What should I get while I'm in Japan ???

[wilsonw111]

 

Hello guys,
     I'm gonna be in Tokyo for 1 week in Feb.  I would like your comments of what some rare things I can find over in Tokyo???

    Anyone living in Tokyo currently ??? perhaps know any good places and directions to pick up some NEC consoles / games for cheap ???

hope you guys can help me out....   O:) O:) O:) O:)

[SuperDeadite]

Tatsujin can help you better, but Akihabara is still the place to go for rare PC-E games in Tokyo.  Try Trader 2, Super Potato, Mandarake, and
a few others.  Prices here are cheaper then ebay, but still not really "cheap."  Akiba is really more about the selection then the prices.  Sure
you can get lucky and find great deals at times, but probably not much in only a weeks time.  Best thing to do is make a list of stuff you really want, and stick to it.  Most first time visitors make the mistake of buying stuff simply because its there.  Plan ahead and it will be a great trip

[MurderDate]

natto

[spenoza]

If you like anime stuff stop in Nakano (just a couple stops away from Shinjuki on the Chuo-Soubu sen) at the main Mandarake office.

In fact, it was because of Mandarake's abortive efforts to enter the US manga market in 98-99 that I got my first DVD player for free. I was in Japan and their US office had to send it to my parents in the US.

[Tatsujin]

natto

indeed!

yeah..as deadite said. akiba and nakano (mandarake broadway) is your only place to go. you will find a lot of stuff, altough it wouldn't be such cheap to get the better/rar one. but there is also a lot of cheap common stuff. when do you will be on place?

[elnino]

Be sure to check out Retro Friends, there was a 10% waribiki for students when I was visiting last November, and just being a gaijin got me the discount, too^^

Btw stay away from natto, it's probably the worst thing about Japan, it smells like horse shit.

[wilsonw111]

thanks for your replies guys.   Hopefully I will find my way to those places.. I will forward the name of the places you guys mentioned. and good that I have a Local Japanese guy who works with me to bring me around.   

Do you guys think I can find this for a cheap price there ??

see pic

[Tatsujin]

if there is one on sell, it will cost you around 8'000~10'000yen (loose). i've rarely seen some of them boxed recently, mostly they come in loose condition.

[termis]

Check out "Hard Off" Store (No, that's really the name), which sell 2nd hand stuff, and you can find some INCREDIBLE game deals, especially in their "junk" bins -- games/things that you can't return, but work perfectly 95% of the time.

[OldRover]

Try to get the only known copy of PC Cocoron.

Okay...nevermind.

[wilsonw111]

Try to get the only known copy of PC Cocoron.

Okay...nevermind.

PC Cocoron ??? what that in japanese ??? never even heard of it ??

sorry, pls educate me, I'm gonna try to get AS MUCH AS I CAN while I'm in Tokyo
 

[TR0N]

Snag some copys of,Sylphia i know been dieing for a copy of that for the pce 

[Tatsujin]

Check out "Hard Off" Store (No, that's really the name), which sell 2nd hand stuff, and you can find some INCREDIBLE game deals, especially in their "junk" bins -- games/things that you can't return, but work perfectly 95% of the time.

yeah, hard off is or better said was always a good adress, although they reduced their junk offerings a lot, recently. it seems they try to raise their image by selling only good quality in good shape 2nd hand stuff. PCE games are more or less unfindable nowadays.
the other thing is, that you won't find any hardoff's in the center of TYO. you have to go a little bit to the country side (machida, yokohama etc. ) to find 'em. and still their're not easy findable.

here a bunch of stuff i digged in one of my local hard off's last weekend:
/buy20080119pw3.jpg

paid about $45 for the whole bunch.

[Tatsujin]

Try to get the only known copy of PC Cocoron.

Okay...nevermind.

PC Cocoron ??? what that in japanese ??? never even heard of it ??

sorry, pls educate me, I'm gonna try to get AS MUCH AS I CAN while I'm in Tokyo
 

here some rare and almost only good pix of that unreleased and probably most hunted game on the system:

http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Suzuran/9038/pce_nfs22.html

[MissaFX]

[Kitsunexus]

Yakisoba and a hot Japanese girlfriend! 

Hell yes.

[MurderDate]

YEAH screw video games you should get a nice massage

[NecroPhile]

YEAH screw video games you should get a nice massage

With happy ending?

[nat]

YEAH screw video games you should get a nice massage

With happy ending?

Why bother if there isn't one?

here some rare and almost only good pix of that unreleased and probably most hunted game on the system:

http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Suzuran/9038/pce_nfs22.html

Why doesn't that bozo make an ISO of his copy and make it available? I've never understood that. He obviously has the ONLY copy ever made. Why not share it with the community? I just feel he is being selfish.

It would be one thing if there were other copies floating around out there to find, but it is obvious there are not. So he should "share the wealth."

[NecroPhile]

Why doesn't that bozo make an ISO of his copy and make it available?

He may have signed a confidentiality agreement and is taking it much too seriously.  Either that, or he's just a douche bag - guess which one I'm leaning towards.

[nat]

Any agreement he may have signed should long since have been null and void. I mean, who cares about 16-bit video game prototypes anymore anyway besides us freaks? It's not like leaking an ISO of a 15 year old game is going to tip the scales in the current consoles race to ultimately cause the Big Video Game Crash of 2008.

I'd be surprised if the developers that worked on the game even still work at "Sur De Wave" if "Sur De Wave" even exists anymore.

[GUTS]

Man that game looks sweet, I played the translated NES original and it was pretty damn fun, but the graphics on that PCE version are about 20 times better.  I can see why he would hoard it though, having the only copy probably makes him some kind of celebrity in the nerd circles and gets him a lot of attention.

[Kitsunexus]

I think someone should kill him by way of brain trauma via a blunt object, and nab the prototype and rip it.

[Turbo D]

Someone offered that guy a couple grand for an iso! The dude turned it down.

[NecroPhile]

Any agreement he may have signed should long since have been null and void.

From a common sense standpoint, I agree whole heartedly; from a legal standpoint, there likely wouldn't have been an expiration date.  Whether or not there's anybody to enforce it is irrelevant to some people.

[MissaFX]

Man that game looks sweet, I played the translated NES original and it was pretty damn fun, but the graphics on that PCE version are about 20 times better.  I can see why he would hoard it though, having the only copy probably makes him some kind of celebrity in the nerd circles and gets him a lot of attention.

Exactly, this dude probably has only one claim to fame in his life (though a pretty niche one) and it's his precious.  The reason why nobody has a copy of this program is that he appears in the night and kills anyone at the stroke of midnight, that has one in their possession.  I'm sure his legal excuse for why he cannot pass around a copy is bunk, he probably bought it at a garage sale, but it makes him sound a hell of a lot cooler to say he was involved with the company that made the game.

[Kitsunexus]

Someone needs to make a very convincing website that says they have the game too, maybe it would convince him to give his up!

[guyjin]

That guy is a fool. If his house burns down, that game is lost forever - he should share it for posterity.

[MissaFX]

Someone needs to make a very convincing website that says they have the game too, maybe it would convince him to give his up!

Like with a graphically modified NES copy uploaded to youtube with gameplay?  Could that trick him?

[SignOfZeta]

Personally if I were in Japan I'd be buying arcade PCBs. The vast majority of console stuff turns up on eBay sooner or later, and the prices aren't much worse than an actual game store. Being able to browse a shop full of cheap JAMMA boards would be something unique.

[Kitsunexus]

Someone needs to make a very convincing website that says they have the game too, maybe it would convince him to give his up!

Like with a graphically modified NES copy uploaded to youtube with gameplay?  Could that trick him?

It could...but you'd have to use something like a VRC6 chip to simulate the TG-16's enhanced sound qualities. It'd probably just be easier to hack up an Amiga port or use something like GameMaker or Klik and Play.

If it could be pulled off, and we've read him right, we could have the ISO in a week tops.

[OldRover]

Someone offered that guy a couple grand for an iso! The dude turned it down.

As soon as I can, I will be making a trip to Japan to make him an offer for the game itself, not an ISO but the real thing. My offer: 15000000¥.

(That's about $140K in US dollars.)

[Kitsunexus]

Someone offered that guy a couple grand for an iso! The dude turned it down.

As soon as I can, I will be making a trip to Japan to make him an offer for the game itself, not an ISO but the real thing. My offer: 15000000¥.

(That's about $140K in US dollars.)

You have the cash?

[OldRover]

You have the cash?

Not yet but I'm working on it. That's why I said "as soon as I can".

This game is way too valuable to the history of the PCE to let slide into oblivion.

[Kitsunexus]

This game is way too valuable to the history of the PCE to let slide into oblivion.

Why is it so valuable? I know it's rare, but why does everybody want it so much?

[Kitsunexus]

http://www.telegames.co.uk/product_reviews.php?products_id=8142&&osCsid=fetkp5oddaos1tqq9a01e073p0

[nat]

http://www.telegames.co.uk/product_reviews.php?products_id=8142&&osCsid=fetkp5oddaos1tqq9a01e073p0

That's "Coryoon" Kitsunexus, which is a different (unrelated) game from "Cocoron."

I know it's rare, but why does everybody want it so much?

I ought to throw your classic "understatement of the century" pic right back at you here. "Rare" would definitely fit the criteria as such.

"Nonexistent" would be a little closer to home, there is ONLY ONE prototype copy. Anywhere. And this clown owns it and refuses to make a copy available to the public domain. Even, after another user mentioned, someone offered him thousands of dollars JUST FOR AN ISO.

[Kitsunexus]

 

and

 

, respectively.


I'm sorry nat.

[GUTS]

I hope the dumb fuck at least has it backed up in multiple places.  Too bad Michael Dudikoff is so old or he could american ninja the game out of the dude's house.

[Tatsujin]

Personally if I were in Japan I'd be buying arcade PCBs. The vast majority of console stuff turns up on eBay sooner or later, and the prices aren't much worse than an actual game store. Being able to browse a shop full of cheap JAMMA boards would be something unique.

yeah..just visit G-Front and MAK-Japan in akiba and you can choose between thousands of PCBs from any age!

[elnino]

He obviously has the ONLY copy ever made.

I'm not sure about that. A friend of mine had two copies of the prototype a few years ago but sold both of them for 50 bucks because he didn't like the game. Considering this, there must be at least three copies.

[OldRover]

I'm not sure about that. A friend of mine had two copies of the prototype a few years ago but sold both of them for 50 bucks because he didn't like the game. Considering this, there must be at least three copies.

Frankly, I think that's BS.

[nat]

Agreed.

[SignOfZeta]

It might be a BS story, but is far less likely that only one copy of anything digital exists. I can't see any situation in the game development world that would be likely result in only one copy of something. Its just not logical. They don't make the things one at a time like swords or something. There are going to be all sorts of copies in various states of development both on the hard drive of the dev machines (probably a half dozen of those were used) and on CD for testers to play, employees might have taken it home to test on their kids, magazine promo copies, on and on.

This reminds of a guy that paid something like $1100 for what was supposedly the only existing retail copy of The KLF's "Love Trance" 12" (Pure Trance volume 3). For ages it was possible to get the sleeves and labels but it was never pressed, and in fact nobody had ever even heard the song before, not even on a white label.

Virtually everyone on the mailing list at the time thought it was fake. Its not that the song didn't sound like KLF (it sorta did) the track on the record had been circulating through the internet for years, and its validity was disputed and the logistics just didn't make sense. Why would there be only one retail copy of something from a duo that had such a history of releasing DJ promos etc? Since the band dissolved its been possible to find a artistic trail for virtually everything they produced in the form of promos (some print runs as low as 12), previous takes, etc including all sorts of unreleased stuff. But this supposedly legitimate copy of Love Trance kind of exists in a vacuum.

The guy who payed a grand for it wanted it to be special and real, but that doesn't make it so. Think of all the stories from the eBay sellers that say that Sapphire was only for sale at some show, or that only so many copies were made (some number they'll quote, when in reality I'm not sure anyone knows). Then think of the Care4Data releases...how much did the first one go for?

[Kitsunexus]

It might be a BS story, but is far less likely that only one copy of anything digital exists. I can't see any situation in the game development world that would be likely result in only one copy of something. Its just not logical. They don't make the things one at a time like swords or something. There are going to be all sorts of copies in various states of development both on the hard drive of the dev machines (probably a half dozen of those were used) and on CD for testers to play, employees might have taken it home to test on their kids, magazine promo copies, on and on.

This reminds of a guy that paid something like $1100 for what was supposedly the only existing retail copy of The KLF's "Love Trance" 12" (Pure Trance volume 3). For ages it was possible to get the sleeves and labels but it was never pressed, and in fact nobody had ever even heard the song before, not even on a white label.

Virtually everyone on the mailing list at the time thought it was fake. Its not that the song didn't sound like KLF (it sorta did) the track on the record had been circulating through the internet for years, and its validity was disputed and the logistics just didn't make sense. Why would there be only one retail copy of something from a duo that had such a history of releasing DJ promos etc? Since the band dissolved its been possible to find a artistic trail for virtually everything they produced in the form of promos (some print runs as low as 12), previous takes, etc including all sorts of unreleased stuff. But this supposedly legitimate copy of Love Trance kind of exists in a vacuum.

The guy who payed a grand for it wanted it to be special and real, but that doesn't make it so. Think of all the stories from the eBay sellers that say that Sapphire was only for sale at some show, or that only so many copies were made (some number they'll quote, when in reality I'm not sure anyone knows). Then think of the Care4Data releases...how much did the first one go for?

The KLF sucks.

[SignOfZeta]

The KLF sucks.

Yeah, well, if you knew what you could know about what they did, you wouldn't say that. There is so much stuff written on the internet about how crazy awesome these guys were that I'm not going to bother to write much suffice to say that they took the anti-music industry punk ethic further than the Sex Pistols ever could, made a million pounds doing it, nailed said money to a board and toured it as an art exhibit, then burned previously mentioned money, filmed it, toured the film, had the ashes pressed into a brick, filmed the brick, and toured the film of the brick.

Well, Gimpo did a lot of that. The point stands though.

[MissaFX]

Oh and make sure to take a picture of yourself with the statue in front of a KFC! 

Try special ordering at McDonalds, always a treat. 

Buy a phone card from an Iraqi. 

Try to use a traditional Japanese toilet on a moving train. 

Buy some of those really small, short cigs.

[Kitsunexus]

The KLF sucks.

Yeah, well, if you knew what you could know about what they did, you wouldn't say that. There is so much stuff written on the internet about how crazy awesome these guys were that I'm not going to bother to write much suffice to say that they took the anti-music industry punk ethic further than the Sex Pistols ever could, made a million pounds doing it, nailed said money to a board and toured it as an art exhibit, then burned previously mentioned money, filmed it, toured the film, had the ashes pressed into a brick, filmed the brick, and toured the film of the brick.

I got flamed for not caring about that stuff at Ishkur.com too. The fact still stands, they suck, and they're idiots for wasting that money.


WHAT TIME IS LOVE!! more like What time do you SHUT THE FUCK UP.

[NecroPhile]

As soon as I can, I will be making a trip to Japan to make him an offer for the game itself, not an ISO but the real thing. My offer: 15000000¥.

(That's about $140K in US dollars.)

Screw that shit!  A S&W .500 is much cheaper and far more persuasive.

[Kitsunexus]

As soon as I can, I will be making a trip to Japan to make him an offer for the game itself, not an ISO but the real thing. My offer: 15000000¥.

(That's about $140K in US dollars.)

Screw that shit!  A S&W .500 is much cheaper and far more persuasive.

DEAGLE.