Isn't nintendo stuff in japan pretty affordable? first party titles are plentyyfull in japan even cib making it say way cheaper than western stuff. sure prices got up a bit but it's still pretty cheap. Obviously rare stuff exists even in japan like rendering ranger but again you can say that for every console Isn't saturn and especially genesis more pricy in Japan? Genesis didnt do to hot in Japan. Pc engine etc while they did allot better the good stuff is also way more pricy than majority of super famicom.
super famicom has a ton of affordable cheap good stuff right compared to say for sega pc engine saturn in Japan. Maybe with the exceptions for rpg's since all consoles had those in an abudance so maybe in that case it might be a bit more pricy on super famicom but again rpg's in japan are pretty cheap overall. Is super famicom that pricy compared to other consoles in your experience in Japan? its not dirt cheap like it used to be before tourists but that's not only with super famicom i'd imagine.
or is it more of a problem with say gamecube since ps2 era is overall dirt cheap in Japan. Also say gamecube are there actually rare games for that system on Japan. since aside from hyped stuff like fire emblem or the lower prices first party titles i don't see it being that pricy. Japanese Ps2 on the other hand while a ton of stuff is dirt cheap has some sought after stuff that western people want.
I think it's the condition end of things- I'm not remotely fluent, but I know enough Japanese to poke around Amazon Japan & Yahoo Auctions. I recently got myself a small famicom collection, and opted to get Devil World CIB becuase I like to have at least one per system & it's so common it's even dirt cheap from US sources. It still took a week to find a box that wasn't falling apart or 10 times the cost of a cart. I guess nice cardboard is expensive no matter where you live.
On second thought. I think you're both right. Even though good (or interesting)
CIB Famicom games tend to be more expensive than
I'd like to pay for them around here, they are still way
cheaper than their North American counterparts. I think it's more of a matter of
preference than
price, as I'd happily pay the equivalent to like US$100.00 for a
Saturn or
Dreamcast game I really wanted, but will very rarely pay over US$20.00 on any
Nintendo stuff...
In the case of the
Super Famicom (one of the few consoles I simply
gave up on collecting CIB), common games can usually be found for dirt cheap. Around herem I don't think anyone in their right mind would pay over
US$3.00 for a loose copy of
The Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past,
Super Metroid,
Secret of Mana or
Chrono Trigger, for example... However, once you enter the world of
more interesting (according to my preference) games such as
TMNT: Turtles in Time,
Gundam Wing: Endless Duel,
Super Castlevania IV and
The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie, Super Famicom tends to be
more expensive than the
Saturn or the
Dreamcast.
And I see
two major problems in collecting
GameCube stuff around here.
First is the
price as a
GameCube game usually costs something around
five times what it goes for on the
PS2 or even on the original
Xbox (albeit the later tends to be pretty rare to find). The
second is the fact that, contrarily to how its games were released worldwide (that were sold in hard
plastic cases similar to those of DVDs), in Japan,
GameCube discs were sold inside small fragile semi-
transparent plastic cases that were, in turn, placed inside a
thin cardboard sleeve that are relatively rare to find in good condition...
