Retro Console Hardware Price Guide

Prices Updated in November 2023

In our retro game collecting guides, we often focus primarily on the games themselves, but I wanted to monitor the values of common variations of console hardware as well.

My goal with this price guide is to give everyone an easily-accessible price listing of mainstream retro consoles so that it is easy to survey the console landscape, see what you might expect to pay for hardware you have been considering or see what you might be able to get for a console you’re looking to offload.

Featured photo courtesy of @chrsmccllm on Instagram 

The price guide is broken down into three major condition groupings:

• Loose: console hardware only with no packaging. The lower price range may only include the console itself and minimal accessories like a power adapter. Even at the low price, the machine should be in working condition. Units that are for “parts only” should be valued lower. The high range of loose consoles should include a controller or two, power and video cables and be in excellent cosmetic condition. For some older consoles, this higher price range may even include some hardware restoration.
• Complete in Box (CIB): This is for a console in good working order that also comes with its original packaging. The lower price range may have a few items missing from the original shipment (like manuals or inner packaging) and/or the cardboard box may be in rougher shape (older boxes typically show a lot of wear). The higher price range should include almost every item that came in the original retail box and should be in excellent cosmetic condition.
• New (Unopened): This grouping is for units that have never been opened from their retail packaging or used. Since this is less common, we simply give a single price range estimate, but there are still some variances in the value due to the condition of the packaging and such.

I have included some interesting or rare console variants in this price guide, but it is not meant to be exhaustive at this point. I also included some consoles with aftermarket video mods, but again, this is by no means exhaustive. I may eventually add more unit variations to the guide over time as I also update values.  If you feel I have made some glaring omissions, please let me know in the comments section below, but I cannot add every recommendation immediately.

In case you didn’t notice, I left off handheld units from this guide. Those are in this separate Handheld/Portable Price Guide

Biggest Recent Changes

I couldn’t help but be curious which console saw the largest value appreciation since my last guide revision in January 2018.  I compared the average pricing between the different quality levels (loose and complete-in-box — excluding “New/Unopened”)  in the table below. If you’d like to see a full comparative breakdown, a full Excel Spreadsheet and PDF of the data is shared with my Patreon members.  Being a Patreon subscriber of at least $1 will get you access to this and other future exclusives and it helps keep this website running.

Below are two charts that show the highest movers over the last three years (in this case, comparing 2020 to 2023 values). Even though there have been some additional value increases over the last few years, there has also been quite a bit of cooling off from the 2020/2021 peak.
(For reference, you can also see this chart of the fastest 3-year growers comparing early 2018 to late 2020.)

The Console Price Guide

23 Comments

AngrySquirrel34 says:

January 23, 2018 at 2:51 pm

This is a great guide, thanks Racket. Nice to see the sixth-gen consoles are still very reasonably-priced. Non-playstation 5th-gen consoles are higher than I expected, particularly the N64.

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racketboy says:

January 25, 2018 at 10:41 am

Yeah, it seems that the N64 is kicking into gear as the new trending nostalgia system. I heard some retro shops in particular had a hard time keeping them in stock for the holiday season.

And yeah, 6th Gen is in the sweet spot of value — backwards compatibility on newer systems helps as well.

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FFTW says:

February 20, 2018 at 6:07 pm

Nice Guide! please add the prices for the following console variations though:
-Atari 2600 Light Sixer
-Atari 2600 4 switch model
-Atari 2600 Jr Long rainbow model and short rainbow model separately
-Atari 5200 4 controllers model and 2 controllers model separately
-Fair Child Channel F
-Pong Consoles
-7th gen consoles

also,is the SNES 2 seriously less expensive than the SNES?! i find that to be pretty surprising as it is much rarer than the original model,and it is more expensive on other lists too :/

thanks 🙂

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racketboy says:

May 16, 2018 at 7:31 am

Yeah, I was a little surprised about the SNES 2/SNES-101 was well. But I think it’s primarily because it doesn’t have the nostalgia appeal. I’m not sure if that pricing difference will stay consistent forever though…

And I’ll keep those classic suggestions in mind for future revisions — thanks 🙂

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Gary Rozik says:

March 24, 2018 at 1:47 pm

Hey buddy what do u think a brand new Goldstar 3do is worth

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racketboy says:

April 6, 2018 at 10:54 am

If it’s brand new, never used in the box, you’re probably looking at a $450 price range, but I haven’t seen a confirmed sale yet.

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Mike says:

September 18, 2018 at 4:29 pm

What would you price a sharp game tv at in pretty decent condition

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Mitchell says:

January 21, 2019 at 5:02 pm

Hey know this post is older but how about atari 800 with the 410 tape recorder?

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racketboy says:

February 17, 2019 at 12:58 pm

I didn’t want to get a lot into personal computer models, but from what I can tell, the systems run in the $80 to $350 range depending on condition (with shipping included). There was a “Complete” version that sold for $400.

The tape drive usually has about a $40 value.

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Mitch says:

May 24, 2020 at 6:46 pm

I have a question that I cant find anyplace on the internet. I own a Black Game Boy Pocket Boise Cascade/Anderson Consulting/People Soft special edition promo system. From my understanding they only made 50 of these, and 4 are known at this time. What is this console worth? Great condition, and works just fine.

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racketboy says:

May 25, 2020 at 2:14 pm

Interesting — do you have a picture to share? I’m curious if there’s anything that makes these different from a stock one other than a printed logo. Did it have any special outer packaging?

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Moe says:

September 15, 2020 at 3:29 am

Hi racketboy,

How much do you think a Super Nintendo score master controller is worth?

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racketboy says:

November 15, 2020 at 12:10 pm

Looks like $50 to $90
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Super+Nintendo+score+master+controller&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1

Here’s some of my old tips to look up item value like this
http://www.racketboy.com/journal/learn-how-much-video-games-are-worth

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AngrySquirrel34 says:

November 10, 2020 at 8:20 pm

Thanks for the update, always interesting to check in here. 6th gen is creeping up there for all three (four?) consoles, the bargain window for those seems to have closed (at least for hardware). 5th gen-wise, can’t believe the N64 is now costing as much as the Saturn, wow.

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racketboy says:

November 15, 2020 at 12:08 pm

The N64 is making a solid nostalgia run for a generation of gamers that didn’t really collect retro before. It is to many what the NES/SNES was for us that are older….

The Saturn is still growing quite a bit! It didn’t quite make that chart graphic, but it’s not far below that top 10.

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AngrySquirrel34 says:

November 20, 2020 at 7:44 pm

Still, there have to be at least 10 working n64s to 1 Saturn out there in the wild (except maybe in Japan). A testament to the Nintendo name perhaps?

Why would the n64 benefit from nostalgia to such a greater degree than the original Playstation? I can think of a few reasons (more ppl played the former as kids, the library aged significantly better, less access to the library, the multi-player popularity), but for demand to be 2x higher (or more) is still surprising.

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racketboy says:

February 11, 2021 at 6:57 am

I really do think the Nintendo name does go a long way. The PS1 also has all the backwards compatibility, so I think that factors in a lot too.

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Gus Avila says:

November 14, 2020 at 12:27 pm

According to this I’m rich and I didn’t know it
I have most of these full with boxes and manuals and in pristine conditions

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racketboy says:

November 15, 2020 at 12:06 pm

Very cool! Cardboard is quickly becoming the currency of the retro world 🙂

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VexRgyne says:

July 18, 2021 at 3:02 pm

how much would a sega master system ii in original fitted carry case with controller and all wires be worth?

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Nicolas Couture says:

September 12, 2021 at 8:14 pm

Bonjours , je voulais vous dire félicitation pour votre site qui est très instructif. J’aurais qu’une simple petite question et qui consiste à savoir les indications des prix inscrits en $ est considérés en US ou en CAD ? Car le hyperlien pour eBay est celui du côté américain ?
Merci.

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Cuthbert says:

April 30, 2024 at 2:20 pm

Buy a dictionary. You use “Retro” wrong on every single part of this site.

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weekendroady says:

May 29, 2024 at 11:46 am

We need to add the Super A’Can to this list, legitimate console (or tried to be) from Taiwan. A lot of console collectors consider it a grail of sorts

Reply

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