About 10 to 12 years ago, the world of classic games was a minuscule community of gamers’ scouring garage sales and flea markets for childhood gems and online bragging rights. Today, vintage video games are big business as more and more individuals are trying to cash in on the nostalgia bug.
Therefore, if you have a cardboard box of old games lying somewhere in your basement then dig it up, you could be sitting on a gold mine. To see if any of your old gems match the ones detailed by SafeStore in their comprehensive research on the subject, you can look here: https://www.safestore.co.uk/blog/2017/06/how-much-are-your-old-video-games-worth/
The following are five valuable vintage video games that can fill your pockets:
1- Gamma Attack – Atari 2600
There was once a company called Gammation which only produced one game called Gamma Attack. Today, that game is the priciest one as reportedly only one copy exists and you can have it if you are willing to pay close £250,000 for the most basics of game graphics known to geeks.
In it, the character is a UFO that can move all around and your duty is to shoot tanks under you. Every time a tank hits you a bit of your height will be trimmed.
2- Stadium Events
In 1987, Bandai released Stadium Events as part of the company’s family fun fitness mat—a cosy, plastic controller you walked, jumped and ran on to move the animated characters. In 1988, Nintendo bought the game rights and re-released it as World Class Track Meet.
Also, to avoid gamers’ confusion the latter pulled all copies of Stadium Events from the market and had them smashed, but not before about 200 of them were already sold. Today, about 10% of those 200 still exist making them ultra-valuable for people seeking a piece of their nostalgia. Today, one such copy can get you somewhere between £10, 000 to £25,000.
3- Magical Chase
The year of release is 1993 and the platform is TurboGrafx-16 with a sealed copy going for £10,000, while a worn out one can fetch up to £5000. Magical Chase is considered a classic in its own right as this scrolling shooter title was released at the nigh end of the console’s life span. Therefore, copies are extremely difficult to get a hold of in 2017 making it one of the most sosought-after video games.
At the point of writing, there are no reports of the existence of a sealed copy, but early in 2017 a good condition copy got sold for more than £10,000.
4- NINTENDO POWERFEST 1994
Nintendo PowerFest was a competition on the go where the best SNES players across the United States were asked to show their gaming skills on three different timed games, namely Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League, Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels and Super Mario Kart. The player with the highest score from each respective city was invited to the San Diego finals to compete at the Nintendo World Championships II. Specifically, for the tour 33 cartridges were produced which were returned to Nintendo upon the conclusion of the tour and were reused for other parts.
Several years later, a couple of those rare copies surfaced and fetched a premium. A kid who made it to the San Diego finals paid £8,000 for this one-of-a-kind cartridge in 2006 as a grown up. Later on in 2012, another PowerFest cartridge went for well over £10,000. Therefore, if your older brother’s old stash has a powerfest 1994 cartridge apart from a penthouse 1994 your summer is golden!
5- Mega Man X3
Much like Metroid and Zelda, Mega Man is one of those Nintendo franchises with a cult of fans. Mainly Mega Man X3 is considered the ruling king of the series and by far the best offered by the 16-bit era. The reason for its comparatively better graphics was its release at the end of the super nintendo entertainment system era and the obvious fact that a limited production line was operated.
All of these facts have combined to make it a valuable collector’s item couple of decades down the line. Today, the projected value of a sealed copy of Mega Man X3 is expected to fetch on the upward of £5,000. Now that is the price of a used small car.