The Australian retro hunting rant thread

yep, damn those disposable incomes!

PAL Toploaders in Australia go for at least $150-$250. I bought mine from cash converters in the late 90's for $15 with 2 controllers, they had about 25 NES/SNES's all nice and plastic wrapped I remember, and NES games were 50 cents.

 

I moved to Australia 3 years ago, and I haven't even bothered buying games here. It is actually cheaper to have someone buy the games at retail in Canada, and have them ship it over to me, than to buy a new game in Australia. Ridiculous. Perhaps it is a reflection of how underpriced shipping costs are, but more likely it shows how much gouging there is. Don't even get me started on retro games, I haven't even bothered. I saw common SNES games in a few stores, but I'm not paying $15-$20 for loose old sports games.

 

Welcome! To Australia!

 

What omp said. Welcome to Australia.

 

You're lucky you've got friends back home who can buy you stuff and ship it! I haven't bought a new game here in years. Even slightly marked up copies on eBay are cheaper than going to a store here. It's well worth importing a console.

 

* First Post*

Yeah, being a former Gametraders employee this was definately the case, our store had to actually leave the franchise due to its fees, we later shut down when we went independant because the shopping centre we were in were constantly jacking up the rent year after year. In regards to the grey imports, our store STRIVED on them, the suppliers we had in Australia were just asking too much compared to what others had ( We were only making perhaps $10-$15 profit at most compared to the likes of $20-$30 even more on imports ).

We too were also the victims of store theft, I can recall one day when another employee left a big stack of games aside when we unboxed them from the supplier only for them to be swept away when the employee's back was turned... not to mention our demo/display consoles being stolen along with a laptop that was on the counter! It really all added up in the long run, not to mention JB Hi-Fi were really crunching the numbers down in terms of new games, along with the rise of importing amongst casual gamers...

But back when our store was open, we weren't really asking for the high prices that they're doing now, I think the highest priced console we ever sold was a NES around the $100 mark bundled with Super Mario Bros.

It's truly a shame whats happened to the current market, I too am facing the frustrations like everyone else is in this thread, I don't bother with cartridge based games anymore and I just look soley for PS1 games at the moment. Recently the Trash and Treasure markets down here in Melbourne have been alright to say the least but I don't even bother with Cashies or other Pawn Shops ( One I saw in Dandenong was asking $150 for a Pokemon N64.... outrageous... ). Saver's can be a hit and miss at times, I think the last great pickups I got there were Super Street Fighter II and Super Mario Kart boxed for $15 each... and as for the Op Shops... hit and miss aswell, although my local ones are just horrid and most of the time I end finding cheap PC games.. ouch.

 

I will start with the welcome to Australia bit and also mention that it's not just games and consoles we get screwed on. It's everything from food to computers, yes we get more disposable income but everything costs shitloads more here than you could get anywhere else in the world. even stuff made in Australia and shipped overseas is cheaper than what we buy it for usually and the el cheapo brands from the big 2 supermarkets are cheaper to grow, import and sell here. Yes our high wages have something to do with it but its kinda stuffed up.

 

Actually prices go up, and wages stay the same.

 

Lol that's right it is cheaper to buy an ss comodore (it's Australian built equivelant shiped to America) in America than here...

 

Oh, I know that well. I'm a PHD student, and even though our stipend goes up about 2-3% every year, the cost of everything goes up by 6-10% every year. I swear, I pay about $10-$20 per week more on groceries now than I did when I first moved here. Hell, I'm currently spending some time in Japan, and before I came I expected everything to be expensive. The average price of food is half what it is in Australia. This is partially due to trade protectionism. For instance, why the hell are we subsidizing farmers to grow cotton and rice in the middle of New South Wales? Not only are we paying more for something that could be imported for substantially less, but we are also subsidizing the destruction of the Murray-Darling basin. Oh well, in 20 years, I bet all the aquifers will be dried up, and they will have to quit.

 

$20 on groceries? You won't want to start a family here then. Average groceries bill will be $300. A week.

 

I meant relative to when I first moved here, three years ago. I spend $70-$80 per week on groceries.

 

Picked up some Atari 2600 games, a PS1 game and Retro gamer magazine this weekend. Pretty happy with that.

 

SegamanAu where did you make your purchase?

I went to the local markets and didn't find much. My wife who hadn't been to this one before didn't like it as it looked like one big garage sale. She likes the arts and craft style. Anyway there was some overpriced ps2 games and another store that had an xbox, games to suit, some ps1 games and some xbox360 stuff.

We did our first online grocery shop today. It actually saved us a bit as there was no impulse buys. It was justh a minor shop and ut was $115+$7 delivery. But we don't get fruit and veg from coles as we go to the proper fruit/veg market (about an extra $30). We also don't get meat from there, off to the butcher for that....

When our son is a teenager, i am sure it will be a lot more than that.

 

What the hell happened to my original post?

Anyways managed to snag up a bunch of PS1 games and console at a local flea market over the last few weeks, ended up buying a PS1 for $5 without the controller, a CD wallet with 12 PS1 games ( Included Driver 1&2 and Metal Gear Solid ) for $20... and a few complete PS1 and PS2 games for $30 ( Tony Hawks, Pro Wrestling, Demo Disk #2, Gediko and Metal Gear Solid 2 ).

I saw one stall asking $15 for Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt along with some badly damaged NES/SMS/MD/N64/PS1 games ( all common )... no deal.

 

oh my gawd finally a place where others share the same frustration and rage inducing feelings as myself.

A friend and I have been trying to get our hands on a Dreamcast for quite a few years now with little luck.
Ever since my faithful DC's lazer started playing up we've been looking to buy one either off ebay or gumtree...our experiences have been far from successful and pleasant.

Seriously are there no 'normal' people left in Melbourne or better yet Australia, who don't feel the need to sell crap at what is basically extortion?! $1300 for a 'sealed' Dreamcast console? Seriously?!
What happened to the Cash converters of old, where you could grab retro games for 5 to 10 bucks and consoles for 50?!

Besides Ebay, Gumtree and the failures known as Cash Converters where would be the best bet to get decently priced games in the Melbourne area or even online?!?!?!?!?!

 

XBOX stuff is priced like that at the moment, however they are creeping up in price slowly with some titles. I get really annoyed with retail here it's ran by a bunch of dicks wearing tuxedos.

 

Penguins?

 

I am an Aussie and I tend to spend about $150 or so on average per fortnight on groceries for myself (more once you factor in all the junk I eat)
As for games, I haven't seen any video game stuff in any kind of op-shop or charity shop in years, both because people have realized these things have value and dont donate to the op-shops anymore and because the op-shops wont take em (in fact, op-shops as far as I know wont take anything electrical anymore because of the safety risk and the lack of resources to verify if they are safe or not).

 

I hate that about op-shops. I used to love getting electrical bits and bobs as a kid. Now we're stuck with clothes and books.
That said, I used to get a few of those choose your own adventure books!