These days, stores are pretty savvy about the value of retro games. We've got dedicated shops which specialise in selling vintage gaming hardware and software, so the chances of picking up a bargain from an unsuspecting retailer are slimmer than ever – but that isn't to say it can't still happen.
YouTube Steve Wright Jr (AKA Mr. Wright Way) has evidence of this; he visited his local GameStop after hearing that a bunch of 'Sega games' had been traded in. When he arrived, he found a truly amazing haul of Saturn titles, all priced way below their market value.
Shining Wisdom, for example, can fetch around $250 on eBay (GameStop price: $90), Sonic R $200 (GameStop price: $85), Sonic Jam $250 (GameStop: $99), Dragon Force $400 (GameStop: $99) and Shining Force III $340 (GameStop: $99).
However, the most impressive item in Wright Jr's haul was Burning Rangers, a copy of which recently sold on eBay for over $800 (GameStop priced it at $99).
What's even better is that because he's part of GameStop's Pro Member service, Wright Jr got a small discount on the price of each game, making it even more of an unbelievable bargain.
Granted, some of the cases were damaged (a common issue with North American Saturn packaging), but all of the games are complete and in good condition, making this a particularly amazing score.
What's even more incredible is that Wright Jr later managed to track down the person who had traded in all of the Saturn games and struck another deal for some more amazing titles – including Panzer Dragoon Saga, which is considered to be one of the rarest Saturn games in its North American format.
Comments 17
Wow a video game collector/dealer made a little bit of profit exploiting people, and buying from businesses that exploit them even more. I should subscribe to their YouTube channel so I can hear them talk about it for half an hour.
And yet, I paid about $30 for some of them since they were JP imports.
Go figure...
@Poodlestargenerica my thoughts exactly. He wasn't happy enough scalping the faceless corporation, so he looked the guy up to scalp him in person. Not a great way to treat other humans. Pay the guy what you know it's worth! Be excellent to each other.
Wait the US Gamestop still sells classic games? The Australian equivalent, EB Games, doesn't sell anything older than PS4/XB1.
Subtitle should be “When Saturn Becomes Uranus”
Must be a slow news day. You want a really spicy story? Check out 5lotham on YouTube for the real rundown on Wrightway. The reason Wrightway was able to get them at the price he did is because GameStop puts a price cap on the retro stuff they resell. Hopefully after tracking down the original seller, he made them a fairer deal than GameStop did but I doubt it. Wrightway is known to be disreputable. This story begs the question, how did Wrightway get the seller's info? Did GameStop give it to him? That's a huge no no.
This sounds like an April fools joke...I worked at GameStop in 2004 and they didn't even buy back Sega Saturn way back then and they even stopped buying N64 while I worked there...did something change in the last few years that they've opened up what they'll take in?
@Poodlestargenerica Yeah, I can't imagine that tracking down the seller to ask them for more deals being something a wholesome person does.
I know that whenever I get to play some Saturn games, I'll be playing some Shining Wisdom through the Japanese copy I paid about a dollar-fifty for some years ago. (I'm going to guess that playing Magic Knight Rayearth, saving not only the massive amount of cost in regional difference will be great... but maybe experiencing it without Vic's writing? )
@PKDuckman Last I knew, GameStop was only selling retro games through their website (which even then, became highly scrutinized about GameStop's ability to detect fakes) and not in stores. Last time I checked out one local store last year, that store was barely even selling any video games anymore, it was mostly a merchandise store at that point.
Since when did gamestop start selling retro games in stores again? Also it is against company policy to reveal who sold games to gamestop (especially since they take in ID/DL to register the sale) so unless he was there during the trade either this is fake or someone is getting fired.
@gingerbeardman How can he be "scalping" GameStop when they set the price? It's not like he forced them to put the games on sale for massively below their retail value.
And we don't know what he paid the seller for PDS, so to speculate that he paid under the odds seems a bit presumptuous to me, personally.
The tweet suggests that both parties were happy with the 'deal', so I'm not sure it's worth throwing shade at, certainly not with all of the genuinely bad stuff that's happening in the world right now.
Scoring a bargain is one of life's little pleasures, and if the seller was happy with the price he got, then I don't see any reason to react negatively to any of this.
@Damo we know that the buyer doesn't want to say what he paid the guy for it, which is alarm bell number one, but he does say that it was the "DEAL OF A LIFETIME!!!!" which indicates that he paid far less for it than it's worth. Seems pretty clear cut.
Scoring a bargain is indeed a pleasure, but actively seeking a person out, exploiting them, and then boasting about it on social media is just ...not cool.
The main gist of my earlier message was to be excellent to each other. There's no shade or negative reaction. Just me saying "that's not cool" when we should be treating each other with respect.
@gingerbeardman And my point is you don't know how much he paid, and you also don't know the motivation of the seller - perhaps he was happy to let the game go for a lower-than-normal price because he knew it would get played and not put in a sealed protective case and resold on eBay?
My point is, we don't know, so if we don't know, then "being excellent to each other" surely extends to not jumping to conclusions on such things?
@Damo
Yep, sometimes people sell stuff rather to someone who wants to use it, than someone who sees it as an investment.
Also, Ebay Prices (or similiar) are sometimes very very high and don't get sold or stay there for years.
@Damo I'm interested why you've only @'d me about this and not the first poster in this thread? Of course, I don't know, but I can take an educated guess. 😘
@gingerbeardman I meant to tag the first poster as well, so apologies for that.
Not sure what you mean by the second bit of your message?
@Azuris Exactly.
It sucks that retro gaming costs so much. I still feel no used game should sale for more than 100 bucks. But I am a sucker/fair like that. I just wanna play games, not have a vault.
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