Will there ever be a TG16 price crash?

[gex]

More often than not, it's bragging rights. A lot of posts "look what came in the mail today" do not include the bounty paid for it.

Bandwagon enthusiasts don't know any better about what stuff costs, so to them something like a Bonks Adventure for $50 seems like an accomplishment. They live in a scarcity mindset, that just because it's 25 years old it's hard to find; therefore the price is justified

[Alt-Nintega2]

After the new generation of retro gamers dies off to old geezer status, maybe after that prices will go down. Thoughts?

[esteban]

After the new generation of retro gamers dies off to old geezer status, maybe after that prices will go down. Thoughts?

I think the important question is:

When will you die?

Estimate to the nearest month and year.

Thank you.



(I am joking!)


SRSLY, though, I wonder about my own *elevated stress levels* and I wish medical science would stop publishing research findings about the dangers of stress.

Goddamn science. 

[TheClash603]

After the new generation of retro gamers dies off to old geezer status, maybe after that prices will go down. Thoughts?

As a younger guy who recently visit Graceland and saw quite a few people in the 30s and 40s that weren't alive to see Elvis perform, I would say things that are popular have legs beyond their original target audience.

The NES Classic is proof of that, guarantee a lot of millennials that weren't alive when the NES was big had to have it.

[StarDust4Ever]

After the new generation of retro gamers dies off to old geezer status, maybe after that prices will go down. Thoughts?

As a younger guy who recently visit Graceland and saw quite a few people in the 30s and 40s that weren't alive to see Elvis perform, I would say things that are popular have legs beyond their original target audience.

The NES Classic is proof of that, guarantee a lot of millennials that weren't alive when the NES was big had to have it.

While I am of the NES generation, I picked up Atari for the first time in 2012.

Janice Joplin and Jimmi Hendrix both died in 1970 of Heroine overdose. I was born in 1981 and found myself a fan of their music. I have all the reisdued Hendrix albums including three posthumus albums, and was spinning Joplin's last album Pearl (not a repressing) on the turntable after I hunted it down online, and rather enjoyed it.

Were the unborn 80's babies really the intended audience when they first pressed this record? "Hey, let's press a million of this record so some kid not even thought of can buy it in 40 years..." Somehow I doubt it. So I don't find it that surprising that new "mellinials" are getting into NES, et al. I put "mellinial" into quotes as I self identify with Generation Y, which have unfortunately been dissolved into Mellinials. If I had to pick one, I definitely relate more to the Xers but am not.

Back on topic, Turbografx is one of those systems you start collecting for after you get into the "branching out" phase of retro collecting, looking for stuff you did not experience bitd or might have missed. For the young retro-collector, everything is new and exciting. Anyone who falls in love with the NES/SNES/Genesis era will discover PC Engine / Turbografx at some point. But since the Turbo sold an order of magnitude fewer units in the US compared to it's competition (and Japan is a much smaller market even if the PCe was wildly more successful there), games will remain high. If there is a video game market crash in the future, Turbo/PCe will be one of the last pillarsto fall, next to Neo Geo.


Since picking up a Satellite radio in 2010, I have continued to discover old music I never knew existed in my younger years. It's no different with younger retro gamers. If they aren't consuming "nostalgia", they are creating it. A record first spun in 1970 sounds no different that spinning it in 2017, aside from minor groove wear which only adds to the vintage feel. A game cart first played in 1977 or 1990 is still the same experience picked up secondhand in the present, if being played for the first time by the new owner.

[gex]

If there is a video game market crash in the future, Turbo/PCe will be one of the last pillarsto fall, next to Neo Geo.

Interesting perspective, I've never looked at it that way before. Makes sense!
As a lot of people who own games for NeoGeo, PCE and TG16 are in this for the long haul. But looking at other consoles like NES, SNES and N64. The majority of people owning these games are collectors that seem unstable with what they call "assets".
So yeah, we would be one of the last markets to crash. Which is because we're in one of the most dedicated gaming communities. Which is awesome! But bad if you're hoping for a price crash (reference my pic a few pages back)

[Winniez]

I think games from NES era to end of 16-bit era have certain timeless quality to them. Something that Atari 2600 never quite managed and the collecting scene was driven almost purely by nostalgia.
NES, Megadrive, SNES, PCE games are great on their own right and are still fun to play to this day, even for modern teenagers. And they are part of our collective pop culture in the same vain as iconic comic books or Elvis Presley. If I would be a present day teenager and would constantly hear references to these iconic games I would surely like to find out more and try them, just like wanting to watch classic movies to understand where the fundamentals came from.
TG16/PCE is ofcourse nowhere near as iconic as the NES but many of the same principles apply.

[Winniez]

And I think its also worth remembering that many of the collecting busts (like sport cards or comic books) never affected the value of the original scarce article. Although games are slightly different in a sense that their survivol rate is pretty high, maybe the cardboard boxes would be a better analogue considering the scarcity and their original throw away status.

[Gypsy]

I think games from NES era to end of 16-bit era have certain timeless quality to them. Something that Atari 2600 never quite managed and the collecting scene was driven almost purely by nostalgia.
NES, Megadrive, SNES, PCE games are great on their own right and are still fun to play to this day, even for modern teenagers. And they are part of our collective pop culture in the same vain as iconic comic books or Elvis Presley. If I would be a present day teenager and would constantly hear references to these iconic games I would surely like to find out more and try them, just like wanting to watch classic movies to understand where the fundamentals came from.
TG16/PCE is ofcourse nowhere near as iconic as the NES but many of the same principles apply.

I can definitely agree with this. I'm not big on the NES but games of this era are definitely timeless imo. Games like Rondo are just as great today as back when they were new.

[SignOfZeta]

The closest analog to TG outer boxes was the long box phase of CD (also exclusively American, AFAIK) and not even people with pins on their hats colect that shit so I've just decided that most game collectors are aesthetically retarded clods who collect whatever makes sense to collect based on their bankrupt hollow existence and almost total lack of knowledge of science history or art.

Something I've discussed with friends before...game collectors really don't seem to understand WTF it is they even collect. Whereas fans of cars or records or books or synthesizers tend to have extremely broad knowledge of what they are obsessed over, video game collectors are so damned dumb they think bootlegs are worth money...

[Arkhan]

I hope so and I hope everyone who "invested" becomes a homeless piece of shit.

[Winniez]

The closest analog to TG outer boxes was the long box phase of CD (also exclusively American, AFAIK) and not even people with pins on their hats colect that shit so I've just decided that most game collectors are aesthetically retarded clods who collect whatever makes sense to collect based on their bankrupt hollow existence and almost total lack of knowledge of science history or art.

Something I've discussed with friends before...game collectors really don't seem to understand WTF it is they even collect. Whereas fans of cars or records or books or synthesizers tend to have extremely broad knowledge of what they are obsessed over, video game collectors are so damned dumb they think bootlegs are worth money...

Weren't the long boxes specific to a console though? I mean you could swap the inserts between the games.  If you wanna see utterly useless game cases have a butchers at the European Saturn cases. I mean it takes some serious effort to design a case that bad.

[SignOfZeta]

The TG16 is the only system I know of with long boxes, and they are only "long" by a couple of cm making them %100 pointless. CD long boxes at least were designed to make CDs as tall as a record so stores wouldn't have to buy new racks.

Of course it only worked so well, mainly because a longbox is twice the volume of a regular CD case and four times as big as a record so you suddenly had less room in your store for a format that supposedly saved space.

Btw, IMO Euro DC cases are even worse than the Saturn ones.

[Gypsy]

The TG16 is the only system I know of with long boxes, and they are only "long" by a couple of cm making them %100 pointless. CD long boxes at least were designed to make CDs as tall as a record so stores wouldn't have to buy new racks.

Of course it only worked so well, mainly because a longbox is twice the volume of a regular CD case and four times as big as a record so you suddenly had less room in your store for a format that supposedly saved space.

Btw, IMO Euro DC cases are even worse than the Saturn ones.

These things are the worst and I have entirely too many of them.

[Winniez]

Ah, ok. I ment the US SEGA CD and Saturn, those tall jewel cases.