Games shop in Tokyo

It's one thing to walk from one station to another. That's generally easy and if you get lost, even survival level Japanese will save your ass. Everyone knows where the station is. Walking to some obscure store from a station is a different monster.

My iPhone has made it very bearable though, as I generally don't think before hand to print out a map. GPSFTW.

 

You lost me.

I have a habit of checking the location of a Hard-Off on their website, then just winging it from there without printing off the map. So, which Hard-Off was 5.5km from a station?

Honestly though, even with a map it's a pain in the ass to find anything sometimes. Roads have absolutely no names unless it's a highway number (or a major road in Tokyo), they wind and turn all over the place, and sometimes even walking between stations in a challenge because the roads don't always follow the side of the tracks. Sometimes there's a major building along side the rails, and the road never comes back until the next station.

 

i love walking - but then again, i walk from my house to Shinjuku which is about 1 hour or so on foot. 10 minutes is merely a wander

I need to get a proper map of where the hard/book offs are. The one in my station is crap. :/

 

had to laugh at that one, never a true statement said.

The one which i`m going to is near Hachioji, it`s about 2k from from keiohachioji station, using google street maps i will have no trouble finding it. I`ve already been to the ass end of nowhere this morning without getting lost. Besides you cant live in Akiba. Three visits a week is plenty.

 

You're going to Tokyo and all you can talk about is Hard Off. Please do realise that the average Hard Off store has a small selection of games which vary from crap to worse. Stay in Akihabara, visit Den Den Town and be happy with whatever you'll find for a decent price. Forget about Hard Off, you'll be doing yourself a big favour.

 

Well i will ignore "Ken`s" statement, it was the best money spent this trip. I have just bought a "as new" gundam special edition gamecube complete with all special edition items for 6500yen. The last one i saw for sale on ebay went for 10 times that. Being a gamecube collector, this has been worth coming for on it`s own. Whilst his comments may be true for a lot of the stores, it doesn`t include this one - it`s bigger than my local mall!!!

 

You got lucky, of course there is always a possibility that you'll find something nice. It's just not worth visiting if you don't know every shop in Akiba or Den Den Town and have to spend a day travelling to one. That's all.

Shopping for videogames is nice, but it shouldn't take you too much time.

 

Some people like the meandering around.

 

Went to a hard off today, 10.7KM away from my location...

Just like someone mentioned on the first page, really, it was just a crap-shoot with a majority of Super Famicom games and PS1/2..

The only decent thing I saw was the Biohazard 5th Anniversary suitcase for $100...I think it said it was just missing the Wesker's Report...

 

See anything else interesting? I've seen A LOT of awesome stuff at Hard-Offs, but to be honest that involved a lot of visiting different locations, and then revisiting them fairly often. A boxed Neo Geo CD for 2000yen, a boxed PC Engine Duo for 3000yen, a Panasonic Q for 3000yen, a Neo Geo CD front-loader for 5000yen, a Neo Geo AES boxed for 5000yen, and MSX system for 500yen, Cho-Dakaimura for the SFC for 300yen, Sonic Gems on the PS2 for 500yen, a collection of 10 Namco classics on Famicom for 300yen together, various non-fighting game AES boxed games for 500yen each, are some of the best things I've found. This is over about 7-8 different Hard-Offs over the past year or two.

I love Hard-Off, but I still wouldn't advise most game tourists to go out of their way to check it out. It is definitely too much of a crapshoot.

 

They had a few limited edition machines, mainly stuff i was interested in! They had 2 gundam cubes, a tales of synphonia cube, 2 neo geo cdz - although they had seem better days.

For me the junk section is a dream come true, as i mod, and repair machines, getting parts in the Uk can be expensive - but in hard off i filled a basket full of bits for about 1000yen. unfortuanely my luggage allowance is only 20kg otherwise i would clear the place out. Crap shoot or not, i will visit everytime i`m in japan.

 

Well, if you're looking for random electronic parts/computer components on the cheap, you went to the right place!