The blog over at VideoGamePriceCharts.com has their predictions up for valuable games in 2008.

I especially agree with the March forecast:

March
Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 64 will drop in price in March or soon after. The price of Smash Bros has already increased quite a bit in the last few months to around $30 in January. Everyone is wanting to play Smash Bros before Brawl comes out on Wii. But after it does the price will come back down. There are also rumors Smash Bros will be released on virtual console right when Brawl comes out. Both of these will drop Smash Bros prices.

Gamestop already jacked the price of a used copy of Melee to $5 over MSRP at $34.99. The only thing that is keeping the price of this game in check is that it’s still in print (7 years later) and can still be found at places like Amazon new for $27.99. But even that, I think, won’t suppress a price spike come March.

Also watch Nintendo Wavebirds come March. They’re already scarce, but they’re going to hit fever pitch once people get tired of dragging their Wii Classic Controller around on a Wiimote leash.

I somewhat disagree with April’s forecast:

April
Grand Theft Auto games will increase in price. This one might be off by a bit because GTA IV doesn’t have a confirmed release date. But when it does I expect some people to start buying the old GTA games so they can have some Grand Theft Auto fun before IV’s release and after they have beaten it. I also think Xbox GTA games will increase the most.

Yes, technically, the Grand Theft Auto games may go up in price, but not by much, in my opinion. This series was as mass-produced as a video game series can get, and all of the PS2 GTA games hit the bargain bin long ago. I think there’s plenty of supply to satiate any demand that may come.

Here’s what they said for June:

June
Metal Gear Solid games will increase in price. I think all Metal Gear games will increase in price when Metal Gear Solid 4 is released this summer. People will want to complete the whole story. The only exception is Metal Gear Solid the original for Playstation 1. It has already increased in price quite a lot in the past 4-5 months and I think it has room to go back down. Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance will be the most valuable because it is the hardest to find already.

Unfortunately, Konami has already preempted this demand and thrown a wrench into JJ’s predictions by announcing the Metal Gear Solid Essentials Collection to release in March. Three of the best games to ever hit the Playstation — Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence — make an incredible deal at $30. Unfortunately though, I forsee Substance and Subsistence tanking in price due to the reprint, except for maybe sealed copies.

Here’s my favorite prediction for the year:

September - Random Prediction of the Year
YourSelf Fitness will increase in price. Your thinking to yourself (haha) “what game is that?”. Its a work out game for Playstation 2 and Xbox. I think WiiFit will become very popular and show people that they can use some video games to get a work out. Yourself Fitness will get the benefits of this. Plus it has not sold well so far so the price could increase a lot without much increase in demand.

I like this… it shows some good thinking on JJ’s part. Yourself Fitness is a somewhat obscure game that has managed to retain a value in the $20 range for both Xbox and PS2 versions, simply by virtue of being practically the only exercise “game” for modern consoles (with the exception of maybe Eyetoy Kinetic for PS2).

It’s the same reason Blast Lacrosse is a valuable game for the PS1 — it’s such a niche title that there are no other lacrosse games to compete with it.

Furthermore, Yourself Fitness is going to fill a void for PS2 and Xbox 360 owners who are envying their WiiFit owning friends. After all, WiiFit isn’t coming to other consoles. I predict that once other developers figure this out, we’re going to see a flood of copycats, just like after the success of Brain Age on the DS.

I’ve owned my Venmill Skip-Away CD repairing machine since they first shipped last June and I’ve been so impressed with this wonderful little machine that I thought I would post about it. I haven’t read much about this machine online, so I hope this helps someone’s research.

Anyone with a large video game, CD, or DVD collection ought to consider a semi-pro CD maintaining machine. Let’s face it, buying used video games is like a box of chocolates… (Forrest Gump can fill in the rest). You may get a pristine copy, or you may get little Johnny’s hockey puck. Sometimes returning a game isn’t always an easy option, so I found that my collection also had a slowly accumulating pile of coasters, including some titles like Capcom’s Powerstone that would be rather valuable if they booted properly.

After I did some research about what was available in the sub-$500 range, I discovered that my options were Venmill’s machine or some very sketchy-looking no-brand machines on eBay in the $200 range. I’ve seen Venmill’s higher end machine, the VMI 3500, in several video store rental chains, so you know they know what they’re doing when it comes to disc repair.

The Skip-Away is different from most CD resurfacing machines. Typical machines — like the buffers they have at GameCrazy — sand off a fine layer of the CD’s surface so that “valleys” created by a scratch will not be so deep.

The Skip-Away, instead, melts the top layer of the CD surface and buffs it smooth using large, soft buffing wheels inside the machine. There are advantages and disadvantages (see below) to this method. The main advantage is that you’re not removing any material from the CD, and can theoretically repair it any number of times.

The Skip-Away has 2 settings:

1. Clean/Maintain setting — CD gets squirted with solution and buffed for 15 seconds.
2. Repair — CD gets cleaned with solution, then buffed for 3 minutes.

Discs come out of the Skip-Away with a glassy finish, sometimes with slight streaks of cleaning solution left on the disc. Light scratches have disappeared completely, while medium and heavy scratches, if any, may still be visible, but not as severe. Light scratches get removed even on the 15 second setting. It is really striking to see the difference after a full repair, especially if the disc has a mix of light to heavy scratches.

My favorite thing about the Skip-Away is that it’s all automatic. Press a button for cleaning or repair, insert the disc, and walk away. After being a slave to the cheap ‘n’ effective but laborious Skip Doctor hand crank, this is welcome by me.

The Skip-Away works without a hitch most of the time. The one exception is that you need to insert the disc in a smooth, deliberate motion. If you stop the disc halfway in, the disc loader will get stuck, and you’ll need “hard reset” the Skip-Away before it’s back to normal.

My only real criticism of the machine so far is that it’s rather ineffective in repairing severe damage with multiple runs through the Skip-Away. I’ve repaired about 200 discs with my Skip-Away so far and only about 5-6 were beyond repair. Putting those severely scratched discs back in the machine will not improve them any — most of the time, they’ll look exactly the same as when they came out of the machine the first time. A truly abrasive machine might work better on these discs. But considering that this only applies to the worst of CD scratches, it’s forgivable. It would be like blaming a doctor for not being able to bring back the dead.

All in all, this is a must have for large game/CD/DVD collections. In fact, with as much disc media that exists, I am surprised there is not a larger consumer market for this kind of device. There are a lot of questionable el cheapo CD repair kits, everywhere from dollar stores to music shops, most of which do little to nothing. It’s nice to finally find a solution to the bane of a media collector’s existence — scratches.

Venmill Venmill’s Skip-Away is available on eBay and also from the Venmill site — price available upon request due to currency fluctuations.

Comparison shot porn!

Please note this is a severely scratched CD and is not representative of what you should expect the Skip-Away to fix. I scratched this test CD with keys and a Dremel tool, so this is beyond normal wear and tear.

Before Skip-Away:

After Skip-Away: