Missed oppurtunities: Clearance games you regret not buying then and there

[chexmixbreath]

I already posted about one missed opportunity in this thread, but of course I have many more and no doubt others do too. Let's hear about them.


I guess I lucked out by getting a single copy for myself at all, but I'm still haunted by the memory of the giant bin of pristine, shrink-wrapped copies of Drill Dozer for the GBA going for FIVE (5) dollars each at a Target in 2007 or 2008. Indeed I grabbed one for myself, fun game, good game, but I should have bought EVERY SINGLE ONE in there, there were at least a dozen copies arghhhhhhsjkngksldfnglkf.

[mystemo]

There have been several over the years. Symphony of the Night and Suikoden for 15 bucks each was a deal I wish I had taken back in the early 2000's.
Then when our local toy store went out of busines back in 2005 they sold out a ton of old games from their storage. I bought a bunch of them but of course I could not buy all of them, my biggest regret was not buying a brand new 32X for 30 bucks, I actually had it in my cart but decided against it at the last minute.

[bikingjahuty]

I remember around the time I began collecting Target and Walmart were getting rid of their PS2 stuff and had a ton of it parked down on clearance. I remember seeing shelves of brand new slim PS2s for like $40 each at one point, but passed on them thinking why I'd want another PS2.


Even longer ago I remember the Sam Goody at my local mall had a ton of clearance greatest hits PS1 games. They ranged from like $5 to $15 depending on the game. I remember buying a brand new copy of FFVII as a backup in case I ever wanted to play it. Funny enough I ended up selling that copy for like $200 on ebay in the mid-2000s, but wha I regret is not buying more of their greatest hits PS1 games at that price.


My local KB Toys had a ton of N64 games on clearance in the early 2000s. I don't remember a lot of the specific titles, but they were all like $10-20. I do remember them having Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart 64, but don't remember anything else beyond that.

[weirdfeline]

Guitar Hero Live when everyone had it for $20.

Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World with Yarn Poochy amiibo was floating around Walmart for a while and the amiibo is now one of the more valuable ones. I purposely never bought any amiibo though.

[chexmixbreath]

I remember seeing Metal Gear Solid for the GBC in the bins frequently just chilling there alongside Austin Powers: Oh Behave!, Razor Freestyle Scooter, etc. marked down to $9.99 or lower...

[Cartagia]

My local KB Toys had a ton of N64 games on clearance in the early 2000s. I don't remember a lot of the specific titles, but they were all like $10-20. I do remember them having Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart 64, but don't remember anything else beyond that.

This is what I really remember, too.  Not necessarily any individual titles, but just when I started to see all the N64 markdowns.  Mostly because it was around the time I got my first job and had some pocket change.  Never got any of them, though.

[oldgamerz]

(EDIT) I posted this many times but I still have the same grudge

99% of games period I'll never own or play being 100% of the in the 8th and 9th console generation, I just won't buy those consoles, because of how much space you need to install them and
the fact you can sometimes only hold 12 games on a 500 gig PS4, and if you want something else you either fork it over and buy another console or put it onto an external hard dive. or you will lose that game once the PS4 servers are shutdown.

As a 1990's and 2000's PC gamer I realize how much game data (plus a Windows Operating System) you could hold on a 500 gigabyte hard drive, in the year 2000-2007 a (500) gigabyte hard drive was considered a HUGE hard drive to fill. In my day we would call any game or software over 5-10 gigabytes bloatware, jokes on you. What do you call a 100 Gigabyte game plus patch and plus profile data for the same game?

I realize that I could hold a heck of lot more games (just save data) for a PS2 game console on one 8mb PS2 memory card and that is saying a lot.

I am sorry for this same rant but,

[Cartagia]

(EDIT) I posted this many times but I still have the same grudge

99% of games period I'll never own or play being 100% of the in the 8th and 9th console generation, I just won't buy those consoles, because of how much space you need to install them and
the fact you can sometimes only hold 12 games on a 500 gig PS4, and if you want something else you either fork it over and buy another console or put it onto an external hard dive. or you will lose that game once the PS4 servers are shutdown.

Then buy the physical game.  I've got like 70 PS4 games.  Never bought a second console or another hard drive - just deleted what I finished and then reinstalled from disc if I wanted to play it again.

[bikingjahuty]

My local KB Toys had a ton of N64 games on clearance in the early 2000s. I don't remember a lot of the specific titles, but they were all like $10-20. I do remember them having Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart 64, but don't remember anything else beyond that.

This is what I really remember, too.  Not necessarily any individual titles, but just when I started to see all the N64 markdowns.  Mostly because it was around the time I got my first job and had some pocket change.  Never got any of them, though.

Kinda sorta video game related, but my KB also had a basket full of Base Edition Pokemon Card booster packs for a buck each around the time the mall they were in was closed permanently. This was around 2004 or 2005. I ended up buying one, but looking back I wish I'd bought the whole basket; there were easily 50+ booster packs in there. I would have probably opened them all, but if I hadn't those things sell for insane money now.

[kashell]

Off the top of my head, it'd be Suikoden II around the time it was first released. This was during FuncoLand days and they let me try it out to see if it'd be worth the purchase. I dunno; I wasn't feeling it. Well, most folks know what happened with Suikoden II's price ever since.

The good news is I won a copy many, many years later from a drawing so yay for that.

[tpugmire]

The literal piles of Earthbound for SNES on clearance for $25. Probably 1998. I bought one, but damn I should have gotten them all.

[sworddude]

I think the biggest thing was with pokemon cards

An example being ex holon phantom packs in 2010 2012 era for less than 4$ a piece brand new cheaper than in stores. you could get tons online with booster boxes also many years after. I got some pretty nice goldstar cards out of them wich are worth a pretty penny in the current era. but when you think about it.

Nowadays lose packs not even in the factory sealed box sell for over 150 or 200$ a pack that's an increase of 50 times it's msrp in a short a pretty short amount of time.

Pokemon go craze sure made those booster packs go crazy. Sure prices where high well before but not that high.

I missed allot of deals for retrogames but if where talking easy money, buying pokemon booster boxes of allot 3+ year old sets that where still cheap normal msrp before pokemon go was the way to get rich in the more recent era. the gains are quite insane. forget the base sets wich where already pricy. ex holon phantoms, crystal guardians hidden legends ex unseen forces ex deoxys. those where the kinda things you had to get.

I will say though nowadays the cards are way to shiny and modern pokemon art not really being my cup of tea. The perfect era was the inbetween classic and modern era. my favourites being stuff like holon phatoms or unseen forces. If where talking the old school era Neon genesis was peak. There was something special about the art and the card layout.

[betelgeuse]

For me it’s gotta be SNES and Turbo Duo games.
I had started working full time around when PlayStation was released. I focused mainly on those and passed on the majority of the $5 bargain games at just about every store that sold them.

[topspot123]

Guitar Hero Live when everyone had it for $20.

Or less...

[topspot123]

I already posted about one missed opportunity in this thread, but of course I have many more and no doubt others do too. Let's hear about them.


I guess I lucked out by getting a single copy for myself at all, but I'm still haunted by the memory of the giant bin of pristine, shrink-wrapped copies of Drill Dozer for the GBA going for FIVE (5) dollars each at a Target in 2007 or 2008. Indeed I grabbed one for myself, fun game, good game, but I should have bought EVERY SINGLE ONE in there, there were at least a dozen copies arghhhhhhsjkngksldfnglkf.

I too shared a couple of my regrets in the previous thread, but luckily I've picked up most of the games I've wanted shortly after they've come out.  And since I've been collecting steadily since the '80s, I don't deal with trying to track down a rarity very often. It happens, of course, but not very often overall since I've usually bought what I've wanted when it was readily available. Plus I buy to play, not for collectibility or future value so I'm frequently surprised by some of the current collector prices of games in my collection.  Once I own it, I don't follow prices much, you know? I had no idea Drill Dozer was going for that much!

But another regret I have isn't actually my own regret, technically. You've heard of the US video game crash? As a youngster during the time I had no concept of a crash. I still played our ColecoVision all the time and constantly wished we had new games to play.  One day my parents come home from a shopping trip with a brand new one. It was a Cabbage Patch Kid cartridge for the Colecovision and was meant mostly for my little sister.  Ok, that's fine. She deserves games just for her too. But they described how they got it from the mall.  "They had a big bin filled with brand new games for only a dollar each!" they exclaimed. 

"And this was the only one you bought?!" I cried back! Moments like buying brand new video games for $1 are nearly once in a lifetime, and they didn't think to get as many as they could!

Even if the other titles were lackluster, and who knows what other games they had, I really regret that they didn't buy more of them.