Are the Rising Prices of N64 Games Sustainable?

[ifkz]

I'm skeptical of

Did you know Mario 64 was something of a rip-off of Argonaut Games Croc title?  They originally approached Nintendo with an open world game with Yoshi and then Nintendo took the game demo and refined it, adding analog support, etc until Mario 64 was made.  Google it, Argonaut's president and Nintendo talk about it, a surprising read.

I've heard this before, but I never heard of Nintendo admitting it openly. Link for that?

That Eurogamer article comes as close as they'll ever get to an admission, IMHO:
"Miyamoto-san came up to me at a show afterwards and apologised for not doing the Yoshi game with us and thanked us for the idea to do a 3D platform game. He also said that we would make enough royalties from our existing deal to make up for it.?"

I'm surprised, but then, I am not surprised.  If you finish reading the Eurogamer article it goes on to say they gutted a lot of Argonaut by stealing their top programmers too.

[esteban]

I'm skeptical of

Did you know Mario 64 was something of a rip-off of Argonaut Games Croc title?  They originally approached Nintendo with an open world game with Yoshi and then Nintendo took the game demo and refined it, adding analog support, etc until Mario 64 was made.  Google it, Argonaut's president and Nintendo talk about it, a surprising read.

I've heard this before, but I never heard of Nintendo admitting it openly. Link for that?

That Eurogamer article comes as close as they'll ever get to an admission, IMHO:
"Miyamoto-san came up to me at a show afterwards and apologised for not doing the Yoshi game with us and thanked us for the idea to do a 3D platform game. He also said that we would make enough royalties from our existing deal to make up for it.?"

I'm surprised, but then, I am not surprised.  If you finish reading the Eurogamer article it goes on to say they gutted a lot of Argonaut by stealing their top programmers too.

It sounds like it was the talent (not the IP) that Nintendo was actually interested in. This is not surprising.

[glazball]

An admission of what, though?  Theft?

[o.pwuaioc]

I've heard this before, but I never heard of Nintendo admitting it openly. Link for that?

That Eurogamer article comes as close as they'll ever get to an admission, IMHO:
"Miyamoto-san came up to me at a show afterwards and apologised for not doing the Yoshi game with us and thanked us for the idea to do a 3D platform game. He also said that we would make enough royalties from our existing deal to make up for it.?"

As I thought, this is Goddard's (maybe? The article is poorly written and doesn't quite delineate who's saying what clearly) unverified accusation. Neither Nintendo nor Miyamoto publicly admitted it.

[cr8zykuban0]

I was skeptical too and googled it.

Apparently, the Croc prototype "influenced" Mario 64, but to say it was a refinement of the Croc demo is inaccurate.  Here is the link I found:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-04-born-slippy-the-making-of-star-fox

wow, would have never known that! I have croc on the Saturn but never played it. Might have to give it a try now.

[BlueBMW]

Croc is an interesting one...  controls are a bit clunky compared to say Mario 64 but the Saturn version controls pretty well ( I think it can even use the 3D pad)  I actually bought Croc and Jet Moto as my first PS1 games back in the day when I jumped ship from N64 to PS1...

[esadajr]

...back in the day when I jumped ship from N64 to PS1...

I remember Nintendo fan boys from back in the day just doing that.

It didn't help the "golden age of emulation" happened. I remember how pissed Nintendo was when people was able to play N64 games on their computers.

These days, N64 is not even worth the hard disk space.

[esteban]

Although I tease N64 fans, I will want another one in a decade or so.

Wait, no I won't.

[BlueBMW]

Whats interesting... I jumped ship but I ended up missing the N64 and getting another one a few years later.  To this day is one of my favorite consoles.

[esteban]

Whats interesting... I jumped ship but I ended up missing the N64 and getting another one a few years later.  To this day is one of my favorite consoles.

I have to explore the library some more. I really don't hate any console. 

[jordan_hillman]

I think a good example of this was the Final Fantasy 7 price for playstation 1 about 5-6 years ago. This game was regularly going for >$50 for a greatest hits copy and $100 for the black label for basically no reason. It wasn't rare by any means, it was just highly sought after at the time and everyone wanted a copy. Just a quick scan of the pricing charts to prove my point. In April 2008 it reached an average high of $70, and today it is around $17. I think eventually we see the same with a good amount of the N64 stuff and I welcome it.

Perfect example of what will happen to the "value" of most video games, excluding the handful, across all platforms, that are genuinely rare or scarce (most video games are not). Black labels of Parasite Eve and Symphony of the Night were going for similarly high prices and can now all be found for around 20 bucks or a little less with some patience and due diligence.

It is the same deal with threads that pop up on forums everywhere saying "When will the *insert console here* prices bust, just like the Atari did?", and I am getting to the point where I think that they won't ever just plummet, but may just stall out and maintain their current pricing.  This is currently seen in NES collecting, where most of the rare games, outside of Stadium Events and the NWC, have started to maintain a consistent price, for the most part.  Examples include Flintstones hanging around $600-650, Little Samson seemingly capping out around $550-600, Bonk's stalling around $250-300.  It seems like that these are now the commonly accepted prices for these high-end items unfortunately.

The stalling, or capping, of prices on video games is when the market has peaked. From there, the prices of games, for whatever system that has currently peaked in "value," will begin to drop. Atari had its peak and moment in the sun about 8-10 years ago (I can't exactly remember when that collecting craze was going apeshit)--when everyone was ranting, raving, and searching for those "holy-grail carts--and now you can get a heavy sixer with 20 games for about $80.

Q: Blah blah N64 sustainable?

A: Who cares?

Touche and well played sir.

[cr8zykuban0]

yeah,  I started collecting around the time when atari stuff was huge. hopefully within the next few years,  these nintendo, turbo, sega and maybe neo geo games go down a bit