We have a local "mom and pop" owned video game store in our town, it does have new games, but largely it's a "Retro" store. They have old consoles for sale, everything from Atari to PS4. Even some old handhelds for sale (Sega Game Gear, etc). And just rows and rows of old video games. I can't afford much, but it's a great place to go hang out.
There's a mom and pop styles store where I live but they don't have anything new. Ever since the owner sold it their trade-in value has gone way down so you may as well just trade it to GameStop or stop being lazy and actually put your things on eBay which you'll make way more money off of.
We have a local "mom and pop" owned video game store in our town, it does have new games, but largely it's a "Retro" store. They have old consoles for sale, everything from Atari to PS4. Even some old handhelds for sale (Sega Game Gear, etc). And just rows and rows of old video games. I can't afford much, but it's a great place to hang out.
@@bland9876Everyone trading in to Game$top / €B games is what killed every retro store in the early 2000s. They only accepted retro games until the independent store in the region went bankrupt, then they would stop selling or accepting older trades in that area. Kept happening to each small store and each gamestop until all the small stores were gone.
It's almost comical that GameStop is actively spending time and money to convert some stores to exactly what they were a decade ago. Had they just left it alone, they would currently be filled with used 360, 3ds, PS3 and Wii games naturally. Great business model; spend money to update and change, spend money to reverse and change back.
Well it was different people in control. If I recall correct the last big change in leadership, it was expected that things were to change due to how outlook was going. It didn't really work as well as it might've been expected to is all.
That’s what I was thinking, like isn’t that just GameStop from like 5 years ago? I was so mad when they removed 360/ps3/wii/3ds but I guess there back now
The one I used to work at ages ago had a pretty extensive library, but when they took it all off the shelves they basically hid all that stuff in the ceiling panels. You weren’t allowed to sell them, but they were still cataloged so employees could rent them out. With all the more competent retro stores that exist, I’m assuming they’re just pulling these games out of their old storage.
You know, as much as I dislike GameStop and their business practices, I’m happy to see them trend in this direction. I still appreciate being able to walk into a brick & mortar store and pick up games in person.
Hi- GS Manager here! Allow me to help explain. GS employees have been asking to do retro for literal years. Roughly about a year ago they finally began to test it out with very select games. It happened to be successful so now they are starting to amp up and go more in on what they carry and sell for retro. Every GS usually has PS3, Wii, and XB360, but you can sell older stuff to any store. Often though everything beyond those 3 get sent to the retro locations to bolster the inventory for them. Eventually (hopefully) as the inventory builds up the company I believe every store will get a retro section. It is unfortunate that we don’t have a lot of original cases, but that’s because they’re older and not everyone takes good care of the cases so they need to be swapped out or have our generic art printed. But as a whole I think it’s going well so far. Just the other day I took in a Wii and it sold literally the next day.
If only gs would invest in making cases and be more artsy than a soulless entity that only exists because investors wanted wall street to know they're not special
The pricing can be so strange. Wii Sports is a great example of a game that was on GameStop’s website for $10 at one point, then it just jumped one day to either $26 or $28, now the site has it at $31+, and you can get this game from eBay for $20 or flea markets for like $10. Does GameStop ever actually lower the price back down on a game that fits this scenario? Wii Sports isn’t the only one, it’s just an example, but there are a lot of games this happened to and I know I personally wouldn’t pay $31+ for a $20 game. Times are tough!
Absolutely hilarious, this is exactly what I told head office to do in 2011 when I worked for them. They told me their was no money in old games. Well now, times have changed.
It's essentially a small glimpse into what GameStop USED to be, before the store was 85% funko Pop. Back then, you had little sections dedicated to past gen systems. You have the current gen at the time, and smaller sections for older gens. At the very least I recall in the 7th gen era, you had tons of 6th gen stuff and very small bits of 5th gen stuff, at least in my GameStops. Pretty much now, there's a small section with a mixed grab back of older gens.
Keeping the manuals and games behind the counter is a smart move. It’s pretty similar to how retro shops in Japan operate, you only can look at the case/box on the shelf.
They should either have the carts in a lockable display cabinet or print out photos of them & put them in dvd cases. It's what Gametraders in Australia does.
A display case would be nice...but some gamestops are small af wouldnt be able to fit anywhere. GS would need to spend massive amounts of money for those display cases to remodel the store better ....and as u may or may not know....corpos in "merica want to SAVE money...to make money...not spend. Sad but true. But i totally agree with your statement
@@scottybones the one nearest to me has a small case that kinda never went away. It was originally DS/3DS, not it still holds a few of those but also select Wii and Wii U, and they recently re-organized their PS4/5 section to hold some PS3, like that second Gamestop Spawnwave went to. Though according to the locator there neither of the Gamestop's in my city are officially participating in this program. =
how they're handling it at other stores doesn't make much sense to me, because my store reused their DS/3DS cabinet to put older titles in. I'd seen Pikmin and Twilight Princess a couple months back in that case. There's nothing for them to figure out
Imo i feel like it would be best if they print out a small empty box with the game cover art and stuff, to put on the shelf, around the size of disc case but can fit the cart so when you buy it the employee will throw the cart in there with the manual and give it to you. Hell they should be able a print out a full recreation of the original packaging for an extra fee, and offer it for people who already have a loose copy but wants the box.
I went to one near me, and I was actually surprised, it was nice inside, the clerk did say they were still arranging stuff around and bringing more stuff in and still are in talks with the aesthetic of the store
For some reason, almost all of the GameStop's I've been to kept the 7th Gen games as holdouts from when those systems were relevant and not recently with their "retro" program, so those games have been there for quite a while.
_Former GameStop assistant manager here!_ I'd like to throw in some nuggets from my personal experience. This retro initiative is LONG overdue and was something that they were testing for the last couple of years. Allegedly, even some locations were going to be getting remodels to accommodate for this new push retro push. However, what they're defining as "retro" isn't *entirely* new. Even into the current generation of consoles, pretty much every location will have an assortment of PS3, Xbox 360, Wii/Wii U, and DS/3DS. You can still bring those in for trades and get some good value for them (Wii games ESPECIALLY would trade in pretty well) The problem with this current push is that GameStop hasn't been super kind to the older generations of games until recently. For example: why isn't there a display case for the cartridge games? I can bet that those stores were probably previously told by corporate to get rid of the cases that WOULD have been used: the DS/3DS cartridge case. It was a dual level wood and glass case, which didn't take up that much floor space, that locked to prevent customers from opening it, which would be a PERFECT solution to displaying cartridges. I can bet that this is the case because that's exactly what happened to MY store. We were told that we weren't to focus on selling DS/3DS and to get rid of our cartridge case. I would not be surprised that some locations who still have their cases will be using those to display any of their new cartridges that they are getting. This was the same thing that happened with our spare cases and cover arts for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii/Wii U, and DS/3DS games. At the time, GameStop really was only focused on the current generation of games and was trying their best to get rid of anything considered "retro." I hope these smaller issues/flaws are just baby steps. I remember when they announced their push into NFT trading cards in-store and didn't communicate that beforehand, so I can only imagine how the current employees feel when corporate springs this new retro wave onto them. I do think that this is a fantastic step, and it's one that I was advocating for in my 4+ years working at my store. My biggest concern will be how they plan on accepting trades for anything retro. Associates will have to essentially go through a new training process, if they do plan on taking them in-store, or else they will just treat any retro trade-in like they do with cell phones and tablets and just immediately ship them out to warehouse for refurbishment once the trade is done. Regardless, I do expect corporate to mess this up somehow, but only time will tell.
I was just in a GameStop roughly a month ago and they had one of those display cases you're talking about with a handful of different cartridges in it. I thought it was pretty cool and definitely gave it a once-over! I assumed it was something all GS's had, but from what you're saying it sounds like that's not the case...but it definitely should be.
@bodacious117 why would I want to stick it to gamestop. Their used game return policy has given me so many games to play for free essentially. And when I traded in my ps2 and games I got the ps3 gta4 and 40 dollars back. Not to mention $5 beta codes for call of duty and then they just give me my money back after. People love to complain that they can't make money off a buisness that has to make money for themselves.
@@bodacious117unfortunately Goodwill scans their games and movies ( at least in New England) and send any rare or valuable ones to their online store. This is why you almost never find any good used games in their brick and mortars…
I think it's a bit weird because while I understand "retro" being thought of as just older games and consoles, I always in my head ascribed it as more a technological era specifically. Like, while games are higher fidelity now and consoles have more RAM gaming hasn't massively changed since the PS3/Xbox 360 days, at least in comparison to things like the SNES or Dreamcast or the PS1. It's literally just classified as retro in people's heads because it's not new.
@@AedraRising Retro doesn't mean a specific time frame or generation, it just means old. Anything 15+ years old, or from two generations back is technically retro.
I work at my local GameStop and while we’re not classified as a “Retro Store”, we do carry about the equivalent, if not more retro games that are in this video. As far as displaying cartridges goes, we display ours on the bottom shelf of the Nintendo Switch Case. As you said in the video, we are supposed to ship off our Retro consoles and games, especially cartridges, to the warehouse in order to be distributed to retro stores, but normally if it’s a popular game that we think will sell quickly, we just put it in our store. Almost all of the prices are right at or a little below market value so as a collector, a huge perk of working there is employees get first pick at anything that gets traded in.
@@jacobd3005 you know they should change the rules on that, if the game is popular and your store gets it employees shouldn’t get “first dibs” it should sit on the shelves for atleast a week if nobody buys it after a week then you get first dibs.
@@drexzero3286 It doesn’t happen anywhere near as much as you think it does. Personally, I’ve bought one game before it went on the floor and it was Mortal Kombat for the SNES, so nothing of high value. 99% of what we get in goes on the floor.
Funcoland was amazing. It was how I got an original NES. I still have a bunch of "Funcoland" NES cargtridge sleeves. I really miss that store. It was like the best retro store that ever existed.
A crappy one, yeah. But good pawn shops have a better and bigger selection than this, including games that are ACTUALLY retro, which most of what was shown here really isn’t.
Probably just rolling it out in the states first and if it does well, it will probably expand to Canadian stores. I am looking forward to when they do this.
Exactly! It was their company policy to destroy a lot of this stuff if they couldn't sell it. Not to mention their policy of throwing away cases for DS games because they didn't want them from trade ins
@@EllieNotSoSmelly That like back in the Wii U days I wanted to trade some Wii U games I had to towards a new game I wanted to buy that just came out and they said that I couldn't trade those games as it was considered "old" and I told them that the games I'm trading aren't a year old and was released the previous year they told me "if a game is not from this year of release then it consider to old to trade". What a load of BS
I can't count the amount of times ive seen the Metroid Prime First Hunt demo heing sold as the full release of Hunters. if they can't train employees to read a label, they won't get them to spot bootlegs
Major valid point. I'm sure there's already little tiny dk'd asshats RUNNING to gamestop with all the bootleg bologna and repros bought from Japan of many Pokemon handheld carts. I saw a few EVEN LABELED as repros at a mom and pop store, still trying to charge over $50 for a cart they got online from Japan for $5. hoRRId
They should have made this business move a decade ago when it was obvious that digital distribution was going to be mainstream. They also, need to focus on offering video game accessories like headsets and controllers for current and past consoles, maybe even remade vintage components. They could even take a page from analogue and sell GameStop retro branded vintage consoles.
@@animalhouse8849 wait wait hold up a big freaking minute. if they failed badly before, why pivot again? Do they WANT to pop the used games market bubble???
I just visited at Gamestop Retro store near me here in Baltimore, MD... your photo of the size of the retro section was 100% accurate. Im kinda excited to see them get more stuff in!!!
What's interesting is that about 7-8 years ago, most gamestops were cleared out or clearing out their "retro" game selection. I had to travel to 3 different GS in order to find one with "retro" games. Eventually I found one and I remember getting Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Tasunoko VS Capcom for about $15 each, but they were trying to get rid of their game selection quick... the employee told me that most of the unsold games were going into liquidation, and some were to be destroyed.
Around December of last year I went to GameStop and found some of the "newer" yo-kai watch games for what I think was a decent price (especially from what I had seen online). 3 was around 60, one copy of blasters was around 40 and the other was 50 and psychic specters was also around 50. I really splurged that day😅
I have a feeling they had warehouses full of retro overstock from when they initially pulled them all from their shelves just sitting there. Things went more digital, pandemic happened, and now retro is hot - makes sense to break open old stock. Also a lot of regular folks who might have old games are not going to go through the trouble of eBay when they can just drop off at a local Game Stop, like Goodwill style but you get few bucks back no hassle.
A good idea for carts would be if they cant have them in a display case, they can have a binder with print outs of the games covers or even a digital display (ipad or tablet?) that has a list of all the games and then they could even show some gameplay or even the original trailer of the game if you click on it Now because its gamestop we know this will never happen
An interactive in-store inventory kiosk inside the store would be a step in the right direction. Switch to printable cardboard panels, that are tied to a database of box art the store employees can access and print out, as a representation of actual in-store inventory. Or use acrylic locking hard cases, like walmart does.
I remeber back in the early 2000's they just had all the cargrages in a bin that you had to search thru and they were like 3-5 maybe 10 dollars. How times have changed
As a former GameStop employee, I must tell you to inspect any and all retro items yourself. They're not trained effectively for quality control, and many of them don't know how to spot counterfeits. When GS went to selling retro stuff online, my store had a huge problem with inventory because I kept finding cartridges that were clearly counterfeits and consoles and controllers were in lousy shape. Also, if I remember correctly, they didn't "purge" the PS2 library until late PS3/early PS4, so it's not unusual to still see PS3/XB360/Wii (U) titles on shelves. Now that they have retro games in store, you'll likely start seeing display cases on shelves, depending on the size of the store.
Sad that we live in a society where your first worry is , someone might steal this . Also sad people growing up today believe it's normal when it's not normal at all .
My GameStop has started doing that. I saw titles like Super Mario World, Mega Man X, Diddy Kong Racing, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, and Sonic Spinball at the counter.
Mid 2023 they added in most retro stuff for trade/sale after the few years that they were stupidly removed. They all used to have a "retro drawer" but this year the stores near me started to put each brand older games on the bottom shelves of each section. There's actually a "retro300" for the Northeast region , 300 stores that have a huge *expansion of older stuff, like an entire wall! Haven't gotten to one in person yet but the local staff were really nice with info
I don't care what anyone else says, companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft will keep making physical games because of the collectors that are around the world and want to continue their collections
I was able to pick up both a 1st party NES and Gamecube controller from my store, they had only a handful of carts that were sharing a case with the DS and 3DS games. Prices were actually really respectable. Big fan of this change.
I tried to trade in an SNES console to a local retro game store and they wouldn't take it because it had damage. On August 18 I was trading in my XBOX One to Gamestop and noticed they said "Accepting Retro Games" on their door, and when I said I had a damaged SNES, they said they'd take it so long as it turned on. I ended up trading in games for Gameboy, DS, XBOX, 360, along with a Gameboy Color, GBA, and that SNES. They also had an extra percent for trade-ins that week AND I would get another additional percent back if I pre-ordered a game, even if it was just putting down $5. With everything I brought in, I ended up with Echos of Wisdom paid off for $60, $5 down on Brothership, and a $400 gift card. It's just nice because the Gamestop is SO close to me, and more likely to have games I'll buy with that gift card I get. Unlike another retro game store where their closer location went out of business so I've had a gift card with cash on it for years that I haven't used. Also all this brought me back to Gamestop after about two years of only buying games at Best Buy - I used to go Gamestop all the time a few years ago when I could trade in games, but I got to the point where I only had "Retro" games left to trade in and Gamestop wouldn't accept them.
I've actually been trekking into a few GameStops in my area for about a year simply to see what surprising 360, Wii, or DS games show up. A couple months ago before the story broke, I saw a couple OG Xbox games and was taken aback, because I didn't think I'd ever see them in a GameStop again.
My local GameStop isn’t the retro store in the area. But a few weeks back I went in and found some cheap Wii U games and prince of Persia collection for ps3 for pretty cheap. At least compared to the actual retro game store in my area.
When I was at a GameStop the other week I noticed they had some retro games on the store shelves. Usually, I'd have to ask to see if they had any in stock, and if they did they'd just be in a drawer somewhere. I was surprised to see them back out on the shelf, but now it makes sense. We actually have a number of used games stores around my area though, including a local "chain" that seems to get a lot of good games that aren't just the standard fare, so I think it might be hard for GameStop to compete where I live, at least until they really get going on this initiative (assuming they stick with it).
man I got SUPER lucky my local game stop the other day. some lady had traded in like 30 games from PS1,2, 3 and 360 games. I came in like 40 minutes after she had traded them and I was able to pick through them and grabbed what I wanted. I mean I wanted them all but couldn't justify spending around $800 for them all. so I spent about 200 for about 10-12 games. sad thing is I ask that the lady got for cash trade-in was only about $200. and every game was clean, well taken care for and was pretty much complete. so feel pretty lucky.
It's good to see these kind of games back in stores, even if a lot of them aren't particularly great games and in kinda rough shape... that's honestly what you see for most PS3 and 360 era stuff even on ebay too. But it's better than specialty stores who just deal in high dollar, high demand items at a modern reseller collector margin.
What if GameStop goes all in on Retro and starts doing gaming and maybe movie rental. I think there’s a lot of people that would start going there more often.
@@marcogalariz8434 I don’t believe physical media is entirely gone. Yes there’s not as many people getting physical movies but there’s still plenty of people getting physical games.
Most of the cartridge games I find at GameStop are fake. All the popular cartridge games like Pokemon that I see are fake and the person working the store had zero idea it was a fake.
Depends on the store. Mine are trained by the manager to spot the fakes and reproductions so they dint sell them for authentic cartridge price. I think its a good idea honestly. Save them the hassle of someone mad they paid more for a fake
I checked the locator and there is two kinda nearby to me as I live in the middle of nowhere. One is my store and one I visit from time to time. I would have never known they were considered the retro store because there is no section like yours. The switch section had a couple wii games like how you showed your none retro store had, so maybe it's still too new. I do hope that they fill out more as time goes by. I used to go to gamestop every weekend and spend so much time going through their selection.
I can say with knowledge. Anytime you trade "retro" games @ Gstop. The games are then shipped to these "retro stores". So that means Gamestop does NOT have a HUGE inventory of these "retro" games. It's so said to see. If Gamestop had kept these games, instead of "Field Destroy" them. Now Gamestop wants retro games back. Plus now the 3rd party Retro shops are going to have an even harder time trying to compete with Gamestop.
Kinda cool with this concept developing to keep physical stores open and hopefully allow overall pricing on older games to be less less insane than they are now
I think as far as GameStop is concerned, it’s a great idea for them to get into retro games and I can’t believe they didn’t think to do this a bit sooner. As far as a consumer, I’m not thrilled about it because GameStop has always done horrible things to games like putting stickers on the cover artwork instead of on the plastic or just throwing away game cases and manuals. As a business decision it’s smart for us. I’m worried they’re gonna mess up more video games.
how they are doing it is they have a fake case with retro gaming. When you want the game, they either give you the cd and the game case (if they have it)
Almost every GameStop has a drawer behind the desk with retro games inside. I’ve scored a lot of good deals by just asking to see what they have. Oddly enough most of the GameStops I’ve been to have a printed out list of the retro inventory they have inside the drawer with prices by each title making it easy to see what all they have. Worth asking to see on your next trip to GameStop!
Back in my day it wasn't considered "retro", you could just go in and get games from older generations without making it a big deal. Why are we still supporting GameStop, mom and pops are far better.
I'm a collector of physical copies and enjoy my library of games to look at on display and physicaly grab on to. I get I'm definitely in the minority on this but if we have no choice and have to go digital then the games should be cheaper because you are receiving less product. I know it's just a plastic case a slip cover and maybe some extra bits (stickers, game art, manual) if your lucky but in my opinion drop $10 for digital copies.
They will NEVER be able to compete with your local mom and pop retro video game store as far as selection goes. My retro store is 5 times the size of our local Gamestop.
@Kuchito08 no one cares if you pirate Mario Party 3... there will ALWAYS be people willing to pay the going price to collect/experience the authentic cartridge 😀 What's absurd to you is money well spent to others.
@hellokittybot7032 paying for physical is fine, but being more than happy to pay outrageous prices for disc/carts only (no box or anything else...)is why the retro gaming prices are this bad in the first place. But if you're happy being scalped, then be my guest.
This has been a thing at a few game stops near me. This has been going on foe over 2 years. I picked up a sega Saturn game from one and Pokémon Puzzle League N64 at another.
So they're adapting to the cex model we have here in uk and Europe that's neat. It's the only way these stores are going to continue to exist. Hopefully, game in the UK adapts to this model so cex has some competition
Gamestop and EB would intentionally bankrupt smaller game stores by giving store credit for retro games until the local store bankrupted, then they would stop taking older trades "in that area" and those retro games would disappear. Don't know if they got sent to other stores or if they disposed of them. I don't trust them not to have some similar plan to get rid of small game stores again.
Honestly, I hope gamestop is successful, because while I have a large collection of retro consoles and games worth a lot of money. These games are meant to be played, I could care less about the cost of these games and I really hope they start going back down so people can experience these classics again; and not through emulation. its not the same.
Gamestop isn't gonna help prices go down they literally price their retro by looking it up on ebay and marking it as whatever the highest sold copy was lol.
This isn't going to do anything to affect the prices of retro games, there is a finite supply of them and as time passes more will be lost, damaged, etc. so the supply is only shrinking. Gamestop isn't flooding the market with brand new copies of retro games that would lower the market price, they are merely entering the lucrative secondhand market.
@@Weewoo12 unfortunately this is largely true, however they are also not checking for repo's efficiently which. Does help with prices but also does not provide an authentic gaming experience, matter of fact will cause negative experiences. Though, if popularity and demand comes to fruition in a public commercial domain where we have statistics. Likelihood of production for these by the original companies goes up.
@@Jdfskitz There's no way they're going to be taking in repros in such a large quantity that its going to affect the market price of games. I'm sure they're training people to spot fakes for higher-ticket items and yeah some might slip through the cracks, but not enough to make an impact. Its also unlikely that game publishers will look at gamestop's sales figures to decide if they should reproduce a game. Nintendo KNOWS how many people emulate the older pokemon games and how valuable they are on the secondhand market due to demand, yet they don't reprint the old games because it cannibalizes sales for the new games. Its already easy to figure out which titles are in high demand just by looking at the secondhand market. I'd love for your assumptions to be correct but they're insanely naïve.
@@Weewoo12 Nintendo and Pokemon are 2 separate companies. Pokemon makes those decisions. idk why everybody always puts them together. Pokemon and Nintendo work side by side and Nintendo publishes for pokemon but they are completely separate entities. Sales figures always make a difference, yes Nintendo has always been about innovation however they recently released their Museum to showcase their history as well the Classic Mini systems had been coming out over the past few years. clearly it's not naive because they have released things in the recent past that prove what I am saying. this isn't 100% certainty, but it increases likelihood is all I am saying
Hi I went to one in Illinois!!! The Retro section was very similar to what you had. A lot of xbox 360s, ps3, wii, wii u, 3ds. BUT had a locked display case of ds/3ds games as well. Pokémon Diamond/Pearl being sold for $70. From what the workers told me the promotion online is working well, it’s just they don’t get much sent to them, but enough to check out every now and then.
It’s funny the quality of games these days are so bad that they have get into the retro market. they also know there’s money to be made off of retro games now, it’s just funny seeing them run back to games they wanted to get rid of years ago.
Depends on the employee and store. My gamestop stores here are very against reproduction stuff. The managers have trained them to spot them because let's be honest if you bought a reproduction for the price of the authentic you'd be mad lol
I go to The Exchange for my retro gaming. Like GameXChange, but up north! I also go to Half-Price Books and various thrift stores for retro games. And yes, I collect movies at these places too!
makes me a bit happier knowing I won't have to pull these "retro" trades out of the Gamestop dumpsters anymore. If it said send to a warehouse on it that meant that it wasn't most likely to go in the trash which was all retro titles
This will fail because people will see those prices and the condition of those games and say "why bother." then Gamestop will call this a failure and assume that it's because people don't want retro games, and continue to fail in life
I genuinely didn’t know this was happening so when I was with a friend looking around. We stopped at GameStop and saw all the “older” games and were super shocked and reminisced about the ds shelf case thing they used to have😵💫 I miss that thing
My retro gamestop had around two dozen games on one shelf - Wii, WiiU and PS3. All shovelware trash. Not sure why they bothered. I think they are just trying to dump junk stock.
The original Soulcalibur on Xbox is a good find for a single store. Soulcalibur had console exclusive characters so that makes the original Xbox version more valuable. Link from Zelda was in the GameCube version of that game
Can confirm on the sending part. Spoke to the manager of local shop about retro games and after he showed me the few he had in the drawer he said they ship everything to a more central store downtown.
I went to one of those Retro GameStops near where I live, and they had a ton of DS games near the back and a few PS3 and 360 games. I already knew that GameStops were selling PS3, Wii, and 360 games for over 2 years now. I guess now it makes sense to send all their retro games to one store and call it a retro store. They do need more retro games from different consoles though. Hopefully they do get more.
If Game Stop were smart, for their retro cartridges, they'd make a computer kiosk that is updated real time within that store as UPC's are scanned into stock, and then sold... then you could basically use it like a redbox kiosk to search for retro cartridges but it's a purchase not a rental... that way they don't have to buy a billion clamshell cases, or print off a billion cardboard box art covers to stick on shelves as place holders.
GameStop used to have the old cartridges out on the shelf. A local used game shop has plenty of loose cartridges on shelves, with higher value ones in the counter display case.
Former Gamestop Manager here. This pivot is the right long-term strategy for Gamestop, AAA companies are not putting out good games anymore (it's not even a digital thing, just trash/mediocre games), and there's no reason to own a PS5 or Xbox. It's also not worth fighting against Steam, and having physical games helps limit the HDD storage issues as well. Plus, the ROI for each game sold is insane, basically found money for GS. Used games used to be Gamestop's bread and butter because of the sheer pure profit they make off each game, and if they can corner the market they'll make a killing. It won't happen overnight, in part because GS was run by people who wanted to shift to digital (which was never their market) and they didn't focus enough on internal inventory. Not sure if GS could take a loan out, but I'd use it to buy up retro games en masse and fill up the stores with good stuff. In 5 years (assuming the economy doesn't blow up or whatnot) I can see GS having mostly retro games and a small new section. And probably 1-2 companies emerge making new retro consoles (or they support FPGA style consoles like Analogue).
Last time I was at a GameStop in a mall, I clearly saw a large cardboard box behind the register full to the brim of Wii, Wii U, and 3DS games… I walked up to one of the employees and asked if they had any Wii games, only for them to tell me that they didn’t and directed me to a store across town as their “retro location”… I guess that box was heading over there and they’re just compiling all the retro trade-ins in the area to a single location, which is actually pretty annoying to me.
I have a retro chain in my area called Slackers. What they do for cartridge games is they just put out a DVD case with the boxart and whenever you bring it up, you get the cartridge. They also have a glass counter for the more valuable games like sealed NES or the Pokemon titles.
A few stores I've been to have had retro games, but they were usually in a drawer behind the counter. The only way to know would be to ask em' if they have any games for a specific console. I got a few wii and ds games by asking
I've seen crazy stuff at my local GameStop. They had a PS2 in almost perfect condition, Zelda Wii U, and multiple pokemon games with the manuals and cover arts.
We have a local "mom and pop" owned video game store in our town, it does have new games, but largely it's a "Retro" store. They have old consoles for sale, everything from Atari to PS4. Even some old handhelds for sale (Sega Game Gear, etc). And just rows and rows of old video games. I can't afford much, but it's a great place to go hang out.
I'm sure they're so totally happy that you're there to hang out instead of buying anything.
There's a mom and pop styles store where I live but they don't have anything new. Ever since the owner sold it their trade-in value has gone way down so you may as well just trade it to GameStop or stop being lazy and actually put your things on eBay which you'll make way more money off of.
@@bland9876 Damn. That's a bummer. Sorry to hear that.
We have a local "mom and pop" owned video game store in our town, it does have new games, but largely it's a "Retro" store. They have old consoles for sale, everything from Atari to PS4. Even some old handhelds for sale (Sega Game Gear, etc). And just rows and rows of old video games. I can't afford much, but it's a great place to hang out.
@@bland9876Everyone trading in to Game$top / €B games is what killed every retro store in the early 2000s. They only accepted retro games until the independent store in the region went bankrupt, then they would stop selling or accepting older trades in that area. Kept happening to each small store and each gamestop until all the small stores were gone.
It's almost comical that GameStop is actively spending time and money to convert some stores to exactly what they were a decade ago. Had they just left it alone, they would currently be filled with used 360, 3ds, PS3 and Wii games naturally. Great business model; spend money to update and change, spend money to reverse and change back.
Different leadership
Well it was different people in control. If I recall correct the last big change in leadership, it was expected that things were to change due to how outlook was going. It didn't really work as well as it might've been expected to is all.
That’s what I was thinking, like isn’t that just GameStop from like 5 years ago? I was so mad when they removed 360/ps3/wii/3ds but I guess there back now
Yeah but unfortunately gamestop was dying so they had to "modernize"
well they aren’t producing those games in factories anymore all inventory is pre owned so its almost impossible to keep a sustainable inventory
Some people tend to forget that most GameStops have a retro drawer or two. You just have to ask the teller if they have anything.
None of the GameStops in my city do. Hell they laugh at you if you ask for Xbox or ps2 or original ds stuff.
@@TheDreadedZero Then throw them the finger and say well there's always DK'$...😁
The one I used to work at ages ago had a pretty extensive library, but when they took it all off the shelves they basically hid all that stuff in the ceiling panels. You weren’t allowed to sell them, but they were still cataloged so employees could rent them out.
With all the more competent retro stores that exist, I’m assuming they’re just pulling these games out of their old storage.
I asked for a DS charger last month and their faces were hilarious.
"I have not heard that name in many moons"
@eliv.1033 dks is really not great, may as well do ebay. Personally a dedicated store for used games is the best option
You know, as much as I dislike GameStop and their business practices, I’m happy to see them trend in this direction.
I still appreciate being able to walk into a brick & mortar store and pick up games in person.
Hi- GS Manager here! Allow me to help explain. GS employees have been asking to do retro for literal years. Roughly about a year ago they finally began to test it out with very select games. It happened to be successful so now they are starting to amp up and go more in on what they carry and sell for retro. Every GS usually has PS3, Wii, and XB360, but you can sell older stuff to any store. Often though everything beyond those 3 get sent to the retro locations to bolster the inventory for them. Eventually (hopefully) as the inventory builds up the company I believe every store will get a retro section. It is unfortunate that we don’t have a lot of original cases, but that’s because they’re older and not everyone takes good care of the cases so they need to be swapped out or have our generic art printed. But as a whole I think it’s going well so far. Just the other day I took in a Wii and it sold literally the next day.
How much you give for that Wii and how much you sell it for ??
If only gs would invest in making cases and be more artsy than a soulless entity that only exists because investors wanted wall street to know they're not special
The pricing can be so strange. Wii Sports is a great example of a game that was on GameStop’s website for $10 at one point, then it just jumped one day to either $26 or $28, now the site has it at $31+, and you can get this game from eBay for $20 or flea markets for like $10.
Does GameStop ever actually lower the price back down on a game that fits this scenario? Wii Sports isn’t the only one, it’s just an example, but there are a lot of games this happened to and I know I personally wouldn’t pay $31+ for a $20 game. Times are tough!
Fk gamestop
Absolutely hilarious, this is exactly what I told head office to do in 2011 when I worked for them. They told me their was no money in old games. Well now, times have changed.
It's essentially a small glimpse into what GameStop USED to be, before the store was 85% funko Pop. Back then, you had little sections dedicated to past gen systems. You have the current gen at the time, and smaller sections for older gens. At the very least I recall in the 7th gen era, you had tons of 6th gen stuff and very small bits of 5th gen stuff, at least in my GameStops.
Pretty much now, there's a small section with a mixed grab back of older gens.
I remember the days of browsing the N64 selections...
Keeping the manuals and games behind the counter is a smart move. It’s pretty similar to how retro shops in Japan operate, you only can look at the case/box on the shelf.
That also happens in England and Spain
@@demosneokleous4877 seems like a good thing lol
Im guilty of building complete in box games
Cex in UK do
@@mikeuk666 US really is behind the times as always lol
They should either have the carts in a lockable display cabinet or print out photos of them & put them in dvd cases. It's what Gametraders in Australia does.
A display case would be nice...but some gamestops are small af wouldnt be able to fit anywhere. GS would need to spend massive amounts of money for those display cases to remodel the store better ....and as u may or may not know....corpos in "merica want to SAVE money...to make money...not spend. Sad but true. But i totally agree with your statement
@@scottybones the one nearest to me has a small case that kinda never went away. It was originally DS/3DS, not it still holds a few of those but also select Wii and Wii U, and they recently re-organized their PS4/5 section to hold some PS3, like that second Gamestop Spawnwave went to. Though according to the locator there neither of the Gamestop's in my city are officially participating in this program. =
how they're handling it at other stores doesn't make much sense to me, because my store reused their DS/3DS cabinet to put older titles in. I'd seen Pikmin and Twilight Princess a couple months back in that case. There's nothing for them to figure out
Imo i feel like it would be best if they print out a small empty box with the game cover art and stuff, to put on the shelf, around the size of disc case but can fit the cart so when you buy it the employee will throw the cart in there with the manual and give it to you. Hell they should be able a print out a full recreation of the original packaging for an extra fee, and offer it for people who already have a loose copy but wants the box.
That’s gonna cost money, they’re on razor thin margins already lmao
I went to one near me, and I was actually surprised, it was nice inside, the clerk did say they were still arranging stuff around and bringing more stuff in and still are in talks with the aesthetic of the store
If they brought back the aesthetic that I remember from my childhood, GameStop would so be back
Gamestops in my area have been carrying 7th gen games for a year or so now. Picked up Fortune Street at one of them for $20, cool find.
if you get a good condition case, that is
Nice. It's an amazing game
For some reason, almost all of the GameStop's I've been to kept the 7th Gen games as holdouts from when those systems were relevant and not recently with their "retro" program, so those games have been there for quite a while.
Love that game. Had some incredibly long and epic gaming sessions with😊 that one.
Awesome game
_Former GameStop assistant manager here!_ I'd like to throw in some nuggets from my personal experience. This retro initiative is LONG overdue and was something that they were testing for the last couple of years. Allegedly, even some locations were going to be getting remodels to accommodate for this new push retro push. However, what they're defining as "retro" isn't *entirely* new. Even into the current generation of consoles, pretty much every location will have an assortment of PS3, Xbox 360, Wii/Wii U, and DS/3DS. You can still bring those in for trades and get some good value for them (Wii games ESPECIALLY would trade in pretty well)
The problem with this current push is that GameStop hasn't been super kind to the older generations of games until recently. For example: why isn't there a display case for the cartridge games? I can bet that those stores were probably previously told by corporate to get rid of the cases that WOULD have been used: the DS/3DS cartridge case. It was a dual level wood and glass case, which didn't take up that much floor space, that locked to prevent customers from opening it, which would be a PERFECT solution to displaying cartridges. I can bet that this is the case because that's exactly what happened to MY store. We were told that we weren't to focus on selling DS/3DS and to get rid of our cartridge case. I would not be surprised that some locations who still have their cases will be using those to display any of their new cartridges that they are getting. This was the same thing that happened with our spare cases and cover arts for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii/Wii U, and DS/3DS games. At the time, GameStop really was only focused on the current generation of games and was trying their best to get rid of anything considered "retro."
I hope these smaller issues/flaws are just baby steps. I remember when they announced their push into NFT trading cards in-store and didn't communicate that beforehand, so I can only imagine how the current employees feel when corporate springs this new retro wave onto them. I do think that this is a fantastic step, and it's one that I was advocating for in my 4+ years working at my store. My biggest concern will be how they plan on accepting trades for anything retro. Associates will have to essentially go through a new training process, if they do plan on taking them in-store, or else they will just treat any retro trade-in like they do with cell phones and tablets and just immediately ship them out to warehouse for refurbishment once the trade is done. Regardless, I do expect corporate to mess this up somehow, but only time will tell.
I was just in a GameStop roughly a month ago and they had one of those display cases you're talking about with a handful of different cartridges in it. I thought it was pretty cool and definitely gave it a once-over! I assumed it was something all GS's had, but from what you're saying it sounds like that's not the case...but it definitely should be.
Might as well just give your games to goodwill for free since that’s basically what GameStop would give you in return when you trade stuff in
It's a business, it ain't UNICEF
There mercari too. I've made 75% of my money back on selling newly bought games and u can definitely make more then gamestop on retro games
@@EdwardSnortin that’s why I said give them to goodwill so others can buy them for cheaper.. it goes both ways so you can stick it to GameStop
@bodacious117 why would I want to stick it to gamestop. Their used game return policy has given me so many games to play for free essentially. And when I traded in my ps2 and games I got the ps3 gta4 and 40 dollars back. Not to mention $5 beta codes for call of duty and then they just give me my money back after. People love to complain that they can't make money off a buisness that has to make money for themselves.
@@bodacious117unfortunately Goodwill scans their games and movies ( at least in New England) and send any rare or valuable ones to their online store. This is why you almost never find any good used games in their brick and mortars…
I worked at FuncoLand from 2000 to 2002, it was the golden era for retro collecting.
I loved Funcoland's game price list they would print out. I'd spend hours just staring at those and dreaming.
I really miss that place
@@Alexvander10 Agreed. That was pretty neat. I myself remember that.
In 2000 retro meant NES
@@sgillman16 in 2000 retro meant Atari. NES still had games coming out in the mid 90s.
Talking retro and mentioning 360 just blows my mind.
Death comes for us all.
@@Omer_Sastim_is_turtle_bot
Don't you mean, "Retro comes for us all"? ;)
It's crazy to believe the 360 will turn 19 this year
I think it's a bit weird because while I understand "retro" being thought of as just older games and consoles, I always in my head ascribed it as more a technological era specifically. Like, while games are higher fidelity now and consoles have more RAM gaming hasn't massively changed since the PS3/Xbox 360 days, at least in comparison to things like the SNES or Dreamcast or the PS1. It's literally just classified as retro in people's heads because it's not new.
@@AedraRising Retro doesn't mean a specific time frame or generation, it just means old. Anything 15+ years old, or from two generations back is technically retro.
I work at my local GameStop and while we’re not classified as a “Retro Store”, we do carry about the equivalent, if not more retro games that are in this video. As far as displaying cartridges goes, we display ours on the bottom shelf of the Nintendo Switch Case. As you said in the video, we are supposed to ship off our Retro consoles and games, especially cartridges, to the warehouse in order to be distributed to retro stores, but normally if it’s a popular game that we think will sell quickly, we just put it in our store. Almost all of the prices are right at or a little below market value so as a collector, a huge perk of working there is employees get first pick at anything that gets traded in.
"Employees get dibs" thanks for clarifying how dumb retro collecting really is and how greasy collectors are.
@@jacobd3005 you know they should change the rules on that, if the game is popular and your store gets it employees shouldn’t get “first dibs” it should sit on the shelves for atleast a week if nobody buys it after a week then you get first dibs.
What a crappy thing to do to your customers. Then you brag about it..🤦🤦
I feel as Gamestop should rebrand store name to Gamestop RETRO
@@drexzero3286 It doesn’t happen anywhere near as much as you think it does. Personally, I’ve bought one game before it went on the floor and it was Mortal Kombat for the SNES, so nothing of high value. 99% of what we get in goes on the floor.
Before GameStop was GameStop, I remember it was Funcoland a store that sold used game and old game before they bought out EB Games
I have an old newspaper and for funcoland, games that are hundreds of dollars now were like 30$ haha
my brother called it fu$@oland
@@tommj4365 NONSENSICAL
@@tommj4365I always called it that 🤣
Funcoland was amazing. It was how I got an original NES. I still have a bunch of "Funcoland" NES cargtridge sleeves. I really miss that store. It was like the best retro store that ever existed.
Looks like the selection you'd find at a local pawn shop lol
A crappy one, yeah. But good pawn shops have a better and bigger selection than this, including games that are ACTUALLY retro, which most of what was shown here really isn’t.
I actually like this move, and I will begin stopping into various stores to see what is there. I love collecting the older games.
I don't think this is a thing in Canadian gamestops yet where it has a dedicated brand called "Gamestop Retro"
Yep I was thinking the same
Are there any retro games at all in Canadian EB Games/Gamestops?
I still see Wii games if you consider those retro haha. @superamigo987
Probably just rolling it out in the states first and if it does well, it will probably expand to Canadian stores. I am looking forward to when they do this.
Retro games that they were fucking destroying just a few years ago
Exactly! It was their company policy to destroy a lot of this stuff if they couldn't sell it. Not to mention their policy of throwing away cases for DS games because they didn't want them from trade ins
Hell, they didn't even take some PS3 and Xbox One games I had when I went to trade them in claiming that they were "too old"
@@EllieNotSoSmelly That like back in the Wii U days I wanted to trade some Wii U games I had to towards a new game I wanted to buy that just came out and they said that I couldn't trade those games as it was considered "old" and I told them that the games I'm trading aren't a year old and was released the previous year they told me "if a game is not from this year of release then it consider to old to trade".
What a load of BS
At least they’re learning?
You mean Gamepass destroy physical gaming, and now other game company copying them hahhaha
I can't count the amount of times ive seen the Metroid Prime First Hunt demo heing sold as the full release of Hunters. if they can't train employees to read a label, they won't get them to spot bootlegs
GameStop 100% does not care if they sell you a bootleg. The only thing they care about is whether they got your money
Major valid point.
I'm sure there's already little tiny dk'd asshats RUNNING to gamestop with all the bootleg bologna and repros bought from Japan of many Pokemon handheld carts. I saw a few EVEN LABELED as repros at a mom and pop store, still trying to charge over $50 for a cart they got online from Japan for $5. hoRRId
Gamestop itself is retro. As for cartridges, they should adopt the Toys R Us model and use tickets, bring the ticket to the counter, get your game.
They should have made this business move a decade ago when it was obvious that digital distribution was going to be mainstream. They also, need to focus on offering video game accessories like headsets and controllers for current and past consoles, maybe even remade vintage components. They could even take a page from analogue and sell GameStop retro branded vintage consoles.
They did this already. They did it 6 years ago and it was an absolute disaster that cost them an absurd amount of money.
@@animalhouse8849 wait wait hold up a big freaking minute. if they failed badly before, why pivot again? Do they WANT to pop the used games market bubble???
Totally on point. That could have saved them. I wonder if they think this will save what's left of that brand?
They did not fail they transitioned away from retro games because the market wasnt there now its bigger than ever
@@droid4d279new games suck
I just visited at Gamestop Retro store near me here in Baltimore, MD... your photo of the size of the retro section was 100% accurate. Im kinda excited to see them get more stuff in!!!
What's interesting is that about 7-8 years ago, most gamestops were cleared out or clearing out their "retro" game selection. I had to travel to 3 different GS in order to find one with "retro" games. Eventually I found one and I remember getting Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Tasunoko VS Capcom for about $15 each, but they were trying to get rid of their game selection quick... the employee told me that most of the unsold games were going into liquidation, and some were to be destroyed.
The Retro section at my local GameStop had a lot of PS2 & OG Xbox games
Around December of last year I went to GameStop and found some of the "newer" yo-kai watch games for what I think was a decent price (especially from what I had seen online). 3 was around 60, one copy of blasters was around 40 and the other was 50 and psychic specters was also around 50. I really splurged that day😅
I have a feeling they had warehouses full of retro overstock from when they initially pulled them all from their shelves just sitting there. Things went more digital, pandemic happened, and now retro is hot - makes sense to break open old stock. Also a lot of regular folks who might have old games are not going to go through the trouble of eBay when they can just drop off at a local Game Stop, like Goodwill style but you get few bucks back no hassle.
Bad for some Mom&Pop shops, but hopefully could also dissuade some resellers from exorbitant pricing
Seeing things like the 360 and 3ds be labeled retro makes me feel so old
Phoenix Resale had already hit this Gamestop up, before you got there. Any deals, gems, etc. were hoovered up into the reseller black hole.
Resellers 😮💨
That dude is the worst lol
@@prodsburnerYeah dude and the worst part is that he acts like he's helping the retro game collector sphere.
A good idea for carts would be if they cant have them in a display case, they can have a binder with print outs of the games covers or even a digital display (ipad or tablet?) that has a list of all the games and then they could even show some gameplay or even the original trailer of the game if you click on it
Now because its gamestop we know this will never happen
An interactive in-store inventory kiosk inside the store would be a step in the right direction. Switch to printable cardboard panels, that are tied to a database of box art the store employees can access and print out, as a representation of actual in-store inventory. Or use acrylic locking hard cases, like walmart does.
I remeber back in the early 2000's they just had all the cargrages in a bin that you had to search thru and they were like 3-5 maybe 10 dollars. How times have changed
I remember stray GBA games being inside a glass case near the clerk, arranged so you can point to what you wanted to buy.
I’ve found a range of games from varying consoles from the 4th, 5th, and 6th generations. The biggest shockers were Sega Saturn and Dreamcast games.
As a former GameStop employee, I must tell you to inspect any and all retro items yourself. They're not trained effectively for quality control, and many of them don't know how to spot counterfeits. When GS went to selling retro stuff online, my store had a huge problem with inventory because I kept finding cartridges that were clearly counterfeits and consoles and controllers were in lousy shape.
Also, if I remember correctly, they didn't "purge" the PS2 library until late PS3/early PS4, so it's not unusual to still see PS3/XB360/Wii (U) titles on shelves. Now that they have retro games in store, you'll likely start seeing display cases on shelves, depending on the size of the store.
Sad that we live in a society where your first worry is , someone might steal this . Also sad people growing up today believe it's normal when it's not normal at all .
My GameStop has started doing that. I saw titles like Super Mario World, Mega Man X, Diddy Kong Racing, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, and Sonic Spinball at the counter.
That''s pretty much CEX in the UK, but CEX is a nation wide chain and retro games makes up almost all of their stock.
Mid 2023 they added in most retro stuff for trade/sale after the few years that they were stupidly removed.
They all used to have a "retro drawer" but this year the stores near me started to put each brand older games on the bottom shelves of each section.
There's actually a "retro300" for the Northeast region , 300 stores that have a huge *expansion of older stuff, like an entire wall! Haven't gotten to one in person yet but the local staff were really nice with info
I don't care what anyone else says, companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft will keep making physical games because of the collectors that are around the world and want to continue their collections
I was able to pick up both a 1st party NES and Gamecube controller from my store, they had only a handful of carts that were sharing a case with the DS and 3DS games. Prices were actually really respectable. Big fan of this change.
I tried to trade in an SNES console to a local retro game store and they wouldn't take it because it had damage. On August 18 I was trading in my XBOX One to Gamestop and noticed they said "Accepting Retro Games" on their door, and when I said I had a damaged SNES, they said they'd take it so long as it turned on. I ended up trading in games for Gameboy, DS, XBOX, 360, along with a Gameboy Color, GBA, and that SNES. They also had an extra percent for trade-ins that week AND I would get another additional percent back if I pre-ordered a game, even if it was just putting down $5. With everything I brought in, I ended up with Echos of Wisdom paid off for $60, $5 down on Brothership, and a $400 gift card. It's just nice because the Gamestop is SO close to me, and more likely to have games I'll buy with that gift card I get. Unlike another retro game store where their closer location went out of business so I've had a gift card with cash on it for years that I haven't used. Also all this brought me back to Gamestop after about two years of only buying games at Best Buy - I used to go Gamestop all the time a few years ago when I could trade in games, but I got to the point where I only had "Retro" games left to trade in and Gamestop wouldn't accept them.
What did you give them for 400 bucks? Your kidneys?
Went to one near me, had Wii, Wii U, PS2, PS3, 360 and GameCube games. They were still moving stuff around, too, so hopefully they get more.
The GameStop near me had DVD cases out with SNES/N64 and the game titles on the spine. Everything else was behind the counter.
I've actually been trekking into a few GameStops in my area for about a year simply to see what surprising 360, Wii, or DS games show up. A couple months ago before the story broke, I saw a couple OG Xbox games and was taken aback, because I didn't think I'd ever see them in a GameStop again.
My local
GameStop isn’t the retro store in the area. But a few weeks back I went in and found some cheap Wii U games and prince of Persia collection for ps3 for pretty cheap. At least compared to the actual retro game store in my area.
When I was at a GameStop the other week I noticed they had some retro games on the store shelves. Usually, I'd have to ask to see if they had any in stock, and if they did they'd just be in a drawer somewhere. I was surprised to see them back out on the shelf, but now it makes sense. We actually have a number of used games stores around my area though, including a local "chain" that seems to get a lot of good games that aren't just the standard fare, so I think it might be hard for GameStop to compete where I live, at least until they really get going on this initiative (assuming they stick with it).
GameStop is going RETRO. GameStop has 3,000 stores & new leadership that wants to make all better. This is a good move.
Keep in mind your talking about game stop I don't trust them at all
man I got SUPER lucky my local game stop the other day. some lady had traded in like 30 games from PS1,2, 3 and 360 games. I came in like 40 minutes after she had traded them and I was able to pick through them and grabbed what I wanted. I mean I wanted them all but couldn't justify spending around $800 for them all. so I spent about 200 for about 10-12 games. sad thing is I ask that the lady got for cash trade-in was only about $200. and every game was clean, well taken care for and was pretty much complete. so feel pretty lucky.
In Canada, the Gamestop stores need to retail more arcade joysticks for consoles and pc.
It's good to see these kind of games back in stores, even if a lot of them aren't particularly great games and in kinda rough shape... that's honestly what you see for most PS3 and 360 era stuff even on ebay too. But it's better than specialty stores who just deal in high dollar, high demand items at a modern reseller collector margin.
That retro section looks like the video game section in Goodwill. 😂
My local GameStop in the Bronx has a pretty big section they even have retro controllers (Wii U pro controller, xbox 360, ps3, nes)
What if GameStop goes all in on Retro and starts doing gaming and maybe movie rental. I think there’s a lot of people that would start going there more often.
lost me at movie rental, those days are long gone unless you live in a rural area/just like having physical media
@@marcogalariz8434 I don’t believe physical media is entirely gone. Yes there’s not as many people getting physical movies but there’s still plenty of people getting physical games.
I mean I’m definitely getting a PS2 from GameStop if the pricing I see has been correct
Most of the cartridge games I find at GameStop are fake. All the popular cartridge games like Pokemon that I see are fake and the person working the store had zero idea it was a fake.
Sounds like a good way to make some money then, lol.
Depends on the store. Mine are trained by the manager to spot the fakes and reproductions so they dint sell them for authentic cartridge price. I think its a good idea honestly. Save them the hassle of someone mad they paid more for a fake
I checked the locator and there is two kinda nearby to me as I live in the middle of nowhere. One is my store and one I visit from time to time. I would have never known they were considered the retro store because there is no section like yours. The switch section had a couple wii games like how you showed your none retro store had, so maybe it's still too new. I do hope that they fill out more as time goes by. I used to go to gamestop every weekend and spend so much time going through their selection.
I can say with knowledge. Anytime you trade "retro" games @ Gstop. The games are then shipped to these "retro stores". So that means Gamestop does NOT have a HUGE inventory of these "retro" games. It's so said to see. If Gamestop had kept these games, instead of "Field Destroy" them. Now Gamestop wants retro games back. Plus now the 3rd party Retro shops are going to have an even harder time trying to compete with Gamestop.
Kinda cool with this concept developing to keep physical stores open and hopefully allow overall pricing on older games to be less less insane than they are now
I think as far as GameStop is concerned, it’s a great idea for them to get into retro games and I can’t believe they didn’t think to do this a bit sooner. As far as a consumer, I’m not thrilled about it because GameStop has always done horrible things to games like putting stickers on the cover artwork instead of on the plastic or just throwing away game cases and manuals. As a business decision it’s smart for us. I’m worried they’re gonna mess up more video games.
Since they are doing retro only stores they know better to do that now, if they still do they are idiots.
how they are doing it is they have a fake case with retro gaming. When you want the game, they either give you the cd and the game case (if they have it)
Almost every GameStop has a drawer behind the desk with retro games inside. I’ve scored a lot of good deals by just asking to see what they have. Oddly enough most of the GameStops I’ve been to have a printed out list of the retro inventory they have inside the drawer with prices by each title making it easy to see what all they have. Worth asking to see on your next trip to GameStop!
I picked up a Metroid Fuison for $49.99. The employee even opened it with his IFIXIT to show me it was real.
We have a place in the UK called CEX. They keep the carts and PS1 game behind glass displays.
Back in my day it wasn't considered "retro", you could just go in and get games from older generations without making it a big deal. Why are we still supporting GameStop, mom and pops are far better.
I can confirm that yes Driver San Fran is a rare game and the resell on that game is around $30-$50 now! I own it
I'm a collector of physical copies and enjoy my library of games to look at on display and physicaly grab on to. I get I'm definitely in the minority on this but if we have no choice and have to go digital then the games should be cheaper because you are receiving less product. I know it's just a plastic case a slip cover and maybe some extra bits (stickers, game art, manual) if your lucky but in my opinion drop $10 for digital copies.
Gamestop dies once we all go digital
6:24 they should’ve kept those old cases they used to have for DS & Gameboy to display cartridges they don’t have boxes for.
They will NEVER be able to compete with your local mom and pop retro video game store as far as selection goes. My retro store is 5 times the size of our local Gamestop.
Our local retro store is awesome and I would rather give them my money instead of Walmart or Bestbuy
My local retro stores charge absurd prices for retro games. I'd rather pirate than give someone $150 for a cartridge of Mario Party 3.
@Kuchito08 no one cares if you pirate Mario Party 3... there will ALWAYS be people willing to pay the going price to collect/experience the authentic cartridge 😀 What's absurd to you is money well spent to others.
@hellokittybot7032 paying for physical is fine, but being more than happy to pay outrageous prices for disc/carts only (no box or anything else...)is why the retro gaming prices are this bad in the first place. But if you're happy being scalped, then be my guest.
Don’t have one here tho only GameStop
This has been a thing at a few game stops near me. This has been going on foe over 2 years. I picked up a sega Saturn game from one and Pokémon Puzzle League N64 at another.
So they're adapting to the cex model we have here in uk and Europe that's neat. It's the only way these stores are going to continue to exist. Hopefully, game in the UK adapts to this model so cex has some competition
How
I feel these companies will be fine. More people still buy disc copies more than not
If spawn wave shows up at a game store it ought to be treated like the president or a rock star visiting
No
Please don't worship people who post videos on UA-cam. They're just people, like us.
More like, great here's the Nintendo Manchild with a camera who doesn't leave the store for 30 minutes
Gamestop and EB would intentionally bankrupt smaller game stores by giving store credit for retro games until the local store bankrupted, then they would stop taking older trades "in that area" and those retro games would disappear. Don't know if they got sent to other stores or if they disposed of them.
I don't trust them not to have some similar plan to get rid of small game stores again.
Honestly, I hope gamestop is successful, because while I have a large collection of retro consoles and games worth a lot of money. These games are meant to be played, I could care less about the cost of these games and I really hope they start going back down so people can experience these classics again; and not through emulation. its not the same.
Gamestop isn't gonna help prices go down they literally price their retro by looking it up on ebay and marking it as whatever the highest sold copy was lol.
This isn't going to do anything to affect the prices of retro games, there is a finite supply of them and as time passes more will be lost, damaged, etc. so the supply is only shrinking. Gamestop isn't flooding the market with brand new copies of retro games that would lower the market price, they are merely entering the lucrative secondhand market.
@@Weewoo12 unfortunately this is largely true, however they are also not checking for repo's efficiently which. Does help with prices but also does not provide an authentic gaming experience, matter of fact will cause negative experiences. Though, if popularity and demand comes to fruition in a public commercial domain where we have statistics. Likelihood of production for these by the original companies goes up.
@@Jdfskitz There's no way they're going to be taking in repros in such a large quantity that its going to affect the market price of games. I'm sure they're training people to spot fakes for higher-ticket items and yeah some might slip through the cracks, but not enough to make an impact.
Its also unlikely that game publishers will look at gamestop's sales figures to decide if they should reproduce a game. Nintendo KNOWS how many people emulate the older pokemon games and how valuable they are on the secondhand market due to demand, yet they don't reprint the old games because it cannibalizes sales for the new games. Its already easy to figure out which titles are in high demand just by looking at the secondhand market. I'd love for your assumptions to be correct but they're insanely naïve.
@@Weewoo12 Nintendo and Pokemon are 2 separate companies. Pokemon makes those decisions. idk why everybody always puts them together. Pokemon and Nintendo work side by side and Nintendo publishes for pokemon but they are completely separate entities.
Sales figures always make a difference, yes Nintendo has always been about innovation however they recently released their Museum to showcase their history as well the Classic Mini systems had been coming out over the past few years. clearly it's not naive because they have released things in the recent past that prove what I am saying.
this isn't 100% certainty, but it increases likelihood is all I am saying
Hi I went to one in Illinois!!!
The Retro section was very similar to what you had. A lot of xbox 360s, ps3, wii, wii u, 3ds.
BUT had a locked display case of ds/3ds games as well. Pokémon Diamond/Pearl being sold for $70.
From what the workers told me the promotion online is working well, it’s just they don’t get much sent to them, but enough to check out every now and then.
It’s funny the quality of games these days are so bad that they have get into the retro market. they also know there’s money to be made off of retro games now, it’s just funny seeing them run back to games they wanted to get rid of years ago.
I think it’s a form of damage control to try and delay the inevitable their business has been in the shitter the past 5 even 10 years now
Just found Jade Cocoon for PS1 at Gamestop 2 days ago in great condition CIB, and it was only $28. Well under eBay prices.
I wonder if getting a bunch of earthbound reproduction carts and selling them to gamestop will be a thing...
Depends on the employee and store. My gamestop stores here are very against reproduction stuff. The managers have trained them to spot them because let's be honest if you bought a reproduction for the price of the authentic you'd be mad lol
I had some great luck lately at pawn shops for og xbox and 360 games
I always just used Game X Change for my retro gaming
I go to The Exchange for my retro gaming. Like GameXChange, but up north!
I also go to Half-Price Books and various thrift stores for retro games.
And yes, I collect movies at these places too!
makes me a bit happier knowing I won't have to pull these "retro" trades out of the Gamestop dumpsters anymore. If it said send to a warehouse on it that meant that it wasn't most likely to go in the trash which was all retro titles
This will fail because people will see those prices and the condition of those games and say "why bother." then Gamestop will call this a failure and assume that it's because people don't want retro games, and continue to fail in life
I genuinely didn’t know this was happening so when I was with a friend looking around. We stopped at GameStop and saw all the “older” games and were super shocked and reminisced about the ds shelf case thing they used to have😵💫 I miss that thing
My retro gamestop had around two dozen games on one shelf - Wii, WiiU and PS3. All shovelware trash. Not sure why they bothered. I think they are just trying to dump junk stock.
The original Soulcalibur on Xbox is a good find for a single store. Soulcalibur had console exclusive characters so that makes the original Xbox version more valuable. Link from Zelda was in the GameCube version of that game
🤦♂️ I'm in the Toronto area & there's no shortage of retro mom & pop gaming stores here.
Can confirm on the sending part. Spoke to the manager of local shop about retro games and after he showed me the few he had in the drawer he said they ship everything to a more central store downtown.
Can you imagine if they put carts out on the shelf of a California store? It’d be “California taken” in a NY sec. 😂
I went to one of those Retro GameStops near where I live, and they had a ton of DS games near the back and a few PS3 and 360 games. I already knew that GameStops were selling PS3, Wii, and 360 games for over 2 years now. I guess now it makes sense to send all their retro games to one store and call it a retro store. They do need more retro games from different consoles though. Hopefully they do get more.
If Game Stop were smart, for their retro cartridges, they'd make a computer kiosk that is updated real time within that store as UPC's are scanned into stock, and then sold... then you could basically use it like a redbox kiosk to search for retro cartridges but it's a purchase not a rental... that way they don't have to buy a billion clamshell cases, or print off a billion cardboard box art covers to stick on shelves as place holders.
GameStop used to have the old cartridges out on the shelf. A local used game shop has plenty of loose cartridges on shelves, with higher value ones in the counter display case.
Former Gamestop Manager here. This pivot is the right long-term strategy for Gamestop, AAA companies are not putting out good games anymore (it's not even a digital thing, just trash/mediocre games), and there's no reason to own a PS5 or Xbox. It's also not worth fighting against Steam, and having physical games helps limit the HDD storage issues as well. Plus, the ROI for each game sold is insane, basically found money for GS. Used games used to be Gamestop's bread and butter because of the sheer pure profit they make off each game, and if they can corner the market they'll make a killing. It won't happen overnight, in part because GS was run by people who wanted to shift to digital (which was never their market) and they didn't focus enough on internal inventory. Not sure if GS could take a loan out, but I'd use it to buy up retro games en masse and fill up the stores with good stuff.
In 5 years (assuming the economy doesn't blow up or whatnot) I can see GS having mostly retro games and a small new section. And probably 1-2 companies emerge making new retro consoles (or they support FPGA style consoles like Analogue).
Last time I was at a GameStop in a mall, I clearly saw a large cardboard box behind the register full to the brim of Wii, Wii U, and 3DS games… I walked up to one of the employees and asked if they had any Wii games, only for them to tell me that they didn’t and directed me to a store across town as their “retro location”… I guess that box was heading over there and they’re just compiling all the retro trade-ins in the area to a single location, which is actually pretty annoying to me.
This kinda looks like what EBgames Australia has been doing for years. All EBgames stores often have half the store dedicated to retro games
You guys still have ebgames? Thats awesome, what about kaybee toys you guys still have that one?
According to Google we do but I’ve never seen one lol
I have a retro chain in my area called Slackers. What they do for cartridge games is they just put out a DVD case with the boxart and whenever you bring it up, you get the cartridge. They also have a glass counter for the more valuable games like sealed NES or the Pokemon titles.
Poopstop??
Yes
Constipation?
Battleturds
A few stores I've been to have had retro games, but they were usually in a drawer behind the counter. The only way to know would be to ask em' if they have any games for a specific console. I got a few wii and ds games by asking
Gamestop realizing retro games sell better than new games.
I've seen crazy stuff at my local GameStop. They had a PS2 in almost perfect condition, Zelda Wii U, and multiple pokemon games with the manuals and cover arts.