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Here we are with the final page in our Retro Gaming In Japan feature and this is my favorite one. The JUNK Shops !!! One of the bigger chains of Junk shops is called Hard Off. In this Aladdin's cave of electronic hardware and software you can find anything from car electrical equipment, Audio & Video equipment, PCs, Videos and DVDs and of course, games !!! There is one draw back to buying Junk and that is if it's broken there's no way you'll be getting a refund. It's a purely bought as seen affair. But to be fair to the shop, they do write on an information card any details about the machine. For instance it may say that the machine will read some games but at times the laser is a bit weak so can't read other games. I bought a Dreamcast that said it's control ports were broken. A quick fuse job later and it was as good as new.
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Below you can see a small collection of hardware that has been rejected from the reconditioned hardware section to the JUNK section. These poor and lonely systems whimper as you pass them hoping that one day they'll be heading to a new home of a gamer who will cherish them forever (^v^) 90% of hardware in the Junk section is in perfect working order. The reason why it's in the Junk section is normally because the casing is discolored or there's a part or lead missing or even just the fact that it's got no home anywhere else. That's the case with the FM Towns Marty that you can see to the bottom left of the picture. |
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See how many wanted pieces of hardware you can spot here. I bet there's something that you want. How about that Boxed Super Famicom? Or the Neo Geo MVS carts? Or how about that Neo Geo CD with 7 games ??? |
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Even accessories have a home in the hardware junk section. Again like the system hardware, 90% of this stuff is in great working order. Oh, is that a mint conditioned Famicom, Famicom Jr and Famicom Disc System I see there? Oh, and are they a pair of Virtual On Twin Sticks ? |
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There are about 10 of these blue boxes just filled with accessories for every Japanese console under the sun !! This box should be the Sega controllers box but as you can see, someone has put two N64 controllers and a PlayStation controller. Hmm, Kids !! They never put stuff back where they found it. |
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To the left you can see a nice big blue box filled with Mega Drive games. Most of these games are complete with manuals. They're only in this junk box because they have no where else to go. There are 3 boxes like this. |
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I've bought loads of Saturn games from the Junk section. They warn you that the games could contain scratches. After buying well over 40 games from here I've found only 4 where scratched but only slightly and one CD was cracked. Mostly all the CDs are in perfect condition, so all you need to do is change the scratched to death case for a new one. No big deal there I'd say. |
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These PC Engine games suffer the same fate as the Saturn ones i.e. scratched to death cases with mint insides. Sadly it's not that easy to get replacement Hu-Card boxes any more. Luckily the CD-ROM games use standard CD cases. |
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These PC Engine Hu-Cards are all loose but look like they have never been used. I wonder if these are the results of people steeling boxes?? |
| These Super Famicom games are also classed as junk but why that is I have no idea. They all look pretty new to me. They are even sealed !! I've bought a few of them too and they have all been in pristine condition. The unboxed Super Famicom games go for a cheaper price of course but still, why are these boxed ones classed as junk? | |
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| I hope that you've enjoyed this little article about retro gaming in Japan. Feel free to drop me a mail with any comments you may have. Oh, I'd just thought I'd let you know this whole article was put together in 2 hours. This explains it's basic design (^v^) | |