What's Cheaper: Used Copies, Or The Virtual Console?

JJ Hendricks over at Vintage Computer & Gaming has truly outdone himself. Taking whining over the price of games on the Wii's Virtual Console as his cue, he's looked at the average used-copy price of every single game available on the service, and compared them to the price Nintendo are charging on the VC. His findings? Intriguing.

Your whining is ill-informed. When you total the average cost of every pre-owned copy of a game and compare it to the total cost of every Virtual Console game, it's clear that you're not getting ripped off at all. In fact you're usually (NES excepted) saving cash. Especially if you dig TurboGrafx games.

Here then are the total figures for each console (every available game's price added up) on the service - for rundowns on each individual title (as per the example below), you can visit VC&G yourself.

NES Games
TOTAL COST - USED: $273.53
TOTAL COST - VC: $288.00

SNES Games
TOTAL COST - USED: $354.38
TOTAL COST - VC: $273.53

N64 Games
TOTAL COST - USED: $169.42
TOTAL COST - VC: $102.00

GENESIS Games
TOTAL COST - USED: $406.59
TOTAL COST - VC: $353.00

NEO GEO Games
TOTAL COST - USED: $135.00
TOTAL COST - VC: $72

TURBOGRAFX-16 Games
TOTAL COST - USED: $1177.67
TOTAL COST - VC: $294.00

TOTALS
TOTAL COST - USED: $2516.59
TOTAL COST - VC: $1325.00

In short, you buy VC, you save a ton of cash. Of course, how important that is to you depends on how you view the investment. If you view them as games, there solely for your enjoyment, yes, the Virtual Console is the way to go. But if you view your investment as just that - an investment - best stick to the real thing. Genuine copies of a game will only increase in value as time draws incessantly on, but on the Virtual Console? Your games will die the same day your Wii does.
Buying Real Copies of Wii Virtual Console Games...Ouch! [VC&G]

i saw a similar thing at gonintendo, that compared specific games and their prices on the used market and on VC, and most of the times VC was cheaper, specially the best or more famous ones

Wow--only the NES games cost more and only by $15 total. Nearly HALF the price? That's awesome!

good to know. thx for posting

And of course, those prices don't even account for the expense of hunting down a working console to play them on (which you may well have to do in the case of TG-16 and Neo-Geo, since both were hardly popular systems). Ever checked the eBay prices on those systems?

yea, saying just buy the copies cause they will grow in investment also means you need the console to play it.

Also i'm sure the next nintendo console will have VC playing and you'll be able to keep your VC account with the games and the next after that will be the same so it won't just end on the wii, it'll end if nintendo goes under x.x

Here's my proof that it IS overpriced.

*gets out wallet*
*looks in wallet*
*throws empty wallet at wall*
*goes to bed*
!!!!! Overpriced. :P

Nah, the games have tremendous value for the costs for them. Besides illegal means, odds are you'll never find the games cheaper somewhere else. It's especially great for some of us older, but not that much older gamers who were just youngins when the classics like the first Zelda came out and never got a chance to play it. :)

Average selling price may not be a good representation of actual prices paid. Huh, you say? Well one or two auctions/sellers could really throw off what a game may truly be worth, especially on eBay where unopened and 'mint' copies sometimes command a premium. So let's say five copies of SMB sold on eBay for $1, $2, $3, $4, and $20. The average price is $6. All but one sold for less than that, however. The median price was $3 which may be a better number for these purposes.

For some reason, I don't want to buy my games from the VC. There are only two games on there that I want, but I'd rather find the originals even if they are more expensive. I just want something tangible to play.

 For me it just feels right playng with the original controller. I wanna buy Super Metroid but would rather get it for my SNES.