Famicom History: Toy Catalogs and Over the Hill Consoles

I was browsing the Japanese web yesterday and stuｍｂled across the above fragment of a toy catalog (on Livedoor) from the early 1990s. I have no idea what store it is from since the name is cut out, though they did have 300 locations nationwide so it must have been a big one.

What caught my eye was not the toy robots that you immediately notice, but what was in the upper right hand corner of the ad:
A Famicom!

Only 9,800 yen, 33% off as the ad notes (the release price was 14, 800 yen if memory serves). This catalog (or flyer more likely) seems to have been printed relatively late in the Famicom`s life - notice the ad for the Mega Drive right next to it for 40 percent off, meaning it must have been a few years into that console`s lifespan as well.

Right below that we have some Famicom games ("ROM cassettes") for quite cheap prices:
Lord of King for only 980 yen, Child`s Quest for only 680 yen and Moero Pro Yakyuu or Marusa no Onna for 780. On the far right it looks like Final Fantasy is also listed for two thousand and something yen, but half of it is cut off. Family Stadium 91 is quite expensive at 3780 yen so it must have been a new release at that time. Guess that would probably date this to 1991.

I love finding this sort of stuff. When I go to old book stores I always have a look at magazines from the 80s just to see if they have any Famicom ads (they almost never do unfortunately).

What I like in particular about this one is that it is a piece of Famicom history not from its peak in the mid to late 80s, but from the early 1990s when its glory days were behind it and it was no longer the sought after toy it had been just a few years prior. It is the inevitable fate of all consoles: to make the undignified transition from must-have Christmas item one year to department store clearance item the next. The store probably had a big pile of them by the door, with bins full of discount games next to them.

In 1991 I was in high school in Canada and I can remember Zellers doing something similar with the old Atari consoles. They had a pile of them for $49.99 and huge bins of software all priced at $4.99 each. I didn`t get one but can remember being tempted. I guess my Japanese contemporaries were doing the same with these old Famicoms.

Related Posts:
-Famicom History: When Dragon Quest III Went on Sale
-Famicom History: Japanese Game Slang 101
-Famicom History

Sega Mega Drive Adaptor and the Ridiculousness of 80s Sega Stuff

I fished another thing out of the Omocha Souko junk bin the other day: the Sega Mega Drive Adaptor: AKA yet another peripheral to add on to my already monstrously bloated Mega Drive confabobulatorionation.That, my friend, be a whole lot of Mega Drive. And I ain`t even put the adaptor on it yet.

I think this latest acquisition of mine provides a rather decent (and, for only 300 yen, cheap) way of illustrating the complexity of playing games on Sega Consoles from the 1980s.

To begin with it perfectly illustrates Sega`s Mega Drive-era policy of making you buy what amounts to almost an entirely new console to attach to the Mega Drive every time they introduced some new feature. In the adaptor`s case that new feature was backwards compatability with the Mega Drive`s predecessor, the Sega Mark III (AKA the Master System).

Note the complexity. If I want to play a Mark III game, I have to take the 32X attachment off. If I want to play a 32X game I have to take the Adaptor off. If I`m feeling really frisky and just want to, you know, play a regular Mega Drive game, then I have to either take the adaptor off or leave the 32X on. Everybody got that? Good.

In addition to that, for me personally at least, it also illustrates Sega`s rather silly pre-Mega Drive policy of just making you buy new consoles all the time period, at least in Japan. First they released the SG 1000 (photo courtesy of Wikipedia because I don`t have one of these):
Then they released the SG-1000 II, which I do have and I do love it so:
Then (finally) came the Mark III:
I think all of these were released over the course of a long weekend in the summer of 1983, though I`ll have to double check that.

Anyway, since my SG 1000 II cannot play carts released for the Mark III, my acquisition of the adaptor means that I can finally play the one Mark III game that I possess, baseball:
After only about 3 hours of fumbling around, PRESTO! My Mega Drive was conveniently switched from ready-to-play-32X games mode to ready-to-play-Mark III games mode:
I have to admit that I really like this adaptor. I think it looks rather sleek:
I also like the fact that the Mark III carts stick WAY out of it. No wait, I hate that fact. It means that I have to take them out every time I want to put the thing back on its shelf because the whole contraption with the CD, Mega Drive, adaptor and Mark III cart is almost waist-high.

At least it looks neat though. Yet another piece of weird 80s video game history from Japan.

Behold. MEGADRIVEASAURUS!

This will not help my attempts to reduce my store stalking at Omocha Souko.

I found the above mountain of Sega Mega Drive.....stuff.....all attached together in one of the junk bins at Omocha Souko today. What you`ve got there is your standard Mega Drive with a Mega CD Drive on the bottom:
And a Super 32X on top:
The dog was sold seperately.

The junk bin consoles cost 300 yen each. I picked this up and was really curious what they would charge me. I mean, this is really three consoles, but when they are all attached together like that don`t they become one? When I was a kid one of my friends had a whole bunch of transformers shaped like construction equipment - the Constructicons - and, if you collected them all, they could be formed together to make one giant robot.

Yes, I think that is a pretty good analogy. Once formed together the individual Constructicons would lose their individuality and merely become parts of a greater whole. Likewise, the various Mega Drive related consoles when formed together cease to exist as individual consoles and become....

MEGADRIVEASAURUS!

Anyway, anybody want to guess how much I paid for this? 300 yen or 900? Either way it was a pretty good deal. I haven`t actually gotten around to finding out if it works yet. I hope it does, I have a Star Wars 32X game that I`ve been dying to play for ages.