This week, we stumbled onto PriceCharting.com – a huge database of purported videogame resale values – and thought it would be fun to invite retro specialists Steve Guntli and Woody Ciskowski (of Ultra 64/Wii Universe) to talk about which (non-sports, non-game show) games PriceCharting thinks are worth the least on various platforms. Then we’ll shift to Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World, Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, Horizon: Forbidden West’s gameplay reveal, a new cut of the old Super Mario Bros. movie, and the Japan-only games you’ve longed to get your hands on.
Question of the Week: What’s the most valuable game (or game-related merchandise) in your personal collection?
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QotW: If we go by pricecharting and/or youtube vids that claim game x is rare/valuable for system y…I suppose i have a few (for the switch and 3DS). I have Gal*Gun free hugs edition, Retro City Rampage DX..and for the 3DS, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth [Showtime Premium Edition], Radiant Historia Perfect Chronology [Launch Edition]. Also note they’re all still sealed.
I found a sealed copy of RayCrisis on the PS1 at a Goodwill for $5 a year ago. I then sent it into get graded at WATA Games; came back an 8.5.
QotW: Easily it’s my copy of Pokemon SoulSilver for the DS. The game by itself already goes for $50-$60, but I have the whole thing. The box (both the regular plastic one and cardboard one), all the manuals, the PokeWalker I never used, and even the GameStop preorder figurine that’s still in its box. I even had the strategy guide, but unfortunately that disappeared during a move several years ago. Even without that, it can easily go for several hundred dollars.
Runner up would be my Collector’s Edition of Fable 3, which looks like it goes around $100-$200 if you have it with all the goodies that came with it (I’ve found listing for just the playing cards go for around $30, and the morality coin for about $100).
QotW: When I was a child we would visit my Aunt a couple times a year often for Thanksgiving. From time to time while the adults were drinking and watching boring political thrillers or inoffensive broad comedies I would get to play with her Super Nintendo. One year I came across an open but clearly never touched copy of Earthbound. The charmingly weird little JRPG filled my SEGA kid brain with awe for a couple hours before I went back downstairs to play pool or eat more potato chips or whatever.
Years later when she suffered a debilitating brain aneurysm it fell on all of us to clean out her house so it could be sold. Shot putting a relative’s entire life into a rent-a-dumpster is depressing. That said my mom did manage to salvage a bunch of NES and SNES games and asked me to look up the values online. Of all the games it the stack I was happiest to see Earthbound still complete in box and in good condition. I can’t bring myself to sell it though due to the sentimental value and hey maybe my aunt will need the money for medical bills or to pay for her nursing home. It was her property after all.
My other aunt and her failson who are perpetually unemployed apparently didn’t feel this way. They were pestering my mom about it and whether or not they could have it since they had seen it the one day they helped with the house, or maybe my cousin had a similar experience playing what would become a treasured game. Something about scavenging through your nearly dead Aunt’s belongings for a copy of Earthbound just to have beer money without getting a job is just so dark. It’s like beating somebody to death with a VHS of My Neighbor Totoro.
QotW: Ocarina of Time Collectors edition for the N64, though it is somehow only worth $282.98 complete in box. I’ve dragged this thing around since I was 16 thinking it would make me rich some day, meanwhile 16 year old’s today are making bank off of gamestop stocks and cumcoin.
Oh and thanks for triggering me with the Fantastic Adventures Of Dizzy intro song. I assure you as bad as you think it is, it was even worse for a 7 year old playing it on a cast off tv in his attic.
It’s not the most valuable thing, but whoa a PS Vita TV now goes for several hundred dollars because it’s a great little emulation box for PS1 and PSP.
By the way, yes, it’s me, the one person who enthusiastically bought one when it came out. It was like a Switch! If you had to turn it off and swap memory cards when you got home! And soft-hack it to actually play all your games! It was great!
I believe that my most valuable video game is either my cib Valkyrie Profile or NBA Live 97 for snes with the New York Knick’s starting lineup replaced with the cast of Seinfeld.
QOTW: MUSHA for the Sega Genesis, and it just keeps going up in value. When I first heard it was a rare game around ten years ago, it was going for $200-300 on eBay. Now, it can easily fetch over $600. After that, I have a lot of shooters for the genesis that are sought after, as is my entire Sega CD and Saturn collection. I bought this stuff back in the day when no one wanted it. I weirdly feel vindicated now.
QOTW: Somebody mentioned Tomba in last week’s QOTW but it’s long been the most valuable game in my collection. But I totally get it, rare game, license issues etc. However, what surprised me the most is that just below Tomba was the Wind Waker/Ocarina of Time Master Quest double set for Gamecube and Minish Cap for the GBA, as they were both worth over $200. Some other big surprises were Def Jam: Fight for NY and Silent Hill PS1 which were both over $150 each. I almost traded them in years ago and I would have gotten pennies for them, so I’m glad I decided to keep them after all.
QOTW: Far and away my most valuable game is .hack Quarantine at $380.75. I remember feeling guilty about paying something like $80 for it. The real question is, is it any good? Is it a satisfying conclusion to the .hack saga? I have no idea. I plan on starting it after I finish Xenosaga, where I am about half an hour into the second episode and haven’t played since 2014.
QOTW: https://youtu.be/j6-HLCc5y0Y
^ still uploading at time of posting, be few minutes.
Cheers, chaps.
QOTW: I kept most of my N64 game boxes, manuals and inserts, nicely packed in great condition. Sold most of them off a couple years ago, raising a few hundred bucks selling cardboard. The priciest box was Super Smash Bros which sold for $50 for just the box and manual, no cart.