Haha, I don't usually film in public and find it to be a bit embarrassing :P Thanks for stopping by and chatting, it definitely helped ease the tension. Welcome to the channel and I hope you had a great trip!
In my travels I found all cities are the same when it comes to retro. If you walk into a shop that has a ton of high end inventory and looks like a ToysRUs from the 90's, you know the prices are way above eBay and the owner is building a museum and not a real business.
Great video .. Astro Wars hand held at 16.46 mark. I had my original still in a box up until a council clean up a few years ago. If only we knew the value of our old toys would go up !!
That was great 👍 A cheap day/month out (assuming you don't include air fare, hotels, local transport etc!) just trawling through the stores is so much fun even without spending any $$. I love how not only are these stores, but they're essentially musuems with ever changing inventory. Just seeing all the old boxes with the graphic design of the time is fantastic - the Mega CD in particular has that painfully cool 90's style and the original Famicom's will never be out of style. As with lots of things you see in Japan, I also really appreciate the attention to detail they give things. Shrink wrapping even low cost hardware is a great touch and everything looked really clean too - not something you can say is true in the West in many places. Thanks for sharing your time there - it was fun 😉
@retrobits, there are two distinct reasons why those (game) prices outpace the hardware (one of which you may have forgotten): 1) Game preservation via de-capping and dumping (e.g. the hardware can now be handled in many cases one for one via an FPGA), 2) High-End Auction reselling (Games that are still 'New In Box' have been getting slabbed by high-end certification houses like BECKETTS and resold through their premiere auction houses).
Yeah, it is quite a special relationship they seem to have with their trains and you see regular people taking photos of the bullet style trains all the time and they take real pride in them. They leave and arrive when the timetable says they will and are spotlessly clean. Can't really fault them in any way.. Compare that to say the UK where the trains are a clown show!
Probably the best use for it! It might also be fun to try getting online with the original browser but I don't remember if mine has the network adapter or just the modem.
Sad to see akihabara start to fade. The Trader store closed last week, amongst others and are being replaced by hotels, pharmacies, etc. The retro game sections are being replaced by anime and Gundam figures. The end of an era
The easily found and cheap retro stuff in Japan has been gone for years. I’d say about 5-7 years a least. Everything was getting picked clean from rural areas to sell to tourists in Akiba before the pandemic. During the last three years auctions took over because money. Now, the same stores are charging for the last bits available to pay rent as competing with the internet is a thing. Come to Japan to enjoy the culture instead of shopping for retro stuff that doesn’t exist at a reasonable price.
That hard off Shinkanaoka on the Midosuji Line is my goto when visiting Osaka though it looks like you missed visiting Ojamakan which has stores all over the Kansai region (including one 4 stops from that hard off on the way back to Osaka). Ojamakan are what i call a shop for "locals" as i have hardly ever seen any westerners there in the many times i have been there, This is a few years ago but they had a mint boxed wondermega for 70000 Yen! ps. When i was last in Japan in Nov '23. Mother in Akiharbara had a boxed Famicom Keyboard for Y8000
Back in the 80's I had the Nintendo Game & Watch Donkey Kong like in @16:58 and Oil Panic in same format. And then a third one which was 1 screen one but I cannot remember what it was all about. I kind of think it was Mickey or Donald and something was bounced but I am not sure. They were great fun for few years back then.
Nice, I don't recall anyone in the school-yard having a Game & Watch and I certainly didn't. My favorites were those Tomytronic 3D games. There's one on the shelf at 17:09 but it's a different game from the ones I remember.
@@retrobitstv My dad was an international business man and traveled all over the world. He brought me some neat stuff from his travels like japan market Seiko chrono watches, special Sony Walkmans like the WM-W800, Mattel Intellivision, C64 etc. I still have most of the stuff packed to boxes somewhere. I guess I need to locate the Game & Watch stuff. But, I remember that they were quite popular here in Finland back in the day - so I guess they were available locally too. Never heard about Tomytronic 3D, got to research on them.
i buy electric guitars from japan and the one thing that i think makes it a good place to buy and import from is that the Japanese are so careful with their possessions , not all but most , so they are generally in tip top condition and complete
Wow, I just scored an MSX2 machine today for 70 bux on yahoo auctions. I'm currently digging around for software. What timing for the video! The cool thing about the machine I scored is that you can mod it to 2+ specs, which I'm gonna do. Hopefully there are still some deals to be had when I'm over there in January.
Great deal! I haven't looked seriously into buying one at auction but after seeing the retail prices I may add the MSX2 to my search terms :) There was definitely a good number of boxed and loose MSX titles available in the various stores and prices were reasonable especially compared to eBay.
@@retrobitstv Yeah, on yahoo auctions, the msx software never seems to be cheap. Of course, you can just download, but I'd like to have some proper stuff too. On my trip list.
Last time I went was 2015. I bought Neo Geo game for 800 yen in A-too :)(It was AoF2 but still common) Famicom disk systems in the Junk were 500 and the cart connector 300. I bought a spicy orange gamecube for 300 yen with gameboy player and controller. We were already complaining then about prices🤣
Yes. Akiba was never cheap, but now it's utterly absurd. If you want actually sensible prices then you need to go to little recycle shops that are at the least distant from any Shinkansen station and preferably in the middle of inaka where you can only reach them by bus or car.
Did you see any Commodore VC1001 related items or is that just too obscure nowadays? Thanks for the video! I'm not into most of those consoles but I enjoy seeing videos about them.
Even the slower train I was on was cooking at around 255 km/h (158 mph) and the ride is perfectly smooth too. What a way to get between cities in a hurry!
Great video! Though, I'm glad I got out of the retro collecting, due to the prices and overall burnout of the hobby. Got rid of most of the stuff, and only kept my favorite NES and Mega Drive games, which I used to own as a kid. Maybe a total of 70 games. I just got stressed out, by all the clutter, and games/systems that were just collecting dust. I mostly use FPGA for retro games/carts now anyway 😊
I really had my heart set on finding an original white PC Engine + CD-Rom^2 but it was not to be... There were tons of controllers available too so I guess you'll just have to go to Japan yourself :)
@@retrobitstv Interesting, why the original and not a combo unit? I know there were different system cards and stuff and a duo doesn't quite eliminate the need to deal with that... But generally I've leaned more toward the idea of getting a Duo rather than a CD add-on, just seems like a nicer option. Definitely seems like a system where you're missing out if you don't get the CD though, in any case.
I guess the other issue with multitaps is, I've gotten a few of em (PS1, PS2, SFC, etc.) along with controller sets but, I never actually use em. I guess I just don't know 4 other people who want to play Bomberman these days
Flea bay in my local country is slightly better priced, but the retro game market has been stripped for all its meat down to the bone, deals are hard to find anywhere, I do feel,stupid for keeping all my comics and leaving behind my games decades ago in my parents house, comics are worth nothing to what those game would have fetched now
If you want a 32X, I’ll send you my childhood system gratis which is complete in box. I’d be happy for you to have it as I think it’s a good trade for the entertainment I derive from your videos. My son isn’t interested and I certainly don’t use it anymore.
Thank you for the generous offer! I'd be happy to give your childhood system a good home if you are sure you don't mind parting with it. You can reach me directly at matt@retrobits.tv
I’ve got $700 aud for my trip to Japan in about a weeks time and I was just wondering, which hard off in Chiba did you go to? 3 pop up on the map but they seem to have the companies side chains included to? Any help is appreciated thanks
I went to two locations near Chiba but the one that I showed the video was this one: maps.app.goo.gl/AMmSLUY1KV5crWKq5 The other was easy to reach on the same train line so I went here as well: maps.app.goo.gl/h7ajQ1jmdHVo2Xiz5 Have a great trip and happy hunting!
Watching the video and seeing all taht inventory, a question comes to my mind: OK, they sell those items at that price. But do customers *actually* buy at those prices?
Lots of price gouging. I remember when I was stationed in Japan in 2007-2009 I saw all this stuff for pennies on the dollar, nobody wanted it. You can get better prices online for sure.
I don't even need to watch the video to know the answer is of course, "yes." There aren't even any good deals on Yahoo Auctions any more; all of the retrocomputing stuff has doubled or tripled in price since COVID-19 hit.
Rubbish, the prices are still insanely good compared to the UK. Just don't buy from Super Potato. Retro Game Camp down the street has tons and way more affordable, and any bookoff/hardoff has great prices.
I don't think I'd buy anything to be honest. Between my Evercade with SD flash cart, Spectrum Next, and A500 mini I can pretty much play anything I want. I'm just not into the whole collecting and buying sub-culture. To be honest I think a lot of men that I see buying this stuff have become "addicted to shopping". It's kind of like the old stereotype that women like to shop! , I'm seeing it more with men these days and I actually think it's kind of mentally unhealthy. It's facinating that many men have become addicted to the experience of shopping, the hunt for a bargain, the fascination with the "price" of a game at resale, than actually playing and enjoying the games themselves. There's this sort of fetishization of the packaging itself, a mass market item, that astounds me. For myself I just don't want the clutter (and I'm sure my family doesn't want to deal with that after I'm gone), and my enjoyment of retro games is in playing the games themselves, not it fetishing the box or packaging or caring about the resale price of games or systems. I can't justify buying all this stuff especially if you're only interested in actually playing the games rather than storing a pretty box that nobody I know in real life would even care about or be impressed by. I'm just almost entirely practical about my game and system purchases rather than ornamental; am I actually going to use this to play games on? That's how I tend to look at it. I'd end up visiting Akihibara; looking at everything, then going home and either buying a cheap evercade compilation cart, a cheap indie steam or itch.io game for my PC for a few bucks, or break out an emulator. I don't see any value in supporting the 2nd hand market like this; it doesn't help fund developers or anything like that it just funds redundant resellers and flippers. I'd rather throw $5 towards some small indie developer for their new game on itch than support the flippers on the 2nd hand game market that don't provide any new value.
I didn't see you at Maxload 20 years ago. Of course all the good deals are gone, did you just wake up? Not even mentioning what is going on with Friends now?
If you want something and you can afford it, just buy it. Seriously. Aside from overpriced tourist traps like Super Potato, you’re not going to save much by spending two hours each way to a random Hard Off that might not even have what you’re looking for. And it’s at least 1200 yen round trip. Why waste your limited amount of time in Japan looking for games that can generally be easily obtained?
Sometimes it’s the adventure not just the bottom dollar. Enjoy the food and culture of every place you visit, and if Hard Off brings you there it’s a memorable part of your trip.
Hey, it was great meeting you on the street in Akihabara while you were filming the intro! Was happy to see the video pop up in my subs!
Haha, I don't usually film in public and find it to be a bit embarrassing :P Thanks for stopping by and chatting, it definitely helped ease the tension. Welcome to the channel and I hope you had a great trip!
In my travels I found all cities are the same when it comes to retro. If you walk into a shop that has a ton of high end inventory and looks like a ToysRUs from the 90's, you know the prices are way above eBay and the owner is building a museum and not a real business.
people are buying up the deals and opening their own store 🤣
My dream to go here. Just browsing the back alleys for retro games and toys and soaking up all the awesomeness.
Great video .. Astro Wars hand held at 16.46 mark. I had my original still in a box up until a council clean up a few years ago. If only we knew the value of our old toys would go up !!
That was great 👍 A cheap day/month out (assuming you don't include air fare, hotels, local transport etc!) just trawling through the stores is so much fun even without spending any $$. I love how not only are these stores, but they're essentially musuems with ever changing inventory. Just seeing all the old boxes with the graphic design of the time is fantastic - the Mega CD in particular has that painfully cool 90's style and the original Famicom's will never be out of style. As with lots of things you see in Japan, I also really appreciate the attention to detail they give things. Shrink wrapping even low cost hardware is a great touch and everything looked really clean too - not something you can say is true in the West in many places. Thanks for sharing your time there - it was fun 😉
Glad you enjoyed it! You're right, just seeing so much retro all in one place is a ton of fun even if you're not looking to buy!
@retrobits, there are two distinct reasons why those (game) prices outpace the hardware (one of which you may have forgotten): 1) Game preservation via de-capping and dumping (e.g. the hardware can now be handled in many cases one for one via an FPGA), 2) High-End Auction reselling (Games that are still 'New In Box' have been getting slabbed by high-end certification houses like BECKETTS and resold through their premiere auction houses).
I'm with you on the train statement. I wish we would get even halfway to what you find for trains in Japan in the US.
Yeah, it is quite a special relationship they seem to have with their trains and you see regular people taking photos of the bullet style trains all the time and they take real pride in them. They leave and arrive when the timetable says they will and are spotlessly clean. Can't really fault them in any way.. Compare that to say the UK where the trains are a clown show!
Lovely video Matt, really enjoyed the travelogue format, cheers!
FYI, you can remove sharpie from most plastic easily using citrus oil (i.e. goo gone). It even seems to recondition the plastic with a nice sheen.
Good tip, thanks!
Enjoyed it! Thanks for taking us along virtually. Could you use that dc kb for some typing of the dead action? 😄
Probably the best use for it! It might also be fun to try getting online with the original browser but I don't remember if mine has the network adapter or just the modem.
Awesome video! It's wild that the various Game Boy console prices are so high there
Sad to see akihabara start to fade. The Trader store closed last week, amongst others and are being replaced by hotels, pharmacies, etc.
The retro game sections are being replaced by anime and Gundam figures. The end of an era
Typing of the dead for dreamcast is awesome!
That neo geo pocket color for 65 eur is dope! nice video
The easily found and cheap retro stuff in Japan has been gone for years. I’d say about 5-7 years a least. Everything was getting picked clean from rural areas to sell to tourists in Akiba before the pandemic. During the last three years auctions took over because money. Now, the same stores are charging for the last bits available to pay rent as competing with the internet is a thing. Come to Japan to enjoy the culture instead of shopping for retro stuff that doesn’t exist at a reasonable price.
I'd say that really good deals are gone pretty much everywhere :)
thank you~ I enjoy your video. :) I'd like to take a month off to shop around in Japan.
That hard off Shinkanaoka on the Midosuji Line is my goto when visiting Osaka though it looks like you missed visiting Ojamakan which has stores all over the Kansai region (including one 4 stops from that hard off on the way back to Osaka). Ojamakan are what i call a shop for "locals" as i have hardly ever seen any westerners there in the many times i have been there, This is a few years ago but they had a mint boxed wondermega for 70000 Yen!
ps. When i was last in Japan in Nov '23. Mother in Akiharbara had a boxed Famicom Keyboard for Y8000
Cool, I didn't know about Ojamakan. Ah well, there's always next time!
@@retrobitstv once you have gone to Japan there will always be a next time!
Back in the 80's I had the Nintendo Game & Watch Donkey Kong like in @16:58 and Oil Panic in same format. And then a third one which was 1 screen one but I cannot remember what it was all about. I kind of think it was Mickey or Donald and something was bounced but I am not sure. They were great fun for few years back then.
Nice, I don't recall anyone in the school-yard having a Game & Watch and I certainly didn't. My favorites were those Tomytronic 3D games. There's one on the shelf at 17:09 but it's a different game from the ones I remember.
@@retrobitstv My dad was an international business man and traveled all over the world. He brought me some neat stuff from his travels like japan market Seiko chrono watches, special Sony Walkmans like the WM-W800, Mattel Intellivision, C64 etc. I still have most of the stuff packed to boxes somewhere. I guess I need to locate the Game & Watch stuff. But, I remember that they were quite popular here in Finland back in the day - so I guess they were available locally too.
Never heard about Tomytronic 3D, got to research on them.
Very interesting. Would love to go there
i buy electric guitars from japan and the one thing that i think makes it a good place to buy and import from is that the Japanese are so careful with their possessions , not all but most , so they are generally in tip top condition and complete
Wow, I just scored an MSX2 machine today for 70 bux on yahoo auctions. I'm currently digging around for software. What timing for the video! The cool thing about the machine I scored is that you can mod it to 2+ specs, which I'm gonna do. Hopefully there are still some deals to be had when I'm over there in January.
Great deal! I haven't looked seriously into buying one at auction but after seeing the retail prices I may add the MSX2 to my search terms :) There was definitely a good number of boxed and loose MSX titles available in the various stores and prices were reasonable especially compared to eBay.
@@retrobitstv Yeah, on yahoo auctions, the msx software never seems to be cheap. Of course, you can just download, but I'd like to have some proper stuff too. On my trip list.
Last time I went was 2015. I bought Neo Geo game for 800 yen in A-too :)(It was AoF2 but still common) Famicom disk systems in the Junk were 500 and the cart connector 300. I bought a spicy orange gamecube for 300 yen with gameboy player and controller. We were already complaining then about prices🤣
Yes. Akiba was never cheap, but now it's utterly absurd. If you want actually sensible prices then you need to go to little recycle shops that are at the least distant from any Shinkansen station and preferably in the middle of inaka where you can only reach them by bus or car.
Did you see any Commodore VC1001 related items or is that just too obscure nowadays? Thanks for the video! I'm not into most of those consoles but I enjoy seeing videos about them.
I didn't see any Commodore systems of any kind :( I was on the lookout for a Max Machine but I guess they're simply too rare these days.
@@retrobitstv Yeah, that would have been extremely cool and lucky to find. I'm glad you were on the lookout at least.
this video was worth the wait!!
I can only imagine that the bullet trains were like Heaven on Earth compared to the DC Metro and VRE.
Even the slower train I was on was cooking at around 255 km/h (158 mph) and the ride is perfectly smooth too. What a way to get between cities in a hurry!
I'm sure there's a joke to be made about a store named "Hard Off", but I can't come up with one.
I see MSX... I'm happy :)
This is funny! The Neo Geo you showed at Beep-I bought it three weeks ago. I had to stop the video and get my Neo Geo box. So funny!
No interest in old consoles beyond that Vectrex, but those shelves of video equipment had my attention.
These prices make baby Jesus cry. No more buying. Besides not like the backlog is not infinite already.
Great video!
Though, I'm glad I got out of the retro collecting, due to the prices and overall burnout of the hobby. Got rid of most of the stuff, and only kept my favorite NES and Mega Drive games, which I used to own as a kid. Maybe a total of 70 games. I just got stressed out, by all the clutter, and games/systems that were just collecting dust. I mostly use FPGA for retro games/carts now anyway 😊
16:34 - Dang - been a while since I went looking for PC Engine stuff, and I don't have multiple controllers, but I'd have been all over that multitap
I really had my heart set on finding an original white PC Engine + CD-Rom^2 but it was not to be... There were tons of controllers available too so I guess you'll just have to go to Japan yourself :)
@@retrobitstv Interesting, why the original and not a combo unit? I know there were different system cards and stuff and a duo doesn't quite eliminate the need to deal with that... But generally I've leaned more toward the idea of getting a Duo rather than a CD add-on, just seems like a nicer option. Definitely seems like a system where you're missing out if you don't get the CD though, in any case.
I guess the other issue with multitaps is, I've gotten a few of em (PS1, PS2, SFC, etc.) along with controller sets but, I never actually use em. I guess I just don't know 4 other people who want to play Bomberman these days
Akihabara needs a dedicated VIC-20 store.
I had hope to find a Max Machine on my trip but no such luck :P
Flea bay in my local country is slightly better priced, but the retro game market has been stripped for all its meat down to the bone, deals are hard to find anywhere, I do feel,stupid for keeping all my comics and leaving behind my games decades ago in my parents house, comics are worth nothing to what those game would have fetched now
If you want a 32X, I’ll send you my childhood system gratis which is complete in box. I’d be happy for you to have it as I think it’s a good trade for the entertainment I derive from your videos. My son isn’t interested and I certainly don’t use it anymore.
Thank you for the generous offer! I'd be happy to give your childhood system a good home if you are sure you don't mind parting with it. You can reach me directly at matt@retrobits.tv
@@retrobitstv It’s all yours. I’ll send you an email in a moment.
Great video :)
3 to 4 THOUSAND US dollars for some items??? ouch, that would literally cost an arm and a leg! 😳
I hope E got her turn shopping for her interests!!
I have no interest in any of that stuff but still enjoyed seeing the foraging.
I’ve got $700 aud for my trip to Japan in about a weeks time and I was just wondering, which hard off in Chiba did you go to? 3 pop up on the map but they seem to have the companies side chains included to? Any help is appreciated thanks
I went to two locations near Chiba but the one that I showed the video was this one: maps.app.goo.gl/AMmSLUY1KV5crWKq5 The other was easy to reach on the same train line so I went here as well: maps.app.goo.gl/h7ajQ1jmdHVo2Xiz5
Have a great trip and happy hunting!
Watching the video and seeing all taht inventory, a question comes to my mind: OK, they sell those items at that price. But do customers *actually* buy at those prices?
Lots of price gouging. I remember when I was stationed in Japan in 2007-2009 I saw all this stuff for pennies on the dollar, nobody wanted it. You can get better prices online for sure.
I'm going to Tokyo in June 2024, I will stop by HARDOFF and see what I can find.
Have fun!
We couldn't possibly have something like those bullet trains in the US. The "teens" would destroy them almost immediately.
Please, can you specify, where was that HARD-OFF store in Chiba?
Sure, the location in the video was Hard-off/Hobby-off Funabashi Narashinodai
日本へようこそ！ レトロ先輩は日本にいます！～ ლ(╹◡╹ლ) That shelf in the first picture at BEEP is held up with dreams.
おもてなしに感謝します Haha, I didn't notice the shelf. Good eye!
Have you ever seen a N64DD in the wild?
I don't believe that I have, unless I passed by one not knowing what it was!
I don't even need to watch the video to know the answer is of course, "yes." There aren't even any good deals on Yahoo Auctions any more; all of the retrocomputing stuff has doubled or tripled in price since COVID-19 hit.
Dude, that ship sailed 10 years ago. Akihabara is more like a retro museum now.
Rubbish, the prices are still insanely good compared to the UK. Just don't buy from Super Potato. Retro Game Camp down the street has tons and way more affordable, and any bookoff/hardoff has great prices.
you need to go OUTSIDE Tokyo to find deals. Everything in Tokyo is priced for tourists with money to burn.
I don't think I'd buy anything to be honest. Between my Evercade with SD flash cart, Spectrum Next, and A500 mini I can pretty much play anything I want. I'm just not into the whole collecting and buying sub-culture. To be honest I think a lot of men that I see buying this stuff have become "addicted to shopping". It's kind of like the old stereotype that women like to shop! , I'm seeing it more with men these days and I actually think it's kind of mentally unhealthy. It's facinating that many men have become addicted to the experience of shopping, the hunt for a bargain, the fascination with the "price" of a game at resale, than actually playing and enjoying the games themselves. There's this sort of fetishization of the packaging itself, a mass market item, that astounds me. For myself I just don't want the clutter (and I'm sure my family doesn't want to deal with that after I'm gone), and my enjoyment of retro games is in playing the games themselves, not it fetishing the box or packaging or caring about the resale price of games or systems. I can't justify buying all this stuff especially if you're only interested in actually playing the games rather than storing a pretty box that nobody I know in real life would even care about or be impressed by. I'm just almost entirely practical about my game and system purchases rather than ornamental; am I actually going to use this to play games on? That's how I tend to look at it. I'd end up visiting Akihibara; looking at everything, then going home and either buying a cheap evercade compilation cart, a cheap indie steam or itch.io game for my PC for a few bucks, or break out an emulator. I don't see any value in supporting the 2nd hand market like this; it doesn't help fund developers or anything like that it just funds redundant resellers and flippers. I'd rather throw $5 towards some small indie developer for their new game on itch than support the flippers on the 2nd hand game market that don't provide any new value.
This makes me so badly want to spend irresponsible amounts of money on retro tech!
I didn't see you at Maxload 20 years ago. Of course all the good deals are gone, did you just wake up? Not even mentioning what is going on with Friends now?
If you want something and you can afford it, just buy it. Seriously. Aside from overpriced tourist traps like Super Potato, you’re not going to save much by spending two hours each way to a random Hard Off that might not even have what you’re looking for. And it’s at least 1200 yen round trip. Why waste your limited amount of time in Japan looking for games that can generally be easily obtained?
Sometimes it’s the adventure not just the bottom dollar. Enjoy the food and culture of every place you visit, and if Hard Off brings you there it’s a memorable part of your trip.
58000 yen for a lynx. GTHO.