloads of old NES/SNES stuff existed in 2010, it really didn't influence things much because things started to get slammed 2011-ish NES/2012-ish SNES on average. Sure some random stuff causes a temporary hit like the mentioned Earthbound as $200 for it was asinine and it got slammed almost by 1/2, but once the hype wore off it went back. That temporary correction was a barometer of true value over hype.

The Nintendo thing is pretty new, it raged once people found it would be the next thing to exploit to make a cash grab as enough people perceived it to be hot and collectible and then the sheep herd caught on and kept feeding the wolves. I imagine if any of these titles were multiplatform and not just on Nintendo the values on them would be kicked in the ass hard, people would just flock away to the inferior/superior/par other options other than die hard collectors which are few and far between over the others.

[Sarge]

Oh, no question. There's a huge bubble right now, and it's one that I hope bursts at some point. But I'm afraid that what's actually happening is that the folks that are nostalgic and collecting now have mad cash, and they're willing to pay. In some ways, one could argue that the price is going to go up as the stock decreases as well. After all, stuff that finds its way into my collection rarely sees the light of day again, so that's one less copy on the market.

I really should sell some of my spares, though... I have like four Zelda carts. And three copies of Castlevania III. And a few copies of Ninja Gaiden III as well. I should take the dupes and buy that Turbo Duo I've always wanted.