Hi Saturn, V Saturn Availability

I was wondering how easy it is to find the "other" sega saturn consoles, like the Hi Saturn, V Saturn, and the Skeletal edition saturn in Japan. Is it still pretty common to see them at a place like Hard-Off or similar? As I might go there in January and was wondering maybe I should snatch some of them on ebay or something before I go. Don't really care if they're boxed.

Also are Saturn accessories in general like the Twin sticks, virtua stick, and the Virtua cop gun are easy to find?

American Air is allready charging for baggage so not sure whatever the carrier i'll be flying will do

 

The boxed derby one can take some time. Why didn't I buy a stack of them for 5000 yen each when Messe Sannoh had them? None of the others are really rare though.

The only rare accessories (that are actually useful):
Floppy Drive (only semi useful)
The twin arcade stick (the one that looks like a blast city panel).

 

Good to know I'll probably wait till then. Yahoo Jp sounds temping but i'll probably wait till Jan (but theres still a lot of time for me to cave in)

 

If you're really going to buy a Twin Stick (Virtua Stick Pro actually, the "Twin Stick" is for Virtual On) be prepared to pay a lot of shipping as this monster most likely won't fit into your luggage.

I never went to places like hard off but still I must say that I rarely saw nice conditioned Saturns in stores. The ones I have are mostly bought off Yahoo Japan and they came cheaper too.
I would set my preference on games because you can make lots of good bargains without having to pay enormous shipping costs for giant hardware (the floppy drive isn't very handy either).

 

Dam hardware on Yahoo JP looks pretty good price wise and everything. I do plan on bringing the biggest bags allowed (dimension wise), the weight i'll probably pay overages. 2 check ins, 1 Bag w/ clothes and stuff, 1 bag empty (to be full on the way back).

 

1/2 OT:

None of my local game shops or Book-Off sell Saturn or Dreamcast consoles. I asked them why and the answer was that due to a change in regulations some years ago, old consoles that have an internal power supply now don't comply with the new rules and cannot be sold in shops anymore. They can't even sell old AC cords. Everything with an external supply is fine (SFC, N64 etc.) but for Saturn or DC the only way to get one is from private sellers.

Is that just a Hiroshima thing? I'd assume this goes for all of Japan but I am not sure. So what about Tokyo, Osaka or Kyushu?

 

Surely that would mean they can't sell the old style Playstation or the Playstation 2?

 

Playstation 1, yes. At least I never see any. PS2 (and XBox), no. There's a lot of them on sale. DC came out in '98. Everything after that seems no to be affected.

 

this reglulation once was announced on akiba blog few years ago. i thought it was an april fool or something, but it became true. funnily it never really reached any shops in kanto regio for some reasons, since you can buy all those relevant devices in any shops (hard off, akiba, recycle stores etc.) with ease. in hard offs you can find in nice shape saturns lose for $5 & cables and pad for further $4. if you just buy one to play your games, as i do, this is the best way to go.

org. grey saturn + ac-cable + 2 pads + s-vid cable = ~ $12

 

EVERY store down here sells Saturns and Dreamcasts. All of hard off's DC and Sat hardware have little stickers on the back to say that they have been checked. The law is that if the item is checked then it can be sold. So I guess the shops in Hiroshima are using the law as a lame ass excuse.

Yakumo

 

I don't think the law went into effect as proposed. I think something was passed, but in the end I think they extended the waiver from 5 to 15 years or something like that. It was originally intended for appliances but people in the gaming and music industry started making some noise. If they did pass a law that affected Saturns then I'll tell you it's the first time I've ever heard of a shop talking about it...and...well...I visit quite a few shops...heh.

 

Thanks for the comments. I guess I just happen to be in a city/prefecture with some rigid laws regarding that. I have long fulfilled my DC and SAT needs via YA but this is something that has been bugging me all the time.

So, be warned, if you come to Hiroshima bring your own consoles!

 

Thanks a lot, I guess I'll just wait till i go.
Just saw the Hard Off location page
http://www.hardoff.co.jp/block/block.htm

 

You'll notice that there are 3 hard offs within Tokyo city (the ones with the 03 phone code), with most being in Tokyo prefecture and that's a big place.

Then again I found most of the good Hard offs generally no where near train stations generally in Saitama and Ibaraki, but each hard off does vary a lot in what it carries, one might have a lot of decent hardware, one might have bugger all. One might have lots of "Junk" stuff and another might have nothing at all.

If you have a lot of time to waste then it may be worth mapping out and visiting a number of recycle stores in one go. Else just head up to Akihabara / Nakano and get most of the things easier and after the amount of money you might spend travelling to hard offs, probably cheaper.

 

word jamtex

also i generally have to say, that the hard off chain tries a lot to polish up their junk-image recently as well as matching up their prices with the akiba level and such.
therefore most of the HFs aren't that decent any more if it comes to loads of retro games and piled up hills of consoles in the shelfs as it was some years ago.
also it depends at which timing you visit a HF. sometime you go there and will find a lot of stuff worth to buy, an other time there's completely nothing interesting around. so let's say their're quite unstable in their offers.

 

Thank God the hard Off's down here are still the same. My local one about 5 minutes from my place has a pretty big junk console section.

yakumo

 

of course some of the HOs here in kantou still have a lot of junk, but the good and worthy items seems to be gone.
if i refer to one of your reports on your site, there where MARTYs under MDs next to PCEs etc. that kind of picture i couldn't see in my HOs in the past years thought.

btw. how about my marty request from long long time ago? ;-)

 

We still have that stuff but prices are going up. There once was a time you coul dget a junk but perfectly working saturn in good shape for a few 100 yen but now they're more like 1000 yen.

Yeah, there are a few martys but they are always dirty with no accessories.

yakumo

 

doesn't matter. buy 'em all send 'em all..:icon_bigg