Re: Game values

> >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.

I have to disgagree, there always seems to be rakes of parts kicking around.
And hell, if a machine is just being a pain to fix, and the parts value
outweighs the machine value, then don't you think the machine will get
scrapped? :)

you're still not throwing into the equation the desirability factor. whcih i
think will decrease slightly, purely down to number of people wanting it, it
outweighs itself and the value remains constant or drops slightly..

but hell, to sit and calculate values for these old games is getting far too
complicated and boring :) heh

> 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.

The problem is, you're talking about somethign that even when you couldn't
give them away, nobody wanted :) Its not like loads of people bought them up
in anticipation is it? (i had a PAL hitachi CED player here and a stack of
films, now try find a PAL CED player hehe)

> 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.

ok, vector games i do agree do vary from raster games on a whole, and i
think it could be classed as a different market altogether that moves
independantly of raster stuff.

> >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...

ok, point taken. It is true though that it wasn't all that *common* (as it
is now) for people to collect stuff, if they did, then it was usually
something boring, like you say, stamps or coins or whatever, but i still
think the number of people that were collecting 'stuff' in the 60's 70's is
dwarfed by the *number* of people who collect stuff today.. And yes, today,
variety is a greater part of it. :)

> solarfox@DON'TMESSWITHtexas.net (Gary Akins
jr.)
> http://lonestar.texas.net/~solarfox

Andy Welburn

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Received on Mon Jul 2 05:11:30 2001