What will we see in the retro gaming scene this year? 2018 predictions!
What does 2018 have in store for the retro gaming market? The past few years have seen many developments, including wild price spikes, new products and revolutionary tech for the retro gaming community.
I’ve had my finger on the pulse of retro gaming for years, so here’s my top 5 predictions of what we’ll see in 2018.
Cartridge-based console game prices decline
As emulation and consoles like the Nintendo Classic Edition and Atari Flashback satiate gamers hunger for games they grew up with and devices like the Everdrive make emulation on real hardware seamless, I think we’re going to see the prices for NES, SNES, Genesis and N64 games flatline and even start to decline.
We’re far enough into the generation who grew up with these systems coming into adulthood that demand for these games will start to drop, as many of these gamers have already collected most of what they wanted and new collectors are not entering the market fast enough to offset the ones who aren't buying as much as they used to.
Truly rare games like Stadium Events will continue to fetch top dollar, but the bottom 80% of these console libraries will come down in value over the next few years starting in 2018.
Wii, PS3 and XBox360 game prices bottom out
On the flipside, we’re far enough away from the Wii/PS3/XBox360 generation that the prices for games on these consoles will bottom out as demand continues to drop. Though savvy-minded game collectors will see this as an opportunity to get in on the ground floor, so they can snatch up popular, rare and collectible games for peanuts before nostalgia for these consoles starts to kick in.
Nintendo releases the N64 Classic Edition
With the massive success of the NES and SNES Classic Edition systems, Nintendo will inevitably release an N64 version this year. It will feature fewer games and a higher price tag than the NES/SNES versions due to the bigger games and large N64 controller they will need to reproduce.
Sidenote: The NES Classic will also come back into production this year too. This isn’t speculation — its been announced, though we don’t know when they’ll be back in stores yet.
We will finally see a disc-based clone console
For years we’ve seen countless clone consoles hit stores, from the popular Retron series to the high-end Analogue NT. What about newer, disc-based games like the PS1, Saturn and Sega CD?
I believe this year we will finally either get a release, or at the very least information, about a new clone console for disc-based consoles. I expect it to support Sega CD, TG16 Super CD, Playstation 1 and Sega Saturn games (and possibly even Sega Dreamcast in my wildest dreams). This machine will have built-in memory for saving, built-in cheat support and of course, tools for upscaling to HD, anti-aliasing, smoothing polygons and improving textures.
The Virtual Console finally hits the Nintendo Switch
This is the year that the Virtual Console will finally hit the Nintendo Switch, making much of Nintendo’s classic library easily portable. In addition, I fully expect for Gamecube games to get added to the VC, likely in the $10-$15 price range.
