Hardest classic games to find in your area.

[Lostdwarf]

Was thinking about what i've been finding in the wild lately. Most of it is NES and N64 with a few occasions of a SNES around. I would have to say SNES is uncommon from what i've been getting, anyone else having this issue?

mike

[Steve W]

I have a hard find locating any Colecovision games in the wild. Atari 2600 games aren't quite so tough, but anything else from that early '80s era is really difficult. Consoles from that era are pretty much dried up around here.

I locate SNES games on an infrequent basis. The consoles are fairly easy to find, but the games tend to be all commons, with the occasional RPG or something more rare thrown in.

Genesis games and consoles are all over the place here. 95% of the time the games are sports titles, though.

[guitargary75]

There is nothing around here. I have to use ebay and other internet sources to find about 97% of what I buy. Classic game collecting is about location and if you work at a classic game store. Look at what the digital press gets in everyday, while the rest of us have to turn over every rock until we find a semi rare game. Alot of it is luck too. Thank God for ebay though or I wouldn't own any rare game. Sure I have to sign off my first born son to buy stuff off of there, but that's the only way I can find the rare stuff.

[coreys429]

Games that aren't sports or Mario/Duck Hunt.

[DefaultGen]

.....

[SpyHunter]

Not counting the DP store, I almost never see TG-16 stuff around here.

[ApolloBoy]

Pretty much everything pre-NES. It's been awhile since I've seen 2600 games in the wild, and even NES stuff is getting harder to find. It especially doesn't help that the thrifts have been overpricing everything in sight recently.

[namzep]

My area tends to have Genesis, NES, and Atari 2600. Occasionally I will run into Sega CD and 32X stuff. For awhile, the local Antique Mall had an Intellivision and some games. Other than that, it's only PS2 and newer stuff.

[snes_collector]

85% of what I find is either NES or Genesis. I sadly don't hardy ever find any SNES stuff these days.

[Simply Dave]

Not counting the DP store, I almost never see TG-16 stuff around here.

Ditto here. In all of my years of collecting, I have never seen a Turbo Grafx system or game in the wild.

[cyberfluxor]

The 2600 market is stagnant. Just about every store that carries them hasn't appeared to sold their merchandise in months making me believe no one takes in VCS anymore. Same goes with 5200 and 7800 titles, even though I beg many local owners to keep eyes open for CIB 5200 games for me.

Intellivision and Coleco are super uncommon around the places I dig. Maybe they don't pop up often and when they do they sell almost instantly, just don't know. I had a chance at a Coleco last Fall but passed mainly due to adding more loose cartridges to the collection along with quite a few sports titles.

NES, Genesis, SNES titles are also dying off for some reason. I use to find stacks of them around here on almost every trip, but now I'm lucky to see a good number of new arrivals. Maybe I've become too particular wanting complete games more than loose ones now, but it has been awhile since my last big lot score. I blame either a rise in competition or less trading in now that most people are settled into the modern consoles.

Turbo games are rough to begin with along with 3DO. I've been lucky with the few local games I've found for each of those systems. The Saturn has been cooling off more too, even becomming rough at the independant new and used game stores around here.

Anything SNK is nearly non-existant. The stores with NGPC games contain stock in the single digits and are dirt cheap but loose. They haven't moved in over a year at any place and I don't feel they'll move anytime soon either.

The largest selection at the moment is Xbox and PS2 stuff. Just about everwhere I go is loaded with Xbox sports titles and random PS2 games, which is what I really have been looking at lately. I'm expecting to pick up on my PS2 collection in the next few months and grab an Xbox with about a dozen games I really wanted to check out.


Ditto here. In all of my years of collecting, I have never seen a Turbo Grafx system or game in the wild.
Come on down to Virginia sometime, I found a Duo for $5 with the hookups and working at a thrift store. Still the best find for me all year.

[darkhades]

I never ever find Saturn stuff in my area

[retro junkie]

The area that I live in is dry when it comes to anything other than PS2, Xbox or current generation. So when it comes to something like a cart for a console, it is impossible to find. I have to use ebay or some other online store to even think about picking up another game for N64, Genesis, NES, SNES, etc.

[Sosage]

Ditto here. In all of my years of collecting, I have never seen a Turbo Grafx system or game in the wild.

Not to "Me too" but...Me too! I tend to buy most of my TG-16 related stuff at CGE.

SNES/NES/Gen/N64/Gameboy/PS1 are the strong ones (probably will be for everyone else), with Genesis and Gameboy popping up slightly less than the others. Atari is practically dead in my hunting grounds. I don't think I've seen a shoebox of 2600 carts for at least a year now.

Sega CD/Saturn once in a blue moon. Everything else is a rarity to find in the wild (I'm speaking garage sales/thrifts/random flea market spots...not the local used game store or the flea market vendors that are there every week sandwich bagging the games you were too late to find).

[otaku]

I actually can find most sega and nintendo stuff even alot of atari and other older stuff. Neo geo and turbo etc are difficult to find though. Overall though my area is pretty decent for gaming. We even still have some decent arcades going

[ssjlance]

Well, pretty much everything other than Genesis, NES, SNES, and Playstation takes some searching. N64 isn't too hard to find, and neither is Atari, but they aren't as prevalent. A lot of the other consoles mentioned already (Neo Geo, TG16, etc) are really hard to find, obviously.

Of course, PS2, GCN, and XBox games are everywhere.

[FrakAttack]

Not long ago there were plenty of SNES & Genesis carts around here, but lately....

[FlufflePuff]

I never find any Sega stuff, except Genesis. Almost no Sega CD or Saturn games. Nothing except Star Wars and Doom 32x carts. The very rare loose Master System game. I do occasionally see Game Gear carts but there isn't ever anything worth buying.

[Haoie]

Decent NTSC games for the PS are impossible to find in NZ.

[Famidrive-16]

The first time I ever came across anything TG related in the wild was three sports games at a garage sale a few months back. I grabbed them cause I knew I'd probably never see any in this area ever again. Must be a regional thing.

[glorfindel]

in my area its hard to find everything but nes and next-gen. theres a few snes and genesis systems and games but those are only at the game-x-change. you can find random atari somtimes at game-x-change and some original gameboys but nothing thats always in stock. found a genesis at goodwill once. bought it and it didnt work but i found somthing other than nes. i think in my area the ppl who have all this old stuff still have it in there basements cause im slowly seeing a rise in classic stuff and right now like everyone is moving or somthing cause the house market sucks ass so there finding all there old games.

[mb7241]

Interestingly enough, one of the local used bookstores (McKay's in Chattanooga) has recently started carrying Atari 2600, NES, and Genesis games again (they discontinued NES and Genesis probably 10 years ago, but they're there again)... Outside of there and a couple flea markets (generally overpriced in this part of the country, with an exception or two thrown in), it's become virtually impossible to find anything made before the PlayStation. I haven't seen many pre-NES systems (outside of the Atari 2600) in the wild in the 16 or 17 years of flea marketing...and I've only seen one Vectrex, one Turbo-Grafx 16 (with CD add-on), 2 ColecoVisions (from the same person, oddly enough), 2 Intellivisions (same usually-overpriced thrift store, 2 different days, $7 each), and 2 3DOs (both were FZ-10s). I have yet to see a Neo-Geo AES in the wild, though I did see a Super Famicom pop up one day (o_O)...

[Battlehork]

Here in Jacksonville, FL, anything prior to Playstation 1 except for the NES is next to impossible. There's an independent game shop (Game Over!) in Yulee that carries classics, but that's like 45 minutes one way. We had a few Rhinos that used to be cool until Gamestop bought them out.

There's semi-frequent NES listings on Craigslist, so you can get those provided I don't beat you to them. Maybe once a month or so a 2600, SNES or Genesis collection (and usually these are pretty crap-filled). Maybe every few months a Commodore 64. Once in a blue moon someone sells an MVS cab. I once saw a TG-16 but that was gone before I could get to it, and a 3D0 with no games so I passed. Never saw SMS, Colecovision, Intellivision etc. at all.

[murdoc rose]

It seems like there's nothing around anymore and what there is your best option is to buy it if it's an ok price. As far as precentages go nes and 2600 are leading but the 2600 is starting to get few and far between. So I would have to say nes for pre ps2 games era games. Sadly its hard to find one I don't have anymore if I even find a stack of them.

[erehwon]

Here in Fort Wayne, it is incredibly hard to find anything. The pawn shops don't carry anything older than PS1/N64. We don't have any thrift stores other than Goodwill, which have rarely had anything in the last year or two. The only game stores that carry classic stuff in my area is limited to McVans and two others.

I've gotten most of my classic games from garage sales. Unfortunately, yard sales have dried up in my area. Finding any game related items is difficult. Finding NES and Genesis games was never a problem till now. Finding SNES and any Sega games after the Genesis is incredibly rare. I've heard that McVans sends people out to sales and then there are ebayers as well. I do some ebaying, but the good stuff goes into my collection. I really enjoy yard sales, but it is hard to justify going out when I only come back with only a couple of games.

[BadChad]

Here Id have to say its Sega Genesis games. Theres only 2 good hock shops and only one of them holds Genesis games and theres never anyhting good because I cleaned them out so all they have left is sports pretty much. NES and SNES I dont really have a problem with tho. The hock shops carry a good collection of both and actually get new games pretty frequently. I gotta find out who keeps bringin that stuff in!:p

[dr101z]

It has almost completely dried up here. From the flea markets that still around I never find anything from the 80's. Most of those have turned into row after row of people selling whatever knock off crap comes out of a container from southeast Asia. If I wanted another 128-in-1 game NES in a PlayStation or N64 controller looking shell I would be set but finding real stuff is almost impossible. 99% of the pawn shops are part of large chains now and won't take anything older than PS2 and Xbox from people. Goodwill and some of the thrift stores are good for a find every once in while but the amount of gas you'll burn getting around is not worth it most of the time.

[Aussie2B]

I almost never come across anything pre-NES. In all my years of hitting thrifts, pawns, yard sales, etc., I've never once come across a pre-NES system, and it's infrequent that I find any of their games. Semi-obscure stuff is pretty much out the window too, but I have managed to find a 3DO, Master System games, a couple CD-i games, and a fair amount of Sega CD. The most common system I come across is definitely PS1 but the most commonly found games are for Genesis. However, it's not uncommon that a place is completely dry of games for systems, but I can always find PC games. That's why I've gotten in the habit of looking for valuable ones even though I personally don't have any interest in them. I figure if I can't find anything for my collection, maybe I can at least make a little money to fund future purchases.

[josekortez]

Come on down to Virginia sometime, I found a Duo for $5 with the hookups and working at a thrift store. Still the best find for me all year.

I have lived all over VA throughout my entire 29 years on the planet and have never once seen a Duo here.

[cyberfluxor]

I have lived all over VA throughout my entire 29 years on the planet and have never once seen a Duo here.

Last fall a local game store had a Turbo Grafx in stock with 3 controllers and a multi-tap I believe for $50. I pointed it out to the guy that runs MaG Fest and so he bought it off of them while down here for Nekocon. I didn't see any TG games in their store but I wonder if they did have some and they're just hiding someplace.

That store had a second location in a flea market I rarely would venture into. Earlier this year the place caught on fire and the place was condemned shortly afterwards. Now their single location is slam packed and they are running cheap sales for a lot of games to make up for the loss of money.

[smork]

Nothing pre-NES, basically. Very difficult to find stuff for the obviously rare systems - Pippin, Towns/Marty, Vectrex, Laseractive, etc. Damn near anything else I can find reliably.

Actually, the next time I see a 2600 cart outside a collector's shop around here will be the first, though one shop does have a system for sale...