Retro gaming is an incredibly lucrative third party market these days. You can’t walk into a Best Buy and pick up an NES, but you can get one on eBay if you are willing to drop $150. Of course, it’s foolish to let all this profit go down the drain, and thus Gamestop will be entering the classic gaming resale business.
Gamestop will begin purchasing retro games and consoles on April 25, but it will take about two months to see actual used game stock enter their stores. Gamestop says that every console and controller sold will be sent to their Refurbishment Operations Center, where they will be inspected, tested, and repaired. This is a great service, considering that you usually have to find an independent repair person to fix a console so old. Then again, anyone who has purchased a used controller from Gamestop before knows that their refurbishment isn’t exactly a guarantee.
There is no word on what Gamestop will offer for retro consoles, but many retro collectors worry that this could artificially inflate the price of retro gaming hardware, especially if Gamestop chooses to sell their hardware at prices similar to what we see current-gen consoles go for.
Source: IGN