A Question for the Collectors Market?

[cube_b3]

Since most of those exclusive rare classics are starting to get available online on PSN/XBLA, will there resale be affected.

One thing is for sure, the collectors market will shrink, so even if the value remains the same number of potential buyers would decrease. For Example, a lot of people up until a few years back would buy a Saturn to play NiGHTS (I am one of those people), however since it is available online the value should diminish.

Offcourse, there is still a very strong market for people who would like to have physical copies rather than downloads and those will be around for as long as physical mediums still exist.

What say you all?

[Jeeba Jabba]

I think it does have some effect, for instance: Panzer Dragoon Saga (which I own) has only climbed in price. It has never been ported. When questioned on why this hasn't seen a re-release on Xbox Live or PSN, Sega admitted that they had "lost the source code" and therefore wouldn't be able to port it.

However, keep in mind that the collector's market is primarily inhabited by those who want a physical, original copy. It isn't made of people who would really just like to play said game again... That's what emulators are for. So to answer your question frankly: No, it doesn't really affect the collector's values of most games.

[cube_b3]

Well Panzer Dragoon isn't really getting released anywhere so it doesn't count in this discussion.

I just went on eBay to look up prices for NiGHTS, I assume it is for 10$ on PSN.

On eBay you can get an average disk for 10$, an average disk + case + manuals between 20$ - 30$, and 40$ for a mint condition copy for those who are not good at bidding.

I am pretty sure it used to be worth more, a few years back.

__________________________

I think the collectors market is shrinking as people are evolving and realizing there games are not worth it, and will lose resale value, I for one am certainly thinking this and I have a bad ass Sega Saturn/Dreamcast collection.

I think I'll sell almost all my Saturn games this year.

[Jeeba Jabba]

Well Panzer Dragoon isn't really getting released anywhere so it doesn't count in this discussion.

Did you even read what I typed?

[cube_b3]

Let's see, you said Panzer Dragoon hasn't been ported.
Collector's like physical copies, and not digital downloads.

So basically you concluded that digital downloads have no affect on classics prices, cause if people just wanted to play the game, then they have always had emulators.

To which I responded that Panzer Dragoon isn't really a good example.
I gave the example of NiGHTS and speculated that the game price may have decreased.

I also said that being a collector myself, I am starting to lose interest when better versions of those games are available for cheaper on newer systems.

Take the recent JSR release which has combined songs + stages from all 3 versions of the game and is effectively the best version of the game. Suddenly my previous copy of JSR isn't feeling all that precious and maybe I should sell it fast?

[Jeeba Jabba]

PDS was a contrasting example because "maybe it does effect the price, because maybe that's why it's going up so high" but more than likely it's just because it was such a good game that only saw 30,000 copies published in the US.

While I said earlier that this factor shouldn't effect most collectables, I was saying that it shouldn't devalue them. Thinking again, if anything it would probably increase the value. If more people are playing it than the generation of the original release, then surely simple mathematics would say a small percentage of those new converts would want an original copy. Not sure why I didn't consider that before.

[melancholy]

See, at first I would come to the same conclusion that Cube_B3 has come to, in that the more digital versions of classic games appear on modern machines, the less likely someone would be willing to purchase the original. And while Jeeba's argument that presenting classic titles on modern systems to a group of people that never played the original might make them seek out the original, I would also assume that would be countered by the people that have the original and want to sell it because they now have the classic title digitally. But is that what's really happening? Let's look at some examples.

We'll start with a huge title first. Back when Final Fantasy VI, arguably the most popular Final Fantasy ever created, only existed as an SNES cart and nothing else, prices of this game cart were hovering around the $60 mark. But despite having 3 re-releases, the original SNES cart still goes for over $50, despite being able to buy it for $10 on PSN. Has the release of a digital version decreased it's value? In this case, not at all.

Now let's take another example: Ico. Prices of this game before the HD remake were around the $40 mark for a used disc. But now that the HD version is out, I can find the original for about $20. It lost half it's value when a modern version was released for this game.

So what is the underlying difference here? Well, it could be popularity. The more popular the original release, the more people out there that would want to buy it, and the more demand for the game itself. So when a big game like Final Fantasy VII hits the PSN, the original discs don't really get affected because there is still such a big demand for the game. But on the flipside, the less popular the original release, the less it sold and the more likely it becomes that an original copy is the only way to play the game, which creates huge prices for obscure titles. So when a digital release happens, demand for the original plummets as it eliminates the need to own the original.

So to answer your question, it just depends on the game, but I would think the market will probably not see much effect for two reasons:
1. The biggest, most popular games will always have a demand for the original.
2. The rarest, most obscure games are the least likely to ever see a re-release, and therefore continue to keep them rare.

[mankrip]

I agree with Mel, but I think it can be explained better in this way: Rather than being based just on how popular an original release was by itself, I think the demand is also affected by how relevant a release was for a specific platform.

A game that pushes a certain hardware to its limits will always be one of the best games for that hardware, no matter how superior its original version in another hardware may be. So, if you want to have a nice collection of games for the hardware you have, you will need this kind of game.