The amount of gamers collecting games that are still in their factory seal is on the rise, as this month’s eBay round-up shows. Why collect sealed games? The appeal of owning something never touched by human hands is very alluring, especially if it’s hard game to find to being with. It’s like… uber collecting. Or something.
It’s sealed Nintendo stuff that seems to sell for the most. Leading the way is this copy of Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards which sucked £142 out of somebody’s wallet, attracting 23 bids. A few other N64 games sold for high amounts: a copy of Automobil Lamborhini, which was one of Titus’ better N64 games, went for £59.88 (23 bids); a Banjo-Kazooie (Player’s Choice version) for £70 on Buy It Now; and V-Rally ’99 for £45 (13 bids).
A sealed Pokemon Game Boy Colour also went for a staggering £420 (35 bids), while a copy of Donkey Kong Land II swung £104 (20 bids). Then for the NES, a copy of Tennis earned somebody a nice £116 backhander after 14 bids.
PlayStation games aren’t far behind, with sealed PSone games becoming very desirable. The rare ones are, at least – common sealed PSone games usually sell for around the £10 mark. Unopened copies of Tombi and Bubble Bobble have sold for a lot recently – £385 and £206 respectively. A copy of Crash Bandicoot 3 also went for £161 (29 bids). Less desirable games can sell for handsome amounts though, like the next two – Duke Nukem Time to Kill for £31 (10 bids) and Mech Warrior 2 for £39 (9 bids).
Stores ditched their Dreamcast stock very quickly once it was announced that Sega were stopping Dreamcast production. As such, eBay has loads of sealed Dreamcast games available for less than a tenner. A couple have fetched a lot more recently – Street Fighter Alpha 3 went for £95 on Buy It Now, while a sealed Sonic Shuffle went for £34 (6 bids).
It’s not just sealed copies of retro games that are desirable to collectors – some newer games are too. Case in point: a sealed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare limited edition that went for £256 after 27 bids. It wasn’t even the edition with the night vision goggles. We’re also surprised by these two pristine PSP games – £29 for Iron Man 2 and £35 for F1 ’06.
One thing that writing this round-up has taught us is that people need to look very carefully at what they’re buying. Quite a few games on eBay are listed as sealed when they are in fact simply resealed – pre-owned goods in shrinkwrap. Always look for the words ‘factory sealed’, folks.