Congrats on the Maximum Racing set. That set (especially Crash Car Racer and Sprint Cars) is a pain to track down.

Awesome topic mate !
Will be happy to follow until you reach the complete set

Ah, well I saw a video on youtube saying they were good ones to track down.  What was that guys name... dr. something or another.  
 

May 2016 (Week 2)


Wii Game Count: 65 Games (#541 – 606)
Bought From: Online, Amazon Warehouse Deals


Big group of games this week. I've been trying to find some unconventional websites that sell Wii games for cheap. I've had some luck, although sometimes it's a shot in the dark. A found a particular website that sold Wii games for quite cheap, but would not/ could not state if they were complete or not. I took a chance, about half the games were complete, half the games loose. Oh well, I figure if I sell the loose games I should just about break even.

Another website that was worth checking is Amazon. I know we've all picked up a game or two from Amazon, what I'm talking about is Amazon Warehouse deals. The deals seem to always be changing and they always seem to undercut the going amazon rate, which often undercuts the going rate on ebay for a particular game. Since this comes from the Warehouse, Amazon does a pretty good job stating the condition of the game, if it's complete or not. Plus free shipping. I picked up Sonic / Monkey ball CIB pack for around $3 shipped, plus a bunch of others. Something worth keeping an eye on.


Group Shot:





Highlights:

I've been steadily grabbing tons of stuff from Warehouse Deals as well - including the Sega Fun Pack! There's definitely deals to be had there and I encourage anyone collecting Wii to check it out; they've got some deals that are way better than Gamestop and the like, and with 2-day free shipping from Prime there's no reason not to buy from them.

For example, they've got complete copies of Madden 13 (worth ~$20) for $5.60: http://amzn.to/24MbLOx...

May 2016 (Week 3)

Wii Game Count: 14 Games (#607 – 621)
Bought From: Gamestop, Pawnshop

Picked up a few games in gamestop and a couple pawn shops over the weekend. In a couple weeks I'm flying out of state. I'm going to pack light and check out the local game stores, here's hoping I have some good luck finding games. I wonder how many Wii titles I can fit in my carry on luggage?

Group Shot:




I'm currently at 620ish Wii games which also means I'm roughly half way through the set. There's a ton of games for the Wii, bigger than for any other Nintendo System, except perhaps the DS library. If I was collecting for the NES or SNES I would be nearing the final stretch with that count. If it was the N64 I would have finished the set twice over. I've never tried to complete a set for a system with such a large library, nor a system this recent. It's really been super fun and different. My current shelfing system for my Wii games is temporary. I have some ideas on how I want to set up everything in the future, but for now I'm just reusing my old Gamecube shelf, plus I've added some rows onto the top. Its works well enough for now. Here is it:

Looking good dude! Have you been keeping track on how much you've spent? I'd be interested to know how much each game was on average, highs and lows etc. once the set is done.

Sadly, I haven't kept good track of total spent.  If I had to guess I'm in the $3 - $4ish range per game.  A good deal of games can be found for under $3 at Gamestop and other local areas, but of course for the rare games I haven't had much choice but to go online and pay the going rate or a bit under.  The only set I kept good track of all purchases was N64.  For that set I average right around $4 per game.  This was back in 2011.  

Looking back, prices were way cheaper.  Here are the top 7 N64 games I paid the most for:
 

Game	Price	From
Worms:  Armageddon	$47.97	Ebay
Clay Fighter:  Sculptor's Cut	$46.01	Ebay
Bomberman 64:  Second Attack	$45.32	Ebay
Starcraft 64	$26.98	Ebay
Goemon's Great Adventure	$24.99	Ebay
International Superstar Soccer '98	$20.00	NA - Lincoln
Ogre Battle 64:  Person of Lordly Caliber	$20.00	NA - Lincoln

 

WOW. That's going to make some of the N64 completionists a tad jealous ;P

Yeah I figured a majority of what you're getting on Wii is sub $5 from GameStop and the like. That's gotta be a huge perk of the Wii set. 
 

It's crazy how much N64 has risen in the last five years.  NES and SNES really aren’t that different, those have shot through the roof as well.  That's kind of why I like collecting for the Wii right now.  It's in a sweet spot.  To the average consumer, Wii is dusty and old, taking up space in the closet and will be thrown in the garage sale this summer.  It's not new enough to interest most people who go into a pawn shop or thrift store either.  People are looking for PS4 and Xbox One games, not Wii.  The kids who grew up with Wii are still young, jr. high/high school age.  They are playing new games, have no nostalgia for childhood games yet and don't have disposable income even if they did.  That said, give them five or ten years and it will be a different story.  They'll be done with college, getting a steady job and out searching childhood games.  So back to N64, that’s the reason for the price rise.  The kids who grew up with those games are in their 20's, ready to relive found memories and have purchasing power.  It also explains why N64 is way hotter then PS1 right now.  PS1 was a system the older brother had, it was the teen who grew up on Sega Genesis and wanted a "mature" experience.  The N64 was for the little brother and the kid friendly console.  So the nostalgia doesn't hit with PS1 the same for the 20 something as it does the N64.  Back to the Wii, it hasn't been around for long enough to be considered retro.  So for the collector now is the perfect time.  The common titles may always be cheap, but you'll see the hidden gems, the popular titles, Nintendo 1st Party and the rare and uncommon go up in price in the years to come.  
 

Honestly, I can't believe how many games I've found at GameStop for less than a dollar.  And many of them are not complete shovelware either (I mean, maybe a little bit......)
 

Great summary and I agree. Never thought of the N64 vs PS1 angle, but it makes sense. That's the main reason I like the Xbox (not that it will necessarily blow up in the future) nobody seems to care about it so games are dirt cheap. 

Oh yeah, I agree with you on Xbox.  A bunch of great titles, most of which can be found for cheap.  I've never actively collected for the system, but when I find games that look interesting and are a couple bucks I’ll always pick them up.  I don’t think I’ve paid more than $3 for a single Xbox game yet and here is what I have so far.



I would say all fairly solid titles.  Plus Jurassic Park Operation Genesis, that’s was a great local pick up.  

Pffffft... noob.


(I'm just kidding by the way, that's a very great xBox collection. I'm actually jealous of a few of those titles you've got).

 

Yes, you've done very well so far. I never see Final Fight Streetwise around here. And of course that Operation Genesis is an awesome find (so is Capcom Vol 2., another tough one to track down)

May 2016 (Week 1)

Bought From: Gamestop, Amazon, Garage Sale

I'm back from my trip mentioned in the last post. I ended up in sunny San Diego. It was a fun adventure and a came home with a luggage bag full of Wii games. I'll get to those next week though. This week I'll talk about a few non-game Wii items.


Wii2HDMI Converter and Zelda Wiimote



The Wii2HDMI Converter. I haven't given this item a try yet, so I'm not sure on it's proformance. I know it's not going to magically make the Wii an HD console. It still outputs a 480 signal. That said, if it's a slight bump up from component that would be nice. It was pretty inexpensive so I'm keeping my expectations in check.

Zelda Gold Wiimote. Really lucky find here. While in San Diego I checked by a Gamestop and was surprised to see this on the shelf. The Zelda remote was only sold with the Skyword Sword bundle so finding in the wild is not super common. I'm not sure if Gamestop normally has a separate sku for this controller, thus a different price. If so whoever sold this too me was asleep at the wheel. This controller normally goes for around $40-$50 on ebay. I picked this one up in beautiful shape for $16.



Clone Trooper Blaster Limited Edition. I don't normally collect Wii accessories, but when I saw this odd item I had to pick it up. I'm not sure what the story is behind these, but its limited edition, 75 exist. Based off this, I'm assuming it's one of the rarer Wii accessories. The ebay seller I bought this from put another one on ebay. For all I know he has a case full of them. This is the seller: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Star-Wars...
Note: If you decided to buy from this guy, ask him to bubble wrap the item and put it in a separate box. I honestly don't know if I ever received a shitter packaging job. I'm amazing this item made it in one piece. Mine is fairly damaged. If anyone has any idea on how these were given out let me know.

Bonus Pic:

My mom has been rocking the garage sales. Honestly she has been finding more awesome stuff then me. She doesn't really know anything about games, but that hasn't stopped her from picking up some good deals.

She picked up this lot for $35. Most of the SNES games have instructions.

your mom killed it on that snes lot! also that star wars gun is pretty rad

I've never seen that Star Wars blaster before, that's awesome. Great snags on the Wii2HDMI and the Skyward Sword remote as well! By the looks of that price tag on the remote ('Classic Controller'), I think they just screwed up and put the wrong price on it. In fact, I'm looking at gamestop.com right now and I don't see that remote listed anywhere. So maybe someone traded it in and they had no idea what to do with it, haha.

Sweet grabs. I remember finding a Zelda remote a while ago and when I pulled it out of the bin at the pawn shop there was a gold nunchuck attached. Great score.

Never seen that blaster before. Neat.

I keep trying to look for that Wiimote at GS. They don't classify variants (usually) so you will find it at a "normal" price there.

I'm really enjoyed this thread. I'm a Wii collector also. Not going for a complete set. But everything is getting harder to track down. Gamestops Wii sections are getting smaller and smaller.

I didn't see a Mensa in there. Have you found one?

Except the normal price is $39.99 on used wii motion controllers! He got a steal and whoever traded it in got screwed.
 

Or the more likely scenario is it just got bagged and marked wrong. 

 

Tag prints when it is traded in, they don't print tags later on. It gets tagged and put out right away, unless it is a trade hold store.
 

Wouldn't they have to hold an item for 30 days just like a pawn shop?