Actually I'm the person that bought the Mario 64. I just messed up i mean to bid $150 but I had a muscle spasm and hit the 0 a few more times and then enter. Any way it was a fun game but not quite worth 1.5 Mill. On the bright side GameStop said they'd give me $4 of store credit for it.
That was excessive and prick like. Who the hell remembers odd names of Japanese video game creators? I barely know any American game creators, and I'm a hardcore "game person" for 35 years. Sometimes I feel bad for Pat, as it seems he wants Ian for a friend, and is always getting rejected by him. Ian just seems to despise Pat outside if the podcast. A lot of loathing, and snide comments on Ian's end.
@@oppyh They seem to get along most of the time, but their personalities definitely clash in certain instances. Ian seems more knowledgeable about video games, and Pat seems more knowledgeable about business and practical matters of moves in the industry. Pat is the ego-driven go-getter and Ian is the more introverted intellectual. I think Ian gets most annoyed when Pat treats him like an employee more than an equal partner. Pat seems frustrated when Ian doesn't contribute in ways that he expects him to, but he usually makes a joke about it rather than show frustration, which gets under Ian's skin.
Cuzjudd Why? What are the names of the creators of Pac Man, Space Invaders, Outrun etc.? I don't know. I don't care, but I can recognize the importance of the games. You can be a 40 year old hardcore gamer, and not recognize Japanese names of the games origin. Not sure why that is a thing.
4:22 "the _person_ who bought the [$1.5m] is not too happy" **organization, *collective, or *entity maybe. No **_person_** in their right mind would pay for that thing*
Just a heads-up, an auction for Sonic 1 went for $430,500. It's noteworthy because Yuki Naka basically said in a reply "Is this a Scam?" and Goldin went on the PR defensive.
the reason the 1st copy went for 1.5 million is because that bidder and the winner of the most recent 800k auction were battling it out. now both of them own one. it's gonna get lower from here. not that many people want to pay close to a mill for mario 64.
80l for a sealed mortal kombat? Gosh just buy the arcade machines at that point. You can probably get a pristine cabinet and a fully perfectly refurbished and future proof cabinet to enjoy. I thought the tcg market was crazy but at least that makes sense. Having a sealed alpha box of magic the gathering not only is rare but it assures it hasn't been tampered with so no one found a way to open it up, open the packs, take out the black lotus and seal it all back.
@@superbn0va Full sized arcade machines are not portable enough to change hands often enough for these fake values, too easily damaged during transport as well.
There was no such thing as a factory sealed MtG Alpha booster box, and the wax packs were completely searchable for every set up to Fallen Empires. I wouldn't trust any Alpha booster to be unsearched.
If Nintendo has any liquidity issues later on, they should just give wata all their dead stock. I bet they have over "100 million dollars worth" of copies of this game. So silly.
Nintendo is a Japanese company, they don't carry dead stocks (not in any proportion you may imagine). They don't even keep stuff usually. Preservation is not a Japanese thing, they always look forward.
Look up a Kotaku article called "Inside A Nintendo Storage Room, Where They Keep Their Old Stuff" Its an article about all their old stock they definitely dont still have in a warehouse anymore.
Even though im pretty numb to rich wankers who have thousands to blow, I get where youre coming from Pat. Their stupidity when purchasing these games ultimately effects everybody that is into old school games.
I see this argument comes up all the time about “everybody who is into retro games.” I literally see Mario 64s on eBay for 30$ still 2 months after the 1.5 million “sale,” and Sonics are still going for 10$ on eBay, so how is it affecting “everyone who is into retro games?”
Actually, rich people really hate losing money. It's a game played like a highscore for them. When prices spike like this, it's just two people who know each other trading... I could pay you 1.5mill for something, if you agree to give me the money back straight away :)
@@vendora1 so that’s not “everyone who is into retro gaming” then, right? People who are collecting to “play the games” aren’t usually going after sealed copies. The sealed collectors are their own circle, us average game collectors is a different scene, so why is it being framed as “it affects everyone?”
@@Ret_Chrogames because it influences the floor of the price for unsealed AND sealed games simple economic theory man jfc there is always overlap and yes even in your own groups niches cliques it can be affected its called greed just like a virus it infects EVERYONE no matter how siloed you are
I'm sure the price would have crashed eventually anyway, like you guys said, bubbles burst. But I like to think that your recent videos and Karl Jobsts videos, exposing the BS and corrupt business tactics was directly responsible for it happening so soon. I hope all non video game collecting speculators start losing their ass on their investments.
They are not even meme stocks, because as stupid as they are, its still a company' stock. Thats a legitimate asset (even if its a bad one) Graded games are BEANIE BABIES
Yeah, when those sealed Atari games went for that much my Bravo Sierra indicator went haywire. There are probably so many shipping boxes of sealed Atari 2600 games still out there as the market crashed at the peak or near the peak of its popularity so sellers got stuck with a lot of product. Now I remember later Atari games being cheap but Im sure there were plenty left. Well not everywhere was selling Atari games for cheap. My local Ace True Value was selling ET for pretty much its release retail price. They even had it in the window for years.
I don't remember ever seeing seals on Megadrive games back in the day. I'd pick up the case off the shelf, take it to the checkout, they'd go out back and get the cartridge, put it in the box and give it to me.
Most stores did that but if you got games from certain places and the game was fairly new chances are they had a load of stock out back still sealed. Same if you were to buy something from a mail order place they would still be sealed.
There is a scenario where the guy who bid 1.5 million didn't get screwed over but in fact came out ahead. What if that auction was another shill bidding? And this guy who bought in for the 799k is the one who got conned thinking the value was higher because of the 1.5 mil sale?
so basically the 2 people who wanted it the most have been taken out of the bidding picture, and the price will continue to drop. The amount of people willing to pay close to a milly for that game can probably be counted on 1 hand.
We're still assuming the $1.5 million actually changed hands. We've still not seen any financial transaction records to prove someone actually paid the $1.5 million.
@@Ret_Chrogames someone claimed they paid a kings ransom for a graded video game that was printed into the millions, on a facebook group no less.....lets think about that and how credible it is :()
There are still cases of this game out there lol. (6 games per case), I know of 2 or 3 people in the N64 collector's groups on facebook alone that have a CASE. What's funny is you KNOW a CIB Sculptor's Cut wouldn't bring a million in because people that aren't into collecting, don't know what it is xD. Idk man this is silly goosery.
If you can't explain the value of something then the value isn't real. We can explain why a game has artistic or historic value. In some special case, we can even make a case that it's very rare. But no one can explain why a grade should inflate the value of an item 10x 100x or even over 1000x. If you're investing in graded collectibles, you need to think about that.
Grade in theory is a guarantee of physical quality, and physical quality very much affects value. People don't question that a "Very Fine" 9.0 Graded copy of Action Comics #1 might sell for 15x what you'd get for a "Good" 2.0 Graded copy, because the grade represents the physical condition. People also wouldn't question an ungraded copy selling for less than the 9.0 copy, because the 9.0 copy has (at least in theory) been judged by authorities to be of 9.0 grade, while the ungraded copy could be hiding anything number of value-lowering factors behind its cover. As for the value of art, at a personal level it is entirely subjective while at larger levels it can start to fall into vested interests and scam/collusion territory.
@@BainesMkII In theory, the function of a grading system is to guarantee a certain standard for physical quality, but in practice there isn't a true standard to judge physical quality. It's all totally subjective. I'm familiar with the coin market, which is very old and as been using grades since the 1980's It's pretty common practice for people to resubmit the same coin for grading multiple times inorder to get the best grade possible because the grading is up to whoever is grading. If you sell coins to a dealer, the dealer will always ignore the grade and judge the coin themselves when determining the price. Grading isn't even a guarantee of authenticity since slabs can be faked. You can buy them off Aliexpress. Items need to be authenticated everytime even if graded. In practice, a graded copy of Action Comics #1 sells for more than ungraded copy because it's a graded copy. Not because the grade itself serves any real function. There is no real guarantee.
I don't trust anything coming out of WATA or HA because of their artificial inflating of prices. HA has already been nailed before for doing the exact same thing that they've been doing for the video game market.
I'm positive whoever bought the first one is in business with the seller. No way anyone does that unless they're trying to set a precedent. The 2nd one should have probably only sold for like 80-100k but because of the first one... they got 800k. Plus other auction has their own shills. The grading scene for auctions is a shit show. All these whales elevating the value by hoarding top cards and buying their own cards with alt accounts at high prices. PCCW or whatever got kicked out of ebay for shill bidding. It's a really common thing sadly.
I doubt that someone would spend 1.5 Mio if there are similar offerings in Ebay. I wouldn't be surprised if they find some money laundry, financial books manipulation (ie, can ask a loan based on the value of your game collection), or similar.
Its absolutely crazy Super Mario 64 sold for 1.5 million when millions of carts were made and sold. I am very happy to hear that price crashed. At most a sealed copy is worth 150.00 USD in my opinion. Also the game being available for Wii,Wii U, flash carts and Switch will likely keep a super high price at bay. Very interestimg story one for the news outlets to run with and have a great day.
I'm glad this bubble seems to be beginning its burst. I swear, even cart only games are insane. A loose cart of Gunpey for the Wonderswan with a fucked up label will cost you $30 on eBay, but a compete in-box copy in Japan will set you back $8. That's almost 4x the price for a vastly inferior product. I own a Wonderswan, but no games because the prices are too much for me. (I don't have a job due to the world situation currently and I have no other source of income)
They artificially tried to raise the price of a game with a fake auction then are surprised when no one want to buy it off them for more? I could have understand when it was some of the rarest games that had ver few copies produced going for high prices just because it is practically one of a kind to still be in near perfect condition. However to think people will believe the value of three of the most common games are worth more is proof they never thought it through very well as there are multiple versions of those games in near perfect condition going for a fraction of what they were sold for. This is obviously thinking the name on the box is worth more than the rarity of the actual games.
I’m questioning how legit the sale was of the 1.5 mil Mario. With so many of these probably sitting in a store room at heritage it smells of manipulation.
Actually a lot of later Genesis games did come in cardboard boxes. Also, Ian mentions that you can buy a nice CIB Sonic at his store for $20, that's probably the NFR version, which is a lot more common.
I recently bought a very nice condition Mr. Do's Castle by Parker Bros for the Commodore 64 for €80 - a game I have likely seen no more than 3 times in over 10 years of collecting. That is a rare game, not this sealed Super Mario 64 nonsense. The investment collectors business is a joke.
@@sickregret Fair enough. I respect your view but personally, as a collector? I prefer all my games to be in good shape with everything including the packaging/container.
I worked at a store... with the most hilarious backroom, where 4 years ago, there were formerly sealed N64 games, with torn seals... from being stored on the ground in a pile of $1 comics and other crap. What was more hilarious is I brought it up to the owner and he was all, "oh yeah, the seals broke. ...it's fine, you know we can reseal those right? There's nothing special about the wrapping." And he claimed to test out the authenticity by getting a sample new game resealed. The games were sealed and not tampered with, but, in Nor Cal, the veterans all know they can reseal them and nobody can tell.
Some of the bidders/buyers aren't legit. The grading company and the auction house are just pumping up prices. The VGA game and auction was probably legit though. I doubt anything that comes from Heritage/WATA
I purchased a graded game like 10 years ago, which is a crazy story... I was looking on eBay for a copy of Data East Classics on Wii and came across one sealed... GRADED, AND ENCASED!... The price the seller was asking was essentially the same price as a going sealed copy of that game... Needless to say, I made the purchase and contacted the seller and they proceeded to tell me that there was a "strong protective plastic case" around the game, and that they thought about removing it after finding it at their local Goodwill in Coral Gables, FL... The only graded game in my collection... lol... Wild...
Similar deal in sport's cards with the 86 fleer mj psa 10 run-ups. Lot of shady manipulation going on in bg, but at least with cards we have pop reports.
Just gotta stick with psa, sgc or bgs with sports cards. I wouldn’t buy anything Jordan currently though his stuff is way too high been collecting other rookies like Peyton Manning, lebron, Tom Brady though as they could rise.
@@rogersherman5391 yeah, I personally tend to stick to mostly goat-level players, MJ/Kobe/Bron (Bron main focus), then some Curry, KD, and Duncan. I like the rarer inserts/and some case hit cards from panini era. If I collected football def be buying Brady and Manning. Brady is gold standard, would be trying to find some of his nice but off-beaten path cards that haven't mooned yet.
You're missing the point about the most crazy and perhaps shady aspect of the Sonic copy. It's graded at 9.4 yet it has obvious tears and damage of the "seal" which by any stretch of the imagination makes that grade look completely fake. This seems to be a blatant attempt to pump up the value of Sega games and jump on the Nintendo inflated price bandwagon without even making a pretense at realistic grading.
Pat - the 95 VGA is UNCIRCULATED!! that means that it is from a factory case of 6 games. CASE FRESH!! There are 5 more of these with possibly the same grade!
It's worth noting that even population reports aren't fully accurate because people will break open cases and resubmit things if they aren't happy with a grade.
I can only imagine that if population reports were being published then seal cracking for a new grade would be less common because that would artificially inflate the number of copies know to exist and that would drive the value down faster.
It sold for so much cause they rigged the market before they were called out. If it was a One of a Kind only 9.8 aa+ rating I could see that high of a price of 1.5mill but there is no way its worth that much in any way as a collector or not when it's not a One of kind!!
Each grading should be recorded and a video made to justify each grading and therefore no arguments after an official grading has been recorded into an official catalogue
Beyond the shills pumping their grading company's stuff, the VGA 95 selling for 1/3-1/4 of the price of the WATA proves the people buying this stuff don't know shit about the games and grading and are just chasing the headline. Speculators just going "it's that exact thing in that exact slab, I'll have one of those", and when you speculate with zero information about the commodity you're going into, 99 times out of 100 you're gonna lose a ton of money.
I wonder if the grading company is having personal bidders they are friends with buying these games at outrageous prices to try and build the hype no one unless there smoking heroin would ever think of buying a common for these prices there trying to cash in on the public. Shame on them .
I got a sealed copy of Superman 64 that is WATA graded at 9.8 AAA, we'll start the bidding at 50 million! 1 million? a hundred thousand? Fifteen bucks? Ok I'll give you $20 bucks to throw it in the garbage for me. ANYONE?
Most likely the seller and buyer are the same person and they own heritage. They did that to sell off all the other used game they paid pennies on the dollar for to get someone to pay 250k for a game they paid 5k for.
Valuable art is unique, the original copy or close to it, and is still more than just rarity. The value of the Mona List is not the shape, and it's not even *entirely* the art, it's the reputation of that thing. Wikipedia notes it became famous in art circles in the mid 19th century, but even then the public wasn't familiar it. The Mona Lisa didn't reach the status as the most famous painting in the world until the early 20th century when it was stolen for two years. While it's an amazing work, that extra history has value. There are plenty of unique works by artists now and past with little value. You can make one right now! Old comics that have high value are simply hard to find as a whole. Action Comics #1 in any shape has value. The best quality copy of X-Men #1 isn't worth anything. One of the most common video games ever in a really nice box is not special. There could literally be a pallet of these somewhere lost no one has discovered waiting to be graded by someone to slowly sink the market.
I feel bad enough buying new games and losing value immediately never mind buying Super Mario 64 and losing 1.3 million of value on it a few weeks later
Yeah and than tomorrow someone finds a pallet with 5,000 Sealed copies and the resale value goes $5. i mean if there sold 10 million they properly made 11-13 million copies.
I wonder whether we will see games getting ungraded or unsealed to raise the values of the copies that have been sold at a very high price. I mean if you are rich enough to buy that 1.5 mill copy, you can probably buy some more copies if they get really cheap comparatively (like 20 or 30k) and just basically destroy them to raise the value of your game. Unless there is an basically endless supply of sealed copies in fantastic condition, which might well be the case. There could easily be hundreds or thousands out there.
One comparison that I feel never gets made that makes it obvious these aren't video game enthusiasts is because why would any one get ONE sealed common game they can't play that costs as much or more than what it would cost to buy every CIB game they like for every game system ever. 1+ million dollars can buy ALOT of games lol
Funny enough on sealed Dreamcast: I pick-up sealed intact PAL /EU Dreamcast games when I see a decent deal because the case is beautiful but also very fragile (just opening the case a few times likely damages it). It’s also relatively cheap (most games are in that 20-60$ range, and then the heavies are worth more). Certainly has nothing to do with the WATA craze or any investing - they just have heavy nostalgia to me and are unique items compared to any other video game case I’ve seen.
Some Genesis games came in cardboard boxes , not all came in clamshells . I'm sure that Earthworm Jim came in both cardboard and clamshell variants , that's one reason you see so many used without box .
@@retroprojections Very true . I actually see genuine vintage Genesis game artwork for sale on Ebay in bulk . That tells you they were saved from large rental chains .
Best deal I ever got was 6/7 years ago my dad picked up a mint (but not sealed) copy of A Link to the Past on the snes for 50 pence (less than a $). Box, manual, map all immaculate. Can't believe how the price of my gamecube and even ps2 games are going for! Into rpgs so even my copy of the likes of Sword of Etheria seems to be rising weekly. Problem being I love my games so not selling.
When you buy things because you want them, prices fluctuations don't matter as much. I have collectibles that have gone up and down in value, but since I never plan to sell them, it doesn't matter to me.
This was because of supply and demand, the first sale was a fluke and everyone in the know called that it would drop. Frankly, the fact that the second one sold so high was surprising to me. I didn't think it would break $200k.
I collect PC games and I unseal just about everything I get. SHRINKWRAP is actually bad for cardboard boxes, especially the flimsy stuff big boxes were made out of. Unwrap it and put it in a protector... if possible. I've had to do a little work on sealed boxes because the shrink straight up damaged the box.
Okay was this purchased by an individual or from a member of Wata? Because just a few weeks ago its was discovered that someone from Wata was purchasing these games.
thing is, when the first copy drops by 600,000 dollars, it psychologically hurts the game's image and people will know that the game isnt that hot. thus making them pay less and less when they realize more of those copies can circulate the market at any time. its kinda like trading cards where everyone's getting all hyped up and overpays, then all of the sudden somebody dumps their shit on the market or everyone involved catches ADD.
It does affect regular people getting taken for a ride with the promotion of buying shares of games. I continue to see it, RU-vid retro game channels with sponsored segments cheerily telling audiences they can get a piece of Wata graded games on Otis.
7:09 Absolutely, we need population report. But we will have to keep in mind that at anytime, we can't account for what people have in their collections, even small ones, and, more importantly, what is stored inside warehouses... As Shawn try to explain on his channel all the time, history repeats itself. There is nothing new will collecting videogames...
That doesn't really matter. New ones popping up isn't an issue, the issue is how many are graded at the time of the purchase. If 50 get graded after you bought something that had a population report of 1 before that sucks but that is not the same as not having a population report at all.
@@trevor245 Population reports matter, they are the bare minimum. And I do understand that what people have in their collection is hard to track. It's a private info. But it matters. The difference between a graded game and a not graded one is very slim. You can pay at anytime to have your game graded. So why are you making a difference? On top of that, neglecting what is stored in warehouses is pure madness when you want to speculate on games. Some people have a lot of experience and have seen collections rising and dying... There is nothing new with collecting videogames. And once you know, you can be prepared for the next big thing. There are thousand of warehouses around the world full of new and sealed videogames, back to the Atari 2600, if not older...
@@migueldias8546 what point are you trying to make here ? Population reports only work in the first place BECAUSE of grading. Usually for population reports you have different reports for every different grade or atleast some increments. Even if there is hardly a difference between non graded and graded objectively it doesn't really work that way for most collectibles. Just ignoring wata for a moment even for Pokémon cards there is a big difference between a non graded card that looks like a 9 and a graded 9. And also older than the atari 2600? You sure about that ? You really wanna make the claim that there are warehouses full of nos odysseys? Cuz I don't even think they made enough of those to fill a warehouse with lol.
@@trevor245 The point is that even population report are not enough. They would tell you what happened up to today, they will not tell you anything about what is going to happen tomorrow. For example, I have a 3k collection and 700 of those games are new and sealed (because I am all about condition - but if I want to play a sealed game, I have no problem opening a game, I just did few minutes ago for one of them). None of them are graded and I still have no intention to grade them. It may change if a catastrophe makes me sell my collection, I may consider grading them. BUt for now, my collection doesn't exist... It only exist for me... You understand? Or still not? For warehousew, I know for a fact. I was part of the lucky few that bought 10 sealed Neo Geo games for $220 when a guy in Saudia Arabia bought a warehouse that went in foreclosure, around 2008, and wanted to get rid of its content... There are videos, on RU-vid, of people hunting games and finding them in warehouses. Open your mind or buy a brain... You still have to growth a lot...
I see a lot of people reproducing cases for games such as Vectrex , Atari , and Coleco what’s to stop people from Reproducing these game packages and shrink wrap them with any old cart stuffed inside and then g on to get them graded these “professional graders” likely are easily fooled due t lack of knowledge about these games