# why the noticeable price dip in NES games on ebay?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-noticeable-price-dip-in-nes-games-on-ebay/323280>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 25, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-noticeable-price-dip-in-nes-games-on-ebay/323280 "2005-09-25T01:06:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-noticeable-price-dip-in-nes-games-on-ebay/323280/1 "2005-09-25T01:06:02Z")

</div>

About a year ago, I bought a bunch of nostalgic favorites on Ebay for the NES - “Maniac Mansion,” “River City Ransom,” “Dragon Warrior IV,” and some others. A few of these games, especially the ones listed, went for $30+, with the Dragon Warrior going close to $40. This seemed to be the rule for these titles rather than the exception.

Well, I haven’t played any of them in about a year (it’s true what they say - you _can’t_ go home again!), and I was thinking about unloading them on the 'bay. But when I started looking at auctions to see how much they’re going for, I was shocked - there seem to be a bunch of copies of each of these, and they’re all going for $1.99 or not much more.

Why? What happened? A year ago, it was rare to see one of these titles, and when it was on there, it’d go for close to $30 or $40 bucks. What happened in the past year to make them go for $1.99?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-noticeable-price-dip-in-nes-games-on-ebay/323280/2 "2005-09-25T01:14:57Z")

</div>

Nostalgia ran out? 😃

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Amp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Amp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amp)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-noticeable-price-dip-in-nes-games-on-ebay/323280/3 "2005-09-25T01:32:16Z")

</div>

Better emulators and ROM’s being released?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-noticeable-price-dip-in-nes-games-on-ebay/323280/4 "2005-09-25T01:52:04Z")

</div>

Announcement that Nintendo’s next machine might be able to play all previous ones?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-noticeable-price-dip-in-nes-games-on-ebay/323280/5 "2005-09-25T21:57:49Z")

</div>

I’ve noticed this too, as an NES collector.

If I had to guess, I think it could be one of two things:

1.) The initial surge was at the same time as the big surge of awareness of online auctions. A whole lot of new users, with limited supply, caused prices to go up.

2.) The initial surge was about the same time as people my age who grew up as children with the Nintendo were getting to working age, and had a lot more money to purchase the games they always wanted, or replace games that they miss.

One other factor is that the NES systems that will run games are becoming progressively rarer, as old units fail. Many households a few years ago still had working Nintendos; this is becoming less common.