The Wii was hard to get your hands and selling online for more than retail during all of 2007. The prices shot up to almost twice retail price during November and December because it became the hot Christmas gift. Right after Thanksgiving the Wii was selling for more than $550.
Wii Price During 2008 - January 31st, 2008
I think next Christmas the Nintendo Wii will be just as hard to find and will be priced much higher than retail on places like eBay and Amazon. I'm willing to bet the price of the Wii is more than $400 next year. Let me explain why.
1. Nintendo DS Was Hard to Find in Years 3 and 4
The Nintendo DS was released at the end of 2004 so it has been on the market for 4 holidays now, 04, 05, 06, and 07. The chart below shows that the DS was hard to find during the holidays in 2007. The price online was more than retail for all three DS consoles (the DS is still hard to find) This next Christmas will be the Wii's third holiday season.
White Nintendo DS Price - January 31st, 2008
2. Nintendo Produces More DS's Than Wii's
Nintendo are only making 1.8 million Wii's a month compared to 2.5 million DS's. So there is a larger supply of DS's and Nintendo hasn't said they are increasing production of Wii's at this point.
3. WiiFit Is Coming Out This Year
WiiFit is being released in April in the US and I think it is going to be very popular. It is the number one selling game in Japan right now and I think the American media will jump all over the game talking about it. Nintendo will get so much PR it is ridiculous. Anecdotally, three of the casual gamer friends I have who own Wii's said they are excited to buy Wii Fit when it comes out. It will be popular.
4. WiiFit Will Make the Wii The Must Have Christmas Gift Again
All the PR Wii Fit will generate for Nintendo and all the people who talk at the water coolers about how they are on the "WiiFit workout plan", will make the Wii the hot Christmas gift for 2008.
All of these factors combined will make the Wii very popular again in 2008, especially during November and December. Nintendo might increase production some this year, I hope sure hope they do, but I don't think they will make enough to satisfy demand.
My final prediction: Wii will sell for more than $400 during December 2008.
Let me know what you think of this prediction. Do you agree? And go ahead and bookmark this article so we you can see how accurate my prediction was. If I am way off be sure to make fun of me.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wii Will Sell For More Than $400 Next Christmas
Friday, January 25, 2008
Nintendo DS Still In Short Supply
The Nintendo DS sold almost 2.5 million units in December 2007 and there were reports of shortages of the console all over the US. It is nearing the end of January and there are still shortages of all Nintendo DS colors.
The best way to determine if an item is in short supply is to check the prices people are paying. If people are willing to pay more than retail value of $129.99 then the Nintendo DS is hard to find at retail so people will pay more to get it. The Black, Pink, and even White DS's are all selling for more than retail price. Below are the charts of the Nintendo DS prices for the past year.
Black Nintendo DS Price - January 25th, 2008
Pink Nintendo DS Price - January 25th, 2008
White Nintendo DS Price - January 25th, 2008
Prices in January are actually higher than December for all three consoles so the console is harder to find in January than in December. They are starting to come down in price some so maybe Nintendo is finally shipping some systems into stores.
Anecdotally, I haven't seen a Nintendo DS near me for the past week. Are you noticing the same shortages where you live? Or are they easy to find? Let me know in the comments section below.
Prices come from VideoGamePriceCharts.com
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
2008 Video Game Prices Predictions
As we have shown in previous posts, video game prices can be very volatile with some games increase by great amounts in one year and others plummet in value. There are still some patterns though to the prices and I'm going to try to make some predictions for the coming year and which video games will increase in price and which will decrease.
These are only predictions so don't get upset at me if you sell your copy of Madden 08 tomorrow and it increases in price this year. (That being said, Madden dropping in value is my "lock of the year". Its going to happen).
Predictions for 2008 Video Game Prices
February
Devil May Cry games for Playstation 2 will increase in value right around the start of February. Devil May Cry 4 is being released Feb. 4th for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 so a bunch of people will want to play the originals. Devil May Cry 3 will increase the most because it sold the least in the series and is closest in time-line to the 4th.
March
Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 64 will drop in price in March or soon after. The price of Smash Bros has already increased quite a bit in the last few months to around $30 in January. Everyone is wanting to play Smash Bros before Brawl comes out on Wii. But after it does the price will come back down. There are also rumors Smash Bros will be released on virtual console right when Brawl comes out. Both of these will drop Smash Bros prices.
April
Grand Theft Auto games will increase in price. This one might be off by a bit because GTA IV doesn't have a confirmed release date. But when it does I expect some people to start buying the old GTA games so they can have some Grand Theft Auto fun before IV's release and after they have beaten it. I also think Xbox GTA games will increase the most.
May
Chronicles of Narnia goes up in price. This prediction isn't so much because of a sequel game coming out, but because The Chronicles of Narnia movie comes out in May. If it is popular like the first one, or more so, The Chronicles of Narnia Lion Witch and the Wardrobe games for all consoles will be in demand.
June
Metal Gear Solid games will increase in price. I think all Metal Gear games will increase in price when Metal Gear Solid 4 is released this summer. People will want to complete the whole story. The only exception is Metal Gear Solid the original for Playstation 1. It has already increased in price quite a lot in the past 4-5 months and I think it has room to go back down. Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance will be the most valuable because it is the hardest to find already.
July
Mario Kart Double Dash will become more expensive, but not Mario Kart 64. Like Metal Gear, MK 64 has already increased in price a lot in the past 3-5 months so does not have much upside. Mario Kart Double Dash on the other hand has not gone up at all in almost ten months. Wii owners will be able to play this game on their system and many stores are not carrying Gamecube games anymore. Of course Mario Kart Wii might not come out this summer which would be like throwing a red shell at this prediction.
August - Lock of the Year
Madden 2008 will drop in value a ton. We have already shown that Madden prices drop very consistantly. And I think 2008 will be no exception.
September - Random Prediction of the Year
YourSelf Fitness will increase in price. Your thinking to yourself (haha) "what game is that?". Its a work out game for Playstation 2 and Xbox. I think WiiFit will become very popular and show people that they can use some video games to get a work out. Yourself Fitness will get the benefits of this. Plus it has not sold well so far so the price could increase a lot without much increase in demand.
October
Soul Calibur II for Xbox goes up in value. Soul Calibur IV is supposed to come out for 360 and PS3 around this time in 2008 (I don't think it has a solid release date yet). The Xbox Soul Calibur sold the least between the Cube, PS2, and Xbox but I think IV will sell the best on 360 and people will want to play the older version too.
November
Animal Crossing on Gamecube will go up in price. Predicting that Animal Crossing Wii will come out in Nov. 2008 is quite a shot in the dark all by itself, but I think people will buy the Gamecube game when it does. Especially when they realize many of those Virtual Console NES games they can pay $5 for are free when they play Animal Crossing.
December
Wii Console prices will be sky high next Christmas too. I don't think they will be as high as Christmas 2007, but I don't think Nintendo will make enough consoles for next Christmas and it will be a popular present for casuals because of WiiFit.
I'm going to try to check back every now and then to see how my predictions turned out. And in early 2009 will have a complete review. I will be using our official video game pricing charts to check my accuracy. We will soon know if I am the Punxsutawney Phil of the video game pricing world.
This is the last post in our 2007 Video Game Prices in Review series.
Wii Game Prices | Xbox 360 Game Prices | PS3 Game Prices
Monday, January 21, 2008
VideoGamePriceCharts.com Live Again!
The server is back up and running again for the video game pricing side of things. We are looking into what caused the problem to help ensure it doesn't happen again. Sorry for any inconvenience. I hope nobody needed to price their video game to defend their sister's honor or something else really important. If so, you can do it now. I hope its not too late!
VideoGamePriceCharts.com Server Down
The VideoGamePriceCharts.com server has been down since yesterday. Luckily this blog is hosted on a different server so at least part of the site is still up and running. We are working to get the site back up and will hopefully have it running this morning. We apologize for this outage. In the last couple of days our site has gotten a lot more traffic because of a few articles about it and this might have contributed to the problems.
We will let you know when it is back online.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Console Wars: 2007 Video Game Prices by Console
This post is part of our 2007 Video Game Prices in Review feature.
Below are the charts of the average video game price for Nintendo 64, Playstation 1, Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, and Nintendo DS. You can click the charts to see a bigger image.
Nintendo 64's Average Game Price 2007
Playstation 1's Average Game Price 2007
Playstation 2's Average Game Price 2007
Xbox's Average Game Price 2007
Gamecube's Average Game Price 2007
Nintendo DS's Average Game Price 2007
Analysis of the Video Game Prices
The charts above show that the Playstation 1 was the only past generation console where the prices actually increased from 2006 to 2007. Every other console had a lower price on Dec. 31st than on Jan 1st, but the PS1's average price was $14.49 at the end of the year compared to $13.29 at the beginning. The Nintendo 64 was very close to keeping the same prices during the year, but were down by $0.01. So basically flat for the year.
Every single console does follow the same basic trends though, it is just the degree of price change that is different. The prices steadily drop throughout the year until November and then start increasing again very rapidly in November and December. PS1 was the same but had a much smaller price decrease during the year and a very big price spike at the end. N64 had big price drops almost even with the "All Game" average for most of the year but then during the holidays prices increased the most of any console percentage wise, 53.4%.
If this data shows one thing, it is that collecting older video games is the best way to ensure your collection won't plummet in value. Buying the newer games is great for playing and having a good time, but they won't make you much money as a collector.
Between Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Xbox, pricing trends were very similar with the Xbox having the biggest price decrease for the year and the lowest average price overall, $7.51 per game. Playstation 2 and Gamecube had average prices of $13.52 and $16.99 respectively.
Nintendo DS prices are more volatile than the other consoles because we have fewer games in the average, but overall it behaved the way you would expect.
Unfortunately we don't have enough data for the Xbox 360, Wii, or Playstation 3 to show charts of their average game prices last year. We only started adding those consoles to our pricing database at the very end of 2008 and didn't have complete data until the middle of the year. Later this year we will have regular updates about pricing for every major system from NES to Xbox 360, but those will have to wait for now.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
2006 Video Game Releases - 2007 Price Chart
This post is part of our 2007 Video Game Prices in Review feature.
In general video game prices drop over time just like CD's, DVD's, Books, and other media. The biggest portion of this price depreciation occurs in the first year after release. The chart below shows the average price of all video games released during 2006 compared to the average price of all video games during 2007.
Click the chart for a bigger version
The two lines are very similar in shape so the prices for newer games rise and fall at the same times as older video games, but the severity of the fall in prices is much greater. 2006 prices and the "All Games" comparison line started at the same price on January 1st 2007, $20.69. So the average video game released in 2006 was worth $20.69 at the start of 2007. (This is a good time to mention that the "All Games" average price is not $20.69 too, it is actually $13.59 but for the sake of comparison and seeing relative movements in prices it has been adjusted so both lines start at the same point).
By the end of the year, 2006 releases had dropped to an average of $13.58 or a 34.4% decrease during 2007. The average of all games had dropped 11.8% by comparison.
The price decrease for 2006 video games is even more pronounced when you look at the low point for the year, prior to the price spike before the holidays. 2006 released video games reached a low of $9.83 on October 29th or a whopping 52.5% drop.
Video game prices provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com
Monday, January 7, 2008
More Video Games Added to Pricing Database
Over the weekend VideoGamePriceCharts.com added more than 900 titles to our database. There are now 8,788 video games in our database all with daily updated prices.
Most of the titles added were for the Playstation 2, Nintendo DS, Xbox, and Gamecube with some titles for Wii, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3.
We continue to work to add video games to our database so you can find up-to-date prices for any video game on any console at any time.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Average Video Game Prices in 2007
This post is part of our 2007 Video Game Prices in Review feature.
Below is the chart of the average used video game price during 2007.
Click image for bigger version
The average consists of roughly 3,500 video games that were released prior to December, 31st 2006 from Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Super Nintendo, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Color, Playstation 2, Playstation 1, and Xbox. The data shown is an average of all 3,500 games and their daily updated prices tracked over the course of 2007.
The high price for the year was $13.59 on January 1st and the low was on November 5th with a price of $9.49. The average video game dropped in price 30.2% from the high to the low.
As we have shown before video game prices rise during November and December due to the holiday shopping. 2007 was no exception. From the low on November 5th, the average price increased to $12.01 on Dec. 31st. A 26.6% increase in less than two months.
The average video game dropped in price 11.6% during 2007.
Two things to learn from this chart.
1. Video game collecting as a money making hobby is an uphill battle. Though there are definitely some games that increase in price so you just have to pick your games wisely.
2. If you are going to shop for video games for Christmas presents, shop early. Every day you delay adds about 0.5% to what you are going to pay.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Video Games With Biggest Price Decreases in 2007
This post is part of our 2007 Video Game Prices in Review feature.
Top 10 video game price decreases during 2007:
| Video Game | Console | Price Jan 1st | Price Dec 31st | % Decrease |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NBA Live 2006 | Xbox | $8.40 | $0.50 | -94% |
| ESPN Hockey 2005 | PS2 | $19.85 | $1.36 | -93% |
| NHL 2005 | PS2 | $20.50 | $1.60 | -92% |
| Dragon's Lair 2 Time Warp | Xbox | $26.35 | $2.49 | -91% |
| NBA 2K6 | PS2 | $9.61 | $0.99 | -90% |
| NCAA March Madness 2006 | PS2 | $11.84 | $1.34 | -89% |
| NCAA Football 2006 | PS2 | $10.44 | $1.24 | -88% |
| Michael Andretti Indy Car Challenge | SNES | $6.31 | $0.88 | -86% |
| Mary Kate and Ashely Mystery Mall | PS1 | $7.99 | $1.13 | -86% |
| High Rollers Casino | Xbox | $3.47 | $0.55 | -84% |
(List only includes video games with at least two price sources to make sure the data is as accurate as possible).
See the games with the biggest price increases.
Video Games With Biggest Price Increases in 2007
This post is part of our 2007 Video Game Prices in Review feature.
Top 10 video game price increases during 2007:
| Video Game | Console | Price Jan 1st | Price Dec 31st | % Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extreme G3 | PS2 | $0.49 | $4.93 | 907% |
| Rampage Through Time | PS1 | $2.39 | $16.99 | 611% |
| MisAdventures of Tron Boone | PS1 | $13.95 | $86.10 | 517% |
| Max Payne | Xbox | $0.38 | $2.22 | 484% |
| Crash Bandicoot | PS1 | $6.46 | $35.81 | 453% |
| Descent Maximum | PS1 | $2.44 | $13.47 | 452% |
| Micro Maniacs Racing | PS1 | $0.75 | $3.96 | 428% |
| Spyro Collector's Edition | PS1 | $21.84 | $114.99 | 427% |
| Azure Dreams | Gameboy Color | $7.18 | $33.35 | 364% |
| Street Fighter Anniversary | Xbox | $10.00 | $44.27 | 343% |
(List only includes video games with at least two price sources to make sure the data is as accurate as possible).
See games with biggest price decreases.
2007 Video Game Prices in Review
This is a feature with a review of video game prices in 2007. We will be looking at what the big winners and losers were price wise during the past year. How the average video game price fared during 2007 with charts of daily prices. And what our predictions for 2008 prices are and which games we think are poised to increase. This feature will be updated regularly until almost the middle of January so check back regularly for the latest analysis.
