Comments on Video Game & DVD Collecting | Resale Price Analysis: Pokemon DS Games Raise All Pokemon Prices

On ps1, the sequels Suikoden 2 and Monster Rancher...

2008-05-26T01:17:00.000-06:00

On ps1, the sequels Suikoden 2 and Monster Rancher 2 utilized the save data of the original games. I don't know if the ps2 installments of those series have continued the trend, as I've lost interest since then...

I do know there are some episodic RPGs, like the .hack series on ps2, that are intended to be played in sequence, using the same save data through the run of the series. .hack and .hack//G.U. might the best ones to analyze.

I can't think of any game series where you can col...

2007-06-26T19:30:00.000-06:00

I can't think of any game series where you can collect items from previous versions and transfer them over, besides Pokemon.

If anyone knows of any let me know so I can try to analyze their data.

Interesting article. I'm guessing that games like ...

2007-06-25T21:41:00.000-06:00

Interesting article. I'm guessing that games like the FFX/X-2 example you gave would have an increase of some description, but perhaps not as dramatic.

Are there any other series with backwards collectible objects etc in them? It'd be interesting to see if this trend does indeed stretch past Pokemon, or if it only occurs in this series since it's such a popular thing.

No Amazon does not directly provide units sold and...

2007-06-22T15:40:00.000-06:00

No Amazon does not directly provide units sold and prices sold. You are correct. But you can get an approximation of this.

Let's say you go to Amazon and find the lowest available price for X game. It is $10 today. You go back tomorrow and the lowest priced item available is now $11. Either the $10 item was sold, or it was removed by the seller or price was raised by the seller. Since people list on Amazon to sell their items we can assume for the vast majority of cases the item sold. So we can say on that day the price was $10 because someone listed at that price and bought at that price.

What if instead the price is $9 the next day? Either the seller lowered their price or a new seller came in with a lower price. We don't know if they $10 item sold, but we do know that seller's think their items are worth less money. So we can say the price went down.

Maybe buyers are only willing to pay $7. So that $9 item will stay at this price and never get sold and my price would stay the same, but eventually someone comes along at a lower price or the seller lowers it themselves until the price gets closer together and reaches an equilibrium. Because of this we can approximate the lowest price available on Amazon as the "market" price for that item on Amazon because items should be in a state of equalibrium with supply and demand.

My prices are not exactly Amazon's lowest price. But this is an example of how the Amazon price could be used as an approximation for the sale price.

I read the other posts and I don't see where it sa...

2007-06-22T15:17:00.000-06:00

I read the other posts and I don't see where it says that the prices are based on the prices of units sold, as opposed to the prices advertised. Since you have claimed this to be so in your comment to this post, I have to ask: does Amazon really release volume and price data on games sold? And then you say you determine the prices using a secret recipe? Doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the data. Sorry to be anonymous, but I don't have a blogger ID. Michael

If you would read the source data blog, my second ...

2007-06-22T12:47:00.000-06:00

If you would read the source data blog, my second post on this site you would see that all the sources for the data are sites were the prices are determined dynamically. Amazon, Ebay, Half, and JJGames all are priced based upon supply and demand not simply expected higher prices by the suppliers.

The prices are what has actually sold to customers. Please read the other blog posts for more details about how the prices are determined and where they come from.

Without knowing how many units sold at what price,...

2007-06-22T12:10:00.000-06:00

Without knowing how many units sold at what price, how do we know that people are buying them at the increased price? Seems more like retailers trying to cash in on the franchise, but if you don't know if people are buying them at the higher prices, its pure speculation to say that the consumer wants them more and is willing to pay more for them. (With the exception of Ebay, where the price is determined through a negotiated process.) All it indicates is that retailers *hope* that consumers will buy at a higher price during a related release.

Assuming that price is automatically determined by supply and demand is only OK in high-school economics. You even go so far as to call higher prices "increased buying." Maybe I'm missing something somewhere, but this seems like pretty fast and loose reasoning.

Great article. I would have thought that the new ...

2007-06-22T08:35:00.000-06:00

Great article. I would have thought that the new PokÃ©mon release would have depressed PokÃ©mon prices below the market level as potential purchasers saved their money in anticipation. I further suspected that after the release date, prices for older PokÃ©mon games would have decline faster than the index. Thanks for the good analysis. I'd really like to see a comparison of prices related to other game releases.