retro game collecting around the world?

[christianscott27]

lets think of this hobby around the world, where we see it and where we dont and why-

N.America- well of course the US and Canada, well represented here. never heard of a mexican game collector, theres a sizeable educated middle class there i cant imagine there are no collectors, anybody?

S.America- well we all now know about the scene in Argentina! i've dealt with a couple of brazilian dealer/collectors. what about the other countries, we need to seek em out and get those trades going

W.Europe- British collectors abound as do germans and the occasional N.European collector but what about France, Italy, Spain and the rest?

E. Europe- locked behind the iron curtain all those years these gamers missed out on the capitalist classic era but i have heard of east german pongs and funny famiclones coming out of russia, anybody have any insight?

Mideast- again little is known other than this or that famiclone, toddst brought back some crazy genny clone from iran, what else is out there?

Africa- well yes its a mess but what about S.Africa, i bet they have some sort of a game scene going on.

Asia- there must be collectors here, hong kong, tokyo, taiwan, seoul? these places like games even more than americans, but you never hear anything about retro game collecting there. i'm sure there must be hundreds of asians lording over their own "rooms of doom", how can we reach them though?

Oceana- my kiwi wife hates that regional term but i'm talking about Oz, NZ and other islands of note. we know about collectors in Oz and NZ but what about the phillipenes, indonesia and so on?

i know language is a barrier but in this modern world we should be able to work it out. i'd love to see this hobby get worldwide connections, imagine the trades, think of the TRADES!

[Jorpho]

I think attempting to assemble a collection of pirated video games from other countries would be a massive undertaking.

If I'm not mistaken, the NES was never actually released in Russia, where the most common NES clone was known as the Dendy.
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Buy no2 vaporizer

[The Unknown Gamer]

But if your going to collect pirated video games there should be 1 on your list of must haves. Street Fighter 2 for the NES, I know this game was never OFFICALLY released by anyone. Game Pro said that much severial years ago when they got wind of it. But it would be certianly one of a kind

[Keir]

Mideast- again little is known other than this or that famiclone, toddst brought back some crazy genny clone from iran, what else is out there?

rsiddall has some Middle Eastern Atari 2600 clone. He's tried unsuccessfully to get rid of it several times.

[hydr0x]

W.Europe- British collectors abound as do germans and the occasional N.European collector but what about France, Italy, Spain and the rest?

E. Europe- locked behind the iron curtain all those years these gamers missed out on the capitalist classic era but i have heard of east german pongs and funny famiclones coming out of russia, anybody have any insight?

Africa- well yes its a mess but what about S.Africa, i bet they have some sort of a game scene going on.

W.Europe: You're missing the dutch collectors here, also austria

E.Europe: You can't count east german pongs, cause the reason those were build is the fact that East Germany always wanted to compete with W.Germany

Africa: I do own a famiclone from Algeria, so that's North Africe, i'd bet there also are clones from Libya (<< spelled wrong, right?), Egypt, Morocco

[Jorpho]

But if your going to collect pirated video games there should be 1 on your list of must haves. Street Fighter 2 for the NES, I know this game was never OFFICALLY released by anyone. Game Pro said that much severial years ago when they got wind of it. But it would be certianly one of a kind

One of a kind? Not quite. I've seen lists of so-called Hong Kong originals; things like that get released several times over, with names like Street Fighter III, Street Fighter II 10 Character Edition, etc. Some say these games (and other things like NES Tekken and NES Mortal Kombat) all use the same generic fighting game engine.

(The Nintendo Information Repository used to be a great source of information for pirated games, but the relevant pages were taken down a few months ago.)
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Vaporizer guide

[christianscott27]

seriously, where are the japanese collectors? there have to be some, that place is the headquarters for fanboys and video games. they cant all live to game on the cutting edge, must be somebody stacking up the PC engine, G&W and other good japanese stuff.

anybody got any Jp room of doom pics? links?

[Sylentwulf]

I ship internationally a LOT so I have a pretty good feel as to what countries collect, and which don't (and gaming in general)

N.America- U.S. and Canada are a given I HAVE sent to Mexico a couple times, probably only 5-6 times in 3 years though.

S.America- Argentina and Brazil are really the only place I've EVER sent ANYTHING to south america, shipping charges are VERY high as well.

Europe- Germany, U.K., Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Ireland, and Denmark are all pretty heavy gamers, I send out to all of these countries at least 4-5 times per month on average. U.K. and Germany lead the pack by FAR though. Ireland and denmark rarely order though.

Mideast- I've sent to the places I'm ALLOWED to Obviously nothing has gone to iraq in a while. (although I HAVE sent there) Israel actually has a decent amount of stuff sent to them <shrug>

Africa- No. It doesn't exist. I've sent one item to south africa in my life, and it never got there.

Asia- Japan is a gimme, I send there once a month or so. China and india, the 2 biggest countries on the planet, have no gaming, which to this day confuses the hell out of me? I have sent to them once or twice, but that's it. FKA Russia gets a couple things here and there, but not much.

Australia - Lots of gamers down under. Plain and simple. These guys rank up with germany and U.K. for worldly gamers.

[slapdash]

I used to be in contact with a guy from South Africa... At the time, he was kind of alone in it, though perhaps there's a scene now. I got a couple Creatvision carts out of him (I think I sent him some Intellivision stuff in return) before we lost contact. He mentioned a Conic system too, which I suspect was one of those GI-chip systems like the Conics that have shown up in Europe.

[IntvGene]

anybody got any Jp room of doom pics? links?

Here's a link to a House of Doom in Japan:
http://www2.odn.ne.jp/~caf05310/famicom/we/knock.html

And, this site is an interesting history of Japanese retro-gaming. It just goes to show how popular it is there.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/cvs/odyssey/

[devilman]

But if your going to collect pirated video games there should be 1 on your list of must haves. Street Fighter 2 for the NES, I know this game was never OFFICALLY released by anyone. Game Pro said that much severial years ago when they got wind of it. But it would be certianly one of a kind

One of a kind? Not quite. I've seen lists of so-called Hong Kong originals; things like that get released several times over, with names like Street Fighter III...

That's the one I've got.

Plays pretty well too.

[Zubiac666]

anybody got any Jp room of doom pics? links?

well....there is this ONE guy,who is (i think) unique in the world.
Imagine a dude(or better a "Life?What's that?"-guy) who collects famicom games. i think he owns about 1000 or even more.
Not unusual ; u might think
BUT he actually has only ONE famicom-game......yeah ONE (1)
but this one(some kind of baseball game) a hundret or thousand times

When I saw the pics posted below the first time I nearly dropped K.O!
This maniac lives/works for his famicom and his baseball game.
I mean: He has a floor made of famicom-games(S-I-C-K) and he takes baths in his games (like I did with my SNES-games *looking at my avatar* ....but I wasn't naked...uuhh)

however....
ENJOY















here is link if pics don't work:
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moe/pro/tokubetu.htm

[Kevin Listwan]

When I was studying in Poland I ran into tons of Famicom games (all pirated to the best of my knowledge) and Famiclones all over Eastern Europe. I wouild have bought tons of the stuff but I was not interested in it at the time.

Also I have a Rom on my computer of Street fighter II for the NES, it is pretty poor.

[christianscott27]

that bath tub picture made my day, gotta bookmark that one

[Tom61]

I think attempting to assemble a collection of pirated video games from other countries would be a massive undertaking.

Just assembling a website of pirated video games is a massive undertaking. Take a look at this site dedicated to famicom/NES pirate games and consoles:

http://famiclone.emucamp.com/indexy.shtml


That should keep you busy for a while...

[Classicgamesdepot]

Sylentwulf Pretty much said it,(not counting canada) UK is my biggest international buyer, I ship a lot of games out to France too, the Japanese buyers tend to buy the US only games releases, 3 of the 4 Snatchers Iv sold have gone to japan, I always find it funny when Japanese gamers buy us only titles of games like Magic school bus. I can't remember ever shipping a game to India either, but I definitly would like to see some of the game rooms on the UK side, although they seem to be HUGE on pc gaming

[GaijinPunch]

When I sold games, I sent to a lot of places. Can't say there was a lot of places outside of NA and England, but a few to Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Mexico, and a couple to South America.

On Ebay for 2 years, I think I only sent 2-3 packages to other Asian spots. Korea once, Singapore once, and HK once. Generally, they've got access to stuff other than Ebay.

There are plenty of Retro collectors in Japan - a large portion of used games stores in Akihabara are 8-bit to 32-bit, so that alone tells you there's a market to support the heavy rent in that part of town.

[devilman]

Through my little website in England, on the occasions I've sold stuff abroad, it's been mainly Europe - Sweden's popular. Also sent to Poland and I've a regular customer in Italy. I've only sent to the US on a few occasions - it's not terribly often that a US Customer actually follows through with payment for an order... strange.

[christianscott27]

hey thanks for the maniac mansion rooms of doom link, thats exactly what i was looking for. it makes me smile to see those rooms, the wire choked console shelves, the tightly ordered game shelves, the bulging plastic drawers and the clear love of collecting games. i love seeing all of japan only games and funky consoles, the guy leafing thru his PC engine Hu card album

man it would be great to establish a line of conversation with these guys, they seem to have so much in common with us, its like life on other planets. a few of them even seem to be showing a taste for the older american produced systems, check out door number 6, that guy has atari, vectrex and O2 stuff.
http://www2.odn.ne.jp/~caf05310/fami...ans/index.html
cool, cool

[Saturn Sensei]

but what about France

France rules the roost.

They are dead serious about games. Paris actually has a videogame DISTRICT. More than a dozen stores within a few city blocks. Mind-blowing. All the stores are incredibly well stocked and carry all regions and all eras.

I actually found everything on my mental want-list, which is unheard of. I had to be real choosy. It was like a brick-and-mortar ebay. My carry-on on the flight home was filled with nothing but games and accessories.

Most of the stores had everything from 50-60 NeoGeo carts to the latest imports. I am at a loss for words to describe it all.

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London has a very nice retro store too. CEX Retro on Rathbone Place(?). VERY nice selection. Decent prices too(will vary with the exchange-rate).

The Trocadero arcade between Picadilly Circus and Leicester Square is well worth a visit too. Has hundreds of arcade machines, from the latest to the oldes. Only place I have seen Densha de Go outside Japan for instance.