Another Retro Haul Post

Due to time being in short supply for the past four months or so, I haven’t been able to really get out there and hunt like I used to. I was getting withdrawals bad, so luckily, the past week or two I have had time to get out there and see what’s been on offer. Some may say that I’ve gone overboard with this latest lot, but the gap between hauls meant that I had no choice but to buy everything I saw that was worth while – regardless of whether or not I had it already. 😀

First up, the Dreamcast lot. I got this off the auctions for an absolute bargain – about 5,000yen all up after fees and shipping. In the pictures on the auction there wasn’t a great deal of detail – not all boxes were shown, and the condition explanation was iffy to say the least. I decided to bid on it anyway, and I’m glad that I did! Everything had their baggies, instructions, and inserts, plus some of the items are 100% new-old-stock – meaning unused. Got a wheel, twin sticks, console, controller, fight stick, keyboards, and of course, a console itself.

dreamcast-japan

Next comes the Game & Watch Fire (bought as junk from HardOff for next to nothing, but may not work…), SF Memory carts which I have been after for ages, a couple of 3D Systems, and a final fantasy toy. Looking forward to testing the G&W!

3d-system-game-watch-final-fantasy-toy

Definitely one of the gems of the lot is the white Gameboy original you see there in the picture bellow. I didn’t know anything about it, and I hadn’t seen one of these before, so I grabbed it (I remember that philosophy worked well when getting that Jusco N64), and to top it off, it was found in an unlikely place too. I will probably do a single post about it when I get the chance. Those Sakura Pockets are unused and sealed too – pretty happy about that as I didn’t know that when buying.

sakura-pocket-gameboy-white

white-gameboy-nintendo2

Bellow is just a few of the PS2 and Xbox disks. Pretty happy to get the KoF as I didn’t have that version before. Also a couple of Megadrive carts as well. **Click on the thumbs to expand**

playstation-two-japanese xbox-japan-and-kof-ps2

Moving on to the next few pictures bellow, we have the PC Engine Duo (yes another one), and a box of PCE goodies. Although I have everything I see here already, I couldn’t bring myself to leave it all in the stores that I found them in. I know there are always guys back home after these, so hit me up if you’re keen.

pc-engine-duo

pce-box-o-goodies

Here we have a random pile of goodness – Some NeoGeo CDs, a Saturn Bomberman controller (don’t see these often at all), and some NeoGeo Pockets. Also have some Wonderswan Color games, a MegaCD disk, and a N64 cart. Crap, that was a random pic… 😀

neogeo-pocket

Some more great NeoGeo CDs, and a few DC disks that I couldn’t let sit there. A few of these titles (NGCD) I didn’t have before either, so to find them in the wild was very nice indeed! **Again, click to enlarge**

neogeo-cd-shooters neogeo-cd-and-dc

Anyone up for 1960s slotcar action? Not really something I want to try and plug in and get power into in all honestly – early electric goods are something that should NOT be used on a tatami floor in a wooden house. I know nothing about slotcars though, so if anyone knows their slotcar sets, feel free to chime in and let me know what I have here. All I know is that it’s old…

vintage-slotcar-set

vintage-slotcar-set2

Also got myself a few spare Famciom Disksystems from one of the HardOff stores. Cosmetically they look pretty nice, but I doubt very much the rubber bands will still be intact – never know your luck though.

famicom-disk-system

And the final picture contains a bag of random Starwars figures. Unfortunately these aren’t the original 70s/80s items, but they do have all accessories and they were pretty cheap – cheap enough that I couldn’t leave them there anyway.

starwars

Well, that should tide the addiction of retro hunting over for at least a few more weeks. I’m pretty happy with this lot, and hopefully there is more around the corner – at least until the rest of the stores close down. Doing my part to keep them in business, but they are definitely drying up fast these days. 🙁

Gameboy Micro – Final Fantasy Edition

First off, I must apologise for the lack of posts here on SGUG in recent times. My life has been pretty crazy to say the least! Today’s post represents a much needed mini-break here in Japan – as in, I actually get the weekend off. Not only do I get the weekend off though, I also get Monday off (Kenkoku Kinenbi) as well! Yes! 😀

There is so much that you guys have missed out on since my last post, but today I will just be posting a short post to warm back up into the SGUG spirit. So what is it I have today? Well, something that I believe is pretty rare (without knowing the exact numbers), or at least rare as in I have never seen one in the wild before this one. This means that it was a no-brainer to pick it up.

The Gameboy Micro Final Fantasy Edition. 🙂

dscf0795

Over here in Japan there are a chain of game stores that I really like – Chameleon Clubs. The staff in these stores really care about their gear as if they’re all collectors themselves. What I mean by this is that all items never have prices stuck directly onto them, everything is cleaned and tested, and you never find items in the wrong sections. Also, whenever you buy something, they wrap it up so carefully, and they handle the gear with great care. Often this means an extremely long wait times at the counter, but it’s well worth it.

dscf0796

Although this wasn’t as cheap as it could have been (by Japanese standards that is), it was a pretty good deal from where I am sitting. I just never see them at all. I was pretty lucky though, as it had just gone up on the shelves.

dscf0813

I did come out of the store with a heap of other items as well, but this was the pick of the bunch in my opinion. With most of the stores drying up recently, it’s still great to be able to find something like this in the wild! Ahh Japan, you still have it. 😀

Something a Bit Different – Playstation 2 Linux Kit

Occasionally, you come across gear of the more unique variety while in Japan, and although this isn’t the weirdest bit of gear I have picked up in my time here, it’s definitely one of the cooler things I’ve picked up – specially as I’m an avid Linux user. The Sony Playstation 2 Linux Kit. 🙂

ps2-linux-kit-box

This particular Linux kit is unused, but the person who had it before me decided that they wanted to keep the VGA cable. This was a downer, but as the rest of it is all sealed up (and considering the bargain price I paid), I can’t complain too much. According to the web, the VGA cable isn’t exactly the greatest anyway, but it still would’ve been nice to have it included though….

So what’s in the box? A full set should include a USB keyboard and mouse, a HDD unit, a PC card network adapter that connects to the PS2’s PCMCIA, a VGA cable, and a DVD-ROM containing the dev libraries.

ps2-linux-kit-whats-in-the-box

The card that connects via the PCMCIA slot has inputs for both Ethernet and HDD connections. The 40GB HDD is one heavy little unit actually. At first I wasn’t expecting the weight of this thing!

ps2-linux-kit-hard-disk

ps2-linux-kit-hd ps2-linux-kit-hd2

Unfortunately, for us that are used to English keyboards, the keyboard is just your standard Japanese format keyboard. It does proudly have the Playstation logo on it though which is pretty cool. As this unit is sealed I can’t give you any impressions of how the keyboard feels, but through the plastic it doesn’t seem too bad. Both the keyboard and mouse are standard USB, so I assume that using your other keyboards and mice is an option – anyone chime in that may know more about that though.

ps2-linux-kit-keyboard

Although there isn’t a great deal of information online anymore (since the removal of playstation2-linux.com/), you can still find the repositories for the forum posts and content from here bellow:
http://psx-scene.com/forums/f167/links-www-playstation2-linux-com-archives-repository-89005/

Personally as this unit is still sealed, and there is the chance that it might be sold on depending on my energy levels, I am not going to be opening it up to test it out. There are just too many people out there that see it as a really interesting piece of gaming history to open it up at this time.

ps2-linux-kit-beta-software

Well, this may be the last mainstream console to actually give users the tools to really tinker – at least in a legal unhacked kind of way. I doubt very much you’ll see anything similar for the next gen Xbox or Playstations. 😉

Hard-Off Road Trip – City to City Retro hunting!

As most of us retro gamers know – mainly due to the plethora of videos on the web these days – shopping for retro gear in Japan can be amazing. Hard-Off (and of course Comp-Off, Book-Off, and House-Off) are some of the best resources for us retro hoarders – that are easily accessible that is.

As the family and I were doing a road trip, I thought why not stop in at every Hard-Off (and it’s related stores) on the way. Who wouldn’t right? 😀

*******************************************************************

Hard-Off Number 1

hard-off-number-1

A bit on the small side this haul, but a few nice items never the less. Be warned, you might see a few doubles in these piles, but when I see NeoGeo CDs I pretty much grab them all – so many people always request me to grab them for their own piles of plastic.

ho1-saturn-dreamcast-nintendo

*******************************************************************

Hard-Off Number 2

hard-off-number-2

It has to be said that Book-Offs are really hit and miss, but it’s always worth stopping in and taking a look – specially if it’s not close to a Hard-Off. Occasionally I find great stuff in them, but it (‘it’ being retro game gear) is rapidly being phased out. If you do find a good one though (as I did here) you can be very lucky.

ho2-saturn-neogeo

ho2-gameboy-light-megadrive-saturn

*******************************************************************

Hard-Off Number 3

hard-off-number-3

This one wasn’t bad at all! The prices were very reasonable for the stuff I bought. For example that JogCon controller pictured bellow was a very cheap 200yen, and the Virtual Boy adapter was 300yen.

Console sets on the other hand were crazy in terms of price, and this was a common theme the closer I got to the bigger cities. In Osaka the cheapest SuperFamicom I could find was about 2,000yen unboxed, and although that doesn’t seem overly expensive, it’s definitely not as cheap as they once were…. 🙁

ho3-saturn-virtua-cop-dreamcast

ho3-namco-controller-gamecube-dreamcast

*******************************************************************

Hard-Off Number 4

hard-off-number-4

This one was pretty good actually. There was a lot of stuff I would have bought if I had more space in the car – mainly Dreamcast special sets of the more Otaku variety. Prices weren’t too bad as well, although I did notice an increase in prices towards the bigger cities. Wrapped I manange to score myself a Wonderswan Crystal though!

ho4-wonderswan-crystal-game-watch-pce-saturn

ho4-famicom-nintendo

*******************************************************************

Hard-Off Number 5

hard-off-number-5

This was the last one I bought something from. I did actually visit one more in central Osaka, but there was nothing worth grabbing – at the prices they were asking anyway. This one however was well worth going into. I was quite surprised to see the amount of stuff they had, but even so I was expecting more from Osaka. Maybe all the gear has migrated it’s way to Nipponbashi? I didn’t get a chance to head into Nipponbashi by the way, but next time it will be on my list.

ho5-game-watch

ho5-saturn-stick-neogeo-aes

*******************************************************************

Although I did manage to grab quite a lot of gear, I have to say that I was slightly disappointed. I thought that I would be grabbing far more stuff than what I did in all honesty. It is becoming painfully clear that game related gear falling into the retro category is starting to dry up across the board. Having said that though, I did grab some nice stuff – I may just be spoiled. 😉

I am already planning another road trip in the opposite direction, which will head through smaller towns and cities. I think the best deals to be found (at least in Hard-Offs) are in the smaller cities with fewer gaming geeks. As long as real life doesn’t take too much of a hold, this trip should take place in the next few months. 😀

1 2 3 4 … 13