Need retro game store help please - In Japan right now! March 8th-23rd

Hello All, great board btw

I am in Japan right now, visiting Tokyo this week, leaving on Sunday, visiting Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe

So far I've been to:

Aiki Super potato: I found it expensive with poor hardware
Aiki Liberty: This store was good, also went to another store a few doors down from Liberty on Chuo-Dori
Im planning on going to Friends tomorrow

I am not sure about which Sofmap to go to for retro gaming, any hints?

Any other stores in Tokyo I should go to?

Also when I visit Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe where should I go?

I would really like a 64DD and a PC-Engine LT & some Neogeo AES games! Any help would be great, I thought I had it planned but its not the case :-(

Thanks so much

 

I would recommend you to go to hobby-off stores. Someone who lives in Japan probably will soon drop by this topic and give you some directions

 

Just walk down that street and go into any shop that looks interesting, learn the Japanese word for Game ゲーム and go into any shop that has this word. You should be able to visit every shop in Akihabara in the best part of a day. For 64DD and the PC Engine LT, Trader, Mandarake and Super Potato are going to be your best bets and they are going to be expensive, if they have any at all. You might find things more expensive there then they are on Ebay... AES games will be best found in Friends, but again you might not find the bargains you hoped for.

As for Hard Off, there are none that are easy to get to within Tokyo City, most are well outside the city and it is going to be hit and miss if you are going to find anything useful in a short visit as you will need to travel on train, walk to them, you could spend an entire day going to just 5 or 6 of them depending on how you plan it and that involves a trip to Saitama. If you are hoping to find a 64DD and LT in them, then I would forget it unless you want to call them all up on the off chance they have one, in the last 2 years I saw one boxed 64DD (sold as Junk but still 10,000....) and two unboxed 64DDs and left them as they were still several thousand yen.

Osaka, there is electric town, again just go into shops. The worst is that you'll find you have walked into an adult game store.

 

You won't find any bargains in Akiba for the things that you have listed. For rare retro hardware, Potato (saw a PCELT there, the only place that has had it in recent years) and Trader (saw a 64DD set there 2 weeks ago) are your best bet but the former is outlandishly expensive. Best AES selection for the premium titles is likely Mandarake.

I've got plenty of Blu-rays, retro games, arcade stuff and game music CDs for sale. Send me a PM if you want to come by place in Roppongi and take a look.

 

Thanks for the replies!

I am now in Kyoto, in Tokyo I made it to Retro game camp, Friends, Super potato and Trader, I missed Mandarake but when I return to Tokyo on the 22nd I will go there and all the others one last time!

I went to A-Too and Book off in Kyoto, didn't really get much there a couple of PC-Engine games.

Shou how much was the 64DD at Trader you saw?

Does anyone know of a retro store in Nara, I might go there this week

This weekend I plan to head to stores in Osaska, Im thinking super potato, Mandarake, A-Too and Game Tanteidan. Any other suggestions? Does anyone have addresses for these?

Thanks

 

Just got to Ebisucho station on the Sakaisuji line (brown one)
I will be out and about on the weekend - maybe meet up?

 

40-50k

 

Sounds good, I have sent you a PM

Thanks

PS thanks for the price Shou

 

I recommand you watch the game center CX shows here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Shady3011/videos?query=game+center
Off course, you do not want to watch them completely, just start one video, fast forward until you find the two minutes where he visits a game center or retro game shop, note the adress and go to another video.
In an hour time, you should have a very good list of arcade center and retro game shops all over Japan

 

Hi everyone I am now in Kobe and I'm struggling to find game stores of any kind, they are supposed to be at Sannomiya station area but there are never ending shops I just don't know where to go. The video below shows the store, does anyone know it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqlnqSP5dg4

Thanks for your help!

 

Stay Calm, this is a Thread-jack:

It appears I'm going to be in Tokyo this weekend (for work unfortunately) and hopefully I may be able to spare a few hours to indulge in some purchases. This thread has been really useful so far and I was hoping for someone to ease my search and recommend where my best chances are of finding the following:

-Sega Naomi Carts
-MVS Carts
-a Famicom
-Virtual Boy Stuff

I appreciate that ebay is probably my best bet for all of the above but it seems a wasted opportunity not to try.

 

There are three arcade shops in Akihabara (G-Front, Mak and Try), so any one of them you should be able to buy Naomi and MVS carts, G-Front is probably your best bet as they have a wider selection of games. There are a number of stores that sell Famicoms so just do some exploring to find the one with the best price, Trader is probably your best bet.

 

G-Front's prices suck big beautiful balls. Be warned.

 

It does depend on what you buy, they do have a much wider range of stuff and for a lot of the games priced under the 6000 yen range they are not too bad, especially MVS and Naomi carts...

 

:loyal:Thanks all... See my stash attached

 

You want good, quality retro shops, you have to leave the big cities. In the countryside there is an abundance of nice game shops in most prefectures.