Topic: Most valuable Wii U games?

aaaaaaahhhhmen.

When people say games like Hello Kitty will decrease because of desirability...
the game quality or desirability is entirely irrelevant to the hardcore collectors that will drive up the prices.

Look at the NES, its most expensive game is a title variant of a very common game, and will some of the most expensive games are games people will want to play (if they could find them at a sane price) many of them are crap like Color Dreams and porn games. And Color A Dinosaur, which costs more than many good games.

@spizzamarozzi True, the Wii U got very few third-party games and most of them were cheap ports poorly optimised like Resident Evil Revelations compared to Dreamcast that got the exclusive Resident Evil Code Veronica which is considered one of the best in the series.

@SKTTR It is very interesting that Wii U is able to play not only Wii games but GameCube games natively although not officially, similarly Nintendo 3DS can play not only DS games but also Game Boy Advance games but Nintendo only released ten games for it (Ambassador Program). The backwards compatibility is a very cool feature of Wii, Wii U, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS.

PS2 got it eventually with added content and DMC Demo

@spizzamarozzi I got really lucky with my Dreamcast - I bought it at just the time that all of the shops decided they needed to urgently get rid of stock to free up space for more PS2s. Came away with a Dreamcast, an extra controller, a VMU and 3 games (Virtua Fighter 3tb, MSR and JSR) for less than £100. I picked up Skies of Arcadia a few weeks later for £20. It all felt like shoplifting to be honest and that's how I ended up making a good amount of money 15 years later.

There will never be another Dreamcast. It was a miraculous one off - the mid-market games and shallow but impressive arcade experiences that made it special have basically disappeared.

The Wii U, whilst very different and with a lesser library overall, had some of that same freewheeling creativity though. Splatoon could easily have been a Dreamcast game for instance and there were bold experiments with a few other new IPs like The Wonderfull 101 and Tokyo Mirage Sessions that - like many Dreamcast games were designed from within and not just looking to follow a set of popular and commercially successful trends. So they're not exactly the same but the Wii U is probably the closest we'll ever come again.

My point was specifically in answer to @skywake questioning whether people will collect Wii U games in the same ways because they can (and will) be ported and available digitally and the originals will lack features dependent on web servers. Dreamcast games are available everywhere, could be easily pirated when they were new and some (like Skies of Arcadia) can't be 100% completed now there are no servers - it hasn't stopped them being very collectable.

@StuTwo
I don't disagree with your points I just think you're kinda missing the point of what I'm saying. We can both be right, it's just a question of which "levers" are going to have more of an impact.

Without a doubt the Wii U does have some things going for it that may make it collectable. It is an oddball system that didn't have a huge install base and potentially has some cult classics. It also has some unique features that are not going to appear elsewhere. As you mentioned it doesn't have a particularly large collection of games for it so someone going for a complete set has a chance. All of these things make it potentially more collectable.

However we are yet to see how collectable a modern console can be. Digital games on Wii U will not go out of print so as long as the eShop is still up people who just want to play a game won't have to hunt it down. Alongside that some of the best games in its library are either on 3DS or Switch in one form or another. So I don't think it's as simple as saying the Wii U sold poorly and had good games therefore it's collectable.

@skywake I don't disagree - there are reasons why modern systems may be inherently less valuable to collectors in the future. From a rational, logical point of view they should be worth less.

I was just providing some evidence against that - the Dreamcast is a (kind of) modern system, all of the really key games have either been ported or received iterative sequels, some of the original games (like Skies of Arcadia) had DLC that's no longer accessible and anyone who wants to just play the games can easily do so because the original hardware basically has no copy protection. In spite of all of those things people still pay ridiculous amounts for original physical Dreamcast games in good condition.

And absolutely we can both be right (or wrong). The main thing is that the discussion is interesting (which I think it is).

@StuTwo
I meant modern in the context of distribution of games. Consoles before the mid-2000s didn't have digital distribution for full retail games. And for Nintendo they were only distributing small indie titles before the 3DS launched. We don't yet have an example of how "collectable" the games for a console where downloading games was one of the legitimate ways to buy games originally. The consoles where that was the case aren't old enough yet.

I'm just wondering whether or not there'll be a market for the original disc for Bayonetta 2 on Switch in 2025 if the eShop is still online. Especially if the Wii U's people buy used have dodgy optical drives.

@skywake I do think it'll be interesting to see. It should lower the value of games on modern consoles on the secondary market but I suspect digital distribution will actually have the opposite effect.

Collectors buy to own a physical memento of something ephemeral. Games being available digitally (legitimately) doesn't change that one bit. What it does change is the number of physical units sold in the first place (since non-collectors might settle for/prefer the digital version). So there are fewer physical copies of even great games - which makes them more 'rare'.

Collectors are also often the ones taking a slightly odd long term view "what if Nintendo pulls the Wii U eShop 20 years from now and 21 years from now I fancy playing Bayonnetta 2 and it's never been ported to any machine thereafter? I must own the physical copy just in case!".

@StuTwo
All good points. But at the same time there is more to retro gaming than just those types of collectors. Some people just want to play a few classics on original hardware. If it so happens that getting an old Wii U, possibly even with a buggered up ODD, and downloading those games from the eShop? That's less people fighting over the few physical copies of Devil's Third or whatever

It is hard to re-create all the Wii U features faithfully on an emulator. In fact it's much harder than with any other Nintendo console. With an emulator you can play NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Playstation, XBox, etc. just fine. But the Wii U has a variety of hardware features many games used, from second screen / touch screen to camera to gyro to pointer. Features that can not be emulated by a standard PC. Custom-built hardware is needed. Too much of a hassle and too expensive. The GamePad is just so essential and handy. For that alone, original Wii U hardware will be more valuable than NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, and Switch.

You can emulate most consoles to run 1:1 on a PC (or let's say 90%-99%), especially retro ones. But a setup containing all components that are needed to emulate Wii U games correctly is more expensive than buying a new GamePad + Wii U in the first place. In that sense, there is additional value for collectors in having at least the original hardware.

I would pick up as many Wii U GamePad's and consoles as possible if I could find them cheap and in good condition.

I plan on buying 2 extra WiiUs after the holiday game buying season.. cant ever have enough WiiUs in your home.

That's like Famicom Disk System Disk Writer and Super Famicom Nintendo Power exclusives.
At one time there was an infinite supply (since the disk/cart could be rewritten unlimited times, much like buying a digital copy on Wii U) but then there will be a very limited supply (the physical discs on Wii U).
Though it might be a bit different since the older consoles, people would erase their game when they don't want it anymore, rewriting it with a game they want to play, even if it would be a game easily obtainable on a normal cart. And consequently probably most copies that remain in existence would be in the hands of people who want to keep the game. Whereas with Wii U discs, those are not erasable so if one doesn't want it anymore it would make sense to sell it to somebody that does.