Alright, It is the new year, time to look at the state of collecting. I just wrote up an article regarding a new development that could be the beginning of the end of the Nintendo collecting bubble - mass produced bootlegs. The bootlegs of games like Hagane and Earthbound can be purchased in bulk at a fraction of the price of the real thing. Notably, these bootlegs are pretty easy to spot, since the carts have fake screws. The complicating factor is that it is trivial for someone to buy a bunch of these, throw the PCB in a real cart and print off a new label, and there, you have a pretty convincing copy. I discuss all this and its implications in the article!

Of course, this thread can be a bit more broad than that. For NES collecting, I think it will be hitting the upper limit of people who grew up in that key 1985-1992 time period that reach the point of having a combination of access to disposable income and nostalgia for their childhood. The SNES will not be far behind, with that key period being 1991 to 1996 (notably the rise in SNES prices started in 2011 - exactly 20 years after the SNES came out). With the rise of bootlegs that look fairly convincing, plus growing acceptance of flash carts and emulation boxes, I do not anticipate that the market for uncommon, but hardly Stadium Events-level rare games will continue to grow.