My Retro Purchases in May 2019

Ok this post is both a little bit late and a little bit short, but to be honest I didn't really buy all that much last month anyways here goes. So last months retro purchases started on the 7th when I got a slim ps2 all wires 2 official pads, a memory card and 4 games goldeneye rogue agent, the lord of the rings the return of the king, star wars battlefront 2 and kingdom hearts (all of them boxed but with kingdom hearts missing its manual) for 10quid.


I didn't get anything else until the 14th when I went to a local Indy game shop and got a loose n64 pilot wings cart for £5 and then the network disc for the ps2 with case and manual for £5. I have had the ps2 network/hardrive adaptor for years but never had the disc, I ended up using a macboot memory card to use it, not sure ill start using it the proper way but its nice to have the option, and to have the adaptor with the proper stuff that would have come with it originally.


I also got a wii for £7.50 with all its wires and 2 nunchucks but no remote, but it did come with wii sports in a paper case and then 4 games all boxed with instructions wii play, the bigs, tna impact and tiger woods pga tour 09 (the last ones still sealed).


On the 29th I went in a charity shop and I got I got Wii sports resort for £1.50 and it also had a Wii sports disc in it behind the manual. Its kind of funny getting two wii sport discs in the space of one month I guess, its not like its something I set out to do though. This was my final purchase of the month.


All in all it was a very no frills month, I don't think I did particularly brilliantly with anything but I think the £24 pounds I spent went a fairly long way. I really seem to investing less time in the retro hunting recently but trust me I still adore my old games and even if I never purchased another single game then id still have more than enough to play till the end of time

My Retro Purchases September 2018

My monthly retro purchasing started on the 3rd of the Month when I spent £22 on a small bundle of games from an indy place. This bundle consisted of Lemmings for the Philips CDI complete, lego harry potter years 1-4 complete for the wii, trauma center second opinion complete for the wii, prince of persia the forgotten sands complete for the wii, blazing angels complete for the wii, trauma center second oppinion complete for the wii, pokemon stadium n64 cart only, Banjo kazooie for n64 cart only, snowboard kids for the n64 cart only and DiddyKong racing for the n64 cart only.  I kind of consider the CDI game as the jewel here in a way not because of worth but because of the fact its not that often that I actually come across games for this system.

On the 5th I managed to grab Vandal Hearts for PS1 for £15 complete. I don't often like to pay much for PS1 games but its a game I have wanted to own for a long time. I remember playing it when younger I am pretty sure I never owned it and that I had simply rented it or lent it from someone. The funny thing is that despite now seeing this as a very good Fire Emblem clone I had actually played this long before I even knew what Fire Emblem was. The simple truth is that I had dived on this now because I got the feeling that if I didn't jump on it now it might have ended up becoming one of those games you remember but can simply never get your hands on again without paying an absolute ransom.

On the 9th of September just after work I grabbed The Cyber Shinobi, Strider, Bank Panic, Alien Storm and Arcade Smash Hits all for the Master System all cart only for £8 which I was pretty darn happy Alien Storm particularly is a personal favorite of mine.

On the 27th I got a few N64 games just loose carts. I spent £6.50 and got 1080 snowboarding, Forsaken and Wrestlemania 2000 which Is pretty good going as far as I am concerned.

On Friday the  28th I managed to grab 007 From Russia With Love for the GameCube Complete for £3.50, Mario and Sonic Olympics for Wii complete for 95pence, and Mario Strikers charged for wii complete for 95pence with the added bonus of also having a Wii Mario Kart disc in the box of the later. All in all I wouldnt consider this a bad little haul at all.

 I ended my month of retro purchases by buying Spiderman 2 complete for the GameCube for 50pence from a charity shop on the way to my fiancee's place, which in fairness as its an excellent game and a good price is a pretty good way to end the month.

If my mathematics skills are correct then I spent £57.40 this month on retro games which although quiet a calm month by my standards it is also quiet a lot more than I spent last month. In general it is a month I am pretty happy with. I guess I would have to call the star buy of the month Vandal Hearts partly because I think it was a great deal and partly because its one of the things I purchased with the most personal meaning behind it. What will I get next month? Well I guess time will tell.

My Retro Purchases August 2018

My retro purchasing didn't start until the 9th when I grabbed  Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max for the PSP complete for £3 from an indy games store. The following day I grabbed 3 PS1 games complete for £1 each. they were Scooby Doo cyber chase, Pacman World, and Croc 2. I got these from a charity shop and was very happy with them especially Pacman World and Croc 2.

On the 12th I visited an indy games store where I picked up 3 N64 games for the total price of £4.50 cart only , they were Nagano winter Olympics 98, Forsaken and Fighters Destiny. I also grabbed a complete copy of TopGun combat zones for the GameCube for £2.

 

On the 19th after work I went into Game where I purchased MegaMan Starforce Dragon complete for £3.99 its actually quiet a pain in the butt game to track down the last time I saw it for a not stupid price it was £15 in CEX but the copy there looked like a dog had tried to eat it which is a far way away from this almost perfect copy.

 
On the 22nd I went in to a charity shop and found a promotional copy of Tomb Raider Legend for the PS2 which cost me 50pence. I really like getting promo copies of things just because you don't see them as often and there just something a little bit different.

 

On the 24th I grabbed Ken Griffey Major League Baseball cart only for the N64 (USA Version) for £2 from a pawn store. Its actually pretty darn unusual for me to find import games in a place like this. I am not even sure if they even knew it was an import.

This was by my standards a very slim pickings month, after all I only spent £18.99, but to be fair I am actually proud of that fact.that I didnt spend very much. I have a fairly large collection and I have been trying to insure that I don't simply buy things for the sake of buying them. My favorite purchase of the month is proberbly MegaMan Starforce Dragon just because its something I really didn't expect to get. It is a little weird to note that its the first month for a long time where I haven't actually gotten anything for the SNES or Megadrive or older. I wonder if next month will be any different.

Retro Game purchases: April 2018

So its the fourth month of the year and once again as always I have been tracking how much I have been spending on retro games. The first month was an expensive one, with the second not being too bad, the third being average and well as for the 4th? Well if you want to know that then I guess your going to have to read this post.

Well on the 5th of the month I got my first purchase and it was a Japanese N64 which cost me £15, it was just the system no pads or wires as I planed to take those from a spare European machine I had. On the same day I also got a boxed complete Japanese copy of G.A.S.P which I paid £5 for and an American N64 cart of Rogue Squadron which I spent a further £5 on. The first thing I did was to go inside the Japanse N64 and alter the insides of the cartridge slot so that it would play Japanese and American games.

I went on to order a few more Japanese carts these were Choro Q, Mario Kart, Blast Dozer and a boxed copy of Human Grand Prix which cost me £20 in total which had all arrived by about the 18th of the month. A few days later on the 20th I would spend £3.40 on a Japanese cart only copy of 1080 snowboarding and then on the 23rd I would get an orange memory cover for the N64 which I had ordered, basically I got this so I would know my Japanese system from my regular pal ones instantly on first glance, it cost me £1.50. So this means I spent £49.90 on getting into Import N64 gaming this month. I already owned carts of Kirby and Flying Dragon Japanese which I had previously used with an import convertor so I guess I know have myself a nice little 9 cart import N64 collection.

On the 22nd I made my first none N64 Retro purchase of the month when I grabbed 4 complete PS2 games for 50p each today Shrek superslam, Super Monkeyball Deluxe, Monsters inc scare island and IronMan. 

 

On the 26th I did a little shopping at some retro indy stores after work and managed to grab Grandia (Unisoft exclusive edition) complete for PS1 for £15 and Captain America and the Avengers (American Genesis version) complete for megadrive £20. In honesty I think these two were my joint favorite purchases of the month.

So this month I spent £86.90 but this doesn't seem much really when there was a retro console purchase in the mix. I have been getting rid of a lot of none game related stuff I no longer need as I acknowledge the fact that what I buy takes up room and I kind of have plans to buy less, but I guess we will need to see how this goes, only time will tell.

High N64 sales in the lead up to Christmas 2017

According recent reports Christmas 2017 saw a large increase in the second hand market for demand for the Nintendo 64 and its games. A Kotaku reporter did a bit of research quizzing the owners of independent Video Game stores learning that overall there had been a heavy increase in N64 sales and people asking for N64's and N64 games with one independent store owner in New York, saying that he had sold more than 100 Nintendo 64s during the holiday season. Apparently according to sales data, this could be the best year of sales in the history of the console since it was discontinued and was integrated into the second-hand market.

I guess increased N64 sales at this time is not really all that surprising seeing as the people who grew up on the N64 are getting older they are naturally looking back at that console as the nostalgic machine of there youth one of the sources of there childhood joy. I guess a lot of people who were collecting NES and SNES games and things from that sort of time scale wanted to revisit that kind of thing because that is what they would have grown up on. When they wanted to revisit the games of there childhood they would have done so by buying SNES or MegaDrive games, now a new generation is getting into retro gaming and naturally they want to revisit the stuff from there own youth.

I guess one thing to take away from this as a collector is that if there is anything you want for the N64 you better grab it and grab it fast as for now prices are only likely to go one way and that is up. It also goes to show that sometimes it pays not to wait for something to become wanted.The games people are selling and getting rid of now, the games that they think are old and no longer wanted will be the games someone grew up on and one day they will most likely be wanted again by the people who have fond memories of them. I also think this should show Nintendo that a Mini N64 would sell like hot cakes right now, they should make one and they should make it in mass numbers because why let various indy games stores profit off of there games when they could profit themselves instead.

Talking about the leaked N64 Mini game list

OK so the SNES mini classic hasnt really been out that long but recently we had what could best be called an indirect confirmation of a N64 Classic Edition, now on top of that it seemed that there was a list of potential games.This list came from the fact that someone noticed a list of 19 N64 manuals which were available for download on Nintendos website. 19 seemed like a workable number given the fact  the mini NES had 30 and the SNES mini had 2. Apparently though after everyone got excited it was pointed out that  this list of games simply coincides with the previously released catalog of N64 Wii U Virtual Console titles in the UK. So most likly this list was just a hold over from that but I would argue that if they had these games up and working on the Wii U virtual console via emulation and have all the rights for them then odds are good that a lot of them if not all of them have a high chance of ending up on a Mini N64 So I will list them and then talk about the choices.

• 1080° Snowboarding
• Bomberman 64
• Donkey Kong 64
• Excitebike 64
• F-Zero X
• Mario Golf
• Mario Kart 64
• Mario Party 2
• Mario Tennis
• Paper Mario
• Pokémon Snap
• Sin and Punishment
• Super Mario 64
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Wave Race 64
• Yoshi's Story
• Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
• Star Fox 64

Well I kind of think we would be lucky to get 19 games in all honesty, look at it this way the 8bit machine had 30 games the 16bit dropped to 21 so to only drop to 19 would be pretty good really. I know that when it comes to the N64 Rare were pretty much as important as Nintendo themselves, a lot of Rare's games like Golden Eye and Banjo Kazooie are rememberd just as fondly and seen as arguable being just as important a part of the N64 Experiance as Mario and Zelda. Pretty much everyone knows that Rare is owned by Microsoft though so that stops most of them from being used (Donkey Kong 64 is an exception as Nintendo own the rights to it).

All things considerd though when you look at the above list of games I think it touches all major bases you have Mario 64 so Mario's platformer on the system, you have Kirby 64 so Kirbys N64 game, Star Fox 64, both of the Zelda games as previously mentioned Donkey Kong 64. The list is very Mario heavy what with there being paper mario (the mario RPG for N64) Mario Tennis, Mario party 2 and Mario Kart64 but then there is seldom a bad Mario game so its not really anything to moan about. The thing is that unlike the SNES and NES where 3rd party support was very strong it largly was Nintendo alone who kept the N64 alive and kicking so its not surprising that a possible list would be so first party heavy. In honesty though if a Mini N64 did come out and the above list of games was the actual contents of the console then I dont think people would really have much that they could complain about.

Would I buy a Mini N64 with these games on it for £80 though (my guess at the price) I dont know, the thing is I own a few N64's and apart from Paper Mario, Mario Party 2 and Sin and Punishment I actually own all of the titles listed above (and a lot that are not). I guess if there is a mini N64 it will end up being just as hackable as the Mini NES and SNES and you could therefore add the missing Rare games and such. There is one thing that might make me appreciate the Mini N64 though and thats the fact that I could most likly just use the Wii Classic controller on it and as I hate the N64 controller so much this might actually help me to enjoy the games a lot more.

PSN store versus Nintendo's Virtual console which is better?

So as I sit here eating chips left over from yesterday which I have microwaved back to a sort of edible state, I think it is safe to say that I am a man who doesn't like to waste money. This might sound strange to some as they would argue that video games, horror movies and comic books are a waste of money but to me they are not they are in some cases an investment and in other cases they are things to occupy me. Quiet often in terms of time spent with them compared to there cost I find video games to be one of the cheapest ways to occupy myself. I have a funny old formula that I will have maybe mentioned in the past most likely its a formula for how much I am willing to spend on a game. This formula is that I want at least one hour of enjoyment for every pound I spend but I am always happiest when I can get the ratio of fun per pound as high as possible.

I prefer to have physical copies of games to digital for lots of reasons but mostly for two reasons. One is that with physical games you have an object you can actually collect, an object which in the case of retro games or games released in a limited capacity will usually increase in value over time, this means that either the game is going to get rarer and rarer and owning it will be more of a pleasure or that if you are ever in desperate need of cash and forced to sell it then your at least likely to see a return on your investment. The other reason is that usually with physical games there is more chance of finding a deal, you can search for old games in pawn stores, on car-boots, sale sites, trade spares with other collectors, you can shop around for the best offer, in comparison digital games usually have a set price if they are available on a consoles virtual console/shop programme.

Sometimes though if a physical release is so rare that its average price is sky high online console shop services can provide a much cheaper way to experience these games and in this case they can actually be in a lot of ways the best way to go. Everyone of the console manufacturers has there own online games buying service (there are also lots of these for PC but I am not going to go into that right now) Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo and on them you will find a mix of full triple A titles, indie developed titles and classic/retro games from older formats. Its the retro stuff I will be focusing on in this case and in particular the retro games available on Nintendo and Sony hardware.

Obviously having been in the race the longest Nintendo's titles stretch back the furthest in time, they also on there latest console the Wii U give you the ability to look for games on a system by system basis so if you want to see what NES or SNES games they have for example then there are icons in the shop to click so that this is what you get. I do think that Nintendo could be described as a little bit greedy on the retro front though as they charge £3.49 per 8bit NES title and this is mostly regardless of what the game is. So while £3.50 might not seem like much for an all time classic like Super Mario 3 it seems like a fortune for stuff like Donkey Kong Jr Maths or Volleyball. Then there is Earthbound Beginnings a famicom (Japanese NES) title which as it had never been seen on these shores before and required translation Nintendo want £6.29 for. This is not the first time Nintendo have decided that never released on your shores before means mark up the price.  The price of the average SNES game on the Nintendo Wii U virtual console is £5.49 but when Earthbound a game previously not released in Europe was brought to us Nintendo wanted £6.99 for the pleasure, I cant say that its not worth it as a loose cartridge of this game would cost you absolutely loads. N64 games are £8.99, with Wii games being 17.99, GameBoy Advanced games being 6.29 and DS games ranging from £6.29 to £8.99. So really the strength of Nintendo's service is the wide variety of formats represented but the area where they let themselves down is price. Not only are they in my oppinion quiet expensive but there is also most of the time no cross buy, meaning if a game is available on both the Wii U virtual console and the 3DS Virtual console and you want to play it on both your machines then your going to end up paying twice.

I just spent £20 on PSN the playstations online games store. Obviously the playstation brand doesnt have as long a history of games and machines as Nintendo. The original Playstation was released in the same console generation as Nintendo's N64, meaning that you wont find any 8bit or 16bit offerings on Sonys Store well at least not at present (A SNES title is actually going to be released on the PS4 soon, Super Starwars, which may be the start of something new or a one off, this remains to be seen). Ok so the earliest Retro games you can get (ignoring some arcade classics which have appeard in store) are original PlayStation games (or as some people call them PlayStation one or PS1 games). So the first question would be, how much are PS1 Games? Well a few of them such as G Police and Driver start for as little as £1.99 so less than a 8 Bit NES game, the vast majority of them seem to be £3.99 including long RPG's like Suikoden and Suikoden 2, Tekken,Tekken 2, Crash Bandicoot, Crash Banicoot 3 etcetera. Some PS1 games are £7.99 including titles like the PS1 Final Fantasy games and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Now this makes even the most expensive PS1 downloadbale game cheaper than what Nintendo charge for N64 games, but which are better N64 or PS1 games? Well that depends on the game doesn't it, size wise though PS1 games are generally bigger after all discs can carry a lot more information than carts can and some of these games were spread across more than one disc, so if anything it should cost Sony more to keep these games up online as downloadables.  Nintendo do have sales in there store but usually these are just sales on either Triple A or indie titles apart from when the Wii U was released and Nintendo ran a early adopters offer of one certain retro game for 30pence a week for about 6 weeks I have never seen any NES, SNES or N64 titles on sale (Wii games have also been half price for the first week of there release when they first started doing them). Sony however involve PS1 titles on sale quiet frequently.

This gets back to the £20 I spent earlier, so what did I buy? Well I paid £2 for Wild Arms a PS1 RPG which would usually be £3.99 but is on sale. I spent £2 on Twisted Metal a vehicle combat game again usually £3.99. I got Grandia another RPG for £3.25 its usual price being £6.50. I spent £2 on Klona Door to Phantomile which would usually be £4. I wont list everything I got but the thing I think is most worthy of mentioning is that I got Arc The Lad 2, Arc The Lad 3 and Gaia Seed all games which to my knowledge were never released in the UK/Europe and how much did these games cost me £1.85, £2 and £2 and even if they hadn't been in the sale they still would have only cost £3.69, £3.99 and £3.99. What is more all of these games can be played on my PSP, my PS-Vita, My PS3 and a PS-TV if I happend to own one. My only complaint is that as of yet you cant play them on the PS4 which I hope is one day considerd but still one price to be able to play the games on multiple formats is pretty darn impressive, especially when in most cases the games are cheaper in the first place.

Is it just PS1 games though? No there are actually some PS2 games available to download for your PS3 including Virtua Fighter 4, Suikoden 4, GodHand, Capcom Vs SNK 2, Maximo, Red Faction, Sonic Heroes, are all usually £7.99 Some PS2 games are as little as £5.79 though including Conflict Desert storm 2 and Conflict Vietnam not surprisingly these are only playable on the PS3 though and not any of the handhelds. Now its hard to compare these titles to Nintendo's offerings as the PS2's counterpart the Gamecube has so far been ignored by Nintendo but still these are cheaper than Nintendo charges for N64 titles.

I wont mention the PSP titles available on the Sony Store as unfortunately they are only available to play on either a PSP or a PS Vita and I didnt talk about the games that can be gotten on the 3DS.

So which is better? Again it depends exactly what you want and how much you are willing to pay. I feel that both online stores have things they really should do to better themselves.Well lets take this on a brand by brand basis as both companies have there strengths and there weaknesses.

Sony needs to start involving the PS4 in the whole retro downloads arena, its got enough power that with a little work it should be able to play all of these old games the PS3 manages without even using a quarter of its power, also there is no reason why they couldn't make the PS3 and PS4 play PSP games, there are no touch based controls or anything to stand in the way and not everyone likes handheld machines but they would still enjoy some of the great games the PSP had to offer if they were available on the big screen (I know this is answered to some degree by the PS-TV but it could very easily be done by the PS4). Also it should be made far easier to find PS1 and PS2 games, you should easily be able to look at all of the titles available from a certain format with just a click or two like it is on Nintendo's store. I am hopping that with the fact Super StarWars is due to appear on the PS4 this will open the flood gates and sony will look at approaching other companies who released games on older 16 and perhaps 8bit formats to offer something to fans of this period of gaming. Yet I have to admit I have to take my hat of to them when it comes to both the prices and the idea that if you buy a PS1 game you can play it on most of your devices, I also think they handle sales really well, involving the retro games in these is a great idea as it helps draw attention to them.

Now Nintendo have the wide variety of formats on offer but I do think that there is some real greed there, sure there games are good and you could very easily make an argument for the prices being worth it but I do think when compared to others there prices seem greedy especially when they expect you to buy the game twice if you would like to play it on both your Wii U and 3DS. I think cross-buy is definetly an area they should look into. Yes you'd get less money by letting the person pay once and play on multiple devices but it would encourage people that having a hand held and home console made by your company so you could benefit like this would be the thing to do. Also involve your retro titles in more sales.