Any former CIB-only DS/PS1 folks recently downgraded their requirements?

[phart010 | 1,708]

I used to wait for good condition CIB stuff for DS, 3DS, PSP and PS1.

With the recent price actions on games for these systems, I’ve recently started going for good condition cart only or disc only.. It feels kind of strange, but I figure stuff is only gonna keep climbing, so might as well get it now and maybe I’ll find the packaging later on.

Edited July 6, 2021 by phart010

[Gloves | 11,843]

You're gonna find it really hard in general to find specific box/instructions only; I'd skip cart/disc-only, personally. Every time I find myself trying to "complete" a loose game, it ends up being cheaper/easier to just buy a CIB and sell the cart.

[Tanooki | 4,953]

Nope...and nope.

I'd rather not own it at all if it's not complete.

DS/3DS cards are too easy to lose.

Discs are too easy to jack up when they're not in a case, and typically being second had I find the best odds for a minimal wear/clean working disc is one someone cared for, not one someone felt the thing was worth throwing out parts of it while tossing the rest on a shelf or in some scratchy case.

[Naked Warrior | 288]

I agree with @Tanooki on the disc part...too easy to scratch them up when they are loose like that...Disc-based games are one of those things that I'd rather pay up for CIB and only have 20 of my favorites vs collect disc only and have 100 games...I just have a feeling that your "disc-only" collection is not going to hold value well either...if that is something that is important to you.

DS & 3DS carts are different IMO - They hold up fine and I think there will be a strong market for them in the future, just like there is for cart-only GB/GBC/GBA games.  I personally only collect CIB (for every system - NES/SNES/DS/SAT/GBA/GEN/PS1/PS2), but if I felt a cash crunch I would have no problem collecting carts/manuals for anything that was in a cardboard box, and I would probably do cart only DS/3DS without hesitation.

[PapaStu | 47]

Nope and I've got 1k+ titles for both DS and PS1. Simply because I'm not chasing games to play, but for them to go towards the full library. If they're incomplete/missing things I'll just end up replacing them.  May as well make them right the first time through.

Edited July 6, 2021 by PapaStu

[OptOut | 8,892]

I have over a hundred DS games cart only, got em in Hori boxes which can store 24 games each. I got rid of the cases when I moved to Taiwan, because shipping more than a hundred empty DS cases 6000 miles is probably one of the dumbest things I could imagine doing.

Of course in the years since I have bought more DS games, and obviously I keep those cases. But I honestly don't miss the ones I don't have, I've never been a big fan of the DS boxes anyway, they seem redundant.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

I started doing this not necessarily for price reasons, rather out of necessity - some items just never turned up, so I'd rather have a loose one than none at all, in most instances.

Not really a fan of loose disks though, but again I'd possibly get one if the situation was right.

Trying to later get boxes and manuals to pair with items, it's definitely not the easiest thing to do, though I've done it numerous times, even with some obscure multicart bootlegs, showing that anything is possible.

[Hammerfestus | 3,891]

 

 

Don’t do it.  It seems like a good idea at first but it’s not.  I’ve found trying to complete disc only to be neither satisfying nor enjoyable.

[croagunk | 798]

I, personally, buy cart-only DS/3DS game all the time. It doesn’t bother me one bit to not have the cases or manuals. When it comes to disc games, I am more selective on the ones I buy. I usually only buy loose discs from a game store where I know I can bring it back if there’s an issue.

[TDIRunner | 2,779]

I occasionally buy cart only or disc only, but that's always been the case for me.  Nothing has changed recently.

For DS games, I often buy cart only because it's easy enough to print out a replacement cover and I l have lots of empty cases.  I even have a ton of manuals for games I don't own.  With that said, when it comes to DS, I don't care about having it CIB, so it doesn't matter if I never find the rest of the case later on.

For 3DS, I don't have access to replacement cases, so I've never bought one cart only.  In fact, I'm not sure that I've ever even bought a used 3DS game before.  My collection is pretty small and mostly first party Nintendo stuff.  

For PS1, I rarely buy disc only but if I do, it's only because I bought it for a fraction of the market value.  Out of my approximately 700 PS1 games, I would bet that less than 30 are missing either the manual or insert.  Since PS1 is my favorite system, I plan to replace those games.  It would be nice to find the missing pieces, but realistically that won't happen and I will just have to buy the game again but CIB.  But that's ok since I only buy disc only if it's super cheap to begin with.   

[drxandy | 3,236]

Going loose, I always think of  Masahiro Sakurai's collection

http://sourcegaming.info/2017/01/07/sakurais-surprising-storage-skills-pt-1/

I try and go for cib but it's becoming more tempting to break that rule because of that expensive cardboard. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,594]

Gross

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

Loose CD games in gigantic DJ binders give me anxiety. 

[spacepup | 2,412]

It's certainly hard to complete a loose game later, that's for sure!

Generally speaking, I go for CIB or at least a case.  However, there are some exceptions.  I collect a lot of PS demo discs, and some of them are very hard to obtain so I got them disc only and I'm ok with that.  If I see another one complete, I'll grab and sell, but not a huge deal.

If you are someone who just enjoys playing the games and doesn't care about them from a collecting or "investment" standpoint, then there's nothing wrong with disc only.  There are some safe ways to store them (I like the hard slim cases myself) with easy access to play.

If the main motivation is for collecting, then yea, like others have said I'd encourage trying to get CIB if you can, but it's certainly understandable to get discs only, given high costs.  Good luck!

[phart010 | 1,708]

13 hours ago, Gloves said:

You're gonna find it really hard in general to find specific box/instructions only; I'd skip cart/disc-only, personally. Every time I find myself trying to "complete" a loose game, it ends up being cheaper/easier to just buy a CIB and sell the cart.

If I don’t end up finding the other stuff, I’d still be fine with it. More interested in having a legit game, the extras are more of a bonus. I usually wait until I can find stuff at a big discount, so waiting for that highly discounted CIB will likely not be as much of a deal as time goes due to price inflation.

 

12 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Discs are too easy to jack up when they're not in a case, and typically being second had I find the best odds for a minimal wear/clean working disc is one someone cared for, not one someone felt the thing was worth throwing out parts of it while tossing the rest on a shelf or in some scratchy case.

Yea I agree, often times loose discs are in worse condition than CIB discs. I always hold them up to the light to see if there are any scratches through the data layer. So far haven’t had any damage issues in the ones I have picked out.

 

16 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Loose CD games in gigantic DJ binders give me anxiety. 

I still keep them in Jewel cases, just no inserts or booklet.

[Gloves | 11,843]

9 minutes ago, phart010 said:

If I don’t end up finding the other stuff, I’d still be fine with it. More interested in having a legit game, the extras are more of a bonus. I usually wait until I can find stuff at a big discount, so waiting for that highly discounted CIB will likely not be as much of a deal as time goes due to price inflation.

I also tend to wait for a deal, but that's a double edged sword - I COULD have bought Kuon for like $200-300, but I was waiting for a deal. Now it's more than twice that on average.

[YOURTURN | 1,257]

Personally speaking, going CIB caused me to have a major anxiety attack in 2017. So if anything, I plan to go "cart only" when I have a reason to. But mostly for FC and SFC titles that I have chosen to not get new/unused. 

[inasuma | 1,206]

I’ve gone to sealed actually. Opposite direction lol