A decade ago, the world of classic games was a small community of game enthusiasts that would scour garage sales and flea markets ܫfor cherished childhood gems and then brag about their finds online. Now, classic gaming is big business as more and more people try to cash in on the nostalgia bug.
There’s no denying the power of nostalgia - even I come back to games decades old from time to time. But where most people can just download an emulator and relive their childhood for free, enthusiasts demand the real thing. That means original hardware, all meticulously maintained and cared for, and an old CRT screen TV to play it on. Manyꦬ have entire rooms of their homes devoted entirely to displaying and playing their collection. And sometimes those collections can be worth tens of thousands or more.
How can these old games and systems be worth so much? As with anything i𒅌n economics, it all comes down to supply and demand. The demand comes from the gamer generation coming of age, growing up and having kids of their own, and wanting to give their little tykes the same kind of gaming experience they had when they were young - or simply wanting to relive the golden age of gaming themselves. But these old games simply aren’t made anymore, and every year the supply of antique games gets more and more restricted as systems and cartridges age beyond repair, making those that remain ever more valuable.
If you’ve got a plastic tub of old games and systems lying in your attic, you could be sittinওg on a gold mine. Here we take a look at 15 classic games that are worth a fortune.
With thanks to for their pricing data.
15 🐬 ℱ Power Stone 2
Ahh, the Dreamcast. Truly a pioneer of game consoles, although sadly Sega’s last system to be made. We owe a lot to the Dreamcast: it was the first of the 6th generation consoles capable of displaying 640x480 graphics, it was the first system to have an internal modem allowing online gameplay, and it was the first and only system to feature a memory pack you could take🔴 away to play minigames on its tiny sဣcreen.
Power Stone was an instant classic from the Drꦦeamcast era and its successor, Power Stone 2, refined �💝�the 3D brawler archetype to a gleaming shine. Being built near the end of the Dreamcast’s lifespan meant that not many discs were produced, making it a rare and valuable find. Loose discs can be worth $60.00 to the right buyer, but for real value you have💛 to find it brand new and still in its shrink wrap, where itꦦ can be worth up to $300.00.
Estimated Value (New): $300.00
14 🍃 NCAA College Basketball 2K3 ♏
NCAA College Basketball 2K3 is a bit of an anomaly among classic game collectors. Sports games are a dime a dozen on consoles since every year they just make a new one, and besides that they’re just not very popular. What m🔴akes NCAA College Basketball 2K3 so special is that they made a very limited number of these games for Nintendo’s GameCube, so for collectors looking to flesh out their GameCube colle𒀰ction it can be worth a pretty penny.
You can find used and loose discs online for around 100 bucks, but if you have one new and still in shrink wrap y🔯ou can ask for upwards of $400.00 for it.
Estimated Value (New): $400.00
13 StarCraft 64 ꦕ 🌟
This is where classic games get weird. StarCraft for PC was a phen⛎omenon ꦑthat swept the world and to this day is still being played in Korean arcades. StarCraft 64 was a port to the Nintendo 64 and it is awful. A🔯s a real time strategy game built for PC, it was designed with having a mouse in hand to control all your various units. The N64 controller, while arguably one of the better controllers ever made, still wasn’t nearly as fast as a mouse when it came to selecting and commanding your army.
On top of that, PC video rendering had long since left the Nintendo 64 in the d༺ust, requiring the port’s video resolution to be scaled down, so it was hard to even see the battlefield. Every time the computer would engage you, it felt like an ambush since you simply couldn’t see much of the map. Playing against a human opponent on split-screen was like trying to play through a keyhole.
As a result of its awfulness, they didn’t make many, and, f🍸or this reason alone, cartridges still in the box command a premium with collectors.
Estimated Value (New): $550.00
12 Gun-Nac
On the surface, Gun-Nac lo🥂oks like any other top-down scroll shooter from the NES era, albeit with a bizarre bunny fixation. And you’d largely be right, but what⛄ makes Gun-Nac special is the gameplay itself. The animation of your ship really gives it a sense of speed, something that was often missing from other shooters at the time. As with most shooters, the screen could be filled with enemies, but your ship’s pow𝔉er-ups🔴 were more than capable of continually wiping out everything that came at you, giving you a real sense of power. People also look back fondly on a wacky game where carrots and toasters come to life and try to kill you.
When you combine this ♓with the fact that not too many cartridges were made, and collectors aren’t willing to give them up, it pushes the🧜 price of this game way beyond its initial sale cost.
Estimated Value (New): $1000.00
11 DuckTales Gold Cartridgꦇe
The original DuckTales ꧟was a much beloved NES action platformer featuring everyone’s favourite racist representation of capitalism, Scrooge McDuck. In 2013, Capcom announced the💛y were making DuckTales: Remastered, a remake of the original DuckTales but with 3D environments and updated, hand drawn characters. The release would be for all major console systems at the time and, in preparat🐟ion for Remastered, Capcom also made an ultra-limited run of 150 NES cartridge💟s of t💃he original DuckTales, but with a gold painted shell.
Despite the fact the NES had been out of production for 18 years, Capcom made all new circuit boaꦬrds and tested them to ensure they would work on decades old hardware. Then they refurbished 150 lightly used NE𝓡S cartridge shells, painted them gold, and sent them out to various PR firms around the world.
Although not part of the NES’ original production run, it’s hard to deny the appeal of the first new NES cartridge made in nearly 2𒐪0 years.
Estimated Value (New): $1,300.00
10 ☂ Chrono Trig𒅌ger
As perhaps thౠe greatest RPG oᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚf all time, it’s not hard to see why original Chrono Trigger cartridges are in high demand. And 🍌owing to its poꦑpularity, there were lots of them made. Trouble is, as one of the most popular games ever made, a sealed box with Chrono Trigger still insidꦏe is guaranteed to go up in value over time simply as a museum piece.
Of course when I say this, I’m referring specifically 🎃to the Super Nintendo cartridge. The only thing keeping Chrono Trigger’s price from getting utterly stratospheric is the fact there have been many v🎃ersions of the game made for other systems, including PlayStation, Nintendo DS, and even a version for your phone. If you’re looking to play it for the first time, I recommend the DS or phone versi♕ons as it has some extra end-game content that never made it into the PlayStation version.
If you want a sealed original box though, you’re going to pay out the 🙈nose.
Estimated Value (New): $1,500.00
9 ꦰ M.U.S.H.A.
Remember how I said Gun-Nac was a great shooter for the NES era? Well, M.U.S.H.A. is a great🎐 shooter from the Sega Genesis era. However, M.U.S.H.A. assumed you’d gotteꦜn your feet wet with shooters on the NES and didn’t pull any punch꧑es. This game is Hard with a capital H. It’s not quite Ikaruga levels of bullet hell, but it’s damn close.
M.U.S.H.A. came out shortly after the Genesis’ release and it pushed the system to its limitsꦡ. The screen would be filled with bullets and baddies, terrain would be coming at you at speeds thus far unseen on consoles, and all the while pl🌳aying some pretty nice 16-bit tunes too.
But in this case, there were more cartridges released in Japan than in North America, so finding an English version means you’ve fou꧂nd classic game gold.
Estimated Value (New): $1,580.00
8 💙 Outba﷽ck Joey
You may be asking yourself, “What the deuce is Outback Joey?” Well, it’s a very rare game for the Sega Genesis. It was pack👍aged with an equally rare version of the console called the Heartbeat Personal Trainer, which was a very early attempt to get people to exercise while also playing video games. The system came with a bunch of sensors that you would strap to your body and your littꦫle Joey character would move based on your heart rate. The idea here was to play the game while also running on a treadmill or something.
If that sounds as stupid to you as it did to me, then we can both pat ourselves on the back! The system was a complete failure and they oꦿnly made 1,000 units. Such a limited run means the game is super rare and a prized find for collectors.
Estimated Value (New): $2,025.00
7 🎐 Donkey Kong Country Competition Edition
Back in the 90s, competitive gaming wasn’t really a thing just yet, but there were attempts. In what would be a precursor to modern speedrunning, Nintendo held PowerFest ‘94, a competition held outside local department stoꦦres whereby the players would play specialized versions of SNES games with the intent of getting as far through the game as possible in 5 minutes. One of those games happened to be a much beloved SNES classic, Donkey Kong Country.
After PowerFest, these cartridges would be sent to Blockbuster where they would be used for their World Video Game Championships II and then sent to Nintendo Power where they were sold in 🅘their subscriber’s catalog. With only 2,500 cartridges ever made, seeing one of these on the open market will usually come with a very high price tag.
Estimated Value (New): $2,800.00
6 🐻 ClayFighter: Sculptor’s Cut
ClayFighter w𓆏as a fighting series first done on SNES that pꦿoked fun at the very popular fighters of the time, such as Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. Instead of blood and guts or flashy fireballs, you had these animated clay figures that’d beat the snot out of each other, something that mom and dad could be marginally h⛄appier about.
A success on the SNES, ClayFighter 63⅓ was the N64 sequel which poked fun not only at🐼 fighters, b𒐪ut other titles of the time for all having “64” at the end of their names. An updated version was later released called ClayFighter: Sculptor’s Cut, featuring added characters, updated s๊tory lines, and tweaks to the game’s combat. For some reason, instead of being released for wider retail, it was only available to rent from Blockbuster, and when that error in judgement didn’t pan out (one error among many), the company went bankrupt and the game was 🏅finally released upon the world.
There were only 20,000 copies made, and given the poor 🧔treatment rental games received, that number has vastly decreased. S🃏ealed copies of ClayFighter: Sculptor’s Cut are extremely rare and extremely valuable.
Estimated Value (New): $3,000.00