Gamer Devastated After His Mother Threw Out Entire $500K Video Game Collection
If you're a real gaming giant, chances are you've got a cupboard or attic stacked with old games and consoles that someone's probably asking, "What are you doing with that?". Others take it further and have whole rooms dedicated to their video game obsession, with some of it being worth hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars. Unfortunately for one loyal collector, he's been left asking if 2020 can really get any worse when his mum threw out his entire collection. More than just earning a few pennies at the local car boot sale, it was worth a jaw-dropping $500K. Yep, half a million dollars!
These days, we might choke on our cereal at paying $70 for Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales or Demon's Souls, but according to PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, he thinks this is a fair price hike as we head into the next generation of consoles. We remember back in the day when your average Nintendo 64 cartridge would hit the $50 mark, with some of the rarer games now fetching a pretty penny on auction sites. Good luck getting your hands on a copy of Conker's Bad Fur Day in its box for less than $200.
In a now-deleted Twitter thread (via VG247), the gobsmacked gamer shared his reaction to finding out his mother had thrown out his collection of over 500 PS1 games - many still sealed. He told the Twitterverse, "People are gonna die. I just found out my mom a few years ago threw out ALL my PS1 games. 500+ games half still sealed. I am going to kill somebody." We feel for the poor guy as he told everyone he's lost "basically every system and game".
He'd apparently checked the collection two years ago and had it valued as having "well over $500K worth of games". If chucking is valuable games wasn't enough, his mum reportedly got rid of vintage consoles including the Famicom, Super Famicom, and Atari systems. The real kicker is the fact she also threw out the ultra-rare NeoGeo AES, and more. He'd amassed him impressive haul over the years and is currently an employee of New York's J&L Game, however, it now looks like he'll have to start from scratch.
Long before consoles and games were being produced en masse, the industry was a lot more selective about what it churned out. Even in recent years, you've seen the average N64 cartridge price go from peanuts to cost more than a current-gen title. There's a growing market for rare video games, with highlights including the SNES version of Harvest Moon, one of the 125 copies of Pepsi Invaders, or a boxed version of 1983's Super Mario fetching over $30,000.
Of course, it isn't just golden oldies that are hard to come by. Sony recently confirmed the PlayStation 5 is sold out everywhere, with the company's latest release flying off shelves like nobody's business. We always knew the PS5 was going to be a big seller, but with COVID-19 also causing manufacturing problems, Sony has struggled to keep up with demand. As for the poor collector who will presumably forever hold a grudge against his mum, perhaps it's time to start again. We're guessing she'll be getting him an extra big stash of games this year.
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