Mario Kart Wii Is Selling Over Retail Price

Mario Kart Wii has now entered the company of WiiFit and the Wii Console and is selling for more than retail price online. Mario Kart prices on ebay are over $60. Overall the game is selling for about $65 on ebay, amazon, and half.com.


It seems Nintendo has problems keeping any games in stock that include hardware. Even Wii Play is selling for just at retail price or slightly over and its been out for well over a year. It is much harder to increase supply for these games because they aren't just printing discs. They actually have to make something with electronic components. Which takes a lot longer to make.

Watch Out! Your Video Games Are Dropping in Price

Just like new cars drop in price when you drive them off the lot, the resale prices of video games drop in price the day you buy them. In fact the resale price of video games released in 2007 dropped 0.24% per day. But do well reviewed games drop as much as poorly reviewed ones? We set off to find out.

For our analysis we looked at every game released in 2007 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii. A total of 322 games. We then gathered resale price data from VGPC.com and review scores from metacritic.com for each game. We then charted the review score vs the price change per day for every game to see if there is a trend (Every trendline show below is statistically significant with 99% confidence. See discussion below for more details). The chart below shows all the data points:

Click Chart For Larger Image

There is an obvious trend with the lower the review score the bigger the price drop per day. Based upon the data, a game with a review score of 90 points would be predicted to drop in price 0.19% per day, while a game with a 50 review score would drop 0.24% per day. This might not seem like a huge difference but after a year the great game would sell for $16.70 and the bad game would sell for $7.38. The same basic trend holds true for each console too:

Xbox 360 Games: Review Score vs Resale Price

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Xbox 360 games had an average review score of 68.7 and dropped in price 0.24% per day. A game with a 90 metacritic score drops 0.21%/Day and a 50 reviewed game drops 0.27%/Day. Also worth noting, in 2007 the 360 had the highest average review score of the three main consoles.

PS3 Games: Review Score vs Resale Price

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PS3 games had an average review score of 61.6 and dropped in price 0.24% per day also. A Playstation 3 game with a 90 metacritic score drops 0.18%/Day and a 50 reviewed game drops 0.27%/Day. The PS3 is statistically the same as the 360 in terms of the price drop per day, which makes sense because many games on the 360 are also available on the Playstation 3.

Wii Games: Review Score vs Resale Price

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The average Wii game had a review score of 45.7 and dropped in price 0.22% per day. A Wii game with a 90 metacritic score drops 0.16%/Day and a 50 reviewed game drops 0.22%/Day. The average Wii review score is below 50 so companies are making quite a few bad games for the Wii. But at the same time the Wii has the lowest percentage drop per day. Maybe all those casual gamers keep the resale prices up.

Why does this matter to the average gamer though? The video games you buy are a depreciating asset. If you are the sort who trades your games in to buy new ones or sells them online after you beat them, be sure you don't procrastinate selling your games.

Now developers and publishers take note too. If you make a game with a good review score it will sell at a higher price for longer. We only analyzed resale prices but it makes sense that the bigger the difference is between used prices and new prices, the more people are going to buy the used game. You will have to keep lowering prices to sell the game. Another good reason to STOP MAKING BAD GAMES.

Nerd Discussion Below. Warning! Here is some more info for math/stats people out there who want to know all the details about the regression. For the complete dataset (the top chart) the r-squared is 0.0539, so only about 5.4% of the price variation is predicted by the review score. The trend is statistically significant though with a p-value of 0.000025, way below the .01 needed for a 99% confidence level. Here are the other r-squared and p-value numbers:


With this type of data we wouldn't expect one variable to predict a very large portion of the price changes so we think 5.4% is pretty good. In the future we would like to run an analysis with more variables in hopes of improving the r-squared. We are considering using these variables in future analysis:

• Days since released - price drops usually slow down the longer a game has been available
• Publisher - certain publishers like Atlus tend to publish games that keep their value
• Serial game or not - games that come out every year like sports titles drop in price faster
• Is it the last year of the console's life - games released in the last year of a console's support tend to become rare and don't drop in price

Hopefully with more variables we can increase the r-squared and be able to predict the changes in resale prices with more accuracy.

Wii Fit: Another Scalper's Dream From Nintendo

Find the Daily Updated Wii Fit Price
When Nintendo launched Wii Fit on May 19th they created another dream product for scalpers and ebay sellers everywhere. The game and balance board retail for $89.99, but the resale price of the package online has been averaging $150.

This comes at a great time for scalpers. The Wii Console was starting to sell for retail prices online (after 18 months on the market). Lucky buyers couldn't resell the system and make easy money anymore. But Nintendo gives them a gift, another product that is hard to find at retail and can be sold for a hefty mark-up on ebay.

Here is a chart of the average price of Wii Fit for the four days it has been available.


The prices have been coming down every day so maybe this profit dream for resellers won't last long. With a $50 markup online I bet a lot of the people waiting inline for the next Wii Fit shipment won't be using it to burn calories but using it to make a little money.

UPDATE: The price for Wii Fit has not continued to drop as it did in the first few days on the market. Wii Fit is now selling for about $165 on amazon and ebay. Maybe those second shipments didn't arrive in stores as planned.

Wavebird Gets More Expensive Because of Wii

The Wavebird is a great controller and because it is wireless it was always my favorite way to play Gamecube games. Getting rid of all those wires made my gaming room much less cluttered and I didn't have to worry about someone tripping on the cord and bringing my Gamecube to an early death.

With the Wii's release, the Wavebird has had renewed use in my house to play Virtual Console games and recently to play Smash Bros Melee before Brawl is released. Other Wii owners must be rushing to buy Wavebirds too, because the prices for both controllers have increased steadily since last year.




The original Wavebird was selling for $24 last January and is now selling for roughly $45. While the Platinum Wavebird was selling for $28 and is now selling for upwards of $44 on Amazon and eBay.

This article was inspired by a similar article on GamePeople posted a year ago. Prices provided by VideoGamePriceCharts.com.

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.

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.

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.

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