GHound
Member
Ultimately this is what the tweet was all about to begin with. What, with the man in question being a stinky foreigner himself.
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Weeaboos are now ruining the retro collecting scene in Japan. How can we stop them?
- Thread starter German Hops
- Start date
Drell
Member
The only thing it does is providing the ROM to the console like if it was the original cartridge. Everything else is running on your console's physical CPUs, GPUs and RAM, that's not emulation. the only things these cartridges emulate are additionnal chips (Super FX, SA1, DSP, ...) or extra hardware add-ons like the Mega SD emulating the Mega CD with just a cartridge.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
That’s one of the reasons physical folks are resisting the digital move. If people buy digital, these scalpers will find it harder to resell their rare games for high profit.
They want gamers to pay hundreds of bucks for their physical copy of Haunting Ground, instead of $15 on Steam.
dreamcastluvr
Member
I used to do this myself. Started with cheap anime laserdiscs and DVDs that I would pick up in Japan during my courier trips in the early 2000's and sell them on eBay and Yahoo auctions. Then when the courier assignments dried up, I started importing them directly from the shops via Yahoo Japan auctions and Surugaya online. Moved on to game consoles which seemed to be a bit more lucrative in the early 2010's. I would buy "junk" items in bulk; dropping $500-$1000 at a time, and would receive huge boxes of mostly pristine-condition consoles and games. Kept what I liked and auctioned off the surplus on eBay, usually coming out ahead by several hundreds of dollars. It was pretty lucrative up until about 2016, when the shops wised up to the retro hype and increased their prices, along with rising importing costs.
It was a good run while it lasted, and I've got myself my own personal mini retro museum for pennies on the dollar. The retro scene is too bloated and overrun these days to get any serious returns anymore.
It was a good run while it lasted, and I've got myself my own personal mini retro museum for pennies on the dollar. The retro scene is too bloated and overrun these days to get any serious returns anymore.
wondermega
Member
I don't think I actually care about this. Honestly all I really care about are retro games, but like many I stopped buying them years ago when they started to become this weird investment thing. And I don't even really mind if people are doing weird things to hike prices of games, none of ANY of this was worth much until the youtubers started reviewing classic games and making them a "hot thing," so it is kind of bitersweet.
At this point I am happy to get my hands on a couple of Everdrives (I have Genesis & TurboGrafx so far) and the gameplay experience is exactly what I want. I have a decent collection of actual carts from my youth (likely pretty tiny compared to your modern enthusiast) but I don't have the time/energy/inclination to "completely collect all the sets" and have fancy displays for everything. I just want to play the games and have them look & feel "correct" to me.
As for those of you who are collectors - well I can appreciate how this would be pretty aggravating. I am curious what the hobby will continue to evolve into. Overall stuff like this is a little funky, but really it is just refreshing to hear so much discussion of these games that people didn't care about for literally decades getting back into the spotlight again (even if it is kinda shallow in some ways). Maybe gives my angle on the hobby a little legitimacy, I dunno, ha.
At this point I am happy to get my hands on a couple of Everdrives (I have Genesis & TurboGrafx so far) and the gameplay experience is exactly what I want. I have a decent collection of actual carts from my youth (likely pretty tiny compared to your modern enthusiast) but I don't have the time/energy/inclination to "completely collect all the sets" and have fancy displays for everything. I just want to play the games and have them look & feel "correct" to me.
As for those of you who are collectors - well I can appreciate how this would be pretty aggravating. I am curious what the hobby will continue to evolve into. Overall stuff like this is a little funky, but really it is just refreshing to hear so much discussion of these games that people didn't care about for literally decades getting back into the spotlight again (even if it is kinda shallow in some ways). Maybe gives my angle on the hobby a little legitimacy, I dunno, ha.
Gamer_By_Proxy
Member
With Stellar Blade releasing #WeaboutToBeMorePopularThanHerpies
StereoVsn
Member
Yeah, I misread Everdrive for Evercade.
Tams
Member
Now this is why I'm still following this thread!
P.Jack
Member
This sounds like something you just made up. Besides it’s the other way around; limited prints of modern releases that’s otherwise digital-only is the scalpers dream. Buying, playing and then selling limited releases will net you a profit most if the time.
nush
Gold Member
YeulEmeralda
Member
Total videogame collector death!
Fart Knight
Al Pachinko, Konami President
Buy some used panties and go cry in a corner
MonkeyClaw36
Member
He's right though...
KittyKatMan
Gold Member
It will stabilize but I don’t think it will burst. There will be lower prices then they will go up and down as time proceeds. The more games get thrown out and discarded, the higher the values will be, especially for complete examples. I have relatives who would routinely throw out new and snes games versus giving them away, etc just because it was too much hassle for them
hououinkyouma00
Member
The Book Off in Hachioji had two I believe when I was there.
They also had a mint white ps2 skin that I almost bought as well.
I did pick up a very good condition Vita OLED for $67
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s_mirage
Member
It doesn't really matter whether the buyers are local or foreign. If there's a hot collectors market, the end result is going to be the same: games/books/whatever the hell is hot at the moment, are going to be taken out of circulation by collectors. Honestly, with all the options available for individuals to sell items and retain more of the sale price themselves, it amazes me that the second hand stores in Japan get as much stock as they do. IMO, selling to stores makes sense as a convenience for getting rid of lots of low value items, not so much when the items have significant value.
Yes, but he's different because, erm...
A researcher on Japan/Korea relations. Nothing to do with the subject.
Yes, but he's different because, erm...
A researcher on Japan/Korea relations. Nothing to do with the subject.
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hououinkyouma00
Member
I figure I'll drop a detailed review of my experience game hunting in Japan more then just the few comments I've made in this thread.
I wanted to find a Spirited Green PSP while I was there but I only saw one at the Akiba Super Potato and it was like $160 which I can buy for half that on eBay.
I'm not advocating going there and fucking up their market, but wanted to give people tips for finding stuff they want.
- This should be obvious but Akihabara sucks for games due to tourist trap pricing. I'm not saying don't look but more that the pricing is terrible.
- The farther out you get from city centers the better. Book Off/Hard Off is a good place to search for games as the pricing is much better.
- Kyoto seems to be underrated for game hunting. I don't see anybody talk about it but it's really the only place I actually bought things.
- Personally I would say Surugaya and Book/Hard Offs are your best bets though I did go to a cool place that I can't remember the name of anymore. I found a Splatoon 3 LE OLED for $215 brand new there. Book/Hard Off is also tax free. I'm not sure if Surugaya is because I forgot to ask.
- Right now at least for USD you basically get a 35% discount on literally everything and that gets even bigger when you factor in tax free. With this I was able to get multiple Switch games for $20-30. You can also get brand new Joycons from the Nintendo store for $45 due to this which I should have grabbed to modify.
- Moby Games has a list of PSP/Vita/PS3-5/Switch games that have full English for the Japanese releases.
- Related to the last two points is Switch games. Basically every 1st party game I could think of has full English options.
- Persona games seem impossible to find. I only found one copy of FES and the copy of 4 Golden on Vita the entire time I was there which is disappointing since it's my favorite franchise.
I wanted to find a Spirited Green PSP while I was there but I only saw one at the Akiba Super Potato and it was like $160 which I can buy for half that on eBay.
I'm not advocating going there and fucking up their market, but wanted to give people tips for finding stuff they want.
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German Hops
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
YOU ARE RUINING IT FOR THE REST OF US!!
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Ugh Ok, I’ll bite. I’ve clearly missed this… what’s a “weeaboo”?
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ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Nope, not really. If the needle tilt too much the publishers will just give up publishing physical games entirely, which will cause even the limited print market to disappear entirely.
StereoVsn
Member
I did the same thing for some Saturn, PSX and Dreamcast games. Maybe OP is using reverse psychology to get us to buy Japanese games because he runs a games import business!
StereoVsn
Member
That sounded like a good trip, that’s for sure.
I told my wife that if we go to Japan for a trip, I am bringing an empty suitcase.
German Hops
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
A foreigner, basically.
LazyParrot
Member
Specifically a foreigner obsessed with Japan and Japanese culture, particularly video games and anime. Plenty of non-weeaboo foreigners in Japan.
hououinkyouma00
Member
We did something similar. United gives 2 free checked bags per passenger.
We bought some cheap ass luggage in Akiba for 4900 yen which is like $24 or something and shoved the stuff we cared about less and stuff like dirty clothes.
Porcile
Member
This is definitely one of those problems similar to the one where other foreigners complain about the number of foreigners visiting or living in Japan. People do realise the stuff in these shops are there because the Japanese folk who originally owned it literally considered it junk they wanted to get rid of and get a bit of money for instead of just throwing in the trash.
nush
Gold Member
That exists in China too, the "China expert" or "The Marco Polo Syndrome".
Marco Polo Syndrome - Sinosplice
In a recent blog entry, Sam of ShenzhenRen discusses what Justin of Shenzhen Zen has coined “Marco Polo Syndrome.” Justin’s definition: > **MPS: the silent social killer.** > Symptoms: exaggerated manifestations of superiority and exclusivity fostered by the delusion that the individual was the...
www.sinosplice.com
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
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RoboFu
One of the green rats
There really is something about playing the old games on the original hardware that make it all much better. Ive got a version 2 American black Saturn in storage but always wanted a Japanese and launch model.
TurboDuo comes today! and I ordered a playstion 1 since I do not have one anymore but I still have games for it. Also thinking about getting a full genesis ver 1 / Sega CD as well.
TurboDuo comes today! and I ordered a playstion 1 since I do not have one anymore but I still have games for it. Also thinking about getting a full genesis ver 1 / Sega CD as well.
LRKD
Member
Yeah, Japan had a healthy retro scene, items were well priced, and well stocked. No shit Amerifags are going to start eating it up. What costs easily 200 here is 40 there. So when the die-hard fan can't get his collection, he will instead import the cheaper Japanese version to sit on his shelf instead.
I don't even blame the average American consumer buying JP games though. Gamestop fucked us hard, they destroyed countless old games instead of just getting rid of them. Then there is the youtubers posting their retarded collection walls showing off "super rare" games you need if you are a 'real' collector, but 99% of the time you just know that youtuber doesn't like or play the large majority of their collection. Creating a collector's culture out of gaming was a major mistake, it's fine to own and enjoy your favorite games, but collecting all the games on a system is gay. Anyone who collects games they don't play or enjoy is a major problem. Then of course there was also that bs investor market of unsealed classic games, oh send in your game and get it appraised it could be worth millions, just further forever fucking over the used market here.
I don't even blame the average American consumer buying JP games though. Gamestop fucked us hard, they destroyed countless old games instead of just getting rid of them. Then there is the youtubers posting their retarded collection walls showing off "super rare" games you need if you are a 'real' collector, but 99% of the time you just know that youtuber doesn't like or play the large majority of their collection. Creating a collector's culture out of gaming was a major mistake, it's fine to own and enjoy your favorite games, but collecting all the games on a system is gay. Anyone who collects games they don't play or enjoy is a major problem. Then of course there was also that bs investor market of unsealed classic games, oh send in your game and get it appraised it could be worth millions, just further forever fucking over the used market here.
DCharlie
Banned
And almost always within a stones through of Greggs...
At least in the North.
Anyways, this started a long long long time ago and the idea its just foreigners is largely nonsense.
Deft Beck
Member
Here's a more detailed explanation:
In the early days of 4chan, people liked to call others obsessed with Japan "Wapanese". The moderators decided to wordfilter this to "weeaboo", which is a reference to a nonsense word from a Perry Bible Fellowship comic. It stuck from there.
A modern example of this would be wordfiltering "soy" to "onions".
DCharlie
Banned
Source: https://www.timeextension.com/news/...g-laments-japanese-resident-as-retro-runs-dry
This has gone too far with collectors in the West, in my opinion. They've ruined collecting here and now they're looking to ruin everything abroad.
How do you feel and what can we do to preserve Japan's historic gaming legacy?
"In the last year and its all the forins"
Christ
Is the next bit "but when I was buying them I wasn't selling them on so my part in reducing the finite stock is fine"
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DCharlie
Banned
... what?
Japan has XX million native residents and retrogames are a finite resource - the idea that its just the foreigners is so far off.
jufonuk
not tag worthy
Source: https://www.timeextension.com/news/...g-laments-japanese-resident-as-retro-runs-dry
This has gone too far with collectors in the West, in my opinion. They've ruined collecting here and now they're looking to ruin everything abroad.
How do you feel and what can we do to preserve Japan's historic gaming legacy?
To the shop owner earning loads now the stock is selling out.
nush
Gold Member
It's the Japanese selling it to the foreigners via online auction sites. Turns out not having to pay for an international flight and hotel gives you more money to spend on Japanese retro games.
AJUMP23
Gold Member
I actually want a Japanese Famicom and Super Famicom.
DCharlie
Banned
Yeah, I know - it started when I lived there decades ago and the idea that it is the foreigners ? Naa - all that had to do with was upping prices and blaming foreigners
Tams
Member
Nice necro.
My point was the people from outside Japan are coming in and selfishly buying up all the retro games. This isn't something you really see in Japan amongst Japanese people.
Orenji Neko
Member
賛成です。
i like this statement very much thank you。╰(▔∀▔)╯
i agree。see western treat us like magic alien is offensive。we have idiot and asshole people too。when i was child a dirty bum play music at usa military base gate to hope for free beer or money。weeaboo maybe think he honorable japanese hahahaha。my father work at base so i see that many times and sneak slime car salesman try to sell junk car to usa soldiers。soooooo honorable。as adult i saw young man buy old toyota thinking it race car and fast "because japanese"。salesman sold him junk preowned by another soldier in past who treat engine poor。ლ(ಠ_ಠ ლ)
we are people。weaboo treat my younger sister like goddess and you know what she hated them and immaturity。my daughter now creep out by them。i try to be nice as i am half japanese and father was american soldier and we have home in usa and japan but i have limit and weaboo not ever in my limit。it is like people are offend for us because black guy in assacreed game。western problem western game we do not care do not need honorable weaboo defender。game look more chinese anyway so we laugh at it and no buy because not made for us anyway。
for the game shop money is money。my opinion is shop owner need to charge more because weaboo probably pay anyway。(^_<)〜☆ maybe one day i dress like sage before sell my junk that weaboo think to be magic for big money。maybe if daughter fake smile they pay even more。╮(￣～￣)╭ no no no i just make joke。。。。。
。。。or maybe no? ( ಠ ͜ʖ ಠ)
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
I was in Japan about a month ago, and I completely understand where he's coming from - it's really picked over, and you know who's buying it because there's an army of greasy fatsos waddling around every damn street in Akihabara. Like... more than before. It's unfortunate for those who have any sort of appreciation for the stuff, beyond just ebay scalping.
German Hops
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
So, the guy I quoted in OP has had a follow up article you can read here:
https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-truth-about-retro-game-hunting-in-a-post-pandemic-japan
https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-truth-about-retro-game-hunting-in-a-post-pandemic-japan
While the pandemic led to a surge in prices for retro video games in the United States after years of the hobby already getting absurdly expensive, the opposite occurred here in Japan where you couldn’t walk into a used games store without tripping over good deals.
In 2021, I was able to get near-pristine copies of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and F-Zero GX for roughly $20 apiece. As someone who’s currently aiming for a complete Famicom Disk System set, I’m halfway toward acquiring all roughly 200 officially licensed games thanks to generally low prices. In the over six years I’ve lived in Japan, it’s been great experiencing the thrill of finding complete in box Super Famicom games that are in near-pristine off-the-shelf condition.
And yet, something has changed. Earlier in April I tweeted about how the Surugaya I frequented for years is now a hollow shell of its former self. Once fully-stocked shelves are now half full, the Famicom Disk games are all gone, and those great deals I used to find are nowhere to be seen. I never expected my grumbling to really get much attention, but my tweets quickly went viral and even ended up being featured here on Time Extension.
Having gotten in touch with Damien, Time Extension's editor, I figured I’d weigh in with some extended thoughts on the state of retro game collecting in Japan. How exactly did we get here?
2021 - CIB Metal Gear Twin Snakes and F-Zero — Image: Oliver Jia
First, I should provide some background on who I am. I’m an American doctoral candidate who researches Japan-North Korean relations. Dreary stuff beyond the scope of this website, I know. But when I’m not researching despotic regimes and tense geopolitical problems for my PhD or writing articles as a freelance journalist, I like to kick back and enjoy some of my esoteric hobbies, which include collecting books, films, vinyl records and, of course, video games.
I grew up with my mother’s NES around the same time I got a Wii, which meant that I’ve always had an appreciation for video games new and old. I was around 10 or 11 years old when I realized that the NES had some great, timeless classics that still held up. My first system was the Game Boy Advance, which, in turn, unlocked an entire library of other games from the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color. I’m from Pittsburgh, PA which has always had a decent selection of retro games compared to most places in the Northeastern United States, so I slowly built up a sizable NES collection.
This was in the late 2000s going into the early 2010s right when YouTube was becoming a mainstream source of information to learn more about old video games. Thanks to the likes of The Angry Video Game Nerd and Classic Game Room, suddenly, more people were learning about once-obscure titles or reminded again of classic gems, leading to the demand increasing. This began the phenomena of video game collecting no longer just being a hobby, but a truly viable business on the secondary market where online resellers on sites like eBay could make a profit off of nostalgia.
Den Den Town Osaka in 2022 - note the fully stocked shelves — Images: Oliver Jia
Yet despite all of this, Japan for years remained largely immune to these trends. There have certainly always been video game collectors over here, but nowhere to the same extent as in the United States. Keep in mind that living spaces are generally much smaller in Japan, which means that there’s a limit to how much stuff one can keep. People are always unloading and reselling their old books, movies and games, which is why secondhand chains like Book Off and Surugaya have been so successful.
Some video games like Gimmick for Famicom or Magical Chase on PC Engine are extremely expensive, but that’s because those titles are legitimately scarce and never had large print runs. When it comes to standard fare like a boxed copy of Super Mario Bros. or complete copies of all the original Pokémon Game Boy games – where literally millions of units were produced – one hardly had to break the bank if they wanted to re-experience their childhood in Japan.
Unlike the United States, there is currently no culture here of organizations like Wata Games or Heritage Auctions artificially inflating prices as part of a speculation bubble that YouTubers like Karl Jobst have exposed as shady, to say the least. This accounts for why Sonic creator Yuji Naka was seemingly baffled that a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog on Mega Drive (and one not even in pristine condition) sold for over $430,000 in 2021. Retro video games being viewed as actual six-figure investments has simply never been a thing in Japan.
Kobe Surugaya 2021 - Full shelves of PS1 games — Image: Oliver Jia
When I first came to Japan in 2017 to do an internship at a glass plant and later do a study abroad program, I arrived at a good time for collecting video games. I first lived in Ube, a rural town in Yamaguchi Prefecture with few tourists and a Book Off in the same neighbourhood as my apartment. Even now, the countryside is still the best place to find games in Japan due to the generally lower demand compared to the cities. But back then, though, large population centres like Tokyo and Kobe were not automatically bad spots for game hunting, either. You simply had to know where to go and be quick on the draw.
The COVID-19 pandemic later upended everyone’s lives the world over, and one of the ensuing responses was a rush of renewed interest in retro video games when people had to stay home with little else to do for months on end. When you pair this with the nonsense of speculator bubbles fueled by groups like Wata, it’s no surprise that it has become an even more expensive hobby than a decade ago. But this was largely something only affecting the American market.
Because there were no tourists in Japan for nearly two years due to the government closing the borders in response to COVID-19, stores had consistently stocked inventories of games. While many domestic Japanese consumers likely took advantage of this time, there were enough Zeldas and Metroids to go around since the hardcore collector base here has always been much smaller than overseas relative to the items that are available. I truly got some of the best deals I’ve ever experienced three years ago, but we are now unfortunately long past those days.
Mike Tyson Punch Out CIB bought for 3800 yen in 2021 at Kyoto Surugaya — Image: Oliver Jia
This brings us to the present and the sad display of Surugaya shelves that initially inspired me to write this piece. The way I see it, the problem is now two-fold — a sharp increase in foreign visitors and a sharp decrease in the value of the yen. With the number of tourists to Japan returning to pre-pandemic levels and likely on their way to surpassing them, people from abroad are coming to game stores found in the country’s urban centres en masse. One half of this crowd is your average tourist who simply wants two or three games as a souvenir to take home, while the other half is the inevitable scalpers who will clear entire shelves to resell on eBay.
As of this writing, 1 U.S. dollar is currently in the ballpark of around 158 yen. This means that a ¥5000 game to a Japanese consumer would only cost $31 USD to an American tourist, making it understandably a steal. I don’t blame any tourist who buys a couple of games they’re nostalgic for because it’s a good deal and cheaper than what they would get back home. You’re much more likely to find a complete-in-box Super Famicom or N64 game here than you would for their equivalents in the U.S., for example. But the other side of this is the scalpers who make the hobby worse for everyone in trying to turn a profit, leaving nothing left for those who actually want to play these games.
Another reason for the changing environment of retro video games in Japan is how some retailers are creating online portals which allow foreigners to buy items without even stepping foot in the country. Proxy sites like Buyee additionally serve as middlemen with how they purchase products on an overseas customer’s behalf, charge them a fee, and ship them out of Japan. This has led to a notable depletion of domestically available stock and is likely a major contributing factor to those empty shelves I’ve posted about.
Kyoto Surugaya 2024 - the shelves are emptied — Images: Oliver Jia
I should stress, of course, that none of this is illegal, and if an individual consumer wants to buy an item for whatever reason, that’s completely within their right to do so. I’m merely providing an autopsy for how we’ve gotten to this point and explaining what the reality of the situation is. Retro video games, being long discontinued items which are often decades old, are a finite resource. That goes for anything "retro" – be it out-of-print books or first pressings of vinyl records. We also, fortunately, live in a time where emulation means that for most of these games, original hardware is usually no longer a necessity and more of a luxury for enthusiasts like myself.
But have things truly gone off the deep end for retro gaming in Japan? To begin with, the golden age of retro game collecting ended long before I even arrived here. If we turn the clock back to the early to mid-2000s before the advent of smartphones and YouTube, most of this stuff was in clearance bins or being sold for practically nothing apart from the truly rare stuff. By the time I came to Japan in 2017, those deals were already no longer to be found. With that said, the stuff I find these days is still generally much cheaper than what’s available in the U.S., something I verified when I recently visited my family earlier this year.
I’ve generally given up on retro game hunting in big cities, but every so often I’ll venture into the countryside to places far removed from tourist traps like Tokyo’s Akihabara or Kyoto’s Kawaramachi and find the hidden treasure I’m searching for. As one gets older and reaches the physical limits of their collection, you naturally become more selective in what you want to own anyway. I still have my goal of getting a complete Famicom Disk set and as far as I can tell, it’s not a system most people care about due to the hardware maintenance involved. I recently got an Analogue Duo and the sheer abundance of PC Engine games available in Japan means I’ll never run out of stuff to play.
Kyoto, 2024 - the return of the tourists — Image: Oliver Jia
While the online proxy sites are eating into places like Yahoo Auctions and Surugaya, I can still usually find what I’m looking for on sites such as Mercari and Amazon JP because it’s only really the bigger outlets which cater to foreigners. Knowing Japanese means that I can find the best deals if I frequently conduct new searches and bargain with individual online sellers for even better prices.
In situations like that, the prices really haven’t changed for me that much now compared to five years ago. Some games, like the Dragon Quest series, are always going to be readily available due to their large quantity, and the text-heavy nature of their gameplay means most non-Japanese speakers have little interest.
The state of retro video game collecting in Japan has undoubtedly changed, but despite some new challenges, I’m fully aware of how lucky I am to live in a country that’s still the best country for this hobby. It’s understandable why so many tourists want to take advantage of that when they come from countries with far worse scarcity like mainland China or South Korea. But if you do decide to come to Japan for the video games, I personally hope you’ll actually play what you buy.
Werewolf Jones
Member
So would he rather have Passport Bros? lol
NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt
Gold Member
What's wrong with Passport Bros?