*** See last post for latest finds   ***

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First off, thanks to The Questyen, he’s been posting his Wii pickups for awhile and I’ve been inspired by it. 

Second, a complete Wii set?  Yes, I’m crazy and I know what you are thinking, it’s all shovelware, way too many games, too new of a system to collect for, ect.  Well, I’m here to take that journey and will document it every step of the way.  To be honest, collecting for the Wii so far at been super exciting.  It’s like sailing into uncharted waters.  Sure everybody knows the NES, SNES and N64 collecting inside and out, but what about the Wii?  The system was insanely popular at the time selling over 100 million copies throughout its life (more than the NES).  So for such a relatively new system as far as collecting, what are the rare titles, the valuable and the hidden gems?  That’s what I’m excited to find out.

That where this thread comes in, I’m going to start posting my Wii games as I find them.  Starting with game #1, until I reach the end (over 1200 titles).  I’ve completed sets for NES (minus SE), SNES, N64 and Gamecube, among others, so Wii you’re next up.


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NOV 2006 - JAN 2015

Let’s start at the beginning, the launch of the Wii.  The day of the midnight launch I called Walmart, it was around noon and I ask if the system would be available and how many they had in stock.  The clerk said yes, they had around 20ish in stock and there was already around 20ish people waiting outside the store.  Well crap, I got in my car and speed to the store and jumped in line.  I had no time to plan, grab lunch or anything.  I was in it for the long haul, even if that meant standing on a sidewalk for 12 hours.  I counted about 23 people in line in front of me.  I gave myself about 50/50 chance of going home with a Wii.  An hour later a Walmart clerk came out to where everyone was standing.  He had tickets in his hand, each one with a number.  If you got a ticket you could come back at midnight and pick up your Wii.  Tickets were getting dispensed, no problem, until they came to the lady with five kids about three people in front of me.  Now she was putting up a stink “I need six tickets, one for me and one for each one of my kids”.  WTF?? I know this ladies game, she’s a scalper.  After the Wii was released they sold out everywhere, unless you wanted to pay $400-$600 on ebay.  I and everyone behind me was about to riot, but thankfully Walmart had the common sense to limit it to one ticket per family.  She was pissed and I was happy, as I got the second to last ticket.  I went back at midnight, picked up Zelda, Excite Truck and Super Monkey Ball:  Banana Blitz.  I ended up playing games until I finally passed out at around three in the morning. 

By 2014, I’ve acquired over 100 games over the life time of the Wii, lots of really fantastic titles, one’s I’ve put countless hours into.  In early 2015, I sold my collection to build a house, every game I owned found a new home, all as one huge lot.  My Wii game count was back at zero. 


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FEB 2015 – DEC 2015 (PART 1)

Over the next 11 months, I very slowly picked up Wii games as I saw them.  Ones that were cheap and looked interesting.  Most of my energy was spent building a house, so collecting was definitely on the back burner.  I didn’t have a place to display them, so they ended up in my file cabinet.  It was a start of a new collection though.

Wii Game Count:  72 Games (#1 – 72)
Bought:  Random, garage sale, gamestop, thriftstores

Group Shot:




Highlights:







At this point, I feel like I’m off to a good start.  Everything picture above is worth playing, most are fairly inexpensive.  Note that SNK Arcade and Marble Saga both have been holding their value and are worth picking up if found cheap.  The same goes for anything that says Mario or Zelda in the title, but that should go without saying.  


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FEB 2015 – DEC 2015 (PART 2)

Wii Game Count:  1 Game (#73)
Bought:  Gas Station



My Horse and Me: Riding for the Gold – This was an interesting pick up.  It was before I was really started to collect for the Wii, I recalled seeing this on a “rare Wii” list a few months before.  I found this in a gas station about 30 miles from where I live.  It was in a stack of other random games, all dirty and well past their prime, most of which have most definitely been sitting on the shelf for years.  A rare game like this just sitting in the gas station.  Makes you wonder if there are more out there.  They had two copies, both sealed for $15 each, I walked out with both.  This is probably in the top 10 of rare Wii titles, if you find a copy for cheap, don’t skip it.  Apparently Atari doesn’t even acknowledge its existence. 


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FEB 2015 – DEC 2015 (PART 3)

Wii Game Count:  8 Games (#74-82)
Bought:  Local Gamestore “Go West Games”

I live in a small town with not many retail options for old games.  A couple thrift stores and a pawn shops.  That’s pretty much it.  When I heard that a small game store was opening up, I was pretty excited.  My excitement quickly left when I saw the prices - all well above eBay’s.  It didn’t matter if it was Madden 94 for the SNES, it was going to cost you an arm and leg.  That said, they managed to stay in business for about 6 years. 

Even though I rarely picked up games from this store, I would drop by once a month to see if anything new or interesting hit the shelves.  This time I was in luck, going out of business sale.  All Wii games where $5 (most had been priced at $30 plus before).  Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox was 2 for $5.  I walked away with a ton of games. The Wii titles were all solid pickups, a few of which were still factory sealed.





Little King Story – A fun, XSeed published game.  Anything with the XSeed icon on it, is worth a pick up.  They bring high quality games over from Japan.  This will hold its value as time goes on.
Lost in Shadow – I neat 2D platformer.  You play as the shadow and solve puzzles as you transverse.
Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn – Anything from the Fire Emblem series is hot right now and this game is no different.  Certainly one of the highest priced games for the system. 
Klonoa – A remake of the Playstation game.  Another great 2D platformer, with a 3D style perspective. 


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I wish you luck on this journey! If you need guidance, reach out to KacyDaGameNerd (YT/FB/IG) as he has a full set.

At least Wii games are dirt cheap right now, but I know quite a few that are damn tough to get. 

GL! Your thread on Gamecube variants was very helpful back in the day, who knows what you'll catalog while tracking Wii.

Great stuff as usual. It will be fun to see how your journey unfolds. If you can get Fire Emblem for $5, you're off to a solid start.

Hm, I didn't know about The Kore Gang, looks like it could be fun.
Looking forward to more updates!

Yep, I saw KacyDaGameNerd's collection on youtube.  Seeing all those white boxed Wii games lined up on his shelves was quite an inspiration.  It's really a clean looking collecting when displayed.  I certainly took note of games he found hard to find.  

But yeah, most Wii games are super cheap right now.  I'll get into it later posts, but now is a great time to collect for the system.   
 

I can probably help you quite a bit if you want to get some cheap filler titles out of the way.  Think 28 or so fit in a large flat rate box.
Shoot me a pm and I can get some pics together.  Thanks!

Nice! Now's definitely a good time to go after Wii, you should find tons of stuff at garage sales I'd think

Thanks for shouting me out! I've been working on my collection for a few years now so I have quite a bit of knowledge if you ever have any questions I'll try to help out. I've been working on a complete NTSC google spreadsheet for the last week or so and it'll probably take me another couple weeks to finish since I'm putting in product code, date, publisher, and known variant info. I'll share it with you when I finish. 

 

I look forward to following your journey!

That would be great, I'll take you up on that offer of your list once it's all finished up.  I may pick your brain sooner then later on some of Wii's library.  I'll for sure let you know.  Thanks!
 

JAN 2016

I've officially placed my hat in the ring of Wii collecting. The house is done and I'm starting to organize game room 2.0. My best advice for anyone who wants to jump into Wii collecting is to stop by your local Gamestop. Wii is the red headed step child of gamestop, they don't want them on the shelf. It's an old system and probably not a huge seller, it's just taking up space. That's perfect for a collector, it means games are cheap. Most of the "filler" titles can be found at Gamestop for .89 cents to $3.99. Combine that with the buy 2 get 1 free they are almost always running and the membership discount and you'll be able to walk out with a stack of games for way the heck cheaper then ebay, amazon or probably any thrift store or pawn shop.

Wii Game Count: 39 Games (#83 - 122)
Bought from: Gamestop, thrift store

Group Shot:




Highlights:



Not many highlights this time around. Beastly looks incredibly weird, I guess it's based off a TV show. You never know what random game you'll find for the Wii.
Obscure the Aftermath – I haven't tried this yet, but I'm a sucker for horror games.


The best find this week:



Fritz Chess – Another rare one crossed off the list. This was a lucky find. A thrift store I visit about one a month had this sitting in a stack of Wii games. I'm not sure why this is rare, other than just low production numbers. For $7.50, you can't go wrong. It's another that I would classify in the top tier of rarest Wii titles.

I've been picking up a lot of Wii games recently, so it'll be cool to follow this. I pretty much pick up any game that looks playable and is super cheap. As you said, EB games (Gamestop) is basically giving these things away at this point. Most of the games I've purchased have been $10 or less.

I typically read through the manual to see how complex the game is. Also, taking a look at screen shots on the back of the boxes also helps. If there is very little to no HUD, I typically skip it, since it's probably a quickly produced piece of trash.

I saw Nights and Marble Saga the other day and will likely go back to pick them up now that I've seen some gameplay.

I'm pretty sure Gamestop is still doing B2G1 on Wii games.  I picked up Nights the other night for $2 there.
 

Yup, they've been doing that up here with Wii and DS games. It's great even though I don't really collect DS.

Yeah, and it's nice that they let you mix and match between the two systems.

Also, I now see that the B2G1 was already discussed above, I guess I missed that last night.

While I will never go for a full set of Wii due to the shear number of titles and % of shovelware, it's still a good time to pickup the titles that I want in my collection.  Unfortunately, the first party Nintendo titles seem to be holding their value (was I would expect), but there are a lot of hidden gems out there for cheap.  One title I recently picked up from the GameStop sale was Boom Blox Bash Party.  When I was testing it to confirm it worked, I ended up playing it for a pretty long time.  It's one of those puzzle games that really makes you want to keep trying.  Not just to beat the puzzles, but to replay them until you perfect them.

 

FEB 2016 (Week 1)

Wii collecting is in full swing this month. I stopped by Gamestop and was able to pick up a few titles. On my way out of the mall I figured I swing by FYE. I normally don't find a ton of stuff there, but it's worth checking out every once in awhile. I'm glad I did, I was surprised to hear they were having a 50% off every game in the store sale. They are moving to a new location which will no longer have games, so everything must go! Combine that with a 10% off everything membership card and I'm in gaming heaven. That's the nice thing about the Wii, you can think outside the box when collecting. Big box retail stores still have some Wii games on the shelves, but not for long so watch out for sales.

Wii Game Count: 101 Games (#123 – 224)
Bought from: Gamestop and FYE

Groupshot:




Highlights:






ExciteBots – The follow up to Excitetruck. This game is insane, really a fun racer. Soccer, darts, poker in the middle of the race? Yep, this game has it.
Rig Racer 2- This one made me laugh when I saw it. I thought it may have been a long lost cousin in Ridge Racer series. It's RIIIIIIIIG RACER!!
Walk It Out – This is supposed to be a rare game, but I believe it may have been reprinted which has affected the value quite a bit. Still a good one to pick up for cheap.
Conduit 2 – Pretty neat FPS that's excusive to the Wii.
Rythem Heaven – Kind of a Wario Ware Rhythm type game, made by Nintendo.
Fortune Street – I'm not sure what this is all about, I think it's kind of like Mario Party. With Nintendo and Square-Enix characters.


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I remember those days coming home with 100+ games from the Gamestop B2G1 sale fondly unfortunately once you start getting closer to the end it's hard to even find 3 like priced games you need.

I've seen gameplay of fortune Street, it looks more reminiscent to monopoly rather then Mario Party. Seems like a neat game though

Cool thread twiz! I'm glad that collecting for the Wii has reignited the collecting spark for you! Would love to know what your top 10 (or more) favorite titles for the system are! I just finally got my first Wii last summer at a garage sale.

What a haul! What was the damage if I might ask?

If I remember correctly I averaged out at around $3ish per game. I picked up some good PS2, Xbox, PSP and DS games as well.

Well done, sir!

 

Looks great. Good luck.

FEB 2016 (Week 3)

I hadn't mentioned before, but there isn't a Gamestop within two hours of where I live. Makes it a bit harder pickup games. On The Questyen finders thread, he mentioned something like 40 Gamestops within driving distance. I'm pretty jealous of that. Gamestop has been a key resource so far. That said, I travel often for work so a store is never far. This time around I was traveling to the next state over to pick up a part for work. I had a couple hours to kill as they worked on it, so game hunting I went. I stopped by a couple pawn shops and three Gamestops. It was a pretty good trip. Here's my haul.

Wii Game Count: 78 Games (#225 – 303)
Bought From: Gamestop and Pawn Shops


Group Shot:






Highlights:




Notes:
Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom – Pretty awesome fighting game exclusive to the Wii.
FlingSmash – Nintendo published game, requires Wii Motion Plus.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game - Voice acted by original cast. Probably the truest Ghostbusters sequel we will ever get.
Callling – First person survival horror game. I haven't played it yet - the girl on the cover freaks me out.
Bash Party – Sequel to Boom Blox. Not rare, but you can't go wrong with this Boom Blox.

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FEB 2016 (Week 3)


I stopped by a pawn on my Wii game hunt, to my surprise I saw this on the case. This isn't a special rare Wii system signed by Miyamoto or anything. Just your standard Wii, the black version is a bit harder to find then white, but not by much.





The crazy thing is there's a Pawn Shop a couple miles down the road that sells the exact same thing for $35.