Retro gaming bubble, and how deep are we in it?

[hizzy]

Is there any real speculation going on in the 2600 world? There are tons of great homebrews, and they don't look to be flying off the shelves. It took Boulder Dash forever to sell out. The Lady Bug special edition didn't sell out in a day. Scramble is lauded but has only sold 50% of its stock, if that. When speculation is happening in a hobby, things become unavailable. Go to the AA store, everything is there. Only Bentley Bear is sold out because of the scarcity of the Pokey chip. AA isn't crashing because it's overloaded with new subscribers. I haven't seen Al on line in a minute but I'm sure it's not because he gets spotty wifi reception on his yacht. There could be a bubble in the NES/Sega world, but I think Atari is insulated from it. While the name carries some weight, the games aren't in demand the way the NES/SNES/Sega catalogs are.

[Keatah]

Atari is from 1977, maybe its time has come and gone?

[Good_Times]

 

I knew he was a "pretty boy" and all that. But when did he come out?

 

"Pretty boy" ? Huh....

[accousticguitar]

I don't see any bubble for Atari or Playstation. Things seem to be selling cheap on ebay. I think summer has a lot to do with it. Perhaps things will pick up in the fall.

[+MrBlackCat]

"Behind the Curve"...

 

Here is how simply I see it... I buy games at their low, which I call internally staying Behind the Curve. This is generally a few years behind a given system and then the games start to go back up, but varies based on factors that don't really matter to me or need to be defined. I just track the prices, which is super easy with the internet these days.

I remember when you could by Atari 2600 stuff in large lots cheap, as most of us here do... around the time the PS3 came out, Atari stuff was really sagging in price, PS2 used stuff went up like cwazy as many could not afford PS3's now had access to SO many used PS2's flooding into eBay, second hand game stores, and pawn shops.

I don't have time to be comprehensive with this explanation/analogy, but I just want to point out that all systems and their games sag in price and then come back up. Some things seem to fall in value continuously (like boxed Vic-20's) and some things just rise in value continuously.

The point is that I just see Atari games as back on their rise out of the low-price sag. In this age of excess, where collections are fashionable beyond the scope of actually using them of course any social icon like the Atari, or even video games in general are going to become more expensive.

Don't forget that a large group of people are collecting for the sake of collecting at a social level. Then this is no long the "in" thing to do, those collections will end up right back on eBay and like Beanie Babies, you won't be able to give them away. Just don't think that everyone who has a collection of Atari games and systems (or any games and systems) isn't going to move on the next big social thing next week. Sure some people will learn about them and become genuinely interested long term, but many will not.

 

Example: PS2 games are at their low for sure. For the last couple of years I have been buying specific PS2 games I think I would enjoy. I have doubled my library of PS2 games for SO little in the last 2-1/2 to 3 years. You can always find good deals if you watch of course, but I am talking mostly about averages of course.

 

If we are indeed in a bubble, and you want to know when it will pop, you have to know why it exists...

 

MrBlackCat

[Professor Gull]

Well this weekend alone I had 3 members of my Facebook group dump their collections out for others and move to the "getting out collecting" mode.

 

Anyone else have fellow collectors doing this? And will this change the bubble as it is because the movement might gain momentum?

[zzip]

It might be as simple as technical know-how. R-Pi isn't the easiest thing to setup for the complete and total novice. Some knowledge of wires and circuits, Linux, and the art of configuration is involved. That's what makes those shitbox YAEBs so popular on kickstarter.

There's no wires. Raspberry Pis are single board computers, no wires. You just have to know how to operate a screwdriver to put it in a case. As for software, even if you don't know Linux, you can download complete applications (like Kodi) that are plug and play.

 

So it is DIY which will turn some people off. But it's easy enough that most people who want to could set one up.

[Keatah]

For some, aligning the position of a board in a case is a technical operation best left to those with official certified training. And wires? Plugging things in, anything more than a cellphone charger, is a complex operation. THEY EXIST!!

 

Those same saps might not even understand copying things to microSD. If it's not in their cloud it's a mysterious operation full of voodoo mysticism.

[BassGuitari]

The fact that we're talking about speculation and trying to apply financial and economic theory to obsolete videogames means that the hobby is officially ruined.

 

Well this weekend alone I had 3 members of my Facebook group dump their collections out for others and move to the "getting out collecting" mode.

 

Anyone else have fellow collectors doing this? And will this change the bubble as it is because the movement might gain momentum?

I think I'm solidly in "getting out of collecting" mode. I'm just at a point in my life where it doesn't seem important anymore, and that just having the amount of stuff I do will only present problems in the future. It's really more "downsizing," though, rather than clearing everything out wholesale, cold turkey. I'll always keep my Atari (2600, 5200, 7800, XE/800), Odyssey, Intellivision, and a few other collections, and selectively add to them when I can (and when I feel like it), but there's a lot of stuff I can stand to get rid of, and that I have gotten rid of.

I could probably cut my NES collection down from the 200-odd carts I have to the 30 or 40 I actually care about, or originally grew up with, and would never miss the rest. Ditto for Genesis and SNES. As much as I love the CoCo, I've even been on the fence about my CoCo 3, since it's really CoCo1/2 games that interest me anyway. Saturn? Xbox? Atari ST? Genesis/32X/Sega CD/X'eye? Most of my Pongs/dedicated consoles? Never use them.

I currently have so many consoles and hardware iterations that there's no way I can get through them all. It's been years since I've even hooked up certain consoles, and in some cases even more than a decade, I bet. They may as well not even be in my house. When you have too much, you have nothing.

[Keatah]

I'm that way too, now, recently. Having downsized about half of my Apple /// material. Next up is to de-dupe all my Apple II material except for maybe a few prized pieces that have sentimental value to me.

 

Still on the fence about keeping 1 /// and 1 ///+. Though I haven't used them in years. And I'm likely to not go playing with

 

And for the same reasons. It feels like I've grown beyond the "stuff". I'd like to elaborate further but am quite busy at the moment.

Edited August 7, 2017 by Keatah

[ubersaurus]

Is there any real speculation going on in the 2600 world? There are tons of great homebrews, and they don't look to be flying off the shelves. It took Boulder Dash forever to sell out. The Lady Bug special edition didn't sell out in a day. Scramble is lauded but has only sold 50% of its stock, if that. When speculation is happening in a hobby, things become unavailable. Go to the AA store, everything is there. Only Bentley Bear is sold out because of the scarcity of the Pokey chip. AA isn't crashing because it's overloaded with new subscribers. I haven't seen Al on line in a minute but I'm sure it's not because he gets spotty wifi reception on his yacht. There could be a bubble in the NES/Sega world, but I think Atari is insulated from it. While the name carries some weight, the games aren't in demand the way the NES/SNES/Sega catalogs are.

You missed the Atari bubble - it was late 90s into the mid-to-late 2000s.

 

I got rid of a chunk of my collection back before I moved cross-country, donating my Pico and VIS stuff to U of Michigan's video game archive. I haven't felt the need to dump off anything else at the moment, though there are individual games on a few systems I could probably cull if the mood ever struck me. I'm not exactly itching to throw on Wolverine for NES, for example, but getting rid of it and other similarly unloved games isn't a high priority.

Edited August 7, 2017 by ubersaurus

[Flojomojo]

When you have too much, you have nothing.

 

God that's deep!

 

(not being sarcastic!)

[Keatah]

This whole notion of speculation and prospecting and investments, in video games, seems like something invaded my bedroom. As I kid we played the game for the game. And as hobbyists enjoyed seeing what each platform could do and how it all worked. We were curious and explored deep into the platform as a form of recreation and discussion.

 

Too much = nothing. That's absolutely right. Too much stuff confuses you, what with all of it vying for attention. It's a burnout.

[TheVgaTv]

Video games will go through the same thing that Baseball Cards and Comics did in the 80s/90s. The people who grew up collecting them get into their mid-life crisis mode and find themselves with disposable income, so they seek out the things that made them happy as a kid. This drives the price up, even on the most common of cards/books. Then once everybody gets their fix (or die off) the prices start to bottom out again. Same thing will happen with Video Games. Right now those of us who grew up with Atari/NES/Genesis/etc are in our late 30s/early 40s so it's prime time to drive up the price. 5-10 years from now when people realize that the $35 they spent on Spider-Man for the Sega Genesis probably wasn't worth it, will put them up for sale and the prices will begin to come back down.

[hizzy]

It would be kind of cool to have a 2600 bubble. Imagine trying track down a flashback/flashback portable and having them sold out everywhere, like the NES Mini. Bidding wars on ebay & scalpers. Homebrews selling out in minutes. It would be a thrill. haha

[Supergun]

I didn't even bother reading the original post, nor the replies thus far.

 

I just wanted to say that the people who want this alleged bubble to burst, are the ones who got in late & are upset that they don't have all the games, and either don't want to pay up for them, or simply can't afford to.

[djour]

I didn't even bother reading the original post, nor the replies thus far.

 

So why should we pay any attention to your post?

[Cepp]

I didn't even bother reading the original post, nor the replies thus far.

 

I just wanted to say that the people who want this alleged bubble to burst, are the ones who got in late & are upset that they don't have all the games, and either don't want to pay up for them, or simply can't afford to.

No, I've been retro gaming since these games were new, never stopped and have a decent enough collection that's worth a bit of money but I'd be happy if the bubble burst tomorrow.

[high voltage]

Is there any real speculation going on in the 2600 world? There are tons of great homebrews, and they don't look to be flying off the shelves. It took Boulder Dash forever to sell out. The Lady Bug special edition didn't sell out in a day. Scramble is lauded but has only sold 50% of its stock, if that. When speculation is happening in a hobby, things become unavailable. Go to the AA store, everything is there. Only Bentley Bear is sold out because of the scarcity of the Pokey chip. AA isn't crashing because it's overloaded with new subscribers. I haven't seen Al on line in a minute but I'm sure it's not because he gets spotty wifi reception on his yacht. There could be a bubble in the NES/Sega world, but I think Atari is insulated from it. While the name carries some weight, the games aren't in demand the way the NES/SNES/Sega catalogs are.

 

Atari is like classical music, only for the connoisseur.

NES/SNES/Sega for the common people who listen to hip-hop.

 

 

BTW, Atari has the HIGHEST selling games in the world:

 

Air Raid cib: USD 33.433,00

Air Raid cart, box: USD 31.600,00

Red Sea Crossing: USD 10.400,00

Hard Head prototype: GBP 5100…...EURO 5810,23…...USD 6498,17

Marble Craze homebrew US$ 188,50

Edited August 8, 2017 by high voltage

[ubersaurus]

If you're bringing up prototypes, the English Legend of Zelda one sold for like 50k. A mint Super Mario Bros also just went for 30k... and there have been very high auctions for Stadium Events and Nintendo World Championships.

 

Classical music is a weird comparison. I would go more with silent movies - good stuff but only if you're into that particular era and style of filmmaking. Which, not everyone is.

[djour]

silent movies - good stuff but only if you're into that particular era and style

I like this statement. I think it perfectly describes the way the 2600 fits into the hobby.

[BassGuitari]

Classical music is a weird comparison. I would go more with silent movies - good stuff but only if you're into that particular era and style of filmmaking. Which, not everyone is.

Especially since many modern games feature classical-style music.

 

I wouldn't go as far back as silent movies. I'd save that comparison for the original Odyssey. Atari 2600 would be more like classic '30s-'60s movies to me. More John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Gary Cooper than Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Rudy Valentino.

 

IMO.

[AtariLeaf]

 

I could probably cut my NES collection down from the 200-odd carts I have to the 30 or 40 I actually care about, or originally grew up with, and would never miss the rest. Ditto for Genesis and SNES. As much as I love the CoCo, I've even been on the fence about my CoCo 3, since it's really CoCo1/2 games that interest me anyway. Saturn? Xbox? Atari ST? Genesis/32X/Sega CD/X'eye? Most of my Pongs/dedicated consoles? Never use them.

 

 

 

Sounds like you're where I was at 2 or 3 years ago. I've gone from about 150-200 NES carts to 30. I went from about 50 or 60 Genesis carts to a dozen or so, and about 25 SNES carts to 3 - and most of the games for all 3 systems are arcade ports, pinball, racing or sports. I also only have 3 games for the TG-16 now and even one of those (Time Cruise) doesn't get played as much as the other two (Galaga 90 and Alien Crush). I'm all about the arcade ports and that's pretty much what I like to keep around.

 

As for the Coco, again I'm in the same boat. I hardly touch it and when I do I play coco 1/2 games and wonder why I keep 5 Coco 3's around. Pongs, well they're mostly for just display but again if space becomes an issue they'd be one of the first to go.

 

I also barely touch my Colecovision and have been on the fence about offloading it.

[BassGuitari]

 

Sounds like you're where I was at 2 or 3 years ago. I've gone from about 150-200 NES carts to 30. I went from about 50 or 60 Genesis carts to a dozen or so, and about 25 SNES carts to 3 - and most of the games for all 3 systems are arcade ports, pinball, racing or sports. I also only have 3 games for the TG-16 now and even one of those (Time Cruise) doesn't get played as much as the other two (Galaga 90 and Alien Crush). I'm all about the arcade ports and that's pretty much what I like to keep around.

 

As for the Coco, again I'm in the same boat. I hardly touch it and when I do I play coco 1/2 games and wonder why I keep 5 Coco 3's around. Pongs, well they're mostly for just display but again if space becomes an issue they'd be one of the first to go.

 

I also barely touch my Colecovision and have been on the fence about offloading it.

Me too! I mean, I like the Coleco, but it's one of the stepchildren of my collection. It was a system I wasn't especially interested in originally, but eventually branched out to. My core interests when I started collecting were the 2600, 5200, Odyssey 2, and Intellivision. I didn't even get into the 7800 until much later. The Coleco just didn't resonate with me the same way those other systems did, for whatever reason.

 

I don't know if I'd sell mine, though; pre-NES stuff is my forte, and the Coleco is certainly an important enough console in that lineage to warrant keeping it. And my Coleco collection is pretty small compared to a lot of peoples', and mostly comprised of the "greatest hits." So it's not a real hassle keeping it around. But if somebody offered me slightly too much money for it, I'd probably let it go. I'm more of an Intellivision guy anyway.

 

Incidentally, that comment I wrote that you quoted, about the stuff that never gets used, prompted me to get out my dormant Odyssey 400 last night. I love my Odyssey games, but like all 2-player only games, they sadly never get played enough these days. My wife and I played Handball and had a good time with it--and the score was closer than I expected.

[wolfy62]

Atari is from 1977, maybe its time has come and gone?

I was born in 1962, and man I am wayyyy long gone.....like Atari.