What the Next 30 Years Will Hold for 360, PS3 and Wii Owners

[ZeeAussie]

What the Next 30 Years Will Hold for 360, PS3 and Wii Owners

Interesting advice for collectors.

Polygon wrote:

We look to the past to predict what your games, systems and communities will be worth in the future.

A generation is a funny thing. It has no clear beginning and no clear end, but we can all tell when one is on the rise or when one is fading away.

And this generation of game consoles ? a golden age that has redefined interactive storytelling, catapulted gaming into the cultural mainstream and sold an unprecedented 250 million machines ? has begun the process of fading away.

But generations overlap. They blur together over the course of years, and it's a sure bet that the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii will remain viable and even profitable well into the near future.

Exactly what will this future look like? How long will new games still be published? How long will each system's online networks be supported? How long until these consoles and their games become valuable collector's items?

After extensive research into the life cycles of past console generations, we're prepared to make some educated guesses.

Click to continue article....

[HIPPEEDUDE]

Interesting reading. I do however see one slight flaw. The article was,to all appearances refering to games & not collectors editions as such. It also didnt touch on the facet that a fan of a particular series or genre of game will,in all probabilty want that more or less to some degree. Also,the price chart link thingy is for price listing of US games or collector editions,not ones from other regions or countries. The point is US has a higher population count than most places so in turn makes more to suit this population amount. Because of this there is generally more of something than there would in all likelyhood be somewhere else so its generally cheaper than elsewhere.

[Platfus]

So any advice for me? I've been pc gamer but just bought a ps3. ynow ps3 will get outdated and CEs probably too. Should I collect on pc or ps3 then?

[ingmar1988]

pc is going digital only. collectors are more on consoles.

[amb6883]

If you are collecting video games as a serious investment get a new financial advisor. Collect because you like it!

[Gemini-Phoenix]

The PS3 / X360 generation was unique in the sense that it created the Collector's Edition boom. Before this generation, we had only seen a few dozen such editions for long-serving franchises like Metal Gear or Final Fantasy. This generation just blew us all away with the constant deluge of LE's and CE's, which started off as a trickle (like a stream) and evolved into the behemoth it is today!

At the beginning of the PS3 / X360 generation, I was buying every LE and CE on both formats. They were few and far between, and there was very little else to spend my money on at the time. A SteelBook edition would cost no more than the regular release, and if it did, it would only be a fiver more and would include some bonus DLC. CE's would cost around £50-£70 depending on size, as it was generally accepted that collectors wouldn't pay more than that and most people couldn't afford to pay that kind of money. As time went on, CE's became more elaborate, and also more expensive! Nowadays it's not uncommon to see a CE costing £80-£130, with some huge editions (like Titanfall) costing almost as much as the console itself (£250)!

We have also seen the rise and fall of peripheral-based games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Tony Hawk, and we have also seen various forms of DLC boosting the prices of various CE's - sometimes in the form of exclusive in-game content, or more commonly now as a season pass. To collectors in the future, such items are worthless as they will have long since expired and may not be able to be redeemed. For used collectors, DLC codes may have already been redeemed, also devaluing the edition.


I personally believe that the only games which will be worth money in the future are those which are exclusive to that generation, and those from popular franchises. RPG's will remain at the top of the most sought after pile (unless re-released as HD versions on modern consoles), and also those obscure quirky Japanese titles no-one bought

If I had to predict a game / CE which will increase in value over the next decade, it would probably be Catherine, as that game attracted somewhat of a cult following, and the CE is one of the finest from that generation