Random: In Japan, You Can Buy A Nintendo Wii For 50 Cents

And DS consoles are under a dollar

The Wii and DS were phenomenally successful consoles, selling over 250 million units between them worldwide. That's great news when a system is 'alive' and still getting new games, but when it's a decade down the line, the software has dried up (well, almost dried up) and online services are being disconnected, it means something else: you're going to find millions of unwanted consoles flooding the second-hand market.

That's the situation that Japan appears to find itself in. One Japanese shopper snapped images inside a trade-in store which shows Nintendo DS consoles selling for 100 Yen – that's around a dollar, or 75 pence if you're in the UK. PS2 consoles are selling for 200 Yen ($1.86 / £1.51) while a second-hand Wii will set you back 50 Yen (46 cents / 36 pence). All of those prices are subject to sales tax, which makes them slightly higher, but not by much.

Old consoles being sold for much less than their original retail value isn't big news, of course, but these prices are still a little on the insane side. Surely a Wii offers enough entertainment value to be worth more than 50 cents – or perhaps the issue is that there are so many of these systems clogging up stores that they literally have no option but to drop them to a stupid price in order to shift them?

How many Nintendo DS consoles would you buy if they only cost a dollar at your local game store?

[source twitter.com]