Re: Game values

On Fri, 29 Jun 2001 12:49:16 +0100, you wrote:

>Videos can only go up ever so slightly, then downhill from there. Think of
>how many machines are changing hands right now. Each one of those machines
>is 'saved' from being junked etc.. if a machine is in someone's living
>room/gamesroom now, how likely is it that it will get junked? not likely at
>all so long as the percieved value is 'oooh, that's asteroids, that worth
>loads, i can't possibly junk that.'
>
>so now sit back and think just how many machines are surviving... a butt
>load.

        What you are overlooking, however, is the fact that as it becomes
increasingly difficult or impossible to get **replacement parts** for these
machines, the supply of "working" machines _must_ inevitably decrease,
therefore increasing the value of the ones which remain. You can already
see this dynamic beginning to work on the old RCA Selectavision
CED-Videodisc players - five years ago, you couldn't give one of these
things away; today, even a non-working unit can fetch $50 in some circles
because certain parts, such as the pickup styli and the DAXI chip, simply
aren't made anymore and there are no equivalent substitutes.

        What will most likely happen, I suspect, is that the value of our
vector games _will_ begin to increase again - but, unlike the "boom market"
that's existed in the last few years while everyone's been trying to fill
out their collections, it will be a slow increase over the long term as the
games become more _historically_ valuable, and increasingly difficult to
find in "Near-Mint" condition.

>Nothing can keep going up and up in value. 'collecting' stuff is a
>relatively new concept, 80's onwards.. nearly everyone you speak to nowadays
>collects something or other...
>
>but speak to someone in the 60's/70's, how many people do you think
>collected stuff? not many at all..

        Er.... huh? Sorry, but you're just plain wrong here. The _kinds_ of
things people collect may have changed, but there were plenty of people
collecting things back in the 60's and 70's, and probably a lot earlier
than that. Stamps and coins being two of the most obvious examples...

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persist in their foolishness." --Kehlog Albran
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http://lonestar.texas.net/~solarfox
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Received on Sun Jul 1 22:26:01 2001