Big price spike on Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky

[MiamiSlice | 3,195]

Saw someone selling this CIB for $83 on Reddit and Magician's Quest Mysterious Times CIB for $75 and did a double take because these prices sounded backwards.

Turns out PMD EoS had a big price spike recently. Was not expecting this, I wonder if the remake of the first games in this series caused interest to spike or if it's something else: https://www.pricecharting.com/game/nintendo-ds/pokemon-mystery-dungeon-explorers-of-sky I was very fortunate to find this for $25 at GameStop last year when it was going for $45 on eBay. 

Meanwhile Magician's Quest has come down from a spike, going for as little as $70 now: https://www.pricecharting.com/game/nintendo-ds/magician's-quest-mysterious-times. Last year I found two loose copies at GameStop and sold them for $69.99 EACH. Loose! And now that's the going rate for CIB. This just seems crazy. 

Tempted to pick up Magician's Quest before the price spikes again...

Edited February 4, 2020 by MiamiSlice

[RH | 5,339]

Nintendo collectors are crazy but Pokemon collectors are down right nuts.

No harm or foul to anyone in that camp, but it amazes me how well most Pokemon games and items hold their value or increase in value within just a short period of time they've been discontinued.

[Philosoraptor | 489]

4 minutes ago, RH said:

Nintendo collectors are crazy but Pokemon collectors are down right nuts.

It doesn't help that Explorers of Sky is a popular contrarian pick for "favorite Pokemon game," despite the fact that the PMD series on the whole is generally overshadowed by most other mystery dungeon games, IMO.

[MiamiSlice | 3,195]

15 minutes ago, Philosoraptor said:

It doesn't help that Explorers of Sky is a popular contrarian pick for "favorite Pokemon game," despite the fact that the PMD series on the whole is generally overshadowed by most other mystery dungeon games, IMO.

I'm a Shiren fanatic and hope to eventually pick up Taloon's entry on the PSX but I do appreciate the fact that PMD fits the niche of 'babby's first roguelike' and is more laid back and forgiving than other Mystery Dungeon games that can be rage inducing. 

I've also noticed more interest in going after the spinoff games from the Wii / DS era which were very cheap to get until recently. Still trying to nab Pokepark 1 & 2 myself. 

25 minutes ago, RH said:

Nintendo collectors are crazy but Pokemon collectors are down right nuts.

No harm or foul to anyone in that camp, but it amazes me how well most Pokemon games and items hold their value or increase in value within just a short period of time they've been discontinued.

What's interesting with Pokemon games is the delta between loose & CIB is criminally small because so much of the demand comes from people who actually want to play the games and aren't really concerned about condition. Last year I picked up a cheap box & booklets for PMD EoS off Mercari thinking it would be an easy flip and I ended up having a hard time finding buyers. Even today with this price spike I still don't think box / manual would fetch much on their own. Very different from other games that mostly appeal to collectors where having everything near mint and shelf-fabulous is so important and you can make a decent amount just selling the packaging. 

[captmorgandrinker | 1,660]

@SNESNESCUBE64- isn't this the game I sent you as an elf a few years back?   Too bad they didn't have a matching case for it.

[Philosoraptor | 489]

12 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

I'm a Shiren fanatic and hope to eventually pick up Taloon's entry on the PSX but I do appreciate the fact that PMD fits the niche of 'babby's first roguelike' and is more laid back and forgiving than other Mystery Dungeon games that can be rage inducing. 

I've also noticed more interest in going after the spinoff games from the Wii / DS era which were very cheap to get until recently. Still trying to nab Pokepark 1 & 2 myself. 

The DS stuff is starting to heat up across the board. I was surprised how cheap Platinum was until rather recently considering Yellow, Crystal, and Emerald are significantly more expensive than the previous mainline games released in their generations.

12 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

What's interesting with Pokemon games is the delta between loose & CIB is criminally small because so much of the demand comes from people who actually want to play the games and aren't really concerned about condition. Last year I picked up a cheap box & booklets for PMD EoS off Mercari thinking it would be an easy flip and I ended up having a hard time finding buyers. Even today with this price spike I still don't think box / manual would fetch much on their own. Very different from other games that mostly appeal to collectors where having everything near mint and shelf-fabulous is so important and you can make a decent amount just selling the packaging. 

That's true up to a point. As soon as you start talking cardboard, the prices for CIBs are quite a lot higher than their loose counterparts, even in the DS era with HG/SS. Most DS Pokemon games sold over a million copies in North America, and even the most unpopular spinoff games on the DS still sold close to if not more than 500k copies. Even with GameStop and other retailers chucking cases left and right, there are still plenty to go around, at least for now.

In the future, I think the prices for CIB will increase a lot faster than loose because of the staggering number of fakes out there. People will want the real deal, and CIBs are much harder to fake well and much less likely to be fake.

[SNESNESCUBE64 | 627]

12 minutes ago, captmorgandrinker said:

@SNESNESCUBE64- isn't this the game I sent you as an elf a few years back?   Too bad they didn't have a matching case for it.

Yeah, I actually just started playing it too, it's been fun so far. 

[MiamiSlice | 3,195]

10 minutes ago, Philosoraptor said:

The DS stuff is starting to heat up across the board. I was surprised how cheap Platinum was until rather recently considering Yellow, Crystal, and Emerald are significantly more expensive than the previous mainline games released in their generations.

That's true up to a point. As soon as you start talking cardboard, the prices for CIBs are quite a lot higher than their loose counterparts, even in the DS era with HG/SS. Most DS Pokemon games sold over a million copies in North America, and even the most unpopular spinoff games on the DS still sold close to if not more than 500k copies. Even with GameStop and other retailers chucking cases left and right, there are still plenty to go around, at least for now.

In the future, I think the prices for CIB will increase a lot faster than loose because of the staggering number of fakes out there. People will want the real deal, and CIBs are much harder to fake well and much less likely to be fake.

Oh for sure, I should have clarified what I said, obviously the cardboard box stuff commands a higher premium because it's harder to find, especially in good condition. And finding a complete HeartGold / SoulSilver with the outer box and everything included is NOT easy, I managed to find someone willing to trade HeartGold in new condition a few months back at like 2/3 of what it was going for on eBay, sold the sealed inner box and dropped in my not-sealed inner box, bada bing bada boom. 

But yeah DS stuff is heating up for real. There's another thread on here about "Where is basic b*tch collecting going" and I think I replied that Wii / DS demand is going up - fun to see it in action but I'm also kicking myself because there's still a bunch of DS and Wii titles I haven't snagged yet!

[Philosoraptor | 489]

8 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

Oh for sure, I should have clarified what I said, obviously the cardboard box stuff commands a higher premium because it's harder to find, especially in good condition. And finding a complete HeartGold / SoulSilver with the outer box and everything included is NOT easy, I managed to find someone willing to trade HeartGold in new condition a few months back at like 2/3 of what it was going for on eBay, sold the sealed inner box and dropped in my not-sealed inner box, bada bing bada boom. 

But yeah DS stuff is heating up for real. There's another thread on here about "Where is basic b*tch collecting going" and I think I replied that Wii / DS demand is going up - fun to see it in action but I'm also kicking myself because there's still a bunch of DS and Wii titles I haven't snagged yet!

For sure. I also foresee the bundle boxes and steelbooks they keep releasing for 3DS and Switch mainline releases being a nightmare in the future, since there are several retailer exclusive variants with different contents.

Honestly, I see DS stuff tapering off after a few years and starting to resemble the price splits we see for GBA: cheaper carts and more expensive CIBs. Right now, DS is in the generation of consoles that people who are getting their first jobs are buying to rekindle their childhood. When that happens, a console gets hot, but will cool off to varying degrees depending on the rarity of the items. DS stuff is pretty common, considering how well the DS sold and Nintendo's history of including backwards compatibility in their handhelds.