Shmup Stock Ticker

[Sengoku Strider]

Just a feel good thread to talk about the value of various shmups if you want to. If you buy retro games, play them! This thread's just for fun and to take a look at your collection with pride, nobody should be treating this stuff like a serious investment market. There's a vast graveyard of retro game retailers proving this to be the case. But in a world with too much gloom, looking at Pricecharting.com each morning and seeing that Tatsujin is worth vastly more than any social media influencer's NFTs or cryptocurrency restores a sense of hope in humankind.

You can complain about speculators ruining the retro market, but that ship sailed years ago TBF. The good news is that if you're a shmup player, you have rarified taste and any physical games you own are probably pretty valuable, even ones from the current generation might already be worth more than you paid. Prices shot up during the pandemic as people stuck at home bought up comfort nostalgia. At the same time, the current gen physical games market shrank as people continue to throw money down a black hole at revocable licenses for digital games they don't actually own, thus making physical games supply constrained.


Some random average sale prices from Pricecharting.com in USD as of 10/10/2024 to start the conversation:

CAVE

Dodonpachi - PS1: $113
Ketsui Death Label - DS: $195
Muchi Muchi Pork! & Pink Sweets - 360: $205

TOAPLAN

Tatsujin - PCE: $464
Slap Fight - MD: $380
Kyukyoku Tiger II Plus - SAT: $155


HUDSON

Soldier Blade - TG-16: $801
Star Soldier - N64: $302
Star Force - PAL NES: $161

COMPILE

M.U.S.H.A. - GEN: $750
GunHed Special Version - PCE: $816
GG Aleste - Game Gear - $1218
Aleste 2 - MSX2 - $1494


MOST VALUABLE ON ASSORTED PLATFORMS:

Mega Drive: Eliminate Down $1550
Neo Geo AES: Andro Dunos - $1294
Neo Geo Pocket Color: Cotton Fantastic Nights Dreams - $806
NES: Gun-Nac $731
PlayStation 2: Ibara - $320
PC Engine: Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire $1680
Saturn: Hyper Duel $502
TurboGrafx-16: Magical Chase $9995
Xbox 360: Cave Shooting Collection $632

So what's the most valuable STG you own? I don't have anything crazy, mine's good old Soldier Blade on the PC Engine at $276, the price on that one has tripled over the past couple of years.

[To Far Away Times]

These prices though...

Would you rather have Magical Chase for the TurboGrafx or a 1950's Les Paul? Or a bunch of arcade cabinets?

I think my most expensive games would be Mushi Futari at $81.36 and Einhander at $165.00.

[Sengoku Strider]

Would you rather have Magical Chase for the TurboGrafx or a 1950's Les Paul?

>_>

...

<_<

...

I mean I know it's cooler to say the guitar than the magical witch girl game, but I only know how to play one of those things.

Here's another question to everyone: is there any crazy expensive game you want to buy one day?

Personally I really want to check out Hyper Duel a some point. Or Sapphire. Or Eliminate Down. Or Battlemania Daiginjou ($1132!). I'll probably talk myself out of it, but if I ever get art collector money this stuff's peanuts by comparison. Realistically the most pricey thing in my future is Winds of Thunder (~$120).

[To Far Away Times]

Would you rather have Magical Chase for the TurboGrafx or a 1950's Les Paul?

I mean I know it's cooler to say the guitar than the magical witch girl game, but I only know how to play one of those things.

That's fair, I play both poorly.

[Koa Zo]

Geeze Louise! this topic and the first post just rub salt in my wounds of having sold some big bucks games back when SD-carts and ODEs gained traction.
Mint complete GunNac, complete Tatsujin, mint Hyper Duel, Silphia, Ibara, N64 Star Soldier... all sold for 1/2 to 1/3 of what they're going for now.

Hung onto all the Compile console and handheld games in one form or another (besides Silphia ~ CD-R for that one)
How much higher could GG Aleste go?? might be time to cash-in that one!

[FRO]

Are those prices all for complete in box? I know Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth for N64 isn't worth near that much loose. Most expensive I own from the list you posted originally is Muchi Muchi Port! & Pink Sweets, though probably the most expensive I own overall is the Border Down LE release. Second to that appears to be the Toaplan Shooters Collector's Edition boxset, with the 4 MD Toaplan games that RetroBit put out a few years ago. Holy cow, that spiked in value. Dang, even the Psikyo Collection Vol. 3 (aka the "boob box") has spiked up in value quite a bit.

[Sengoku Strider]

Feel good stat of the day:

GG Aleste II $201.32 USD
Logan Paul NFT: $0.0000004294 USD

Hung onto all the Compile console and handheld games in one form or another (besides Silphia ~ CD-R for that one)
How much higher could GG Aleste go?? might be time to cash-in that one!

You know, I have no idea how to predict the value of stuff like this. People always assume a re-release will tank the value, but it often does the opposite and drives up interest in original copies of a game. When Aleste Collection came out in Dec 2020, GG Aleste was worth $128; it's gone up over a thousand dollars since then. The release of the Analog Pocket with its Game Gear adaptor might have affected that one too. (As an aside, Aleste Collection on Switch is already worth more than retail, I recommend grabbing that to anyone who doesn't have it yet, it's great).

On the other hand, some things it does seem to affect. Since Radiant Silvergun's re-release last year Saturn copies have practically tanked, from $277 last November to $196 today. Maybe Treasure gets hit different because they have broader brand awareness with more casual buyers? I know every dilettante on YouTube claims Ikaruga for street cred. *Cue video of 5 different retro Youtubers talking up lifelong passion for Ikaruga then getting wiped on first stage*

Are those prices all for complete in box? I know Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth for N64 isn't worth near that much loose. Most expensive I own from the list you posted originally is Muchi Muchi Port! & Pink Sweets, though probably the most expensive I own overall is the Border Down LE release. Second to that appears to be the Toaplan Shooters Collector's Edition boxset, with the 4 MD Toaplan games that RetroBit put out a few years ago. Holy cow, that spiked in value. Dang, even the Psikyo Collection Vol. 3 (aka the "boob box") has spiked up in value quite a bit.

Yeah, to me the box - and especially instructions if you're mainly buying Japanese copies like I am (their stuff tends to be much higher quality and in colour) - is a fun part of the historicity of the object, so I generally ignore loose. Plus this thread is as much about the fun of gawking at big prices as anything. But CIB definitely drives up the cost for some platforms; for CD based systems or Mega Drive, the packaging also doubles as a storage case so people kept it around. But until Gamecube Nintendo only used flimsy cardboard boxes that people tended to toss out like they would the box for anything else (I know I usually did), so CIB is pricier there. Especially for Game Boy as I'm sure you know, Mr Guru.

The Switch Psikyo collections are a funny one. They have such a terrible reputation in shmup circles because of the input lag, but the physical sets seem to have held their value, even the North American ones (which were only 2 boxes, sans boobs) are worth more than retail now.

[Creamy Goodness]

I play all my retro stuff on emulators or everdrives. Closest I have to an expensive game is Ketsui for PS4.

[it290]

Damn. I have complete copies of both MUSHA and Ibara. Had no idea either one had shot up so much. As I rely on MiSTer and ODEs for everything these days, none of these games ever come out of the box. I really should get around to cashing them in at some point.

Not shmup related, but I think the most expensive game I own is Ninja Five-O complete. I wonder if that value will start to tank now that a new physical release is coming out.

[Sumez]

So what's the most valuable STG you own?

I think I'd be better off not knowing. I'm sure some of them would really catch me off guard.
But I also have no idea how I'd even go about figuring out unless I came across a reliable indicative sale myself.

Pricecharting seems extremely unreliable, especially for rarely sold games like arcade games, and isn't very good at taking all kinds of factors into account, such as region etc.
The prices you posted seem to be exclusively North American regions, too, which is pretty misleading. You can get Musha a lot cheaper than that.

Not shmup related, but I think the most expensive game I own is Ninja Five-O complete. I wonder if that value will start to tank now that a new physical release is coming out.

I thought I paid a lot for my Ninja Five-O when I paid $70 for a complete copy.
I doubt the price will go down, but it'll probably stagnate, like it happened to Radiant Silvergun and Rondo of Blood before it.

[Steven]

The most expensive video game thing in general that I own is definitely my 1P Zero Wing PCB. It's more valuable than anything that I own aside from my Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Special and my Lumtric Company (Sonic) jazz bass. Best part is that I got it for free. Well, in exchange for some manual labour, but monetarily it was free.

[Sengoku Strider]

Feel good stat of the day:

Caitlyn Jenner crypto (JENNER): $0.0001937 USD
Darius Gaiden (PAL Sega Saturn): $128.10 USD

Pricecharting seems extremely unreliable, especially for rarely sold games like arcade games, and isn't very good at taking all kinds of factors into account, such as region etc.

I don't think it tracks arcade boards at all, does it? It's drawing on eBay sales, which are international - if you click through a given title's price you can see the list of completed auctions it's basing the average on. But sure, other regional auction platforms exist which might have better prices on specific things, I wouldn't use eBay over Yahoo Auctions for Japanese stuff, for instance, but that gets complicated because it's locked to Japanese credit cards so if you don't have one you need to use a buying service which adds a bunch of cost on top. I wouldn't say Pricecharting is extremely unreliable; it certainly can get versions mixed up and doesn't seem to know what an SG-1000 is, but at the end of the day I'm not aware of any more comprehensive resource for tracking online prices and most IRL retailers seem to use it as a measuring stick.

But like I said this thread is just for fun, nobody should be basing their retirement off any of this.

The prices you posted seem to be exclusively North American regions, too, which is pretty misleading. You can get Musha a lot cheaper than that.

M.U.S.H.A. (with the acronym) was only released in North America so I'm pretty sure you won't find it cheap, Mark Bussler memeing on it for years and the lack of a PAL release made it one of the most in-demand titles on the Genesis. Musha Aleste, the Japanese version, does go for half as much (wouldn't call it cheap at $270+), but Japanese games in general are in less demand as a result of there being a significant number of people who can read some English in every country on Earth, Japanese not so much. You get exceptions where a title is supply constrained like Vampire Killer being worth way more than Castlevania Bloodlines, but even with things where there's next to no difference, by & large the very whiff of a language barrier and collectors primarily being interested in their home region makes those games their own market. A lot of people won't even consider a PAL or JP version, I mostly only buy JP retro games and if I want to sell something off it's a pain.

[Sumez]

M.U.S.H.A. (with the acronym) was only released in North America so I'm pretty sure you won't find it cheap, Mark Bussler memeing on it for years and the lack of a PAL release made it one of the most in-demand titles on the Genesis. Musha Aleste, the Japanese version, does go for half as much (wouldn't call it cheap at $270+)

It is literally the same game.

[Sengoku Strider]

It is literally the same game.

This thread is discussing prices rather than gameplay, for our purposes here it's totally not. We're talking about a retro games market that pays $633 for a North American Master System copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, when it is literally just the European version (value: $21.57) that SOA imported and put a sticker on because they'd wound down SMS production by that point. Musha Aleste is the version I own, I'd be perfectly happy if everyone was driving the value of that through the roof instead but they won't.

[Gamer707b]

I totally agree with Op. A innocent and fun hobby for me since the 80s, has been somewhat stained by "market value", price charting, and other scummy 2nd hand practices. Even with that said, I still enjoy my old games immensely. Yes, I do have a bunch of complete Saturn, Snes, Genesis, etc games, but I never once have checked prices on price charting. Don't care how "rare" they are. My main thoughts about my retro games, is being able to get to them and finish them, because I bought so many of them years back when prices were for the sane. Now, I'm playing through Majora's Mask 3DS and PS4 Esperade. Once I'm done with those, I'll pick my next console to focus on. It's a fun problem to have.

[Randorama]

I wonder how much the DC shmups are worth, these days. I own all of them. For Saturn, I have quite a few titles but not exactly all of them.

[Sengoku Strider]

I wonder how much the DC shmups are worth, these days. I own all of them. For Saturn, I have quite a few titles but not exactly all of them.

You can sort by platform & region on Pricecharting. Giga Wing 2 & Cannon Spike are the two most valuable North American games at $300+, with most of the other in the $100+ range. Border Down's $200.

[Sengoku Strider]

Feel good stat:

Twitter/X share price: $53.70
R-Type DX - Game Boy Color: $53.86

Here's one that gets me:

Nexzr - PC Engine - $333.53
Summer Carnival '93: Nexzr Special - PC Engine - $169.50

The difference between the two is that the original has cut scenes with Gundam voice actors, while the Summer Carnival has no cutscenes but has the caravan mode instead. Honestly, that caravan mode rocks, and I'd figure A) the summer carnival version has fewer copies on the market and B) would be the much more desirable version for people who actually intend to play the game for real (it was certainly was for me, which is why that's the one I got). I keep expecting that to be the one that ends up more valuable, but it's only going for half as much which is a wild discrepancy to me.

[Gamer707b]

Feel good stat:

Twitter/X share price: $53.70
R-Type DX - Game Boy Color: $53.86

Here's one that gets me:

Nexzr - PC Engine - $333.53
Summer Carnival '93: Nexzr Special - PC Engine - $169.50

The difference between the two is that the original has cut scenes with Gundam voice actors, while the Summer Carnival has no cutscenes but has the caravan mode instead. Honestly, that caravan mode rocks, and I'd figure A) the summer carnival version has fewer copies on the market and B) would be the much more desirable version for people who actually intend to play the game for real (it was certainly was for me, which is why that's the one I got). I keep expecting that to be the one that ends up more valuable, but it's only going for half as much which is a wild discrepancy to me.

Yea, it doesn't make much sense to me either. Not much does in retro gaming anyway. Some games I think to myself, "why on earth is this so valuable when there's a crap load of copies." While other better and sometimes even rarer games never go up. But, I guess that's a good thing, cause in the case of Nexzr, I'm going for Special. Nexzr vanilla is mainly for collecting purposes, but for actual playing, Special all the way.

[davyK]

I have Star Soldier for N64 but it's the Japanese version (complete in box). You can get that cheaper I imagine and it's import friendly re menus etc.

Most valuable I have are probably

Muchi Muchi Pork + Pink Sweets for 360
DDP:SDOJ (platinum) for 360
Raiden III for PS2 (PAL version is rare)
CIB Super Aleste for SNES (PAL version, have the JP version cart only).
RType III CIB PAL for SNES.
RSG for Saturn.

To be honest I don't really care as they aren't for sale - I wouldn't even sell something like Saturn RSG which can be "upgraded" for a modern port.

PAL PS2 shmups value is climbing - have Dragon Blaze, Homura , Samurai Aces and Tengai which command decent prices. All CIB. (All have 60HZ and the vertical games have TATE mode).
Raiden DX JP-PS1 is climbing in value too.

Also have these:-
PAL Cannon Spike (CIB) for DC is worth a fair bit.
JP Bangai O (CIB) for N64 which costs a good bit too.

[Sengoku Strider]

You all thought I was mad, but who's laughing now S&P 500?

[Sumez]

Sin & Punishment?

[Sengoku Strider]

Sin & Punishment?

One of the safest and least volatile global commodities right now.



Shout outs to whoever bought the dip in February.

[Gamer707b]

I will be totally honest and say, I don't even know the exact value of my collection. Shmups or otherwise. I know some games I have are "rare" and expensive, but I don't track this stuff. I've only been on price charting once in my life. Never looked at my gaming as an investment. I just bought the games I wanted to play in my 40 plus years of gaming. Some shot up, some didn't. As far as shmups specifically, I got Japanese Musha, couple hundred bucks, Einhander, R-Type Delta PS1 American version, Ketsui PS4, Battle Garegga PS4, on Saturn Galatic Attack, Darius Gaiden, Radiant Silvergun, Donpachi, Dodon Pachi Some good PC-Engine, Super NES and Genesis shmups thrown in there and so on. Now, I'm not a complete dummy either, if I ever did decide to sell, then I'd go online and research prices, otherwise I don't go tracking this stuff on a regular basis. Interesting thread though.