"Collectors Are Stripping Japan痴 Rare-Game Paradise Bare" - Wired

[Gentlegamer]

The resellers wouldn't have a market if collectards didn't outnumber them.

This is true, but they are a symbiotic circle.

 

[FinalbossNYC]

Don't blame Gaijins, blame people like Yamatoku and Hit Japan who rape these stores and then sell on eBay. Funny they don't mention that.

Hit Japan really got expensive over the last 2 years. I feel like a long time ago, they were a bit of a go-to of mine. Maybe the prices were just at market value or slightly more, but not as bad as today. Either that or I was just more ignorant to how much I was paying years ago

True years ago they would have some decent prices worth the shipping, I got a bunch of Ys art books years ago cheap, now forget it Ys is being slowly admired.

Our parents and grandparents raided stores of rare baseball cards for profit. When we were growing up, it was Star Wars and comics. Now it's video games.

It's economics. People are going to hunt and raid stuff for profit in any collectible market. It sucks ass for everyone else trying to find stuff they love and either pay collector prices or having to hunt months (or years) to find a bargain.

Those markets crashed so will this.

 

[pmoniez]

I don't think the market will crash. Comparing with cards and comics is truly apples and oranges. I think there is a certain appreciation amongst the younger generation as well as ourselves for the way these games and consoles were produced in the 80's and 90's.
When I was young I had no desire for a pc engine yet today it's probably my second most played console thus I think nostalgia is only a small part of the equation. I believe retro gaming to be more akin to say classic cars, classic synthesizers, guitars etc. You can replicate a tr808 for free using software yet to buy an original will set you back around 3k if you can find one. Neo geo collecting is much the same in that you can easily emulate it but playing via emulators will have you yearning for the real deal.
Having said that there are still some shops in Akiba, Chiba and nakano that can yield a bargain. Obviously steer clear of super potato and trader and look for the little shops on second levels run by little old ladies and you will do just fine. 12 months ago I picked up some loose aes carts for 350 yen and pce cards for 50 yen. Mandarake is probably the best out of the larger chains, you just have to get past all that fucking weird doll fetish shit to get to the games.

 

[Takumaji]

Our parents and grandparents raided stores of rare baseball cards for profit. When we were growing up, it was Star Wars and comics. Now it's video games.

It's economics. People are going to hunt and raid stuff for profit in any collectible market. It sucks ass for everyone else trying to find stuff they love and either pay collector prices or having to hunt months (or years) to find a bargain.

Well, our parents and grandparents may have raided the stores for stuff as well but there was no innarwebz back then. If you wanted to buy or sell something, you had to go to a brick-and-mortar store, use a mailorder shop or visit swap meets, and chances were much higher to find something nice and affordable on flea markets, garage sales or pawn shops.

Now everyone with internet access is able to do world-wide buying and selling (or flipping) with only a few clicks of the mouse, this has changed the game dramatically.

Meanwhile, gameplay talk about older games and systems is at an all-time low. Welcome to 2015.

 

[xsq]

Meanwhile, gameplay talk about older games and systems is at an all-time low. Welcome to 2015.

A lot of gameplay talk seems to have wandered onto youtube... but it's fragmented, low quality and overrun by "look what I got"-bullshit. Videos+Comments are just the wrong media for it.

 

[oliverclaude]

I don't think the market will crash. Comparing with cards and comics is truly apples and oranges.

Absolutely, the comic/card/doll... whatever market is what? Merely alcohol level in today's pop
culture box office, while VGs are outselling Hollywood.

C'mon guys, we don't live in the 80's anymore, with its dot and line electronic entertainment.
First, there has to be a crash in the universe of tripple A titles, along with both current gen
PS4 & X-One consoles, to generate one in our retro-parasite niche. Needles to say, it's not gonna
happen.

Maybe if we all get addicted to sexual debaucheries via virtual reality someday, but as of now,
this substantial progress is... still just virtual reality. So wrap up your crash/bubble wet dreams
in a rotten newspaper, go home and do some civilized emulation to get over with it.

 

[Takumaji]

A lot of gameplay talk seems to have wandered onto youtube... but it's fragmented, low quality and overrun by "look what I got"-bullshit. Videos+Comments are just the wrong media for it.

Picking the few good vids from tons of narcisstic babble by people who want to become a YT celebrity is a chore that I don't really wanna go through to be honest. Yeah, there are the comments but most attempts of starting a good discussion there get ruined quite quickly by the usual suspects who like nothing more than making life difficult for those with more than two brain cells.

 

[oliverclaude]

Meanwhile, gameplay talk about older games and systems is at an all-time low.

Save our Lil' Italy sub forum here, but of course, exceptions prove the rule... unfortunately.
We should've learned Japanese back then, so to open us up the doors to the arcadia of
innumerable kanji-written mags, mooks & blogs. Information is power, that applies to
gameplay schmooze as well. Western literature was extremely rachitic in that area of studies
and we now suffer the consequences of this crucial omission.

 

[evil wasabi]

akihabara was magical in the late 90s. I am so glad to be older, to have moved on from this stuff.

 

[Takumaji]

Save our Lil' Italy sub forum here, but of course, exceptions prove the rule... unfortunately.
We should've learned Japanese back then, so to open us up the doors to the arcadia of
innumerable kanji-written mags, mooks & blogs. Information is power, that applies to
gameplay schmooze as well. Western literature was extremely rachitic in that area of studies
and we now suffer the consequences of this crucial omission.

I don't think you have to learn Japanese if you really wanna go to the bottom of things, it's just that on a global scale, the amount of gameplay-related talk is completely disproportional to the masses of older games that get traded everyday. One should think that a place like ng.com would be brimming with gameplay topics, given the current "retro" craze that lets prices for many Neo carts reach insanse levels and brings in a lot of new members every day but that's not the case, it's all about value, condition and rarity, at least this is how things look like to me.

 

[BioMotor_Unitron]

A guy I know over there (not in Akihabara) has been sending back pictures of amazing deals on console packages with games. I guess it's all in where you're looking.

Meanwhile, I joined and left a collector group on FB. It was largely hordes of retards buying mountains of garbage in their quest to have one of everything for their NES, Super NES, et cetera.

 

[moonwhistle]

Picking the few good vids from tons of narcisstic babble by people who want to become a YT celebrity is a chore that I don't really wanna go through to be honest. Yeah, there are the comments but most attempts of starting a good discussion there get ruined quite quickly by the usual suspects who like nothing more than making life difficult for those with more than two brain cells.

This sounds like you're talking about Classic Game Room and Angry Joe.

 

[Takumaji]

This sounds like you're talking about Classic Game Room and Angry Joe.

Those and others. Some people shouldn't really own a camera, much less have access to YouTube.

 

[oliverclaude]

I don't think you have to learn Japanese if you really wanna go to the bottom of things, ...

But we need information, information, information... and by hook or by crook, we have to get it. Before a good thread comes an equal good research and knowing the language of the source helps immensely. I experienced that with many games; their secrets would be lost, if not the translation of jpn. mags. A work, on which 90% of the gamefaqs content is based on.

Sure, you can reach the bottom of things in varied often individual ways, but then the problem of repetition appears. During the lifespan of an 25 year old console, nearly everything has already been said. Without to plug-in to another sources, like those hidden behind the iron curtain of a foreign language, new impulses will fail to materialize and we're back on discussing skyrocketing prices again.

Not to mention, that we grown man have little to no time to play those games with the intensity of an 15 year old, who could shut himself away from the world for nine months to chase down every aspect of, let's say Viewpoint. Again, Fran's an exception here.

So, what are we doing? Talking about what we on to, which is buying/selling VG stuff and discussing this scope of the hobby till death do us part.

 

[GohanX]

akihabara was magical in the late 90s. I am so glad to be older, to have moved on from this stuff.

Hookers and blow > Vidja games

 

[Dr Shroom]

A guy I know over there (not in Akihabara) has been sending back pictures of amazing deals on console packages with games. I guess it's all in where you're looking.

Akihabara is shit for videogames but maybe I'm just not the kind of person who spends over 2000 yen on a loose copy of Rockman 2.

 

[Takumaji]

During the lifespan of an 25 year old console, nearly everything has already been said. Without to plug-in to another sources, like those hidden behind the iron curtain of a foreign language, new impulses will fail to materialize and we're back on discussing skyrocketing prices again.

I really hate this "nearly everything has been said" thing, it's simply not true. Most people only scratch the surface of their games and it's not a matter of learning another language to learn something new but of actually playing the damn things and trying to hone your skills to a point where talking about it actually makes sense in a high-level sort of discussion, and I'm not talking about bullshit like who's your fave KoF chara.

Anything else is just a lame excuse, period.

 

[DragonmasterDan]

I'm wondering if this is specific just to Tokyo and if say Den-Den town is still well stocked in its retro game shops.

 

[Gamefan]

So I guess now is the worst time to get into retro hardware collecting?

 

[Dr Shroom]

I'm wondering if this is specific just to Tokyo and if say Den-Den town is still well stocked in its retro game shops.

Tokyo is fucked no matter where you go. Osaka will follow sooner or later.

 

[Liquid Snake]

So I guess now is the worst time to get into retro hardware collecting?

Maybe

I have to blame internet (auction sites) and youtube
More and more people are getting into retro gaming now.
Several friends of mine (10-15 yrs younger than I am) start asking me about those retro games (like Neo, Mega Drive, PC Engine.......)

 

[city41]

So I guess now is the worst time to get into retro hardware collecting?

Or, the best time. As in it's only going to get worse from here and never better. I have a small number of games I want to own, and I'm pushing really hard to get then as soon as I can as I'm sure their prices will just keep going up.

 

[GohanX]

So I guess now is the worst time to get into retro hardware collecting?

It depends on perspective, I suppose. It is absolutely the worst time to try to collect things, especially if you are trying to grab everything, as most new collectors are. On the other hand, there has never been a better time for people who just want to play the games, as the hardware itself isn't that expensive for the most part and a new guy can just buy a system and an everdrive, or CDRs, or whatever and dive into a vast library with minimal investment.

 

[andsuchisdeath]

I really hate this "nearly everything has been said" thing, it's simply not true. Most people only scratch the surface of their games and it's not a matter of learning another language to learn something new but of actually playing the damn things and trying to hone your skills to a point where talking about it actually makes sense in a high-level sort of discussion, and I'm not talking about bullshit like who's your fave KoF chara.

Anything else is just a lame excuse, period.

Agreed.

95% of these games are in the grubby mitts of those who could never in a lifetime fathom such a concept.

EDIT: Those who don't drive are taking all the cars.
Those who can't see are taking all of art
Those who can't hear are taking all of the music.

SAVE ME FROM THIS HELL

 

[oliverclaude]

Most people only scratch the surface of their games and it's not a matter of learning another language to learn something new but of actually playing the damn things and trying to hone your skills to a point where talking about it actually makes sense...

Well, it sure depends on the game, but... you can 1cc Viewpoint with closed eyes, hell even 1lc it, and still not know half the secrets it holds in its code. It's very unlikely that you stumble upon them and even if you do once, by pure accident, to repeat it is close to impossible. Same goes for all the hidden pows in Metal Slug 1 and the big baby head in ASOII. How can you learn about the double k.o. method in Last Resort and/or Pulstar other than from a japanese source? There may be one wunderkind, or two, that is able to discover these things all by himself, sure, but even he tends to have a full set of Arcadia mags on their shelf.

For me personally, NTM is a good example. I know this game by hard, but it withholds so much, that I just know enough to say, that I know little to nothing about it. Still, I agree with you, Tak, that to experience something new in a game is by all means possible to everyone, but that is also the reason, why it's not worth talking about it, since everyone can discover it for himself.