The Raiders of the Lost Walmart are a band of brave retail explorers who comb the world’s big-box stores in search of retail antiquities at comically high prices. They carefully excavate clearance racks in order to find the most ancient pieces of technology available. In this set of field notes, Raiders report finding a fast-food promotional game, an obsolete camera from a defunct company, and a wireless adapter from a TiVo of generations past.
Leo discovered two retail antiquities at his local Walmart. First was something simple: a wireless adapter for the TiVo. From several TiVo models ago. Current models have built-in wifi, and is there a large market for people who have recently acquired a DVR from 2007 or so? “I love the antitheft strap around something that costs less than $50,” Leo wrote to Consumerist. Well, that can make sense for some items, but this box is relatively large, and the item is probably not very popular with thieves. The adapter was nestled between its much younger distant cousins, an AppleTV and a Roku.
On a different shelf, Leo found an item that really was on clearance. Of course, in the field of retail antiquities, “clearance” doesn’t mean a reasonable price.
Leo happens to own this same item, but paid a lot less for it. He ranted about it:
The company is now defunct, so good luck getting any support for it. I bought a used UltraHD a year or 2 ago for $40 at a pawn shop, and it’s not that great. To ask almost $100 for this is insane.
Jean noticed this game that was once available at Burger King on the used-games shelf at Walmart. There could always be demand for an 8-year-old fast food promo game…right? Maybe not.
“I recall these video games being sold for $4.00 with Burger King value meals back in 2006, I believe,” Jean wrote to us. “I guess used copies of a Burger King game for the original Xbox are in high demand, because they have doubled in price!”
Sometimes limited-edition games like that cost extra for collectors. Probably not in this case, though, when Amazon has the same title for $4.69 with free shipping available.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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