Originally Posted by
Neo Heathen
I was racking my brain while reading this thread. Captron?!?! It sounded so familiar.. then it dawned on me, there was one in Montgomery Mall next to the arcade in my hometown of Bethesda, Maryland. A quick google search also confirmed my hazy memories..
Taken from an ebay seller's post for a Super Metroid poster..
"Captron Software used to be Captron World Of Nintendo until Nintendo decided to sell off the chain to, of all companies, Capcom. So we were renamed Captron Software and started carrying not only Nintendo, but also Sega Genesis as well. And some marketing "genius" at the corporate office came up with the ridiculous idea to separate ourselves from Babbage's and Electronics Boutique by stating in gaming magazine ads that we were the "gaming experts." So this pinhead came up with the ad that said "Stumped on a game? Call the experts at Captron Software!" Ugh, so suddenly we were being inundated with calls from kids wanting us to walk them through their games. Never mind that we employees weren't walking encyclopedias of game cheats and were already too busy helping customers! Needless to say, it was a marketing disaster that backfired horribly. Meanwhile, Super Metroid had just come out and I, having imported the game from Japan over a month earlier, had already played through it about six times, so I knew the game backwads and forwards"
In the early 90s, In a mall where there were two other video game stores at the time (one being a Babbages).. Captron was a distant third option for me to be honest. It was small, cramped and the service was surly. However, I do remember buying Gunstar Heroes from them and it was the first place I recoiled with disgust from seeing Sewer Shark in action for the first time.