Published
The Graded Games Report: Spring 2023
A quick summary of population and collecting community updates
By George W.
I'm a little late on this one, but I think you'll enjoy it. Wata Games has been publishing updates to their population reports about once every 3-4 months consistently, and we finally have enough data to see how trends are shifting.
There's also some great community and auction updates, so read to the end!
Let's cover the data first. Of the platforms currently available in the pop report (which excludes PS3, Xbox One/X/S, Switch, PSP, Vita, 3DS, etc), there were approximately 2714 [1] new certifications (games) added. Pretty low, but the market is small. For comparison, PSA slabbed and shipped 1.22 million (yes, million) newly certified items across all verticals. Here's a larger breakdown across grading organizations:
In addition to macro-economic factors, the plain reality here could just be that the sealed supply is dwindling. Cardboard and even some early plastic case games are relatively rare compared to just 3 years ago. At this stage, I would expect CIB and more common games to pick up momentum if organic interest emerges.
Here's a more detailed submission breakdown in Wata Games' population as it pertains to box grades.
| Box Grade | Population Total | Certifications Added |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 44 | +10 |
| 9.8 | 10314 | +430 |
| 9.6 | 20467 | +706 |
| 9.4 | 16494 | +510 |
| 9.2 | 8431 | +281 |
| 9.0 | 5380 | +242 |
| 8.5 | 6446 | +239 |
| 8.0 | 4195 | +116 |
| 7.5 | 3213 | +86 |
| 7.0 | 1789 | +39 |
| 6.5 | 1099 | +23 |
| <6.5 | 1222 | +32 |
| Total | 79094 | +2714 [1] |
A look at seal grades reflects a pattern of grade distribution that should look familiar. The most common grade added is A+, with A close behind:
| Box Grade | Population Total | Certifications Added |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 44 | +10 |
| 9.8 | 10314 | +430 |
| 9.6 | 20467 | +706 |
| 9.4 | 16494 | +510 |
| 9.2 | 8431 | +281 |
| 9.0 | 5380 | +242 |
| 8.5 | 6446 | +239 |
| 8.0 | 4195 | +116 |
| 7.5 | 3213 | +86 |
| 7.0 | 1789 | +39 |
| 6.5 | 1099 | +23 |
| <6.5 | 1222 | +32 |
| Total | 79070 | +2716 [1] |
Totals added per platform also reveal an interesting pattern. Included below is the number of certifications across previous population report updates.
Note: I've included only Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox totals for brevity and relevance. If you'd like to see more in the future, shoot a message to my email at the end!
| Platform | Aug. 2022 | Dec. 2022 | Mar. 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NES | 11522 | 12247 (+725) | 12496 (+249) |
| SNES | 5239 | 5684 (+445) | 5817 (+133) |
| N64 | 4426 | 4868 (+442) | 5093 (+225) |
| GameCube | - | 3749 | 3886 (+137) |
| Wii | - | 2998 | 3043 (+45) |
| Wii U | - | 1744 | 1808 (+64) |
| GB | 2485 | 2679 (+194) | 2770 (+91) |
| GBC | 1510 | 1627 (+117) | 1717 (+90) |
| GBA | 3013 | 3406 (+393) | 3560 (+154) |
| PS1 | 6282 | 7054 (+772) | 7295 (+241) |
| PS2 | - | 9879 | 10356 (+477) |
| Xbox | - | 2836 | 2988 (+152) |
| Xbox 360 | - | 4057 | 4392 (+335) |
If we use August thru December of 2022 as the comparative submission rate, then some platforms, such as NES and SNES, have seen well into a 60-70% drop. It doesn't appear that any platform, with the exception of the modern consoles missing an August population, had an increase in submission rate.
While the cause isn't clear, there are several factors, including a generally down macro-economic environment (starting in 2022), which has resulted in most markets remaining flat or down.
And finally, the top 10 submitted games for each platform are largely similar to the previous submission window (8/2022 to 12/2022). I've covered the top 10 submitted games from major Nintendo platforms in previous essays, including GameCube, Wii, Wii U, NES thru N64, and Game Boy thru Game Boy Advance.
[1] There is a tiny discrepancy in total certifications added between box grades and seal grades. This happened because Wata has invalid entries in its data for a handful of box and seal grades. The above data is otherwise largely reflective of public population data.
Other Happenings
A new resource is in town! Keep an eye on Gamer Stonks (GS), an obscenely useful data aggregation tool on graded game data. It combines sales history from multiple auction houses and shares up to date graded (sealed) populations from Wata and CGC.
I hear subscriptions are coming in the near future!
Note: This isn't a paid endorsement.
There's also a handful of great auctions coming up, including Heritage Auctions' 8-64 bit showcase and CertifiedLink's Spring Auction. These are among my favorite auction blocks as they combine both old and modern games. A good time for everyone!