This week our Specialist Valuer, James Mettam, would like to talk about the subject of Retro Gaming.

EA Sports FC25 and Call of Duty Black Ops 6 may be today’s players’ favourites, but less glamorous games from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s most excite collectors.

Slick, technologically advanced and sophisticated they may be, but when it comes to collecting you can’t beat a cranky old game based on table tennis. Why? Nostalgia. As the ‘gamers’ of the ‘80s and ‘90s grow older, they have an urge to collect the technology they grew up with. The technology may not have been as advanced, but the thrill of rolling back the years is producing a fast-growing collectors’ market. And the potential audience is huge. While rarity may drive the collecting market, Tetris – with its colourful tiles – sold more than 500m copies worldwide, with Minecraft a close runner up. 

So just how long ago did video games start? While the earliest computers date back to just after WWII, home video games were introduced in the mid ‘70s with ‘Home Pong’ by Atari, which was based on an arcade video game and imitated table tennis using simple, two-dimensional graphics. 

In Christmas 1975, Atari released a home version of Pong exclusively through Sears retail stores. It was a huge commercial success and led to numerous copies. Its cultural impact was so large Pong is part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. 

By the ‘80s, the advent of home computers in the form of systems such as the Spectrum ZX and Commodore 64 gave a platform for home video gaming and, by the ‘90s, video gaming had console systems of their own such as Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64 and Sega Megadrive. The world of the diehard gaming fanatic was well and truly born. 

Technology continued to evolve to today’s Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. But will any of these systems catch up with the biggest selling consoles of all time - Playstation 2 and Nintendo DS?

The consoles are only part of the story, the other half is the games themselves. From the early days of Pong, game developers took us to worlds of adventure, racing, puzzles, logic and sport and it is in these games that many a collector’s dreams are made of. Individual games can sell for in excess of £10,000 in the current collectors’ market. 

Look in your loft! Do you have a hidden, dust-covered copy of Air Raid for the ‘70s Atari 2600, or the 1990 Nintendo World Championship on the NES platform? If you are drawn to the world of retro technology there are a number of things to remember: 

• Try to ensure the items you buy are working and complete. 
• Buy with the original packaging intact, especially if considering investment rather than use. Cables and instructions are often missing which can affect value. 
• If the consideration is long-term investment, buy the items that no one else is buying. 
• Look out for promotional packaging or bundle deals that may have a short retail shelf life.    

Games currently increasingly in value include The Legend Of  Zelda - A Link To The Past on Super Nintendo, Tintin Destination Adventure on original Playstation and Spud’s Adventure on Gameboy. My personal favourite is Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. Auctions are monthly and include Super Mario, Grand Theft Auto, X-Box’s and Playstations, Atari, ZX Spectrum, Sega Game Gear, among the games and consoles regularly seen. 

James invites all items of retro technology at the auction gallery for monthly auctions, and is happy to chat though any questions you may have.