The extent of the price decrease or increase depends on where demand falls on that spectrum. In reality, the reason for a purchase falls somewhere in between. Since then, loose cartridge prices for Mega Man 5 have gone up nearly 150%.Īt the extremes, 100% of buyers could be purchasing to play the game or 100% could be buying to collect. It was released on June 2011 for Wii Virtual Console. Mega Man 5 for NES is a great example of this.

On the opposite end, a game that is being purchased buy collectors will not decrease in price even when it is readily available for download because people are willing to pay the premium for the physical cartridge. The download wouldn't come with the disc, or box, or anything physical to own but if you just want to play the game that doesn't matter. They could download the game for a fraction of the current market price.

It is evident that most people buying Marvel vs Capcom 2 were buying to play the game. Resale prices were cut in half within months and have never recovered. In 2009, Capcom released a download version of Marvel vs Capcom 2 on Xbox Live and PSN. Are they buying to play or buying to collect?

What happens to the price largely depends on who is buying the game and why they are buying it. Will the virtual version of Earthbound decrease resale prices? Resale prices for Earthbound have been increasing steadily for the last three years and sells for $200 in loose condition. This will be the first time Earthbound will be available outside of the Super Nintendo.Īs you can see in the chart below. At today's Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced Earthbound would be coming to the eShop.

Download earthbound pricecharting