For those who grew up with imported PCE in Europe

[PukeSter]

What was the scene like back then? Was pce mildly popular? Which games did you guys own, or your friends? Any stories to tell?

I remember hearing once that Cyber Core was infamous as a bundled game, so things like that pique my curiosity.

[Otaking]

What was the scene like back then? Was pce mildly popular? Which games did you guys own, or your friends? Any stories to tell?

This is my favourite subject of all. I'll post later when I'm on my desktop PC.

[Digi.k]

Scene was good.

It was the pc engine that opened up grey importing market which was soon followed by Sega Megadrive and Super Famicom.

I actually remember seeing the japanese famicom disk drive and games being sold in chinatown but unfortunately I had little information about them.

The master system was basically the most popular game console system in the UK at that time and it was marketed by Virgin.  Nintendo had also been around for a while but their popularity didn't get off until they bundled their NES with Turtles.



I think one of the early companies to begin importing was iirc pc engine supplies which ran a mail order business.  I don't think there was any walk in shop.

There was also CEX, Raven Games, Advance Console Entertainment, Shekhana, console concepts,  Consoles came with either RGB'd or PAL modded and a UK power supply.

I think the pc engine did well but it was losing steam to the megadrive.  The monitors back then were great especially the small white phillips monitor which had an RGB euro scart input.  At that time there was no RGB amps so although the image on the pc engine was very sharp they were quite dark.

I ended up buying a PAL modified pc engine because I had no idea at that time about NTSC etc..

It was also a time where Japanese animation was exploding into the UK with the help from a movie called AKIRA and soon we had Manga Entertainment bringing out lots of the adult stuff all dubbed into english with that american Ninja turtles accents.

[esteban]

There was some fanzine action:

The Complete PCE Guidebook
https://archives.tg-16.com/magazine_database.htm?col=main&val=complete

[shubibiman]

In France, the PCE was first imported by a shop in Paris called Shoot Again. It was in 1988. The owner was at the time already into import games. Unfortunately I didn't live in Paris back then and I only owned an Amstrad CPC 464 and was too young to even think of such systems as the Atari ST, the Amiga and, of course, the PCE.

I once met a guy who lived in Paris back then and knew Shoot Again. He told me that on the first day the PCE was sold there, there was a line of customers queuing up to buy the PCE.

The owner of the shop imported PCE systems and games via a company based in Hong Kong and at first, there was the RFU issue. One of his customers was an electronician and he offered to modding the systems.

Then came sodipeng, which is a subsidiary company of Guillemot (ie Ubisoft). They imported the PCE via the same Hong-Kong company but at a larger scale.

From this moment on, the PCE was distributed in Supermarkets, Hifi stores (such as la FNAC for those who know this French Chain) and even, later, in catalogues.

French magazines had a rather exhaustive coverage of PCE games. The PCE was first mentionned in MSX News (which later became Micro News) in 1988.

From 1990 to 1993, the most popular game magazines reviewed PCE games (Joystick, Joypad, Generation 4, Tilt, Consoles + and Player One). You could even see reviews of PCE games on French gaming TV programs from 1990 to 1992.

When Sodipeng stopped its activity in 1993/1994, it was then more difficult to find PCE games as only import shops would get new releases.

Still, it was not that easy to get PCE games when you were in the countryside but most of those who'd read magazines back then knew about the PCE. In my small town, there were only 3 persons I know of who owned a PCE (including me).

Some journalists and reviewers who workd for gaming magazines were PCE crazy (JM Destroy, who also worked as a salesman at Shoot Again, Greg) and that helped a lot in turning the PCE into a "cult" system.

As for the comunity itself, as I said I was not living in Paris back then but most of the guies I met in Paris and were into the PCE community tell me that they would meet in front of Shoot Again to exchange PCE games.

There also has been 2 (or 3, can't remember well) PCE dedicated fanzines : Eden, made by Kaminari and friends, and PC Engine Power Fan, made by a guy who lived in Lyon.

[geise]

That's awesome info Shubi!  I like hearing stories like these.

[esteban]

That's awesome info Shubi!  I like hearing stories like these.

Le Ditto.

[Otaking]

When it comes to video games, as said above this my favorite subject.

That's why I love old fanzines, it's like a window portal back into that time. The one Esteban linked to above is a perfect example.

Through the 16 bit era the PC Engine and the grey import scene was massive in the UK, but for some reason I don't know, there seems to be a lack of any community that wants to reminisce about those days. I'm jealous of Shubibiman who has the French Necstasy forum. I would love a UK equivalent.

Here's a couple of threads about the UK scene. It has links to other threads which had loads of magazine & fanzine scans which unfortunately mostly appear to have now gone from where they were hosted.

"CVG pics and Scans - Collecting PC-Engine in the early 90s in the UK part 2"
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19762

"Collecting PC-Engine in the early 90s in the UK"
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=6644

[Digi.k]

"CVG pics and Scans - Collecting PC-Engine in the early 90s in the UK part 2"
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19762

"Collecting PC-Engine in the early 90s in the UK"
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=6644

Wow those old threads.  Apart from the early reports on the pc engine any news died down about a year later in those UK computer video game mags.  I actually did called up C&VG and asked them why they didn't do many pc engine reviews and one of the guys that worked there said that no one there had a pc engine console and that all their reviews were done when someone could loan them the console and games.  That's why I was so greatful for finding japanese shops importing computer mags.  There was a fairly large japanese store that used to be be 2 mins away from St Pauls Cathederal and soon after we had Japan centre that had a main store near picadilly circus and then a 2nd one somewhere new Soho. which imported month issues of pc gekkan and pc engine fan plus famitsu.... and they were also selling brand new and second hand pc engine games.  Ah man those days were amazing.

Also there used to be a outdoor store in Covent Garden where a guy with a goatee and pony tail was selling imported pc engine, megadrive and superfamicom games.

I can remember one of his friends was saying how crap the pc engine was and all the japanese megadrive mags that had ads or screenshots of phelios destroyed anything on the pc engine at that time..

[Otaking]

That's why I was so greatful for finding japanese shops importing computer mags.  There was a fairly large japanese store that used to be be 2 mins away from St Pauls Cathederal

Yeah that was Books Nippon, I used to go there all the time to get Japanese magazines, mainly for PC Engine and later Super Famicom. Oh and Newtype for Anime.

I also bought books from there to learn Japanese. A still have the Kanji dictionary I bought from there.

and soon after we had Japan centre that had a main store near picadilly circus and then a 2nd one somewhere new Soho. which imported month issues of pc gekkan and pc engine fan plus famitsu.... and they were also selling brand new and second hand pc engine games.

Maybe you can clear something up for me once and for all that I've always wondered.
I always used to go up to Japan Centre (Picadilly Circus) but I never found where the games were. It was quite big, had multiple floors and none of the staff spoke a word of English. I was the only gaijin I ever saw in there, so I don't think they were used to non Japanese customers. Anyways at the time a friend every now and then would show me import games he said he had bought from there, and as said I could never find them. Is it because it was this second store in Soho you mentioned? I don't know anything about that one.

[Digi.k]

That's why I was so greatful for finding japanese shops importing computer mags.  There was a fairly large japanese store that used to be be 2 mins away from St Pauls Cathederal

Yeah that was Books Nippon, I used to go there all the time to get Japanese magazines, mainly for PC Engine and later Super Famicom. Oh and Newtype for Anime.

I also bought books from there to learn Japanese. A still have the Kanji dictionary I bought from there.

and soon after we had Japan centre that had a main store near picadilly circus and then a 2nd one somewhere new Soho. which imported month issues of pc gekkan and pc engine fan plus famitsu.... and they were also selling brand new and second hand pc engine games.

Maybe you can clear something up for me once and for all that I've always wondered.
I always used to go up to Japan Centre (Picadilly Circus) but I never found where the games were. It was quite big, had multiple floors and none of the staff spoke a word of English. I was the only gaijin I ever saw in there, so I don't think they were used to non Japanese customers. Anyways at the time a friend every now and then would show me import games he said he had bought from there, and as said I could never find them. Is it because it was this second store in Soho you mentioned? I don't know anything about that one.

The Main one in piccadilly circus there was an area that I think sold japanese music CDs.  They had some pc engine games that fitted right in those CD racks but there wasn't much I saw new copies of Legend of Hero Tomna there but again small selection  of games.


EDIT:

the second store was like 10 mins away from the soho sex shops,  much smaller but there were 2 gaijin working in there so it was much more english friendly.  After a few months of opening they had about 50+ pc engine games 2nd hand for sale there.  They began to stock imported Super Famicom too and I remember one day I went in there those gaijin were arguing because they had put out on display a super famicom console and when their backs were turned someone had taken the console and it was missing.  I think the super famicom was selling for like £400 which was  almost around 600 USD at that time.

[esteban]

<I continue to enjoy this thread>

[Otaking]

That's why I was so greatful for finding japanese shops importing computer mags.  There was a fairly large japanese store that used to be be 2 mins away from St Pauls Cathederal

Yeah that was Books Nippon, I used to go there all the time to get Japanese magazines, mainly for PC Engine and later Super Famicom. Oh and Newtype for Anime.

I also bought books from there to learn Japanese. A still have the Kanji dictionary I bought from there.

and soon after we had Japan centre that had a main store near picadilly circus and then a 2nd one somewhere new Soho. which imported month issues of pc gekkan and pc engine fan plus famitsu.... and they were also selling brand new and second hand pc engine games.

Maybe you can clear something up for me once and for all that I've always wondered.
I always used to go up to Japan Centre (Picadilly Circus) but I never found where the games were. It was quite big, had multiple floors and none of the staff spoke a word of English. I was the only gaijin I ever saw in there, so I don't think they were used to non Japanese customers. Anyways at the time a friend every now and then would show me import games he said he had bought from there, and as said I could never find them. Is it because it was this second store in Soho you mentioned? I don't know anything about that one.

The Main one in piccadilly circus there was an area that I think sold japanese music CDs.  They had some pc engine games that fitted right in those CD racks but there wasn't much I saw new copies of Legend of Hero Tomna there but again small selection  of games.


EDIT:

the second store was like 10 mins away from the soho sex shops,  much smaller but there were 2 gaijin working in there so it was much more english friendly.  After a few months of opening they had about 50+ pc engine games 2nd hand for sale there.  They began to stock imported Super Famicom too and I remember one day I went in there those gaijin were arguing because they had put out on display a super famicom console and when their backs were turned someone had taken the console and it was missing.  I think the super famicom was selling for like £400 which was  almost around 600 USD at that time.

Aha! that clears it up. I was going to Piccadilly and my mate was going to this Soho one I didn't know about. I remember it started when he had these brand new copies of PC Engine Gradius and Salamander and he said he'd bought them from Japan Centre, I can't recall the price but I remember it was cheap for the time. Then a little bit later he had these brand new Super Famicom games and again he said he'd bought them from there.


Did you ever go to Yaohan Plaza? I heard that was a great place, I never went as it was on the opposite side of London from where I lived.
I went once years later when it became Oriental City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_City
and went to the Sega arcade there.

[Digi.k]

Did you ever go to Yaohan Plaza? I heard that was a great place, I never went as it was on the opposite side of London from where I lived.
I went once years later when it became Oriental City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_City
and went to the Sega arcade there.

Yea I went there it was mini japanese shopping center at Edgware north of london.  Had to take the northern line I think and the ride took ages.  But there they had indoor oriental food court, you could buy freshly made sushi and then they had SEGA world arcade area and then smaller shops selling videogames and of course japanese book shop selling japanese mags.  But I didn't find out about that store until I was well into Sega Saturn and Dreamcast.

There was also a few independent video game stores around peckham, lewisham area selling imported video games too but I can't remember any of the names.  I do remember Raven games in Beckenham junction area even before they had the store the guy Tony was running a small store in one of the rented office spaces.

that used to be my weekend.  I would travel to Victoria train station and get the rail to beckenham junction to visit Raven Games.  Come back to Victoria Station and then get the underground or bus to Tottenham Court Road area to visit the CEX stores and then Japan Centers to pick up the mags.

[Digi.k]

sigh*  trying to finish off this Sorcerian guide and starting Fallout 4 plus I am trying to find old video game mags to see if I can find anything on pce life here....

EDIT some pretty big scans.  I think some of these companies have sold pc engine stuff

[Otaking]

Yea I went there it was mini japanese shopping center at Edgware north of london.  Had to take the northern line I think and the ride took ages. 

Yeah I always find it's hard to get across to people how big a city (Greater) London was/is, it's just stupidly massive. For me to have gone to Yoahan Plaza I would literally have been sat on the tube for hours.

There was also a few independent video game stores around peckham, lewisham area selling imported video games too but I can't remember any of the names.  I do remember Raven games in Beckenham junction area even before they had the store the guy Tony was running a small store in one of the rented office spaces.

I think all the different areas of London had little game stores with imports back then, loads of video rental stores I remember had them as well, I used to rent them a lot.

I never quite clicked with Raven Games, something about the staff, those two blokes that worked there. The women who worked there was alright though.

There was tons of different shops I went to, mainly in central London, but one of my favorites was Machine Shack out in Streatham, did you ever go there? they always had all the latest stuff imported, they even had the latest US imports as well, all the Turbo Grafx/Turbo Duo stuff, I remember buying the US versions of Dungeon Explorer II, Exile I & II, Dragon Slayer, Dynastic Hero, Lords of Thunder etc.. all brand new when they were released.

that used to be my weekend.  I would travel to Victoria train station and get the rail to beckenham junction to visit Raven Games.  Come back to Victoria Station and then get the underground or bus to Tottenham Court Road area to visit the CEX stores and then Japan Centers to pick up the mags.

Yeah same here I did a similar kind of a circuit every weekend. I also went to Forbidden Planet and got  the translated Manga comics from the likes of Dark Horse and Viz. And magazines like Anime UK and Animerica.

[Digi.k]

Machine Shack sounds very familiar....


HMV store next to Tottenham Court Road started selling imported pc engine stuff around 1988 for a short while.

[shubibiman]

that used to be my weekend.  I would travel to Victoria train station and get the rail to beckenham junction to visit Raven Games.  Come back to Victoria Station and then get the underground or bus to Tottenham Court Road area to visit the CEX stores and then Japan Centers to pick up the mags.

Aaah ! CEX ! I have fond memories of this shop ! Back in 1998, I spent 2 months in London for a summer job in order to improve my english. I stumbled on that shop by chance and spent most of my spare time after work there. That's were I bought my first copies of Legend of Xanadu, Granzort and Gulliver Boy.

The guy was really cool, he loved the PC Engine and enjoyed to show me games that I had only heard of but had never seen. I could stay for hours talking with him. I even once stayed until the end of day and he offered me a beer.

The last time I went to London (in 2003), the shop had moved a few meters away and the retro section was downstairs. Does the shop still exist ?

Oh, and by the way : in 2001, there were 3 french PCE forums, that eventually all merged into Necstasy.

[brizio]

Living in Italy the scene was smaller than France and UK but still incredible.
PCE hardware coming from Japan reached us, thanks to a few great import stores (I can recall ComputerLand as being one of the first and Console Generation as being my favorite one later on). Popularity of the system was highly increased thanks to all game reviews appearing on the biggest Italian videogame magazines of the time: I assume the first few import stores pushed some units to these magazines to help them create a market for them.
Prices at the beginning were terribly high but with more stores importing hardware and more people buying them, they became at least reasonable (and by saying them I mean not cheap) if compared to officially imported products from Nintendo and Sega.
The scene and the market really exploded only when the RGB/Scart modification became the standard for all systems sold locally. A few stores were able to provide really nice mods that gave more people the opportunity to use their PCEngines with standard PAL TV sets: previously only people with multi-standard TV sets or monitors were able to buy and enjoy the system.
By the time there were several stores selling hardware and software all over Italy: even if the number of stores was never that high, they were covering most part of Italy and a few stores covered the rest with some very good mail order operations.
A couple of years after the US release of the TG16 Italy got also systems from the USA. Distribution of US hardware and games was a niche market inside the PCE niche market but was helpful to enable more people to access great games with less language barrier concerns.
The grey PAL Turbografx system (the one the NEC decided not to officially market) never reached Italy: not sure why but there was no interest by anyone importing it. Most units were distributed in Spain and Germany and I got mine from there.
Besides all the hours I spent playing games, what I vividly remember were the small meetings of PCE users I joined for a few years: at least in my area was not easy to find other users so a few of us were meeting at least one Sunday per month to play games, chat about the console and plan group orders directly from Hong Kong (a good way to save money).
During those meetings I saw a huge number of PCEngine games, all different type of hardware and a huge amount of goodies. And also some incredible stuff that the luckiest guys were able to get from Japan: the FM-Towns Marty and his great games is a good example.
One of us knew a Japanese girl living nearby (she married an Italian guy and moved over here): from time to time she was joining us during the meetings in order to translate articles from Japanese PCEngine magazines or helping us with RPG games. Thanks to her I was able to complete the last puzzle in Dragon Knight II and complete the game!
To thank her we were usually asking our Hong Kong contact to send us Japanese magazines and books (not videogame related) for her.
The last great year for the local PCEngine scene was 1995 thanks to the arrival of the ArcadeCard and the first games using it. By 1996 the system was not sold nor supported anymore by most of the stores and the market was flooded by a huge amount of discounted items and used stuff. Only a couple of stores continued to import systems and games even if most of their PCEngine support was limited to used stuff and new stuff was ordered only under specific requests.
By the end of 1996 we also stopped having our meetings: most of the guys were moving to Sega Saturn or Sony Playstation consoles and our meetings began to be boring for all of us: we had a common passion for the PCEngine before but not anymore at the time.
Anyway I still remember getting an email from one of them that was alerting me when he saw Dead of the brain in local store in 1999...
I am not in touch with those guys anymore but I will forever consider them friends.
And by the way, I still have my old PCEngine hardware and games and I never stopped buying games (for example all new homebrew releases) and by still playing the games!

[Otaking]

that used to be my weekend.  I would travel to Victoria train station and get the rail to beckenham junction to visit Raven Games.  Come back to Victoria Station and then get the underground or bus to Tottenham Court Road area to visit the CEX stores and then Japan Centers to pick up the mags.

Aaah ! CEX ! I have fond memories of this shop ! Back in 1998, I spent 2 months in London for a summer job in order to improve my english. I stumbled on that shop by chance and spent most of my spare time after work there. That's were I bought my first copies of Legend of Xanadu, Granzort and Gulliver Boy.

The guy was really cool, he loved the PC Engine and enjoyed to show me games that I had only heard of but had never seen. I could stay for hours talking with him. I even once stayed until the end of day and he offered me a beer.

The last time I went to London (in 2003), the shop had moved a few meters away and the retro section was downstairs. Does the shop still exist ?

CEX is now a massive chain with stores in most towns across the UK.

I went there all the time from when they first started around 92, their first store was called the Tottenham Court Road Computer Exchange. They then began to expand and opened up more shops around that area.
For a couple of years around (95-97) they stopped selling PC Engine games and some other systems, but they were buying them in. I asked what that was about and they said they're buying in and building up stock to curate a museum. Then at the end of the 90s they unveiled their museum which was basically a large retro shop (which was on Whitfield st.). Amongst loads of other games they had a wall of 1000s of PC Engine games which they had amassed over the previous years, it was very impressive. In the retro shop you couldn't actually pick anything up though, all the games and systems where on shelves behind walls of glass, you had to ask a member of staff if you wanted to look at or buy anything. At this time I applied for a job there and went for an (informal) interview and spoke to someone there and at first it looked like I had got the job, they asked me loads of random questions about PCE, SFC, MD, Neo etc.. and I got the all answers right, they basically said I had the job. They then took me to meet the guy in charge of the museum/retro shop (I think his name was Ash) and he said actually they didn't want someone else who was only an expert on retro imports but someone who knew about native retro computer games as they wanted to expand into that area, like Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST etc..

I think when you went there in 2003 it was a much smaller selection of games than before and had been moved to one of their different store locations (Rathbone Place).


I was just looking for images and found this about the history of the store:
https://uk.webuy.com/about/history.php

Machine Shack sounds very familiar....

One of the things I liked best about it is they had all the game systems set up so you could try out games before you bought them, I didn't know of any other stores that did this.

HMV store next to Tottenham Court Road started selling imported pc engine stuff around 1988 for a short while.

cool, I never saw this. I recall them being on sale in Virgin Megastore Oxford St.
Pretty sure they sold ones the same as the one in this thread.
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=20360

pictures https://imgur.com/a/UF5YO

[shubibiman]

CEX is now a massive chain with stores in most towns across the UK.

Wow !

Then at the end of the 90s they unveiled their museum which was basically a large retro shop (which was on Whitfield st.)

.

That's the shop I was talking about ! 

Amongst loads of other games they had a wall of 1000s of PC Engine games which they had amassed over the previous years, it was very impressive. In the retro shop you couldn't actually pick anything up though, all the games and systems where on shelves behind walls of glass, you had to ask a member of staff if you wanted to look at or buy anything.

Yeah, I remember that clearly. It was the first time I saw so many PCE games at the same time. We had lots of shops selling PCE games in Paris, but none of them would equal CEX as for the number and the condition of games.

You could always ask to try a game before purchasing it. When I saw Gulliver Boy, I asked the guy if I could try it as I was curious of how the HuVideos would look like. We then went on talking about intros and he told me one of his favourites was the intro of Legend of Xanadu's. I ended up buying both games !

(I think his name was Ash)

OMG ! He's the guy I was refering to ! He's the one who ran the shop back then and offered me a beer (Carlsberg I remember). I couldn't remember his name until now !

I think when you went there in 2003 it was a much smaller selection of games than before and had been moved to one of their different store locations (Rathbone Place).

That's the shop with the downstairs retro section. Rathbone Place was not far from Whitfield Street.

I was just looking for images and found this about the history of the store:
https://uk.webuy.com/about/history.php

Thanks for the link 

One of the things I liked best about it is they had all the game systems set up so you could try out games before you bought them, I didn't know of any other stores that did this.

That was great.

Ash was a big Strider fan. He told me he even owned the PCB back then. I was stunned as back then, there were only few guies who collected PCBs.

This thread is definitely epic !

[Digi.k]

This was the basement to that shop.  Unfortunately all the retro stuff is no more and instead a den for selling blu rays and DVDs exist.  Plus an old CEX advert.

Scan taken from EDGE RETRO mag



I just remembered there was another shop I think they were a chain based and called the same name in Notting Hill Exchange.  They also ran a small videogame shop selling and trading retro games too.  But I hated the way they stuck the prices on the packaging with that really tough to remove glue that would just rip off the packaging if it was cardboard.

[gojira1954]

I worked in the CEX basement for a bit in 2000, Ash had left by then and started up his own shop near Shepards Bush...
CEX got into legal trouble for imported goods starting with R1 DVDs in 1999 then all import games got stopped a couple of years after - the death knell for the retro dungeon :/
I used to do a similar geek tour around London - forbidden planet on oxford st, virgin megastore, console concepts on carnaby street, record exchanges in notting hill ;)
CEX, the notting hill exchanges and the X electrical second hand chains were all owned by different people but they knew each other from working in a second hand shop together some years before then set up their own chains

[esteban]

UPDATE: Still a great read.

In 1996/1997, I was in London and went to some touristy outdoor (flea?) market. I found bins of old Dr. Who magazines and bootleg Backstreet Boys CDs, but I didn't find any Famicom/Sega/PCE stuff

It might have been Camden, but my memory is hazy.

I did enjoy looking at some old British sci-fi  magazines, though. Musty and damp, but fun to read. I didn't even know what I was looking at. It was a different world.

[gojira1954]

Camden market used to be good back then, especially the indoor section. Few other interesting shops close by too - psychotronic video, dragon discs...
Finding PC Engine stuff in a shop was always difficult... I clearly remember handing over 60 notes for coryoon at the Whitfield St CEX when it was retro stuff only, they had a large & nice selection back then

[Otaking]

I just remembered there was another shop I think they were a chain based and called the same name in Notting Hill Exchange.

Yeah Notting Hill Computer Exchange was the first place I saw PC engine games for sale, at the end of the 80s and was probably my most visited games shop of all of them through the era. I'm not sure what their overall company name was. They had loads of separate stores in that Notting Hill Gate area all selling different second hand stuff. Like a shop for VHS tapes, a shop for books and comics, a shop for clothes etc... actually I'll google image search









They would always move and swap the different stores around to all their different Notting Hill premises. So the Notting Hill Computer Exchange swapped premises loads of times through that period.

But I hated the way they stuck the prices on the packaging with that really tough to remove glue that would just rip off the packaging if it was cardboard.

Although I love video games TBH an even bigger passion of mine was music and buying vinyl records and the Exchange's unremovable price stickers were legendary for damaging record sleeves. I spent many, many years travelling all around london trawling through records, I loved it.

[ccovell]

I also went to the Tottenham CEX shop (since I saw their crazy ads in Super Play magazine from way back) when I went on holiday to England in Dec. 2000.  The "Dungeon" was cool, but too much stuff was locked in a cage, and the prices were a little too high for a lot of retro stuff (PCE, namely.)

I did, however, buy several JP Megadrive and UK Master System games which were selling at decent prices.

[Otaking]

the notting hill exchanges and the X electrical second hand chains were all owned by different people but they knew each other from working in a second hand shop together some years before then set up their own chains

I used to go to the Hammersmith X Electrical sometimes, I distinctly remember picking up 1941 on the Super Grafx from there.

It might have been Camden, but my memory is hazy.

Camden market used to be good back then, especially the indoor section.

Camden is a very special place, I'm not aware of anywhere else like it in the UK. On Saturday nights I used to DJ in a bar there through out my twenties (2001-2007). The whole area was like a constant Festival or something, every weekend thousands and thousands of young people flooded the area, 90% in their late teens and twenties.

[wildfruit]

Scene was good.

I remember opening that on either my birthday or Christmas and nearly wetting myself.
The PCE scene passed me by totally. I would buy magazines every week but never noticed it.

[Otaking]

I also went to the Tottenham CEX shop (since I saw their crazy ads in Super Play magazine from way back) when I went on holiday to England in Dec. 2000.  The "Dungeon" was cool, but too much stuff was locked in a cage, and the prices were a little too high for a lot of retro stuff (PCE, namely.)

When you say "Dungeon" it reminds me, the place smelt really bad, like unwashed nerd B.O.
I remember my girlfriends would wait outside they would never go in there with me as they said it smelt "gross".

[Ergot_Cholera]

I remeber the ads featuring the Toby cartoon strip in the back of CVG and gamesmaster magazines when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember seeing PC Engines advertised and wondering what they were exactly (I only had a Master System at the time). The prices were way out of my league coming from a working class family from the north of England.
I wish the CEX stores that you see today were anything like the store that you describe here, but they don't sell any import games at all now.

[kosko99]

Here is Spain it was almost non existent.... I don't remember seeing any, even on import games shops which had the Atari Jaguar.
Only 1-2 magazzines did talk about it from time to time for games like Dragon Ball, Street Fighter 2, Castelvania, PC Kid and Jackie Chan.

Even now with all this retro boom I only found 2-3 PCE users, and when there is any retro event with shops selling imports... PCE presence is close to zero.

[Digi.k]

Here is Spain it was almost non existent.... I don't remember seeing any, even on import games shops which had the Atari Jaguar.
Only 1-2 magazzines did talk about it from time to time for games like Dragon Ball, Street Fighter 2, Castelvania, PC Kid and Jackie Chan.

Even now with all this retro boom I only found 2-3 PCE users, and when there is any retro event with shops selling imports... PCE presence is close to zero.

Apart from the UK magazines doing their small but occasional pc engine reviews.  Fortunately I was able to pick up US mags in the newsagents particularly around Whitechapel and Bethnal Green which sold imported EGM and I think the other mag was Games Radar  or was it Gamers Republic ?  I think I started collecting them around the time Ys Book I & II and Ninja Spirit received perfect scores.

I also remember doing trades with a few fellows around London which I think were from personal ads in the LOOT newspaper. 

[Otaking]

I was obsessed with LOOT newspaper through that period, I used to buy and sell stuff through it constantly, mainly PC Engine and Neo Geo stuff. Met loads of cool people through doing that, was introduced to a kind of network of hardcore gamers throughout the UK at the time.
Also through the buy and sell sections of magazines such as Super Play.

[gojira1954]

I remeber the ads featuring the Toby cartoon strip in the back of CVG and gamesmaster magazines when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember seeing PC Engines advertised and wondering what they were exactly (I only had a Master System at the time). The prices were way out of my league coming from a working class family from the north of England.
I wish the CEX stores that you see today were anything like the store that you describe here, but they don't sell any import games at all now.

The toby cartoons were drawn by Charlie Brooker, love his TV shows!
He did a comic, think it was only one issue though ;)

/2ln7hup.jpg

[Alienjesus]

Reading about all these independent shops you used to be able buy games at in London is super interesting. I didn't grow up around these parts, but I live in London now, and it's really sad how all the old haunts and arcades have basically all shut up shop.

[Otaking]

Reading about all these independent shops you used to be able buy games at in London is super interesting. I didn't grow up around these parts, but I live in London now, and it's really sad how all the old haunts and arcades have basically all shut up shop.

Admittedly in London back then there was tons, but also most big towns and cities across the UK had at least one games shop that carried imports. What part of the UK were you in back then?

[Alienjesus]

I lived in a small town in Northamptonshire called Corby. Our options for buying games were Woolworths or Dixons

[Digi.k]

I lived in a small town in Northamptonshire called Corby. Our options for buying games were Woolworths or Dixons

You would have been able to do mail order back then provided you were able to get hold of video game mags back then.


In those days it was a quick call up to a shop and then  pop a cheque or postal order in the post and you would have received the item in a week or two.  Videogame imports and console passion are still going today as they were in those days although may have been trading in different guises back then.

Other great thing about london was the comic shops and arcades.  There were great arcade places around central london.  My faves at that time were the one at tottenham court road next to the KFC and even a CEX opened quite near to it.  There as also LAS VEGAS in soho plust a few more I can't quite remember the names, where I got to play arcade versions of Dragon Saber, Parodius Da! Detana Twin Bee which was Bells & Whistles here in UK..
There was also an arcade just at the corner to the start of China Town I think it's Gerrard Street where after I'd have dim sum on Sunday would go there and have a few rounds of Gradius, R-Type and Ghouls n' Ghosts, Bubble Bobble and Mr Do!
But my fave was the Trocadero where they opened a massive arcade area back then..  Plus I think it turned into SEGA World or something like that.. plus somewhere just off Picadilly Circus and heading towards the Strand/China Town one the old cinemas that used to show XXX movies was later converted into Namco World..loved it!  But I think this was getting towards the 32bit era..


Advance Console Entertainment were amazing too.  I think they were two main middle eastern guys who were at first selling pc engine and megadrive imported games and consoles and provided RGB Modifications.  They originally rented out a room in one of those posh and expensive Georgian houses just near Regents Park and I think the closest subway train to them was Great Portland Street.
 They later on opened their own shop in Carnaby Street and they continued with RGB mods and repairs for all consoles, PC engine, Genesis and Super Famicom.  they somehow faded and shut shop during the 32bit era.   They were great and I miss those guys.

[dave_van_damn]

This was the basement to that shop.  Unfortunately all the retro stuff is no more and instead a den for selling blu rays and DVDs exist.  Plus an old CEX advert.

Scan taken from EDGE RETRO mag



I just remembered there was another shop I think they were a chain based and called the same name in Notting Hill Exchange.  They also ran a small videogame shop selling and trading retro games too.  But I hated the way they stuck the prices on the packaging with that really tough to remove glue that would just rip off the packaging if it was cardboard.

Yes! I remember this place. I had heard about CEX in magazines, but we had nothing similar (to my knowledge) in Newcastle. I was about 12 when I visited that basement and I thought I'd died and went to heaven. I remember seeing a NEO-GEO MVS home converted system and feeling like I was in a museum. I didn't have a lot of cash but I saw a copy of Lethal Enforcers for the Mega CD complete with gun for 11 quid. I was just about ready to buy it but I decided not to at the last minute for some reason. The guy in the shop probably thought I was a right spaz.

Great thread

[Otaking]

I lived in a small town in Northamptonshire called Corby. Our options for buying games were Woolworths or Dixons

Would Northampton have been your biggest local town?

Around 1991/92 time I went to visit my cousin who lived in a village just outside Northampton. We took the bus into Northampton town and he took me to a game shop that I'm pretty sure had imports, memory of it is very foggy. Also remember going to Games Workshop and a model shop and looking at the Tamiya RC cars, they were big back then.

[Digi.k]

ah did anyone go to those Computer Entertainment Shows that were held at Olympia in Kensington/Earls Court?
The times I went it was mostly for Commodore 64 stuff and then later on Amiga software but the Genesis/Megadrive was getting serious business there.
I remember one time we went there and saw a really small booth tucked away in some corner where they had on display the uk version of turbografx and cd-rom attachment and they had Wonderboy III monster lair on display.  I grabbed the controller but some european guy in a black suit told me not to touch it... so we left.  I thought how the hell are you going to sell a system with that attitude!

I also have memories back around 93 where I brought a few college buddies to my parents house and Dracula X had arrived in the post.  I remember the first bit where Richter was fighting death on the horse cart and my fellow students were commenting on how it looks like Bram Stoker's Dracula movie.  I am sure upto that point I had traded the pc engine briefcase system for Megadrives, Supergrafx, Superfamicoms and back to a DUO-R system with RGB mod.

EDGE January 1995


Anime V mag


Anime UK

[gojira1954]

I'd forgotten the name of the place on carnaby st - that was probably the best shop in London! They didn't have masses of stuff but were friendly and it was great to have a place for repairs & mods ;)
Nice to see the Anime UK mags too - it was a fantastic at the time. They had their office by oxford st tube stn, bopped in there a couple of times!
I used to go to the ATEI computer/arcade trade shows in earls court with bs registration details, was great ;)

tinypic.com/24oao0i.jpg

[Alienjesus]

I lived in a small town in Northamptonshire called Corby. Our options for buying games were Woolworths or Dixons

Would Northampton have been your biggest local town?

Around 1991/92 time I went to visit my cousin who lived in a village just outside Northampton. We took the bus into Northampton town and he took me to a game shop that I'm pretty sure had imports, memory of it is very foggy. Also remember going to Games Workshop and a model shop and looking at the Tamiya RC cars, they were big back then.

Depending which way I went on the bus, either Northampton, Milton Keynes or Peterborough. They were all a bit of a trek though, and seeing as I was just a kid then I doubt I couldve convinced my parents to take me 

[Otaking]

ah did anyone go to those Computer Entertainment Shows that were held at Olympia in Kensington/Earls Court?

I used to go to the ATEI computer/arcade trade shows in earls court with bs registration details, was great ;)

These exhibition centres were near where I lived. Throughout most of the nineties (as a teenager 13-18 years old) on the weekends I worked in a toy and model shop just down the road from Earls Court exhibition centre. All the staff would get passes each year to a big industry only toy fair that was there, there would be lots of new video games there. One year I remember playing Star Fox on a Nintendo stand before it was released and it just blew my mind.

Also I went to the first Future Entertainment show at Earls Court, it was absolutely packed.
I remember I had Street Fighter II fever (playing on my sfc) and I went into the trade hall there and picked up Hiryu no Ken S: Golden Fighter and also the shooter D-Force both on the Super Famicom, I took a punt on them just going on the boxes, both games turned out were absolutely shit, I was gutted.
Video of Bad influence at the Future Entertainment Show

More the latter part of the nineties each year I used to go to the video games industry show ECTS at Olympia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Computer_Trade_Show
I somehow blagged a load of industry passes for me and a load of friends, I can't remember how. We looked really out of place, it was mostly dudes in smart suits. One memory that sticks out was SunSoft had a stand showing off Waku Waku 7 on a Neo Geo AES and nobody cared, was just tumble weeds, everyone was all about PS1 and N64.

Speaking of the Earls Court area, I remember Sega had their European headquarters there, was a massive building. After we left secondary school a friend got a full time job there as a games tester, he got the job through our local job centre, which in this day and age just seems crazy. He went to the job center, they asked what he was interested in, he said video games and then he got a job playing games all day for Sega, wtf  lol. Things like that just wouldn't happen these days

[Otaking]

Advance Console Entertainment were amazing too.  I think they were two main middle eastern guys who were at first selling pc engine and megadrive imported games and consoles and provided RGB Modifications.  They originally rented out a room in one of those posh and expensive Georgian houses just near Regents Park and I think the closest subway train to them was Great Portland Street.
 They later on opened their own shop in Carnaby Street and they continued with RGB mods and repairs for all consoles, PC engine, Genesis and Super Famicom.  they somehow faded and shut shop during the 32bit era.   They were great and I miss those guys.

I worked in the CEX basement for a bit in 2000, Ash had left by then and started up his own shop near Shepards Bush...
CEX got into legal trouble for imported goods starting with R1 DVDs in 1999 then all import games got stopped a couple of years after - the death knell for the retro dungeon :/

I think ACE were going till at least 2000 that's when I last went in there. In 2000 I picked up a broken Super CD Rom system in the CEX dungeon, maybe when gojira1954 was working there. I was in there buying some games and saw it in a box of broken junk on the floor by the counter.
ACE and Raven Games were the only places I knew of at that time that fixed old consoles. I decided to take it to ACE and it was the last time I went there. When I arrived outside ACE the first thing that struck me was they had a single Neo Geo AES in the window, I remember thinking the shop is called Advanced Console Entertainment, I love the Neo but it's ancient now and hardly cutting edge, where's the PS2 and Dreamcast? I went inside and it must have been near their end as there was like hardly any games on the shelves, and this bit sticks in my head they had loads of copies of Beyond Shadowgate Turbo Duo CD on display, I thought what a random game to choose. They did have a large selection of imported US game magazines though.
He couldn't fix the Super CD Rom system yet still charged me £25 which I was pissed about at the time.

Also I think the CEX dungeon were doing imports till at least 2003, because I remember I sold them my then Japanese Sega Saturn collection. I remember the staff spazzed out over me selling Radiant Silvergun.

I also remember doing trades with a few fellows around London which I think were from personal ads in the LOOT newspaper.

I also have memories back around 93 where I brought a few college buddies to my parents house and Dracula X had arrived in the post.  I remember the first bit where Richter was fighting death on the horse cart and my fellow students were commenting on how it looks like Bram Stoker's Dracula movie.

I remember in late 1993 some dude came round from my advert in LOOT to buy some PC Engine games I was selling. He was looking through my PC Engine game collection, then he whipped out from from his pocket his copies of Dracula X and Magical Chase and offered we do a temporary swap. He said he wanted to borrow my Gradius II and I think it was Rainbow Islands.
I'd never seen Dracula X before as it had just been released. I was taken aback by his offer as it seemed out of nowhere and quite random, but couldn't see why not, so went for it.
We were chatting and he said he was from Hong Kong (originally) and he'd asked some family to send him the games, but family he had in Japan, explaining how he'd got a copy of Dracula X so quick. When he came back to pick up his games he brought and gave me copied VHS tapes of the full set of Bubblegum Crisis (subtitled) which wasn't out in the UK yet. Again totally random, but very cool.

[Digi.k]

I remember in late 1993 some dude came round from my advert in LOOT to buy some PC Engine games I was selling. He was looking through my PC Engine game collection, then he whipped out from from his pocket his copies of Dracula X and Magical Chase and offered we do a temporary swap. He said he wanted to borrow my Gradius II and I think it was Rainbow Islands.
I'd never seen Dracula X before as it had just been released. I was taken aback by his offer as it seemed out of nowhere and quite random, but couldn't see why not, so went for it.
We were chatting and he said he was from Hong Kong (originally) and he'd asked some family to send him the games, but family he had in Japan, explaining how he'd got a copy of Dracula X so quick. When he came back to pick up his games he brought and gave me copied VHS tapes of the full set of Bubblegum Crisis (subtitled) which wasn't out in the UK yet. Again totally random, but very cool.

I went to hong kong back around Summer 1990 the pc engine scene was amazing then. In kowloon city there used to be these indoor shopping markets where the street level was surrounded by shops, restaurants and newpaper vendors and you'd go up these stairs and there was another level of shops which were like just sitting under residential apartments.  There was like stacks of brand new unopened games and  just grabbed fresh copies of Devil Crash and Jigoku Meguri and a couple of more games I can't remember.  I do remember watching the intro opening of pce's Urusei Yatsura - Stay with me which was also airing on TV too.

Regarding ACE - Advance Console Entertainment I am sure one of those guys that did the modding and repairs original worked at Shekhana computers which was based around tottenham court road area.  The whole store was run by middle eastern folk and they were selling all computer parts and at the back was a section that originally sold commodore 64 games and if you brought in the advert you would get like 10% of the retail price.  They were also one of the first to import the pc engine and offered both PAL and NTSC rgb consoles at that time.  They also later opened another branch somewhere in Wood Green area but later on they kind of disbanded and that's when ACE was formed...

[LMS]

Epic thread gentlemen.

[wildfruit]

I went to Sega world at trocadero once. Spent all my money on a travel card so didn't have any for the arcades.
Fun times.

[Sarumaru]

The whole Sodipeng thing fascinates me. I think it's so cool that these people took it upon themselves to box these systems and go as far as manufacture their own controllers and taps. Thanks for the informative thread, fellas.