In a recent video by Karl Jobst, he proposes that we’re in a retro video game bubble that’s been artificially inflated by the same folks who have done so with coins and comic books. That prices right now are unsustainable and that the market will collapse, leaving sellers with no buyers. Which is kind of scary for folks who love video games and kind of hard to take in for those who are attempting to invest in retro games. Well, when we ask if we’re in a retro video game bubble, the answer is very likely dependent on the game itself and the condition of the game. Loose cartridges, CIB games and games that are new but not graded are all right now showing minor inflation due to higher demand during 2020 and 2021 lockdowns for older games, especially in the Gamecube market. Collectors may have to pay a premium…
To save you time, if you define a scam to mean that you give someone money for a service and they do not do that service, then by all means WATA and VGA (Video Game Authority) are not scams. They’re legitimate companies that, if you ship your games to them, will grade your games and send them back based on what services you paid for. Maybe not very quickly, but they do what they promise to do. Now, is video game grading in of itself a scam? A fictional system designed to inflate the prices of retro video games that are becoming more scarce due to the fragile materials used to construct their boxes? That’s a deeper question with some actually quite odd answers. Furthermore, should you invest in graded games? That’s an even tougher question. We will dive into all of them below. If you’re wanting to collect retro…
If you have fond memories of the good ‘ol days of games from bygone eras then you may want to consider buying games now instead of later, no matter which day you read this. The reason being that physical game media is becoming more rare by the day as games break, get thrown out and are lost to the fates of time. The prices of which are increasing, especially as older games which used cardboard for their cases begin to decay from moisture and age. The community and market for physical video games remained rather stable for a long period of time. Generally speaking, games were worth a percentage of their retail price based on popularity, with more popular games taking a smaller percentage of their retail on third party sites like eBay. For instance, a $49.99 game would likely sale for $35 on eBay used for the longest time,…
Steam Decks have just been announced and reservations will have opened up at 10AM July 16th. Assuming you have the chance to reserve one, depending on how much stock Valve has. You can reserve one on the following page at Steam and it comes in three models. A base model, a mid-tier model and a high end model. A quick rundown of the three: Base: 64GB of storage and a carrying case. $399Mid Tier: 256GB NVMe SSD (faster storage), the carrying case and a Steam Community Profile bundle. $529High End: 512GB NVMe SSD, anti-glare etched glass, the carrying case, the Steam Community profile bundle and an exclusive virtual keyboard theme. Note, there is a MicroSD slot for more storage. Great Overview If you want a solid professional unbiased overview of the hardware, checkout Gamer Nexus. History & Stock Shortages Valve has failed on almost every hardware release so far, with…
GameStop is the last vestige of brick and mortar electronic gaming stores. It is a business of acquisitions, claiming most other large competitors and merging them into the fold and is on every YouTube and blog’s “Top 10 Companies Soon to Pull a Blockbuster” for the last six months to a year or so. Are they right? Is GameStop about to go under? I honestly am not some kind of market wizard, I can’t say if their current plans will save them or not, but we can talk about what’s gotten them to this point, in context of video game sales (not the whole who bought who what when and where, lots of that is already out there). So this chart pretty much tells a very, very interesting story. The company went public in 2002 at around $10 USD a share. In 2002, we were still in the world of…
Production of the New Nintendo 3DS XL ended in the summer of 2019 and new stock of the device has dried up. The only device in limited production is the New Nintendo 2DS XL, which will continue for the time being, however, if you want the 3D enabled version now is the time to buy. The same if you want new stock of the 2DS version. The reason to buy now is that with production just having ended, we’re at the peak of functional devices in circulation. New stock is at unreasonable prices on resale sites, above the $199 original retail and sometimes even higher. Used devices are for sale at basement bargain prices, such as $89 during the GameStop holiday sale, making them at the lowest price you’ll see them – it’s only up from here. The longer we go from when production has ended, the more devices that…
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island is a prequel to the Mario series and canonically likely the very first title in the series. It’s a story of adventure as Yoshi and his friends carry baby Mario through Yoshi Island to reunite him with his brother who has been successfully kidnapped. The plot doesn’t matter nearly as much as the gameplay does. It’s basically the same gameplay from Super Mario World but drastically enhanced, retaining the simple controls and launching the series into a world that’s both dramatically colorful but also somber and creepy and every emotion between. With Yoshi’s Island now on the Switch, there is no better time to revisit a series classic and play one of the most satisfying SNES games out there. You’ve got 48 levels across six worlds to play and with the ability to rewind time on mistakes, a journey only as difficult as you…
Nintendo’s console is a literal sweeping victory when it comes to sales and nearly everything else. The Xbox One was released in 2013 and has 46 million. The Nintendo Switch has sold 41 million and was released in 2017. The Playstation 4 has sold 102 million since 2013, which may be more, but considering Nintendo moved half of that in 2 years compared the 6 that Sony has had, we can really see the clear winner here. The Switch games hold really high resale values. For instance, I recently traded in Luigi’s Mansion 3 for $34 after purchasing it for $47 via Walmart, stacking on the 5% back on the Walmart card. That meant that I lost only $13 plus tax in the transaction. Attempting to trade-in most of my PS4 games after launch and I’m lucky to get offered $15 for them. The demand is real for the games…
Deciding between digital downloads and physical copies on gaming consoles? Explore the pros and cons for PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch.
Ring Fit Adventure is a wild ride into the world of “Wii Sports” if it were. To be completely upfront and honest, it accomplishes something that Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus and the Wii Balance Board couldn’t accomplish which is an actual workout, with some exceptions which we will get into. The circular band is a massive improvement over both the balance board and the Wiimote only modes of play that previous iterations have. If you don’t know what it is, you basically have a leg strap to measure where your legs are and a “Ring Fit” which is a circular ring that you attach a Joy-Con to. With the ring, you can press in or pull out and the game measures not only its relative position but also what you’re doing with it and the intensity. An adventure mode exists that allows you to go on an RPG like…