Retro Game hunting in Japan is a SCAM

We went to some major Japanese cities to hunt for the best retro gaming deals. Here's some places to check out and some to avoid on your next trip.

0:00 Where the rip off's are
4:17 Akihabara
11:03 Nakano
13:51 How Japan can be so cheap
14:43 Misc Tokyo
15:06 Kyoto
16:08 Osaka
19:27 Back to Tokyo (Shinbashi)
21:51 Modding the cheap GBA
23:48 TL;DR

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[chrisinjapan]

As an Aussie who has lived in Japan for over 23 years, its the foreigners coming here to film youtube videos that pushed up the price especially in Akihabara. One reason, I don't go there anymore is because I can get things cheaper (and find better things) online on yahoo auctions, mercari etc BUT even those are getting affected due to repackaging companies :(

[jessie]

Youtubers always acting like they're not the reason why prices have skyrocketed.

[chinito]

Here's a tip for all of you from a local, when in Tokyo, don't shop at Akihabara! Go outside of Tokyo and look for Bookoff/Hardoff if you want good prices. Even better, go to Nakano Broadway (as mentioned in the vid) for retro stuff. The shops have weird hours as most tend to open around noon and on certain days. Chinese tourist have caused a serious inflation for any shop in Akihabara so do not pay the markup prices unless you have money to burn. I prefer to do my shopping in Osaka Den Den town or Kobe (Sannomiya station).

[HezJP]

Prices were great here pre-covid but then scalping really went nuts over the last 10 years or so and stores (finally) clued onto it. Didn't help that a lot of the second hand chains (Hard Off) switched to a centralised pricing catalogue instead of whatever the person pricing things was feeling at the time. Back in 2016 I got a GBA and a stacked selection of games for 2000 Yen with some banging games being 100 yen each. Everything has gotten crazy expensive here

[jennabrown]

There is one store that is super tucked away inside of a building called Tokyo Radio Department Store that I think you'd be interested in even if you don't buy anything. Just to provide some context for the building Tokyo Radio Department store was built in era of the 80s so it houses a lot of small shops that specialize in hardware tinkering. The shop in particular I think you might be interested in is called 家電のケンちゃん and it specializes in game and console modding, game development and also sells from retro hardware, and games. The store is tiny but the owner is very passionate about retro consoles and it shows in his small shop. Also, there is actually a few Surugaya in Akihabara but I'm not sure what the prices are like at the ones there versus Osaka's Denden town.

[NexVoidGaming]

I really appreciate you advertisements. So many people just phone them in but we get these wonderfully produced skits that let us see a side of you that isnt often featured in the video itself.

[harrydsgn]

Lived for a few months in a smaller town between Kyoto and Osaka and my local Book Off was an absolute treasure trove. The condition of things wasn’t always the greatest, I imagine a lot of the pristine stuff filters back up to the cities for higher resell, but the point remains that you really need to get out of Tokyo to find the good stuff haha. Too picked over already I’m sure.

[minjod]

I spent 14 days in Japan exploring Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto in June. Long story short I didn't want to leave. Ever.

[primallvids]

The main reason its so expensive is because the stores know foreigners are flying over to buy them in bulk and ship them back to their country to sell for profit.

[felipe_the_coxinha_eater]

One thing that i dont get it is, why people has those huge rooms with a ton of old games that they almost never play or played, must take like forever to clean all that stuff.
I know, it do look nice and all, but...
Won't make more sense to get only the top tier that you played back in the day ?
I do like retro gaming and I have a GBA SP AGS001 with Metroid Fusion, Zero Mission, Zelda Minish cap and Four Swords and thats it, I dont need the entiery game boy collection to be happy.
I would also be pretty much happy only with a N64, a Starfox64 cartridge and a rumble pack on the controller. but I dont have those because it is quite hard to get it one here on Brazil because of the overpiced value and huge taxes

[codak]

I've gone to Japan 7 times over 10 years. I went looking for retro games the first couple times, but then realized spending $800 on plane tickets to go shopping on vacation was dumb. The prices have also jumped up in the last ~5 years.

[hteekay]

Pretty sure local retro collectors hated foreign collectors for making their hobby expensive..
It was cheap to get before all these "videogame tourism" things going on..

[joshuagrahambrown]

Man, as an Australian it’s kinda wack to see someone refer to those prices as EXPENSIVE. Most PAL region things from the SNES/GBA/N64 era START at those sorts of prices 😭

[CoffeeStainer]

The first one of these types of videos I've watched from beginning to end. Very nice.

[janbiela]

The crazy prices in this video made me realise how happy I am to have bought all those consoles already years ago. Spending so much time hunting for good deals sounds very stressful to a busy dad like myself 😅

[rogero]

for me, places like super potato are just like a cool museum of stuff. I never even go to the gift shop in museums and actually BUY anything.

[hounvs]

Just FYI, in the chapters, "rip off's" shouldn't have an apostrophe.

It's just a plurality of "rip off", no possession (nothing belongs to "rip off") or contraction (not "rip off is").

[meatpockets]

Man I remember getting GBA Micro's working at Gamestop back in the day and seeing them eventually get marked down. I wish I snagged them up.

[Ziondood]

Bob’s out here keeping us safe on future trips to Japan! 👏

[indiaalphanovember]

Went in May. One thing I learned is that stock changes daily! I was so pissed on day one in Akihabara but next day there was piles of PC Engine when I couldn't find a single one the day before!