One of the best coupons I’ve ever seen online is back — Get 20% off and Free domestic or international shipping on all orders of used CDs, DVDs, and games at SecondSpin.com. with coupon code HEYNOW.

coupon code: HEYNOW

This is a promotion they’re running on the Howard Stern radio show, and if the past is any indication, it’ll only last for a few days, so act now.

If you have any qualms about their used product quality, I’ve ordered here dozens of times and everything has been usually excellent.

For those who collect Final Fantasy soundtracks, GameMusic.com has a few bargains in their clearance section:

• Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Limited Edition soundtrack, $9.99
• “Melodies of Life” single (Theme from Final Fantasy IX), $2.99
  and for the Halo fans,
• Halo 2 Original Soundtrack Volume 1, $4.99

These are legit Japanese printings, Nippon Crown and King Records labels on the FF CDs, respectively. If you’re new to soundtrack collecting, here’s a nice FAQ for avoiding bootleg CDs.

Good deals, especially since I paid 1000 yen for the Melodies of Life single from Yahoo Japan just a few months ago… d’oh!

Update: Speaking of Dirge of Cerberus, Square just (unexpectedly) announced that they are releasing a new version in Japan, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII International. Pretty ballsy for such a poorly-received title. [via AdventChildren.net]

One of my favorite aspects of game collecting is finding ridiculously old titles still new at retail. (Gamecube launch titles at Wal-Mart, anyone?) I remember seeing a copy of Soul Blade at an outside-of-town Dollar General about a year ago. It was $10 at the time, a bit too steep for any PS1 game still kicking around on  shelves. I happened to be driving by the same store yesterday, and thought I would stop just to see if they still had it and if it had been marked down any.

To my luck, not only had Dollar General marked it down to $8 at some point, it was in the middle of 2 big “50% off” clearance aisles. That made it $4 out the door. For reference, they had several other less-than-stellar titles like Wild 9 (PS1, $4), Ultimate Board Games (PS2, $7.50), Dragonball GT (GBA, $7.50), and Veggie Tales (PS2, $7.50).

It’s rare to see any new PS1 games still at retail these days, let alone one that’s part of a well-respected franchise (Soul Calibur). Did I mention the cheapest sealed copy on eBay is $20?

The game rang up as “Xmas 05 Assort,” so it’s been there for at least 3 years. As a funny side note, the store didn’t even have the tool to unlock the plastic bracket that held the game. It came out with a quick snip from a pair of wire cutters.

I saw Apollo Justice today at Game Crazy with a new price tag of $19.99, probably the lowest I’ve seen it anywhere.

On a side note, this was at the Frederick, MD, store, where they recently expanded to about half of the total floor space with Hollywood Video. I was extremely disappointed to see that they have now gutted ALL of their new games and put them out on the floor. As a collector, it made me sick, and the last thing I want is for Game Crazy to become another Gamestop with their practices.

I know it’s for higher “visibility of the product” or whatever, but I don’t care. I guess if I want a sealed game, I’ll have to take my business to Best Buy/Wal-Mart/Amazon now.

You wouldn’t buy an opened DVD from Best Buy, so why is this an acceptable practice for video games?

(I would say “you wouldn’t buy opened food from the supermarket,” but that’s taking it too far, even for my rhetoric.)

There’s a great coupon in this week’s Gamestop email newsletter — 25% off used PS2 games, limit 2. This is one of the best coupons that they offer once every few months. This coupon will stack with the Edge Card for a total of 35% off. Good only from June 6 to June 12. (You may want to print it directly from the Gamestop site, lest the wage slaves give you any hassles.)

Credit to dcyphr and jp0213 at Cheapass Gamer for finding it a day early.

eStarland is having their semi-recurring “buy 1, get 1 70% off” sale on all used Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance games, accessories, and hardware.

Of special interest to collectors: they have a large selection of Game Boy Advance games that are complete with the boxes and manuals.

The promo code is: STARSALEPXG. Enter it at the top of the checkout page. This is a special advance code, as the sale has not yet been announced for the general public. The sale runs until June 15, 2008, so don’t miss it.

One of my local (franchise) Blockbusters cleared out a ton of their Gamecube games, including a bunch of first-party goodies. I got all of the following under a buy 2, get 1 free sale, making them roughly $6.67 a piece. You really can’t do much better than that for quality Gamecube titles.

Not to mention, I personally think the dominance of the Wii and its backwards compatibility is going to give the Gamecube a much more favorable retroactive “legacy” than the N64 had.

• Pokemon Colosseum
• Disney Sports Basketball
• Paper Mario
• Disney Extreme Skate
• Luigi’s Mansion (I really want to play this one someday)
• Mario Party 4
• Mario Golf
• Animal Crossing
• Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

If you live in Virginia, you may want to check out your local fye store — many stores in the area are cutting all of their games (except Wii) by 30% off. This discount stacks with Backstage Pass, so you may get up to 40% off all titles. I was able to get a number of great games, namely:

• Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, $21
• Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, PS2, $18
• Karaoke Revolution Party w/ mic, Xbox, $14
• Animal Crossing: Wild World, $21
• Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories w/ 2.00 downgrade, PSP, $14
• and one very special brag that may get its own post…

I can confirm the sale at the Harrisonburg Valley View Mall and the Roanoke Valley View Mall. Don’t expect many new or hot titles — the newest stuff I saw was Bioshock in Harrisonburg and Phantom Hourglass in Roanoke.

Also, some stores in Maryland have a table of select games at 50% off, where I picked up a few things like new in box PS2 network adapters @ $6 each (!)

Sadly, the Roanoke store also had a note up that they would no longer be carrying video games, so this is the start of a clearance in the literal sense. Very sad, IMO. fye is my favorite alternative to Gamestop, and SOMEBODY needs to give them competition.