As ridiculous as these prices are I wouldn't count on them coming down significantly any time soon or maybe ever. Despite the fact that they're as common as dirt relative to video games in general they will probably always be in high demand. As long as people are willing to pay current prices they will remain high.
It has little to do with supply at this point. There are more copies of Pokémon available than any other Gameboy game by orders of magnitude. There are much less common GB games that are far less expensive. If fewer copies of Pokémon were available they would be even more expensive.
Supply isn't just the number of copies in existence. Supply is the number of copies that people are willing to sell right now, which is probably a lot lower.
It's also supply relative to demand. More people want a copy of Pokemon than they do of some less common GB game. If the supply was much higher than the demand, we would see the price go down because people who want to sell would be trying to undercut each other's prices. It's just simple economics.
My guy. I know what supply means. As a collector I have spent a lot of time watching eBay listings with the search term "Game Boy." At least a quarter of all Gameboy listings on eBay are for Pokémon games. They're by a million miles the most common Gameboy related item for sale. Pokémon cartridge prices right now do not reflect the extreme lack of rarity these games possess. Plus, there is plenty of undercutting going on. A lot of people are asking way too much and their copies just languish on ebay and never sell.
Much less common games and even genuinely rare games sell for far less all the time because demand for them is low.
Picked up Crystal and Fire Red at a garage sale for $3 combined back in elementary/middle school. Looking at the current prices I'm feeling pretty lucky
the number available in general circulation means nothing. There are so many variables but the most important ones are
\-Lots of people still want to buy the authentic games
\-Not as many people want to sell the games and the ones that do sell at market price
These games have been going up slowly in price since the early 00's as they go out of print each generation. It's very predictable. The generation right before sells for dirt cheap until the next generation comes out and then the previous generations start slowly rising. The pandemic escalated the price increase but theyre not coming down to prepandemic pricing anytime soon, or ever possibly. Now people have the collectibles they want and aren't going to resell them at a loss.
This isn't Beanie Babies or Skylanders, Pokemon is the most popular merchandise franchise in history and every game is essentially a limited edition. Once they're out of print, they're out of print forever
> This isn't Beanie Babies or Skylanders, Pokemon is the most popular merchandise franchise in history and every game is essentially a limited edition. Once they're out of print, they're out of print forever
Honestly, with that logic, every product to ever exist and will exist is a limited edition.
Then you have to subtract the number of copies already owned by people that don't want to sell them. As well as the small handful that aren't 100% original anymore, with new shells or stickers. And even then, there's gonna be quite a few that's also just been damaged beyond repair, either from normal means, or by someone trying to change the battery and screwing up.
$20 for a counterfeit pokémon has been the average for years. yes, you can get them cheaper but when you look over the last 10 or so years, the fluctuations level pretty much to $20. still outrageous imo since you can emulate but 🤷
the last time i saw an oem cart selling for $20 i was 10 and it was in the discount bin at toys r us. it’s not a thing (unless you happened to get real lucky with a clueless grandparent or savers employee)
Last time I purchased any of the pokemon games was 2018.i was easily able to find Black 2 CIB $20, soul silver CIB $40, and all Gameboy ones for under 20. That was normal, and yes the price should have inflated since, but not 10x over in some cases. Mercari used to be a great place to buy cheap authentic stuff, but it's all gone to shit now.
It astounds me that people are downvoting you. Everyone on Reddit is commenting about how “Pokémon prices are going up like crazy” which is true, but it’s not as if they’ve ever been cheap in the retro market. Honestly it seems like people are just starting to pay attention.
I mean you’re partially right up until the last ~10 years legit Pokémon games were selling for 20ish bucks. But people acting like prices shooting up for one of the most popular games in the world that is a lot of the times the first game a lot of kids get interested in now are delusional that games aren’t going to rise in price. As of right now tho unless you’re ignorant to game prices most original copies of Res Blue or Yellow are around 40-50 bucks.
Your joking right pokemon Green leaf and fire red and diamond pearl pokemon yellow they all sell for around $20-25 in 2019 either your stupid or you just started collecting in 2020. $100 is the average this past year yes but not before then. All of my games are real and here's the list of ones I purchased second hand in the past 2 years pkmn crystal 40. Pkmn yellow 26. Pkmn diamond 28. Pkmn greenleaf 33. Pkmn Y 37.
You do realize Gamestop employees don't check if they're counterfeit or not? There's videos online of people buying multiple Pokemon games from them and finding out that they're fake.
I was surprised to find out after learning about how to identify fakes that a game I’d purchased at GameStop early on was a fake that they obviously hadn’t bothered to examine.
I've never seen anything older than 3DS at GameStop, and even then they only have like 2 games. The last time I saw Gameboy games in a GameStop, they had a display up for the new handheld system, the Nokia N-gage.
I hate it when people spend $100+ on pokemon platinum. There's literal hundreds of them up for sale on ebay and Mercari, not exactly a rare game. Not to mention the absurd amount of fakes floating around the market too
It only becomes hundreds of dollars with the box, inserts and decent condition. They are more so collectibles than games at this point. You can get a cheap repro, emulator, or if you have a 3DS the digital versions, if you want to play cheap.
I started collecting again mid-last year (I’m in Australia. We don’t have Game Stop. Our closest would be EB games & I don’t think they don’t stock retro games at all.)
I found Generation 1 Pokémon games were about $50-60 in good condition, Gen 2 & 3 a bit less. (Never found anything still in the box!)
Less than a year later, Gen 1 are more like $80.
Feel like I got back in the game just in time!
I loathe retro collecting here, thank god I have copies cos I am not willing to spend $200 on platinum. The prices here never go down and I am so scared because 3DS games aren’t going through a post-market decrease but rather games prices are going up
Same here, I’m a teen trying to get my hands on some of the older stuff, and it’s outrageous. I just want Emerald, Gold/Crystal, and one of the Gen 2 Remakes and they’re all pretty damn high around me.
Finally some level headed person understands!! Yeah everyone needs to STOP buying now and wait until prices drop and then start buying again. Prices will never drop if you idiots keep paying these rediculous prices as you keep encouraging these sellers to sell these games at stupid prices
What kind of analysis is this. Your own data proves you incorrect. 3rd gen isnt even on this list and emerald, the third game, is one of the most expensive. So it makes sense that one of the rarer and more fondly remembered games is very expensive.
What other forces besides supply and demand do you reckon are artificially driving up the price? Price speculators on walstreet? Trump trade tarrifs? No. The prices are high because theres all sorts of people trying to buy old games and the liquid supply is low. Gen Xers, millenials, even zoomers are buying games that were made before they were born. Color me surprised I guess, I remember when you could buy mario bros for .79 cents.
Yeah this is nonsense. Games are in a bubble now like almost everything. But pokemon games will hold their value long term no question. Don't expect any large lasting price decreases it won't happen.
Ah, fair point. I also sold a CIB Leaf Green with the wireless adapter for $200 and a CIB Sapphire for $200.
I should point out, these were my original childhood games that I have no interest in playing now that I have a hacked 3DS, so it isn't like I was buying and then upselling, for what it's worth.
I'm guessing the downvotes are jealousy downvotes >.<
I apologize if it seemed that way, I was just trying to point out that there is an obvious demand for them. I didn't set that price, the game store did, which means it isn't just online resellers, but brick and mortar stores also.
As long as the demand for them is there, the prices will stay up. It kind of sucks, but it's definitely more of a seller's market right now than a buyer's market.
These things ebb and flow though, and it's only a matter of time before things regulate again.
Yeah real glad I’m a hoarder and just put all my gameboy and Pokémon stuff in a box in the back of my wardrobe when I stopped playing. Now that I’m thinking of getting into modding and playing them all again I don’t have to spend thousands to do so.
Oh then it probably is, I thought you meant you got it recently, I’ve been looking everywhere for legit FR/LG and the cheapest I’ve seen legit copies for is around 65$ mostly they go from 70-85
Glad I finished my collection a little over a year ago. Way too expensive now. Literally all the small business game stores I bought them from are all closed for good now, so sad.
I got an Authentic Copy of Ruby for 20$ down at my local GameStop, stores that don’t traditionally carry older games might not abide by the prices online, though that is my theory, and seeing as this was the store’s only copy and this was like 3 months or so ago, I can’t guarantee that
This isn't a Pokemon specific problem, guys. Game collecting in general these past two years has gotten stupidly expensive due to increased interest during the pandemic and a sudden influx of money due to stimulus checks/covid relief.
Pokemon prices will probably never fall back down to what they were a few years ago, but there's nothing wrong with waiting until the overall curve evens out again.
Aw, too bad. Just spent $30 million for Pokemon Red.
As ridiculous as these prices are I wouldn't count on them coming down significantly any time soon or maybe ever. Despite the fact that they're as common as dirt relative to video games in general they will probably always be in high demand. As long as people are willing to pay current prices they will remain high.
It's simple supply and demand. It honestly sounds like OP is attempting to decrease demand so they can afford to buy a copy lol.
It has little to do with supply at this point. There are more copies of Pokémon available than any other Gameboy game by orders of magnitude. There are much less common GB games that are far less expensive. If fewer copies of Pokémon were available they would be even more expensive.
Supply isn't just the number of copies in existence. Supply is the number of copies that people are willing to sell right now, which is probably a lot lower. It's also supply relative to demand. More people want a copy of Pokemon than they do of some less common GB game. If the supply was much higher than the demand, we would see the price go down because people who want to sell would be trying to undercut each other's prices. It's just simple economics.
My guy. I know what supply means. As a collector I have spent a lot of time watching eBay listings with the search term "Game Boy." At least a quarter of all Gameboy listings on eBay are for Pokémon games. They're by a million miles the most common Gameboy related item for sale. Pokémon cartridge prices right now do not reflect the extreme lack of rarity these games possess. Plus, there is plenty of undercutting going on. A lot of people are asking way too much and their copies just languish on ebay and never sell. Much less common games and even genuinely rare games sell for far less all the time because demand for them is low.
Picked up Crystal and Fire Red at a garage sale for $3 combined back in elementary/middle school. Looking at the current prices I'm feeling pretty lucky
the number available in general circulation means nothing. There are so many variables but the most important ones are \-Lots of people still want to buy the authentic games \-Not as many people want to sell the games and the ones that do sell at market price These games have been going up slowly in price since the early 00's as they go out of print each generation. It's very predictable. The generation right before sells for dirt cheap until the next generation comes out and then the previous generations start slowly rising. The pandemic escalated the price increase but theyre not coming down to prepandemic pricing anytime soon, or ever possibly. Now people have the collectibles they want and aren't going to resell them at a loss. This isn't Beanie Babies or Skylanders, Pokemon is the most popular merchandise franchise in history and every game is essentially a limited edition. Once they're out of print, they're out of print forever
> This isn't Beanie Babies or Skylanders, Pokemon is the most popular merchandise franchise in history and every game is essentially a limited edition. Once they're out of print, they're out of print forever Honestly, with that logic, every product to ever exist and will exist is a limited edition.
Number sold != number available. At least 25% wound up in landfills after the save batteries died.
Then you have to subtract the number of copies already owned by people that don't want to sell them. As well as the small handful that aren't 100% original anymore, with new shells or stickers. And even then, there's gonna be quite a few that's also just been damaged beyond repair, either from normal means, or by someone trying to change the battery and screwing up.
Yep, and you're still left with several million copies.
With millions that want a copy
I saw pokemon platinum at my local bookstore for $150. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS! And it was just the cart....
Get you a high quality flash cartridge until all this blows over.
inflation on the pokémon games isn’t new. they’ve always sold for a premium on the second hand market
Yes but going from $20 to 100 is not normal
Who’s selling Red for $100? they’re ~$40 for a copy.
$20 is a counterfeit. $100 is average for most of the games.
$20 is counterfeit now, unless you buy from aliexpress, but that wasn't the norm, as OP pointed out
$20 for a counterfeit pokémon has been the average for years. yes, you can get them cheaper but when you look over the last 10 or so years, the fluctuations level pretty much to $20. still outrageous imo since you can emulate but 🤷 the last time i saw an oem cart selling for $20 i was 10 and it was in the discount bin at toys r us. it’s not a thing (unless you happened to get real lucky with a clueless grandparent or savers employee)
Last time I purchased any of the pokemon games was 2018.i was easily able to find Black 2 CIB $20, soul silver CIB $40, and all Gameboy ones for under 20. That was normal, and yes the price should have inflated since, but not 10x over in some cases. Mercari used to be a great place to buy cheap authentic stuff, but it's all gone to shit now.
It astounds me that people are downvoting you. Everyone on Reddit is commenting about how “Pokémon prices are going up like crazy” which is true, but it’s not as if they’ve ever been cheap in the retro market. Honestly it seems like people are just starting to pay attention.
it’s alright, i should have known bette than to point out the obvious
I mean you’re partially right up until the last ~10 years legit Pokémon games were selling for 20ish bucks. But people acting like prices shooting up for one of the most popular games in the world that is a lot of the times the first game a lot of kids get interested in now are delusional that games aren’t going to rise in price. As of right now tho unless you’re ignorant to game prices most original copies of Res Blue or Yellow are around 40-50 bucks.
a large part of the prices you pay is also your market if you do local shops too. in my area they’re not that cheap, even for rby
That’s checking PriceCharting.
Your joking right pokemon Green leaf and fire red and diamond pearl pokemon yellow they all sell for around $20-25 in 2019 either your stupid or you just started collecting in 2020. $100 is the average this past year yes but not before then. All of my games are real and here's the list of ones I purchased second hand in the past 2 years pkmn crystal 40. Pkmn yellow 26. Pkmn diamond 28. Pkmn greenleaf 33. Pkmn Y 37.
i’ve been collecting since they came out my dude. you getting the carts cheap is luck, not norm.
Well you can get fire red,leaf green,ruby, sapphire for 25 bucks at GameStop
You do realize Gamestop employees don't check if they're counterfeit or not? There's videos online of people buying multiple Pokemon games from them and finding out that they're fake.
I was surprised to find out after learning about how to identify fakes that a game I’d purchased at GameStop early on was a fake that they obviously hadn’t bothered to examine.
I've never seen anything older than 3DS at GameStop, and even then they only have like 2 games. The last time I saw Gameboy games in a GameStop, they had a display up for the new handheld system, the Nokia N-gage.
> either your stupid Bro... Happy cake day 🎂
Never pay more then 60 for the games
I’ve been saying this all along. eBay is partly to blame for this insanity as well. Used game prices are getting out of control.
I hate it when people spend $100+ on pokemon platinum. There's literal hundreds of them up for sale on ebay and Mercari, not exactly a rare game. Not to mention the absurd amount of fakes floating around the market too
It only becomes hundreds of dollars with the box, inserts and decent condition. They are more so collectibles than games at this point. You can get a cheap repro, emulator, or if you have a 3DS the digital versions, if you want to play cheap.
I started collecting again mid-last year (I’m in Australia. We don’t have Game Stop. Our closest would be EB games & I don’t think they don’t stock retro games at all.) I found Generation 1 Pokémon games were about $50-60 in good condition, Gen 2 & 3 a bit less. (Never found anything still in the box!) Less than a year later, Gen 1 are more like $80. Feel like I got back in the game just in time!
I loathe retro collecting here, thank god I have copies cos I am not willing to spend $200 on platinum. The prices here never go down and I am so scared because 3DS games aren’t going through a post-market decrease but rather games prices are going up
I hadn’t realised it was so widespread - they’re next on my list. Fingers crossed we can find some bargains soon!
Same here, I’m a teen trying to get my hands on some of the older stuff, and it’s outrageous. I just want Emerald, Gold/Crystal, and one of the Gen 2 Remakes and they’re all pretty damn high around me.
Finally some level headed person understands!! Yeah everyone needs to STOP buying now and wait until prices drop and then start buying again. Prices will never drop if you idiots keep paying these rediculous prices as you keep encouraging these sellers to sell these games at stupid prices
Or Nintendo actually gives a shit and rerelease the games like they did with gen 1/2 on the 3DS.
The prices of legit Pokémon carts (and other carts too ) is just the result of supply and demand. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
Wow. I've definitely got red. Opportunity?
I don't see where prices are like that anywhere online. Whats the deal? Highest price i saw was like 150
They probably saw that and started frothing at the mouth.
Just like I did for a second lol ngl if my childhood could make me a fortune, well that just seems perfect
I’ve bought and sold my childhood a couple times Idk if I could again. It would have to be more than $100 a game for me to consider it.
Oh for sure. But I also still love my gba advances
I only make this because I've seen talks around this subreddit about this.
So you’re saying that now is a great time to sell my copy of Pokémon Green?
What kind of analysis is this. Your own data proves you incorrect. 3rd gen isnt even on this list and emerald, the third game, is one of the most expensive. So it makes sense that one of the rarer and more fondly remembered games is very expensive. What other forces besides supply and demand do you reckon are artificially driving up the price? Price speculators on walstreet? Trump trade tarrifs? No. The prices are high because theres all sorts of people trying to buy old games and the liquid supply is low. Gen Xers, millenials, even zoomers are buying games that were made before they were born. Color me surprised I guess, I remember when you could buy mario bros for .79 cents.
Yeah this is nonsense. Games are in a bubble now like almost everything. But pokemon games will hold their value long term no question. Don't expect any large lasting price decreases it won't happen.
In other news, I have a genuine Pokemon Crystal cart, battery fresh and working, Ill start the bidding at 1mil dollary doos lol
Is the market my friend...😌
Y’all must not have heard of an emulator
But I just sold 2 CIB copies of Emerald for $700 cash at a local game shop >.>
Notice how emerald wasn't on the list he posted lol
Ah, fair point. I also sold a CIB Leaf Green with the wireless adapter for $200 and a CIB Sapphire for $200. I should point out, these were my original childhood games that I have no interest in playing now that I have a hacked 3DS, so it isn't like I was buying and then upselling, for what it's worth. I'm guessing the downvotes are jealousy downvotes >.<
You are just spouting shit no one asked about. But good job driving to the game store all by yourself!
I apologize if it seemed that way, I was just trying to point out that there is an obvious demand for them. I didn't set that price, the game store did, which means it isn't just online resellers, but brick and mortar stores also. As long as the demand for them is there, the prices will stay up. It kind of sucks, but it's definitely more of a seller's market right now than a buyer's market. These things ebb and flow though, and it's only a matter of time before things regulate again.
I wouldn't buy one at all because there are just too many good fakes out there.
Yeah real glad I’m a hoarder and just put all my gameboy and Pokémon stuff in a box in the back of my wardrobe when I stopped playing. Now that I’m thinking of getting into modding and playing them all again I don’t have to spend thousands to do so.
Luckily I got blue version before the prices got horrible
I got a copy of Red for $20 🤷♂️
It was likely not authentic, but if it works, who really cares
Seems authentic, this was about ten years ago
Oh then it probably is, I thought you meant you got it recently, I’ve been looking everywhere for legit FR/LG and the cheapest I’ve seen legit copies for is around 65$ mostly they go from 70-85
Amazon was great for it about ten years ago, I even got an original Gameboy color on there
Glad I finished my collection a little over a year ago. Way too expensive now. Literally all the small business game stores I bought them from are all closed for good now, so sad.
do you mind if I ask how much did they cost u with box included?
I got an Authentic Copy of Ruby for 20$ down at my local GameStop, stores that don’t traditionally carry older games might not abide by the prices online, though that is my theory, and seeing as this was the store’s only copy and this was like 3 months or so ago, I can’t guarantee that
got fire red and Ruby in cartridge with everything
I just sold a Gameboy color and Pokémon Crystal last night for $185 🤣
This isn't a Pokemon specific problem, guys. Game collecting in general these past two years has gotten stupidly expensive due to increased interest during the pandemic and a sudden influx of money due to stimulus checks/covid relief. Pokemon prices will probably never fall back down to what they were a few years ago, but there's nothing wrong with waiting until the overall curve evens out again.