I'm primarily a Nintendo DS collector (in fact, the rest of my collections have been heavily downsized in support of it), but I'm beginning to see less and less chatter about the DS, let alone find any countable number of collectors. Sure, there's been plenty of people who have DS colllections, but they've become increasingly silent over the years.

Anyone notice this as well? Am I just missing out on some secret coven? Were DS collections a passing novelty?

Hell yeah the DS is awesome. It's the only console that even remotely challenges the PS2 for number of great games on the console, at least if you only count the NTSC library.

As for where the collectors are, the console is still pretty widely available, and the games are still pretty easy to find, for the most part. I've only had to buy maybe 3% of what I have off of eBay. So, I think a lot of collectors are either hedging their bets with finding the games in the wild, or they're more focused on consoles that are pricey or getting pricier right now in an effort to get them while they're cheap(er).

Yep. Like yesterday I found a CIB Away: Shuffle Dragon for a dollar. It's accumulating slowly but surely, because DS games are very easy to find in the wild right now.
 

Nice! That's a tough one to find! It took me months to track down my copy, and I think I paid somewhere in the $10 ballpark for it. You got a steal.

I think the rarest one I've found in the wild is the Game & Watch Collection Vol. 1, which a GameStop had CIB for something like $5.

I'm a casual DS collector. Probably around 100 CIBs / Sealed or so. I don't have interest in going for full sets of modern stuff, but I'm all about the good first party titles, RPGs, "hidden gems" and anything fun to play. 3DS is pretty fun too!

Lots of great stuff on DS, but some titles are getting pretty tough to find (at least complete). I used to run to tons of GameStops cleaning up on the uncommon titles before they starting throwing cases away a few years back. I have sold/traded some of the tougher titles over the years as I wasn't playing much DS at the time. (I'm a big fan of the Vita at the moment)

Love the DS! Have mainly hung onto RPGS and Platformers and dont actively collect for DS but im still picking up 3DS games. Here's my collection:

I've been warming up to the idea.  I've generally been trying to keep up with my handheld titles, so my "collecting" has been limited to one title at a time, as I beat each one.

Of course I'd also have to get over the fact that I've sold:

Trauma Center
Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright
Ace Attorney - Miles Edgeworth (whatever it was called)
Retro Game Challenge (this one hurts)
Contact
Orcs and Elves
Ninja Gaiden
Super Robot Taisen OG Saga
Knights in the Nightmare
Cave Story 3D
Hotel Dusk

DreamTR has a CIB USA DS set. 1,732 games! That is a lot of games.

The ones that hurt the most in that list are Super Robot Taisen OG Saga, especially if it had the outer box and OST, and Cave Story 3D, especially if it had a lenticular. Retro Game Challenge is still only $40 retail, and the rest of those games are $20ish or less retail.

Wow! Cave Story has gone up in price! I think i got that for $10 back in the day with slipcover and everything! Kinda wishin i wouldnt of opened it now.

 

This is what I used to do. I'm currently sitting ~330 CIB games, but I think I had already up around 260 before Gamestop sort of killed the majority of my second-hand, in-person DS hunting. I only collect games that I'd reasonably want to revisit, and I highly doubt I'd add more than maybe 30 games to the collection before I'm completely finished (at least game wise).

Also, it never occurred to me that a lot of them don't have an online presence simply because it's easy to find stuff in the wild. That makes total sense. I've avoided a lot of that in recent because I hunted so heavily years ago. I probably frequented 3-4 shops a week hunting their used DS games for 6-7 years. Thankfully I already own most everything that's been driven up in cost, or at least anything I care to play that's been driven up in cost. Bought most of the costly RPG titles close to launch. Think I got Pic Pic for $7ish (could never find one for sale, so I trolled UK eBay until I found a seller willing to ship internationally). Dodged many bullets by finding a lot of now-highly-pirated titles in person. I've only very, very rarely found pirated carts in the wild, most were incredibly blatant.

Glad to see such a positive response so far, and I'm glad to hear people still find bargains. Where do you guys find the games at? Local gaming stores? Most of the major chains around me only have junk at this point, and certainly no one stocks any decent CIB titles.

Yeah, it's sort of insane now. I'll never pay for what it's going for at this point. Wouldn't want it that much.

And Orcs and Elves with its stylus is actually absurdly hard to find. Any launch edition Atlus title is also nothing to discount. Even if certain titles don't go for that much, they are going to become increasingly uncommon.

I still need to pick up a launch copy of Ys. Only copy I don't have a launch edition of.

Anyone into revision carts? I have Bubble Bobble Revolution and SNK vs Capcom Card Fighters, but I haven't really looked into how many others are floating around. Those were mostly the only two I cared about.
 

The DS is actually my focus right now. Mainly due to the shear number of RPGs that it had and there's a lot of amazing platforming/action-adventure games too.

I may have to round up my collection for a photo later this week

Yeah, it's probably doubled in price since the last time i checked. I do pick up some Atlus games at launch. The ones I'm interested in. Do have Ys, Radiant Historia and Strange Journey 1st print copies for DS and quite a few of the 3ds ones as you can see in the pic. I know Infinite Space is pretty rare. Had a sealed copy for a while and auctioned it off this past year since the price was so high. Kept my cib copy which I'd found like 2 years ago at gamestop. They were slipping and had it marked for like $12. Was nice to find so I wasn't tempted to open my sealed copy anymore

Does he have pics?

I'm checking in!

I am definitely a DS collector. However, I hit a point a few months ago where finding titles I need is becoming increasingly challenging. I only collect CIB and GameStop's either stopped selling DS altogether or only offer cart-only at best. Some of the titles on DS are just a COMPLETE drain of cash and time to find a CIB. With 1,762 titles, it's probably the biggest library of any North American system ever, next to PS2. There are 34 "Imagine" titles. The series is for little girls. It's a real waste of time and money to buy all 34. I found 11 recently for $2 each so I bit the bullet, but normally save this stuff for last. 29 "Petz" games; 13 "Smart Kids" titles; 8 "Dreamer Series"; 7 "Discovery Kids"; etc...

And then you have your Atlus titles: 37 of them! And most are good games and also $$$.

DS is an amazing system to collect for in general, whether it's everything DS or just focusing on specific or good titles, the sheer volume is amazing.

As of today, I am at 912 CIB's but that # includes about 25 import exclusive titles as well.

SRTOGS didn't have the extras, but Cave Story did have the lenticular.   Not that I would miss that, it just ruined the conformity of my shelf

I'm not super OC about DS games though.  Worst case scenario is I get a replacment game, print out the cover art, and throw it in a replacment case.  I played through SRTOGS and it isn't anything special

 

And I didn't really plan on parting with it anytime soon, but I have been sitting on a sealed mint deluxe Solatorobo for the last couple years, waiting for it to appreciate. I could definitely give it up for the right trade...

Didn't know Orcs and Elves had a stylus. Oh well.

Atlus first prints are tough to track down, but even the first print of Knights in the Nightmare is going for less than the price it was new.

I have the revised version of SNK vs Capcom Card Fighters, and I thiiiiiiiiink I have the revised version of Bubble Bobble Revolution, but the glitch didn't affect me either way. I just wanted it for the arcade version of Bubble Bobble.

 

Rainbow Islands has one as well.  There are a handful of reprints with new publishers, Ultimate Mortal Kombat, Myst and one of the Hello Kitty games spring to mind.  A few reprints with new covers like 999 and Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow and that doesn't count the numerous incarnations of the Touch G line for Nintendo games, with either the orange bar top, or just the Touch G logo in the corner.  A bunch of the Disney releases also have a Disney Online logo on them, that their earlier releases didn't have on the inserts.

Yoshi's Touch & Go also has a -1 rev, but I'm pretty sure that it was just one of the rear label Kiosk demos only, as I've never been able to find it in any real quantity (2 copies in years of looking) and nothing on any retail edition insert to show it got a wide release.  

Personally i'm closing in on 800 unique titles, before variants.  I've got almost a full demo set, just missing some of the DQ map downloads and 6 or 7 of the Pokemon distros (of course the stupid rare ones).  I'm pretty in bed with the 3DS as well.




 

DS is not my main focus at the moment, but I definitely try to add to my collection when I can. I've been able to add some harder to find titles like Super Robot Taisen OG First Print, Infinite Space, Atelier Annie, Time Hollow, etc... to my collection in the last 2 months or so along with some of the more common titles. I'm currently only a little over 40 titles (CiB/New) but will continue to add quality titles and hard to find titles to the collection as I can.

The DS may be a modern system collectors gravitate towards due to the varied library with some great niche titles receiving relatively low print runs for their time. Of course, with modern systems I doubt there will be anything close to the NES/SNES heavy hitters.

Sometimes these educational/younger titles have gems though. Might check out Thinksmart Labyrinth and Scotland Yard. Both are based on boardgames (ones adults might even want to play). I have to applaud you as well. No way I'd ever consider getting them all. Way too much junk. It is telling though that my highly curated collection of 330 is only titles I find interesting. That alone proves how amazing the DS library is, and the numbers grow even larger when you consider titles unique to other regions, especially English language ones from outside North America. Pic-Pic, Bomberman 2, Bomberman Story DS, Maestro! Jump in Music, etc. All very decent titles.

@Philosoraptor - Orcs and Elves sort of didn't have a stylus, but it existed. It was supposed to be exclusive to Walmart, but I could never find a copy in the states. Here's an old auction on NA with the variant (obviously from Canada). http://nintendoage.com/forum/mess...;

I bought my stylus on eBay a few weeks after the game's release when I determined the effort useless in person. No clue where mine came from, but it's remarkably uncommon to find, even online.

Also, I think I bought both of those revisions in person. Was a bit stunned to find them despite being cart only. Don't like cart only games, but they were too good to pass.

Yeah, it's pretty difficult to track down, here's a picture of what the walmart exclusive copy of the game looks like complete, the stylus is actually rather neat looking. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Orcs-Elve...~61

If anyone wants a real challenge, a nice subset to collect would be all of the Pre-order exclusive DS styli. The most difficult to track down stylus may be the Magician's Quest Mysterious Times stylus. I've only seen one of those on eBay in the last 3 years. I actually originally intended on trying to collect them all, but quickly ran out of steam.

 

Time Hollows? The crazy thing about the depth of the DS library is that you're constantly just finding out about old titles