The most expensive Nintendo DS game stars a dog who flies a giant robot over islands in the sky, and it sold approximately 100,000 copies worldwide. Right behind it is a farming game that came out with so little marketing that hardly anyone reviewed it. Six of the ten spots, though, go to Pokemon, games that sold millions and still cost more than most of the library.
Every price below is a real eBay sale made between August 2024 and September 2026, never an asking price. For each game we took the sales of loose cartridges (the cart alone, no case) from its latest year of sales, or its latest two years when it sold too seldom for one, and used the middle price, so one wild auction can't push a game up the list. You only need the cartridge to play, so the loose price sets the order. Boxed prices only show up where enough complete copies sold to mean something.
10. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky (2009)
Loose carts of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky sold for a typical $100 across 30 sales in September 2026, and boxed copies went for a typical $159 across 30 sales. Chunsoft made it as a third version of Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness. You play a human who has been turned into a Pokemon, and a personality test decides which one you become.
The three Explorers games went on to sell over 6.37 million copies, which makes them the best selling games in the whole Mystery Dungeon series. Sky came a year after the other two, and it is the one on this list.
9. Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times (2009)
Loose carts of Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times sold for a typical $110 across 30 sales between October 2024 and June 2025, and boxed copies went for a typical $162 across 30 sales. Konami's game sends you to classes at a Magic Academy, and time flows as it does in the real world. Its spells get put to use in a series of 52 adventures.
It is strikingly similar to Animal Crossing: Wild World, close enough that it can feel like a clone, with a bit of magical school mixed in. It hung around the $15 to $30 range until 2016 before it started a steady climb. Three sequels came out, all of them only in Japan, so if you want more, you'd better start learning Japanese.
8. Pokémon Platinum (2008)
Loose carts of Pokemon Platinum sold for a typical $130 across 30 sales between June and July 2026, and boxed copies went for a typical $208 across 30 sales. It is an enhanced version of Diamond and Pearl, and its mascot, Giratina, gets a new Origin Form and a whole new area, the Distortion World, where the physics bend.
It was the fastest selling video game in Japan at the time of its release, and it sold 7.06 million copies worldwide by March 31, 2010. A cartridge that common costs this much because Pokemon is collected like few other series.
7. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (2008)
Loose carts of Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride sold for a typical $135 across 30 sales between March and July 2026, and boxed copies went for a typical $170 across 30 sales. The original came out on the Super Famicom in 1992 and was the first Dragon Quest that didn't come to North America at first. The DS remake marked the first time the game ever officially came out in English.
The story covers roughly thirty years of the hero's life, from his birth to his own marriage and family, and in the DS version you choose between three brides. It has also been credited as the first known video game with a playable pregnancy. If you just want to play it, phone ports reached the rest of the world in January 2015.
6. Pokémon Black Version 2 (2012)
Loose carts of Pokemon Black Version 2 sold for a typical $140 across 30 sales in June 2026, and boxed copies went for a typical $196 across 30 sales. Black 2 and White 2 are direct sequels to Black and White, the first sequels in the series, and they were the last first-party games Nintendo made for the DS.
That sequel setup wasn't a major hit with most Pokemon fans, and the pair sold about half as many units as the original Black and White. Even so, in the aftermarket you'll need to spend more to pick them up.
5. Pokemon SoulSilver (2010)
Loose carts of Pokemon SoulSilver sold for a typical $147 across 30 sales in August 2026, and boxed copies went for a typical $197 across 30 sales. SoulSilver and HeartGold remake the Game Boy Color games Gold and Silver, and they add features from Crystal too. Every copy came with a Pokewalker, a pedometer you could move a Pokemon into and take for a walk.
They are popular entry points to the series, since they feel classic and still have the modern comforts of the newer games. Combined, the two had sold 12.72 million copies by March 2014.
4. Pokémon White Version 2 (2012)
Loose carts of Pokemon White Version 2 sold for a typical $150 across 30 sales in August 2025, and boxed copies went for a typical $200 across 30 sales. It is the other half of the Black 2 pair, set two years after Black and White in the same Unova region.
The two versions sold 8.52 million copies by 2020, which is a lot of carts for a game this pricey. White 2 sits a little higher than Black 2 here, so if you only want the story, Black 2 is the cheaper of the pair.
3. Pokemon HeartGold (2010)
Loose carts of Pokemon HeartGold sold for a typical $162 across 30 sales in March 2026, and boxed copies went for a typical $233 across 30 sales. It came out ten years after Gold and Silver, and the director said the first thing he kept in mind was to respect the feelings of the people who had played the originals.
The remakes bring back plot points from Crystal, like the bigger role for Suicune and the Battle Frontier after the ending. HeartGold costs a little more than SoulSilver. Gold beats silver again.
2. Shepherd's Crossing 2 (2010)
Loose carts of Shepherd's Crossing 2 sold for a typical $190 across five sales between August 2024 and March 2025, and boxed copies went for a typical $293 across 11 sales. It is a farming game about animal husbandry and wooing the ladies, and it will feel familiar to anyone who likes Harvest Moon. The difference is the danger: you can run out of supplies and die.
It followed the first Shepherd's Crossing on the PS2 and PSP, and both of those are still affordable. The DS sequel had a small enough print run that it's hard to find, and there were hardly any reviews of it when it came out, as if no one spent anything on marketing it at all.
1. Solatorobo: Red the Hunter (2010)
Loose carts of Solatorobo: Red the Hunter sold for a typical $200 across 21 sales between March 2025 and February 2026, and boxed copies went for a typical $308 across 30 sales. CyberConnect2 made it as the spiritual sequel to Tail Concerto, and it is set in a steampunk world of floating sky islands populated by dogs and cats. You play Red Savarin, a canine freelance adventurer who pilots a flying mecha.
Xseed Games released it in North America on September 27, 2011 in rather limited quantities, with a soundtrack CD in an outer cardboard box. The American cart even has all 83 quests on it from the start, while 12 of them were downloadable extras in Japan and Europe. It reviewed well but never got a big North American print run. In Japan, Namco Bandai aired 100 commercials for it in a single day on one TV channel and set a Guinness World Record, and none of that noise crossed the ocean.
