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The story
GEO Holdings’ new used-digital-goods store format, ‘GEO Digital Base,’ launched in March, is reportedly seeing strong sales of ‘neo-retro’ games from the early 2000s. Game software sales have hit five times the level of regular GEO stores, driven by support from customers in their 30s and 40s, and the store network is expanding. The thread ranged from confusion over the term ‘neo-retro’ itself, to debates over what actually counts as a retro game, the reasons behind soaring used-game prices, and frustration with modern titles that rely on DLC and updates.
What people said
They were literally just talking about doing a Wii/PS3 episode.
That's probably just them riding the wave too…
GCCX is probably just trying to broaden its viewer base.
They want to bring in the generation that grew up with the Wii/PS3 era.
I want a commercial with someone like Haman Karn (the imperious Gundam villain) dramatically declaring that.
Running out of material right as a trend comes along you can jump on — that's a kind of 'having luck' too, you know, it's all about timing.
Never heard 'neo-retro' before either, but it doesn't feel weird as a term if it catches on.
I've got original PS1 and PS2 discs gathering dust at the back of my bookshelf — would selling them actually get me decent money?
If there aren't many in circulation, they'll fetch a high price.
They just couldn't see this coming.
2021 was before prices spiked.
Nobody could've predicted even garbage games would go up in value.
Actually, without it, there's no profit at all.
Then they shouldn't have stopped buybacks and dumped everything for cheap.
on top of the already-low supply, more and more copies are flowing overseas, adding a scarcity premium on top of that.
It's honestly gotten out of hand.
Guess I'll try looking at it as a positive: Japan's physical game industry has finally reached the status of ukiyo-e prints.
It's a relative of Neo Exdeath (the FFV superboss).
They've got it fixed in their heads that 'retro' only covers the 2D era.
Guess that crowd exists.
Not sure why they think that way, though.
Personally, I already consider games two console generations back to be retro.
Sony doesn't make money off used sales anyway.
Even if used copies sell, Sony doesn't care since the IP isn't being carried over to current-gen titles.
This is just stuff where neither the hardware nor the software sells anymore.
The buyback price is low.
The in-store resale price is a bit over 10x that, so that's a ¥200,000 asset right there.
Going out of your way to buy new at GEO specifically… is this stealth marketing (stema)?
'Digital game' is just synonymous with 'computer/video game.'
A 'digital game console' just means a video game console.
'Analog games,' meanwhile, means actual physical board games and card games.
They also offer repairs and consultations (for PlayStation consoles especially, a lot of people don't know which model number is good or bad), which probably makes it easier for casual nostalgia buyers — not just hardcore collectors — to pick up retro consoles.
We're talking about revenue here.
People in their 30s and 40s — the PlayStation's core demographic — aren't buying new releases; they're buying 'neo-retro' games (early-2000s titles, right in the middle of the PlayStation's heyday in Japan) instead, going full 'things were better back then.'
After that, online updates became the norm, and you can't fully enjoy a game just by buying the package.
This is exactly what I hate about games these days.
I really hate that a game doesn't feel complete in one package anymore.
Patches fixing things after launch, content held back for DLC sold separately — I really hate all that.
It's a shame this has just become the norm now.
I'm having fun playing them, though.
Feels like they're holding onto stock that could genuinely become an asset if managed well.
No idea whether that offsets all the totally worthless stuff they're also stuck holding, though, enough to turn a profit.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
In the used game market in recent years, a decline in circulating supply combined with an outflow to overseas buyers has driven up prices for certain titles. As noted in the thread, this trend wasn’t foreseen around 2021, when stores ran ‘clearance sales for non-current-gen software,’ and many of those titles saw prices climb afterward. Also, starting around the PS2/original Xbox generation, more titles began relying on online updates and DLC, raising the question of whether a game can be fully enjoyed with just the package alone — a practical issue that’s becoming increasingly relevant to game preservation going forward. Meanwhile, the term ‘neo-retro’ itself is closer to GEO’s own branding, and the thread shows disagreement over its definition and generational cutoffs — it’s easy to mistake it for an established industry-wide term when it isn’t.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “[Sad News] GEO: “We make more profit off ‘neo-retro’ games than new releases 😁”“
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