jonebone

You'd rather be too early than too late... but I do agree that seems a bit much yet. I'm a numbers guy, and people are saying this is more lethal than the flu and higher infection rate. But compared to a baseline of what? Of Americans who haphazardly care for their own hygiene and commonly hang out in mass crowds. I wasnt a huge handwasher before and now I'm washing at least 30 times a day, I assume most are overdoing it too. Personal hygiene is at an all time high and this social distancing is a big deal. So dont get me wrong, I expect hundreds of thousands or even over a million to get this in America but final death count may be slightly higher than a typical flu season. Economy is going to be wrecked a while though and bailouts will be coming.

Tough to say. I would think recession is imminent but out Government doesn't let them happen. I.e. theyll pass trillions in stimulus, bail out the travel industry, etc. I do think we are just getting started on feeling the pain and itll get much worse before it gets better. But I also think out Govt will do everything they can to mitigate the impacts. Whether or not they should is another debate though.

I can't take you seriously if you think GME is a known death event and then think Cruise liners are a great buy right now. Let me put it another way, some of these Cruise liners will go bankrupt if there are not Govt bailouts handed to them in the future like automakers in the great recession. You can make money on anything if you are extremely savvy with technicals and playing bounces (99.9% of us are not), but I would not be going long in the Cruise industry. Consumer preferences are going to change forever going forward. Google the average age of a Cruise Ship passenger, it says 46.7 years old. And who's the most scared of this virus at the moment? Older people. Those people won't be thinking about cruises for years, if ever again period. Consumer preferences are going to be changed forever on cruise lines.

I said the high level meetings being classified says a lot about the situation. I think he has it too but I think there is a lot more we dont know as well.

The cruise industry is going to bleed heavily and dividends will be abandoned entirely. They have a long way to go to bottoming out. Also remember that even the best analyst in the world cannot predict or quantify hype / panic. They'll revise revenue numbers downward and actuals are going to be way worse than they project. I would look more at stuff like Walmart, Target, Grocery stores, etc. Those are needs, not wants. People are emptying their shelves already and online buying will take off even more if we're quarantined. Stuff like the travel industry / cruises / amusement parks will rebound eventually but will also see much worse days ahead before we even think about turning a corner.

The 22k mark on the DOW needs to hold or its look put below status.

Also one of the things that scares me a bit is that the White House elevated top level discussions on Coronoavirus to classified. One that eliminates a lot of people who need to know from attending and two it implies that we know something about it that we don't want to get out. Whether it is orgins, fatality rates, how woefully underprepared the country is, etc.

We're just getting started. Sentiment around the office / family / colleagues is that most people are tired of hearing about it. To which I respond them we are absolutely no where near the peak. Life will change for quite awhile and the economy will take a massive hit. Note: I'm not worried about my life or anyone else except the elderly. But panic is unquantifiable and uncontrollable. The panic that ensues is what will cause the massive disruptions. Tried to warn people about this early...

Congrats always loved the N64 variants, gave your IG a follow. What else is on your list that you need?

Old Gamestop yes, but have you seen the new Gamestop beta stores? I posted them in the other thread. They look more like an Apple store than a Gamestop. The new Gamestop has: 1) Exited out of the Smartphone business for cash ($700Mish sale) 2) Changed CEOs 3) Bought back $300M (ish?) in stock, doubling down. 4) Rolled out beta stores 5) Updated their website (you said you hated this one IIRC) 6) Changed over their board of directors with a former Nintendo President and Wal-Mart President I get a lot of people hate Gamestop but the decisions they are making are a complete 180 from the Gamestop you know. They are doing things differently. If they fail it won't be from a lack of trying, that much I am sure. They won't just sit there and erode cash while selling PS3 games for eternity.

The gamestop model as you know it may be toast by then but the company will look different and still be around or purchased prior to that. Netflix used to be a DVD by mail company...

They also got a former Wal-mart CEO and a Petsmart CEO (not as exciting about that one). Gamestop is going all in with their new initiatives and I can't wait to see how this plays out in 5 years.

I think everyone is watching those, same thing with parks like SIX (flags) too. They all seem too attractive but don't want to catch the falling knife. We're no where near peak coronavirus panic nor ripple effects of oil price wars. Things are long overdue to get bad.

Most brokerages are have no fees to trade anymore, it's amazing how competitive the stock market traders are. I use Fidelity personally. I've had a ton of money in cash for perhaps too long, but have been waiting for buying opportunities. I think you'll see some decent ones this year. Other advice is to max out your Roth IRA at $6k a year in a nice diversified mutual funds before considering to put any play money into the market though. In terms of GME, I did exit out of some shares to maximize my tax writeoff last year when it touched $6.50 again and still will hold a bunch. Haven't added to the position in over a year but would probably buy some aggressive call contracts if it ever touches $3.00 again.

@K.Thrower Agree you don't list prints on the game and you don't want to be in that business. But, this issue that @Startyde mentions is as significant as Majesco on SNES, which is basically equivalent to Player's Choice in terms of being undesirable and commanding values that are only a fraction of what a true 1st print Made-in-Japan would command. And that is something that you guys do note on the front of the case. Made in Japan is noted on front. And Majesco is noted on the front: In the case of PS2, the holosticker not being present is just as significant. @Startyde would know more about price variation between the two, but I would expect at least 5-10x price variation if someone really knew what they were buying on this title. A price going up 500-1000% is probably worth a minor text callout somewhere.

With all due respect, how many graded games do you own exactly? How many have you submitted yourself? I see you occasionally talking about them but get the impression you don't own many if at all. The reason why I'm asking is that you are speaking from a theoretical perspective, not a practical perspective. Sure, in theory grading could be automated just like driving could be fully automated by self-driving cars. The problem lies in that you are looking like this as a math problem when really it is like grading an English essay. Can you have a machine grade an English essay or do you think that it is important to have a professor read it and render his subjective opinion? Machine would catch easy stuff like punctuation and grammar but would not accurately assess the body of work. Same thing here. It's easy to make a rubric based on number of tears, length of a crack / crease, length of a scuff, etc. But then you get to more subjective wear, yellowing, humidity damage, sticker residue or remnants, warping, manufacturing damage vs. shelfwear, surface abrasions, etc. Then, even if you find a way to program every single possible type of wear (which you won't know until you see a new game that has a specific issue you've never seen before, which will happen) you have to somehow prioritize the wear patterns (likely with a human). Is yellowing worse than a tear? What about two tears? Is a tear worse than a crease? Is a price sticker even a flaw? What about a loose disc on PS1, is that a flaw? Etc. And then the grader's job is to subjectively assess the total game based on pointing out all of the visible discrete flaws. That's where you have the human grading the essay because they look at the entire piece as a body of work. So ultimately, sure, maybe you can use automation to assess the severity of certain flaws, but you still need a human rendering an opinion to grade the game. Either in programming the AI to rank the flaws or assessing the game at the end. The human is a non removable part of the equation. And lastly we are also dealing with discrete intervals, not a continuous range. You aren't getting a grade of 9.083415 based on a computer output. For example, you'd have an 8.5 which maybe captures 82.5 through 87.5 while higher would go to 9.0 and lower goes to 8.0. And those borderline 87.5 games are the entire point of this discussion. Do they bump up or bump down and it depends on the both the ranking and the severity of those flaws. TLDR: No, you can't automate grading.

1) I defend VGA too, I own a lot of their games and have graded many myself. My rule of thumb with both grading services is that I agree with about 80% of the grades and find roughly 10% overgraded or 10% undergraded. You don't have to agree with every single grade you see to believe in a company. 2) Also, you are forgetting the HUGE 1" (at least?) deep scratch in the back plastic. Let's be realistic here on PS1. If you want a gold you have to find a game with no cracks or drill holes and then it all comes down to wrap condition. You can get by with some extremely light scuffing if it is light and maybe a tiny tear / corner poke or perhaps two. This game has multiple tears and that scratch is not a scuff, that is damage like something was raked across the wrap (fingernail?). As opposed to minor light scuffing that you don't notice unless tilting in various angles under the light. So if "sticker placement" is perfect and even if the rest of the game surface looks like absolute pristine glass (as a Mint game would appear), still no way it is better than 85 for me personally. Just because I do not agree with their grade does not mean I am bashing them, it means I consider myself to have an informed opinion and I find that my opinion disagrees with the opinion they have rendered here. And as a caveat, I do agree that you can only accurately assess a game by holding it in hand. So your point 3 does have merit and I do tend to defer to the opinion of an expert who has held the game in hand. However, even if the rest of the game is absolutely perfect I see too many flaws to consider this a Gold 85+ game personally.

Well, China definitely was burning bodies and the "hospital" they constructed so quickly was more like a prison with extremely tiny cell windows. If you went in there you were locked away for at least 2 or 3 weeks and they have photo proof of those cell conditions on the net. I'm sure China numbers were worse than reported and most people seem to understand that at least. The rest of the story sounds embellished though.

I remember I bought 2 sealed Slot Car Thunders for $10 a piece like 8 years ago thinking it was a sleeper rarity and I would sell when the price exploded. I finally sold one about 3 years ago for maybe $25 or $30 thinking that would never happen. Finally did sell that second one for about $175 in the past month though. I was way too early to the boom apparently. My interest in Gamecube came and left a long time ago, good luck to those fighting for them.

Agreed, SE Sealed multiple has always been about 1.5x IMO. You'll get some variation depending on condition but that's the rough rule of thumb I've pegged it at. Every time I think they'll start to split and then it continues to stay in that range.

Sicknesses in general spread like wildfire in schools, it stucks. My 5 year old just missed an entire week of school with Flu A. She was the "last kid at her table" to finally catch it and that's the way it goes. So yeah, I would keep your kid home too. Also, corona is definitely going to run it's course across the nation now if people haven't realized yet. I'm hoping that it is seasonal like Flu and it goes dormant as the summer comes up (but possibly recurring in the colder months again). Just hoping time is on our side because our country is woefully underprepared for a full fledged outbreak. And our stock market is going to take a hell of a beating this year with the worst to come.

WWF Warzone too if I recall correctly. Akklaim style, I agree.

Of course it's simple until you get to borderline games, and a lot of games wind up being borderline. There's a "firm" 85+ where it's clearly better than 85 but yet has a flaw holding it back from 90. That's an easy one. Same with a "firm" 85 or a "firm" at any grade level. Then you get to a borderline game. It's better than most of the 85s you see, but not quite as good as most 85+ that you see. Where do you put it? It's kind of like scoring a boxing fight. You got 3 scorers and maybe 1 guy favors one fighter, the other guy favors the 2nd fighter and the 3rd guy calls it a draw. Well maybe 2 of 3 graders call it 85 and one calls it 85+. It comes back as a nice 85 as opposed to a weak 85+. And that is what happens with a subjective system. No matter how you boil it down grading is not automated process that machines will run. There is so much subjectivity about certain damages.

But what would you expect? Of course they're going to double down on the grade. They're going to stand behind their graders, as they should, even though the "market" (guys like us) are going to speak up and question it since it looks more like an 85. If they just nonchalantly say "Ah yeah, we screwed up, should be lower / higher / etc." every time they get an email, then you'd lose faith in the entire system. Ultimately, remember that grading is subjective and you are paying for an "expert opinion" and nothing more. The grade on the case is just an opinion, albeit an "expert" one. We agree it looks overgraded from what we can see but I would expect any grading company to defend their grades. That's the whole point of the system in place.

Still way more than I expected. I thought $50k-$100k range prior to going live. $360k with BP has to be the highest video game sale on record still. How much more could one expect?