Thanks for watching. There was loads more footage but due to it being mostly undercover stuff it's quite shaky with many scenes being out of frame. I ended up chopping most of it unfortunately. .
I truly wish we had something like that here. All the old, decent game shops have long since closed down or turned into overpriced cafés or clothing departments, and the local CEX in town is just embarrassing. The shelves are full of dust and that's about it. Hardly any bargains or games to speak of, and the staff look as emotionless, sad and empty as the shelves! Thank you for showcasing these shops, it's always a pleasure to watch!
@@RetroCore Yeah, you're not wrong. Back when we had Games Exchange and Pink Planet, they would have special midnight openings when Resident Evil 2 was released. All the staff dressed as zombies. Now, the staff still look like zombies but no fancy dress in sight!
1.200 Yen for Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere? That's an increbible bargain considering how good the game actually is, especially because it's the Japanese version, not the crappy one released in America and Europe. Go back and get it while it still has that price tag, Mark. Have a good one!
I remember when around 2018-2019 I bought all five Japanese mainline Pokemon games on the GBA, all CIB, for 100. At the time I thought it was madness to pay that much for 5 games, but now I see individual games for well over 100. I'm not an investor, but good God have I got lucky. The market is out of control.
A reminder on why physical media is still thriving, even in Japan. I still go to my local game shop every now and then also. Going to your local game shop or online retailer is all the proof you need and just ignore those analysts who say bullshit otherwise.
Japanese take a really good care of their stuff. If I buy a retro game on a CD/DVD (or a movie on a DVD) it looks like someone used it as a frisbee and played catch with his dog. Ok, at 1:03 are Hatsune Miku figures and at the end of the video (12:48) is a whole booth dedicated to Kimetsu no Yaiba. Two boys together (12:46) are Agatsuma Zen'itsu (yellow hair and coat; 我妻 善逸) & Hashibira Inosuke (boar head mask; 嘴平 伊之助). Boy in chequered coat with green & black pattern + hanafuda earrings is the series protagonist, Kamado Tanjirō (竈門 炭治郎), little further away is his sister, Nezuko and the rest are Kisatsutai members.
Yeah, I've heard that retailers in Japan caught on to how much these old games are worth, especially to people from overseas, and started jacking up their prices. Too many collectors from the west going over there and buying everything up because of the exchange rate heavily favoring them. Really sad.
Not to worry, Yahoo Auctions is still cool for us living IN Japan. Scalpers can't profit much from Yahoo Auctions because 90% of Japanese sellers won't ship overseas because it's a pain in the arse plus they don't speak English. One of the rules of Yahoo Auctions is that users must speak Japanese. Using a proxy can help with the language but then they also have added costs 😁
I have a vast Japanese Megadrive collection that I built when my parents imported one for me here in Scotland back in 89/90. I could probably make money selling it back to the Japanese stores 😎
You easily could. I reckon that my Mega Drive collection would easily get me about 2. 5 million yen if I sold it at the prices seen in this store. I could buy a reasonable car for that. I own a lot of rare and expensive titles but many were bought in the late 80s and 90s and maybe a few in the last couple of years before prices went crazy. .
I see Hatsune Miku and Super Sonico in some of those claw games. I won 2 Sonico figures and 2 of Nezuko Kamada via TokyoCatch on my phone. I love the Japanese arcades and game stores. The closest we have to Japanese game store here in the states are the smaller game stores (there's GameStop (unfortunately), 2nd & Charles, DK Oldies and everybody else).
I love these videos you walk in Japan! I miss coming to Japan, hopefully I can go in a couple years again. By the prices I won't be coming home with a lot of games next time though. I'm glad I bought some stuff back in 2014 and 2018!!
Fun video! Japan always has such nice stores! The closest gamestore we've got (were i live in the Netherlands)is a hour away, and to be honest it is a good one. They have modern games in the shop but they've got an entire basement dedicated to retro games. You can find pretty much everything there and most for reasonable prices (except the rare stuff of course).
Glad you have a good game store you can access. It's rare to find quality game stores in the West that aren't just full of unboxed junk or scratched to death discs.
Thanks for another shopping video. I spotted the pc engine arcade card at ¥18,000. Similar to U.K. prices. Hard justify to play small handful of games.
They usually sell those kinds of anime statues they have in UFO catchers in anime import stores around here. Not sure if they sell all those erotic ones outside of a convention, as they usually deal in anime brands that are well known over here. I swear I've seen those more adult ones, but I'm only really interested in the shows I like. Even then, I only own like 2 JoJo statues and an Oolong from Dragonball, and they're in boxes in storage. Hey! Yatterman villain game. Now THAT is an erotic statue I'd sink money into. I find Doronjo sexy. She's basically a kid's cartoon character that wears bondage gear, after all.
@@RetroCore I only really know about Yatterman because, for some strange reason, they released the anniversary special on DVD over here (with a very lousy dub). That was sometime during the early 00's when the anime DVD market was hot in the US.
Nice one Mark, Surugaya is great but their prices have crept up over the last 3-4 years, but I still have my 入荷リスト set up with them in case they get any of the rare bits and pieces I can't find anywhere else; and all but in one case I've been very happy with the quality of the goods. I recently found a copy of the rare Minuet version of Tetris for 220yen in the Kuwana branch in Mie (my closest Surugaya, even though that's over an hour away for me even by kousokudorou) and just put up a video on one of the best bargains I have ever found in Surugaya in Niigata City on a PC Engine game, and it wasn't meant to be as cheap as I paid for it. Anyway -- thanks as always for your awesome videos :) 10:36 Raiden Project, great game, my copy cost me 108yen only a few years back.
Oh yeah, tell me about the prices. These days it's crazy! I reckon my Mega Drive collection could easily get 3 million yen. Probably my SFC and Saturn collections too. To think 5 years ago I thought paying over 2000 yen was a rip off 😅 You did well on those Surugaya scores you mentioned. There are some deals to be had but you really do need to look hard or be lucky. I don't visit this Surugaya much as I work near it but live in another city. I'm normally too busy to visit there on a work day.
Great vid as always thanks Mark, I did a quick currency to pounds check on 9000yen and shit those games are expensive, surely they can't be selling many of those glass cabinet titles being so ridiculously expensive. Tbh though amongst those psx games I would have bought a few, ray crisis was a fair price as well.
I think we're now at a stage where only true collectors are buying games from before the 2000`s simply due to the high prices. Yeah, it's very hard to justify paying those prices when I know what they used to go for.
It might have arcade games, but we all know the actual best game store chain is Hard Off...I mean, pfft, obviously... Also PLEASE tell me those game boxes were wrapped in plastic and the price stickers were not on the boxes themselves. Stores that do that are...well, I don't shop at them
Nah, Hard Off isn't even close to Surugaya. The best part about hard off is the junk section because you can get some real deals in there but as for variety over many systems and rare games it's not even in the same race.
Of course all labels are on plastic. This isn't the West where they ruin you game boxes with big stupid stickers or write on the actual discs with a sharpie 😅
Otomedius, I pronounce it Oh Toe Me Dee Us myself, or the fake Parodius game Konami should've never done. Instead of giving us another Parodius, they gave gamers that garbage. Tokyo/Akihabara in general just seems to have games with the highest prices, outside of that area, prices tend to start dropping unless it's considered a rarer game. 10:21 Twinbee Taisen Puzzle Dama, a game that a long time ago had an ISO that was impossible to find, after a friend got a copy for me, it started popping up like normal on those sites. Looks like the price is not too different in US dollars from what a friend paid for my copy years ago (about a decade and a half), they paid all of $10.
I think you're pretty close with your pronunciation on that Konami shooter. I had both at one time on the 360 but sold them. I found them to be quite dull.
Ah, I'd like to but computer games are hard to find as they're mostly hoarded by those tourist trap shops in Tokyo and so on. I could do a Yahoo Auctions special I guess but is that fun just looking at Web pages?
@@SomeDudeSomewhere Basement Brothers is a TH-cam channel that covers the japanese PCs and their elaborate original packaging. 40 year old magnetic media makes me hold my breath, like the bits will fly off the plastic as soon as I look at it
@@RetroCore Oh, I didn't know that! I thought old Japanese computers would be more niche than consoles! Anyway, thanks for your videos, I like them a lot 🙂
I visit these otaku shops with all their figurines and I feel like a vegetarian at an all you can eat BBQ. It’s a shame because there’s SO MUCH OF IT. I figure some people collect one or two and some have cases and cases of wide eyed smiling anime gals. Regarding Wii U being out sold by X360 in Japan. Ouch. It’s not a virtual boy where one could say “This is a cute toy but not something to own for multiple years of a console lifespan.” I wonder how much the complete in box prices reflect the west vacuuming up the inventory from these shops. On the up side - at least this stuff is being sold. Owned once, sold as used and sitting on a shelf or in storage for decades. You can tile your walls with Final Fantasy 6 and Dragon Quest V cartridges.
You haven't played the Sega Hatsune Miku arcade games? They are excellent rhythm games. (even if you are not into the genre) And yes, they will also get you addicted into collecting those figures...
went the everdrive route.. yeah I know, but when I want something to play I am not paying a premium just to own it, not worth it to me. also if you have a softmod wii with nintendon't you can enjoy GC titles. No ED required just a SD card. I miss collecting, but it's just not fun anymore.
I can understand the appeal of Ever Drives, I have a few myself for the SFC, MD, PCE, N64, GB and GBA. But, I still buy games as I'm a sucker for physical media.
My favorite videos you walking around
Glad you like them. They're also the easiest to make 👍
Thanks for the video mate. I just wish that it was longer! I hope you're doing well. Have a great weekend
Thanks for watching.
There was loads more footage but due to it being mostly undercover stuff it's quite shaky with many scenes being out of frame. I ended up chopping most of it unfortunately. .
I truly wish we had something like that here. All the old, decent game shops have long since closed down or turned into overpriced cafés or clothing departments, and the local CEX in town is just embarrassing. The shelves are full of dust and that's about it. Hardly any bargains or games to speak of, and the staff look as emotionless, sad and empty as the shelves!
Thank you for showcasing these shops, it's always a pleasure to watch!
Yeah, it's a sad state in the West when it comes to used game stores 😢
@@RetroCore Yeah, you're not wrong. Back when we had Games Exchange and Pink Planet, they would have special midnight openings when Resident Evil 2 was released. All the staff dressed as zombies. Now, the staff still look like zombies but no fancy dress in sight!
“Big boobs and panties” good stuff Mark. I missed these types of videos. Thanks for sharing. 👍🏻
Yeah, it's good to see something a little more mature occasionally.😁
1.200 Yen for Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere? That's an increbible bargain considering how good the game actually is, especially because it's the Japanese version, not the crappy one released in America and Europe. Go back and get it while it still has that price tag, Mark. Have a good one!
I didn't know it was that good. I may just do that 👍. Thanks for the heads up.
I remember when around 2018-2019 I bought all five Japanese mainline Pokemon games on the GBA, all CIB, for 100. At the time I thought it was madness to pay that much for 5 games, but now I see individual games for well over 100. I'm not an investor, but good God have I got lucky. The market is out of control.
Yeah, you bought at the right time 👍
A reminder on why physical media is still thriving, even in Japan. I still go to my local game shop every now and then also. Going to your local game shop or online retailer is all the proof you need and just ignore those analysts who say bullshit otherwise.
Digital software is the end of gaming IMO.
Japanese take a really good care of their stuff. If I buy a retro game on a CD/DVD (or a movie on a DVD) it looks like someone used it as a frisbee and played catch with his dog.
Ok, at 1:03 are Hatsune Miku figures and at the end of the video (12:48) is a whole booth dedicated to Kimetsu no Yaiba. Two boys together (12:46) are Agatsuma Zen'itsu (yellow hair and coat; 我妻 善逸) & Hashibira Inosuke (boar head mask; 嘴平 伊之助). Boy in chequered coat with green & black pattern + hanafuda earrings is the series protagonist, Kamado Tanjirō (竈門 炭治郎), little further away is his sister, Nezuko and the rest are Kisatsutai members.
They are hiking prices to USA levels and beyond. A far cry from 5-7 years ago
Indeed 😢
Yeah, I remember the prices 9 years ago when I visited Japan for the first time. The prices seem to have quadrupled at least
Yeah, I've heard that retailers in Japan caught on to how much these old games are worth, especially to people from overseas, and started jacking up their prices. Too many collectors from the west going over there and buying everything up because of the exchange rate heavily favoring them. Really sad.
That's one of the main reasons I'm pro-piracy. Not lining the pockets of loser collectors/scalpers or storefronts that artificially inflate prices.
Scalpers can go and do one. They piss me off to no end.
Not to worry, Yahoo Auctions is still cool for us living IN Japan. Scalpers can't profit much from Yahoo Auctions because 90% of Japanese sellers won't ship overseas because it's a pain in the arse plus they don't speak English.
One of the rules of Yahoo Auctions is that users must speak Japanese.
Using a proxy can help with the language but then they also have added costs 😁
I have a vast Japanese Megadrive collection that I built when my parents imported one for me here in Scotland back in 89/90. I could probably make money selling it back to the Japanese stores 😎
You easily could. I reckon that my Mega Drive collection would easily get me about 2. 5 million yen if I sold it at the prices seen in this store. I could buy a reasonable car for that.
I own a lot of rare and expensive titles but many were bought in the late 80s and 90s and maybe a few in the last couple of years before prices went crazy. .
Mmmm...🤔 Definitively, we don't have stores like this in Spain 😂
That's a shame 😢
I see Hatsune Miku and Super Sonico in some of those claw games. I won 2 Sonico figures and 2 of Nezuko Kamada via TokyoCatch on my phone. I love the Japanese arcades and game stores. The closest we have to Japanese game store here in the states are the smaller game stores (there's GameStop (unfortunately), 2nd & Charles, DK Oldies and everybody else).
Hatsune Miku I'm familiar with due to being a Sega IP but the others are all new to me.
You know your stuff though 👍
I love these videos you walk in Japan! I miss coming to Japan, hopefully I can go in a couple years again. By the prices I won't be coming home with a lot of games next time though. I'm glad I bought some stuff back in 2014 and 2018!!
Yeah, sadly the days of coming home with a case full of games are over.
Fun video! Japan always has such nice stores!
The closest gamestore we've got (were i live in the Netherlands)is a hour away, and to be honest it is a good one. They have modern games in the shop but they've got an entire basement dedicated to retro games. You can find pretty much everything there and most for reasonable prices (except the rare stuff of course).
Glad you have a good game store you can access. It's rare to find quality game stores in the West that aren't just full of unboxed junk or scratched to death discs.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for another shopping video. I spotted the pc engine arcade card at ¥18,000. Similar to U.K. prices. Hard justify to play small handful of games.
Yeah, some prices are just crazy.
@ I can only see prices going higher with a digital future.
Same here 😢
I agree. So sad 😢
They usually sell those kinds of anime statues they have in UFO catchers in anime import stores around here. Not sure if they sell all those erotic ones outside of a convention, as they usually deal in anime brands that are well known over here. I swear I've seen those more adult ones, but I'm only really interested in the shows I like. Even then, I only own like 2 JoJo statues and an Oolong from Dragonball, and they're in boxes in storage. Hey! Yatterman villain game. Now THAT is an erotic statue I'd sink money into. I find Doronjo sexy. She's basically a kid's cartoon character that wears bondage gear, after all.
You certainly know your characters. I couldn't name any of the ones you mentioned. I trully have no idea about modern anime.
@@RetroCore I only really know about Yatterman because, for some strange reason, they released the anniversary special on DVD over here (with a very lousy dub). That was sometime during the early 00's when the anime DVD market was hot in the US.
So just paradise on earth. Прямо рай на земле
Always good to see these videos from you. Those games were definitely not cheap.
Yeah, you're looking at a lot of money for some of those games! How prices have skyrocketed over thag past 5 years.
Spice orange GameCube 😍
I guess that's rare? I'm not up on the GameCube collecting.
thats a great price for kof on the neogeo aes! will send you the money haha i really need it!
Lol, yeah, I was surprised at the price being much lower than the ultra common Fatal Fury.
@@RetroCore will send the money next week!
Interesting! Hard to find out some MD CD (Mega Cd ) games in Japan nowadays?
In this video, there was a row of them above the cartridge ones.
Ah, they're easy to find if you know where to look. There's some in this video by the Mega Drive games.
Nice one Mark, Surugaya is great but their prices have crept up over the last 3-4 years, but I still have my 入荷リスト set up with them in case they get any of the rare bits and pieces I can't find anywhere else; and all but in one case I've been very happy with the quality of the goods. I recently found a copy of the rare Minuet version of Tetris for 220yen in the Kuwana branch in Mie (my closest Surugaya, even though that's over an hour away for me even by kousokudorou) and just put up a video on one of the best bargains I have ever found in Surugaya in Niigata City on a PC Engine game, and it wasn't meant to be as cheap as I paid for it. Anyway -- thanks as always for your awesome videos :)
10:36 Raiden Project, great game, my copy cost me 108yen only a few years back.
Oh yeah, tell me about the prices. These days it's crazy! I reckon my Mega Drive collection could easily get 3 million yen. Probably my SFC and Saturn collections too.
To think 5 years ago I thought paying over 2000 yen was a rip off 😅
You did well on those Surugaya scores you mentioned. There are some deals to be had but you really do need to look hard or be lucky.
I don't visit this Surugaya much as I work near it but live in another city. I'm normally too busy to visit there on a work day.
Great vid as always thanks Mark, I did a quick currency to pounds check on 9000yen and shit those games are expensive, surely they can't be selling many of those glass cabinet titles being so ridiculously expensive. Tbh though amongst those psx games I would have bought a few, ray crisis was a fair price as well.
I think we're now at a stage where only true collectors are buying games from before the 2000`s simply due to the high prices.
Yeah, it's very hard to justify paying those prices when I know what they used to go for.
I may go back and buy a few more PSX games. Someone in the comments recommended Air Combat 3
I think these games are targeted for rich tourists or local collectors with deep pockets
Nice video.
It might have arcade games, but we all know the actual best game store chain is Hard Off...I mean, pfft, obviously...
Also PLEASE tell me those game boxes were wrapped in plastic and the price stickers were not on the boxes themselves. Stores that do that are...well, I don't shop at them
Nah, Hard Off isn't even close to Surugaya. The best part about hard off is the junk section because you can get some real deals in there but as for variety over many systems and rare games it's not even in the same race.
Of course all labels are on plastic. This isn't the West where they ruin you game boxes with big stupid stickers or write on the actual discs with a sharpie 😅
5000¥ is approximately £26
The exchange rate is in you favour for sure.
Otomedius, I pronounce it Oh Toe Me Dee Us myself, or the fake Parodius game Konami should've never done. Instead of giving us another Parodius, they gave gamers that garbage.
Tokyo/Akihabara in general just seems to have games with the highest prices, outside of that area, prices tend to start dropping unless it's considered a rarer game.
10:21 Twinbee Taisen Puzzle Dama, a game that a long time ago had an ISO that was impossible to find, after a friend got a copy for me, it started popping up like normal on those sites. Looks like the price is not too different in US dollars from what a friend paid for my copy years ago (about a decade and a half), they paid all of $10.
I think you're pretty close with your pronunciation on that Konami shooter. I had both at one time on the 360 but sold them. I found them to be quite dull.
Could you do more videos like this one but with older stuff like MSX, PC88 and PC98?
I would love to shop for MSX stuff in Japan 😛
Cool video btw!
Ah, I'd like to but computer games are hard to find as they're mostly hoarded by those tourist trap shops in Tokyo and so on.
I could do a Yahoo Auctions special I guess but is that fun just looking at Web pages?
@@SomeDudeSomewhere Basement Brothers is a TH-cam channel that covers the japanese PCs and their elaborate original packaging.
40 year old magnetic media makes me hold my breath, like the bits will fly off the plastic as soon as I look at it
@@RetroCore Oh, I didn't know that! I thought old Japanese computers would be more niche than consoles!
Anyway, thanks for your videos, I like them a lot 🙂
So, "Game Tourism" has inflated prices in the past years...
Thanks for your time and effort! Another great video, cheers!
My pleasure!
I visit these otaku shops with all their figurines and I feel like a vegetarian at an all you can eat BBQ. It’s a shame because there’s SO MUCH OF IT. I figure some people collect one or two and some have cases and cases of wide eyed smiling anime gals.
Regarding Wii U being out sold by X360 in Japan. Ouch. It’s not a virtual boy where one could say “This is a cute toy but not something to own for multiple years of a console lifespan.”
I wonder how much the complete in box prices reflect the west vacuuming up the inventory from these shops. On the up side - at least this stuff is being sold. Owned once, sold as used and sitting on a shelf or in storage for decades. You can tile your walls with Final Fantasy 6 and Dragon Quest V cartridges.
Yeah, the Wii U was a massive flop in Japan. It sold 3.4 million units in Japan. In the US is sold about 5 million.
You haven't played the Sega Hatsune Miku arcade games? They are excellent rhythm games. (even if you are not into the genre) And yes, they will also get you addicted into collecting those figures...
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s I was well in to the rhythm games but I'm too old now and can't keep up. 😅
went the everdrive route.. yeah I know, but when I want something to play I am not paying a premium just to own it, not worth it to me. also if you have a softmod wii with nintendon't you can enjoy GC titles. No ED required just a SD card. I miss collecting, but it's just not fun anymore.
I can understand the appeal of Ever Drives, I have a few myself for the SFC, MD, PCE, N64, GB and GBA. But, I still buy games as I'm a sucker for physical media.
Nice shop there dude, spoilt for choice lol
Tell me about it. But you would need deep pockets to pay for it all.