Series S/X Do we think physical games for the series consoles will have an expensive market in the future?

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

As I’ve been collecting for Saturn, it’s often come up that the system’s games are so expensive because nobody at the time bought them, resulting in limited quantities even making it out to stores. This has me looking at more modern examples of consoles with a small install base (relatively) and asking: will they have a similar market in the future?

Now, XBox has ALWAYS been the odd man out in terms of collector adoration, but given the low production runs of many of their physical efforts this gen, it’s certainly POSSIBLE that prices will jump.

What’s the main thing holding it all back is the exclusivity thing. Saturn had a unique architecture, meaning that many games which made it on there ended up being trapped on there. Xbox, on the other hand, doesn’t have many EXCLUSIVES if any at all. What it might have is physical copies of games that are otherwise only on PC, which would mean that the only physical prints of certain games are on the XBox. That may be something.

What do you all think? Is there a chance prices may rise in the future, or will nobody ever care and the market for this console will forever be pathetic?

 

[LaserMoose]

It's certainly a difficult question to answer.

We may see a rise simply based off of the "nostalgia-cycle", in which the people who grew up with the Series systems would want to buy for them 20 years down the line. This has been the case for the majority of systems, and we may also see this happening depending on Xbox's trajectory as a console manufacturer.

The Series could end up like the Dreamcast before it, in which people hold nostalgia for Sega when they were still in the hardware market. That being said, the Dreamcast is a more unique console with its controller and VMU compared to the Series systems' more iterative approach as the successor to the Xbox One.

It's also a scenario of supply and demand. At this point in time, very few Xbox owners care to buy physical games, and thus the demand of the discs are very low. A low supply and low demand suggests to me that prices will remain at an equilibrium until demand inevitably goes up.

Due to the lack of exclusives and a future focused on maintaining digital libraries rather than physical ones, I believe that it will take quite some time before we see Series titles get overly expensive.

 

[Nidstang]

Depends on whether the games are actually complete on disc or not. Xbox Series games have the lowest percentage if complete on disc games compared to other consoles. That's really where the value is in modern physical collecting, complete on disc/cart games

 

[iamthemilkman]

I have been noticing that Series games have far less supply since they're not selling. I didn't collect much for the console for the longest time because of two reasons: some games aren't even on the disc (Halo Infinite, Starfield, Indiana Jones, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, etc.), whereas other games were "Smart Delivery" for many years, meaning sometimes the version on the disc was the Xbox One version. I opted for collecting on PS5 and Switch and only bought Xbox games when I found them cheap.

 

[Yousef Yousef]

Yes unfortunately

 

[Ethernoh]

Is there any, like at all, exclusive on the Xbox one? Pretty much all games are multi platform or on PC.
Unlikely, X360 on the other hand...

 

[Trainer Red]

Is there any, like at all, exclusive on the Xbox one? Pretty much all games are multi platform or on PC.
Unlikely, X360 on the other hand...

Killer Instinct Definitive Edition was practically the only one that popped into my mind when I read this post lol

 

[Ethernoh]

Killer Instinct Definitive Edition was practically the only one that popped into my mind when I read this post lol

It's on PC steam, and most of the game you need to download...
Bummer...

 

[Rusk]

Oh definitely, vintage electronics are collectables all around.
Ancient pieces of tech provides ample opportunity to learn history and experience that old era.

 

[iamthemilkman]

It's on PC steam, and most of the game you need to download...
Bummer...

Isn't most of the content on the disc in the Definitive Edition? I'm pretty sure I tried installing it offline and it installs all of the DLC off of the disc like it would if you bought them digitally.

 

[Nidstang]

Is there any, like at all, exclusive on the Xbox one? Pretty much all games are multi platform or on PC.
Unlikely, X360 on the other hand...

The physical market has changed. Most people who still buy physical don't do it to just own the game, or for exclusives, they do it to have the game all on disc, preferably with patches and DLC. It future proofs the game for preservation, in case the game is ever removed from online stores, or deleted from people's libraries.

Close to 90% of all games being released still don't actually require any downloads to play through to entirety. Xbox has more games that actually do require downloads compared to PS or Nintendo, but the market is still there for complete on disc games.

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[Ethernoh]

The physical market has changed. Most people who still buy physical don't do it to just own the game, or for exclusives, they do it to have the game all on disc, preferably with patches and DLC. It future proofs the game for preservation, in case the game is ever removed from online stores, or deleted from people's libraries.

Close to 90% of all games being released still don't actually require any downloads to play through to entirety. Xbox has more games that actually do require downloads compared to PS or Nintendo, but the market is still there for complete on disc games.

DoesItPlay? - Home

Working to ensure games remain accessible now and always!

www.doesitplay.org

Thanks for the resource. Kinda sad to find out XBOX has the most forced download to play games.

 

[Heinzu]

That's a difficult question to answer. I personally would be happy if there were more such things in the future. But everything is uncertain.

 

[gokusmacksmyds]

I'd say no based on the fact that the vast majority of original xbox and xbox 360 games can still be bought for dirt cheap, im frankly surprised how cheap they are, even exclusives like condemned criminal origins 2 was only $5 when i bought it last week, there is little interest (currently) in microsofts retro consoles.

microsoft also offers decent enough availability for most their titles on both modern xbox's and them going all in on multiplat diminishes the desirability of collecting limited "physical" runs which aren't even physical and don't actually have the game on it.

you'll have 1 or 2 oddities as always but once the servers are gone the discs will be paperweights so i don't predict them being desirable for collectors down the line, whats the point

 

[Ethernoh]

I'd say no based on the fact that the vast majority of original xbox and xbox 360 games can still be bought for dirt cheap, im frankly surprised how cheap they are, even exclusives like condemned criminal origins 2 was only $5 when i bought it last week, there is little interest (currently) in microsofts retro consoles.

microsoft also offers decent enough availability for most their titles on both modern xbox's and them going all in on multiplat diminishes the desirability of collecting limited "physical" runs which aren't even physical and don't actually have the game on it.

you'll have 1 or 2 oddities as always but once the servers are gone the discs will be paperweights so i don't predict them being desirable for collectors down the line, whats the point

Just you wait, the collector scalper sloptubers are already making a bubble outta ps3 and 360 games.

 

[KenaiPhoenix]

I sadly don’t think so, not only the Xbox brand will exist as a shallow version of itself on the form of a skin for Windows 11, but also because of the big push of Microsoft to have everything digital, many of the disk of Xbox series games don’t have anything in it.

On other forum I read an user that this also applies to Xbox consoles since the Xbox One: if you want to use one, you must connect it to their server as least on your first logging, meaning that when they took XOne servers out, any new console that doesn’t have an account already logged in will be useless.

 

[moonbits]

Nah, I have some and some hobby shops refuse to buy them. They're worthless.

 

[Lena CE]

I wanna say no, but you can never truly tell I suppose. Considering how most Series games also released on other platforms - namely the PS5 - and have virtually no differences between versions there is just far less novelty in owning the Series version of a game than there would be a Saturn version. Even if you buy Wipeout or Tomb Raider 1 for the PS1, the Saturn version will be a very unique experience due to the vastly different architecture and controller you play on. Plus, the Saturn had its own library of stellar exclusives whereas the Series has everything launch on PC and now most of their stuff is multiplatform on PS5.

I just don't see someone charging noticeably more for a copy of Cyberpunk or GTA6 on the Xbox Series when the PS5 version will likely be far more widely available. Considering most games on the OG Xbox don't even retail for all that much (and the Series consoles have already outsold it) I just don't see the Xbox fans as the type to ever charge that "Nintendo tax". Worth noting that the Saturn and Dreamcast themselves are also systems that have a ton of unique nostalgia and respect surrounding them due to just how unique and in some ways forward thinking they were. I know in my teenage/young adult years I was always enamored with just how ahead of its time the Dreamcast was and that caused me to bias towards it for a while when collecting 6th generation games. Does the Series system really do anything unique or forward thinking to warrant any kind of nostalgia? The Saturn was at least a 2D beast with a unique aesthetic for 3D in an era where 3D was thought to be the final frontier, which causes genres like fighting games and shmups to be far superior compared to its contemporaries.

Never say never, but I think it takes more than just low sales to create a collectors market. For the sake of Series fans, I hope it never happens to them. I miss pre-covid Dreamcast game prices so damn much, Saturn went to the moon in the years leading up to covid, but it certainly did not help matters at all. I love that as an OG Xbox fan there aren't a ton of games that break the bank. Ideally, in 20-30 years when people are nostalgic for the system or developing a newfound respect for it they won't have to break the bank to stock their shelves with soon-to-be classics.

Post automatically merged: Nov 11, 2025

Nah, I have some and some hobby shops refuse to buy them. They're worthless.

This kind of sentiment is always funny to me. I remember when I first started working at a video game store in 2015 the owners told me a story about how in their opening years, they actually stopped taking in Pokemon games because they had boatloads of every version and didn't really move them that much. By the time I was working there, though, they were easily the most sought after games we could ever stock and our call list for them was extensive. Everytime we got almost any version in it was gone before we closed, sometimes even if the save battery didn't work and we hadn't yet replaced it.

Similar stuff happened with Dreamcast. Owners didn't really prioritize keeping those games in stock and then in the mid to late 2010s that market really started taking off and it became a cult classic even within age groups of people who could barely walk when the system first released.

Of course, I don't expect the Series games to ever come close to that level of demand, but everyday in all kinds of collectors markets people turn away the next goldmine because its currently worthless. Never say never I suppose lol

 

[gokusmacksmyds]

Just you wait, the collector scalper sloptubers are already making a bubble outta ps3 and 360 games.

I can at least understand the value of xbox 360 / PS3 games going up soon since their emulation still sucks and the games are actually on disc and stuff from that generation is being delisted left right and center, just not modern consoles 'physicals' being collectable down the line.

My money is on binary domain being a collectable 360 / PS3 game soon, its just waiting for one of your youtubers to make a video on it being a "hidden gem"

 

[Tonberry]

Only for certain games, I think, and not specifically because of scarcity, but rather because of retroactive unicornification, like how you’re able to sell Mario and Pokémon games for the GDP of a small nation. They’re definitely not rare, but a lot of people are going to want them.

From the PS4 onwards it seems like the second-hand value of many games have dropped dramatically, which I always chalked up to those games being readily available and playable on just about anything anyways, so I don’t think people are going to care about getting physical Series X/S games for games that will be seen as ”common”.

I think maybe games that kind of feel ”rare” in a specifically Xbox mindset, like Japanese RPGs for example, might get a bump in price because they’re going to be described as the definitive ”hard to get” version of said games.

Still, that’s just a theory I’m basing on nothing particular.

 

[iamthemilkman]

I swung by the local Target and they've started to clearance out their Xbox games:

Surprised they had THPS3&4 for $10.94. I already have it for PS5 but couldn't say no at that price.