Wii

The Wii and DS were phenomenally successful consoles, selling over 250 million units between them worldwide. That's great news when a system is 'alive' and still getting new games, but when it's a decade down the line, the software has dried up (well, almost dried up) and online services are being disconnected, it means something else: you're going to find millions of unwanted consoles flooding the second-hand market.

That's the situation that Japan appears to find itself in. One Japanese shopper snapped images inside a trade-in store which shows Nintendo DS consoles selling for 100 Yen – that's around a dollar, or 75 pence if you're in the UK. PS2 consoles are selling for 200 Yen ($1.86 / £1.51) while a second-hand Wii will set you back 50 Yen (46 cents / 36 pence). All of those prices are subject to sales tax, which makes them slightly higher, but not by much.

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Old consoles being sold for much less than their original retail value isn't big news, of course, but these prices are still a little on the insane side. Surely a Wii offers enough entertainment value to be worth more than 50 cents – or perhaps the issue is that there are so many of these systems clogging up stores that they literally have no option but to drop them to a stupid price in order to shift them?

How many Nintendo DS consoles would you buy if they only cost a dollar at your local game store?

[source twitter.com]