Been buying Japanese games lately and Why do the Japanese games come mint and ours are crap.

[Niku-Sama]

the ciggeretts there done have as much crap in them so they dont cause as much of a problem as they would here but its still bad.

most of the stuff i get isnt in good shape but at the same time i am buying broken consoles and such from Yamatoku on ebay, and when i get it its still in better condition than what they describe it as.
the worse i got was a copy of chrono trigger for PSX that only had the manual and the disc, the listing didnt say any thing about that but it was $1 and i roped it in with a bunch of other items so it didnt matter, considered it the freebie game after they combined shipping.

and i am talking about broken things like a complete FDS for $35 shipped and a Famicom for $20 shipped, both of them seperate from one another, both in pretty damn good shape, the box on the FDS is ok but better than the poor shape they listed it as.

FDS needs a belt Fami needs a new RF board, working on a redesign PCB that should put put better picture/sound......is a long and teedius process

[wiggyx]

They still have tobacco in them, and that's really the issue with staining.

[Aussie2B]

At least with the smoke staining, it can come off pretty easily a fair amount of the time. Like just recently I got a PC Engine CD game with a jewel case that was considerably yellowish/brownish, but with a bit of wiping with some soapy, wet rags, it cleaned up very nicely. Now only the part of the white tray along the spine still has a slightly yellow tint.

[MetalFRO]

I tend to think that the above comments that only the more well cared for items make their way to the eBay's and import game retailers on a regular basis. I own a handful of Saturn imports that I've purchased, some of which are in near-mint condition (KoF '95 and '96 that I got for a steal), and some that are incomplete or beat up, like a Cotton 2 disc-only copy I bought some 10 years ago from a US seller, or a rather beat-up copy of Layer Section that has several rips in the manual, etc. But then I bought a Capcom Generations Vol 1 from the same shop that only had minor damage, and was complete with spine card and other stuff hiding between the CD tray and tray card. Granted, the damage to the manuals of the LS and Capcom purchases could have been from previous US owners, and the tray card and/or manual may have been lost by a US or other person before that Cotton 2 game reached me, but it's also just as possible that the damage was done before they ever left Japan.

[wiggyx]

At least with the smoke staining, it can come off pretty easily a fair amount of the time. Like just recently I got a PC Engine CD game with a jewel case that was considerably yellowish/brownish, but with a bit of wiping with some soapy, wet rags, it cleaned up very nicely. Now only the part of the white tray along the spine still has a slightly yellow tint.

My experience is that smoke stains don't come out. I soak the parts in a soap/water bath and even occasionally run them through the dishwasher.



Neither of these have been cleaned yet, but they're gonna come out looking the same save for the grime. I've never seen one come out looking any different than when it went in.

[Aussie2B]

Well, I'm speaking more so of games. I have no need for buying Japanese systems by the boatload. Most of my Japanese systems and controllers were either bought new or in decent shape.

[wiggyx]

Either way, same plastics. Doesn't matter if you buy one or a thousand.

[Haoie]

Is resale of games still 'illegal' in Japan? I have a few old games that have a little symbol "no resale".

[badinsults]

Is resale of games still 'illegal' in Japan? I have a few old games that have a little symbol "no resale".

I would assume that isn't true, as used games were pretty prominent in this store I went to.

Chances are, they are display copies, or were pack-in games.

[SparTonberry]

I heard they overturned that after a few years, as nobody was following that anyways.
(not sure how that compares to China's console ban)

[Aussie2B]

Either way, same plastics. Doesn't matter if you buy one or a thousand.

No, the plastics are not the same. Different plastics have different chemical makeups, some are porous while others are smooth, etc. etc. And obviously the plastics used on systems and games are not the same if your experience with systems is that the discoloration never comes out while my experience with games is that it often can be improved through cleaning. And I've been importing tons of stuff from Japan for over 10 years.

You seriously have to drop this arrogant tone of yours in which you act like you always know better and have more experience than everyone else. You're still a relative newbie, yet you're posturing as if you're some kind of top dog around here. Sorry to break it to you, but there are tons of collectors on here who have every bit as much experience as you, if not much, much more.

[JakeM]

Ive noticed in videos of japanese retro stores they put the carts in plastic seals. Maybe that has something to do with it.

[jperryss]

No, the plastics are not the same. Different plastics have different chemical makeups, some are porous while others are smooth, etc. etc. And obviously the plastics used on systems and games are not the same if your experience with systems is that the discoloration never comes out while my experience with games is that it often can be improved through cleaning. And I've been importing tons of stuff from Japan for over 10 years.

If you're referring to the turd-brown staining that happens on lots of white 80s/90s gear (SNES, original PCE, PC/Apple hardware) then no, cleaning doesn't help. The fact that there are hundreds of SNES consoles that look half-minty/half-pukenasty should prove that these consoles aren't just dirty. If you scrub hard enough while cleaning it, you'll remove some of the outermost layer of plastic, which might make your console "look" whiter, but all you've done is sanded off the outermost layer and exposed a new layer of plastic, which will eventually stain. You can't actually return the console to it's original white without some kind of chemical bath and UV, like this. Or paint.

And while we're talking about it, I've seen no correlation between the staining and whether the console came from a smoke-free home or not. Equipment that comes from a smoker's home is nasty, no doubt, but not the same.

[Aussie2B]

Yeah, some of the items that wiggy has acquired may have discolored from oxidization rather than smoke, and that's pretty difficult to do anything about. I find with smoke-stained games, the discoloration is often mostly just surface residue that can be improved, sometimes eliminated, with basic cleaning. The plastics used in system/controller shells may be more prone to permanently absorbing the stains than in the plastics of game cases, just as the white tray of my aforementioned PC Engine game retains some discoloration while the clear plastic cleaned up perfectly. Different plastics, different results.