Supply and demand -- as usual. If there are (enough) people willing to pay inflated prices for old stuff, the prices go up. "Collector's item" This is not limited to Pokémon or video games.Wanted to buy original Pokémon cartridges, but does anyone know why they are so expensive? I didn't find the right prices for them.
For the morally flexible (to choose a mild wording), a hacked 3DS should suffice to play anything from Red/Blue/Green/Yellow to Ultra Moon/Sun.Depending on the console you're willing to play, get a flashcard (for NDS games) and you won't need a Pokémon cartridge again. The same applies for GBA and GB/GBC games. For 3DS its even simpler as you only need to mod you console.
Really good point that I totally forgot myself, and you're so right. The deluge of fakes has done nothing to help the affordability of genuine carts.Supply and demand, but also that the market was inundated with fake cartridges so you have to be careful not to buy a pirated one. The latter is mainly why I don't buy GB/GBC/GBA games anymore and I got plans to move elsewhere, anyhow.
I wouldn't trust nothing from china unless they have extremely good recent feedbacks. I wouldnt be surprised if they dont claim duty fees to those and they wind up another few dozen bucks to get. As well as being horribly slow to get.Really good point that I totally forgot myself, and you're so right. The deluge of fakes has done nothing to help the affordability of genuine carts.
Honestly though I don't understand how anyone with two brain cells to rub together falls for it.
Hmm, I'm struggling to find Heart Gold for a reasonable price, but look! This seller from China has 50+ in stock at £14.95 each! Success!
Absolutely, definitely not the games themselves.I wouldn't trust nothing from china unless they have extremely good recent feedbacks. I wouldnt be surprised if they dont claim duty fees to those and they wind up another few dozen bucks to get. As well as being horribly slow to get.
Even if they don't they still join in, it's like buying a $1k phone (everyone does it, so why not me!).This may play a role too but a lot of people who played the games as kids now have disposable income to burn.
The definitive way I read is by opening the cartridge and verifying its board, but *hopefully* most old Nintendo handheld cartridges out there on eBay are genuine.Absolutely, definitely not the games themselves.
Although I will voice one exception which is Play-Asia. I bought a copy of Dragon Quest V for the DS from them around 3/4 years ago and it was the genuine thing, sealed in box. I know my carts and it's definitely no fake. No clue where the hell they got it from a decade after its release but I was impressed. That was a fine addition to the collection.
I was talking mainly about GB/GBC/GBA.I would not open DS games. They are ultrasonic welded and while you can glue them back together it looks ugly. If you are buying an infrared enabled game it's very easy to tell because the plastic looks much darker than regular games. If not you can still tell by the 2 squares in the Nintendo DS logo at the top. The fakes always get the bottom square wrong and it looks rather blurry compared with pixelated on genuine games.
My trick for identifying fakes is looking at the Game Boy Advance logo above the sticker. The genuine one looks rather even/flat and very high quality in general. The text looks smaller and pointier on fakes. With translucent cases you can also tell by the PCB which looks very different for fakes.when it comes to GBA it gets a bit harder to tell.