Tokugawa Corporate Forums

Are there any good shops for old computer games in Japan? I've been in dozens of great console and arcade game shops in both Osaka and Tokyo, but never managed to find much second hand 80's and 90's computer games. Some games just won't surface on yahoo auctions...

I heard of Hard Off :

http://www.d1.dion.ne.jp/~kenichim/SHOP/SHOP.htm

Thanks for the tip. Hard Off is a kind of "general" electronic store chain with all kinds of stuff, but always with a section reserved for games at bargain prices. I can't remember seeing many computer games, but I wasn't really as interested in that back when I visited Japan. I'll look more carefully next time.

I'm really curious to know if there are computer games stores that are as well-assorted as Trader 2 and Super Potato are when it comes to console games.

Is there nothing more then this shop?

When I was in Tokyo, there was a small store that had some old PC98 hardware for sale. I can vaguely remember the area it was near(near Akihabara station)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Unknown+road&daddr=35.702762,139.76944&geocode=FWi3IAIdiLRUCA%3B&hl=en&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=17&ttype=dep&date=08%2F15%2F10&time=12:55pm&noexp=0&noal=0&sort=time&sll=35.700279,139.771253&sspn=0.006691,0.009645&ie=UTF8&z=17&start=0

It was somewhere in that stretch of road that I marked on the map. I don't think they have any PC98 games, but who knows.

Old computer games (i.e., pre-Windows software) aren't really available at retail shops anymore. You would have to be very, very lucky to find some PC98 or FM-Towns software in a Hard Off, let alone stuff for older systems.

Remember, these games usually sold in the low thousands, so there's not many original copies to begin with. The situation is very different from console games.

Your best chance of finding stuff is:
1) Yahoo Auction
2) Akihabara. I know there was at least one PC98 specialty shop a few years ago, but it might be gone now. It was mostly hardware, anyway. Otherwise, just go look in the general used PC and DOS/V shops, and there might be a small section for old Japanese computers.
3) I've never tried this, but if you're looking for something in particular, you could post in one of the relevant threads at 2ch and try to find a direct seller.