Super Mario Galaxy Isn't Enough For Me

This is what many gamers are saying after buying 1.1 million copies of Mario Galaxy in November. The price for Super Mario Sunshine for Gamecube increased more than 70% in November! Did the Mario love extend any further than Super Mario Sunshine. Let's find out.

The chart below shows Mario Sunshine's price during 2007.


The chart shows the price rising from $10.50 to roughly $17 in November. Our daily updates show that the price has continued to rise to $18 as of 12/19/07 though this isn't reflected in the chart yet.

Mario Sunshine is the only other Super Mario platforming game that can be played on the Wii without using the virtual console. It makes sense that the price would increase so much. During the holidays prices increase in general for video games but on top of this parents are probably thinking 'Tommy likes Super Mario Galaxy maybe I should get him another game like it.' Does this logic extend to other Mario games on the Wii?

The charts below show prices for other notable Mario games for Wii and Gamecube (both playable on the Wii).



Unfortunately, we don't enough data to show an interesting chart for Super Paper Mario but you can check it out if you want to.

The charts show some interesting results. The only other Mario Wii game shows a very small price increase in December but a decrease in November. On the other hand the other two Gamecube Mario games showed price increases of more than 50% from October to December. I think the Wii price doesn't change as much because the game is still available at most retailers brand new, which keeps the price from increasing very much. But Gamecube games are hard to come by at most major retailers so many people have to resort to buying the games on eBay, Amazon, or other second hand locations. This forces those Gamecube game prices up while the Wii price stays the same.

These prices and other Mario game prices can be found at VideoGamePriceCharts.com.

Call of Duty 4 Doesn't Make People Want to Play Originals

Call of Duty 4 was released for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo DS this past month and the official sales numbers came in showing that CoD4 for 360 was the best selling game of the month. It sold 1.57 million copies in November on the Xbox 360. With 1.57 million people buying the 4th iteration in the Call of Duty series did many of them go out and buy the first three games? And did it affect the prices for those games?

The charts below show the historic prices of Call of Duty games on Xbox during 2007.




(Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 3 were released on Xbox 360 too but our site doesn't have enough price history to see any trend at this point).

None of the games show a large increase in price after Call of Duty 4's release in November. The original Call of Duty had an increase from about $3.00 to $5.00, but this is less than the average video game's price increase in November and December. The original Xbox Call of Duty games are on the backward compatibility list, so Xbox 360 owners can play them but there doesn't seem to be any increase in demand. This is in complete contrast with the original Halo games when Halo 3 was released. Those games spiked in price right before Halo 3 was released.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

Will Wii Rainchecks Lower Prices Now?

Today Nintendo and Gamestop announced they would be selling rain checks on Wii Consoles on Dec. 20th and 21st. If you can't find a console now they will guarantee you get one in January. Will parents stop paying the high prices on eBay and Amazon for Wii systems now that they can guarantee delivery by January? Will this bring the prices down?

Prices on Wii consoles have already come down almost $100 from late November when they were selling for $590. But the prices haven't dropped since the rain check plan was announced. In fact prices on Wii consoles went up 2.1% yesterday (12/13/07) to $485.

I don't think this policy will change prices for Wii consoles very much and might not be very popular. I think most parents want to put something under the Christmas tree when they are giving presents. They don't want to put a piece of paper saying "You get a Wii in January sometime. Merry Christmas. From Santa".

I think Nintendo realizes that most people who buy for Christmas will find a substitute gift if they can't find a Wii this holiday season and might not try and buy another right away. They were looking for a gift, the gift has already been given so they don't need to buy a Wii anymore. Nintendo is just trying to stop this from happening by offering this rain check. A good business idea. But I don't think it will be that effective. People want the Wii for Christmas not a rain check and many people will be willing to pay extra online in order to have it.

Mario Party Is A Popular Christmas Present

Mario Party games are very popular games overall and it is one of the franchises that Nintendo brings out annually like clockwork (or like Madden football to use a gaming simile). Unlike Madden games though, Mario Party's are actually popular long after they come out and almost every Mario Party game actually increases in price right before Christmas. Below are historic price charts for most of the Mario Party games.






As you can see from the price charts, the prices of the Mario Party games follow a very consistant pattern. They drop in price the beginning of the year. The prices then hold steady for about nine months, only to rise sharply from November to December. This does follow the same general trend as all video game prices except that Mario Party games don't decrease throughout the year like other video games. Because of this the price spike in December brings the price of the games almost back to 2006 levels.

The only major exception to this trend is Mario Party Advance. It spiked in the summer and now prices have just held steady during the rest of the year. This is surprising to me because I would have thought Gameboy Advance games would be likely to increase in price at Christmas time because the owners are generally kids receiving presents.

Come Christmas morning when all you gamers wake up to see what Santa left you under the tree, don't be surprised if you find a Mario Party game. Hopefully he bought all of his back in October or he won't have money to buy what you really wanted.

Hunters Love Video Games

Every Fall across the US people start getting excited for hunting season. Hunters start practicing their calls to attract the animals. The Cabela's stores across the country fill up with people buying camouflage outfits and new shotguns. And State Wildlife Divisions start issuing hunting permits. Through all of this preparation for the new hunting season, hunters still find time to buy a bunch of video games. The prices for all the hunting video games shoot (pun intended) through the roof starting in August.

Cabela's Video Game Price Charts for 2007




In each of these historic price charts, the price of the game has decreased most of the year and then come August the price starts increasing only to accelerate in December. There are many more examples of this including Cabela's Deer Hunt 2005 for Xbox, Cabela Outdoor Adventure for Gamecube, and all the Big Game Hunter games.

Wikipedia says that hunters spent over $20.5 billion in their industry in 2001 and hunted for an average of 18 days. 18 days must not fulfill the hunting urge for most of these people because they seem to buy quite a few hunting games with this $20+ billion.

The price increases might also be due to wives buying the games for Christmas presents in hopes that their husbands won't leave on more hunting trips (I know women hunt too). This would explain the even bigger price increases right before Christmas time.

Whatever the reasons for the price increases. Hunters start paying about twice as much for their electronic hunting fix in December as they do in August. But its still a lot cheaper than a hunting license.

Britney Spears and Video Games

As you know we are a fairly new site and new sites are always looking for ways to get more traffic. After reading Yahoo's 2007 Top Searches report and seeing Britney Spears at number one, it dawned on me: We need an article about Britney Spears that is also video game related. Lucky for us Britney Spears came out with a video game called "Britney Spears Dance Beat".

While people are so busy searching for Britney Spears information are they also thinking, "I wish I could play a video game about Britney spears too instead of just reading gossip and seeing unflattering images." With the help of Google Trends and VideoGamePriceCharts.com data we can find out.

Britney Spears Dance Beat Price During 2007


Britney Spears Search Trend on Google


There were huge spikes in searches for Britney Spears in February and September related to her rehab visit and MTV embarrassment but there was no rise in the price for Britney Spears's video game.

Maybe its the horrible reviews the game received that stop people from buying it. A 4.1 average user review on Metacritic is not very good. I played it a bit myself once (I am kind of embarrassed to admit it) and it is a bad Dance Dance Revolution with lots of Britney Spears spread through the game.

Whatever the reason, people seem to be more enthralled with Britney in search engines and not quite as much on their Playstation 2.

PS. In case the rest of this article isn't enough to shoot us to number one on every search engine. Here is a random photo of Britney doing something funny. Yahoo number one here we come.

Make $150 by Not Playing Your Wii

If someone told you they would pay you $150 not to play your Wii for the whole month of December, would you take it? That is exactly what every Wii owner is being offered right now. Let me explain.

Wii's are selling for upwards of $590 on Amazon right now (probably even more by the time you read this, it increased $20 in the last five hours since I started this post).

After the 15% fee, I would have $501 in my pocket (even more if I sold it on ebay, thank you lower fees), but lets assume $500.

In January I buy a Wii back. In 2008, I could probably find the Wii in stores for $249 by waking up early on a Sunday and going to a Target or Best Buy. But even if I had to buy the Wii back on Amazon it would be a lot cheaper than it is now. The chart below shows that between August and October when the Wii was still hard to find, the average price on Amazon was $350.

Below is a chart of the prices from August 2007 until November 27, 2007.


So by selling my Wii now I would make $150 and all I give up is not being able to play my Wii for the rest of 2007. Think of it. Give up playing your Wii for a month and then you can buy Smash Bros Brawl, ten NES virtual console games, and still have $50 bucks left over.

You might even try and get lucky by waiting to sell you Wii until closer to Christmas. Lose less playing time and maybe get a higher price. With the Wii on the "Hot Dozen" list, Toys R Us list, and many hot toy lists for 2007 this might be a fairly safe bet.

Try the Video Game Pricing Service provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

Madden Prices Fall Fast on Playstation 2

Every every EA Sports releases their Madden football franchise to coincide with the new NFL season starting and every year it consistently sells millions of copies. The only thing more consistent is the price drop for the Madden games after their release. From the first day the game goes on sale, the prices start dropping every single month. Its very evident with the price chart for Madden 2008 above. The video game was released in August at $49.99 and by the end of the month was selling for $36, and for $29 by November. Will this price drop continue you ask?

Madden 2007 dropped in price every single month in 2007 except for a small increase in August when people wanted to get their football fix for cheap by buying Madden 07 instead of 08. This same pattern is seen with Madden 2006, and Madden 2005 to a lesser extent because it is almost worthless, selling for $0.39.

Madden football is very consistent in its sales every year, but also consistent in the fact that it will go on sale. Wait a couple of months or even until playoffs start and you can buy the game for half the original price and still enjoy the game in the height of the current football season.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

Halo 3 Fans Get Nostalgic for the Original

Every gamer knows that Halo 3 was released for Xbox 360 on September 25 because it was almost a holiday in the gaming community. It sold 3.3 million copies in the September alone. A large number of these millions of buyers decided to prepare themselves for Halo 3's release by playing the original again. Prices for the original Halo went up almost 30% in September, going from $7.15 in August to $9.14 in September.

Plenty of gamers must have gone nostalgic after playing Halo 3 too, because the prices just kept on increasing in October. Going up another 10% during October to almost $10. But just as quickly as the price went up, gamers appetite for the original faded and the price dropped back down in November.

Moral of the story: If you going to relive your old gaming memories, buy it before everyone else does. You'll save a few bucks.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

Nintendo 64 Console Gets More Expensive

The Nintendo 64 Console has steadily increased in price throughout 2007. Its low for the year was around $9 in January and is now selling for $27.

The price increases have accelerated during the the past four months, increasing almost $2.00 every month. What is causing this sharp rise in prices? I don't think supply dried up, unless some warehouse stocked with Nintendo 64's caught fire that I didn't hear about. All the N64 consoles are owned by individuals hooked up to their TV's or packed away in boxes. Is there renewed interest in the Nintendo 64 because of the virtual console on Wii? Prices for Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, and Super Mario 64 have started increasing during the past four months too. So maybe people are looking to play these games on the original system. But even they haven't increased as much as the N64 console's price..

Anyone have other theories why the Nintendo 64's price is rising almost as much as Nintendo's stock price?

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

More Video Game Publisher's Price Charts

People really seemed to enjoy the publisher's video game price charts I posted last week and I have had request for some more publishers. Here are eight more publishers and some quick comments about the charts and prices.



The big surprise in this chart is how strong Capcom's prices are during 2007. Their prices dropped almost the exact same at Atlus's, about 7 percent. Square Enix's video game prices were surprisingly weak during 2007. They publish mostly RPG's so the prices would be expected to stay higher throughout the year. Square's prices dropped about 28 percent compared to a 7 percent drop for all RPG's. Square is the largest of the RPG publishers so maybe they sell a lot more of their games than other RPG publishers do, lowering the resale value.



None of these publisher's prices show anything too surprising. They all drop at a fairly consistent rate throughout 2007. Ubisoft was down 31 percent, Sony 17 percent, Sega 25 percent, and THQ the biggest at 37 percent. THQ publishes lots of licensed video games, so it isn't very surprising their prices would drop the most. Sega and Ubisoft are in line with the average price decline of 30 percent for all video games this time of year.

I plan on posting again the end of this week with some more publisher's prices. Let me know which ones you are interested in so I can be sure to include them. Just comment below and I will be sure to see it.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

Atlus Published Video Games Keep Their Value

Readers asked me to write an article analyzing prices of games by publisher. Readers thought that certain publishers video games would keep their value longer than others. I have been on hiatus from blog posts for a while, but here are the full results of my video game price analysis by publisher.

I looked at prices for games published between 2000 and 2006 and averaged the prices for all games by a publisher during that time frame. I looked at over twenty of the largest publishers and Atlus because readers specifically asked me for that data. Then graphed the prices of all publishers indexed to 1.00 so we can see relative changes over the course of the year. The graph below only shows four publishers so the graph doesn't get too cluttered.



Of all the publishers in my dataset, Atlus kept the highest prices over the course of 2007 and EA had the biggest drop in prices. Atlus's games on average only dropped seven percent during 2007 while EA's games dropped 43 percent.

This huge price difference between the two publishers is because of their two vastly different publishing tactics. Atlus is a smaller publisher and focuses mostly on RPG's, which my last analysis showed have higher prices than other genres. Atlus's percentage drop of seven percent is almost the exact same as RPG's as a whole. Electronic Arts publishes lots of sports games, which drop in price more than any other genre. Also, a large percentage of EA's titles in during any year are yearly releases (all sports games) or almost yearly (Need for Speed or Medal of Honor).

One item to note with Atlus's prices. Because they are a smaller video game publisher they had few titles in anaylsis, making their data more volatile. The chart shows faster price drops and rises because of this. The best explanation I have for the large peak in August's prices is the release of Persona 3. One of my other posts showed that Pokemon prices increased after Diamond and Pearl came out and my guess is the same thing is happening with some Atlus games.

Microsoft and Nintendo data are in the graph too as comparison and because they are two larger publishers. Microsoft's video game prices dropped an average of 34 percent during 2007 and Nintendo's dropped 22 percent in the same time frame.

Nintendo published games seem to show a longer sales life compared to Microsoft games. I don't have solid numbers to back this up off at my finger tips, but looking at units sold per month Nintendo games seem to sell more longer after release instead of right up front like Microsoft published titles (Halo being the big exception to this). This might explain why Nintendo products keep their value longer, customers continue to look for them long after release.

Next time you plan on buying an Atlus game you can be pretty sure it will keep its resale value, but watch out for those EA games. They might be dropping faster than Pumpkin prices after Halloween. Homer Simpson had to learn the hard way, don't you make the same mistake.

PS: If there are any publishers you really want to see a chart for leave a comment and let me know. Since I have the data all calculated it should be pretty easy to get a graph together if you are interested in a certain publisher.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

Sport Games Drop 35% in 2007, RPG's only 7%

Madden 08 and NCAA 08 are coming out in less than a month for about $50 a piece, but the prices will be dropping fast. Persona 3 on PS2 or Luminous Arc for DS on the other hand might not drop much in price at all. Sports games dropped an average of 35 percent in 2007 while RPG's only dropped seven percent. Below is a graph of the price changes for 2007 by genre.



A graph of only RPG's, Sports, and Action/Adventure games



As discussed in an earlier article, prices drop 25 percent on average by this time of year. So it is no surprise that every genre shows a fairly steady decline in price throughout 2007. Different genre's perform quite differently though. RPG's and Fighting games hold their prices the best throughout the year with only seven and sixteen percent drops respectively. Action and Adventure games are almost exactly the same as the average video game with a price drop of 25 percent during 2007. (This make sense action and adventure is the largest genre and weighs the overall average to behave similarly) Sports, First Person Shooters, and Racing games dropped in price the most during 2007 with decreases of 35, 32, and 33 percent respectively.

It is fairly obvious why sports games drop in price the most of any genre. New games are released annually and most people who play the games want the updated rosters and new features. The prices drop on older sports games faster than other genres because the new versions come out so often.

It is not quite as obvious why FPS and racing games would drop in price more than the other genre's and almost as much as sports. Maybe FPS and racer fans are similar to sports fans and they want the newest game available. They don't want Project Gotham 3 when they can buy Forza 2 or Gears of War when they can buy Halo 3 soon. The sheer number of units sold for these games weighs on the prices too. FPS and Racing games are two of the most popular genres so the new games sell lots of units; making used copies easier to find when the person moves onto the next game.

RPG's hold their value the best because many RPG's never sold very many new copies to begin with. Atlus is great example of this using limited production runs on many of their releases. Games like Persona, Ogre Battle, Disgaea, and other RPG's didn't sell very many copies initially and are hard to find now because of this. Other RPG developers are similar because RPG's are not as popular as other genres in the US. Another possible factor is RPG's generally take longer to play giving more 'value' for the money so people are willing to pay more for older games.

Fighting games are similar to RPG's production and sales wise which explains their higher prices. Fighters are more of a niche genre compared to Sports, Action, and Racing so not as many are produced. Fighter's might also keep their value longer because not as many titles are released so their isn't as much competition driving down prices.

Don't expect to get much money back when you go sell your Madden 2005 on ebay or at your local game store. But the RPG you found hidden away behind stacks of movie tie-ins and FPS could very well be worth the same as what you paid for it initially. And maybe more if you bought the next Earthbound, Suikoden II, or Digital Devil Saga.

Technical: The prices shown are seven day moving averages of the average price of games in a particular genre. The prices have also been indexed to all start at 1 in order to show relative price changes over time. Games used in this study were released between 2000 and 2006 for all major systems available during this time period. Genres without enough data points, at least 100 games, are not shown because one game could have too much sway on prices in smaller genres.

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com

Playstation 2 vs Gamecube vs Xbox - Used Game Prices

Fanboys love to debate the merits of their favorite systems. Everything from graphics, online play, total sales, third-party game selection, and overall game selection are argued about. I’m adding another coal to the fire: Which games keep their value better? PS2, Gamecube, or Xbox?

Below is a table of the average release price and today’s price for each system.

System	# of Games	Avg. Release Price	Avg. Used Price	% of Original Price
PS2	855	$41.21	$9.23	22.4%
Gamecube	455	$41.71	$10.72	25.7%
Xbox	565	$41.29	$5.83	14.1%

The average release price is pretty much the exact same for each system, but the average used game price today is much different. Gamecube games have kept 26 percent of their value, slightly ahead of the Playstation 2 at 22 percent. The Xbox is substantially lower at 14 percent.

I don’t know for sure why these differences exist, but I imagine the Xbox prices are lower partially because bootlegging games on the system is easier (and more popular) on the Xbox than the PS2 or Cube. If a person can copy their friend’s games to their modded system they have no need to pay for the used games.

Below is a graph of the average prices for each system’s games on a daily basis through 2007.

Playstation 2’s prices have stayed much higher in the past seven months than the other two systems. PS2 games lost about 17 percent of their value from Jan 1 to July 13, while Gamecube and Xbox both lost about 30 percent.

This is because the Playstation 2 is still alive and ticking and hasn’t been completely kicked to the curb by Sony, like Nintendo and Microsoft did with their systems. The buyers of those nearly 200,000 PS2's that sold last month have to buy something to play on it. And some of them inevitably buy used games, keeping the prices quite a bit higher.

For now, the Gamecube fanboys can rejoice. The Cube reigns supreme as the system with the games that keep their value the best. But I think the trends in the graph will continue and PS2 prices will eventually pass the Cube's and PS2 fanboys will have the last laugh. Sorry Xbots, your system doesn’t win this round.

(Side Note: I only used games released before 2007 for this analysis so the PS2 doesn't get any unfair advantage by having more newer games in the data)

Video game price data provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com