And now for a change of pace... let's talk about shopping for retro games in Tokyo.

In June I took a trip to Japan for the first time. I've been putting it off way too long. I took the whole family and only dedicated one day to retro game shopping. Although that didn't go as planned in both good and bad ways.

Over the years I've heard so many good things about Akihabara and specifically the Super Potato store there. I was a bit disappointed in both. The selection at Super Potato is amazing but the prices are not a bargain. Here are two examples:

Even with the completely absurd exchange rate when I went, these were $305 and $175. As of the exact same time a perfect FPGA clone system is $250.

Super Potato was a fun store to look around in, but later on I would find much better deals elsewhere.

Also in Akihabara was a store simply called Trader. They also had a huge selection that was organized well:

The prices were a tad better, but not much. This for example was equivalent to $130:

$130 maybe isn't a terrible price for a complete system, this is missing parts and a little damaged by Japanese standards. That second part is an important distinction. Every game store listed the condition of products, every store. Their definition of "damaged" is better than Gamestop's definition of "new". When Gamestop says "new" they mean "we removed the game to prevent shoplifting then let a traveling group of hobos sleep inside the empty box". While in Japan "damaged" usually means a minor imperfection you might not even notice. Every used game I bought was in excellent condition.

Also at Trader were mystery packs of broken items. These are all much heavier than they appear so I assume each have a power brick.

There is a chain all over Tokyo called BOOKOFF that is like if Half Price Books mostly sold manga, music, and video games. Throughout the trip I stopped by 5-6 of these and they were similar. They had large selections of Switch, PlayStation 4/5, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation Vita games.

Their selection of Famicom and Super Famicom games was a bit small but had much better prices than the stores in Akihabara. If you ever find yourself walking by a BOOKOFF I would 100% recommend paying a visit.

Now I mentioned having one planned day for game shopping. It turns out the June weather in Japan can get a little rough, especially if your heat tolerance is declining with age. So after >10 days of it we made an impromptu decision to have a mostly indoor day. We were staying near Nakano and decided to pay Nakano Broadway a visit. I was aware it was a shopping center connected to a covered outdoor arcade of restaurants. I was not aware that the shopping center was exactly what I expected Akihabara to be like.

The number of game stores, and their selections, are overwhelming. You could easily spend an hour browsing any of them except there are like 100 of them (slight exaggeration, or maybe not).

The vendors selling import games on ebay or at conventions are totally rip-offs compared to what I saw at Nakano Broadway (again the exchange rate was ludicrous in June 2025). Every store had their games very well maintained with labels describing the condition, sometimes in excruciating detail.

Some vendors had expensive items behind a glass case, like this one that was Neo Geo heavy:

Some pictures didn't turn out well because the games are behind glass and wrapped in plastic and even then sometimes in a protective case. They are not messing around when it comes to keeping boxes in good condition.

I didn't spend a lot of time looking at region-locked systems. Although I suppose an FPGA PlayStation with a CD drive exists or is buildable. Regardless, there was a wide selection of PlayStation games from the little bit I looked at them.

Of course I spent a lot of time looking at PC Engine games even though I don't need more. Here are some of the more expensive ones:

The S/Mega CD was scarce, both at Super Potato and Nakano Broadway. The average selection was about this large:

Nakano Broadway also had a number of stores selling vintage toys. Pictured here is the Japanese definition of "damaged" again:

If you're a giant dork that enjoys video game music, there are a couple place to check out. The Tower Records in Shibuya had a large video game music section, this is a small part of it:

In Shinjuku there is a small store called Disk Union that is completely packed with new & used game soundtracks:

I didn't grab a picture of it but they even had old soundtracks on cassette. They had a vinyl section that, like records stores in the US, was a mix of new and very old releases.

It's almost impossible to avoid gaming merchandise. Here's a Sonic the Hedgehog pop-up store for example:

34th anniversary is an odd one to celebrate but that was the theme. 34 though, time flies.

Here's a random one... there is a conveiniece store chain called Lawson, they are everywhere. There were two within a five minute walk from where we stayed. Some of them have these little print center machines. One of my kids heard they could print artwork from a anime/manga series they like at them. While trying to figure out the menu system I ran into some familiar logos:

You could print stickers or photo paper artwork from many games for about $1. Neat idea that I can't imagine would ever happen in the US.

So that's my Japan advice - skip Akihabara but visit Nakano Broadway and any BOOKOFF you see along the way. Yes, I'm going full "skip" on Akihabara because it was a very cringy experience in hindsight. There is a maid cafe approximately every 5 feet there. I have no feelings on them in general. However, many of them had "maids" trying to solicit customers outside. On average they looked to be about 14. They probably/hopefully were older but those cafes were clearly going for a vibe that I am not into.