Even before Nintendo discontinued the NES Classic, the value of the micro-console on the secondary market was far greater than its suggested retail price. Scalpers on sites like eBay were demanding astronomical amounts for the system, but prices appeared to have settled down recently, perhaps due to slowing demand and the naive expectation that Nintendo would eventually get enough consoles onto store shelves to ensure that anyone who wanted one got one at a reasonable price.
However, the news that the console is now no longer in active production has caused a spike in its resell value, and UK high street retailer CEX - which deals in buying and selling second-hand electronics and media - has capitalised on this by pricing the console at £190, more than three times its typical retail value.
At the time of writing the store is offering NES Classic owners £123 cash for their console or £142 of in-store credit. Last week, CEX was reportedly selling the system for £90.
You could argue that CEX is simply responding to market trends when it comes to pricing this console; the news that it has been discontinued has caused a massive rise in value on eBay as well. In that regard, the store can't be blamed for making the most of the incredible demand for the NES Classic - what really beggars belief is why Nintendo would decide to axe a product which, since launch, it has been unable to meet demand for.
Perhaps the company wants to avoid a conflict of interest when the Virtual Console eventually arrives on the Switch, or maybe an updated NES Classic with more titles is planned? Let us know what you think by posting a comment below.
Comments 82
Given much of CEX's customer base looks like they just walked off the set of a Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer Show, I can't see them selling many of these at this price.
Then again, a week ago I wouldn't have expected Nintendo to discontinue the damn console either!
I don't care if a big Switch VC is on the way, or if a Nintendo something Mini with eshop capacity is on its way, but right now Nintendo isn't making any money out of the nostalgia craze.
The scalpers are, big time.
I used to work for these guys. I had to leave because it was disgusting. My boss stank of pee (that's putting it nicely), the shop floor was never cleaned. The back rooms looked like a crack den. I didn't know rats could get so big.
To top it off, they rip people off with almost every sale. You bought a phone from them that now doesn't work? Good luck getting your money back as they will stand there and argue for hours about why you're not getting refunded. I won't step foot in one anymore, lol. Ew.
I have a NES classic and I have no plans on getting rid of it, especially for the CEX CEOs to screw more money out of people desperate for a little bit of cash. CEX never gives a fair price for what you are offering. Horrible exploitation. My cousin in his more naive days aged 16 sold around 20 of his PS2 games and received a grand total of around £45 for them. This was only around 1 year after the PS3 came out!
Is that new in box? They can do that in the UK? I mean you can do that with used product in the US but most definitely not new. That sucks. ...Still might be cheaper than scalpers though.
NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH SCALPERS
And even official retailers get in on the fun!
@Ryu_Niiyama Yes - retailers can set any price they like here. Generally they'll use the RRP or lower, but occasionally (like this in case) they don't.
Gosh...
£190 for a Mini NES ?!
@Ryu_Niiyama Pretty sure CEX only deals in used goods but it has been a long while since have done any business with them.
It's still cheaper than a lot of ebayers right? Disgusting how Nintendo goods always get treated this way. Am still trying to get hold of months old amiibo but refuse to pay over 5 times their worth to scalpers.
Think that's bad.
They're only giving €100 cash trade-in here in Ireland but are selling it for €295! Giving less and selling for more.
I really don't understand why people still don't have one. If your a nintendo fan you should have pre-order from the official nintendo store, i got mine plus second controller two days before release.
Cex are the original Scalpers.
I remember them selling Steel Battalion on the XBox for about £200 on the day after its release. Yes, that was preowned.
They sell rare SNES stuff now too. I saw a super metroid game in there a few weeks ago for £190.
@Oldbeardo me to but made the mistake of not getting a second controller ☹️
I wouldn't really stress about it I don'r exactly class these guys as genuine retailers. they're a scummy second hand shop. if you really pay £190 for a second hand item ( wether they mark It up as NEW) then no ones to blame other than yourself for buying it.
I mean everyone should know by now they are a second hand store and no better than the likes of cash generator and I expect th majority of they're stock is probably stollen.
This is a worldwide thing. "Three times the price" is pretty much the norm. Some online store is selling it for 300€. :/
@Moon I can verify what you're saying. I never had the displeasure of actually working for these fraudsters but did purchase an iPhone from there for my a relative. It didn't work and when we took it back they refused to acknowledge a problem despite their promise of a 2 year warranty. Their business practices stink worse than their customer base. And that's pretty bad. I have been in a CEX in every town I've been in just to look what they've got and there's always at least one customer in there that's not washed since 1992.
This latest thing with the NES Classic is the latest in a long line of scalping. Sometimes they charge MORE for a second hand game than it costs brand new, despite no stock issues. They're awful!!
This whole situation just reeks of Nintendo incompetence and the lack of faith they have in their own products. I'll give you a tip Nintendo, free of charge; 90% of the people interested in purchasing the NES Mini ARE NOT going to buy a Switch and if they do they ARE NOT going to be buying NES games on it. Most of the casual players I know don't even realize that you even have a digital storefront. They aren't interested. They just want the NES Mini for nostalgia and ease of use. Why won't you sell it to them?!?!
Another protip; those among your hardcore fan are likely to buy BOTH a NES Mini AND a Switch. And what's more, they will also be likely to buy NES games on the Switch even if they have a NES Mini because they've bought them on Wii/U/3DS eShop, so why would they stop now?!
NES Mini has no impact on Switch in any way. They are for different markets and both can coexist. Shame you don't even realize this.
Id just like to think that no one is idiotic enough to buy it from them, if they are then no one to blame but themselves
Soooo... the end result of the whole NES mini story is "Nobody is happy except the scalpers"?
"It starts", as a certain meercat said once.
As a Nintendo collector (I start so many of my posts with that line...)
Cex are great for me adding to my Wii collection. They'll often have rare games in which can't be found anywhere else on the high street.
They also offer individual Animal Crossing amiibo cards dirt cheap and show them off in the window - not seen them anywhere else.
Like any retro retailer, you've just got to be lucky and bide your time til a good offer comes along. Nobody is forcing you to buy the NES Mini from them at that price, and if nobody does buy them, the price will come down.
Unless you're hacking it, I don't think the thing is even worth the asking price.
Maybe Nintendo should do a Wii/Wii U sale (and maybe a switch sale when its VC comes out) to get all the games contained in the mini as a Virtual Console package for 60 bucks? Earn back some goodwill.
Meh. Gamestop does this all the time
Last week the Game was selling the Switch pro controller for £85. And although it was hard to find our local Smyths Toys had some for £59.
To be fair Cex will go with market demand, knowing someone will pay. The Game should not be upping the price if there is a shortage.
CEX have done the same with Zelda Amiibo, which are also out of stock everywhere.
Nintendo is so bad at stock and the fans always pay the price. I split my thoughts about Nintendo in two. One side I call "Nintendo Creative", where they make the most fun games, characters and consoles. The other side "Nintendo Corporate", where they screw you for every penny, never have enough stock and make really bad business decisions.
There is no excuse for Amiibo stock issues or cancelling the NES. Plus a plethora of other decisions they have made. But they do it to save every penny for the investors and screw over the fans. Nintendo corporate sucks, but I stay with them because of Nintendo creative. sigh
CEX is often overpriced! 2 weeks ago they were selling Nintendo Switch for £350... but now because the console has come back into stock in this country at a lot of retailers, they had to reduce their price. CEX's price for the switch is £300, but that's used and it's still £20 more compared to getting get it new! They overprice used games as well.
Avoid competing with VC?
You know when Prime Trilogy was new on Wii U the price of it there went UP?
Robbery in broad daylight!
@MysticX and the people who already have a NES mini. Plus the people like me who actually didn't care much about it.
My local CEX store has a preowned Switch in there for £350.
Even though there's Game, Grainger Games, Argos, CoolSpot Games all selling brand new ones for the normal price.
You can't blame CEX for selling things at market value. This whole situation is Nintendos doing. What ever the real reason is for the supply problems and discontinuation, Nintendo is the reason the things sell for so much. They dropped the ball big time.
I knew before coming in here that you were talking about CEX. It's absolutely disgusting and disgraceful. I've been discussing this elsewhere. They were selling it prior to Nintendo's announcement of its discontinuation, for €175. The next day the price went up to €295. Nintendo are to blame for this. By not coming even any way remotely close to meeting consumer demand, they've left the door wide open for scalpers and rip-off stores like this. It's been bad since the start, now it's just got a whole lot worse.
Sure I had it pre ordered back in July with Zavvi. They, by the way, for people who don't know, run Nintendo UK's online store. They cancelled my order a couple of weeks after its release date, citing BS excuses of not enough stock. Nintendo had months to read consumer demand prior to its launch and ramp up production. They didn't. The whole Nintendo Classic Mini has been a disaster from start to finish. In the US you couldn't pre order either. I finally managed to buy one a couple of them 2 months ago by pure chance. Had I not, I'd imagine that I'd have even stronger words to say about this fiasco. Ya, and I had to pay more than my initial order. Only once did I ever see this in a shop. The day I bought them. I've never seen the standalone controller being sold on its own. That must be even rarer than the console. I pre ordered that as well through Gamestop. But, you guessed it. Cancelled!
And 1 last thing, though it's a separate issue but related to this story. Irish consumers are ripped off on all goods. We have to pay more for everything than the UK. In the UK this is £190, that converts to €225. Here in Ireland CEX charge €295.
https://ie.webuy.com/product.php?sku=04549634NM01
But it's even worse than that. CEX screw Irish consumers twice. They pay UK consumers ~66% of its sell on value, while Irish consumers only receive ~33%.
https://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sku=04549634NM01#.WPSSN-PhTQ9
@SLIGEACH_EIRE They had them for €140-160 even since launch day (some people in my town buy hot items day 1 in gamestop and walk around the corner to make profit in CEX) with the joypads for €46-48 so I'm curious what they've gone up to now.
edit: Yep, doubled in price.
https://ie.webuy.com/product.php?sku=04549634NM01#.WPSKLmnysuU
I'm arguably lucky, having worked in gamestop before, I have ins with my local store, I had the 1st preorder in the entire store on the mini, a 2nd controller (and a switch) so I got away with it easy. Gamestop Ireland though will literally outsell preorders like crazy and just cancel them down the line. Happened so many times when I was there. Fire Emblem Fates SE is the best example in my mind.
That's just tasteless in my opinion. A company is always in for the money, sure, but this is just too much. Hopefully Nintendo will come up with something that ends this kind of exploits. The fact that big N didn't provide enough is another thing...
I pre-ordered from two different places and didn't get my piece. Slightly disappointed at the time but on the other hand I have enough technology under my TV already.
Not surprised at all by this
Why blame CEX for trying to run a business? This is 100% Nintendo's fault with their lack of communication as to availability throughout its short life and them restricting supply. The same thing happens with amiibo all the time and the new ones already appear to be out of stock months before launch.
How are CEX ripping people off?!?! It's not as if they'll only give you £30 for the thing, then sell it for £200! They pay owners a lot more than they payed originally for it, and sell it for a profit. Just like any second-hand shop ever.
Old Megadrive and NES games are being sold in CEX for high prices these days, but it's not as if CEX only payed the old owner a few pounds for them. Nintendo have driven up the prices by seriously under stocking.
Anyone who walks in to CEX and pays that sort of money is to blame. If nobody pays that, the price will surely come down it's as simple as that
When demand > supply, price goes up. Business 101. The trade price isn't too bad either. So...no harm no foul. However, all this talk of staff and customers smelling is funny
Scummy... scalpels are truly a pain.
Some stuff in CEX is overpriced. On the whole I think they provide an incredible service. I only look for old games on eBay rarely these days thanks to CEX.
People need to get of their high horses. No one is being forced to buy anything. If you don't like the price move on.
They have PS3 and 360 games on sale for next to nothing. I see games in there that I paid €50 for being sold for €1.
@GamerGuy82
They're not like "cash generator". Maybe if you took your nose out of the clouds you could see they are providing an excellent service.
I got my dad one of these things not long ago, popped online at BestBuy for a while so I snagged one.
I don't really want one though. I've got enough systems
Never cared for it.
As soon as it was announced that Nintendo had discontinued the Mini NES in the USA - CEX jacked their price up from £90 (on Wednesday) to £190 on Thursday.
They must have a team of people scouring Video Game news websites.
@segamegadrive You say that like it's a bad thing? They'd be a pretty awful company if they didn't keep an eye on trends and announcements in order to change their prices accordingly.
I don't get it. There are around 2 million units shipped at this point. With those numbers in mind, how is that a collectable item? Not to mention that tens of thousands of these (if not more) will stay unpacked for the sake of future investment. I'm pretty sure in 20 years time there will be less unpacked WiiUs than these.
@Mart1ndo Spoken like true troll. Have some salt on that !
I would know how they work and they are not offering an excellent service So take your brown nose out and give it a clean .
I have a membership with them and have traded in with them only because they gave more cash at the time than Game uk but as far as buying no thanks I have seen the condition of the stock and they shocking priced for used goods and I can gaunrtee they majority is probably nocked off goods sold for a bag
@GamerGuy82
So anyone who disagrees with your snotty nose opinion is a troll. LOL
"I would know how they work and they are not offering an excellent service" spoken like a true d***.
Scum tbh. I heard eBay prices had tripled. Thought retailers would be more responsible. Should be a law that they can't resell a USED and opened product for more than the retail price. That's the whole point of these stores, to get 2nd hand products for a discounted price. Something old like a NES, SNES or Gamecube game that is rare...they can sell it for higher if they like. A product that launched last November? Absolutely not, that should be illegal I'm afraid. If I saw it in my store I would ask the staff what in the world they were playing at.
If Nintendo was smart, they would announce this stuff was released and hire a team to list it all on ebay under 50 different user names. Then they could be making $300 per console and cut out the middle man. Maybe drop a small quantity to stores to make it look like it's really in the wild.
I saw in my local one a second hand Switch for £300.00!
My local Sainsburys had Switch for £280.00 brand new....
Before even clicking on the article I knew you was talking about Cex. on another note look at that trade in price, kinda wish I had a couple laying around.
Looks like it's about $250-$300 on amazon.com, and that number is only going to go up.
I'm lucky, my sister just found one of these for me about a month ago. We were in the process of looking into using hacks to load more roms but I'm hesitant now.
I personally hate scalpers, but I can't help but look at the prices these are fetching on Ebay. If I were to sell now, I could almost buy a Switch with the money we make.....if I could find a Switch!
The way the classic is packaged, I guarantee that most of the systems on eBay have been used. I'm just glad I was able to get one at launch. I think the controllers are more scarce because I ended up buying another classic just for an extra controller at my local Walmart back in January. I'm pretty sure these will be re released during the holidays. Can't understand why anyone would pay more than an og nes but nostalgia is a powerful drug.
That's not even the worst price I've seen.....
And this was the day after news broke of it discontinuing.
Also the Switch is being sold by scalpers..
I don't understand why Nintendo would discontinue a product people are still clamoring for. What sense does that even make?
As for this: supply and demand, man. They're smart to take advantage of this situation.
@Ralizah RE: taking advantage of supply and demand
CEX do what Nintendon't
I post that so much lately, almost like everyone else does what people are asking for and Nintendo never listen...
@Angelic_Lapras_King LOL at least you could. No preorders for the NA region. Still, Nintendo might bring it back next holiday season. They always do runs like this. Minus the extension of course.
Classic CeX 😂
If it never sold at £80 the week before, how will it sell for £190?
That's kind of a asinine move of them, no wonder people do grey things.
I can confirm I saw a boxed one at £90 last week in Cex. To be expected. I was annoyed at the hike then, almost seems like a bargain now.
@GravyThief sorry, but snobbery much?
At the end of the day, these are the people Nintendo is helping by discontinuing it while still in high demand.
It doesn't cost anything for a NES emulator
They're also selling the Switch for far above its RRP, because of course they are.
This is all Nintendos fault. The retailer is doing nothing wrong and I quite frankly would do the exact same.
Nintendo could've avoided all this!! I defend Nintendo when it's warranted, but this is just utterly stupid and totally avoidable.
Every CeX I've ever walked into literally stinks like a smelly old gym bag, and their bsiness practices are just as bad.
CeX are con men wouldn't go near this shop, try returning anything and its a load of lies they make up, stay well clear from these guys.
@dizzy_boy
Lol my wife always says the same thing when we go in them, she says everybody is a dirty smelly scratter that never wash
There is zero justification for this, Nintendo drop the ball big time. They screw over the fanbase, people that were once fans and for what a virtual console on Switch so we have to paid for the same games again for ridiculous prices?? Screw you Nintendo, I ain't buying you a single VC game on Switch.
Cex bought my switch for £300 and gave me £50 for Zelda a month after release. I got to play Zelda and make a profit 🤑
I don't get what all of the hype is about. A few of my friends got tham and all of them said they hooked it up and played an hour or two and now it collects dust. Great for nostalgia, but it's not like you can't put these games on any other given device made in the last decade.
It's likely they are using these manufactures to convert the machines to output more switches.
Just ridiculous, thanks Nintendo. Really well handled supply and demand situation.
@Dokkaebi That's what stopped me from getting, or trying to get one. I figured just get the games I really like and would play, SMB2 & 3 etc, on the 3DS VC.
They're cheaper on ebay ha ha!!
i may actually trade mine in for that price................... but.........i.........just.......cant.
If people are daft enough to pay this price, then people will charge it, this is simple market forces. Scalping will stop if people stop paying ridiculously high prices for things, I blame the buyers not the sellers.
I prefer to go without rather than pay way over the odds, for anything.
So glad I got up early on the morning of the release day. I don't use it much because of my avs but I still love the little thing. Between the two I think the visuals on the avs are a little better. Not by much but they are both leagues better than the wii u vc.
CEX did the same thing with certain amiibo. It's best to just take them up on their good deals.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...