Online Import Game Shops

[8Ways2Tuesday]

I've been keeping a list on my Livejournal and thought I'd share. Please feel free to comment with any shops you've ordered from and I'll put them on the list.

I searched through the archives and couldn't find an up-to-date list like this.

Play-Asia - Located in Hong Kong. Probably one of the most well-known import shops, I personally have had nothing less than fast, professional service from them. They'll throw in $5 coupons and candy on some orders.

HimeyaShop - Located in Japan. Mostly recent releases, PC games, and various adult games. I've ordered once and the communication was constant and informative.

Yamatoku - Located in Japan. Yamatoku also does a TON of eBay auctions, and shipping/payment can be combined between shop and auctions. Very good experiences every time I've ordered.

eStarland - Located in the USA. This is part of a east-coast chain store, I believe. They have both import and domestic product and generally seem to have a good selection of accessories as well.

ToysNJoys - Located in the USA. Generally a good selection, however service was poor and shipping was very slow. Not recommended (see comments).

YesAsia - Located in Hong Kong. Free shipping option on some orders. Another good experience.

JapanGameStock - Located in Japan. Found this one thanks to this forum and immediately purchased a few things. Very good communication and fast fast shipping.

I have yet to order from these but they have been recommended or have come up during searches (please check the comments for more info):

National Console Support - Located in the USA. Never seem to have what I'm after in stock, though.

DVDCrave - Located in Australia. Good for non-US English PSP games like Breath of Fire III. Actually, I'm fairly sure my copies of BoFIII and ToE came from here, however they were purchased by an Australian friend. (who says they were quite pleasant)

Japan Video Games - Located in the USA.

Palet Mail Service - Located in Japan. Good selection of reasonably priced used and new games. And the Engrish is endearing.

Superb Articles From Japan - Located in Japan. An eBay dealer with good prices.

Mad Gear - Located in the USA. eBay shop and convention vendor. Good service, can be pricey.

Wolfgames - Located in the USA. Offers free shipping on orders over $200.

ToysOnlineHK - Located in Hong Kong. eBay seller. Has an excellent recommendation in the comments.

Variety Recycle NIPPON - Located in Japan. eBay store. Recommendation in comments and remember, most used Japanese items are in excellent shape.

The Feather Pluckn Famicom Shop - Located in Japan. eBay store. Focusing on Famicom/FDS with some other items.

Video Game Imports - Located in the UK. High prices but rare items.

Hit-Japan - Located in Japan. eBay store. Some items may be slightly-more-used.

RX Japanese Toys and Video Games - Located in Japan. eBay store. See comments for recommendation.

Dream Stars Japan - Located in Japan. Good selection/service but prices are all over the place.

Import Games Japan - Located in the USA. eBay seller. See recommendation (page 2).

Game Choice Club - Located in Hong Kong. (mentioned page 2)

Genki Video Games - Located in the UK. (recommendations page 2)

SuperUFO - Located in Hong Kong. (recommendation page 3)


Other Recommended:
VideoGameFigures.com - Located in the USA. Recommended in comments. Exactly what it says - video game related figures and toys.

Otaku.com - Located in Japan. Has game soundtracks, books, etc. (Actually, I know I got something Ys-shaped off eBay from this place.)

Akibahara Shop (seems to temporarily be closed). A place for arcade parts. (see recommendation bottom first page)

Japan-Export - Located in Japan. Electronics. (see recommendation page 2)

[Drag0nsfyre]

Thanks a ton for the links and experience/impression reviews! Very helpful. I'll be adding a few of these to my bookmarks. I have not orderd any imports from overseas (as of yet) So this will come in handy.

[UndeadKing]

The only glaring omission that I see is Wolfgames . It's a great shop and I'd highly recommend doing business there.

[agbulls]

The only glaring omission that I see is Wolfgames . It's a great shop and I'd highly recommend doing business there.

Sorry man but that site looks beyond sketchy. Half of their pictures are dead links and there is no order form. It might be ok, but is really poorly designed.

[UndeadKing]

That's fine but I've been ordering from Matt for years now with no problems. I find his site much better "designed" than a bulk of sites that are flashy with lots of images and such. Function over flash IMO. But hey, I don't get paid to advertise. Merely throwing out a recommendation. If you find it to be sketchy, well nothing I can do. A quick check around will tell you that most gamers who have been importing for a long while have used him in the past and will highly recommend him. He closed up shop a while back but recently reopened.

If you want "sketchy" look at ToysnJoys. Phantom inventroy, high prices, shady dealing all around. I could throw out some horror stories but I won't.

I see where you are coming from though. His site isn't flashy. It's not "easy to use," and it doesn't look "trustworthy." Still, do a bit of looking around at various forums and you'll see that he's a great guy. I'm not trying to recommend a "shady" place and it is kind of insulting that you would insinuate as such.

[gepeto]

here is a guy I meet on ebay he is all about imports.
He gets some nice stuff. Sometimes cheap sometimes expensive.

http://stores.ebay.com/Mad-Gear-Impo...Q3amesstQQtZkm

[agbulls]

here is a guy I meet on ebay he is all about imports.
He gets some nice stuff. Sometimes cheap sometimes expensive.

http://stores.ebay.com/Mad-Gear-Impo...Q3amesstQQtZkm

I can personally vouch for Mad Gear. I got my Do Re Mi Fantasy from him and it came super fast.

[bust3dstr8]

Mad Gear- A bit pricey, but you get high quality and service. They also set up at various gaming expos, visited the expo in R.I.

Toys N Joys- They screwed up so many things with one order it was unforgivable. Clueless, lazy, moronic, sleazy, dispicable fucking assholes.
Thanx for mentioning them again 8ways, I had almost forgoten about ToysNJoys

Palet Mail Service-Good shop, they ship fast. I got my stuff in 4 days.


SAFJ-Great for the commons, but finding the popular and rarer games will be limited. If you find something good it will probally be on the cheaper side,Got a Double Dragon II SuperCD for $19

http://stores.ebay.com/Superb-Articles-From-Japan-SHOP

[8Ways2Tuesday]

Thanks for all the input so quickly - I'll start editing! I hope this list will become a good resource - especially for people who're a little intimidated by ordering from Asia like I was when I started.

I ordered my first J-PS2 from ToysNJoys because at the time I was leery of ordering from overseas. After a couple weeks I would call them every day and they would tell me a different story every day. It had been shipped, it hadn't been shipped, the order had been lost, something was backordered, etc. Finally everything arrived, but they'd charged my credit card long before anything shipped (at that point it was fraud and I should have cancelled, I know) and it was an utter nightmare. And then my Australian friend ordered some things sent to me from them and again, took the better part of a month.

These days, I know if I order from Hong Kong or Japan, I'll have my stuff usually the same week and be told where my order is every step of the way.

[Drag0nsfyre]

I can personally vouch for Mad Gear. I got my Do Re Mi Fantasy from him and it came super fast.

I'll 3'rd Mad Gear Very fast shipping! Items were in fantastic shape. He is also a member here (16-bit)

This would make a great stickied thread as well.

[klausien]

Agreement on the sticky, and more support for Mad Gear (16-Bit). I have gotten many things from Carlson via eBay, and have been totally satified each and every time. I bought my Rakugaki Showtime from him and it was in beautiful condition.

I also want to throw another one in there for Matt from Wolfgames. He is another great source. Don't be fooled by the simple website.

I'm also fond of Yamatoku. Got my Dracula X from him many years ago now.

Some other eBay sellers/stores I recommend:

toysonlinehk (toysonlinehk) - Hong Kong seller with a nice selection. I have bought many things from them, and the service, price and merchandise have been excellent each time. They have a nice new and/or complete FDS selection, which is always a plus for me.

Variety Recycle NIPPON (me4taki9oh) - A Japanese video game "junk shop" on eBay. Don't take that at face value though. It is a well known fact that Japanese "junk" is generally in much better condition than most complete games one would find in GameStop. A good place to buy commons.

the Feather Pluckn Famicom Shop (featherpluckinfilms) - An American in Japan I believe, who specializes in Famicom and FDS games. Excellent selection and service.

[icbrkr]

Agreed with the toysnjoys thing - I ordered a bunch of Animal Crossing figures for my wife (she collects them) and they sent the wrong ones. I emailed them back and they basically said "So what do you want US to do about it?". Nice place.

If you do collect that sort of stuff, let me recommend:

http://www.videogamefigures.com/

I've been buying from there for 2 years and never had a problem.

[RCM]

big ups to Mad Gear/Carlson/16-bit (all the same). You get what you pay for and he consistently has the best. I prefer to only buy imports from him. Highly recommended. He's also a great person!

[8Ways2Tuesday]

Okay! All new links should be in the main post - thanks Klausien for reminding me of Variety Recycle Nippon, I have them bookmarked but have never ordered.

[djsquarewave]

A couple more I didn't see mentioned here:

Video Game Imports. Based in the UK, famous for their high prices. They have a very nice selection of rare items, and reportedly everything they have is in top contidion -- though I've never ordered from them before, myself. Seems like an odd omission, though...

Hit-Japan. eBay seller located in Japan, they also run a webstore but it's rather sparse. I've ordered from them quite a few times, good to do business with and huge selections of common PS1, Saturn, and PC-Engine games -- it'll take you an hour or two to sift through their listings! Always a good experince, though be warned you'll often get stuff that looks used.

RX Japanese Toys and Video Games. One of my personal favorite eBay sellers, again located in Japan -- virtually everything they have is in minty mint condition, great packing and shipping and communication. I've done several large orders from them and everything went smoothly. Nice selection of rare items, to boot.

Every other shop I use with some regularity is already mentioned. I'll have to look into some of the ones I haven't seen before. I didn't know eStarland carried imports!

[Vectorman0]

http://www.otaku.com/

This place is an amazing store to buy soundtracks from. Always original, reasonably priced and pristine.

[8Ways2Tuesday]

Whew! Caught up again! I think everyone adding to the list just proves how many places are out there that some of us don't know about!

djsquareware - I found eStarland when I needed a Saturn RF adapter and ended up ordering an import Ys limited edition which came in better shape than I'd anticipated. They don't seem to have an extensive selection, but the prices aren't bad.

[bust3dstr8]

http://www.stores.ebay.com/DREAM-STARS-JAPAN

Dream Stars Japan:
They have good selection and service, and fast shipping. Their grading is very acurate, so no surprises. The prices are all over the place though, something thats has a manual with a tiny bit of tab damage
will be half of what you expect and a Renny Blaster sits there and laughs at me aloft its $380 price tag. Also, he often mispells many items so you may want to page through stuff instead of just searching.

[Tron 2.0]

the Feather Pluckn Famicom Shop (featherpluckinfilms) - An American in Japan I believe, who specializes in Famicom and FDS games. Excellent selection and service.

Thumbs up on that ebay seller he's been good for my Famicom needs.

[Drag0nsfyre]

Has anyone purchased anything from the Ebay seller Egamestar aka: Japan Video Games? I was looking at their White PS2 consoles.
THe feedback percentage and comments seem positive I just wanted to know if there were any personal dealings from DP members.