Retro Market Report: Week of September 27, 2026
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Every week we pull the going rate for the consoles and handhelds we work on, read the retro news so you don't have to, and pick out what matters if you fix, mod or flip. Prices are PriceCharting "loose" prices, meaning the console on its own with no box, as of September 27, 2026.
Prices this week
This is the first week we have real week-over-week numbers to show. Here are the five biggest risers and five biggest fallers on our watchlist.
| Console or handheld | Loose | Change | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xbox One | $121.25 | +$25.61 (+26.8%) | Biggest move on the list, no news story behind it. Worth testing and listing any broken units on hand. |
| DS Lite | $65.99 | +$9.09 (+16.0%) | No obvious cause in the news. A second look at hinge, port or screen units is worth it. |
| PlayStation 2 | $105.29 | +$12.24 (+13.2%) | No obvious cause in the news, but a disc-drive fix, the PS2's most common issue, pays off better this week. |
| Game Boy Advance SP | $110.00 | +$12.67 (+13.0%) | No obvious cause in the news. Hinge and screen units deserve more attention at this price. |
| Game Boy (DMG) | $65.61 | +$5.62 (+9.4%) | No obvious cause in the news. Don't write off a rough original shell as parts-only. |
| Sega Game Gear | $39.99 | -$6.67 (-14.3%) | Biggest drop this week. Most units need capacitor work, so keep buy prices tight. |
| NES | $94.25 | -$5.75 (-5.8%) | Still a solid margin console, but tighten buy prices this week. |
| New Nintendo 3DS XL | $259.77 | -$6.38 (-2.4%) | Small pullback on the most valuable common handheld we track. Not enough to change buying. |
| Nintendo 3DS | $132.50 | -$2.49 (-1.8%) | Minor softness, worth a glance when pricing a batch. |
| PS2 Slim | $105.00 | -$1.32 (-1.2%) | Basically flat. The "fat" PS2 moved up while the Slim didn't, so the two aren't tracking together. |
The pattern: no clear driver, just movement
None of this week's biggest moves, up or down, line up with a specific news story in our feed. That's worth saying plainly instead of guessing at a cause. We treat swings like this as one week of noise, not a new trend, and we'll watch next week to see whether Xbox One's jump and Game Gear's drop hold or bounce back.
Five things that happened
- Chip demand is holding up the new Neo Geo AES+. Demand for SNK/Plaion's new Neo Geo AES+ was reportedly so strong the company got turned down ordering more chips for production (Retro Dodo, Sept 22). A squeeze like this tends to push buyers back toward original Neo Geo boards.
- A US seller now stocks an adapter that lets cheap arcade boards run on the AES+. Stone Age Gamer added US stock of Furrtek's "Fusion" adapter, which lets MVS arcade boards run on Neo Geo AES+ hardware (RetroRGB, Sept 22). MVS games are usually much cheaper than AES carts, so this changes what's worth sourcing.
- A popular AV switch is back in stock, with faster restocks going forward. All modules of the Scalable Video Switch are back and shipping Monday (RetroRGB, Sept 26). Good news if you've been waiting on one for a multi-console setup.
- Analogue shipped new firmware for the Analogue 3D. Version 1.5.1 adds in-game overclocking toggling and custom labels for unrecognized cartridges (Time Extension, Sept 24). Steady firmware support keeps resale confidence high on FPGA hardware like this.
- GameStop is getting an exclusive $130 Capcom arcade bundle. The Capcom Super Pocket bundle comes preloaded with 12 arcade titles plus three bonus Evercade carts, exclusive to GameStop in the US (Time Extension, Sept 24). A cheap plug-and-play bundle like this is direct competition for original arcade-era hardware at that price.
From the bench
- A PS4 controller that lost power completely after a Hall-effect stick install, a reminder of how easily a mod job can go sideways.
- A re-shelled DS Lite with a flickering top screen that turned out to be missing parts once opened up, a good buyer-beware story.
- A dead Game Boy Color owner asking if it's only worth its parts now, the pricing question a lot of sellers are quietly asking.
Fix or flip of the week: is the DIY HDMI fix worth it?
A post on r/consolerepair this week described trying to save $100 by fixing a PS5's broken HDMI port at home instead of paying a shop, buying about $50 in tools for the job, and still needing a repair shop after the attempt made things worse. A working PS5 is $425.17 loose this week, up $20.17 from last week. Run the numbers from that post: the DIY route wasn't free, $50 in tools plus console damage, chasing $100 in savings that didn't happen. We're assuming here that buying specialty tools for a single one-off job rarely pays for itself, that part isn't in this week's data, just a rule of thumb. Without the right tools already on hand, a shop's flat rate is often the safer bet.
Before you order a part
A lot of "dead" consoles are a simple, free check away from working again. Our 94MER Bench Sheets is a free checklist of what to check first, by symptom, before you spend a dime. When it does turn out to be the part, the parts are here.
Next week: we'll see whether this week's biggest movers, Xbox One and Game Gear, hold their new prices or snap back.
