Summary
In 1972, the video game console was introduced to homes in the form of the Magnavox Odyssey, a system with two paddles and less than 30 games across its lifespan. Later that same year came the Atari, and after the Famicom in 1983, a home gaming revolution was on. Cartridges flooded the market, and everyone in the programming world had their eyes on video games.
Throughout the progression from cartridges and discs to chips and, well, slightly different discs, some consoles have survived for longer than their inventors ever imagined. Many gamers are still switching on their Nintendo 64 or even the NES to play retro games, and the PlayStation 2 still tops the charts in console popularity. You already know what you grew up with, but where are they now? Your favorite consoles might just be harder to find and a lot more expensive than you remember.
The values listed are each console’s graded value if available, and are provided byPriceCharting. Some consoles do not have a graded or appraised value.
1985
Graded Price
$471.90
Mattel Electronics jumped into the video game market for a short time with the Intellivision, a system that had an attempted comeback just a few years ago. Unfortunately, despite the three-million units the Intellivision III sold, Mattel decided it was time to end their adventure into the world of home consoles.
Although less valuable than other consoles of the same rarity, the Intellivision III is quite hard to find. With only one or less sold per year, units of the Intellivision III are few and far between for a graded price of $471.90 USD. Dropping this one might have been the right decision, considering how well Barbie is doing.
1999
$660
SNK’s single-color Neo Geo Pocket was a wildly popular handheld gaming device. So popular, in fact, that you can find entire boxes and lots of them on every selling platform. It’s a lot easier to find a working Neo Geo Pocket than it is to hunt down a Sega Gamegear. The Neo Geo Pocket Color, however, is a lot rarer.
With a lifespan of only two years, the Neo Geo Pocket Color didn’t perform as well as manufacturers wanted it to. It was backwards compatible with the Neo Geo Pocket, but losing quickly to the wide array of other handhelds swarming the market. Today, the graded price of a Neo Geo Pocket Color is $660 USD.
1996
$1,074.94
Apple’s first foray into the video game market didn’t last long, and it’s still taking them some time to catch up. Bandai and Apple teamed up in 1996 to release the Apple Pippin, a home console capable of both 8-bit and 16-bit color displaying. Unfortunately, the Pippin wouldn’t last as long as many of its other competitors on the market.
With only 42,000 units sold, the plug was pulled on the Pippin in 1997. While the Pippin was given a swift death and buried deep beneath two decades of tech releases, some haven’t forgotten. Collectors especially remember, because the graded price of an unopened Pippin is $1,074.94 USD, only slightly cheaper than a brand new iPhone.
1983
$1,558.70
Sega has been making games and consoles longer than most other companies. A lot of Sega consoles, both home and handheld, are sought after by collectors and nostalgia fans, but only one is rare enough to break the thousand-dollar threshold.
Sega’s very first home video game console hits a graded price of $1,558.70 USD, making it Sega’s rarest and most expensive system as well as their oldest. Finding each of the 79 games released for the SG-1000 is another quest that just might take up the rest of your life to finish.
1972
$1,566
While its successors haven’t seen the rarity and value that the original has, the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey is important enough to have a console sitting in the National Museum of American History. With a graded price of $1,566 USD, the Magnavox Odyssey is as valuable as it is hard to find.
The longevity of the Odyssey is something to behold, as some units of this 70s system actually still work. Collectors might be even harder-pressed to find these consoles, as many of them are still in the hands of their original owners. Some gamers just don’t want to let go of their favorites.
1993
$3,244.79
Atari is one of the oldest manufacturers in the entire video game industry. What used to be an industry titan and the pioneer of video gaming, Atari slowly became a forlorn memory of pixels and paddles. The Atari Jaguar’s rarity and value is overshadowed by the Jaguar CD variant, which was an Atari Jaguar with an unwieldy CD-ROM drive slapped on top of it.
This frankenmachine is incredibly rare, which isn’t all that surprising when you take a look at the 20,000 units worldwide it managed to sell. The Atari Jaguar CD’s graded price is currently $3,244.79 USD, blowing the value of the Solid-Gold Nintendo 64 out of the water. It won’t look as nice on a shelf, but it’s probably the most valuable thing sitting in your parents' closet.
2001
$3,348.40
A strange marriage between Nintendo and Panasonic, the Panasonic Q was a heavily-altered GameCube console. This system was fully licensed, sporting a tiny LCD screen and a DVD disc drive. Although the concept was unique and interesting, the Panasonic Q sold less than 100,000 units worldwide and was dropped shortly after release.
The Panasonic Q is extremely rare, with one sale or fewer being recorded per year. The graded price of this glowing GameCube with DVD capabilities is currently $3,348.40 USD. You might be better off sitting your GameCube on top of a DVD player and calling it a GameQ, but if you’ve got one of these, you’re in luck.
1994
N/A
Every Zelda fan is either haunted or amused by the Philips CDI games that released, three non-canon titles that were a mess to play but full of unintentionally hilarious content. If you were wondering if there was a portable way to play those games, the answer is the GoldStar GPI-1200.
Looking like a minivan DVD player from the 2000s and so rare that not a single listing or grading of it exists anywhere, the GoldStar GPI is truly the holy grail of defunct gaming devices. The one that did manage to be sold with internet proof, though, went for $1,188 USD.
2009
Brazil wasn’t about the let Japan and the United States have all the fun in the video game market. The Zeebo, a 3G home gaming console, was released in Brazil as an affordable and easy-to-use system. After success in Brazil, the Zeebo launched in Mexico and continued to expand, but it didn’t take off internationally as well as its creators had hoped. By 2011, the Zeebo was done for.
Thanks to its internet-based launch and the timing, evidence of the Zeebo can be found all over the web. The Zeebo itself, however, is a lot more elusive. Because of the ability to play marketplace games offline, the Zeebo is actually worth more opened with games installed on it than it is in mint condition. However, the listings range wildly from a couple hundred Brazilian real to several thousand dollars.
1984
One of the most expensive video game consoles of all time was also one of the most short-lived. The RDI Halcyon is possibly the rarest console of all time, with only 10 units fully made before the release was canceled, and the whole project was scrapped. Five of them are confirmed to still exist, locked deep within collectors' vaults, and the rest have possibly been lost to time.
It’s unclear what this system is actually worth, considering the tight hold the owners keep on the consoles. On its release date, the console was meant to retail for $2,500, a value of over $7,000 today. One was sold on Ebay in 2005, with a listing of $7,000. If you’re looking to play a game on LaserDisc, you might just have to move on.
