What to do with old systems? (1 Viewer)

[drobbins]

The new year is here and it is time to clean house and "do away with the old". The Xbox360 gets all the use these days. The PS2 only gets used for my daughters American Idol game. The Wii is very loud and temperamental so it gets very little use. (I love the system, but i am disappointed in the quality of the unit) I haven't seen the game cube or Nintendo 64 hooked up in over a year. I have two entertainment systems full of tangled wires, loose batteries, games out of their cases, etc...
So... What to do with the old stuff? Is it worth it to try and sell the stuff? Game Stop pays only a few bucks for the games. If I sold them online then I have the hassels and expense of shipping. Should I just store them away until they are antiques? What do you do with your obsolete systems?

 

[Clinton McClure]

I've always dumped them at used game store for cash. They don't pay well but games and consoles are like automobiles in that they depreciate in value as soon as you take them home. Even after they become antiques (for example... an Atari 2600) they are only worth a few bucks.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Unless you have a yard sale coming up, might as well trade it all in for credit towards an X360 game.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Or sell it all to Hastings (if you have one near) and use the proceeds towards some BD movies.

 

[Dean C]

Well I have still the Atari 2600 and the VERY FIRST HANDHELD SYSTEM called Milton Bradley's forgotten unmentioned Microvision that was an empty little contraption. You buy these parts that is the screen and controller that would click on to it and becomes a game. It came with Blockbuster an arkanoid type game. never bought any other games for it. I still kept. Cause people don't want them. And never knew what the microvision was.

I traded in both my nintendo and super nintendo.

I have just the dsl, gba sp and the gameboy pocket. Gamecube and Wii.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I still have a Microvision too!!! I won it as a door prize at a party at my synagogue when I was a kid. First thing of value I ever won.

I had a couple of other games for it, like baseball -- you turned the little knob to "swing" the bat.

Haven't touched it in years, though. Next time I visit my folks I'll take it out and see if it still works.

 

[Rodrick]

All my systems were terrible. I had a Vectrex, and also a Thing called Pong with 8 games. That are still in my possession

I also had virtual boy which right away got returned back to the store, and got a Sega GameGear. Later that got sold for $50 with 12 games.

seen many people go thru so many systems and with my first few I stopped after this.

 

[Brandon_T]

One set of my Grandparents had a Colecovision, the other set had an Intellivision, both great fun in their day. I remember my Grandmother loved ladybug for the Coleco while my Grandfather on the other side loved Burgertime.

 

[DaveF]

Sell them to a coworker. A buddy at work bought my GameCube, two controllers, and a bunch of games for $50 last Fall. It was his 6-yr old son's birthday present this Winter. It worked well for him, getting a fun video game system with library for 1/5 the cost of a Wii, and his 6- and 3-yr olds don't know the difference. And it saved the the bother of shopping it around and dealing with eBay.

As for the N64...mine is still packed away upstairs. I'm not willing to part with it yet

 

[David Norman]

Other option -- give them to the local Hospital's Childrens Unit if you have one.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

The GameCube and the Wii are pretty similar on the inside anyway.

 

[drobbins]

Well I took the Wii and about a dozen games to Game Stop. There was someone there looking to buy a Wii, so I sold it to him for cash at the price the store was going to give credit $120. Then I got $165 in store credit for the games. I probably would have done better selling them on my own, but I didn't feel like messing with it. Total $285 for stuff that was collecting dust.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

That's pretty good. A friend of mine took my old Dreamcast and a bunch of games (at least a dozen) to Gorilla Games and they only gave him $55 cash (it would have been $68 in credit, but their prices are much higher than GameStop's anyway).

I'm sure I could've gotten a lot more if I was interested in packaging everything and mailing it to someone via eBay. Oh well.

 

[Marshall W. Carter]

Sell them on eBay or sell/give them to someone who wants them. The credit you'll get from Gamestop (or any other outfit of its ilk) is an insult to be frank. Better to give (or sell on eBay) to someone that wants it than basically giving it away to Gamestop only for them to turn around and gouge the next guy who wants it for 1000% more than they paid you for it.

 

[CaseyL]

my house is a retirement home for my old systems. They get regularly cleaned, and occasionally played, just to run some signal through them. I am far to emotionally attached to my systems to ever let them go. Pretty dorky, I know.

 

[carolina17]

A few weeks ago, I cleaned my old Dreamcast and played Resident Evil Code Veronica. It brought back good memories.
You could sell your stuff on Ebay or locally by word of mouth.
It might also end up in a Video Game Museum

 

[panthatheprince]

Some of those old NES and SNES games, and even some N64 games are worth like $20 to $60 bucks nowdays. I have one of the special edition the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that is probably worth maybe $100.