Here’s my haul from this weekend’s yard sales. Not a ton of stuff, but I do like what I picked up.

• 3 Pokemon guides: Yellow/Red/Blue, Gold/Silver, Ruby/Emerald — $1 for all
• Veronica Mars First Season DVD — $1 (Lots of people have recommended this one to me.)
• Metal Gear Solid 2 PS2 — $1
• Boggle — $1 (I recently got a friend hooked on Boggle and he asked me to find him one.)
• J. Crew “Critters” style Hula girl shorts — $2 (I don’t normally buy clothes at yard sales, but these definitely caught my eye. The guy told me he bought them for vacation but forgot to take them, so they’re pretty much unworn.  They’re a 34 whereas I usually wear a 36, but they fit OK. It looks like these retailed for about $50.)

User “Randam_Hajile” at the NeoGAF forums was able to snag a Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 bundle today at Wal-Mart, breaking the street date by nearly a week. Here’s his photo for proof:

In related news, the MGS4 bundles went on sale less than an hour ago from Amazon, beginning at 10:00 AM PST. The demand is so high that Amazon’s servers — yes, the entire site — have crashed. I’ve taken a screenshot of this unusual and somewhat historic moment…

Update: It appears the Amazon crash was unrelated to MGS4, except that it coincidentally occurred within a half hour of putting the bundle on sale.

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 heard the argument many times that video games are not a good investment. Well, for the most part, that statement is true. Most titles lose value over time. Even RPGs lose value about 50% of the time — Video Game Price Charts has the empirical data. What are my bets for the titles you should be looking out for? Here goes:

• Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence — MGS is an eternally popular series with a hardcore fan base. This one looks all set to follow Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance in terms of high demand for a relatively low print title.
• Grandia III — Used copies are already fetching over $30 on eBay. There was no European release for Grandia III, which is pushing a lot of the demand. If you do flip one of these, be prepared to ship to Europe.
• Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth — The original Valkyrie Profile for the PS1 is notorious for being the most valuable title on the console, often tying with Suikoden II. While the Lenneth re-release sold much better, demand seems to be once again on the rise. New copies have gotten as much as $60 on eBay. Valkyrie Profile 2: Simeria doesn’t currently seem to be following in demand (hmm, could it be because it was frustrating as hell?), but it may be worth picking up as an investment since it’s only $16.96 on clearance at Circuit City right now.

The common thread with all 3 titles — if you haven’t guessed it yet — is that all 3 went out of print this year, which means that new copies are disappearing off store shelves and are nowhere to be found online.