> but I think those adapters will run you $20 on Amazon

proper lag free upscaling isn't that cheap.

Yeah, I just did some basic googling and it looks like there are very few options. I suppose it all depends on how lag-free you want your retrogaming to be. If you want it as low-latency as possible and you want to use your flatscreen TV (assuming it doesn't have a ton of lag!), this seems like a much better deal.

I'm deep into this hobby and I can tell you that the AVS is one of the better solutions for the average person looking to play NES games. There are various mods you can do to original hardware for use on modern displays, but they can be pretty pricey, especially if you need someone else to do the [non-trivial] installation.

Furthermore, original hardware can be finicky; the NES has a notoriously unreliable connector for reading carts and requires a bulky AC adapter. Meanwhile, the AVS has an improved design, new/clean cart connector and runs off 5V from a USB port on the back; most people can plug it into their TV, receiver, or any other device in their entertainment system with a spare USB port (like an Xbox or PlayStation).

It's a superb value for someone with the cash to burn. I own both the NES and the AVS and think both are fantastic, but would recommend the AVS to friends and the NES to purists.

On Ebay+Amazon, It looks like the front-load consoles are going for $75 and top-load ones are going for about 30% more. When I bought mine (front load) a couple of years ago, I think I spent $20-$30 on it, so those numbers are a little bit of a shock to me.

Hmm. Is this a sign of the publicly available stock dwindling? I guess we could see the market for these original systems start to really dry up and prices increase dramatically.

> Is this a sign of the publicly available stock dwindling?

Could be. The front loaders tend to wear out their cart connector due to the weird VCR loading mechanism. It's easily fixable now but at the time it probably doomed them to the trash.

The top loaders were always sorta rare because they came out way late in the NES's lifetime (post SNES and Genesis) and IIRC only sold for a couple years.

Demand increase. Retro gaming is big right now.

Seriously. I bought The Legend of Zelda (the original one) 10 years ago for <10 Euros. Now it's over 100! And that's a super common game (I assume)!

Wow. I see it around $35 on Amazon, and I know that I didn't pay that much for it around 6 years ago (can't find the order though, so I probably bought it in a large lot of games from Ebay).

A Link to the Past: Bought for $17.56 about 5 years ago, and it seems that I'd be paying around $45-$50 to get it now.

Zelda 2: Adventure of Link: bought for about $5 in 2010, selling for about $15 now.

Oof! This one's the biggest jump I've seen so far. Metal Warriors on SNES. I bought that in 2009 for $40, and the cheapest listing for it on Amazon right now is for $200.

Fear not. In less than 5 years, they'll be back to $20. This is a bubble. Soon, N64 consoles will see similar jumps in prices. Gotta cater to the mid-30's gamer with extra income.