A big thank you must go to the Liberty recycle games store and Softmap Used Games in Akihabara, Tokyo and to Hard Off recycle store in Chofu, Shimonoseki.  Without the permission of these three shops, many of the images shown in this article just wouldn't be possible thanks to the NO PHOTOGRAPHS rule of every Japanese games shop.

There's nothing more fun than having a good old root around your local retro games store.  Every time I visit one I find something new and interesting.  But, I think that first off I should explain that there are two types of retro game store in Japan.  There's the standard one that sell all mint or near mint conditioned games and hardware and then there's the other type.  The other type are classed as Junk shops in Japan.  These shops sell the same mint or near mint software and hardware but also sell unboxed, scratched, damaged and even broken items that can just be used for spare parts.  These "Junk shops" are the best type of retro gaming store in Japan.  Let's start off with the none junk type shop.

To the left you can see a selection of refurbished hardware that practically look new !!  Systems such as the PC FX, PC Engine, Game Gear, Mark III (Master System), Saturn,  Dreamcast, Famicom, N64 and so on are commonly found but don't expect them to be cheap in this type of condition.  Quite often they cost more now than what they did when the machine was released.

You'll notice that in the picture to your left you'll see a European Mega Drive 2 along with a Japanese model and a model 1 Mega Drive.  The European version cost twice the price as the Japanese one.  The strange thing is that Japanese TVs don't show a PAL signal as standard.  So I wonder if this unit is modified?  The big yellow box to the right of the Saturn keyboard is a MSX Computer by Sony.

To the right you can see a few pieces of hardware without boxes.  The Wondermega (1st version) and Neo Geo CD still fetch quite a price even unboxed.  Makes you think sometimes that the sellers on EBay aren't such rip-off artists after all.

How much would you expect to pay for these two items together?  More that what you'd pay for a new Next Gen' console?  You bet !!  This mint conditioned Mega CD is going for the same price as a new PS2 and the Mega-CD karaoke system cost even more !!

The first and now quite rare Neo Geo CD model beautifully kept here for all to spend their hard earned yen on.  Some Japanese will spend their whole months wages (salary) on retro gaming which isn't surprising  by looking at the prices of hardware.

Just take a look at the below image taken at my local Hard Off.  All of these machines are in pristine condition (some boxed and some unboxed).  Seeing such a site is now quite normal for me but at first it was shocking.  Dreamcast has shot up in price over the last year with some costing up to 9000 yen !!!  Best of all, all re-conditioned hardware comes with a 3 month guarantee.