A Tale of Two Personae

"It was the best of times it was the worst of times." Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities starts with this famous line. Dickens uses the line to contrast the times in London and Paris, London was doing well and Paris was not. The same can be said of Persona 2 and Persona 3. The price of Persona 2 has been increasing steadily over the last year and a half to about $85 but Persona 3 has been steadily dropping in price to $21.

Best of Times

Worst of Times

What explains the difference in prices over the last year?

Both games are well regarded critically. They're both published by Atlus and a new game in the series came out. Persona 4 was announced for release in the US but that should increase the prices of both games as we have seen in past vgpc articles.

The big difference is Persona 3 FES. Persona 3 used to be a relatively hard game to find for PS2. Atlus didn't make quite enough to meet the demand (as they are prone to do). After Atlus released FES the prices for the original Persona 3 started to drop almost every month. People could buy a new version from almost any retailer. This brought down the price of Persona 3.

At the same time this increased the price for Persona 2 because it is no longer being published. More people wanted to play other games in the series so the prices increased with the increased demand.

Playstation 2 Game Prices | PS1 Game Prices | SNES Game Prices