Retro gaming

[exdeath]

Ouch that's terrible.

Try looking through craigslist and local yardsale search engines and prioritize the ones with keywords like "nintendo" (with -wii -ds lol) and "video games"/"games" and just NES/SNES.

Usually I get one or two of those per week that I end up going to first at like 5:30am and I end up finding something decent and that sets the momentum for the rest of the day.

When I run out of specific sales that I know will have stuff based on pictures/listing ad, I'll hit up large community sales where I can park and walk around and visit like 50-100 in one go.

Next is blind filler, where I start the drive across town on the way home and just stop anywhere I see a sign.

But yeah my roughest days are when there are NO garage sales in craigslist for the week with any of those keywords to start the morning with. Those days I'll usually hit the swap meets and at least go home with some $5 PS2 games just so I don't go home empty handed.

My biggest SNES haul with RPGs and stuff was a Sunday. I don't normally get up Sunday. I had already had great hauls all day Saturday (more SNES lots even), and I did an all nighter cleaning and playing with my new haul. Just as I'm about to go to bed I hit up craigslist and see a recent listing in garage sales (as in 10 minutes ago) posting for an in house moving sale and it had "old Nintendo" starting at like 10am. Wasn't going to go. 0 hrs sleep. Seriously went back and forth between getting in bed, and getting back up almost getting ready to leave, a couple times. Just said "old Nintendo" I'm tired not worth it, probably just a old nasty NES and a Mario/Duck Hunt or something. Finally I was just like screw it.

Ended up being the only one there. Was a quad duplex or something, and this was way in the back corner with missing numbers. Front door is a sliding glass door, and I look around, nobody else there. I scan around and there I see it under the TV both a NES AND a SNES and a huge box of games. I get closer start seeing on the top of the stack Final Fantasy III, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Zelda, Mega Man, etc. About flipped. Asked how much, she started saying she spent over $100 on everything and I was thinking oh great here we go. Offered $40 and she took it without thinking twice!

And this was the scariest yard sale moment for me... I offered $40 because it was exactly what I had in my wallet... then I saw 1 $20 and some $1s and I about crapped myself. Forgot about a few stops I made on the way home the night before. Quickly ran to the nearest ATM, pulled out like $80 in case someone else showed up and tried to "out bid" me, got back nervous as hell... and there weren't any new cars in the area and still nobody else showed up. Whew. That was an exciting drive home. I ended up not sleeping all day Sunday either.

 

[Doppel]

Oh I didn't share last week did I.

$2 each for the PS2 games $0.10 each for N64.

How much of these purchases are to play vs for collecting or reselling's sake? I assume that even if you had no job and did literally nothing but around 110 hours of gaming/week you couldn't make it through many of the games you have.

Although my interest in actually playing retro games isn't there I definitely do find the history of video gaming pretty interesting, especially since I was around for most of it, but didn't always realize it at the time (e.g. never knew anybody with a Turbo Graphix 16 but can still remember playing one on display at RadioShack, must have been about 90 years ago).

I was shocked (truly) to find today that the crystal display mario handheld game from 20-25 years ago is worth an absolute crap load of money (maybe hundreds). I recall playing that and it was very good at the time, but can't believe it's worth so much now. It was one of the few screens I've ever seen that are see-through. Made playing the actual game functionally worse but had a huge wow-factor.

 

[exdeath]

I play many of them actually. I'm very efficient and blow through many older games in a single sitting. Eg Zelda 1 first and second quest in like an hour, same with Zelda II. I actually play the games I own on a flash cart so I can store the save files forever on a SD card instead of worrying about 20 year old batteries left and right. On my NES I have save state mappers that allow me to save/load state instantly on real hardware so annoying grinding things like money in Zelda I can play the money making game and reload if I don't get the +50, etc., since the random number seed is part of the same state it will be the same again.

Same with Dragon Warrior, Star Tropics, etc all played recently. Dragon Warrior I actually played on the original cart because the battery was top notch (and my Power Pak cart hadn't arrived yet). I maxed out gold and exp in 3 afternoons. I've always been a bit of a mathematics and min/maxer. I always figure out what the most efficient grind is, etc. Many just go after the metal slimes, but you waste so much time with running and you can kill the axe knight with 1 hit, every single time you enter the square with no random battle, like 3 seconds per kill and get like 50x the experience by the time you manage to both a) encounter a metal slime, and b) kill it without it running and without missing it 100 times.

Somehow I'm able to do this, have a job, work out 3-4 days a week, have time for garage sailing, and still eat/sleep. In fact I could be playing all this afternoon on my gym recovery day but instead I've posting walls o text on AT all evening.

I haven't touched any N64 games because my RGB mod in my N64 needs a 3 channel video amplifier circuit so I'm kinda sitting that out until I build one. Right now it's just the RGB lines from the encoder input going straight to the AV port so it's pretty dark.

SNES I play ALL the time. Just recently played a Final Fantasy III low level game (nobody above level 6), replayed a ton of Street Fighter II Turbo. Also a while back did a Final Fantasy 7 perfect save file on PS1 and more recently starting playing Shadow of the Colossus for the first time ever.

Though I'll honestly probably never play many of the filler and sports titles. I don't play often, but when I do I'm pretty hard core about it. Start Friday night, done mid Saturday with maxed money/levels/gear, etc.

Only resell stuff I have duplicates of or extra systems to help fund this expensive hobby. My main goal with every lot I pick up is that there be at least one game or a system or something I can resell for the price that I paid for the whole lot such that I can add 50 games to my collection for free instead of spending $1000+ for eBay lots.

For example that PS2/Gamecube lot I posted last was $20, and Super Smash Bros Melee complete by itself is like $30 on eBay. But I don't have one yet so I'm keeping it this time.

Honestly it's just something fun to do to take up time. Otherwise I'd just vedge around at home on the internet all day. My life is pretty boring. Working out for Tough Mudder and Death Ride '13 are kinda putting my play time on hold lately though.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

Craigslist is usually dead on any good stuff. Only time I do see good stuff, it's always the same person, and we've done several exchanges over the years. However, he usually charges top dollar, most of the time.

I rarely acquire anything that I don't plan to play or doesn't interest me. I'm picky, so finding the more rare or obscure titles are already a challenge in itself to find, even in chain stores for less than rip off prices.
I've bought a few items in hopes somebody might be interested in trading for, but they are still sitting around not going anywhere.
While I did see a lot of games. Most didn't interest me. Crappy sports or children's games. There's maybe only a handful of children's games I wouldn't mind playing, but those are more obscure too.

Really though, I had my best finds in used chain stores & Gamestop's.
GS was been clearing out their GC, PS2 & PSP selections & a lot of decent games found for less than $10, coupled with shit like B2G1.
However I bought nothing less than complete in good/very good/excellent condition. And when they had multiple discs, I'd request the one that was less beat up.

Soon as I get a DS/3DS to use for recording, I'd like to check out those games. Wii as well.
If PSP isn't even being stocked anymore, I'm sure DS is on its' way of being phased out as well. But I haven't paid much attention to DS.
Wii will be next on that list soon as Sony & Microsoft prepare to release their new systems.
If not now, some time in the next year will be great time to start picking up Wii games at great prices.

In the mean time, I scour sites like GTZ & CAG hoping to find great trades.

 

[exdeath]

Look under garage sales for random people every weekend who are just selling "toys and games" on a given weekend. That's usually where I start.

If I see the words "sells for x on ebay" or see games individually priced, I click back and don't even bother reading any further. Because it's always the same: $5 sports games and $35 Mario games.

My take on it is

a) if I want to pay ebay prices I'll sit on my ass at home and order it on ebay, complete in box even, not get up at 5 am and waste money on gas and walk around all day looking through dirty dusty boxes and spend the evening with goo gone and magic erasers.

b) don't forget ebay fees, shipping, paypal fees, etc. You have to be 20% under ebay prices to get the same profit you would have got on ebay you greedy retard.

If I hear anyone say "ebay" or they are constantly looking up prices on their phone or when you say how much per game and they say "depends on the game" and have to think about it or look it up, just walk away fast.

The Video Games section of craigslist and most flea markets are mostly resellers who want way too much for stuff lately, but occasionally you get a good deal from an individual just liquidating a garage or storage unit.

Majority of the really nice stuff I have is stuff I've had and held on to since I bought it new in the store as far back as Jr High. The rest I bent and grabbed my ankles and bought off ebay. I'll probably have to end up doing that for every complete in box JRPG I want on SNES. At least PS1/2 came in standard jewel cases and survived the last decade. Likewise anything newer comes in plastic cases that you can pick up complete for $5 a game. Save for N64 still in cardboard boxes which fortunately are newer, easier to find, nowhere near as expensive as SNES, and had less than half the library of SNES (296 games).

I've honestly not been doing the hunting for very long, but I've already had incredible success. It's addicting. There isn't a whole lot of money in the reselling aspect for me because I end up keeping most of what I find. And the price I'm willing to pay for something I already have goes way down if I'm only thinking about another copy to flip it, so I usually just leave them there for someone else unless it's like a $30 game for $1. I'd like to go complete box set for 8/16 but consoles, but really truck loads of bare carts go a long way in trading, selling, etc to get to that goal.

In all likelyhood, you'll buy/sell the same handful of popular bare carts a dozen times and use that to buy/trade for a few complete box games before you ever find those complete box games in the wild.

 

[Doppel]

I play many of them actually. I'm very efficient and blow through many older games in a single sitting. Eg Zelda 1 first and second quest in like an hour, same with Zelda II. I actually play the games I own on a flash cart so I can store the save files forever on a SD card instead of worrying about 20 year old batteries left and right. On my NES I have save state mappers that allow me to save/load state instantly on real hardware so annoying grinding things like money in Zelda I can play the money making game and reload if I don't get the +50, etc., since the random number seed is part of the same state it will be the same again.

Same with Dragon Warrior, Star Tropics, etc all played recently. Dragon Warrior I actually played on the original cart because the battery was top notch (and my Power Pak cart hadn't arrived yet). I maxed out gold and exp in 3 afternoons. I've always been a bit of a mathematics and min/maxer. I always figure out what the most efficient grind is, etc. Many just go after the metal slimes, but you waste so much time with running and you can kill the axe knight with 1 hit, every single time you enter the square with no random battle, like 3 seconds per kill and get like 50x the experience by the time you manage to both a) encounter a metal slime, and b) kill it without it running and without missing it 100 times.

Somehow I'm able to do this, have a job, work out 3-4 days a week, have time for garage sailing, and still eat/sleep. In fact I could be playing all this afternoon on my gym recovery day but instead I've posting walls o text on AT all evening.

I haven't touched any N64 games because my RGB mod in my N64 needs a 3 channel video amplifier circuit so I'm kinda sitting that out until I build one. Right now it's just the RGB lines from the encoder input going straight to the AV port so it's pretty dark.

SNES I play ALL the time. Just recently played a Final Fantasy III low level game (nobody above level 6), replayed a ton of Street Fighter II Turbo. Also a while back did a Final Fantasy 7 perfect save file on PS1 and more recently starting playing Shadow of the Colossus for the first time ever.

Though I'll honestly probably never play many of the filler and sports titles. I don't play often, but when I do I'm pretty hard core about it. Start Friday night, done mid Saturday with maxed money/levels/gear, etc.

Only resell stuff I have duplicates of or extra systems to help fund this expensive hobby. My main goal with every lot I pick up is that there be at least one game or a system or something I can resell for the price that I paid for the whole lot such that I can add 50 games to my collection for free instead of spending $1000+ for eBay lots.

For example that PS2/Gamecube lot I posted last was $20, and Super Smash Bros Melee complete by itself is like $30 on eBay. But I don't have one yet so I'm keeping it this time.

Honestly it's just something fun to do to take up time. Otherwise I'd just vedge around at home on the internet all day. My life is pretty boring. Working out for Tough Mudder and Death Ride '13 are kinda putting my play time on hold lately though.

:thumbsup:

 

[exdeath]

Stumbled across this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_E2lh1lgmk

 

[crisium]

Awesome times, even if a little before I got into gaming (got my SNES in 1994, though played a little Atari before that). That commercial was at the tail-end of Nintendo dominance in North America - back when the word "Nintendo" was synonymous with Console. Sega did amazing to break that with the Genesis in the early 90s. But then they had to make the 32X and fumble the Saturn launch. It would be nice to have them around today.

 

[Born2bwire]

I got a copy of Exodus by Wisdom Tree on the NES and a copy of Silver Surfer on the NES for my brother over the weekend. I also found Castlevania IV, I got that for myself. :awe:

 

[SaurusX]

I'm bumping this thread one year to the day. I found what I consider to be a pretty good deal on Craigslist recently. From one guy and for $50 I got:

- Super Nintendo console with RF connector, controller, and power supply (which is bad)
- Super Mario World
- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
- Zombies Ate My Neighbors
- Gradius III
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles IV: Turtles In Time

Not a bad haul if I do say so myself.

 

[exdeath]

Not yardsale prices but still not bad. Zombies Ate My Neighbors alone is like $30+

At least it wasn't listed for $300 FIRM RETRO RARE COLLECTOR LQQK!!!1!!!1!1!1!

Craigslist in my area has gone full retard with resellers.

 

[SaurusX]

So I'm back with another decent Craigslist find. I've recently been on the hunt for a Gamecube, since I feel like I really missed out on what that console had to to offer. Back in the day I was totally pro-xbox and scoffed at Nintendo's offering. I guess I kind of felt burned on the N64. Anyway I just picked up the following for a total of $40:

- Silver Gamecube console
- Two controllers (silver and orange)
- Metroid Prime
- Wave Race: Blue Storm
- Rayman Arena
- Soul Calibur II
- Resident Evil 0
- Resident Evil 4
- Pikmin 2
- Sims 2
- F-Zero GX
- Aggressive Inline
- SSX on Tour
- Bomberman Generation

All in all an excellent deal. I was really hoping for Super Mario Sunshine, but I'll snag that at some point down the road.

 

[zerocool84]

So I'm back with another decent Craigslist find. I've recently been on the hunt for a Gamecube, since I feel like I really missed out on what that console had to to offer. Back in the day I was totally pro-xbox and scoffed at Nintendo's offering. I guess I kind of felt burned on the N64. Anyway I just picked up the following for a total of $40:

- Silver Gamecube console
- Two controllers (silver and orange)
- Metroid Prime
- Wave Race: Blue Storm
- Rayman Arena
- Soul Calibur II
- Resident Evil 0
- Resident Evil 4
- Pikmin 2
- Sims 2
- F-Zero GX
- Aggressive Inline
- SSX on Tour
- Bomberman Generation

All in all an excellent deal. I was really hoping for Super Mario Sunshine, but I'll snag that at some point down the road.

Also, get the Metal Gear Solid remake. It was actually pretty good. I loved the GameCube. Mario Kart was great too.

 

[exdeath]

Nice. With both Baten Kaitos games, Fire Emblem, Skies of Arcadia Legends, etc I'm about done with my GameCube library. Other than the last Mario Party and oddly enough Mario Kart, I pretty much have a complete library minus the Madden/Spongebob/HannaMontanna garbage.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Let me know how the GameCube version of Waverace is. That game was AWESOME on the N64.

 

[sweenish]

That Pikmin 2 alone is worth double what you payed. Nice find.

 

[exdeath]

Nah Pikmin 2 is $40 tops.

Worth the whole lot for sure but not double.

 

[SaurusX]

I had no idea Pikmin 2 was so sought after. I remember reading reviews of the first one, but never played it along with almost all of the GC library.

My SNES collection is nearing completion (just the ones I felt were the best of the best), so I guess it's onto the entirely new experience of Gamecube collecting. I've been reading up on the component cable and how it sells for way too much. As such I've been having this fantasy of stumbling across it in the cable bins at Goodwill. Who knows!

 

[exdeath]

I had no idea Pikmin 2 was so sought after. I remember reading reviews of the first one, but never played it along with almost all of the GC library.

My SNES collection is nearing completion (just the ones I felt were the best of the best), so I guess it's onto the entirely new experience of Gamecube collecting. I've been reading up on the component cable and how it sells for way too much. As such I've been having this fantasy of stumbling across it in the cable bins at Goodwill. Who knows!

I bought a complete Metroid GameCube bundle on eBay mostly for the special edition Metroid box for like $30.

Found an official component cable inside and sold it for 3x as I already had one I bought from Nintendo when they were available.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Man all this GC talk is making me want to hook mine up again and play/finish some of the games I have (that or plug in the Wii and do it there).

 

[Anarchist420]

Let me know how the GameCube version of Waverace is. That game was AWESOME on the N64.

i thought the Gamecube one was better actually. i think the dev that did it is now defunct.

 

[Soundmanred]

i thought the Gamecube one was better actually. i think the dev that did it is now defunct.

It was created by Nintendo for Nintendo.
The founders have since retired however.

 

[SaurusX]

I went through the Gamecube lot this weekend cleaning everything up and discovered that the Sims 2 case had a Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles disc in it instead. Not sure how I feel about that as with the GC I was hoping to keep the collection entirely complete with cases and manuals. I've never been one for RPG's either.

Also, I haven't had the chance to play much of the Gamecube yet, because my lot didn't come with a memory card! I found a good deal on eBay and according to tracking it should be delivered today, but every game requires some kind of save capability.

In the meantime I've bulked up the game collection a bit with another find from Craigslist. Not such an amazing deal this time, but still a bargain compared to going rates and all pristine and totally complete.

Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes ---- $24.73
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes ---------- $4.12
Resident Evil --------------------- $8.24
StarFox Adventures -------------- $4.95
Star Wars: Rogue Leader --------- $4.12
Star Wars: Rebel Strike ----------- $1.65
Super Mario Sunshine ------------- $20.60
Super Monkey Ball 2 -------------- $4.12
Viewtiful Joe --------------------- $2.47

That's a total of $75 (I talked him down from original prices, hence the weird prices). So, with a few more games I'll have everything I want on the Gamecube and I've only had maybe two hours at most play time. I'm looking forward to this weekend, though.

 

[JD50]

I'm looking into getting a gamecube now too, any reason not to just play gamecube games on the wii since then you don't have to worry about the crazy expensive gamecube component cable?

 

[SaurusX]

I'm looking into getting a gamecube now too, any reason not to just play gamecube games on the wii since then you don't have to worry about the crazy expensive gamecube component cable?

With some wheeling and dealing I ended up getting a Gamecube component cable for about $75. A month or so after that I picked up my in-laws' Wii that they had sitting in a container in their garage for over two years. I think they bought every accessory under the sun for this thing, but I digress.

I've done some testing between the Wii component output and the Gamecube component output. The difference is far too small to recommend that you go out and hunt down a GC component cable for a decent price. I definitely wouldn't pay the $180 that most "good" deals on eBay are asking for. If anything, I think the sole difference between the two systems is in the contrast or brightness levels being the tiniest bit better on the Gamecube, but that can be accounted for in your TV settings. It may all be in my head, though, as the difference is nearly indiscernible.

Of course, I say that, but I still prefer to play the Gamecube games on the Gamecube. There's really no reason for it other than I have the system with the uber-expensive cable and I feel like I should use it.