Not to mention roms killing demand :/
my copy of earthbound, that I bought in 1996, would prolly be worth a shit ton more if it wasn't for the emulators.
[quote name='romeogbs19']I don't know if this is as much BS as you make it out to be. We're dealing with a very different stage of the videogame industry and we need to think about the life cycles of these products and where else they're likely to show up in the future.
What I mean is that it's very possible that once PS4/Xbox 720 (or whatever) comes out, many if not all of the PS3/360 titles may be available via downloads. That's seriously going to depress demand and it's also likely to lead to a lot of people disposing their physical media, thus further decreasing demand.
We haven't seen PS2/Xbox software made available in large part because the console manufacturers didn't really conceive it a viable business option moving from the old to new systems. I doubt MS/Sony will make that mistake from the PS3 to the PS4 and Xbox 360 to 720. It's too big a market now to sacrifice and it'll be an expected service among the new adopters next-gen. Also, emulators probably won't be a big issue this time given the systems will be built to play older titles out of the box.
Sure, there will always be a price people will pay to have a tangible copy, but that's increasingly the minority. Publishers don't it that way. Developers get more access to direct sales by going online. No one on the creation side prefers the retail process over online.
These factors mean games this generation aren't going away as quickly -- gamers will be able to play them, and in the end, that's pretty much the killer with trying to make something rare/collectible.
We've seen the impact of reprints on once rare games. Titles like Fatal Frame 3, Mega Man X Collection, Ar Tonelico, MvC2, Puzzle Fighter -- all of these once sold for 2x, 3x, 4x their MSRP. Reprints, DL versions have brought them down to below MSRP.
The difference with this generation is that these games won't need to be reprinted to be available. They'll be DL packs come the next console life-cycle.
Rare games, IMHO, ended with the PS2/Xbx/GCN era. Few of the games from that generation could even be considered rare; the direction we're headed in now suggests companies will be better able to capitalize on consumer demand by ensuring players who'll pay at least close to MSRP can get it online in a heartbeat.
So, yeah, horde up on titles if you want. But if you really want to make money, you better think about selling your inventory when demand is there. I doubt demand for any game this generation will be high enough in the next round for any of these titles to sell for much more than what you paid. Count inflation, and in 8 out of 10 cases, you'll be losing money.[/QUOTE]
