OSAKA - Den Den Town Update

I made another trek to Den Den Town this weekend. I hadn't been for a while so I thought I'd take a few days off, head up to Osaka, and walk the streets.

Here's a map with information:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U....664276,135.510092&spn=0.050193,0.077162&z=14


As expected, the retro game scene is dwindling. Every time I visit there are fewer and fewer items and the ones that are available just aren't anything special. This time I noticed that most of the hardware is gone. Usually you can find the standard display case with a few things worth buying, but that's just not the case anymore on the main drag. I didn't hit all the stores on the map but I'll give some information about the stores that I did hit. One store that I didn't manage to find was Tiger. Maybe they're gone or maybe it's now the Super Potato shop near the station.

SHOPS

Waste of time: GEO, Softmap. Usually you can count on GEO for a few retro consoles but they just aren't in the business anymore. Nothing rare, just a handful of regular Saturns or Dreamcasts. Plenty of Super Nintendo and N64 games, mostly boxed, but mostly routine. Softmap's hardware retro section now is just one glass case with a handful of items, the rarest being an R7 Dreamcast. One good thing is if you're looking for something newer. Softmap has a small section with just CD games (usually no manuals, no cases). I got Forza 2 for the XBOX 360 for $4....heh. Usually you don't see that kind of thing in Japan for newer game consoles.

There are a few Softmaps but I didn't add them to the Google map link because if you want retro it really is the last place you should visit. You'll run into them as you walk the streets.

Becoming a Waste of Time: Super Potato. I remember they used to have so many items you had to step over things. Not really anything in the way of retro consoles except for a couple of Neo Geos, and nothing rare or special edition except for a PC Engine LT which isn't really that rare of special. They still have some nice software. They have a Nintendo Popeye Asobi silver box game that I didn't think existed (47,000 yen). **sigh** Looks like that's 3 games I need to complete the Nintendo release collection.

The shop that's next to Namba Station is a waste of time. The first floor has only new items and the second floor has only cards, no games. The retro store I visited is called Super Potato Seven. There are a few others that are a train ride away from Den Den but I just didn't have the time. You'll see them on the map but I don't have any information about them.

Still Worth It: A-Too Media Recycle Shop and Game Tenteidan. Game Tenteidan is the last real retro holdout from the old days. You can find older consoles like the Bandai Arcadia, Vectrex, Nintendo TV-Game, etc. A bit overpriced but it was nice to at least see them. They also have a good MSX section with lots of machines and software. Their "not for sale" display case is nice with a perfect House Shuman (sp?) Nintendo TV-Game system. I also saw a few Pippins, etc. They have the items the other shops don't have anymore. A couple of interesting items were Metal Slug X and Super Tag Battle for 49,000 yen. There's a guy from Osaka on eBay selling those titles with a "may not be in stock" warning...I'm guessing these are those...heh.

A-Too is a good mix of old and new. They have some decent older software, but not much in terms of hardware. They seem to like special edition anything so it's a good place to browse around. Good software selection for retro consoles. Overall they keep a nice balance of old and new.

Mandarake: The new Grand Choas shop is great. Lots of nice items. I picked up an Epoch/Atari 2800 with some games as well as a copy of Harmageddon and some boxed Bandai Arcadia games. Overall a nice mix of old, new, rare, import, everything. Definitely a place to go if you're in Osaka but be warned...it's a bit tricky to find.

The other Mandarake is a death trap and an utter waste of time. They have 2 massive floors inside of an enclosed arcade. It's mostly for toys, books, and cosplay. They have just a tiny case of retro items and the usual Super Famicom/N64 games. You have to literally find the stairs to go to the next level which is just the fire escape with open doors. That's OK for a small shop but not one that has hundreds of people. I had to make an entire lap around the top floor before I could find the exit again. The aisles are so small you really can't walk around. If you ever read of a story of a fire killing 200 people at a shop in Japan it wouldn't surprise me to see their name.

Other: There are more Super Potato stores on the map but like I said I didn't have a chance to check them out. Mostly there on the map if you have some extra time to kill and want to take the chance that figuring out the transportation will be worth your time.

TRANSPORTATION:

Getting there is a bit trickier these days. If you're getting to Osaka via Shinkansen it's easy to get to the right area. There's just one subway and it's clearly marked from the Shinkansen exit, although the "subway" starts above ground. It doesn't go underground until after it crosses the river.

Once you arrive in Namba just expect to be confused as shit. I think they were doing some construction so there was only one exit from the platform. The station is actually 2 stations that are connected together which makes it an underground city. You exit the train at one station and do the "Namba Walk" underground to the other station which is where you exit and see actual daylight again. The problem is that the usual yellow/black Japanese exits that you'll memorize from the signs once you get off the train aren't used at all in the other station. They've renovated the second station and they've changed all the names of the exits that they use on the signs in the first station, and as an added bonus they didn't bother to include wall maps. Now it's just signs with landmark and hotel names, but nothing that references Den Den Town. Thank God for Google maps on my phone.

HOTEL:

I found a great little hotel called Hotel Hillary (or Hillary's Hotel depending on where you see it). It's right at the start of Den Den Town. I got a room on Saturday and Sunday for 5,500 yen. It's new, clean, and the double room even has a couch. The price includes free video-on-demand with recent Hollywood movies and a $5 breakfast. You also get half off in the coffee shop on the first floor which is a full service coffee shop. The elevator to the first floor is a 10 step walk to the entrance of a 7-11 which was nice to pick up some late night drinks. I've stayed in a few hotels in Den Den and this one is easily the nicest and most convenient for just about the same price as the others.

OVERALL:

Once Tanteidan goes and A-Too phases out retro items then it really won't be worth the trip anymore, in my opinion. That's unless you're going to Osaka and just want to check it out and can stay anywhere. Might as well stay there. The area is a microcosm of game shops in Japan now....very low on hardware and mostly switching to newer games and DVDs. The software is usually good for regular items. They mostly focus on older software that's clean and looks good and they charge a highish price. It's nice to browse and pick up something you might otherwise not buy. But the days of stacks of games and consoles is gone. Even if you couldn't buy an item in the glass cases it was just nice to actually see them. At least you could say you saw one in Den Den....but you really can't say that anymore.

To end on a good note.... It looks like Den Den isn't turning into a porn haven. The last time I was there it seemed like every 3rd shop was selling adult DVDs. I just remember being a bit shocked at the sheer number of stores and how they came so quickly (no pun intended). But this time it didn't seem like they were as prominent as they were before.

It looks like the 360 is firmly planted in all of the stores which is nice. Where I live the shops seem to only have a couple of racks of new games so it was nice to see a shop with hundreds of new and used titles and even imports from the US. It was probably the first time since I've been in Japan where I thought they had a selection that was on even footing with other game consoles. If a store didn't have retro items it was nice to be able to spend some time looking at something newer that I actually own.

The area overall is still a great place to visit. Tons and tons of restaurants and bars, convenient location with the subway, and it's still a 10 minute walk to Dotonbori. Like I said if you're going there to visit Osaka or to just have fun or just to find a place to stay for a couple of days it's a great place. It's just not so much for retro gaming anymore...

 

Nice writeup and most surprising for me: Hotel Hillary. I stayed at the very same place. some 3 years ago. A nice, clean and cheap place indeed. +1 recommendation.

 

It went for 40'000+ when I spotted it on Yahoo if I remember correctly. That's already about two to three years ago, but at least I saved the pictures:



One of the rarest silver box titles I believe.


Nice writeup of the Denden town scene btw. I am looking forward to go there again, although it might not be the same as back in the day.
When I was in Osaka in 2007, I got into a shop that I don't remember the same. Maybe you recognize it? I always believed it was Game Tiger, but I can't say for sure. They had a lot of nice items burried unter loads of shovelware and trash. Just a shame I hadn't started to collect Famicom until one year later
Here's a picture of said shop:


/edit
That just caught my attention... is that a Mega Drive insert of Daimakaimura that had been glued under the ceiling? XD

 

I just went to den den town last last weekend, and it was a big disappointment. I dare say that there is no comparison to akiba anymore. Only few shops carry on with retro stuff, and there is absolutely no price advantage anymore.

Nevertheless, I did found a cheap Raiden DX

 

Sorry, I don't recognize the shop from the picture...but it looks like what shops look like today. More organized, cleaner, and the games are usually in good condition. They just don't have many of the rare ones anymore but they still offer a pretty good selection of regular titles. If you're into Mark III gaming, for example, you'll find some good sections with a lot of titles that are boxed with instructions....just nothing that you've never seen before and nothing you can't easily get on eBay these days. That's true for the game shops near me.

In the past you could to Den Den and see a Seaman Dreamcast, or Panzer Dragoon XBOX, or maybe even a Nintendo Othello (although probably not for sale). Seems a lot more exciting than seeing a really nice copy of Zaxxon 3-D for 1,800 yen. I remember going there my first time and seeing stacks of brand new Super Famicoms for 10,000 yen, Famicom Titlers, dozens of Neo Geo AES systems, DUO-RXs, Special Edition Dreamcasts, etc. All of those are gone now.

 

They're all sitting in Akiba now. They have even a Titler in the Potato for sale. Sure everything leaves the shop only for some big cash.

 

Well all these gaijin were buying them up and selling them on ebay for a huge profit and the like ;-) Plus more Japanese realised that they would get more money for their stuff by selling on yahoo and the like.

 

Ten years ago the only place gamers could go to resell was to a game shop. I remember Super Potato having so many Neo Geo consoles they were stacked from floor to ceiling. Now people can snap a few photos from their mobile phones and have it on the internet and sold without having to leave their house. Once that came into play the stores lost their suppliers for retro games. It was inevitable.

You also have a new generation of gamers who were brought up after Playstation and they have really no interest in retro gaming. Each year the number of retro customers gets smaller and smaller as people stop collecting, so the customer base continues to shrink. With a smaller customer base you get a smaller section in game shops. In the end it's just us old guys reliving our childhoods....heh....and there aren't many of us left.

 

I am not so sure about the declining trend of interest in retro gaming. Playstation and co. may have brought a new generation of video gamer, but it also had brought an immense increase of video gamer in general. Some of them now seeking for the lost origin of video games they probably never had. Even if that's just a fracture of all todays gamer, it's already huge in total amount.

Also many of the old gamer turn back to the stuff they probably never could afford back in the hey days, but due to the todays income thay now finally can afford it.
Then on top, there are still many of the long term collectors present.

I think, as long videogames are present, there will be always a demand for retro games as well, especially for the 8-/16bit era (golden age). And as more new technology goes forward and shift away from the origins, the more interesting it becomes.

The trend my go up and down over years as everything does like that. Also stuff sometimes gets rarer because of damages or losts over the years.
We're still far away from like the stamps collecting crash.

 

I know personally I was a gamer at a young age, and recently as I've actually been making a livable wage I've had a lot of fun trying to collect all of the systems and games that I wanted as a kid. I've take great joy in being able to experience all of the games that I missed out on as a kid, I was especially excited when I finally got a NeoGeo CD, which was the one console that I'd wanted since the day it was released but could never afford until just a few months ago.

I know a good number of collectors that feel the same way, and collect for the same reasons. So I'd guess that just that community that grew up with the NES and SNES and feel the same way is pretty massive, and can be seen in the grossly inflated prices that systems and games from that era go for.

 

I don't disagree with you, but my guess is that at the end of every year we shed more retro gamers than we add. The net result is negative. That's not to say the retro gamers don't exist or that newer gamers can't take an interest, but the net number overall decreases. There will always be collectors but in terms of volume they cant make up for the yearly losses of those who lose interest.

Before there was a type of nostalgia of buying and playing the games, but I think owners today are more picky. They focus on fewer items but still will pay a high price for those items. There was a bit of a boom when all of us reached the age where we could buy the items we never had as kinds but I think that's not really driving things much anymore. It's become routine and if people are still buying they aren't buying in such large quantities over many platforms. They're figured out what the like from the past and they're sticking to it if they want to continue to go retro.

You also have the fun factor of owning something from overseas dwindling. If it was hard to get you were proud, but now it seems, like I said, mostly routine. It's out there and available if you want to spend the money on it. By dropping that barrier it created a "middle class" of retro gaming and that's what's taking a big hit now.

 

Gamers are the new comic book collectors.

 

That sums is up quite nicely. And to support that impression: I am active in many retro gaming forums that focus on both gaming (shmups/arcade) and collecting (digit press, several German boards) and most collectors who actively buy vintage games and devices are in their late 20's and the majority is in theor early/mid 30's. That's the people who were taking off in 2000, when the Neo Geo scene was on its peak of popularity and Dreamcast was the incarnation of a state-of-the-art freak console. Or so I've been told, hahah.
See, that's the problem. I'm 21 years old and I'd really call myself one of the few newcomer retro collectors as I spend my money almost exclusively on old Japanese games. But being 21 I also know that there are next to no competitors in my age. Of course there are people interested in the material, but we're talking about consumption and acquisitions here. Those who are 20 and below rarely interested in the old stuff and even if they are, they have no interest in buying it. Most of them would either have it on XBLA/PSN or just miss out.

 

I seem to recall Game Tiger was off the main drag, just east of Namba station. They had a floor or so of decent stuff, but was all overpriced when I was last there in 2009. Same applies to Super Potato, especially for hardware and limited edition releases.

I did pick up some cheap clearance stuff at Tsutaya, although my guess would be they no longer have anything.

I still think A-Too Media Recycle Shop and Game Tenteidan are worth stopping by for if you're in the area, although it's far easier to find bargains in Sofmap than anywhere else, but then I don't really go looking for anything much older than Dreamcast stuff.

Does anyone know if there's an Osaka Book-Off that does gaming stuff? The one in Akihabara was where I picked up most of my cheap hardware last time I was in Japan, including a ridiculously cheap Snes Jr and Famicom.

Edit: Incidentally, if anyone does decide to visit Osaka mainly for Den Den Town and are on a limited budget, try Hotel Toyo in Dobutsuenmae; it's about 10 mins walk south of Nipponbashi and rooms are as little as 1,500 yen. The area has a pretty bad reputation in Japan for being full of whorehouses and homeless people, but other than being a little shabby, I've never noticed anything too untoward.

 

I'm pretty sure Game Tiger is now Super Potato. The Super Potato store is located in the same area where Game Tiger used to be but there's no Game Tiger anymore. Last time I went there was no Super Potato in that area but there is now. I even walked down the street a bit to make sure I wasn't missing it.

If you're looking for stuff not much older than Dreamcast then you'll have a nice selection. The cut-off point seems to be Super Famicom or newer. I was going there hoping to pick up either a silver box Popeye or Wild Gunman for the Famicom and I was surprised that stores really didn't have that much of a Famicom selection anymore. Game Tanteidan had the biggest selection but nothing all that great. One of their plastic box items was Mario Bros...heh. If they do have Famicom they usually don't have boxes or instructions. Neo Geo is a mixed bag. A-Too had a nice selection of CDs but in terms of carts I think the most I saw at one store was 5 or 6. If you want older Sega (SG-1000, MK3, etc.), then the pure retro shops like Game Tanteidan, Super Potato, and A-Too are really your only options. The larger chains have moved away from that stuff. If you want really rare/retro like Super Cassette Vision games then Game Tanteidan is really your only option.

I've stayed at a few hotels in the area:

Hotel Kikuei (http://www.kikuei.com/) is a cheap place that's right on the strip. It's not bad (clean) but the room is tiny and the place feels cheap. The staff were friendly, tho.

Washington Hotel Namba (http://nanba.washington.jp/en/) is a mid-range hotel that's pretty nice. It takes about 10 minutes to walk to the start of Den Den Town which normally isn't a big deal but it will become a big deal if you walk to the end of the strip and buy a lot of stuff and have to do a 20-30 minute walk back with both arms full.

Hotel Hillary was by far the best. I wanted to relax and unwind a bit and have a "vacation" feel to it and that's what the hotel offers. It's nice to be able to watch on-demand videos on a hi-def TV when you're getting into bed for the night. But if you're just looking for a place to sleep the other hotels are fine, too.