NES Classic Editions sold two per minute on eBay after Nintendo pulled the plug (update)

The NES Classic Edition has always been a hot commodity, but now that Nintendo’s discontinued the coveted hardware, shoppers are back to snapping them up as fast as possible.

On Thursday, April 13 — the day that Nintendo announced that the $60 plug-and-play console was no longer in production — eBay members purchased NES Classic Edition units at a rate of two per minute. A representative for the third-party auction site told Polygon that the going price that day was $332, or nearly six times the suggested retail price.

Prices remain steady into this week, according to eBay. The mini-NES now sells for an average of $325 per auction. (A cursory glance at eBay finds most auctions with prices in the $215-$250 range.)

These prices are reminiscent of how much the understocked item sold for on eBay back when it launched. In November, company reps told Polygon that buyers were grabbing NES Classic Editions every 18 seconds on release day. Now that it’s a true collector’s edition, Nintendo enthusiasts are willing to cough up a bit more cash for the retro gaming machine. The average price hovered around $230 at launch, although there were some buyers who shelled out a cool $500.

Nintendo has said little about the decision to kill the NES Classic Edition, a well-received piece of hardware that made many of the company’s most beloved retro games accessible to a modern audience. While we reserve a small hope that production could be revitalized some day, eBay and other resellers look to be the way to go to buy one of these rare systems from now on.

Update: We’ve updated the headline to more accurately reflect the data point provided by eBay.