It can be worth it. While it will never be as profitable for the current and last generations of gaming because of how much growth the industry has experienced (and thus increased production numbers in general). While SMT: Nocturne was reprinted, this still will not be enough to negate an exorbitant price in a decade. While collecting can be profitable, it is still a hobby. Most titles by Atlus, NamcoBandai, NIS America, etc. will still probably enjoy inflated prices on the gray market in the future. Take FFVII and FFVIII as an example. Due to immense growth the industry experienced between both titles, the amount of copies printed for FFVIII actually outnumbers the far superior FFVII substantially. This can also be partially attributed to FFVII's superiority, but only marginally. Since you dropped titles like Nocturne, I assume that you're clever enough to know that 99% of games published by American companies will never be rare in the same way many Japanese titles are (though this doesn't always apply to the first few generations of console gaming) Over the next couple generations, I don't imagine there will be ANY game released throughout the world that will become so rare as to receive absurd prices. Special editions are a different case, certainly. But for various reasons, the next Valkyrie Profile will never cost $150 dollar. I say next because I do expect Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria on the PS2 to raise in price in a similar fashion to the first title in the series on the PSX. Importantly, it is always niche franchises and not specifically niche publishers or developers that generally become so rare and sought after. Obviously some companies (Atlus, Square Enix) are more prone to this than many others, it comes down to the franchise itself, really. since Persona 3 was released, the SMT series has become more popular in the U.S./Canada, so there may be an increased demand for the series here in the future, thus stagnating the inflation of gray market prices and supplying a greater amount of copies to legitimate retailers.
And no, games from previous generations are not handicapped in comparison to current gen games. Many are far superior to anything that has been released on current gen consoles. Every generation tends to create no more than a couple dozen timeless titles. These are worth full MSRP to this day, if not more due to rarity. The key is to figure out which games last and current gen will become exceptionally rare in the future. It really is a coin toss. Six years ago, no one in the U.S. thought P3 was going to blow the doors open for SMT in the U.S. It isnt as simple as it was before. If it said Atlus, Konami, Square, Enix, Namco, Bandai, NIS America, etc. it was sure to be a rarity. Now that really isnt the case.
Either way, collect because you enjoy collecting AA and AAA titles and refuse to play what are only considered "good" or "great" games for the six months following their release. Not because you want to make money. Buy Nocturne because you know that there isnt a JRPG on the 360 or PS3 that begins to compare, not because you want to rip someone off in the future.
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