Thread 11969738

How long until the Japanese retro market implodes and prices reach the same ridiculous level of American releases?

>>11969738 (OP)
Very very shortly. Buy now or cry later.

>>11969738 (OP)
wouldn't implode mean prices drop

>>11969738 (OP)
Never

I have Mario cart 64 in Japanese. I tell people it’s because of the censorship but really it was like half the price.

>>11969738 (OP)
Tony-chan no kuso!

Bideo Geemu takai na..

>>11969738 (OP)
For tourists that happened a while back. Haven't you seen the threads by tourists larping about being Japanese collectors and crying about prices?
>>11969741
When a zoomie uses it word it means whatever the voices in they/thems head say it means.

>>11969738 (OP)
It's basically already happened. Even over just the past few years there's been an explosion of deputy service bidders on Yahoo auctions. Even on a lot of niche shit it went from me typically being the only overseas bidder on whatever I was bidding on, only rarely encountering other deputies, to now almost everything I bid on has at least some, if not several, deputy bids. You also have YouTubers getting sponsorships from deputy services, showing off le ebin junk lot hauls, or even going straight to Japan to vlog about going to game stores. Ebay is flooded with scam listings where Japanese sellers list items they don't even have, ans if you win for the stupidly inflated price, they buy the item from wherever they stole the photo from (assuming it isn't already sold out). It's not as bad as the US market, and there's still tons of shit that you can get for cheap, but supply is drying up and prices are getting increasingly ridiculous. Even online junk shop pricing is bad, you're only going to get a deal if you get lucky and catch them slipping, or take a gamble on a stock photo/as-is listing, and get lucky with something in better condition/more complete than you'd expect.

>>11969738 (OP)
not gonna lie all I care about here is your fat fingers. why are you fat?

>>11969738 (OP)
There are plenty of Japanese games that command higher prices than the same game from the United States.

>>11969738 (OP)
That already happened, you'd be shocked to see how cheap they were just 6 or 7 years ago
The difference is that the RPGs and games like that never went up in price because of the language barrier, but as AI makes it easier to translate on the fly with your phone that could change

>>11969738 (OP)
People here are doom-mongering. It's getting worse but I highly doubt it will ever reach American levels for the vast majority of games, at the end of the day the Japanese just don't have the same hoarding/coomlecting culture (for a variety of reasons) and the language barrier will always be an issue for foreign buyers. Plus most people want their nostalgia buys to be in the language they grew up with. That said I could see specfic things like boxed Pokemon games reaching absurd levels (they're already much higher than they were even 5 years ago) along with handheld consoles and region-free hardware in general. And of course there are already plenty of rare games that are quite expensive without much foreign demand.

>>11969995
You fail to see how easily the japanese adopt western trends.

Japanese don't collect things like Westerners do, they just sell it when they're done with it, and prices are low because there is usually enough supply so other people can enjoy it. The only serious scalping is in tourist areas where the unscrupulous can rip off gaijin or places like Super Potato where you're obviously there to buy wrapped CIB stuff or dumb shit like the 64DD. Yahoo/eBay can be hit or miss because of the same opportunities for scalping dumb foreigners, but everything I bought from Japan has been significantly cheaper. It also just depends on what it is. You can buy every Dragon Quest on the Famicom for like $20 total, and I saw a lot of 9 N64 games all in box like Ogre Battle Mario Tennis etc for $30 the other day. The worst offenders in my experience have been the consoles themselves, even the Japanese won't hesitate to take advantage of zoomies who saw Scott the Woz say how friggin' epic the 3DS or Game Boy is. Also because you don't need to understand moon runes to mod them vs. language-locked games. Even then, they're still always cheaper than Western models.

>>11970048
Depends on the trend, Japanese culture certainly takes cues from western trends but with their own twist based on domestic conditions. (This is a culture where print media is still far more vital than digital for disseminating information, for fuck's sake.) It's true that interest in retro gaming is growing. As in the west, millenials and zoomers are more likely than previous generations to hold onto interests they had as children, and gaming is increasingly being seen as a legitimate hobby for adults. But you also have space limitations, the wide accessibility of secondhand electronic shops, and higher overall standards for the conditions of games (making CiB relatively less valuable and professional grading unlikely to really takeoff, as shops and sellers already have less formal systems of grading) all very much in contrast to the American scene. There is also just less value placed on secondhand goods in general, as you can see in the luxury fashion market, where big name brands have less of a pull since people tend to get them cheaply used anyway. And on a purely anecdotal level I've had friends say they don't care as much about older games since they're more interested in the convenience of playing digital re-releases.

>>11969738 (OP)
Its already happening, but not quite there yet.

Text heavy games are still much cheaper in JP than English. Chrono Trigger, Mario RPG for example, will always be cheaper in Japanese.

>>11969920
>deputy service bidders
>not mayor service bidders
Well there's yer problem

>>11969738 (OP)
partly westoid's fault btw I wouldnt be surprised if some japs cry about price increase because John from Arizona and Huan from Barcelona order some overpriced shit

>>11969993
meh they are still mostly very cheap if you stick to titles that sold well
you can still walk into a store and buy things like dkc1-3 for 300 yen each
even more expensive games like lttp or mother 2 usually top out around 1000
sure there are many games that go for more but generally they are still very cheap

>>11969738 (OP)
tony no unko no nioi tamanne

>>11970728
I don’t think Tony hawk was released in japan until the later games. Never saw a ps1 or n64 copy in my years.

>>11969738 (OP)
pokemon gemerald was like 80 dollars last time i checked

>>11971189
newfag

>>11969738 (OP)
Thats one fucked up thumb, and the foot looks pretty fucked up too

>>11970145
>Japanese don't collect things like Westerners do
you are a fucking moron

>>11970724
only accurate post in this thread full of larpers
i started buying complete in box sfc games THIS YEAR from "junk" lots on yahoo and on average it's 300-500 yen per game, at very worst they're just missing the manual or need some cleaning
you can still get almost EVERY SINGLE nintendo-published sfc game complete in box on yahoo for under 1000 yen each, these 12 being the only exceptions:
lttp
mother 2
marvelous
kirby 3
super metroid
sutte hakkun
wrecking crew 98
thracia 776
平成 新・鬼ヶ島 前編
平成 新・鬼ヶ島 後編
power 倉庫番
power wgp 2

can we do something about the fat fingers? I cant get them out of my head. why is he fat?

>>11971919
I think there's some disconnect because the hot expensive Japanese gaming collector items don't always align with what westerners want, or would ever imagine are actually stupidly expensive and desirable in Japan. Westerners see the Japanese prices of stuff like Rockman X3 or Mother 2, see how much cheaper they are compared to the US pricing, and think "wow Japanese games are cheap, they must not have a collector market" or look at stuff like Battle Mania Daiginjou, which is expensive, and attribute it to the game becoming more popular in the west and attribute it to that.
What they don't look at are things like SFC Bubsy, or SFC Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, or MD Comix Zone, or MD The Ooze. Or delve into the depths of Japanese collector obsessions, for things like the brown shell prize release of Zombie Hunter (which I honestly would not be surprised if there's zero mention of it on the English interwebs). Sure, maybe on average Japanese releases are cheaper, but there are absolutely stupidly expensive and hotly desired things in Japan, which aren't driven solely (or even meaningfully) by western collectors, it's just that western collectors don't pursue them, or see some stupidly expensive Acclaim crappo, think "huh that's weird" and entirely forget about it, instead focusing on how Mother 2 is bargain bin filler in Japan, because it isn't quite the meme sensation in Japan, nor is it remotely rare.

>>11971218
Suck my dick

>>11969920
Those eBay listings are mostly not made by actual Japanese people. They might pretend to be if you message them, but it's mostly just regular resellers that use an autolister. They scrape Japanese markets and automatically copy the listings onto eBay while adding on a significant amount for the reseller to profit. Then if it sells on eBay and is still in stock, they just use the same proxy services that everyone else does but have them remove branding so it looks like it might have come directly from a Japanese seller to an unsuspecting American.

>>11971982
>SFC Bubsy
Who is buying this???

>>11972094
Probably Japanese collectors. Some of the games which are rare and expensive collectorbait in Japan aren't even on the radar of western collectors

>>11969762
What was censored?

>>11972174
They went woke and made Bowser gay.

>>11972169
Makes sense
There are some western games which were pretty common in the west that I imagine got pretty small releases in Japan
I think that's why Genesis games are usually cheaper than their JP Mega Drive equivalent, there were just more games printed for us by far because the console was not as successful in Japan

>>11969738 (OP)
You'd think it's the resellers that would cause prices to bubble out of control, but in this case you'd need every single youtuber/e-celeb/whatever internet talking head to push a single, controlled narrative that "now is the time to start collecting the Japanese version of games". Gaijin see no point in trying to scalp them because nobody's going to collect vidya in a language they're not fluent in unless it's some actual ultra rare shit like the gold punch-out prototype carts or one of those official companion art books to a ps1 fromsoftware game.

>>11972174
Real answer: They changed the fake advertising brands into even faker advertising brands so that malboro and goodyear wouldn't sue Nintendo.
Also not censorship, but the Japanese voices for half the characters are different, including the menu announcer. https://tcrf.net/Mario_Kart_64/Regional_Differences

even normie flippers have begun to realise that they can go to Japan, buy literally anything and make money selling it in their home countries.
I work at an LGS and the amount of mouthbreathing retards who tell me of their tales of conquest since 'just getting back from japan' is mindblowing. They arent going to rape the country dry or anything but I do think Japanese merchants are starting to wake up to the idea that they can be making much, much more money from their junk. You will be very hard pressed to find a 100 yen pokemon game anymore, for example

>>11972306
>They arent going to rape the country dry or anything
Correct. That was done long ago. All that's left in the tourist traps is overpriced dregs.

All of the interesting JP-exclusive PS1 games are expensive. It can't exclusively be westerners importing, because the language barrier is definitely present on a lot of them.

You have the very pricey shit like LSD, Yuuyami Doori Tankentai, Lain, Paranoiascape, Harmful Park... Theres probably around 50 games in this category alone. That number grows quickly when you start to include games in the $80-$100 range. Probably multiple hundreds of those titles.

One thing the Japanese are better at, is to weigh the demand and scarcity of certain titles. Most JP titles you kinda understand why they're expensive. Westerners will take a game with a seemingly endless surplus of used copies in rotation and make it expensive just because people enjoy the game, like Silent Hill. They'll also take Cindys Fashion Fuckfest (PAL) and make it $1000 just because it's rare, ignoring the fact that absolutely no one wants to play it.

>>11969738 (OP)
>>11969740
Don' care about rice runes now or ever, from the transistor to the integrated circuit to the public, optical storage, the digital computer and network, the mouse, joystick , keyboard, games consoles, rpg etc etc were all created in the USA and Europe along with the first games and the best games.

It's not happening. Japan made so many games and consoles during the bubble economy there's still plenty to go around for any jap who wants to dabble in retro and any gaijin importing.
Of course there's specific games that got stupid expensive and won't ever get cheaper, and there's also inflation but still old games will stay affordable in general until anyone interested is too old to play

>>11969738 (OP)
It happened years ago. I met a guy a couple years back who just moved back to the US. He moved to Japan in 2011 and just resold games to Americans and Europeans on eBay since everything was so cheap over there. He’d go into a Book Off or even Super Potato and drop the equivalent of $5000 and then go back around and resell it for 4 or 5 times that much. He lived pretty well over there for a bit, then it got a lot more competitive, stores starting catching on, and by the time COVID hit it was nearly impossible to make a living off it anymore, which is why he came back to the US. The guy had a massive personal collection to, but sold 95% of it before returning to the US.

I have nothing to add to this thread but I want to share this picture that is tangentially related. Thank you for your time.

>>11973172
thank you anon, had a good laugh

>>11973172
>kono yarou kusoge
damn this guy hated it, is it that bad?

>>11972603
>Westerners will take a game with a seemingly endless surplus of used copies in rotation and make it expensive just because people enjoy the game
As an american I'm so tired of this bullshit. It's driven by fink faggots that don't even play video games. They're just going to collectively jack prices on anything they can because they're worthless parasites

>>11973324
>as a poorfag bandwagoner I'm so jelly of my elders
lol

>>11973324
Most of the expensive games I own I bought used ex rental from video stores in the 99s and 00s. I still occasionally pick up ps1, ps2 and 360 but my DVD library is 2500+ my book library is 1500+ and my games library is 1500+ I have 15+ original machines in mint condition Most if it I bought at a time when if you had been there you would have called be a dickhead for buying worthless obsolete garbage. I remember when you could buy games and DVDs in ten lb bags for five dollars no body wanted it. People used give away shit like consoles controllers old computers racing wheels crts etc for free if you would collect it.If you had been there you would have called me a hoarder ( my stuff is arranged immaculately on ikea book cases).I have no interest in jap imports and don't want it. I play all my retro games on original hardware with original media although I do have one 50 inch old hdmi TV a bunch of stuff is in aside from my cart setup. I do not flip, resell, trade or care much about all that because my stuff is for providing me with free good quality 7th gen 6th gen PC and retro computers along with movies and shows for the rest of my life. I have warned people like you for a decade that the era of piracy is ending but you never fucking listen and just want to seethe. You will miss cheap movie physical media ending and be whining about that next. You want the REALLY bad news heap good used books are drying up, prices for used DVDs of movies are rising steeply You are a looser who will always scream about consumerism and hoarding when people are just doing what they like and keeping stuff they enjoy instead if sending it to landfill and you'll sit there and scream about it after. Enjoy your scubscription digital only hash signature based local and Internet backbone media quarantine world of unavailability and court summons sucker

>unwanted Japanese PC tape of a game the developer badly copied from a BASIC magazine, tape only, untested, slightly damaged/dirty, sold as is
>8000 yen
I occasionally trawled around to dump shit for companies I am interested in and I'd already be hesitant the closer something like that got to 2000 yen. I can easily find western tapeshit for less than 5 of any relevant western currency, not accounting for import costs in both cases.

They also made shitty ADV games no one cared for on MSX, and they are listed anywhere from 30-50K yen because they were released with pretty solid boxes so are largely intact. You'd think it was a typo with an extra 0, but no they've been listed like that for years.

>>11973594
>that time you copypasted a therapy session with chatgpt when you larped about being a grownup

>>11973324
I'm more sick of the faggots that think they can tank prices to buy in because they're not real collectors. By making up fake claims about games sucking. Or nobody cares about X.
It's not so much the prices but just resellers being the biggest pieces of shit clogging up every fucking public space where anything like this can be discussed.