One of the first things you see when
you enter Manga Souko's games section is the massive selection of retro
hardware and accessories. They have everything here from Sega
SG1000 systems all the way up to Dreamcast R7 limited edition systems.
Prices can be a bit steep on the hardware unfortunately but they are
normally in excellent condition. In the picture to the right you can see such
classic hardware as the Neo Geo, Neo CD, Mega Drive, PC-FX, MSX, 3DO and
much more.
Most of the bigger accessories to all systems are
placed here on the accessories wall. The day I took these pictures
was actually a pretty lacking day in the accessories section.
Normally there's twice as much as this. If you look carefully to
the left you can see a few N64 units and to the bottom right corner a
Saturn Arcade stick which is actually the best stick for the Saturn
since it's based on the Sega made Astro City arcade cabinets. You
can also see a set of those crappy PlayStation twin sticks that only
work on one game as far as I know.
Super Famicom accessories galore here from
control pads, multitaps and AV cables to re-writable RAM cartridges
and Super Gameboys
Ever needed an extra Famicom pad? no
problem finding one here. Standard pads plus some nice Hori
pads with loads of special features.
In a place like Manga Souko you'd expect only to
find common items. In fact that's farther from the true than
imaginable. At Manga Souko you can find allsorts of limited
edition consoles
The MSX was quite popular
in Japan as well as having some success in Europe.
Here we can see a Sony MSX below and a very nice Panasonic
MSX to the right with a floppy Disc Drive.
as well as some very rare games.
The picture to the left shows you some not so common Sega Saturn and
Dreamcast hardware. The top Saturn is a Victor (JVC) V-Saturn
while the one below that is a Hitachi Hi-Saturn. Next to that
you can see the Dreamcast R7 console with a Dream Karaoke under it.
Ever fancied owning a Famicom or maybe even a Sharp
Famicom Twin? No problem ! Here you can even choose between
which version of the Famicom Twin you'd like, red or black. One of
these is actually quite rare but which one I can't remember. I
recall hearing that the red unit is the uncommon one though.
Strange thing is that both the black and red units are the same price at
Manga Shouko.
In the west the only way to get items from company
campaigns is via Ebay or if you are lucky enough through Yahoo auctions
Japan but not if you live in Japan near a Manga Shouko. On the top
shelf of this GameBoy glass case you can see both Mario and Luigi Game
Cube controllers as well as the Famicom edition of the GameBoy SP.
There's even some Pokemon Center Pokemon GameBoys as well as other
special editions such as the Gold Zelda model. Needless to say
that some of these GameBoys are quite expensive but still, it's very
impressive to see them all together in one place for sale.
I always find this scene so funny. To the left
there is probably the most failed console ever in Japan apart from the
3DO (or did that do better?) the XBOX. To be fair though, there
are quite a few nice packs there. And to the right we have the
Super Famicom, one of Japans most successful consoles not only in it's
home territory but also in the States (Mega Drive was more popular in
Europe)
Well, we've taken a look at some of the hardware on
offer at Manga Souko so now let's take a look at the
software.
