I see many old N64 games slowly becoming more expensive…. eBay, CEX, and most independent shops have almost the exact same prices.
I realise they all maybe copying each other, but where did the first price increase begin and why?
In: Technology
Supply and demand. The supply of N64 games is only going down, since cartridges don’t last forever. However the demand is staying steady if not going up as people start feeling nostalgia and wanting to play the games again on original hardware. The result is that the prices go up, because people are less willing to part with what they have because it’s slowly becoming harder to find and replace.
Now if Nintendo decided out of the blue they were going to rerelease the N64, original hardware and all, with a whole swath of the original games then prices would likely go down at least in the short term as people realize that “hey, the market for this is going to become flooded. Why would someone want this old cartridge that might not work consistently when they could buy one straight out of the factory?”
Let’s say a game sells for $25 normally
Not every seller is going to list it exactly at that. Some will list for $20, some will list for $30. The $20 will probably go fast. The $30 will probably sit for a while and if it ever sells, may even be marked down to $25
but let’s say the game experiences a surge in popularity – maybe it’s discussed on a TV show or something and people start thinking about it again
Those $30 listings will no longer languish waiting for a buyer – they’ll move fast. So new sellers will push the envelope and try $35. Maybe $35 goes fast so they push to $40 and those languish. Market price is probably $35 in that example
It’s not perfectly rational or anything because it relies on the behaviors of buyers and sellers and there will always be outliers lol
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