/vr/ - Retro Games

Could the retro gaming market be facing a similar situation to the comic market in the 1990s, where speculators have caught wind of how valuable certain cartridges are and are now buying up as many retro game cartridges as possible in hopes of collecting a fat return on them a few years down the road? I used to be able to find great bargains at places like Goodwill but now whenever they have something even remotely good, they always want the eBay price for it, and the ebay prices on retro games have been skyrocketting over the last few years.

Are we facing a future where unless you began collecting before the hobby got contaminated with people looking for the next gold rush, the only viable way to play retro games on original hardware will be flash carts?

Will there come a point where scalpers have driven up the cost of the hardware itself until it's no longer viable for anyone but serious collectors, because something like an NES or SNES will be in the three-figure price range? At that point it would be emulation or bust.