People with too much money are always looking for ways of getting rid of it. They'd sooner toss fat wads of cash at whatever they can than keep it in their pockets a moment longer. But just how little value must one ascribe to money for the following purchases to seem like sound investments?
Do you desperately desire a 3DS XL but would prefer one that didn’t actually work? Are you a firm believer in paying over 10 times more for a broken electronic item than you would for a fully-functioning one?
You’re out of luck, muchacho, because the perfect product matching that exact description has already come and gone.
You could’ve been the owner of a brand new Nintendo 3DS XL, reduced to a bubbling puddle of warped red plastic and ash but, unfortunately for you, it’s been sold and you’ve completely missed out. Unless, of course, you’re the actual mystery purchaser of said 3DS XL (in which case, let us be the first to let you know you’re an idiot.)
Why don't you go and stir fry yourself a Circle Pad Pro while you're at it?
This utterly molten 3DS XL (complete with its original box, power cord, warranty and a bonus glass toad full of prosthetic eyeballs) that hit eBay a few weeks back is now being listed as sold.
The final amount? A paltry $2,241.
About $2,000 more than it would cost to buy a 3DS XL and microwave it yourself.
In 2007 one lucky punter walked away from a garage sale with two Atari games he’d never heard of: Music Machine and Red Sea Crossing. They set him back 50 cents a pop. He quickly discovered Music Machine was actually an exceedingly rare 2600 game that regularly fetches hundreds of dollars when auctioned, but he couldn’t find anything on Google about Red Sea Crossing.
That’s because Red Sea Crossing was even rarer.
Just a few weeks ago this blessed chap sold his Red Sea Crossing cartridge on GameGavel. For $10,400. For an Atari 2600 game. An Atari 2600 game that featured Moses jumping over clams, and not a very good one at that.
"Careful..."
The cartridge, referred to as “the Holy Grail of Atari games” by the seller, “was not even known to exist" until he discovered it. It had been completely forgotten by the world after its release in 1983.
$10,400. And it wasn’t even in its original packaging.
It didn't even come with the colouring book or explanatory audio cassette narrated by Dale Evans Rogers!
On November 3 last year somebody bought a copy of Modern Warfare 3 on eBay. Seems insignificant, really, until you note the actual release date for Modern Warfare 3 wasn’t until November 8.
When a small quantity of Modern Warfare 3 copies were inadvertently unleashed earlier than allowed it was perhaps inevitable that somebody was going to try to flog one off in an online auction. It didn’t mean somebody necessarily had to buy it, of course, but we guess there’s no accounting for boneheads.
The question is how many illicit substances does one have to be mainlining into one’s eyeballs to come to the conclusion that $1,725 is a good price to pay for a copy of Modern Warfare 3, just to play it mere days before the rest of the world?
This many.
What makes things even more absurd is that not only would playing it on Xbox Live before the official release date be potentially problematic in the first place, the estimated delivery time of three to four business days means he probably didn’t actually receive the game until launch day anyway.
It’s not clear what’s more depressing. That some muppet blew a small fortune on a game that days later would go on to become to very opposite of rare and valuable, or that there were 88 bids.
What was it they say about a fool and his money?
Speaking of fools (and what they may or may not believe) are you searching for a way to marry your penchant for fighting games with your infatuation with five-time Grammy Award-winning former-Doobie Brother Michael McDonald? Looks like yah mo missed out again, chum.
Grab the matches.
In February this year this “one-of-a-kind, custom-made Michael McDonald Arcade Fighting Joystick” hit eBay and was promptly sold. Compatible primarily with PSone and PS2 this pre-loved stick, which allegedly won many tournaments for the previous owner “by harnessing the power of smooth rock”, was designed with a blue button theme to match the king of yacht rock’s “soul-piercing blue eyes.”
Dreamy, huh?
The partially-trashed stick, which came from “a smoke-free houseboat”, went on to sell for US $137.50 after 31 bids – a touch more than the going price for a brand new, current-gen Hori arcade stick.
It’s hard to decide which part of this story is more stunning; that a single human could personally amass a video game collection consisting of 22 full sets (including all games ever released on Nintendo home systems from Famicom to Gamecube, all games ever released on Sega systems and all games ever released on NEC systems, all in their boxes with the original instructions and many still factory sealed) or that, after doing so, said human would choose to part with it?
However, in July this year one eBay user did just that, placing a monster collection of around 7000 games (plus all the relevant consoles, also either factory sealed or mint in their boxes) on eBay with a buy-it-now price of €999,999. That’s well over US$1.2 million.
Or at least it was. Somebody (possibly) bought it.
Gaming Heaven? God must be clearing space in the garage for a new Lambo.
Now we all love games, but how much do you need to love games and hate cash to be willing to drop a cool million on a container-load of classic games you’re nonetheless unlikely to ever even unwrap? Besides, when does buying an awful game simply because you don’t have it yet become pathological collecting?
Do you really need a copy of Revolution X on SNES and Saturn?
Or, like, at all?
Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can chat to him about games, cars and other things he may like on IGN here or find him and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.
Source : ign[dot]com
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