LEGO retro consoles: only one resells above its price — the NES, six years on

The six references

Sources: Hoth Bricks (72306, September 3, 2026) and Brickset listings for the other five, checked September 6, 2026. Brickset's end-of-availability dates for the 71374 and 10306 aren't used: they're a year-end placeholder, not a retirement date. Piece count describes the object; it no longer serves to compare prices.

What the market pays

For each console sold, we took the average sale of a new copy on the European market (BrickLink Europe, in euros) and compared it to the LEGO price. Only consoles with at least 5 new sales are published.

The NES, released six years ago, resells roughly at its price (+2.1%, and 37 sales: the most solid measure in the series). The Atari 2600 sells 24.0% under its own, the Game Boy 27.6% under its own. The SEGA Genesis Console (2 sales) and the Playstation (not out yet) have no publishable price.

A reference that never had a price — and resells

The 40769 SEGA Genesis Controller (260 pieces) was never sold by LEGO: it's a promotional gift, earned conditionally on a purchase. On the market, it still changed hands 41 times, at about €30 on average (reading of August 31, 2026). A collector who owns "all six consoles" owns five purchases and one conditional gift with no cost basis — and a typical spreadsheet can't handle that line.

A pace that quadrupled, across four ranges

Between August 2020 and August 2022, LEGO releases two retro consoles. Then nothing for three years and one month. From September 2025 the pace changes: four references in thirteen months (40769, 72046, 40926, 72306). And no Shop page shows them together: they're filed under Super Mario (×2), Icons, Sonic (×2) and LEGO × SONY. It's a tracking gap, not a product gap.

How we measured

• Completed new sales, BrickLink Europe, euros, readings from August 13 to September 1, 2026. LEGO prices: the catalog's (€269.99, €239.99, €59.99).
• Threshold: 5 sales. No projection on the Playstation, which has no market price.

My take

I'm not saying the NES is a better buy than the Game Boy — they don't share an age or an audience, and the nostalgia market isn't an efficiency market. What I take away is simpler: of three measurable consoles, only one is above its price and it's six years old. The rest resells 24 to 28% below. Anyone presenting a retro console replica as an investment should look at this table first.