YOU might have a treasure trove of video games worth hundreds or thousands – or even millions – of pounds sitting in a drawer at home.
An expert collector has revealed the gaming treasures worth a small fortune – and some are more common than you realise.
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Alright, so you can’t flog a modern PS5 for millions. Not yet anyway.
But if you’ve got some iconic titles or consoles from the Nineties and even earlier Noughties, you’re in luck. You might even strike it stinking rich.
The Sun spoke to Brady Haugh, from game collectibles tracker PriceCharting, a handy website that reveals how much your old gaming gear is worth.
He revealed how a sealed perfect-condition Super Mario 64 game sold for a whopping $1.56 million in 2021 – that’s just over £1.2 million today. Not bad for a game that only cost £60 when it came out in Britain in 1997.
But even very common games can fetch hundreds of pounds.
Brady told The Sun that while people have been collecting games for years, your chances of making cash are better than ever.
He revealed how game collecting has had a “price boom” since the Covid pandemic.
“The value and interest of collectibles reached new heights, with prices of most collectibles moving through the roof,” Brady, Head of Growth at PriceCharting, told us.
“The price boom didn’t just impact the nicest, rarest games, but impacted commonly found games as well.
“Prices for common video games quadrupled from pre-Covid to the Covid peak – and many prices have sustained since then.
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“You might have many of these in your closet, left over from your childhood.”
PAY-STATION!
The value of your old games and consoles will depend on lots of factors.
If it’s rare, it’ll go for more – just like if it was a fan-favourite that gamers are nostalgic for.
And, of course, it’ll depend on whether you’ve taken good care of it over the years.
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For cheaper sells, Brady said you could get between £30 and £60 for many popular Nintendo 64 games like 007 Goldeneye, Super Smash Bros, Super Mario 64, and Mario Kart.
These Nineties classics are a favourite for collectors.
Pokémon fans will also splash out on popular Game Boy titles from the series.
Copies of Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, and Silver are “worth £60 to £100 apiece”.
He added: “They’re worth up to £300 if you have the original box and manual – referred to as ‘CIB’ or ‘Complete In Box’.
“And they’re worth up to £30,000 if new and sealed!”
Many popular original PlayStation and Xbox games will also go for between £20 and £50 if they’re in “reasonable shape”.
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But the prices for these titles skyrocket to between £500 and £1,000 if they’re new and sealed.
A rare Nintendo 64 prize is the Nintendo 64 game Clay Fighter: Sculptor’s Cut, which is worth about a grand loose, and four to five times that “complete in box”.
And one copy recently sold for $150,000 (£117,000) at Heritage Auctions in the United States.
Other prized games include Super Bowling, which is coveted by “full Nintendo 64 set collectors”.
This can be worth £500 loose, and up to £2,000 “complete in box”.
And then there’s Aero Fighters for the SNES, which Brady says is arguably the rarest title for the console.
If you’ve got a copy, you could be looking at a sale of £1,200 loose – or £3,000 for a complete-in-box version.
“Once you get a sense of what your collection is worth, you can either sell individual items or the whole collection,” Brady explained.
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“If you sell everything as a single sale, expect to discount your price 20% or further.”
Brady says people commonly sell their games on online marketplaces like eBay.
Usually eBay will get you the PriceCharting market price, but you’ll have to pay a sale fee.
And if you’re peddling games on FaceBook Marketplace, Brady said you’d probably get about 80% of the PriceCharting price.
CHECK FOR THESE NINTENDO HITS
Here’s how much PriceCharting says some of these classic Nintendo 64 games are now worth…
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
- Professionally Graded: £4,023
- New: £547
- Complete: £104
- Loose: £49
- Box: £28
- Manual: £17
Paper Mario
- Professionally Graded: £405
- New: £368
- Complete: £322
- Loose: £120
- Box: £79
- Manual: £116
Pokémon Stadium
- Professionally Graded: £1,767
- New: £277
- Complete: £63
- Loose: £13
- Box: £24
- Manual: £10
Pokémon Stadium 2
- Professionally Graded: £579
- New: £283
- Complete: £123
- Loose: £89
- Box: £56
- Manual: £31
Mario Kart 64
- Professionally Graded: £1,662
- New: £312
- Complete: £58
- Loose: £24
- Box: £24
- Manual: £9
007 Goldeneye
- Professionally Graded: £1,007
- New: £180
- Complete: £44
- Loose: £9
- Box: £26
- Manual: £8
Keep in mind that these are valuations based on previous sales, and don’t guarantee you’ll get those amounts if you try to flog your own copy.
Picture Credit: Alamy
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If you decide you want to sell it to a video game store or reseller, that’s the easiest route – but you might only get 60% of the game’s true value.
“If you have a very nice game worth over a thousand dollars, consider selling that game to a nicer auction house that curates and sends a marketing catalogue to collectors, like Heritage Auctions,” Brady advised Sun readers.
“They run a popular weekly online video game auction on Tuesdays.
“As well as a quarterly Signature auction with the finest pieces (sometimes fetching up to $100,000!)”
But Brady warns that you must always “understand the value of a collectible before trying to sell it”.
“Otherwise you might lose out on someone or some business offering you 40% of the value for it,” he said.
On the bright side, there’s a clever way you can massively increase the value of your gaming goodies.
GOOD GRADES?
It’s called professional grading, which is when a collectibles expert takes a look at it – and then gives it a score.
You’ll get a better grade if it’s in great condition, and if the expert can verify that the item is legitimate.
And collectors are willing to pay more for these vetted items.
Of course you’ll need to weigh up whether it’s worth forking out for grading to make your games more valuable.
“If a game is worth at least a couple hundred pounds, or is even factory sealed, you might consider sending it in for grading,” Brady explained.
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It will then be assigned a numerical score for its condition which will protect and authenticate it.
“First make sure your item is worth getting graded. You don’t want to spend £50 grading a game that’s worth £10,” says Brady.
He recommended a few different video game grading companies, including WATA, VGA, and CGC.
For top marks, Brady says VGA is the oldest and most stringent – so its “gold” grades will fetch a premium at auction.
OTHER PLAYSTATION CLASSICS TO CHECK FOR
Here’s how much PriceCharting says some of these classic PlayStation 1 games are now worth…
Doom [Black Label]
- Professionally Graded: £1,331
- New: £1,210
- Complete: £465
- Loose: £24
- Box: £179
- Manual: £128
Tekken [Long Box]
- Professionally Graded: £44,275
- New: £15,949
- Complete: £52
- Loose: £-
- Box: £16
- Manual: £18
Doom [Long Box]
- Professionally Graded: £6,617
- New: £6,016
- Complete: £64
- Loose: £-
- Box: £22
- Manual: £22
Rayman 2 The Great Escape [Watch Bundle]
- Professionally Graded: £1,217
- New: £1,106
- Complete: £401
- Loose: £238
- Box: £160
- Manual: £100
Final Fantasy VII
- Professionally Graded: £4,015
- New: £752
- Complete: £38
- Loose: £16
- Box: £12
- Manual: £15
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
- Professionally Graded: £1,417
- New: £625
- Complete: £184
- Loose: £108
- Box: £80
- Manual: £35
Batman Forever Arcade
- Professionally Graded: £1,390
- New: £525
- Complete: £202
- Loose: £105
- Box: £41
- Manual: £69
Picture Credit: Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
“To send in a game you’ll need to sign up on the company website, package your collectibles extremely safely, pay about £50-75 per game, and wait two to three months.
“When you get your games back, it will be like Christmas opening up the shipping box and unveiling your grades.
“Then you can check Graded Game comps on PriceCharting to see what your games are worth.”
PriceCharting has a website, but you can also use the iOS app on iPhone – with an Android version now “weeks away”.
GAME OVER!
You might also accidentally sabotage your chances at fortune without realising it.
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Brady warned that there are some common mistakes you might make that instantly kill the value of a game.
He revealed that there are three big no-no’s when it comes to game collecting.
“Never open a sealed game! You might lose thousands of dollars by doing that,” Brady told The Sun.
He also said to avoid “cleaning a game too harshly”, adding: “Collectors don’t want to see games that have been altered due to cleaning.”
And the third bit of advice: “Don’t toss the box and manual.
“Those can be worth as much as the game,” added Brady, who posts on Instagram as Super Nintendo Guy.
LOOK FOR THESE XBOX HITS AT HOME
Here’s how much some retro Xbox games could be worth now, according to PriceCharting…
Halo 2 (Limited Collector’s Edition)
- Professionally Graded: £675
- New: £613
- Complete: £23
- Loose: £6
- Box: £1
- Manual: £7
Halo Triple Pack
- Professionally Graded: £900
- New: £492
- Complete: £120
- Loose: £52
- Box: £27
- Manual: £30
Teen Titans
- Professionally Graded: £528
- New: £480
- Complete: £200
- Loose: £120
- Box: £135
- Manual: £56
Marvel Vs Capcom 2
- Professionally Graded: £533
- New: £347
- Complete: £74
- Loose: £55
- Box: £22
- Manual: £30
Silent Hill 2
- Professionally Graded: £294
- New: £267
- Complete: £67
- Loose: £39
- Box: £28
- Manual: £20
Mortal Kombat: Deception (Kollector’s Edition: Baraka Version)
- Professionally Graded: £310
- New: £300
- Complete: £40
- Loose: £25
- Box: £16
- Manual: £10
Picture Credit: Times Newspapers Ltd
