bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Agence France-Presse

US tourist David Madrigal is over the moon after paying US$200 for a “vintage” console at a busy Tokyo store that is tapping into booming global demand for retro gaming equipment.
“When I came into this store, I was like a kid walking into a candy shop,” says Madrigal, 23, at Super Potato in the Akihabara district, famous for its Japanese pop culture shops.
“This stuff is my passion. I love older consoles,” he says. The PS Vita that he bought is a console released in 2011 that “would usually cost me about US$600 in the US”.
Super Potato has three floors packed with Game Boy cartridges, Sega Dreamcast consoles wrapped in plastic and antiquated arcade machines where nostalgic customers can play Street Fighter II again.

Prices can be eye-watering. A handheld Nintendo Game & Watch electronic game from the 1980s – featuring Zelda – was priced at 250,800 yen (US$1,750).
Around 70 to 80 per cent of customers are foreign tourists, who have flocked to Japan in record numbers this year, according to store manager Komura, who only gave his surname.
Part of the appeal, Madrigal says, is that many modern games are a bit “more of the same” compared to ones when he was growing up.
“There was a different kind of innovation,” he says. “Companies weren’t afraid to think outside the box. They were willing to take risks.”
Video game historian Hiroyuki Maeda says that additional demand from collectors comes from the fact that some consoles were marketed differently outside Japan.

Nintendo’s Famicom and Super Famicom consoles, for example, were released abroad under alternative names, and with different and more colourful designs, he says.
“If you come to Japan and see a machine you’ve never seen before, you want to buy it. It stimulates the collector’s soul,” says Maeda, who has written dozens of books on gaming history. “The definition of retro gaming varies, depending on the era that the people who engage in it are nostalgic for.”
Amid rice paddies and lotus fields two hours north of Tokyo, Proudro (his online persona) has amassed a vast treasure trove of video game relics.
The “super collector” has stuffed an old building opposite his family home with several thousand vintage games and consoles, as well as arcade machines in full working order.
“The appeal of collecting retro games is really the nostalgia of childhood memories in games shops or spending time playing at friends’ houses,” the 50-year-old collector says. “To be honest, I don’t really play games.
There were often stocks of Super Famicom or Game & Watch in a corner, covered in dust. The elderly people who ran these shops would tell me to take them away to clear them out
Proudro, retro video game collector
“Being surrounded by games, their sounds, their atmosphere, looking at them and dreaming, that’s enough to keep me happy.”
Proudro has spent lavishly on his collection.
Retro games can reach sky-high prices: a still-wrapped version of the game Super Mario Bros, released in 1985, sold in 2021 for US$2 million.
Until the late 1990s, however, old games were virtually worthless, according to historian Maeda.
“They were crammed into bins in shops” and sold for as little as 10 yen, he says. Proudro says he travelled around Japan 20 years ago looking for collectibles in toy shops and bookstores.

“There were often stocks of Super Famicom or Game & Watch in a corner, covered in dust. The elderly people who ran these shops would tell me to take them away to clear them out,” Proudro says.
“As I work in vegetable wholesale, I would give them a crate of onions or potatoes, and everyone was happy.
“Today that would no longer be possible. These shops have disappeared, and with the internet, everyone has started to resell,” he says.
Wanting to share his passion with others, Proudro founded an association of retro gaming enthusiasts and is delighted at the interest shown by people from around the world.
“But to be honest, I also think that Japanese products should stay in Japan. It’s a bit like Japanese woodblock prints in the past, which were taken abroad where they were more appreciated, before being bought back by Japan,” he says.
His country, he says, “is slow to realise the value” of its works.


Indonesia’s smallest city offers beaches, boat rides and seafood galore

Phu Quoc, Vietnam for designer resorts and attractions that include … a town on the Med?

Japan Airlines offers luggage delivery service to your hotel when you visit Tokyo

Indonesia’s Bali aims to root out foreign travellers offering sexual services

Asia travel

Why Japan is a retro video game and console collectors’ paradise

Part of the collection of vintage video games owned by game collector Proudro, at his home in Kasumigaura, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan. Photo: AFP

Video game historian and game history book author and publisher Hiroyuki Maeda with a prototype of a handheld Nintendo game at his office in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

Maeda looks through a gaming history book. His considerable collection is housed in an old building near his home, two hours north of Tokyo. Photo: AFP

Vintage video game collector Proudro with some of the gaming memorabilia he has collected, at his home in Kasumigaura, Ibaraki prefecture. Photo: AFP

5 Black Myth: Wukong characters and their book analogues to help you better play the game

Erlang Shen is the god who defeats Wukong at the start of the game. Photo: Game Science

A still of Wukong from Black Myth: Wukong. We profile five characters in the video game and their analogues in the classic novel Journey to the West. Photo: Game Science

A still of Elder Jinchi in the game. He can be found in the Ancient Guanyin Temple. Photo: Game Science

Lady Rakshasi, or Princess Iron Fan, in the video game. She has been portrayed in many television and movie adaptations. Photo: Game Science

Tencent counts on AI boom, video gaming power to lift cloud business overseas

The Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen, China. Photo: AFP

Dowson Tong, CEO of Tencent’s Cloud and Smart Industries Group. Photo: Handout

A display on generative AI technology at the Tencent booth at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai last year. Photo: Bloomberg

Tencent, NetEase rethink Japan investments after yielding few blockbuster video games

An advertisement for the Chinese-made video game Black Myth: Wukong in a Sony store in Shanghai. Photo: EPA-EFE

Japan is the world’s third-largest video gaming market. Photo: AP Photo

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Gadgets

Travel & Leisure

Fans of old video games, consoles and arcade machines are heading to Japan to snap up bargains and rarities. We talk to some avid collectors


Fans of old video games, consoles and arcade machines are heading to Japan to snap up bargains and rarities. We talk to some avid collectors.


Video gaming

Japan

Tokyo