Norwich's Last Level Games says retro consoles are booming

According to staff at Last Level Games in St Benedicts Street a boom in popularity has seen old consoles surpass the prices of the latest tech with some retro machines worth up to £1,100.

Martin Kay at the shop said customers had been looking for a hit of nostalgia, with rare machines at the highest prices ever.

The games themselves have also hit record prices with a boxed copy of Nintendo's Pokemon Sapphire, which retailed at about £30 on its release in 2003, now valued at about £250 in 2022.

A copy of a rare Playstation One game called Tombi was recently sold at the store for £200.

Mr Kay said retro consoles had been a popular Christmas present for many with the shop seeing plenty of business in the run-up to the big day.

He said: "Games of a certain generation have gone up as people look for some nostalgia.

"Collectors of the age which grew up with video games want to rediscover their youth and they now have the disposable income to buy what they want.

"The most popular things we've seen at the moment are the original Gameboy and Gameboy Colour.

"Anything Nintendo which is boxed goes for big money.

"There's more people in the retro gaming community now who love the games of their youth, it's really thriving.

"Like everywhere business has been down recently at the shop, but it's been very good given the state of the rest of the country."

According to Mr Kay the three most expensive and rare games consoles are the PC Engine, which is valued at about £300, the Atari Jaguar, which can reach about £400, and the Sega Mega CD which has fetched prices of more than £1,000.

And he says it is worth people keeping their current consoles in the box as Mr Kay predicts a similar price rise for today's consoles in 20 years' time.