Topic: Why 1st-party Wii U games won't be as valuable as GameCube games (as of 2023)

We all know GameCube games are quite overpriced right now (and have been at least since 2020). The main reasons seem to be.
1. Current Nostalgia: The GameCube's life was 2001-2007. That means plenty of people who were teens and younger during those years want to play new to them games from that era or buy some titles they don't have any more.
2. Lack of digital availability/ports: Nintendo has not put GameCube games on the Wii U Virtual Console or Nintendo Switch Online. These seemed like obvious choices.
3. Lower print run: Sure, some GameCube games sold millions of copies. But some first-party games sold under a million, and some sold around half a million.
While I think the Wii U console and GamePad will increase in value, a lot of games won't be as valuable as GameCube. By percentage, a ton of first-party Wii U games are on Switch. Contrariwise, a clear majority of GameCube games never got ports, remasters or remakes. The two best-selling GameCube games, Smash and Mario Kart, are still trapped as GameCube games.
Some obvious first-party Wii U games that will climb in value if they remain trapped on Wii U are
1. Xenoblade Chronicles X
2. Game and Wario
3. Wind Waker HD
4. Twilight Princess HD
5. Wii Party U
6. Wii Sports Club
X will probably be on Switch 2, and the Zelda HD games probably will be as well.
I wouldn't be surprised if Breath of the Wild ends up getting really pricy for the Wii U version. 1.7 million is an abundance of copies, but it's so much smaller than the amount of Switch copies and it's such a popular game that a Wii U version has some appeal. Admittedly, I think Breath of the Wild would probably be more valuable if it had some obvious GamePad features (that were cut) that distinguished it more from Switch.

Xenoblade Chronicles X recommends some hefty multi-GB downloads to improve performance. With the end of the eshop, those downloads are no longer available. That might hamper its value.

Honestly I think the hardware is going to be a bit of an issue for Wii U game value also. With Gamecube games in particular not only was there Wii backwards compatibility but you had support for the controllers through Wii, Wii U and Switch. You can still buy official GC controllers new, not new old stock, new.

With the Wii U? Wii U games only ran on the Wii U. Their controllers, even the Pro Controllers, were only ever supported on the Wii U. The GamePad itself? Pretty much everyone would have only ever had one and they would've used it ALL the time. So those things are all pretty well worn. If people are diving into it now they're probably not getting the quality of hardware they would be for GC

Plus, as you said, the list of games that you'd want on Wii U that aren't on Switch are pretty thing. Honestly the only one I'd say is truly missing is Nintendo Land, which was a pack-in game and is never going to be rare. Then of course the HD Zelda remakes which... if you're into retro-gaming you're probably going for the GC versions anyways. Outside of those but? The list gets real thin, real fast

There is one thing the Wii U has going for it compared to the Switch: it's probably the last Nintendo console generation to have self-contained physical games. Many Switch games need a separate Internet download, which means the physical game cards become useless once they turn off the servers. I realize this is going somewhat off-topic, so a little later we can start a new thread "Why 1st-party Switch games won't be as valuable as Wii U games".

It's obvious why. A large majority of GC games, primarily it's exclusives as well as many games from that era, still haven't seen any sort of rerelease, meanwhile almost every game on the Wii U worth owning have been brought over to the Switch and/or other platforms.

I never played nintendo land on wii U, wonder was it any good ?

@Ninfan
Nintendo Land was great. Sure it didn't quite blow you away like Wii Sports did on the Wii but it was still a very solid showpiece. Comfortably the main reason to even consider looking at the Wii U in 2023. Although.... looking at how much people are selling used Wii Us for, probably not worth picking one up just for Nintendo Land.....

@skywake Not all Wii U came with Nintendo Land. (there was of course the original Basic Set or whatever. Probably forgot about that because 32GB was already pretty stingy for 2012, but 8GB wasn't even enough to ensure a full game download. And also my console came with a digital Mario Kart 8 instead.)
The Nintendo Selects print of Wii Sports might be a collectible at some point since in North America it was the only properly boxed copy of the game, in the vein of GB Tetris and Super Mario World (I hear the UK/EU got it packaged properly with a case but the console but in America was sold with the game in just a cheap cardboard sleeve.)

I'm no expert on retro video game pricing, but I think original versions of games will always hold certain appeal for some people, whether that game is subsequently re-released on other platforms or not. So the fact Wii U sold so poorly will always hold prices up once the time-induced scarcity kicks in.

But the main advantage GameCube games have over Wii U games are the instruction booklets. People willing to spend decent money on retro games value good condition booklets and will pay significantly more to get a complete version in great condition. This factor is eliminated for Wii U games because the manuals were digitised. Much easier to find Case & Disc in good condition than it is Case & Disc & Instruction Booklet.

As best as I can remember it, GameCube games started going sky high in price within a couple of years of the Wii hitting the market and never came down, thanks to the backwards compatibility and it being a far more popular console.

Since the Wii U didn't have anything else that could play its games, its library has remained comparatively affordable. With only around half of the software sales though, and a lot of those as digital downloads, I'd expect that they could end up more collectable in the long run.

There's also the whole WATA/VGA grading business that I wouldn't touch with a long bargepole. They've been inflating the prices of practically everything though, not just Nintendo platforms.

@Matt_Barber Come to the think of it...I don't really remember GC games getting real expensive even after the Wii had the market. Especially well into 2007, 2008, & 2009. Because many games such Smash Bros. Melee & Pokemon Colosseum were still pretty affordable during that time. But I think that really started to change when the 2010's began. It was slow, but steady.

But when I still had my WiiU, I bought NSMBU & 3D World even after the Switch ports were released, only because they were much more affordable at $15-20 most last count. Cause I sure wasn't gonna pay $60 for a Switch port of a WiiU game. That's my only reason anyways. Until I eventually just sold the WiiU altogether. It's a nice system in it's own right but the set-up with so many wires is completely impractical for me.

I think it'll come down to the extent Nintendo chooses to delve into their Gamecube library. Switch 2 not existing yet kind of forced Nintendo's hand to dig deep into their retro catalog so we managed to get multiple Gamecube games for Switch in 2023 and that continues in 2024 to at least some extent with TTYD.

But when Switch 2 exists, Nintendo's strategy for delving into their huge library of games may end up being just reselling games that already came to Switch like Sony has done for PS5. If this is the case then Gamecube game prices will skyrocket even further.

@Matt_Barber
I don't recall most GameCube games (even the sellers around 1 million or more) starting a price hike until around 2015.
By then. Wii was effectively discontinued, and Wii consoles weren't manufactured with GCN support since 2011.
Unadjusted for inflation, around 2015 is when games like Super Smash Bros. Melee were starting to get around 60 USD complete in box.
2020 absolutely shifted GCN software (and software on many other platforms) beyond repair for the foreseeable future. Video game spending is often recession-proof, and more people were spending time indoors. Also, some people with hardship or wanting to make money in general were selling their games off. It's wild that a game like Paper Mario TTYD that sold about 1.91 million worldwide was regularly selling for above 100 USD complete in box for about 3.5 years because the demand was that high. The remake seems to have reduced prices, but even the Player's Choice right now is averaging for about 72.93 USD complete in box right now when it should be more around 40 USD.