Australian retailer EB Games announced last week that it would be expanding its trade-in service to include retro games and consoles. It sounds like a good concept on paper (we retro game fans relish the idea of seeing more classics out in the wild), but in practice, the prices offered by the retailer are rough (thanks for the heads up, Press Start).
According to the EB Games website, the new retro service offers the company's "trade value guarantee", meaning you'll get "top coins" for anything you choose to trade from NES to Wii U. Hmm.
If it all sounds a little vague, it's with good reason. Retro game collector Justin (@livingaretrogaminglife) decided to put the new trade-in service to the test, taking a handful of games from his collection along to a local store to see how much "top coin" would be offered for each. Spoiler: it ain't that much.
Justin's trade-in sample included big hitters like Donkey Kong Country 2 and Banjo-Tooie, but each game came back with a far cheaper cash offer than you'd hope. DKC 2 received a $10 AUD (~£5 / $6 USD) offer, The Minish Cap landed $16 AUD (~£8 / $10 USD), Yoshi's Island and Banjo got $21 AUD (~£10 / $13 USD), while the likes of Pokémon Black 2 had $20 AUD (~£9 / $12 USD). What's more, they're all in-box and appear to be in very good nick.
Obviously, retro trade-in is a whole different beast to modern games and has to take things into account like condition, how complete it is and whether the cart is legit in the first place. But, challenges aside, those prices are pretty bleak.
As a point of comparison, while it might not always offer the best exchange rate, a retailer like CEX offers £29 cash for a complete-in-box DKC 2, £49 for The Minish Cap and £71 for Banjo-Tooie. eBay sales can often go even higher. Things can't always be a one-to-one translation, it's true, but you don't need to read too deeply to see that EB Games' offers are a little off what you might expect.
The same practices seem to apply to consoles, too. Push Start reported that the retailer will offer $70 AUD for a Wii U with GamePad and sensor, $80 AUD for an N64 with cables and controllers, and $82.50 AUD for a PS2 Slim — all of which, unsurprisingly, falls short of what you'd find elsewhere.
Naturally, Justin from livingaretrogaminglife didn't cough up his precious collection for such a low sum and returned home with all of the above games safe and sound. Phew.
Hey, perhaps this is something of a learning curve for EB Games and the retailer will start to offer fairer prices as it gets to grips with the retro market. Somehow, we doubt it.