I remember when I first started collecting atari hardcore back in 99 how high atari stuff was selling for and now the market has slowed. But now it seems nes stuff has started going through the roof price wise. Seems like items you could buy a year ago are going for 3 to 4 times more than then. Unless you find a good bin it looks like a new collector is going to invest 2 to 3 times more for a collection than a year ago.

Yeah, it's the same for all systems. There are aways peaks and troughs, and while some games will always fetch high prices, there are others that are more 'desireable' rather than actually being overly 'rare' (I hate that word). As such, sometimes people pay just a little over the odds at times out of convenience because it's there at that moment as opposed to it being the game's actuall worth. There will always be a large amount of games that you can get at a reasonable price however, so new collectors can always build up a decent collection before they really have to spend big.