15 Rare Sports Video Games | The Most Expensive Sports Games Ever

Sports video games are notorious for dropping in value really quickly. That Madden game you bought last year is probably worth 10% of what you paid and after a few years might be worth $3 if your lucky.

There are some big exceptions to this general rule. Some rare sports games sell for thousands of dollars. Below is a list of the rarest and most expensive sports video games and what makes them so valuable.

Most Valuable Sports Video Games

Stadium Events for Nintendo NES

New Price: $25,000 | Used Price: $2,200 | See Current Prices
Stadium Events is a track and field game for the Nintendo NES. Stadium Events was the second game designed for the Family Fitness mat (Athletic World was the first). But in 1987 Nintendo bought the rights from Bandai and changed the name to World Class Track Meet.

Nintendo stopped shipping Stadium Events and recalled all copies that had shipped but not all the copies were destroyed and a few ended up in customer's hands. The European version was never recalled and is much cheaper.

Spiker! Super Pro Volleyball for Intellivision

New Price: $N/A | Used Price: $1,599 | See Current Prices
Spiker Super Pro Volleyball is a volleball game for the Intellivision. You can play 2v2 or 6v6. The graphics were very advanced for the Intellivision era.

The Intellivision stopped production in 1984 and Spiker was released in 1989 and was the last game released for the system. The publisher, INTV, barely scraped the money together to publish the game at all and was unable to produce many copies.

NBA Elite 11 for Playstation 3

New Price: $2,250 | Used Price: $995 | See Current Prices
NBA Elite 11 is a NBA basketball game for Playstation 3. The game was to be published by EA Sports in 2011, but it was delayed and missed the start of the regular season. In late 2011 it was officially cancelled by EA.

Although it was never officially released, EA had shipped copies of the game to retailers and media for demo purposes. These copies show that the game is very glitchy and incomplete. Collector's aren't paying thousands of dollars to play a great basketball game, they are paying for the rarity.

Super Series Big League Baseball for Intellivision

New Price: $N/A | Used Price: $305 | See Current Prices
Super Series Baseball is for Intellivision. It was way ahead of its time with play-by-play, multiple camera angles, and picture-in-picture for runner's on base. All of this for a game released in 1982.

The exact same game was also released in 1983 as 'World Series Major League Baseball' with an official MLB license. The original 'Super Series' version from 1982 is much more valuable and harder to find.

Mountain Madness: Super Pro Skiing for Intellvision

New Price: $N/A | Used Price: $90 | See Current Prices
Mountain Madness: Super Pro Skiing was released for the Intellivision in 1988. It is an enhanced version of Skiing with 32 courses instead of just one. You could race any course as downhill or slalom and even design your own courses.

The game was released by INTV Corp, four years after Mattel shut-down the Intellivision division. By this point most Intellivision owners had stopped buying new games and almost all retail stores had stopped carrying them. Because of this the game was produced in very small quantities.

Super Copa for Super Nintendo

New Price: $2,000 | Used Price: $90 | See Current Prices
Super Copa is a soccer game for the Super Nintendo. The exact same game was originally released as Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer in 1993. It sold poorly as Tony Meola but not bad enough to be considered rare.

The game was rebranded as Super Copa for release outside the USA. Some collector's think the game was never officially released in the USA but it was rated by the ESRB, which only happens for games slated to be released here. Whether it was released officially or not, the copies available are very expensive and very rare.

NCAA Basketball 10 for Xbox 360

New Price: $210 | Used Price: $80 | See Current Prices
NCAA Basketball 10 was released for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The game features Blake Griffin on the front cover and has broadcasting voices from ESPN and CBS. In February 2010, EA announced they would not release another NCAA Basketball game in the foreseeable future.

Every February and March prices spike for NCAA Basketball 10 as interest peaks with March Madness. It is the most updated NCAA Basketball game available. The Xbox 360 version is more expensive than the PS3 version.

James Buster Douglas Boxing for Sega Master System

New Price: $N/A | Used Price: $80 | See Current Prices
James Buster Douglas Knockout Boxing was released for Sega Master System in 1988. After Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson, Sega quickly signed him to a deal and released a boxing game with his name on it. The Genesis version is worth hardly anything.

Buster Douglas boxing is the second most expensive game for the Master System and very hard to find. The game was released in 1990, which was a year after the Genesis was released. By this point Sega was only providing token support and didn't produce many copies of the game.

NCAA College Basketball 2K3

New Price: $20,000 | Used Price: $75 | See Current Prices
NCAA Basketball 2K3 was released for Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube but only the Gamecube version is rare. It is the only NCAA basketball game for the Gamecube.

In 2003, Sega decided to stop making sports games in their 2K line of games because of lackluster sales. The Gamecube games had sold the worst. Part way through production, Sega decided to stop the Gamecube version but continue making PS2 and Xbox. The few Gamecube games made were sold to stores but on a very limited basis.

International Superstar Soccer Deluxe for Super Nintendo

New Price: $192 | Used Price: $74 | See Current Prices
International Superstar Soccer Deluxe was published on the Super Nintendo. The game was released in 1995 and is a sequel to a very similar game released a year earlier. The Deluxe version added features like 2 player co-op, extra commentary, and small graphical improvements.

Both ISS and ISS Deluxe were trying to capitalize on the success of the World Cup in the USA in 1994, but neither sold very well in the USA. The Deluxe version is rarer than the original and incredibly hard to find complete with the box and instructions.

Other Noteworthy Rare Sports Games

• Virtual Bowling for Virtual Boy | Used Price: $1,395 - Last game for Virtual Boy. Only released in Japan.
• Exertainment Mountain Bikerally/Speed Racer for SNES | Used Price: $500 - Bike racing might qualify as a sports game, but we classify it as racing.
• Punch-Out Special Edition for NES | Used Price: $300 - Gold cartridge released in a competition. Only released in Japan.
• NCAA Basketball 10 for PS3 | Used Price: $54 - Same as the Xbox 360 game listed above, but not as valuable.
• International Superstar Soccer for SNES | Used Price: $60 - Similar to ISS Deluxe but not quite as rare.

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

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2009 Game & Publisher Resale Value Report

This report looks at the Publishers, Consoles, Genres, and Games with the best and worst resale values. It includes over 1,000 games released during 2009 for Nintendo DS, PSP, Xbox 360, Wii, Playstation 3, and Playstation 2.

Ranked by: Publisher | Console | Genre | Game

Publisher Resale Values

The list of publisher resale values below includes every publisher with five or more games released in 2009. The '% Change' column is the average change in resale price from the original MSRP to the average price during December 2009.

Top Ten Game Publishers By Resale Value

MTV Games had the best resale value of all video game publishers in 2009. Their average game declined in value 15%. This was due in large part to the Beatles Rock Band bundles which kept their value better than most games.

Atlus was number two because of Demon's Souls which became a big hit for them but was hard to find at stores for a while. The Demon's Souls Deluxe Edition had the biggest increase in resale value of any game in 2009 (see the chart below). "Atlus has a very small but loyal install base and unfortunately most retailers either do not stock Atlus products, or keep a limited supply. I think what we are seeing here is not necessarily eBay functioning as a secondary market, but a primary one for Atlus fans" says Jesse Divnich of EEDAR.

All Game Publishers By Resale Value

Resale Values by Console

The table shown below is an average of all the games released during 2009 for each console with the average MSRP and average price in December used to calculate the '% Change'.

Console By Average Resale Value Per Game

The average Wii game had a better resale value than any other console while the Xbox 360 had the lowest resale value. The Wii's resale values are helped by Nintendo published games, which tend to keep their value over the long run. The popularity of the Wii in December also contributed to the higher resale values because more Wii owners were looking for games during the time when the data was gathered.

Top 10 Games by Resale Value

The top 10 games ranked by the '% Change' in resale value.

Demon's Souls Deluxe Edition had the biggest increase in resale value during 2009. It increased in price 66%. The deluxe version was made in limited quantities and Demon's Souls became one of the top RPG's of the year so the game was very sought after.

There were two other collector's edition games in the top 10, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition and Forza Motorsport 3 Limited Collector's Edition. As we have shown before, Collector's editions drop in price less than the regular versions on average.

Half of the top 10 are casual games like Just Dance, Salon Superstar, and Dreamer Horse Trainer. On average casual games keep their value longer than other games because they sell longer at retail and casual gamers don't resell their games as quickly as gamers who beat a game and trades it towards another game.

Top Genres By Resale Values

Video game genres ranked by '% Change' in resale value.

The genres with the best resale values in 2009 were soccer, role playing games (RPG), and basketball. Soccer and basketball were helped by their late release dates in 2009. Almost every soccer and basketball game was released in October or November, which gives them less time to depreciate in value.

RPG's tend to have high resale values because they are popular collector's items and they don't sell as well as other genre's so there are fewer copies to be resold.

Baseball had the biggest drop in price during 2009 with a decrease of more than 50%. It has the opposite problem that soccer and basketball did because all the baseball games are released in early in the year to coincide with the start of baseball season.

2009 Prices Compared to 2008 Prices

"It's likely that these resale rankings will swing wildly from year to year" says Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities. Seven of the top 10 publishers are different from 2008 to 2009. Only Nintendo, MTV Games, and Natsume make the list in both years.

According to Jesse Divinich, "Of all the publishers Nintendo is among the top for preventing price protection (discounts at retailers), which is why they maintain a high resale value on secondary markets such as eBay."

There was no variation at all in the console rankings from 2008 to 2009. Wii and Nintendo DS games were at the top of the list in both reports and Xbox 360 and PS3 games were at the bottom.

In general, Wii and DS games have a longer shelf live and sell over a longer period of time so the resale prices stay higher. There are more people buying the games over a longer period of time.

Conversely, Xbox 360 and PS3 games are very front loaded with a much larger percentage of a game's sales occurring in the first month of sales. In the following months used games flood the market as the hardcore games move onto the next big release, which causes lower resale prices.

Collecting 101: Genre Is Big Factor in Video Game Resale Prices

The Genre of a video game is a major factor determining if a game's resale price will plummet, hold steady, or even increase. Sports games are notorious for losing their value very quickly after they come out and being almost worthless 4-5 years later. Which genre's have the best resale values and which have the worst?


This chart shows the average price per genre and how it changed during 2007. All genre's decreased in price, but RPG's and Fighting games had the smallest decline.

Sports, Racing, and First Person Shooters decreased the most, with an almost 35% decrease in nine months.

Even though the average game decreases, individual games within each genre do increase or hold steady. Below are charts show the distribution of price changes for each genre.







For Action, Sports, and Racing games the largest percentage of games decrease in price 50% or more. Almost a third of sports games decrease in price 50% or more.

Then there is a steady drop in the distribution until only 1.8% of games from all genres show a price increase of more than 50%.

RPG and Fighting games are different. Their peak distributions are closer to the middle of the range. 31% of RPG's actually increased in price, while 52% dropped. Only 16% of games in other genre's increased.

RPG's are two times more likely to increase in price

RPG's Compared to All Other Genres

Below is the table with actual distribution percentages for all genres.



All genre's have some games with price increases of 50 percent or more. And the percentage is roughly the same for all genres, between 1-3%. If you were to randomly buy a video game, it wouldn't matter what genre it was; you would have pretty much the same chance of hitting a home run and the price shooting up more than 50 percent.

The biggest difference is on the up side at the 10-20% ranges. 18% percent of RPG's increase between 10-20%, while all other genres have a 10% chances of increasing the same percentage.

How to Use Genre Information When Collecting Games

How can you use this data? If you decide to collect some video games you should probably focus on RPG's because they have the best chance of increasing in price, but be sure to choose selectively. Most RPG's still drop in price, you just have a better chance of not getting burnt.

Methodology: The charts show the number of games for each genre and how much they dropped in price from January 1st 2007 to August 16th 2007. Video game price data from PriceCharting.com.

Used Video Game Price Changes By Genre

Madden 08 and NCAA 08 are coming out in less than a month for about $50 a piece, but the prices will be dropping fast. Persona 3 on PS2 or Luminous Arc for DS on the other hand might not drop much in price at all. Sports games dropped an average of 35 percent in 2007 while RPG's only dropped seven percent. Below is a graph of the price changes for 2007 by genre.



A graph of only RPG's, Sports, and Action/Adventure games



As discussed in an earlier article, prices drop 25 percent on average by this time of year. So it is no surprise that every genre shows a fairly steady decline in price throughout 2007. Different genre's perform quite differently though. RPG's and Fighting games hold their prices the best throughout the year with only seven and sixteen percent drops respectively. Action and Adventure games are almost exactly the same as the average video game with a price drop of 25 percent during 2007. (This make sense action and adventure is the largest genre and weighs the overall average to behave similarly) Sports, First Person Shooters, and Racing games dropped in price the most during 2007 with decreases of 35, 32, and 33 percent respectively.

It is fairly obvious why sports games drop in price the most of any genre. New games are released annually and most people who play the games want the updated rosters and new features. The prices drop on older sports games faster than other genres because the new versions come out so often.

It is not quite as obvious why FPS and racing games would drop in price more than the other genre's and almost as much as sports. Maybe FPS and racer fans are similar to sports fans and they want the newest game available. They don't want Project Gotham 3 when they can buy Forza 2 or Gears of War when they can buy Halo 3 soon. The sheer number of units sold for these games weighs on the prices too. FPS and Racing games are two of the most popular genres so the new games sell lots of units; making used copies easier to find when the person moves onto the next game.

RPG's hold their value the best because many RPG's never sold very many new copies to begin with. Atlus is great example of this using limited production runs on many of their releases. Games like Persona, Ogre Battle, Disgaea, and other RPG's didn't sell very many copies initially and are hard to find now because of this. Other RPG developers are similar because RPG's are not as popular as other genres in the US. Another possible factor is RPG's generally take longer to play giving more 'value' for the money so people are willing to pay more for older games.

Fighting games are similar to RPG's production and sales wise which explains their higher prices. Fighters are more of a niche genre compared to Sports, Action, and Racing so not as many are produced. Fighter's might also keep their value longer because not as many titles are released so their isn't as much competition driving down prices.

Don't expect to get much money back when you go sell your Madden 2005 on ebay or at your local game store. But the RPG you found hidden away behind stacks of movie tie-ins and FPS could very well be worth the same as what you paid for it initially. And maybe more if you bought the next Earthbound, Suikoden II, or Digital Devil Saga.

Technical: The prices shown are seven day moving averages of the average price of games in a particular genre. The prices have also been indexed to all start at 1 in order to show relative price changes over time. Games used in this study were released between 2000 and 2006 for all major systems available during this time period. Genres without enough data points, at least 100 games, are not shown because one game could have too much sway on prices in smaller genres.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com