PriceCharting Blog

Sunday, March 29, 2009

250 Classic Arcade Games In The Middle of Nowhere

Manitou Springs Colorado is a small town of a little more than 5,000 people. But it has the greatest arcade I have ever seen.

I was going with my wife for a relaxing weekend away. Manitou Springs is your quintessential small town with a little Main Street, small shops, bed and breakfasts, etc. I thought we would stay the night, have a good dinner, and see a few sites.

COmnteer

I had no idea that in the middle of the main street is an arcade lover's dream. There are more than 300 classic arcade cabinets, pinball machines, skee-ball, and other midway type games.

Everything from 1 cent football games from the early 1900's to table top Space Invaders to Guitar Hero. Pinball machines themed after Superman or Elton John. Rifle shooting games, love testers, foosball, racing games, and fighting games. There were games I remember playing when I was growing up and games I have never seen before.

Arcade Is Outside & Inside Five Different Buildings

enkrates

The whole arcade is spread through-out five different buildings and the outside spaces in between. Some of the cabinets even had snow on them (which was a bit sad to see).

Lines of Pinball Machines

MV Jantzen

Rows of pinball machines. This room was dedicated to pinball and the penny, nickel, and dime games. Everything cost the same that it did when the games were first made.

Elton John's Pinball Machine - Captain Fantasic

jamesandtim

Apparantly Elton John had his own pinball machine.

Almost Every Capcom Arcade Fighter

The arcade had almost every single Capcom arcade fighter. Street Fighter II to Marvel vs Capcom and X-Men vs Street Fighter.

Classic Arcade Basketball

Before electronics, arcade's had games like this. You control the white player who is fed metal balls from the pipe to his left. The yellow player moves from side to side with his hands in the air. You pull the trigger to shoot the ball. Very simple, but pretty fun.

Skeeball Hall

MV Jantzen

The outside of the Skeeball and ticket redemption center at night time.

Gorf - Arcade Game I've Never Seen Before

I've never seen Gorf before. It looked like a Galaga type game. It was constantly making sounds the whole time I was there.

Arcade Shooting Games

jpundt79

More rifles than an NRA Convention.

Nintendo Super System - 3 Games in 1

This arcade game had Super Mario World, F-Zero, and Super Tennis in the same cabinet. It didn't have a joystick but had two controllers that looked similar to an SNES controller.

Penny Bouncy Horses

flowercat

There were even 30 of those penny horses they have at grocery stores, but not just horses. Every type of airplane, train, car, tiger, elephant, hippo, and dragon you could imagine. When I was there a little boy was methodically riding every single one.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

New Games Added For 3DO, Atari Lynx, & Intellivision

This week we added games to our database for 3DO, Atari Lynx, and Intellivision.

Our database now has 172 3DO games, 84 Lynx games, and 113 Intellivision games. Not all of them will show up when you visit those system pages because we don't have prices for some of them yet. When we do get prices you will see them in the price list the next day.

We also added the systems to our price list but didn't add any accessories. If you know of some important accessories for these systems please let us know.

The systems are now in the "more consoles" section of the menu.

When we added these items to the database we put them all into the "Action & Adventure" category. If any 3DO, Lynx, or Intellivision fans want to give us the real genre's we would love to change them. Please email us and we will send you a file with all the games for each system so you can add the genres.

Lastly, we want to give a big "Thank You" to Robert Stevens for emailing us a list of all the Atari Lynx games. We appreciate your help making this community better. We are currently working on adding more Jaguar and Game Gear games to the database and adding a new section for Commodore 64. Hopefully we will have those up soon.

Friday, March 27, 2009

New Releases: Pokemon Platinum

Pokemon Platinum Cover The biggest release this week is definitely Pokemon Platinum. The 3rd Pokemon game for the Nintendo DS. Like everything else Pokemon related it will sell millions of copies to fans all over the US.

I'm also intrigued by Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for DS and Wii. I enjoyed the Gamecube Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles when I played with three other people, but none of my local friends will be buying this game. It definitely sounds like a game enjoyed with other friends.

Nintendo DS Game Releases

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Video Games Will Sell For Comic & Baseball Card Prices

On March 14th, 2009, Action Comic #1, the first comic book featuring Superman, sold at auction for $317,000. In 2007, a Honus Wagner baseball card sold for $2.8 million. And some day soon, video games will be cashed in for similar outrageous prices.

Not every video game will sell for thousands of dollars. Not every comic book or baseball card fetches these high prices either. But, some video games will likely sell for more than $100,000 or even a million dollars some day. Most likely it will be a game like Nintendo World Championship, which already sells for $20,000.

Expensive Collector's Items Need to Be Rare

The most expensive baseball cards and comic books are rare. There are only between 50 to 60 T206 Honus Wagner cards and fewer than 100 Action Comic #1's known to exist.

Nintendo World Championship Gold and a few other video games definitely meet this criteria. There are only 26 NWC Gold cartridges in existence and 90 NWC Gray cartridges. Only five copies of Air Raid for Atari 2600 have ever been found. Another handful of video games also fit the "rare" distinction, giving them immense worth.

The Item Needs A Good Story

Some games, comics, baseball cards, and other rarities only have one or two copies in existence because they were prototypes and never actually released. But, that doesn't automatically make them valuable to collectors. The item needs a good story behind it to entice collectors.

Action Comic #1, for example, is the first comic book to feature Superman. It’s considered the first superhero comic. Honus Wagner is thought to be one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He also forced the American Tobacco Co to stop production of the baseball card because he didn't want to be associated with tobacco. Both great stories.

Nintendo World Championship has a great history too. The game was part of a Nintendo promoted competition where gamers from all over the country competed to get the best score in Super Mario, Rad Racer, and Tetris. The game stopped players after six minutes and twenty-one seconds. The finals were held at Universal Studios and the 26 winners received NWC Gold as one of their prizes.

Mass Market Popularity

Tomorrow's collectors are today's common fan. Since the 1900's, baseball card trading and collecting has been a favorite of boys. When those boys grew older and had more disposable income they were willing to spend a lot more money on their collections. Previous owners of the Wagner card included Wayne Gretzky, Wal-Mart (they purchased it for a baseball card promotion), and the CEO of an investment company. Comic books have been very popular since the 1950's so kids who became fans of comics during this golden age are now in their late 50's and 60's (an age when many people have their highest income).

Research by the NPD Group in early 2008 shows that 72 percent of Americans play video games. So there are millions of gamers out there who can help increase the price of the video games eventually.

Value Increases With Time

Time helps increase the value of the best collectibles and is the leading factor currently holding back video game prices. The Honus Wagner card was released in 1909, so it has been on the market for exactly one hundred years. During the 1930's the Honus Wagner card sold for $50. Using the $2.8 million price in 2007, the card had a compounded return of 15.3% per year over the last 77 years.

Action Comic #1 is 71 years old this year. It's compounded return since 1938, when it originally sold for 10 cents, is 23.5%.

Time is indeed the factor keeping video games from the ski-high prices baseball cards and comics are now raking in. Video games became popular in the 1980's with Atari. And it wasn’t until a decade later in 1990 that the Nintendo World Championship took place. NWC cartridges were given away and there are no records of the original prices the game sold for so it is hard to calculate a percent return for the game so far. Assuming you could have offered one of the winners of these cartridges $1,000 for it the rate of return would be 17.1%. Right in between Honus Wager and Action Comic.

Given Enough Time NWC Will Be Worth $100K or More

Nintendo World Championship (and a few other games too) have all the makings of valuable collector's items. There is a very limited supply. It has a great story behind the game. And it has popular appeal with millions of people who play games. The only thing keeping NWC Gold cartridge from selling for more money is time. In ten, twenty, or thirty years when kids who grew up playing NES games have money to spare, they will be the collectors willing and able to pay top dollar prices for these treasures.

Monday, March 23, 2009

More Consoles Available In Menu

We've been tracking prices for some Atari 2600, Virtual Boy, and Sega Game Gear games for quite a while but many of our users probably didn't know that because they weren't listed in the system menu shown on every page. We've fixed this and kept the menu free from too much clutter.

We added a link at the bottom of the menu that says "Show More Consoles". Click that link and additional systems will show up in the menu. Below you will see an image with the changes.
System Drop Down Menu

We moved some of the less popular systems into this drop down menu like NeoGeo, Sega CD, and TurboGrfx-16. We did this to make the most popular systems easier to find.

We will be adding more games for more systems during the rest of this week so look for the new additions inside this "Show More Consoles" menu.

Unfortunately we cannot get this feature to work with the blog page. The link will take you to a list of all the consoles, but it won't show the drop-down list.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Collecting 101: Release Date a Huge Factor in Video Game Resale Prices

This post is the first in a series of posts looking at the factors that help determine a game's value and if it will become a sought after collectible. Each article in the series will look at a different factor, how it affects the price for a game and why. The first Rarity Factor is Release Date.

Video games released at the end of the system's life are more likely to become rare

What Causes The Higher Prices & Increased Rarity

Video games are released every year a console is supported. But at some point publishers stop releasing games for a system. There aren't any new NES, PS1, or Saturn games being published and sold at retail anymore. Most gamers stopped buying new games because they moved onto the next system and developers stopped making them because no one is buying anymore.

During this transition time the number of units a game sells generally drops. Madden is a good example of this. Sales of Madden on PS2 were 3.8 million in 2006, 3.5 million in 2007, 2.2 million in 2008, and 1.1 million in 2009. Other games see the same sales pattern. If a game is released at the end of a console's life, the publisher will make fewer copies knowing that they won't be able to sell as many.

Rare Titles are 5 Times More Likely In Last Two Years

Games released in the last two years of a console's life are five times more likely to be one of the most expensive titles when compared to games released any other year. The chart below will help illustrate:
Rarity By Release Date

The chart above shows the games released during the last two years for N64, SNES, and NES as a percentage of the total games released and as a percentage of the ten most expensive games. The late generation games only represent about 20% of all games released but they make up more than 50% of the expensive games.

In other words the odds of a late generation game becoming rare are roughly 1 in 28. The the odds of early generation games becoming rare are only 1 in 139.

The NES, SNES, and N64 are not the exceptions. Of the four rarest games for the Saturn, three were released during the last year (Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III, and Burning Rangers). The rare Xbox games are the same way. 33% of the rare Xbox games were released during the last year.

How To Use This Release Date Information

You can use this information to help you make better buying decisions for your collections. The Playstation 2 is nearing the end of its life cycle. Weeks will pass without a single release and the future release list looks bleak too with lots of sports titles and movie tie-ins. This is generally the best time to buy if you want to own a rare collectible.

This is part of our video game collecting 101 series.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

New Releases: Grand Theft Auto China Town Wars

Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars is being released this week for the Nintendo DS. Its received some very good reviews from IGN and is supposed to combine the best parts of the other GTA games and put them on a portable console.
There are some RPG's for Wii and DS with Rune Factory for Wii, and Suikoden Tiekreis and Valkyrie Profile for Nintendo DS. The Suikoden games for Playstation are rare collectibles but I doubt the DS version will become rare too if the newer PS2 versions are any indication.

Nintendo DS New Releases

Dreamer: Puppy Trainer | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Scrabble | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Suikoden Tierkreis | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

TrackMania DS | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Playstation 2 New Releases

Singstar: Queen | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Xbox 360 New Releases

The Wheelman | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Wii New Releases

Marble Saga Kororinpa | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Ready 2 Rumble Revolution | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Rune Factory: Frontier | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Playstation 3 New Releases

The Wheelman | Prices on Ebay & Amazon

Monday, March 16, 2009

Compare Prices At Different Stores

We made some changes to the individual game pages on VGPC to make it easier for users to compare prices when shopping for games. We've been testing the changes for the past few days and think we are very close to the final design. Here is a run down of the changes on the new pages and images of the new and old pages:

1. Added Price Comparison Section: A section that lists the prices for each location was added. This should make it easier to know which site has the best prices. Keep in mind that all of these sites sell items quickly so the prices we list might not be the exact price you find after clicking the "See It" image.

2. Removed Advertisement: The advertisement on the right side of the page has been removed.

3. Removed Similar Games: The "Similar Games" section was removed. Our tests on the site showed most customers never used these links. They were removed to add information that users find more relevant.

4. Bigger Chart: The chart showing historic prices is now wider and takes up more space on the page.

Below is the new layout vs the old layout for Chrono Trigger so you can see the difference.

New Chrono Trigger Page

Old Chrono Trigger Page

We made the changes we did because the majority of users told us they used the game pages to either comparison shop or to see historic prices. Please let us know what you think of new layout by taking a brief four question survey.

4 Question User Survey

Some users might still see the old page because we are still running a few more tests. Please be patient while we finalize the changes. Everyone should see the final changes soon.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Panesian Nintendo NES Games | Hot Slots Bubble Bath Babes

The expression "When it rains, it pours" is a great way to describe the last two weeks with the rare Panesian NES games, Peek-A-Boo Poker, Bubble Bath Babes, and Hot Slots. In the last 14 days there have been 10 different auctions for individual Panesian games plus a couple of auctions for all three. In the six months before that there were only eight auctions.

To put that in perspective there was roughly one of these games available every single day during the last 14 days (when you include the 3-in-1 auctions). But during the six months before that you would have to wait an average of 22 days just to see one come up for auction.

What caused this spike in sales for these rare NES games? It looks like it was the high prices all three games sold for on March 1st. You can see in the historic charts for Bubble Bath Babes, Hot Slots, and Peek-A-Boo Poker that the prices shot way up in the March listings. The last sale of Hot Slots went for $1,450! These high prices encouraged owners of these games to list their copies for sale too.

Some of our readers might be wondering why these games sell for so much and why they are so rare. These Panesian NES games were made for the original Nintendo console but were unlicensed. Nintendo didn't want Adult oriented games on the NES but Panesian released them on their own. Because they were unlicensed and had adult content, they were produced in very limited quantities. They are notorious for being horrible games but their special history makes them popular with NES game collectors.

Three more of these were listed on ebay this morning (making it 13 listings in 14 days). Complete versions of Hot Slots, Bubble Bath Babes, and Peek-A-Boo Poker. When will this heavy rainfall end?

See Complete NES Price List

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

20 Rare Nintendo 64 Games | The Most Expensive N64 Games

Only 296 games were made for the Nintendo 64 since it launched in 1996. But quite a few of these games have become rare and sought after by collectors. Below is a list of the most expensive and rare Nintendo 64 games.

Click to see Prices For All Nintendo 64 Games

Most Valuable N64 Games

Yoshi's Story International Version

New Price: N/A | Used Price: $244 | See Current Prices

Yoshi's Story International Version is a demo cartridge made for retail kiosks in North America. All the text of the game is in Japanese but it only works in North American N64's. The cartridge says "Not For Resale" and "International Version" on the front.

Yoshi is the rarest game on the list but the exact number of copies produced is unknown. Because the game looks very similar to the regular Yoshi's Story cover art some sellers list it as the regular version not knowing what they really have.

Clay Fighter Sculptors Cut

New Price: N/A | Used Price: $75 | See Current Prices
Clay Fighter Sculptors Cut was a Blockbuster exclusive game and was meant for rental only. The game is an update to the original Clay Fighter 63 1/3 game but with some added characters and a bigger intro scene. Only 20,000 copies were manufactured.

Because the game was a rental only and most rental stores threw away the original cases and manuals, the box and manual for Sculptors Cut are even more rare than the game. Complete copies sell for $220-230.

Conker's Bad Fur Day

New Price: $172 | Used Price: $48 | See Current Prices
Conker's is a third person action game developed by Rare. It includes lots of language, blood, adult situations, and very funny dialogue. It is critically acclaimed and considered the best graphics and one of the best all around games on the N64.

The game was released the same year the Nintendo 64 was discontinued and sales sufffered because interest in the console and games had decreased. The price for Conker's has steadily increased for the last five years.

Worms Armageddon

New Price: $225 | Used Price: $43 | See Current Prices
Worms Armageddon is a turn based strategy game originally developed for PC but ported over to N64 and various other consoles. You control one of eight worms and must use various weapons likes shotguns, grenades, and bazookas to destroy the opposing worms before they destroy you.

The Nintendo 64 version is the rarest of the different Worms ports. The price for the game has been an almost constant $50 since 2007.

Bomberman Second Attack

New Price: $300 | Used Price: $37 | See Current Prices
Bomberman Second Attack is a sequel to the original Bomberman 64 game with nearly identical gameplay and features. You must place bombs on a board to strategically destroy enemies and obstacles. It includes single player puzzles and multiply player maps.

The game sold less than the original Bomberman because it released near the end of the N64's lifecycle and was passed over by many retailers.

International Superstar Soccer 2000

New Price: $400 | Used Price: $38 | See Current Prices
ISS 2000 is the third game on the N64 in the International Superstar Soccer series. The ISS games never included official team or player names but they were the first to have distinctive looks for different players.

The series from Konami was never as successful as the officially licensed FIFA soccer series from Electronic Arts. The 2000 version sold very poorly and is quite rare today.

Harvest Moon

New Price: $900 | Used Price: $32 | See Current Prices
Harvest Moon is a farm and life simulator. You play a little boy who takes over the family farm and must raise crops, meet the town folks, and start a family. The story is fairly open and your choices about which girl to court and how you win her affections will change the final outcome.

The life/farm simulator genre is very small niche in the USA, but it does have a loyal fan base. Like the SNES version of Harvest Moon, Natsume never produced the game in large quantities.

Ogre Battle: Person of Lordly Caliber

New Price: $98 | Used Price: $31 | See Current Prices
Ogre Battle 64 is a real-time strategy game with you controlling a battalion of soldiers. The game was published by Atlus, who is notorious for under producing copies of their games. The Super Nintendo and Playstation Ogre Battle games are some of the rarest games on their consoles as well.

Prices for the game dropped in mid 2010 after the game was made available on the Virtual Console for Wii. It was the first third party game released on the Virtual Console for Nintendo 64.

Mario Party 3

New Price: $165 | Used Price: $29 | See Current Prices
Mario Party 3 is the last of the series to be released on the Nintendo 64. It continues the same board game on a video game theme with new board layouts and new mini-games to play.

Mario Party 3 was one of the last games released for the N64 and sold much less than the first two, but still sold close to a million units. The game is valuable because it is so popular, not because it is hard to find.

Zelda Ocarina of Time Collectors Edition

New Price: $255 | Used Price: $27 | See Current Prices
The Collector's Edition of Zelda Ocarina of Time was sold at the launch of the game. It didn't include any additional items or cost anything extra but it was only available at launch. The cartridge was gold and the game box was a shiny gold with the words "Collector's Edition" written on it.

This version is harder to find than the regular version and fetches a bit of a premium as well.

Zelda Majora's Mask Collector's Edition

New Price: $157 | Used Price: $31 | See Current Prices
Zelda Majora's Mask Collector's Edition is a gold cartridge with a holographic cover. The game is the exact same as the regular edition.

The Collector's Edition was the only version available at launch so it is very widely available and almost the same price as the regular version (see below).

Zelda Majora's Mask

New Price: $130 | Used Price: $26 | See Current Prices
The same game as the Collector's Edition listed above, but the cartridge cover art is a flat image instead of a holgraphic image.

Both versions sold so many copies and are so similar in physical characteristics that they sell for nearly identical prices when cartridge only or complete.

Starcraft 64

New Price: $200 | Used Price: $25 | See Current Prices
Starcraft 64 is a real-time strategy game for the Nintendo 64. You control an army and must move your troops and equipment around and destroy the enemies and take control of their bases.

The genre has never been very popular on consoles so it was produced in very small quanities and is one of the harder N64 games to find.

Snowboard Kids 2

New Price: $299 | Used Price: $23 | See Current Prices
Snowboard Kids 2 is a snowboarding game published by Atlus. The game includes a Story mode, training mode, and battle mode, which also includes multiplayer. You race down the mountain with different challenges and try to get the best times.

Like many other Atlus cartridge games, Snowboard Kids 2 was produced in very small quantities and never republished.

Castlevania Legacy of Darkness

New Price: $300 | Used Price: $22 | See Current Prices
Castlevania Legacy is a sequel to Castlevania 64. The main game is a new 3D Castlevania but the cartridge also includes a remade version of the original Castlevania 64 with improved graphics and new villians.

This sequel came out only 10 months after the original N64 Castlevania game. It sold much worse than the original because it was too close between releases. Many people feel the Legacy version of the game is a more complete Castlevania game.

Other Expensive N64 Games

Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals - New Price: $350 | Used Price: $14
Super Smash Bros. - New Price: $249 | Used Price: $24
Pokemon Stadium 2 - New Price: $230 | Used Price: $20
Banjo-Tooie - New Price: $108 | Used Price: $17
Mystical Ninja - New Price: $99 | Used Price: $20
Paper Mario - New Price: $93 | Used Price: $25
Kirby Crystal Shards - New Price: $92 | Used Price: $16
Space Station Silicon Valley - New Price: $75 | Used Price: $14
Goemon Great Adventure - New Price: $60 | Used Price: $25

See What Your Games Are Worth

Click to see Prices For All Nintendo 64 (n64) Games
See even more rare video games on all systems

The list is ranked by the highest average used price and then highest average new price in the event of a tie.

Buy and sell games in our Free Game Marketplace

New Releases: Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 and MadWorld Cover Art
This week has some big releases. The biggest is Resident Evil 5 this Friday. Its being released on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and has a limited edition version for both consoles. Microsoft is also releasing a special edition Resident Evil 5 Xbox 360 Elite Console the same day. The RE5 Console is almost guaranteed to become a collectors item. It's already sold out on Amazon and the only one available is listed for $600.

I'm also excited for MadWorld for Wii. Its a combination of "Sin City" and "The Running Man" in one game, and it is nice to have a Wii release that doesn't end in "Party". New Play Control Pikmin could be fun too. I love Pikmin and playing it with the wiimote should be a good addition.