• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Game Collecting - Why are PS2 games completely worthless? what is the console outside of GameCube to collect for?

Bragr

Banned
I sold a big chunk of my GameCube collection this summer and it sold like fresh bread for great prices. My PS2 collection, however, is impossible to move, people won't touch it no matter how cheap. Why is that?

The GameCube seems to be the prime market right now, there are so many Nintendo fans out there that there are always buyers, and they are willing to shell out 40-60 bucks for a GameCube game no problem. However, past that, I'm sort of at a loss, Xbox 360, PS2, and the Wii seem relatively dead.

Playstation 3 however, seems to be a growing fertile market. I'm not gonna become some hardcore collector, but it's extremely addicting to look for deals online and shop around, and I wanna try to build a small collection and see if I can sell it off for a better price. What's the console to aim for here?
 

levyjl1988

Banned
Go to a thrift shop there are some hidden gems there if you are looking to build a small collection up.
PS2 games aged poorly imo with the exception of a few, if anything those games have been remade.
Nintendo games hold their value because Nintendo rarely remakes those games.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
For something to be worth money there has to be a demand for it. There are PS2 games that worth over a $100 like the .hack series. I personally think you have a market where collectors only look at Nintendo because of their charm and charisma. Which means they think something is probably worth more than it is. Which is also why we see these people hike up or pretend that a Nintendo game is worth a million dollars.

Do people want to pay a couple hundred dollars for .hack or a couple hundred for Mario? I think people are grabbing Nintendo games, getting them graded, and pretending like they’re worth a fortune. The GameCube is their next target and I think it’s crazy. I think people want to collect Nintendo games and their desire for something as unique as the Wii hasn’t happened yet. The Wii also sold to a lot of different types of people and it’s very different from other consoles. I’d imagine over time the same crowd will move towards the Wii. The 360 has a lot of its games available on PC and those franchises or titles aren’t hard to find at all. Games were becoming way more mainstream with the 360/Wii/PS3.
 

T8SC

Member
Multiple reasons.

Saturated market - Highest selling console means there's a lot of games around so supply & demand is lower than a console which didn't sell as well making its games generally rarer.
It's not an old console.
Remakes/Remasters.
Digital versions.
 

Alan Wake

Member
It's rarity or lack thereof. There were 155 million PS2s on the market versus 22 million GameCubes. There is simply a ton more PS2 software floating around, making GameCube software rare by comparison.
True, but only to an extent. N-Gage, for instance, is rare but it's not worth sh*t. :)
 

Deerock71

Member
Because Wata games doesn't know the PS2 exists and hasn't started to manipulate that market yet.
While I don't disagree with you, didn't the PS2 shift over one BILLION pieces of software? The reason why they're not worth much now is because you'll always find it for less somewhere else if you stay vigilant.
 

ManaByte

Member
While I don't disagree with you, didn't the PS2 shift over one BILLION pieces of software? The reason why they're not worth much now is because you'll always find it for less somewhere else if you stay vigilant.

Nah, NES and SNES are similar. Wata just hasn't decided to tap into the PS2 market. Someday someone will find a factory sealed MGS2 and Wata will appraise it at $3,000,000.
 
I sold a big chunk of my GameCube collection this summer and it sold like fresh bread for great prices. My PS2 collection, however, is impossible to move, people won't touch it no matter how cheap. Why is that?

The GameCube seems to be the prime market right now, there are so many Nintendo fans out there that there are always buyers, and they are willing to shell out 40-60 bucks for a GameCube game no problem. However, past that, I'm sort of at a loss, Xbox 360, PS2, and the Wii seem relatively dead.

Playstation 3 however, seems to be a growing fertile market. I'm not gonna become some hardcore collector, but it's extremely addicting to look for deals online and shop around, and I wanna try to build a small collection and see if I can sell it off for a better price. What's the console to aim for here?
Wii U will shine some day.
 

Quasicat

Member
It's rarity or lack thereof. There were 155 million PS2s on the market versus 22 million GameCubes. There is simply a ton more PS2 software floating around, making GameCube software rare by comparison.
Exactly! Something else about rarity is that many of the now cheap PS2 games for remastered in some way afterwards, greatly improving them. After awhile, I was picking up PS2 remasters on PS3 since it ran them in HD and included widescreen. I would rather play Final Fantasy X, Sly Cooper, God of War on a PS3 over a PS2.

Speaking of what to look into, PS3 is going up in the collectors market. I picked up a brand new PS3 last year and now the pricing has doubled.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
I found EDf 2017 and Saints row 1 (non classic version) to be kinda hard to find when I was getting my 360 games
 

Bakkus

Member
Because the vast majority of the PS2 essentials have been remastered on their HD consoles (and Xbox for the 3rd party games) while almost no GC exclusives have gotten the same treatment on Switch (or Wii U for that matter). Supply and demand are the key words here. Thankfully I own almost every GC essential and have for 10+ years, so I don't need to pay hundreds of dollars for Fire Emblem, Chibi-Robo or Cubivore, for example.
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Collecting video games is largely a worthless endeavour unless it's for personal enjoyment at this point. It's becoming increasingly popular and competitive.

One of my wife's cousins does this with games and has a ridiculously large collection he has spent at least over $10,000 on. Doesn't even play games at all. He subscribes to a bot service that apparently informs him whenever something of rarity becomes available. Rarely gets it because he gets beat to it.
 

Naked Lunch

Member
Part of the reason, there is no cheap easy solution to outputting PS2 to an HDTV. The 480i output looks disgusting on a flat panel without only like 1 or 2 specific upscalers.
In contrast Gamecube has a couple cheap, easy, quality HDMI solutions.

Theres still many gems on PS2 that have yet to be HD remastered. Some of those rarer niche PS2 titles fetch a high price.
 
Last edited:

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
Collecting video games is largely a worthless endeavour unless it's for personal enjoyment at this point. It's becoming increasingly popular and competitive.

One of my wife's cousins does this with games and has a ridiculously large collection he has spent at least over $10,000 on. Doesn't even play games at all. He subscribes to a bot service that apparently informs him whenever something of rarity becomes available. Rarely gets it because he gets beat to it.
I find those type of people to be very ignorant when they’re waving a N64 game in the air claiming that that’s their retirement or kid’s college fund. Sure, if you find another sucker who wants to pay you more than what it’s actually worth. They’re lying to everyone else. I think the industry as a whole does this. Companies could make enough to fill the store shelves, but they want to create that artificial demand. People eat it up. They create this market and then claim “we can only make so many, so buy now”. It’s a bunch of BS.

EB Games use to destroy or trash retro games and now they’re trying to make money off of it. I remember when someone brought in a bunch of PS1 games and the person handing them over told us to trash them. They were games you see people put on their display case in gaming communities. Now GameStop has retro stores and retro games on their website. They probably play a small part into why retro games go for so much more money. People could have grabbed these games at a bargain discount 10 years ago, but they’ve waited until they’re all battling scalpers for higher prices on eBay. I can’t see someone paying an absurd amount for something they could have gotten earlier in life at a much more reduced price. I don’t think you’re going to fool the person who is a series veteran into paying that price unless they lived and breathed for that game.
 
Last edited:

Kerotan

Member
Because it was the most selling console of all time, and up until PS4 breaking its record - the most selling software at over 1.5 billion games sold- no other console has even come close. With that many games on the market they just aren’t that hard to find or as valuable.
And all sold physically too.
 

Unk Adams

Banned
Nintendo fans in general are more likely to be collectors than Playstation fans, even if a better version of the game was released (such as the HD versions of the Zelda games coming out yet the GC versions are still worth a decent amount). Limited print games are always worth more on the Switch compared to the PS4 even if it's an inferior version with terrible framerate. There was a period for many years where GC games were mostly worthless, though. Even stuff like Melee was selling for around $10 or less and every used game store and pawn shop had dozens of copies that they couldn't move. Once retail stores stopped carrying them they started gradually going up in value. Many obscure PS2 games have hit the $100+ mark as well, so not everything on PS2 is worthless.
 

Unk Adams

Banned
I find those type of people to be very ignorant when they’re waving a N64 game in the air claiming that that’s their retirement or kid’s college fund. Sure, if you find another sucker who wants to pay you more than what it’s actually worth. They’re lying to everyone else. I think the industry as a whole does this. Companies could make enough to fill the store shelves, but they want to create that artificial demand. People eat it up. They create this market and then claim “we can only make so many, so buy now”. It’s a bunch of BS.

EB Games use to destroy or trash retro games and now they’re trying to make money off of it. I remember when someone brought in a bunch of PS1 games and the person handing them over told us to trash them. They were games you see people put on their display case in gaming communities. Now GameStop has retro stores and retro games on their website. They probably play a small part into why retro games go for so much more money. People could have grabbed these games at a bargain discount 10 years ago, but they’ve waited until they’re all battling scalpers for higher prices on eBay. I can’t see someone paying an absurd amount for something they could have gotten earlier in life at a much more reduced price. I don’t think you’re going to fool the person who is a series veteran into paying that price unless they lived and breathed for that game.
"Game collectors" used to be rare. It was a cheap hobby for dedicated fans. People were cool to each other and would help each other find stuff to sell at cost + shipping or trade. Once normies got into by showing their videos on Youtube and social media and started hoarding games and buying up every single game in pawn shops and garage sales to resell they ruined it like they ruin every other hobby.

Retro games used to be considered worthless junk not too long ago. Even Dreamcast and N64 stuff was sitting at Goodwill stores and pawn shops for like $1 a piece for months and no one cared about it unless you were a hardcore fan. "Rare and valuable games" would be around $30 tops for complete copies on eBay. This all changed and now all of a sudden everything is a rare collectible worth hundreds of dollars. It doesn't help that retail stores like you've mentioned that dealt in used games trashed millions of these games (and for the ones they kept, trashed the boxes and manuals) creating even more scarcity but now all of a sudden want to buy the same games that they threw in the landfill many years ago.
 

MrA

Banned
rule of rose runs like 400 dollars, clock tower 3, haunting grounds, obscure, silent hills, def jam, tons of ps2 games are really expensive,

just the common dreck isn't and as the sports casual system of the gen the 999 million sports games out of the 1 billion total ps2 games just aren't worth anything
joking aside ps2 has tons of desirable games that are expensive, the xbox is really lean on high value games (outrun 2006 coast to coast and futurama seem to be the most valuable normal game, steel battalion with the controller is obviously the big bad, but even that has a few dozen expensive games)
the only thing that makes the GameCube different is some of the most common games actually have value

in fact outside of the neo geo (and probably the turbo grafx 16, not the pc engine though and maaayyybeee the US /EU saturn) the majority of any library isn't worth much
most nes games are worth 2 or 3 dollars (though the nes does have a ton of high-value games right now)
only about a 1/3 of atari 2600 games are worth more than 5 dollars
the Magnavox odyssey 2 only has 3 expensive games
most ps1 games are worth nothing, though it is worth noting resident evils despite being super common are pretty valuable
 
Wii is going to sky rocket one day. Wii U possibly more so. My wii collection has been done for a while, never paid through the nose for anything and I got most when they were getting rid of stock.

I scooped up a ton of clearance wii U and 3ds games also.

Gamecube is an absolute bitch to collect for and the discs are especially fragile if you haven’t noticed. Thankfully I only have about 9 cube games left on my list. Takes a while for me to find pristine and also good deals.
 
Last edited:

Bragr

Banned
Fuck flippers.
I'm not a flipper, I'm gonna play everything I buy. To be honest, I'll likely keep the games. A lot of history in those games.

I'm just surprised how nobody gives a fuck about a perfect condition PS2 Metal Gear 2. People won't even buy it for 3 bucks.
 

Bragr

Banned
Start collecting Wii U stuff now and hang on to it.
People told me similar things before with the PS3, and I hanged on to it, like the Ratchet and Clank games and stuff like that, and the value of some of the games raised like 3 bucks over 10 years. I would be better off throwing it out the window and hope they landed on a pot of gold.

It's pennies and dust, I'm not gonna collect 4000 copies of Wonderful 101 and Mario Kart 8 and wait 20 years to year 300 dollars.
 
People told me similar things before with the PS3, and I hanged on to it, like the Ratchet and Clank games and stuff like that, and the value of some of the games raised like 3 bucks over 10 years. I would be better off throwing it out the window and hope they landed on a pot of gold.

It's pennies and dust, I'm not gonna collect 4000 copies of Wonderful 101 and Mario Kart 8 and wait 20 years to year 300 dollars.
I think tools of destruction if it’s black label can fetch a good price.

Unless you bought them at full price at launch you can make some money
 

ZoolNL

Member
Because it was the most selling console of all time, and up until PS4 breaking its record - the most selling software at over 1.5 billion games sold- no other console has even come close. With that many games on the market they just aren’t that hard to find or as valuable.
DS sold more but has lots of high priced games
 

MrA

Banned
I'm not a flipper, I'm gonna play everything I buy. To be honest, I'll likely keep the games. A lot of history in those games.

I'm just surprised how nobody gives a fuck about a perfect condition PS2 Metal Gear 2. People won't even buy it for 3 bucks.
more supply than demand

It's the most popular console ever, what do you expect?
Prices increase with rarity
rarity doesn't make value, demand does
the Aquarius computer is super rare, but no one cares so it isn't worth anything
bebe's kids and chavez for the snes are super rare, but worthless because no one wants them
sonic cd sold a few hundred thousand copies but runs about 100 bucks because people want it,
resident evil 3 for the ps1 sold a few million but runs 50-60 dollars because people want it
silent hill 2 is worth a ton, so is twisted metal (ps1)
 
To be fair, I think even for other consoles of that time people are getting less and less interested in buying games in 2020s.

Like, there aren't that many people who collect them, and overall not even nostalgia can have that much of influence...

If someone really wants to actually play certain games, there are much easier ways to do it.
 

MrA

Banned
To be fair, I think even for other consoles of that time people are getting less and less interested in buying games in 2020s.

Like, there aren't that many people who collect them, and overall not even nostalgia can have that much of influence...

If someone really wants to actually play certain games, there are much easier ways to do it.
demand for classic games has never been higher, and it isn't wata that's causing it, it preceded them and isn't only sealed games. wata is just a parasite that wants to exploit the natural growth it was experiencing
 

dave_d

Member
Yeah, supply AND demand.
Pretty much. I mean I'm amazed at how much Spiderman Web of fire goes for given it's terrible and for the 32X. However apparently collectors want to complete their 32x collection and that's one of the hardest games to get in order to complete it.
 
Collecting videogames has nothing to do with actually playing them.


Hell I play retro games and I own not a single PS2 cd. Just grab some ISOs of the net. But then I'm interested in the games not the nostalgia.
 

*Nightwing

Member
Dunno but I’m starting to sweat… After that N64 Super Mario that sold for so much despite being one of the most popular titles negating the whole supply/demand capitalism, I invested my entire retirement to corner the PS2 Madden NFL 2001 market
 
Top Bottom