Omocha Souko Part 1: The Greatest Retro Game Store Ever.

For the first part of my special series on the soon-to-be late retro gaming store Omocha Souko (Fukuoka Honten) I thought I would try to prove the statement that I am always making about it:

Omocha Souko was the greatest retro video game store in the world.

I have to make a few disclaimers here before I start though. In many respects Omocha Souko was not a great retro gaming store. If you wanted a rare title chances are Omocha Souko did not have it. Looking for Game and Watches? Or a CIB PC Engine? Most likely they wouldn`t have those either.

Omocha Souko`s strength lay in its bargains rather than in its existing inventory. The reason they wouldn`t have rare titles or hard to find CIB consoles is because when they did get those things in they would price them so cheaply that they would sell instantly. Oftentimes to me.

Looking back over this blog I was able to pick out 15 different bargains that I found which I posted about. Most of these constituted mind blowing bargains where I paid as little as 1-2% of the going market price for some absolutely fantastic retro gear. I`ve collected those bargains here as a sort of `Omocha Souko`s greatest hits`.

In actual fact though, these are just the tip of the iceberg. A lot of the time when I`d get a great bargain I simply wouldn`t have the time to blog about it. I once found a CIB PC Engine, for example, working and in beautiful condition for 300 yen. That goes for about 100$ on Ebay. I didn`t blog about it though. Just not enough time.

Anyway, for posterity`s sake here are the top 15 bargains I have found at Omocha Souko over the past couple of years! In no particular order. You can click on the links to see the original posts.

1. Basket Full of Famicom Games for 800 Yen
This was one of the first big bargain sales Omocha Souko ever had. I stumbled across it one day while doing my regular rounds. They had a big pile of baskets in front of the retro game section with a sign saying you could get as many retro games as you could cram into one of those baskets for a flat 800 yen (about 10$).

I ended up doing about 4 or 5 of these, you could cram about 23 or 24 games into one of those baskets (more if you got mostly Game Boy carts) so the per-game price was extremely cheap and there were a few good titles available. The above photo is a typical haul that I got.

The downside of this sale was that when it was over their Famicom section was heavily picked over and for a few weeks they had almost nothing but sports titles. After a while though they rebuilt their inventory.


2. Two Twin Famicoms for 100 Yen Each
The first time I got a Twin Famicom back in 2010, I actually got two of them. For 100 yen each!

This purchase was one of those things that just blew me away when I found them. They had just been put on the shelf and when they caught my eye I wandered over expecting them to be 3000 or 4000 yen, a price I would have considered paying for at least one of them. When I saw the price tags for 100 yen I nearly fainted. That was the day I learned that Omocha Souko was the best place on the planet to buy old consoles, provided you were willing to be patient and wait for them to put ridiculously low prices on new things they got in.

My days as an Omocha Souko stalker had begun...

3. The Most Amazing Junk Section Ever Created
Of all my shopping experiences, this one remains my favorite. I walked into the store one day and there were just rows upon rows of crates full to the brim with retro gaming gear. Someone must have delivered a truckload of stuff to the store and just dumped all of it on them. Everything in all of those crates - whether it was games, consoles, controllers or cables - was 50 yen (60 cents) each.

The sheer volume of the stuff and the fact that I was there on the day it arrived made this an occasion to remember. I got PC Engines, Mega Drives, Famicoms, Games and Watches, dozens of normally expensive Famicom games and a ton of odds and ends. I went back several times, just filling baskets full of as much stuff as my arms could carry. Each time I would probably haul about $500 worth of stuff to the cashier and only have to pay 40 or 50 bucks. It was just the most incredible find I have ever made. The above photo only shows part of the haul. To give you an idea of how good it was, on my first trip there was a Virtual Boy in the crates. I actually passed that up because I just didn`t have enough space to fit it into my basket!

4. Family Basic and Famicom Trainer for 100 Yen Each
This was another being-there-at-the-right-time find. The Family Basic was CIB and in beautiful condition. It had previously been in their glass case for 4000 or 5000 yen but for some reason they decided to dump it in the junk section with a new price of 100 yen on it. The Famicom Trainer, which sells for quite a bit on Ebay, was also CIB and also only 100 yen. I couldn`t pay fast enough. I remember I got this just a couple days before Christmas in 2010, it was a nice early present.

5. Famicom Robot for 800 Yen
I picked the Famicom Robot up there a few months ago, at 800 yen for a CIB version it was an incredible find. The only other time I`ve seen one of these in stores it was priced at 10,000 yen.

6. Pile of Epoch Super Cassette Vision Carts for 100 Yen Each
I just love these things. The Epoch Super Cassette Vision was one of the Famicom`s would-be contenders for the Japanese home video game market back in the early 80s. It failed miserably though and as a result the system and its games are quite hard to come by (and expensive when you do find them). So I was massively surprised when I stumbled upon half the entire library for that console just casually lying on a shelf near the junk section rather than in a bullet proof glass case like they should have been. When I discovered they only wanted 100 yen each for them I was quite pleased.


7. Sega SG 1000 II
This was another junk bin find for 300 yen. It is in rough shape but works. The SG-1000 II is a hard to find console that should sell for about 10 to 20 times what I paid for it, even in that condition, so I count this as having been quite a good deal.


8. Virtual Boy for 300 Yen
This one I bought the same week that I found the Famicom Robot. I paid 300 yen for a complete, working Virtual Boy console. Complete as in complete in box with the manuals and inserts and everything I should add. These things normally go for hundreds of bucks on Ebay complete like that, but I got mine for the price of a large bottle of coca cola thanks to Omocha Souko.


9. Donkey Kong Jr. Game and Watch for 300 Yen
I did a double take when I saw this in a 300 yen junk pile. I love Game and Watches, but they are normally so expensive and hard to find that I never buy them. This one, which is complete and works fine, would probably have been the best Game and Watch deal in history were it not for what I found in the same bin the very next day....

10. Donkey Kong Game and Watch for 300 Yen
Complete with the battery cover and in perfect working order. Usually they sell for 60-70 bucks at Mandarake.

11. Pile of MSX Carts for 100 Yen Each
These MSX games, like the Super Cassette Vision carts above, I found casually sitting on a shelf one day. Like the Super Cassette Vision carts I only paid 100 yen each for them. Salamander alone sells for about 100$ on Ebay. That is probably over-priced, but still, this was an incredible bargain. If only I had an MSX to play them on....

12. Famicom Gimmick CIB for 100 Yen
This is the most valuable Famicom cart in my collection, yet ironically it is one of the ones I got for the cheapest price - 100 yen. The person pricing the games that day obviously did not know what they had in their hands.

13. 1967 Nintendo Ultra Machine CIB for 2000 Yen
This was actually a quite recent purchase. It is also the only thing on this list that I didn`t find in the video game section, it was a first floor toy section find. Released in 1967 the Ultra Machine is today very hard to find complete and in great condition like this, but somehow Omocha Souko laid their hands on one and somehow, not realizing its actual worth, they put it on sale for only 2000 yen.

14. Sega Mark III CIB for 300 Yen
I found this complete Sega Mark III a few weeks ago. It wasn`t in the junk section and didn`t have a price tag on it. I walked in, saw it, then I walked out without buying it. I went to my office, fired up the internet and found one on Ebay for $400. That was way more than I was willing to pay, but I decided that I would go back and ask how much they wanted for it. My budget would be 5000 yen, if it was less than that I would buy it, if not I would leave it.

So I went back to the store, picked it up, walked over to the cashier and asked how much it was. He took it, gave it a look over, thought for a moment and then responded:

`300 yen.`

I promptly paid.

15. Sega Mega Drive, Mega Drive CD and 32X all for 300 Yen
Yup, everything in the above photo for 300 yen. No need for further elaboration.


So there you have it, the top 15 retro gaming bargains I have gotten at Omocha Souko over the course of the past couple of years. It has been an amazing ride and thanks to that place I have been able to build up an impressive (if I do say so myself) collection of retro gaming gear on an extremely limited budget.

Anyway, I will continue this series with the next post in a couple of days so stay tuned!

Excuse Me, I`m a Little Verklempt. Worst Retro Gaming News Ever.

Oh gawd, I was just trying to start this blog post but look at me! I'm sorry. I'm a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves, talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic. The Family Computer is neither a Family nor a Computer. Discuss.

(Composes self) OK...OK, I'm better. Please. Where was I?

Oh yes. I have some very sad news to report. In order to do so I'll have to stop typing while thinking in the voice of Linda Richman. Please excuse me for a moment while I sort that out. Go on, have a cawfee or something.
OK, I'm back. And with some sad news.

Where do I begin? I guess a reflective tone would be appropriate.

Some places grow on you. You become attached to them over time. When you walk in the front door you are instantly ensconsed in a feeling of comfortable familiarity. They are like a home away from home. Like a friend.

So when those places cease to exist, you feel a sense of loss. Not as strong as the sense of loss when you lose a human friend or relative to be sure, but you do feel like you have lost something special.

This morning it was raining as I made my regular commute to my office on my bicycle. About halfway to my destination I found this sign:
It says that due to restructing this store is going to be closing down at the end of the month, its remaining inventory will be merged with another store in Shingu, east of Fukuoka.

The store in question is Omocha Souko.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you are probably familiar with that name. Omocha Souko is my regular store. I visit it at least three or four times a week. It is near my house and right on my commute every day. I've been doing so ever since I started collecting Famicom games back in 2008. Probably 80% of my Famicom collection I have purchased there. Most of my other retro game stuff comes from there too. I can say with some confidence that some of the most fantastic purchases in retro game collecting history have been made there, by me. It is my Mecca. Without Omocha Souko this blog would not exist.

When I read the sign I actually felt a little lump in my throat. You can't spend that much time in a place and not feel attached to it. Too much fun, too many memories to treat it with the cold detachment that one would usually view a store closure with.

Now it is to be no more. 25 days from now it will close its doors for good. 25 days to prepare for that feeling of loss that I know awaits me at the end of the month.

I've had to think long and hard how I am going to deal with this and I have decided that every post here for the rest of this month will be about Omocha Souko. A kind of countdown to armageddon if you will. The place will disappear but I want this blog and the posts I will put up in the coming weeks to be a repository of images and discussion about a store that in its brief existence was, in its own way at least, the most amazing retro gaming store that the world has ever known.

So stay tuned. I have a lot of stuff to write about this place. Stuff I've been meaning to write about for a long time but never seemed to get the chance. Now that I know my time is limited, I had better get working.

A Look at Some Famicom Jaleco Boxes

I picked up a few boxed Jaleco games at Omocha Souko yesterday - Choplifter, Argus and Murder on the Mississipi.

I already had a couple of other boxed Jaleco games - Moero Pro Yakyu and Uchu Cosmo Carrier - so that gives me a grand total of five.
I rather like the Jaleco boxes. They look very clean, tidy and 80s (if I can use that as an adjective). Choplifter here has to be my favorite, I have been looking for a boxed copy of it for quite a while:
I really dig that artwork, it is quite action packed without looking too action packed. Choplifter is also one of my favorite `games that I am bad at playing`. I rarely get past the second level but its one of the carts that I always keep handy in case I feel like having a go at it.

The back of the box is pretty cool too:
One thing I only noticed today is that the Jaleco games are numbered. The early Namco games like Galaxian, Mappy, Sky Kid, Pac Man and so on are numbered 1-18 on the carts. I have the whole set of those, but it was only on looking at my Jaleco boxes stacked up that I noticed they were numbered too:
Each number is preceded by `JF`, which I assume stands for Jaleco Famicom or something similar.

Argus here is also a pretty good one:
I like it for pretty much the same reason I like the Choplifter box.

My Moero Pro Yakyu still has the price sticker on it:
Daimaru is a department store downtown that is still in business. About half of the Famicom stuff that I have which still has original price tags on them come from Daimaru. It must have been the main source for Famicom games in Fukuoka back in the 80s. Today I`m not even sure if they sell games (or other toys) anymore.

The Oyama Collection

Behold! The Oyama Famicom Collection!

What is the Oyama Famicom collection? It is Goonies, Super Star Force, Ninja Kun, King Kong 2, Clu Clu Land and Yie Ar Kung Fu.

D-uh.

Oh, wait I see. You mean why are those games together called the Oyama Collection? Because of this:
Well, maybe I should rewind a bit here.

I went to Omocha Souko today and they had just tossed these games into their junk bin with prices of 100-300 yen each on them. I just picked them up, paid for them and didn`t really think much about them until I took them out of their plastic baggies. It was then that I noticed that each of them had the same name - Oyama (大山) - written on the back.
I thought that was quite interesting. I get Famicom carts with kids` names written on them all the time, but this was the first time I had ever gotten a whole group of them from the same kid`s collection.

At this point in the Famicom`s lifespan enough time has passed that most of the childhood collections of kids like this have already been dispersed throughout the secondary market. Some have been sold and resold countless times by now.

Not these ones though. These came directly from the kid (or perhaps a relative of the kid, whose first name is Shinji according to the backs of Yie ar Kung Fu and King Kong 2). Probably somebody was clearing out an old room, maybe getting ready for a move or something, and they just dragged everything they didn`t want to Omocha Souko where they were probably paid 20 yen for the lot and that was that.

Anyway, I think that is something special. Individually these are all fairly common games that you can find pretty cheap at most retro game shops, but taken together the group is more than the sum of its individual parts. I think I will try to keep the Oyama collection intact rather than breaking it up. In fact, I feel almost duty-bound to do so.

Cheers to you, Shinji Oyama. Your Famicom collection will be maintained for the ages....

Listening to Wall of Voodoo and Writing About the Sega Mark III

I was just sitting here listening to Wall of Voodoo`s Mexican Radio and it moved me to devote a few minutes to the old blog. Something about that song, its very conducive to writing about early 80s video games. That line about wishing one was in Tijuana eating barbequed iguana, that is exactly how I feel when....well, just about all the time actually.
So anyway, guess what I got! Without looking at any of the pictures or reading the title of this post. Go ahead, just guess! Yes, a Sega Mark III!
I`ve wanted one of these for a while. I already have the adaptor that lets you play Mark III games on the Mega Drive but I felt that was cheating. If you are going to play old school video games then there is really no excuse for not doing it in style with the original console.

Well, not having the console is, I suppose, a decent excuse. At any rate, I no longer have to worry about that sort of thing.

It came in a lovely box:
With everything in there (even the manual, which I didn`t get in this shot):
The Mark III is very similar in style and shape to the SG-1000 II, though they aren`t compatible with each other. I do however like the way they look stacked one on top of the other:
A chance encounter at an out of town conference that led to an evening of wining, dining, karaoke and ultimately an ill advised night in a hotel room that they would both regret on waking the next morning:
Innocence lost, they lay casually on the futon pondering an exit strategy. For their love was never meant to be.

`If only we were compatible....` He says, a puff of cigarette smoke emanating from his cartridge slot.

`We just weren`t made for each other.` She says in a voice of resignation, turning away on her side.

OK, enough of that. These posts are getting too avant garde for a video game blog. Lets just end by saying that I do like this new console of mine.

Some Thoughts on Retro Games Over a Burger and a Comic Book

There is a cool little restaurant near my place that sells burgers. Burger places in Japan (not counting fast food places) are a hard commodity to come by so I was happy when this place opened up last year. It is locally owned by a guy who bought an old abandoned building, tossed some paint onto it and filled it with an eclectic mix of used furniture. I love the place.

Among the odds and ends they have are a few American comics from the late 80s. Like burger places, these are also a rare commodity in Japan. To a guy like me who absolutely loved comics in the late 80s, they are a massive source of sentimental curiousity.

So as I had my lunch there the other day, I picked a copy of Detective comics from maybe 1989 or 1990 off the shelf and flipped through it.

One of the things I noticed while perusing its pages is the heavy reliance of 1980s comics on video game adverts. The back cover of this one had an ad for Double Dragon 2 for the NES on it:
An ad for the Atari 7800 in it:
And about three or four other full page ads for mostly Taito games like Sky Shark and Operation Wolf scattered here and there.

The best part though in terms of what they reveal about gaming culture at the time was what was in the back, the little classified ads.

This one here really caught my eye:
Lets have a look at what this says here...

Looking for something to do?

Oh you know I am.

Play a computer game through the mail.

Well now just you hold the boat there, fella. What if I don`t have a computer?

You don`t need a computer and it costs very little to play.

Perfect! I`m sold!

Try two turns free.

How much will subsequent turns cost? How many turns does this have? What kind of computer game is it? Wait....what is the point of playing a computer game without a computer?

Its a crime!

OK, this is getting very surreal.

We want you to try this play by mail game for free!

Alright, fine. What do I have to do?

Write SEND FREE GAME on a card or letter and send to....

Wait, shouldn`t I also be putting my address down on there?

No strings attached - send no money!

OK then. No money, no address, just write SEND FREE GAME on a card or letter and send it to you. Got it.

..................................................................................................................................

Sometimes I do forget how much life sucked before the internet.

Anyway, there was also an ad from Play it Again for used games:
If they were in their 9th year then that means they must have started in about 1980 or 81. They were way ahead of the game there.

And with my burger finished I put that copy of Detective Comics back on the shelf, paid my bill and walked out the door into the cold and windy February afternoon that awaited me.

Nintendo in the 60s, Man, the 60s! Ultra Machine!

As I have stated on here numerous times, I like to go to a store called Omocha Souko on a regular basis in order to hunt for retro video games. I go so frequently that I now have an awkward time answering the question "what is your hobby?" If I were to answer honestly I would say "I go to a store called Omocha Souko 3 or 4 times a week to look through their junk bins for old video game stuff that I collect and then write about on my blog. That is my hobby."

As this answer provides too much detail on too obscure an area of interest, I usually just say "hiking" instead.

At any rate, what I don't write about too much on here is the fact that Omocha Souko is not just a video game store, it is also a big used-stuff store. The name "Omocha Souko" actually means "toy warehouse" in Japanese. About half of the first floor is, in fact, taken up by toys.
Usually I bypass this area and head straight to the second floor for the video games, but on occasion I will browse the toy section before heading up there. Yesterday I did just that and it was a good thing I did, for on one shelf they had just put this baby out:
The Nintendo Ultra Machine!!!

This thing is so awesome I don't know where to begin. Until about a year ago information on old Nintendo toys like this was hard to come by, but now thanks to Erik's excellent Before Mario blog the entire world now has a wonderful archive of information about these things which I will now blatantly rip off by quoting a few facts that he put up there.

Released in 1967 this toy was designed by none other than the late Gunpei Yokoi, perhaps better known to video game history as the creator of the Game and Watch and Game Boys!

OK, enough of the ripping off (but do check out Before Mario if you haven't already, its really a great blog). Lets look at what I got.

Opening up the box the first thing we have is:
A totally awesome Ultra Machine flyer! The reverse of this has the instructions on how to set up the machine. Note in the lower left corner there is an ad for replacement balls (100 yen per box). This is actually quite cool though and probably worth what I paid for the thing (2000 yen) itself. I might frame it someday as a piece of pop art.

Under that we have:
YES! Everything is complete!! Even the balls are all still there!

This made me quite excited as about a year ago I actually purchased another later version of this same toy that was released in the late 1970s:
The Ultra Machine DX. It is very similar to the original Ultra Machine, but as you can see from this photo the box on it was almost destroyed. It was also missing the balls and had a crack on the blue plastic part. It was only 800 yen though so I was quite satisfied with it at the time.

My new Ultra Machine though is not only complete but in pristine condition.
I love that blue Nintendo bat:
The bat that came with the later Ultra Machine DX is gray, nowhere near as sexy.

The box is pretty cool too:
Anyway, I just love this thing. It was quite the bargain too for only 2000 yen. An Ebay search just turned up one with a BIN price of 300$. That is on the high side, but still, what a bargain.


More of my Old-School Nintendo Finds from the 60s and 70s:
-Mandarake Finds: Kousenjuu SP Gun and Old School Star Wars Stuff
-Flea Market Finds: Nintendo Batting Practice with Koichi Tabuchi and Sadaharu Oh
-Nintendo Color TV Game 15
-Mega Bargain of the Day: Kousenjuu SP Electro Safari