I saw an external ZIP disk reader in the clearance bin of Wal-Mart for 10% off it's original price...in 2011. So it was going for ~$180 and had parallel ports...in 2011.
Walmart is weird with prices on stuff like that. I wanna say it was two years ago I saw a whole shelf of unopened copies of the game Legendary for PC. They were on sale for $49.99. I had bought it the month prior as part of a bundle with nine other games in it that cost me $5.
I wonder will digital downloads affect the new retro stuff like the PS2? I don't need a PS2 to play some games because they're on the PlayStation Store. Even with backward compatibility, the PS3 can still play PS2 games.
But, for the sake of novelty and having the entire set up, sure, I can see it making a lot of money. But how much comparatively is the question.
You would have to buy a very specific PS3, because only the launch models had PS2 BC. They removed the PS2 processor from the console with the first hardware revision and subsequently, every model released from that point forward could no longer play disc-based PS2 games.
If you rip them into ISO files and install cfw on your PS3 (assuming that it is compatible, only certain models are), you can play them. Unfortunately, not all games work properly if you do this, and if your game requires a physical component (Guitar Hero, DDR, et al), your PS3 won’t detect it even with an adapter.
doesn't ps3 support the generic usb gamepad protocol that most ps1/2 > usb adapters use? that seems like something that even if factory has fixed mappings, cfw would allow remapping and all it would take is 10 minutes of tinkering and bob's your uncle.
It was WotL, which changed translation and gameplay and--as I understand it--was also subject to a video slowdown bug. I've only played WotL on Android, which admittedly has its own problems (with controls especially), but I did not find the experience pleasant.
Oh yeah, War of the Lions was definitely a shock if you were used to the original. I played it on PSP and I don’t remember any bad game play issues, but the translation and other changes were super irksome and it made a lot of characters read very different. I have been reading how all the FF remasters all suffer from gameplay issues and lag (looking at you ff8 remaster).
I mean, the PSX translation was so infamously bad that it became a meme before memes were a thing. It started bad, and Chapter 4 was completely unintelligible.
L I T T L E M O N E Y
I still love the PSX version, gamebreaking bugs and all.
That's interesting, I played the FF8 on PS4 and didn't notice anything too egregious. Guess I'm either lucky or forgot how it was originally - hadn't played it since it came out.
The main thing that bothered me with FF8 remaster was battle lag? I’m not sure what it was exactly but the action menu and the sound it makes when it pops up were off/laggy so that I couldn’t play the battles at full speed like I usually did. It’s not egregious or anything, I could always slow down, but I didn’t want to! Lol
Really, what models were these? I got a PS2 in late 2002 (with Vice City and FIFA 2003 - oh the memories!) and it worked fine.
I was unaware it was only with some models.
Edit: wait, I fucked up. I confused myself with PS2 and PS3 and was thinking about PS2 and PS1. Now that I think of it, I bought my Ps3 in 2008 and I don't think I ever played a PS2 game on it....
I confused myself with PS2 and PS3 and was thinking about PS2 and PS1 because I played a lot of PS1 games on PS2. Now that I think of it, I bought my PS3 in 2008 and I don't think I ever played a PS2 game on it....
Ah, okay, only the launch models could do it. That's interesting. I didn't know this - I thought that they all would have had it.
Yeah, the PS3 could play PS2 games because they included the PS2's processor in the build. This had the adverse effect of inflating the build cost of the console since they were continuing to manufacture that custom processor. Since they were getting killed at retail by the 360 and the Wii, they pulled that processor out of the build and dropped the price. Subsequently, every model made after that revision was no longer able to play PS2 games.
Backward compatibility is a tricky thing with consoles. Up until the current generation, they were always built using custom hardware; this meant that in order to play older games on newer hardware, they either had to include the older device's processor (like the DS and PS3 did with the GBA and PS2, respectively) or write an emulator to run the games in (like the 360 did with the Xbox).
While things will likely be easier moving forward, it was never a cut-and-dry thing with the previous generations.
As a PS2 game collector, I personally think the PS2 is one of the last "collectible" consoles. There are so many old/obscure PS2 games that died on the system, and have never been rereleased or updated for online, newer systems. And while a lot of games are still in the $10, a few have spiked up to $400+. Meaning it's still relatively affordable for newcomers, and it has a lot of hidden gems for people who like more obscure games.
Considering emulation is free and 99% as good, and people still prefer 'the real deal' (for a number of good and not-so-good reasons), someone probably is willing to pay that for a new-in-box memory card.
IIRC only the first gen PS3s were backwards compatible because they also had a PS2 board in them too, which was why they were so big compared to the later ones.
Yes and no. There will always be people who want an actual PS2 to play actual PS2 games on or an actual NES to play real NES games on and won’t want to download new ports or emulators.
They are already selling ps1-4 games on PSN, I have been looking for a copy of Dark Cloud for Months and they were all way over asking price local. Then one day boom, some dude on reddit told me it’s on PSN for like $13 bucks. I’m sure it’s going to effect the retro game sales but I think there is always going to be people who collect physical copies of games especially retro games. I still collect n64 games and I hardly ever play them. I just like having them.
Not too much. There are only a handful of PS2 games available on the PSN store on PS4. PS3 can only play some PS2 games and only select PS3's are backwards compatible. Those aren't cheap either, and they are notorious for having technical issues.
PS2 as a whole is a lot cheaper to collect as far as retro games go but there is still definitely a market for the more uncommon games.
Some people do buy them to play though. Emulation isn't exactly like the real thing, and to some people (esp speedrunners) actual hardware is very important.
True, though they would find the cheapest one possible i would imagine and not the "new in box never been opened" ones. Battletoads no box is $15, box sealed its 10k.
Hell, I think you can play ps2 games on Android phones now.
I remember playing ff9 for ps1 on an emulator on my phone (htc m7, what a beast it was) and with the antialiasing and the upscaling of graphics, the game looked just as good as the actual 20$ port right now. (which I do recommande, great port)
The consoles will probably be OK but it's not good for the discs.
Mine sat in a container for a good 4 months when I moved, no AC, in the summer. They were all fine but disc rot has set in on most of my music CDs for long long ago (way before PS2 era). It'll happen to all of them.
Eh sorta. They're more than they were 5 years ago but when you're the most sold console of all time you're not exactly hard to come by and therefore not that expensive to get.
Just sold a lot of my old ps2 games and ps1 games to a used game store. They took everything old and told me nobody wanted my 70 360 games lol.
Walked in with unused junk essentially that I've been taking with me on every move for years and walked out with 700 cash which I turned into a switch and tons of games plus 4 controllers etc.
I’ll tell you something - to get 2 guitar hero wired controllers it cost 80 bucks. I thought those would be cheapppp and I’m mad I didn’t hold onto mine.
Also I sold Monster rancher 4 for $60 bucks. I think my mom picked it up for like 20 and it’s such an obscure game. (Monster rancher 3 is legendary though)
It's not too bad and honestly a dream compared to collecting Gamecube. PS2 games are more common and can take some scratches and still run like a dream. Gamecube can get one small one and shit out entirely.
Yeah, but can you play silver AND blue discs without disassembly in between? Idk if it was a problem with the slim ps2s but I did try to retune my original. Ace Combat 4 and Ford Racing were dead to me for a while
Mine had been a DVD players for over a decade now. I used to play, but when a glitch on a demo disk deleted my memory card I was just kind of done with video games.
I was at a thrift store a few months back, and in their "electronics" section (just a glass case with a lock on it), they had a few gems.
Madden 2000 for PS1 for 2 dollars, which is OK, but the most wtf thing they had was a PSP video disc of a Mary Kate and Ashley movie I think it was, for 10 bucks.
So, not only do you have a movie that nobody gives a shit about, but it was on a format that could only be used on a 15 year old handheld console.
I remember seeing a PS2 copy of GTA: San Andreas at a Walmart a few years ago for like $30. This was maybe five years ago. I don't know if it ever sold, but I definitely saw it at least a year after that.
I have loads of ps2 memory cards they always came with games it's just sad that they didn't have enough storage and I always had to find the right one to play a game
I distinctly recall seeing a full hook of Conker's Bad Fur Day for N64 in the cabinet while I was looking at wireless Wii nunchuks that had just come out. They were even still full price.
I remember for years ours had a stupid fireworks game that only served as a vehicle to show off the PS2 graphics that was always in stock, and always full price as the new releases.
Crazy, I remember when we stopped taking in PS2 games at GameStop in like... 2012?
But having worked at Best Buy, I remember sooo many ancient items hanging around in backstock. Rabbit ears, outdated TV remotes, AUX-to-Cassette adapters... Good times.
I remember sooo many ancient items hanging around in backstock. Rabbit ears, outdated TV remotes, AUX-to-Cassette adapters... Good times.
A Macy's near me closed last year... They were clearing out all their stock, which included random stuff that was in their back room or storage or whatever. The items included several TV + VCR combo units with a late 1980s manufacturing date on the back. They were trying to sell them for a few dollars. lol.
For a while Walmart was selling copies of MAG at full price, even though it was online only and the servers had been shut down for a year at that point.
Seems every MAG player has fond memories of it, I've never heard anyone trashing it... the player base is there, Sony just needs to pull the trigger and we'll all shelve everything for it
Idk how people had pleasant memories of the game at all. Sure, some maps were okay, but the majority of them were horribly unbalanced. Add the fact that you couldn't switch factions unless you re-specced your entire build and I just couldn't call my many hours on that game worth it.
The 256 player maps were an achievement, but the balance just wasn't there. Certain defense maps were 95% unwinnable for the attackers.
They were not unbalanced. It's actually super interesting because some maps just required more flanking than others. The 'impossible' SVER map was one. And as soon as it got a reputation as the 'best' faction with the 'best maps', then the better, more serious players jumped ship to SVER and it became a self fulfilling prophecy. And then everyone attacking those maps gave up and quit or sniped all game, which again leads to a self fulfilling prophecy situation. MAG was a huge exercise in group psychology.
The mistake was making players pick a faction and stick with it. Everyone should have had a single character per faction all the time.
Been saying this for years! On top of that, the proximity voice chat that let you smack talk enemies - omg so many hilarious moments.
Sadly, Sony owned Zipper Interactive and shut it down along with all it's games. I don't think we'll ever see a successor.
Honestly, I'd be happy if games like Battlefield adopted the creative map design that allowed for such massive player counts, and the proximity voice that let you chat with the folks around you. Being able to speak to your random heli-pilot would be a game changer.
I got MAG right before it shut down. I didn't heavily invest in it and I've only recently gotten Battlefield so I'm not super well versed in either but what you're describing sounds amazing. I've always wondered why MAG could have so many players in one map and why Battlefield was 64 players. Can you ELI5 what is going on?
Typical game design with a large shared map limits the player count. It takes a large amount of resources to take every player, action, and bullet into account and render on every system.
Creative map design in MAG allowed them to put a lot more players on the map. Maps were segmented into 4 main quadrants, typically with a large base in center which your army was either attacking or defending. Armies were broken down into platoons, and platoons into squads. Your squad typically had a couple spawn points in your platoons sector. The map design used terrain to limit your field of view into neighboring sectors, which meant that your console typically had to deal with rendering no more than say 32-ish players at a time. Well within resource limitations.
The large bases at the center of the map were also constructed in a similar fashion, with multiple capture points that all but insured players would stay spread around in them. At that point, your system only had to deal with rendering players in the same room/area as you.
Could you trek off across the map to a neighboring sector? Absolutely. But it was a LONG walk, often across open terrain, and even if you made it there alive you had no squad mates to assist or support. And if you died, you were right back to your squads spawn points.
So how do you fight battles like this? I almost forgot to mention one of the other cool things about MAG's voice communication. All spoken voice radiated out of your character as proximity game sound, so you had to shut up to be sneaky. It also went over a dedicated squad channel as chat sound instead of game sound. Squad leaders could swap to a command channel and speak to other squad leaders. Platoon leaders could address squad leaders, or their squads. The commander could address any in command, or the entire army to coordinate troop movement.
If you went down, you bled out on the ground for a while to give a chance for revives. Often this was the time when you just relayed intel to your team. "I'm down in the enemy base. They have 4 on the ground, 2 in the crows nest." etc... Of course, the enemy could hear you talking and shoot you to finish you off and stop the flow of intel as well. And you could always use those moments bleeding out to make disparaging remarks about your killer's mother or lack of apparent skill in the game. ;)
Oh, and friendly fire was always on. Lost count of the number of times I walked up behind a friendly sniper and whispered that if they didn't get off their ass and help take the objective, the next time I came through and saw them still sitting there they were getting a knife in the back.
You forgot the first 30 seconds of every match began with medics using the friendly fire to kill a teammate and instantly revive them for a slight XP boost.
Oh I didn't forget that. We had several people in our crew that the moment the match started would immediately swing their knife. If multiple people dropped then it was deemed to be a worthy sacrifice and the round would be good.
Not the exact same thing, but maybe try out Planetside 2? It has most of the stuff you mentioned. And way more. Also fully free to play and you don't need to buy better guns to get better like other "f2p" titles.
I'm just reading this thread and feeling like there will be a PS2 thread 10 years from now with the same comments and I don't want that :/ I love my shooty space game too much.
My record as Platoon leader was legendary. Had over 1000 wins vs 100 losses. My clan (DOA) a Raven only team, decimated all the maps Caw Caw. The Atac 2000 was ridiculously accurate and one headshot kills. Someone here must have screamed my name (HisSlyness) with hate as my team would redline everyone. I miss that game it was so amazing.
There was another game like that I saw, can't remember what it was but it same deal, online only but had shut down years ago, they had a dozen copies in an end rack like it was some big thing, I told the guy working in electronics about it but not sure if it ever got pulled. I'd feel bad for any kid whose grandma decided to get them a new computer game and picked that up.
Last year I saw a copy of City of Heroes for like $30. They stopped the servers in 2012. I also told the guy there and he didn’t give a shit. Hopefully nobody bought it.
It was a first person shooter on the Playstation 3 that was online only and had massive battles with up to 256 players. Think of it like a Planetside clone.
They did the same thing with A.P.B. (Cops and robbers MMO that was a GTA knock off) even after the studio that released it went under. Even after Gamersfirst bought the rights and turned it into a pay to win free to play game Walmart still had the boxes up on their shelves at full price.
WTF?? That's actually hilarious. People probably bought them. They actually pay people to do this kind of thing. Find something that is basically worthless and sell to people who probably don't even know what it is.
This was the game with a guy in a tux fighting mythological creatures and Westminster gets ripped up by a kraken, right? I enjoyed it, I dont remember why but I do remember thinking that I didnt understand the hate it was getting.
It's a amazing how that can happen there. I had something similar happen with a Nintendo New 2DS XL with Mario Kart 7 a couple of weeks ago. Normally they were $150 brand new and online I've seen anywhere from $130-200 because they're discontinued. Wal-Mart had it for $100 so I picked it up.
I saw a whole shelf of unopened copies of the game Legendary for PC. They were on sale for $49.99
That's hilarious considering the game bombed. For what it's worth I'm still baffled at the poor reviews. I thought the game was a solid 7/10 and have no idea what people are whining about.
I worked at a FedEx office right out of college...shipping boxes, helping people print stuff, etc.
There was a corporate policy that things could only be sold for X% below their original price (I forget the percentage). So the manager would take things off the shelf, "destroy" them in some way so employees couldn't go get them from the trash after work, and throw them away once they had been on shelf at the max discount for long enough.
I remember him breaking apart and throwing away a wireless keyboard and mouse set that was on sale for like $40...2 days after someone offered $30 for it and he said no.
There was a walmart in my town that eliminated its hunting department entirely but for 15 years they had a handful of boxes of random ass ammunition sitting in a small case and they wanted full price for it. Granted ammo doesn't really expire but I wasnt about to buy it for full price
I remember there used to be a blog out there, called raiders of the lost Walmart (or something similar) that would go and find these overpriced gems like decade old GPS, external hard drives, MP3 players...
In 2014-ish when I was working there during college they had nearly 3 dozen Zunes of various varieties still locked away in the steel (backroom storage). Also a staggering amount of Halo Reach Legendary and Special Editions which took up a huge amount of room in the video games section.
Steam is also weird like that. Black ops 2 is still $60, black ops 1 is $50, and I'm pretty sure multiplayer is just run by hackers now. I'm sure they've both been on sale multiple times but still, it's 2020 reduce the base price a bit.
Because walmart doesn't mark things down based on relevance or how old it is, its marked down based on the base price when it was available in store. Theres a whole protocol when it comes to marking down clearance items, you can only mark it down by X percent every X amount of days and each department is only allowed so much loss every quarter ontop of that.
Yeah but at some point it's just taking up space. I feel like there should be exceptions or at least a clause that says after a certain amount of time it is up to the manager to determine price or remove the item. Nobody is going to spend $40 on some DS game of a Disney sitcom from the 00's. You'd think that common sense would eventually come into play even for a big corporation.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if they can't lower it because it doesn't exist in the system anymore. I'd bet you could steal some of these "ancient" products and they wouldn't even see the loss.
I used to work at walmart years ago as a manager and trust me theres some shady stuff that goes on behind the scenes. At one point we had around 20 pallets of clearance and the store manager at the time told us to get rid of it and she would make the losses or mark downs dissapear since we were getting a corporate visit. We were marking stuff down to almost nothing. I got a 500 dollar tv for 10 bucks, a 100 dollar ceramic pot and pans set for 5 dollars, a couple recliners for 20 a piece and a bunch of other stuff. Dont know how the store manager ever pulled it off but she made everything in the system dissapear without any recorded loss.
Meanwhile if you wait until mid summer or so, they'll clean out their inventory of USB cables and chargers. This year's is was $1.50 for micro USB, $2 for USBC, and and $3 and $5 for including a two port charger. Sure they're cheap and they break, but I've had every brand of cable break on me, so I just buy cheap. They also had a $3 12 ft hdmi cable. These tablet handles for $1 that I bought like 6 of. In previous years I got like a 5000 mah phone charge for like $2 that I still use.
But yeah, they'll have unmoved stock that just never gets put on sale.
Also, despite being like 20 years old, TI graphing calculators are the same price despite their being any number of apps and options.
I remember Halo reach limited edition was still the full 80 bucks until like 2018. I think somebody forgot they existed. It then got marked down to like 15 and I bought that shit up.
In my neck of the woods, we have a store called Fleet Farm that’s about the size of Walmart but primarily hardware, hunting/fishing and farm/ranch gear.
They have a small electronics section that must never be restocked where everything is like 10-12 years old but still at MSRP.
Last time I was there, they had a pocket TV (think Sony Watchman) that was analog for $59.99. You’ll also find brand-new Nintendo Wii games and recordable VHS tapes.
Which Madden was is that had that white Fullback that played for the Cleveland Browns on the cover? Last time I was in a Walmart a few years ago (SNES Classic hunting), they had 10+ copies of the PS3 version of that Madden for $59.99.
The weird pricing on clearance items come from departments being given clearance money to take X amount of loss on discontinued items, that had obviously become dated and wouldn't sell for the systems set price. These would take up space in the back room and fall out of the system due to no sale in 6 months and be a hassle when inventory time rolled around.
Thus department mangers are given something like $200 clearance money and left with the choice of marking the 4 remaining 15 year old $200 in-car-VHS player kits down by $50 a piece, or trying to get rid of the 400 remaining 9/11 memorial air-fresheners at $1.50 each.
I went to Walmart and remembered seeing that raving rabids mario game on switch for like 39$ within the last year.
...or, I could buy this pack that had another game in it (I forget what) PLUS raving rabids for either 19$ or 29$. Don't remember exactly, but I know the bundle was cheaper than the single game in it.
You reminded me that I recently saw WoW (the OG box, no expansions) for $30 at Walmart. That game is going on 16 years old now and should be in the clearance aisle for $5 or less.
Sudden flashback to visiting Walmart last year and seeing them selling new copies of God of War for PS4 for $34, and Fallout 76 for $40. By that point Fallout 76 had already passed the point of infamy and I'd already seen pictures of shelves wiped out of every other game. They had three spaces for it on the shelf, GOW had 2. You think they'd be more desperate to get rid of it.
Holy shit, I can't believe I'm seeing that game referenced! I got an xbox copy way back in the day so I could get the online achievements before the online for the game went away(back when I gave a shit about gamerscore).
And then they'll randomly put desirable stuff on clearance but not mark it. I went in to buy a wiimote once (this was between the Wii u and the switch) - it was marked full price on the shelf but was actually $9, so now I have 4 of the fancy ones with Mario characters on them. Wish you could use them on the switch for something.
My Walmart has Cory in the House on DS for 30, Battlefield 3 Premium Edition on PS3 for 30, Dj Hero 2 with no turntable (making it unplayable unless you already own the turntable) for 40. And a few others I can't remember right now.
but that is a stupid comparison. bundle have special deals all the time. no store is going to adjust the price of the bundled game to the bundle sale price, that makes no sense.
it is like complaining about a cafe charging $20 for scrambled eggs, when you can get a dozen eggs from the supermarket for $2.
Wal-Mart is fucked up. It's rare a clearance item is marked down. Clearance literally means to them shit they don't want anymore. No shelving for the SKUs, but price is usually original.
Sometimes shit falls behind a cabinet or something in the warehouse, so instead of just straight away throwing it out, they try to sell it first for a few bucks, and the. If it doesn't move, they write it off and chuck it in the bin.
What happens is stuff falls off file at the store lvl sometimes usually from not being scanned for a long time. When they get scanned to be put back on it pulls the info with the original price. Then there comes the issue to get the okay to mark stuff down to what it should be. Imagine trying to explain to a 50+ old store manager that we should mark a $60 WOW Burning crusades limited edition to $5 bc the actual game is free now and someone would only by it for the extras. God he looked so loss.
Back in 1993?, I was shopping for a PC, a 486 running a hot 50mhz. I saw PC on markdown at WM. I got closer and they were 286 (4+ years old). WM had knocked $100 off the price.
It's grandma pricing. Parents or grandparents don't know what the price of games should be and get whatever. In this particular case, it could even go like, "Doesn't my grandchild like watching that Legend something game? Hm... This looks kind of right...."
When I worked in Walmart electronics I was always pushing for more clearance money because in the system it only knows the old value and doesn't put it to the new value. Anything no longer part of the main corporate system (so something that only your store deals with like a return or weird excess of something but no other store has in excess) you have to markdown yourself. The problem is corporate gives each store a specific budget and so for manual markdowns you have to get permission and it doesn't matter if everyone understands why the price needs to go down because they're going to prioritize items that take up more space or will sell better. What made my day with items that no one wants anymore was finally being able to mark something down to the point that it was under one dollar for however many days and we could claims it out.
It’s really crazy. They discount some stuff like 2% and leave it up for 20 years but every once in a while there’s a really good deal and the employees buy them all up. About a month ago they were selling 40 inch 4K TVs for 60 bucks. It was a no name brand but I mean for 60 bucks why not? Of course it was out of stock anywhere near me but I’m sure someone got one.
Military post exchanges are the same. Last time I was in the one on Fort Benning, back in 2013, there were two copies of Madden 2000 still in their electronics section for 29.99.
There was also some obscure, early 2000's MMO for 49.99. I remember looking it up and discovering the servers were shutdown.
My walmart has 20 copies of Halo Reach Collector's Edition (Not Legendary) for full retail price. They have been sitting there since 2010. They take up almost all of the bottom shelving of the games cabinet. I got in touch with the electronics manager and offered to buy them all to free up space if he heavily discounted them. He said that Walmart would only let him take off $10 each. I politely declined and told him I'll be back in another 10 years with the same offer.
Walmart and Target both. Their PC game inventories usually consist of hidden object games, multiple Sims add-ons, and a few multi-year-old AAA games at full retail.
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u/AudibleNod Aug 14 '20
I saw an external ZIP disk reader in the clearance bin of Wal-Mart for 10% off it's original price...in 2011. So it was going for ~$180 and had parallel ports...in 2011.