/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9060702
VGH...nostalgia for a time I cannot remember
>>9060713
Looks like a 2022 retro game store.

>>9060702
In my mind stores are still like that...it's just when I go to one, the timeline has oddly shifted.

I'll post a few

>>9060713
Is this EB Games in the early 90's? It looks like it

That's all I got unless you want more recent stuff like this >>9060764 or LAN party shots

While I miss going to stores like this in the 90s and 2000s, and the excitement of getting import Game Boy games early and such (I still remember being blown away by a shop carrying the US Pokémon gold and silver before the UK release), it also makes me extra appreciative I have entire console libraries on everdrives now. More than an entire store on one cartridge. I will get called soulless or whatever but kid me would have gone nuts for my n64 ever drive.

Someone working in a department store could afford a house and a car on their salary.

Now they cant afford rent or the bus.

>>9060719
If you can’t remember big box pc games go back to /v/ zoomcel. JK but not really.
That store is also way too authentic to be some “retro bidya gaems” soishoppe.
>>9060745
I think there is a conspiracy. The same woman was in toys r us in 1999.

>>9060768
>one of the guys in this photo could be gramps

I was born in 87 and most of these pictures feel completely alien to me. I have no memory of Super Nintendo games being displayed at retail despite owning one along with 15 games at the time. Be thankful if you have a functional memory.

>>9060780
>pc games
Ew.
The oldest thing I can remember seeing in game stores is PSX games and accessories. Those were still on the shelves after the Dreamcast died.

>>9060750
Where is this?

Looking at these pictures i imagine what it would feel like being transported there and how bizarre it would seem to walk around a world that doesn't exist anymore,like waking up from a bad dream.

>>9060739
Is that 8bitfry?

>>9060807
I am honestly not sure, but it looks like a Sony store, maybe NY? Something like that

>>9060805
>he doesn’t remember when pc gaming was magical either and is an out and out consoletard
stop talking.

>>9060807
Those Dreamcast launch day photos are apparently from my local mall (crossgates in guilderland ny). Pretty neat and slightly mind blowing. I think my mother ended up getting mine at Toys R Us in colonie.
You can view all of them here: http://www.videogameobsession.com/videogame/9-9-99/
The toys r us photos came be found here: https://archive.org/details/trunj9900/HANOVER-NJ-06.png

>>9060741
Babbage's.

I honestly miss Toys R Us, it’s a damn shame Amazon and their ilk basically killed them.

>>9060850
The only good retro PC games are doom and doom clones.

>>9060872
reminder Toys R Us donated a portions of its profits to planned parenthood.

>>9060861
Thanks, that makes more sense

>>9060872
That was Bane Capital who did that
>>9060929
Please leave your politics bait out of this thread

>>9060925
That's not very ergonomic.

>>9060935
>Please leave your politics bait out of this thread
lmao imagine being nostalgic for a toy store that donated money to baby killers and then getting defensive when reminded about it. you are everything wrong with this world you materialistic parasite. i sincerely, legitimately hope you die in the most painful way possible.

>>9060929
>>9060947
Nobody cares. Fuck off >>>/pol/

>>9060945
Is that 80 dollars for Phantasy star 2 lol.

>>9060976
It's not really surprisin., RPGs (especially SNES ones) used to be more expensive than your average game, at least where I lived (Massachusetts at the time).

>>9060976

$160 adjusted for inflation

>>9060967
you're the one who brought up toys r us, i'm just stating a fact. you chose to get offended by it, you're the one making it political. your childhood was a lie and you are so emotionally stunted as an adult that you still identify with a fucking toy store that directly funded the killing of children but you want to ignore that and continue jerking off to false memories. you are a worthless human.

>>9060758
and not a single tranny among em

>>9060745
>>9060780
The most conspicuous thing about that picture is the resolution. That girl would have been taking that picture with a 640x480 camera at best if the games on the shelf were current.

>>9060976
Y'all bitch about $60 games, I remember being a lad and trying to buy Illusion of Gaia for $70 in 1994 dollars.

>>9061092
that was 2001 or later and there decent digital cameras and shit by that point. if somebody managed to fake that shot even with the old store in the background, id be impressed.

>>9060779
we just need more free market capitalism. i promise our billionaire owners will pay us more. trust me bro.

>>9060780
>“retro bidya gaems” soishoppe
>when im into retro games it's because im cool and authentic, when you're into retro games it's actually because you're weak and feminine

Born in 84 here. These images just hit me with remorse that my 3 year old son wont ever have something like these places to wander around in and have endless hopes and wonder to fill his young captivated brain. I thought the future would be better as a kid and there's nothing today that matches the days of old. I think we need less nostalgia and start creating new awesome things for our younger generations to enjoy and feel powerful Nostalgia for when they are old. All they have today is our washed up and dead dreams that we cling on to because they were special to us for our own reasons. Its not as important to them since they didnt live it. I need to do something about this before it's too late.

>>9061138
>bro im so sad my son cant engage i consumerism like i did, instead he has to engage in consumerism that way his friends do.....VHG retvrn to tradition

>>9061143
kek

>>9060796
Whatever happened to him, anyway? I'd take his attentionwhoring over black countertop coomlector's any day

>>9060702
I remember in mid/early 90s walking into what i believe was a chain of retailers owned and branded by Intel(i distinctlyremember their logo inside and outside). I remember a long rather then wide store, neon purple lighting inside, illuminating big box pc games along both walls as well as hardware. Id fucking kill to know if any pics of that place(s) are floating around to compare it to my distinctive memory of it. The one i went to was in south eastern Pennsylvania and would have been no later then 95.

>>9060801
I think it depends on the shops and regions. I see no game gear games in any of these photos, but i remember seeing more of those boxes in stores then i do snes.

>>9060756

She must have been hit on endlessly greasy nerd coworkers and customers.

>>9060713
>>9060741
looks exactly like my mall's babagge's in the early 90s

>>9060696
Yeah but for what purpose

>>9061394
How it should be, tits or gtfo

>>9061415
everyone in my discord thinks this one person is a woman but I'm 100% certain they're actually a tranny and I'm looking for pictures of him in his pre-tranny phase and the only lead I have to go on is that he worked at a video games store in the late '90s

>>9061092
Could have been a traditional camera

>>9060752
>Lunar: Silver Star Story on the shelf
nice!

>>9061436
Also could be a 3mp camera. I got my first high-res 3mp camera in 2000. Nikon Coolpix 990.

>>9060936
They weren't supposed to be. They intentionally designed those things so you'd play for a few minutes max and either leave or buy something.

>>9060756
Those Voodoo3 cards, I wanted them. They were unaffordable then, and now they are unobtainium.

>>9060976
Toys 'R Us used to upsell and increase their prices significantly because they were a specialized retailer. I remember the first 8 megabit (1MB) game on the Genesis was Strider, and they had it for $95.99, but it also bercame the GotY for EGM.

>>9061112
Yeah, prices were so much higher for games. They are now free and really inexpensive. I am jealous kids have it so much better now.

>>9061480
I paid $20 for that same game in the 90s. Ya should've waited like I did.

>>9060745
It’s photoshopped. You can see the feather effect at the edges of her body from when she was cut out from another photo. The lighting on her is also off compared to the retail light environment she’s in. The detail on her clothes is also more likely to have been picked up by a more modern digital camera. If this was taken with a traditional camera (disposable or otherwise) the focus would very likely be even as well, and there is a distinct blur on her and only her. A general noise or compression effect was used to blend her in. Not a bad shoop but the feathering will expose you every time. Look at the photo again and pay attention to what’s been listed here and you will see it’s dubious.
>>9061092
>>9061115
>>9061436
>>9061441

>>9060925
It always weirds me out that someone was standing behind me and snapped this picture.

>1995
>walk into electronics boutique with my parents
>dad buys a video card for our brand new packard bell legend 406cd so it can run mega race
>mom says my brother and I each get to buy a game
>brother gets nba jam for snes
>I get tekken for my brand new ps1
Fuck I miss the atmosphere.

>used to go to one local video store when I was a kid
>not some big chain so it got to do its own thing and thought it just had the coolest, most well designed look I ever saw
>closed up, like all video stores did
>nobody took photos
>nobody else remembers it
>all I have are my memories

>>9060741
KB Toys.

Bump

>>9060750
I still see places like this in my dreams sometimes. I miss it /vr/os

>>9061438
That's what I was imagining, like bro, we got all these great choices and you pick blitz? It's fun I guess

>>9060768
I remember that Babbage's was always the third choice for games when we went on a rare ass trip to the mall. All those options and variety are gone now and it's really lame.

>>9060768

>>9060702
we have to go back

>>9060758
This is the most /fa/ thing I have ever seen on /vr/.

>>9061919
I also went to an independent video store. Dude had his dogs walking around the store while you browsed, unbelievably comfy. Always wonder what he did after he closed up.

>>9061143
Lol, but I get what that anon is saying: I, too, had a great childhood and recognize that a large—but not majority—portion of those good feeling were underpinned by mindless consumerism. I am simultaneously nostalgic for and repelled by memories of time spent lusting after certain games, counting down the days until one was in my hands. Thankfully my parents had strict limits on gaming, so I also have tons of memories and experiences based on meaningful things.

A modicum of that joy from consumerism is ok, it’s just got to be balanced out, and that’s what we’ve lost and started losing back when I was a kid. Honestly, I know I’m against a giant infernal machine, but I try to model that same balance for my kids. If at 15yo they play an hour of games but also read philosophy, I will feel good as a parent.

>>9061910
shit taste runs in the family i see

>>9060750
This has to be a sony store, I remember picking up some ps1 games insanely cheap in like 05 or 06

A side effect of this isn't just making me miss these old stores, it's making me miss when malls were actually a thing people went to. The actual social experience of shopping is just non-existent anymore. It's either entirely online or purely utilitarian.

>>9060994
Yeah, games used to have variable pricing from game to game. I paid 80 bucks for Majora's Mask at release.

As I get older, I find I miss these things less and less. Looking at places like this I really can't get my nostalgia up any more.

>>9061480
I think about this a lot when I see people in Physical Media threads getting mad about old games costing 40 bucks or something. Almost all games are worth less in real dollars then what I was paying at release, but for some reason the expectation is that all games should be dirt cheap.
Oh well.

>>9064049
That's like me except instead of a video games store it's a chick with huge tits and instead of nostalgia it's my penis.

>>9064053
I get it man... I get it.

>>9062425
It was consumerism but not exactly mindless. We would flip through catalogs and magazines and learn about all the new games that were coming out. Today a kid will just ask for more Fortnite money for Christmas. There's a lot less of an exploratory attitude about gaming.

Plus we didn't have active shooter drills in the 90s so that's kind of a big difference, too. We were the last generation to actually grow up pre-9/11 so we didn't have as much bullshit hanging over our heads.

>>9060739
Back when people still got excited about being photographed

>>9061919
>>9062057
I think about this from time to time. There are old restaurants and shit I went to as a kid with my family that are long forgotten. Replaced by other businesses, if the building is even still standing. And in the 90s it wasn't expected that every business would have an internet presence. So all of these places are just...gone. No photos, no Yelp reviews, nothing. If it wasn't a chain then Google has no record of these places ever existing. The only evidence would be in some tax or property documents at City Hall or something or maybe an article in a local newspaper if you want to look through the microfilm. It's a real bummer because now I understand the stories my parents tell me about the places they went to as kids that were long gone by the time I was born. As a kid we'd be driving and my mom or dad would point at a Dunkin Donuts or something and be like "there used to be this shop there..." We're talking back in the 60s or 70s. And now I do the same thing about places in the 90s and for the first time understand the feeling of nostalgia they must have been feeling when they would tell me those stories.

>>9064040
They also had nebulous release dates. I remember when a game came out you'd sometimes would go to a store and they didn't have it yet so you'd hop around from store to store and find one that did. There wasn't a hard and fast street date. The game would ship and stores would put it out as soon as they got it. In fact, nobody actually knows the exact release date of Super Mario Bros. for this very reason. I'm guessing street dates came into existence because stores would get into arguments over lost business due to the fickleness of the mail giving competitors up to several days advantage.

>>9064078
Yeah. I had that with Pokemon Red as a kid. I just went to places until someone had it. Some were sold out, some didn't have it yet, eventually a Newberry Comics had a copy of Red.

>>9064073
The further back you go, the truer that becomes. The Olmec were a huge empire in Meso-America that influenced many of the cultures of Central and South American for thousands of years. They were an empire about the same time that Greece was dominating in Europe.
They didn't have writing though, and so our knowledge of them is limited even though they were a huge empire. Most things are forgotten, but I think that's okay. We're in a time of easy storage, and thus we overemphasize cataloguing everything.

>>9060764
Is it just me or is there nothing magical about the 00’s? It was a shit time and I (unfortunately) remember it crystal clearly. The 90’s in contrast are full of feel and soul and I only have hazy recollections of the physical spaces, even though I was 15 in ‘99.

>>9064117
Nostalgia isn't about the thing itself as much as it is about the thing's proximity to a certain time in your life that you remember fondly. I do have some nostalgia for that time period for that reason but by then I was effectively an adult so the relationship between consumer goods and that special feeling is diluted. There wasn't any waiting for Christmas by then. If I wanted something I drove to the store and bought it. But the time I spent playing with friends or certain games I was playing at the time still trigger the feels.

>>9061092
>>9061742
Schizophrenia much? The store has a PS2 section and the design of that front store behind her is clearly early 00s and not 90s. I’d say it’s a pic from 2002-2004 taken with a shitty digital camera that was the norm back then. I had one like that, I recognise the grainy look. Resolution matches up as well. She just pointed the camera at herself and took a photo. She is blurry because the camera was focusing on the background.

>>9060734
I can smell this picture

>>9064130
Imagine the smell.

>>9060737
This is profound!

>>9060925
demo kiosks were magical as a kid. We had smash64 at home but then I saw Melee at the store and it blew my mind

>>9061271
I think his trip got perma’d for spamming after the rule change

>>9064124
89pbp

>>9060925
This is the same kid all grown up. Expectedly he went from playing the gaycube to playing with another man's anus using his tounge.

>>9060925
lol at the lazy usage of N64 racks for GC games

>>9060741
>See this pic
>Instantly recognize as a KB toys since I didn't notice the cashier at first
>Show it to my older brother
>Always assumed all this stuff closed down due to the digital age
>He explained to me how some company called Bain capital or whatever does leveraged buy-out bullshit with loans
>They killed KB, GT toys and Toys R Us like this.
There are some things I wish I never knew, this was one of them.

>>9065365
Thanks Romney.

I’ve always wondered what happens to unsold copies of games. Do they just throw them out or keep them in storage?

>>9060741
KB toys keeping all the games behind the counter was so frustrating. I hated having to squint to look at stuff.

>LARPing about going to the store.

>>9065446
This was one annoying thing about Funcoland back in the day. All the carts were behind the counter in those generic Funcoland sleeves so you couldn't actually see what they had. Sometimes they'd give you a printout of their stock but lots of times you'd just have to stand there and ask them for a game. Then another game. And another. And it would be awkward since they would clearly get annoyed at checking for a half dozen games but it's not like there was any other way.

>>9065435
Retailers would either discount them on clearance or if the contract stipulated they could return them, they'd send them back to the manufacturer for a full or partial refund. The actual manufacturer would store them until they could either sell them at a discount to liquidate (this is what a lot of late-gen promotions were for) or find a legal way to dispose of them if all else failed.

>>9065365
Yup, it's a pump and dump scheme where you overleverage a company and then bail. The corporate raiding of the 1980s was the worst trend in the history of American business and we're still feeling the effects to this day.

>>9065435
Stores i know of around me like 5below, Ollies, Big Lots and even Dollar Tree would get a lot of liquidated sale games for super cheap. 5below was great in the early 2010s for $5 new ps2 titles, niche stuff like Chulip. Ollies used to be the king of discounted big box pc games in the 90s. Also found a big stock of one of the religious Genesis games at one in the 2000s.

>>9065895
Genesis was the bargain bin king for a few years. I remember being in either Comp USA or Computer City and seeing one of those circular aisle bins filled with dozens of Genesis 3s. There was also a ton of certain SNES reprints, like Super Castlevania IV.

>>9061370
Was it Software Etc. by chance? They had a neon purple theming.

>>9064954
"off-topic, not retro" actually - and only from /vr/

>>9060758
It's like a bunch of degenerates waiting for their turn at a glory hole.

>>9060876
Based retard

>>9065632
There seemed to be less corporate oversight in general back then. Different stores in a chain were often run entirely differently. It wasn't until the 2000s that you started getting a lot of top down directives that made everything uniform and robbed the personality from each location.

>>9066063
Possibly, il have to look into it. I remember a lot of Intel branding, like more then just advertising, like a huge Intel logo behind the back counter so i had always assumed it was some kind of retail storefront for pc products that they operated.

>>9066063
>>9067593
Ok, no i doubt this was it, was this chain around during most of the 90s? This was definitely no later then 95, probably closer to 94 when i remembered it. Store also didn't have this EB Games style layout, it was literally like a hallway that stretched back, but wider, with games/pc hardware lined on the walls at the side and a counter at the far end from where you entered. I want to say it was somewhere around Philadelphia, not in the city, but the suburbs around it at a shopping center/near but not in a mall. Beyond that I just remember it being low lighting inside with a purple neon from displays and Intel branding. In some ways it reminds me of a modern Apple store, just not in shape, but kind of minimalist, "modern"(for the mid 90s) feel to it.

>>9060945
Toys R Us
Based
Also give me one Super Hydlide and a Herzog Zwei.

>>9060945
>Tommy Lasorda Baseball and Budokan sold out
Unsurprising that npc shitters we're around even back then.

>>9060713
this anon knows

>>9061402
this one >>9060713
is babbages for sure, likely in glendale gelleria, i know those walls.

>>9060945
Good God I want to go back. Anyone remember Sam's Club's giant tables of big box PC games all layed out face up? Or new psx games being 40 bucks vs 60 for a new n64 game?

I remember buying a Wanzer figure when Front Mission 3 came out. Idk why, but we had a second hand book store with a huge video game section. It always had super rare Japanese games. I was (and still am) a huge UC Gundam nerd. I bought MSG: Perfect One Year War before I understood about region locks. I paid $49 with birthday money to buy it. It was still cool to have on my game shelf but I never got to play it.

>>9064954
And nothing of value was lost.

>>9060739
i know it's nothing special but to me this is an insanely comfy pic. love all the strat guides, some from even a few years ealier still sitting there, and that tiny anime section next to the door you can make out some kind of bubblegum crisis box set, and a Slayers box down low.

i wonder what the date exactly is, since it's clearly later 99 - he's got a dreamcast shirt on so def past september, but it isn't like plastered all over the store.

There used to be a store in my town called media play that was similar to a best buy minus the appliances. Will always remember towards christmas they would set up huge playable demo displays of each system. Instead of some hardwired game kiosk it would just be whatever console hooked up to a huge crt. Must of been 94 when I first went because I remember the systems on display being a Genesis playing I think was Road rash, a SNES playing DKC and a fucking Jaguar playing Doom. They would always have a huge bargain bin table on one side which is where I made tons of scores, new in box 32x for 19.95, Virtual Boy for like 29.99 and the games were like 2.99, Saturn games were slashed to like 1.99 right before Dreamcast launch. Sadly it closed up shop somewhere around 2002, the building is not even there anymore.

>>9069108
They had to add a whole extra generation since then just to keep the board from falling off the site

>>9064954
Can we get rid of the guy who always posts timestamped images of his collection in random threads next?

>>9060702
Built my first computer from parts I got at CompUSA

>>9069826
Note guy is cool, he is always vague about any detail except being poor. I wish I could get some Adderall and comb thru the archives and compile all the info about him.

>>9069108
He was certainly much more useful than trannyleaf

>>9060768
Bought my first copy of Doom II at Babbage's. Place was like magic. As was Software ETC.

>>9060768
God I remember this place... Got a NIB copy of Tiberian Sun when it first release as well as a copy of Fallout Tactics..

>>9070047
Where did that guy go? Did the change on the board policy of what's retro drive them off? All it's done is open up vr got more games to discuss, mostly.

>>9070101
His legs probably got too fat to trick people with those gaming pics he used to take that showed him wearing striped thigh high socks in the background or reflected in his crt. I still see him sometimes on /x/ or rarely on /co/, at least a couple years ago anyway.

>>9070123
There's a 41% chance we'll never see him again

>>9070047
lmao hi gramps, make a new trip so i can filter you

>>9060702

>the mutt shack (tm)

ultra cringe. they even eat their burgers in these aluminium shitshacks. no culture at all.

>>9069028
>sams club big box face up tables
Fuck yes i remember, thats where i got my copy of Lost Eden.

>>9070117
>NES Action Set
>$99.99
This is what I really miss. People talk about how games were so much more expensive back then but they forget that the consoles were often pretty cheap and came with more stuff. The Saturn struggled at $400. Like that was expensive for a system at the time.

>>9060713
Ah yes. Babbage's. The finest store I have ever visited.

>>9060776
fag

>>9070501
He's not gramps

>>9060713
My first real job. Loved working at Babbage's.

>>9070552
t. Zoomer with an antisocial personality disorder envious he was never able to visit these places when they existed

>zoomer who never knew an optimistic pre 9/11 world
I hope I'm not getting nostalgic about a photo of a walmart xbox 360 aisle in 20 years

>>9070668
You will my friend.
You will.

From the 80s up to 2007 was the peak of humanity.
Take me back. Please.

A lot of retro game stores or even Gamestops still look like these.

It's modern day excess that makes the places of the past so attractive.

Like for instance, I was really into fantasy, in the early 90s I searched my school library and found a fighting fantasy book, and it was rare to see that, I had it out the library, and treasured it reading it over and over. Now within a few minutes I could download an untold number of fantasy books.

Just like going in a store and seeing a big box pc game, getting really excited, and if you purchased it, you'd scan the box all the way home, read the manual inside a handful of times, play the game night after night, well, you didn't have much else going on.

Now again, you have an endless supply of games you can just download.

It's why kids today have more than ever but are bored.

It's probably why those in power get up to crazy shit, as sex and drugs are not exciting, as they have had an excess of them, it no longer means anything, so they go further.

It's why a 2 guys telling a teen girl in the 80s she was pretty would make her smile, but now 2,000 a day say that to her online and it no longer means anything.

And so on.

>>9070668
Yea, remembering the smell of a game wrapped in plastic gets my dick hard.

>>9070668
>getting nostalgic about a photo of a walmart xbox 360 aisle

I'm starting to get nostalgic but only for the for launch of the Xbox/PS3/Wii because it was really the last time I felt genuine excitement for new consoles and games.

>>9060807
I feel bad for anyone who doesn't instantly recognize a Sony store, and it's pretty obvious, if you had any in your city

>>9070668
Shit, I already get nostalgic for when I first played Oblivion.

>>9071909
You laugh but this was actually what it was like. Video games were a fairly compartmentalized thing back then. It wasn't the media empire that it is today and didn't have the same penetration in pop culture. So when something video game related appeared in your peripheral vision it drew your attention. Just being in the video game aisle of a toy store was special.

>>9071928
I can't even pretend to know how you interpreted that image.

I grew up in BFE Iowa, but I definitely remember renting SNES/N64 games from a regional video store. That and playing demos for too long at Target and getting a stiff neck.

>>9070001
That nigger would quit being poor the second he liquidates his collection.

>>9070001
He's poor? Not surprising considering he's on 4chan and has all the games ever, but still kind of surprising. I like seeing his posts.

>>9071731
I get a newsletter in the post and when I open it it's the same exact smell that my Majora's Mask manual had in 2000. it's great how smell can transport you back.
Also, my friend had a pink GBP in school. We mercilessly bullied him because of it.

>>9070668
>>zoomer who never knew an optimistic pre 9/11 world
be somewhat thankful that you do not know.
i'm still in disbelief that two planes taking down some of the tallest buildings in the world, and one crashing into the pentagon, could change the world - forever.
the change was essentially day & night, only it keeps getting darker with no end in sight.
i wish i could go back to the before-times when things still made somewhat more sense.

>>9064117
>Is it just me or is there nothing magical about the 00's? It was a shit time...
>It was a shit time
2001 was the beginning of shit times, especially, for the U-S-of-A.
Since magical is a subjective term, what's magical to me is
>Halo CE, 2 & 3 (mainly its multiplayer)
>Grand Theft Auto series
>Multiplayer over the internet for home consoles - 7th gen was the peak imo. even then in my late 20s, being able to trade and battle pokémon over wifi blew my mind
>Star Wars prequel trilogy
>Cable/Satellite TV was still worth subscribing to
>Blu-ray making me feel old for still having a VCR and haven't upgraded to DVDs by that point
>Broadband became more common and affordable
>Spawn of YouTube
>Internet exploded with more shit than ever, and it was still the wild west
>Mid-late 2000s still had good fetish pr0n
there's probably other things that've slipped my mind, but none of the above makes me feel warm like the 90s. unquestionably because i was still young, and life wasn't so shitty and the games being made still had character.

>>9060741

i remember when i was a kid i knew about banjo kazooie because i had rented it, but at walmart they just had "banjo tooie" in the case. i wondered if it was the first game because i was fuckin stupid
and i remember seeing the box for kirby 64 and wanting the game so fucking bad because i loved kirby in super smash bros, the idea of a WHOLE GAME about kirby blew my mind. again i was fuckin stupid
i like hurt my neck staring up at a little crt with luigi's mansion on it because it had like the craziest graphics id ever seen

>>9064040
You were a retarded kid. Game prices were fixed by then all n64 releases were $59 or less.

This is basically just nostalgia for the media that was around when older millenials were children.

>>9072549
>hurt my neck staring up at a little crt
I'm still dumbfounded that having a screen at shoulder height wasn't prioritized until decades later.
Just the gameboy that had a busted screen 50% of the time was the only thing you could look down at.

>>9072538
In 2007 I had basically already moved from cable to YouTube as my main source of viewed entertainment. Who even cares when you can watch all 30 episodes of AVGN and this new Nostalgia Critic guy who makes funny Care Bears videos

>>9061370
Are you thinking of CompUSA, anon?

>>9060925
Looks like it will crush the kiddo kek

>>9061792
Sure Brian
Got neckpain ?

>>9069813
which city are you in? i spent hours upon hours in media play with my parents. the big box pc games were the very first thing in the front of the store along with the other games. i'd get lost in there looking at all the box art. then i'd make my way to the mid-back of the store where the big wall of tvs was where they'd play music videos and look at the shitty bc rich guitars. on to the cd aisles and ending over at the magazine rack to read all the gaming magazines.

>>9072396
That's what he says or implies at time. Just pay attention to his posts, it'll start to add up some. Most of the games he got on sale he says.

>>9072538
I will just reiterate what another anon wrote: nostalgia is about a time and a place in your life. Not necessarily the things happening. Do I fetishize the early 2000s? Yes, because I was 16 and had no worries. Simple as.

>>9070515
This, the idiots who created the "games were more expensive back then hurr hurr inflation herp a derp, psy the new high price for your retro vidya CERTIFIED", are just a bunch of tunnelvision grifters who forget one thing, people had MORE money back then, not many of us were broke.

Those were the same dipshits that enable "the usual suspects" that infiltrated our community and shit it up.

>>9069813
>Instead of some hardwired game kiosk it would just be whatever console hooked up to a huge crt.

Brother, thats how i remember game displays in the late 90s early 2000s at Costco when they had both KI on the Snes where everyone else just move out to the N64, and they also had GoldenEye, and they also have them hook up to this giant rear display flat square TV.

Shit was dope.

>>9072937
It's also probably stuff he got a long time ago. Prices were a shit ton more reasonable 15 years back. Panzer Dragoon Saga was like $400 max and that was considered one of the most expensive games of all time back then. Back when Ebay was decent you could get a full NES set for $5000 if you were patient and bought lots and resold your doubles. Pat Contri said before that he would never get into the collecting game today because of how the market got so insane. You didn't have to be rich to get a collection, you just needed patience.

>>9073035
Those people also seem to forget that renting was a thing. You could buy a Super Nintendo for $200, it came with two controllers and a game so you were already up and running with just that one purchase, but then you'd go to the rental store and for $3-$5 you'd get a different game each weekend.

>>9073097
That's how I figure most kids were during that era. They only owned 10 or less games for the console but played a ton through rentals, borrowing, or going over to a bros house. This was before ebay and shit and you could eventually get a used game you really liked for a decent price.

>>9060702
I worked at a CompUSA right up until the crazy mexican guy that owned it closed the store. Thanks for the nostalgia. Was a weird job. If anyone cares AMA I guess.

>>9073110
In my personal experience I had like maybe half a dozen games for each of my consoles until I was a teenager and would rent games or just get loads of playtime out of Pokemon

>>9064052
It's because you used to be able to pick up this shit for like 3.99 in stores a year after release, or as used from shit like blocksbuster.
The problem isn't the retail price it's the used market being fucking shit because there's less places with people just hanging on to random-fuck games in large volumes anymore. The only places left are target/walmart

>>9073134
In fact
The games:
N64
>Pokemon Stadium
>Super Mario 64
>Pokemon Snap
>Hey You, Pikachu! (2x)
>some wrestling games including WCW vs. nWo after I was given them by a friend
>eventually got Mega Man 64 and more wrestling games
Imagining a world where your only source of 64-bit entertainment is either WHAT'S THE MATTER TRAINER or playing even more Super Mario 64 makes me kind of sad

>>9073129
tell some stories because we know you have some.

>>9073129
>suddenly and inexplicably remember RPs I used to do with a friend of mine over MSN Messenger
>I'd fantasize about working at a GameStop during the launch morning of Banjo-Kazooie or some shit
>I've tried to block out all the RPs I did with that guy from my memory
>pretty sure we basically cybered a few times

>>9073148
So unlike most other closeout companies CompUSA didn't actually go away because of lost sales(It was growing and doing enormous volume actually), the owner just sold it a few years before 2008. Everyone learned about it the day the liquidators showed up, they didn't even tell managers. I was Stock/warehouse because it was one of my first jobs ever. Which meant I was the work gopher. I'll greentext some weird shit I guess, so cont.
>>9073152
ok

>>9073163
>be me
>General Manager was a 60+-year old spanish(as in spain) man, total weirdo that owned a winery in Spain and shit, would gift wine to people in christmas, realized what was happening.
>For some reason, GM thinks I'm the hypest shit to walk through the door. Constantly tried to get me to bang/marry his daughters(I was interested but they weren't lmao, RIP for me.) for some reason.

>>9073184
>CompUSA sales people worked on a commission. This meant the sales people were lazy as shit and never wanted to do anything unless it was a high-commission item like a Tv/assembled computer/etc., which had 20-100 dollar commisions
>There's a commission for everything in the store though. Sell a printer? Get 2 bucks or whatever. Sell a video game? Get a dollar. Whoever sells the most product every month gets a four-day weekend where they 'pay' you eight hours of salary to take off. This is to lower salesmen numbers since friday is a big sale day.
>Help customers because it's easy when I'm on the floor stocking shelves and salespeople are constantly hiding behind the Tvs because they know black/spanish/poors won't be buying thousands of electronics.
>GM notices sales are up, but no one's claiming commissions. Realized what was happening when seeing me sell like 10 printers for the store while doing my daily shit around the floor. Have a butch warehouse manager that's one of those micromanage-types. Hates when I help customers even if it's part of my job and I get my shit done every day.
>tfw GM tells me I can get commission too. WH manager conveniently 'forgot' to tell me I do, while pocketing commissions for herself. Get a little ticker-tape machine, clip it to belt while working. Slap sticker on box when handing customer the item.
>TFW end up top sales person by volume and commission while collecting a salary. GM thinks this is hilarious, gives me the four day weekend.There's no one else besides me and WH manager for stock, so salespeople and WH manager have to do my job for four days. lmao

>>9073210
CompUSA used to have a tech support/tech repair area in their store. We had a bunch of Sikh dudes working in it. Some of the biggest bros I've ever met. I'd bring them stuff, they'd be working on people's laptops/PCs and laughing when they found porn or something weird(this was back when people were even dumber with the internet than they are now)
>One time they got a PC that was broken because it was just full of spiders. Like, thousands of spiders, most fried by the electronics.Had to carry it out to the dumpster, spiders in that shopping mall forever.
>One time they got a computer with drugs in it. Some little old grandma had dropped it off as a 'surprise' for her grandson by upgrading it.
>Hooked me up with free used parts for my PC since they knew I gamed.
I miss those Sikh bros.Nicest, calmest people I ever met dealing with screaming retard customers.

>>9073220
Based.

I have vague memories of Funcoland. Just remember piles of used games in the center of the floorspace. Considered buying Banjo-Kazooie once but I think it was like $29.99 at the time and it was a bit steep for a 7 year old

>>9073110
This was my sense. I admit I was a lucky kid who was given far more than my fair share of games for birthdays and Christmases. But even putting that aside, I was always renting games, borrowing games, loaning games, visiting friends and playing what they had, etc. I've beaten a ton of games that I never owned even to this day. And once Funcoland started popping up it became a pretty good deal. I traded some shittier Nintendo games for stuff like the Mega Mans and Metroid. And they weren't very expensive at the time. You could do a lot of damage with $20.

>>9073253
>Stadium Events for 99 cents
Could you fucking imagine...

>>9073253
Damn you could go in with $20 and have games for days.

>>9073267
Yup, this is why you can tell that anyone proclaiming gaming is so much cheaper today is underage. Anyone who actually lived through it knows that the retail prices was only a fraction of the story. Kiddos will see a picture of an $80 Genesis game at Toys R Us and run with that.

>>9073253
I like how much cheaper DQ1 was. Honestly Nintendo was smart with how they handled that. The US market deserved to be flooded with copies of Dragon Quest so they could have the stage set for more RPGs later on. It's the most basic fucking RPG ever so making it literally the cheapest RPG and trying to make it as widespread as possible was the best thing for it
Then once those kids get hooked on Dragon Quest they'll buy more Nintendo products (laughs in capitalism)

>>9073220
any more?

I remember going to this store (Computer City) with my dad in the late 90's. Pretty sure I got Math Blaster there which I actually have fond memories of being a fun educational game. I also remember seeing C&C Red Alert and really really really wanting it but he didn't get it for me even though I already had and played the original C&C a lot. He probably didn't want to give me more war game addictions as a 7 year old.

>>9073129
What was gaming like in the 90's? I was born at the tail end of the 90's so was never able to experience anything like the pics in the thread. The closest experience I have to stuff like this is going with my mom to blockbuster to rent Mischief Makers

>>9072654
Nope, i remember comp usa and this was not that. Looked nothing like a big box store, i can only compare it to the minimalist style of modern stuff like the Apple store or cell phone stores. Everything only on the two side walls, a single wide aisle from when you enter going all the way to the back of the store where the main counter was. It felt like it had a very trendy, 90s modern design to it instead of like a EB Games set up and it was all pc stuff only. I still have a strong feeling it was some kind of retail outfit made by Intel themselves. My dad would go there to get pc hardware. Only other thing i could think was it was a private buisness that just had a a lot of cash on them to go for that sleek design style.

>>9073305
I got it for free with nintendo power

>>9073882
The generational jumps between all the consoles were mind blowing up until the ps2 came out. Ps2 to ps3 was meh, and everything since has been meh.

>>9073267
Japs still can.

>>9073253
I still have a funcoland catalog or two laying around. I miss them!

>>9073929
This is starting to change. All those tourist trap game shops in the cities are starting to spread their influence and raising their prices to appeal to foreign buyers.

Anyone remember when unrelated stores just had video games for no reason? Shoe store, optometrist, book stores, electronics/photo stores etc. I remember going shopping for, I think shoes, with my dad and they had a shelf near the back of the store with a bunch of programs and games on it. I begged him to let me buy Heroes of Might and Magic 3 for ~$30 and after a while he relented. Read the manual in the car ride home and got to play one of the best games of all time.

>>9060696
Only in my mind

>>9069813
I had a media play
I miss it immensely

>>9060750
This was in california

>>9061910
>Megarace
WAY TO GO, ENFORCER!

>>9060702
My CompUSA is now a Harbor Freight (Ridgeland, MS)
I remember the Antec cases, and Macintosh section.

>>9070515
the NES Action Set wasn’t $99 until after Genesis and right before the SNES dropped

>>9074227
Dollar stores, grocery stores, pharmacys(still kicking myself for not getting a copy of megaman legends they had at a cvs), clothing stores like Kohls(which actually still does sell them)

Here is something i haven't seen posted yet, the game island set ups from department stores like Macys, usually in the back of the kids clothing section, store employee in the center, demo kiosks and glass cases all around on all four sides.

>>9074340
I remember as a kid at a Sears I got to pick a game for good grades or some shit. I remember my final choice was either Wario Land or Sword of Hope 2.
I chose Sword of Hope 2 and still don't understand why I did that. Not a bad game though.

>would hang out at my local eb games giving unsolicited advice to people buying games
>manager told me to get lost because i was costing them sales

Still, I had fun

>>9074380
Actually it must've been an Electronics Boutique back then

>>9065895
I kept finding TurboGraphics games at PicNSave, currently Big Lots, NIB. I didn't have a TG16 but I bought them anyway. Eventually I got a second hand TurboExpress in the very late 90s. The only games in the bunch I liked were Super Star Soldier and Valis. I didn't want to spring for more TG16 stuff since I didn't like what I had. And the things I liked in emulation was too expensive to buy on eBay. So I dumped it. I am ok with that too.

>>9067756
Many Software Etc. disappeared and became EB and they layouts were exactly the same if they occupied the same mall space. I went to a Software Etc locally that became an EB. The store was closed for a week, signage changed, employees rolled right over to EB. Also EB games was a later title for EB as they stopped selling Amigas, PCs and big PC components at point in time. My father bought an open box CDrom drive for our PC, from EB, he was going to order it from Tiger but we got the drive with an adlib card and a dozen games for the same price of the drive alone.

Anyone remember playing on these in the 80s? In my local mall we had a Nintendo store parked in the middle of the walk way. Back then there were very few kiosks. But the Nintendo store probably had 4 or more of these machines and each one had different games. I think they reset after 10min. And the check out was a little gap on the side of the booth. The place was always busy. By the time SNES came around they slowed down alot and only had a few SNES consoles with games in them and it was one cart per SNES which seemed less impressive. Also their prices were worse than EB or any other store. But they often gave out goofy trinkets with a purchase.

>>9073929
The Japanese don't use $20 bills you fuckin goofball

>>9074567
>In my local mall we had a Nintendo store parked in the middle of the walk way.
Same here.
And for whatever reason, out of all the games, I vividly remember playing Yo! Noid and Superman.

>>9060752
holy fuck look at his hairline bro he must be bald as shit now

>>9064071
wasnt no social media to tell us we were ugly

>>9064071
People were never excited about that
>ugh no I look terrible don't take a photo of me now

Kept this on my keychain until it fell off, not it’s in my collection of trinkets

I was a stupid kid and I would hang around stores like these without buying anything all day back then. People fucking knew me. God I can't imagine what it'd be like right now if some little shit just came to my store like it's his own playground or something. Oh hey let me just hang out around Toys R Us for 3 fucking hours while being poor.

The only experience that comes close to this now is a mom-and-pop used game store. I am not sure how many game store chains are left besides Game Stop and Game Xchange.

>>9072138
>I definitely remember renting SNES/N64 games from a regional video store
It's odd to think that future generations (maybe even most zoomers for all I know) just won't know the experience of going to a video store. Makes me a bit sad. Obviously it's so much more convenient to just rent a movie through a streaming service on your 4K smart TV but there was something in rentals...
>only have game/tape for like 2-3 days and desperately try to get as much as you can out of it to justify paying $8 for the rental
>standing in one of the aisles staring at a shelf of tapes, agonizing over what you'd rather watch tonight
>plan for a week to rent a specific game and it isn't there when you arrive, rented already
>using fake phone numbers to rent a game and never return it
The video store in my home town started being half a dollar store by like 2006 and was just gone by like 2012. The Blockbuster and Hollywood I used to go to in the city are gone. The Blockbuster was demolished to put up a Walgreen's and the Hollywood Video building was repurposed into a dental clinic. What amuses me is that it still has the odd windows and doors from the Hollywood days, it still has a second outside door for that area you'd enter to buy games from (?) that was separated from the rest of the store. I drive by that place all the time since I live over there now
There was a "Family Video" in town up until like 2019 but I never got around to checking it out. Would have been for the novelty alone

>>9075032
They won’t understand how it felt when mom said you can pick a game and a snack on Friday night

>>9074581
Give it a few months

>>9060750
Very based, look at how it's a games console marketed towards trendy young adults instead of kids.

>>9074567
no memory of this but looks insanely cool.

>>9074340
I got syphon filter dark mirror on PS2 at a dollar tree a few months back. It's not as often but if you look sometimes you can still find dusty games in really odd stores.

>>9073080
I liked old pat. I went through some real shit in 07 and avgn, pat and some other guy I forget really kept me company. Yeah prices were much different, I sold off my collection on craigslist for honest prices, but they were also collectors. God that shit was rough

>>9061942
Not exactly the same, but maybe I could shed some light on your dreams.

Literally at least once every year for nearly 20 years, I've had a recurring dream:
I am in a toy store filled with Bionicles, and I get all the ones I want. I guess subconsciously, it is my true happy place, even if while I'm awake I fantasize about other happy places.
Everyone in the Bionicle fandom gets this dream, and it's just known as "the dream".
Last time, which was a few months ago, I was in some kind of storage facility where they had some leftover Bionicles that didn't sell.

Maybe it's not about owning the Bionicles (or owning the games in your case); there's no point to owning that many of the same thing. But it's about seeing them stocked. It's a reminder of the good times, when you could go to your favorite game/toy store (the happy place of just about every kid) and seeing all the things you ever wanted as a kid, and still being able to get those things for yourself.

Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass and looking for an excuse to talk about my own dream. Idk.

>>9075249
I disagree on that it looks like it's marketed towards young adults. The way I see it, this is marketed towards kids. Either way, I like it.
"Marketed towards young adults" makes me think of all the minimalistic crap they make these days, like Apple phones.

>>9075249
That was sort of attempted with the CD-I but the PS1 is where it firmly found its footing. It makes sense if you think about it. Kids born in the early 70s and grew up with Atari were in their early 20s by then. It was the first batch of adults that were playing video games since childhood.

>>9075673
That's just the style of the era. The hyper sterile look of Apple and Ikea didn't take hold yet. Apple was still pushing their iMac to the odd mix of college students who needed a space efficient desktop and grandparents who just wanted to send emails.

>>9075032
newport beach or what

>>9075668
This hit me

>>9075549
Not retro, but that ubisoft starlink game had a bunch of ps4 copies show up at dollar tree. Not bad buy for a buck and you dont need the advertised toys to play it.

>>9064117
the early 2000s was a shitty time but the ps2 era is my favorite gaming generation ever (I was born in 1989)

>>9076350
>Not retro, but i'm addicted to (You)s

>>9065895
I got a bunch of cheap SNES games when walmart closed out theirs and had them in a huge bin in the middle of the electronics section

>>9072545
kb toys was based. got a bunch of dirt cheap nes rereleases there circa 96. mine closed around 2005 and they still had old genesis stock that i bought for the novelty of it.

>>9060945
who the fuck would pay 80 dollars for a weeb rpg?

>>9075668
damn bro, I've had those dreams for super nintendo
around 2010 when nobody even sold the games used anymore, I would dream I was in a store that had a full SNES section. It always looked like >>9060780

>>9061112
that's why we mostly rented back then and only bought games that were a sure thing

>>9074373
For me the choice at Sears was either Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers or Super Metroid. I made the right choice thankfully.

>>9061480
>Toys 'R Us used to upsell and increase their prices significantly because they were a specialized retailer. I remember the first 8 megabit (1MB) game on the Genesis was Strider, and they had it for $95.99, but it also bercame the GotY for EGM.

toys r us was only worth buying games at if it was a game you couldn't get at walmart or somewhere cheaper like that

>>9061792
it was probably the kids family that took the picture

>>9064078
I remember getting pokemon gold early because kb toys put it out early

>>9069813
I remember getting n64 cruis'n usa at media play when It first opened. The Media Play in my town ended up closing around 2007 because they got stolen from so much

>>9060696
Wish we could go back to better times. Playing Mario 64 for the first time was mind blowing and magical.

>>9071876
the 360/ps3 era pretty much killed my enthusiasm for new games

>>9072576
>Just the gameboy that had a busted screen 50% of the time was the only thing you could look down at

that's why the other screens were up so high

>>9071731
Why does this Game Boy Pocket ad have a bunch of DMGs on it?

>>9076775
DMGs nuts

>>9075024
those mom and pop game stores sell shit for higher than ebay prices so fuck them

>>9076653
for me it was star wars episode 1 racer

>>9076653
I had a similar choice between two $5 games from a guy who had a store back in the day and would sell the snes games he bought when he was done with them for cheap. Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Wild Guns. Both are good, but fortunately young me thought the cover of Zombies was dumb compared to cowboys fighting a giant robot.

>>9076701
That console holder thing really brings me back

>>9076701
there was always a huge line at walmart when they put out the n64 kisok

>>9074953
Same here but it was summer. No AC at home it was 110+. It was better to out yourself as a poor and have fun. Than sit at home with a wet towel infront of a box fan, doing absolutely nothing else.

>>9076701
>Playing Mario 64 for the first time was mind blowing and magical.
Only if you were a baby.

>>9077658
obviously you were not alive yet to experience the exponential jump from 2D to 3D Mario. I think I was about 7 years old when Mario 64 released and no I didnt have a Saturn or PSX yet as those consoles were unknown expensive risks. So Mario 64 was probably the first time I saw 3D gameplay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoQ_9thx480

>>9075810
Nowhere close but I'm amused

>>9077658
Not that anon but I was 13 when Mario64 came out it blew my mind. It was the first game that did real 3d platforming right.

>>9077679
Not him but I was fucking 25 when I played Mario 64 for the first time. I thought Nintendo had fucked up, bad, and it was over for the N64 and Nintendo in general.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that the mid-90s was the beginning of overhyping and shilling style over substance shit games and paying reviewers to give trash games a good score. Most reviewers, anyway.

cool beta sonic boom box art. I wish I knew as a kid you could reserve games and get free bonus stuff. My family was poor so mom only bought us games around christmas time.

>>9077790
Mario 64 is so good kys

>>9077823
Anyone who says games like fucking DKC, Mario 64, MGS, Half-Life, Halo, Metroid Prime, or fucking Sonic Adventure are good just does not have the ability to decide for themselves what a good game -- or likely, a good anything -- is, and thus should not be allowed to voice an opinion.
Those are the games that destroyed a fucking industry and why gaming is absolute fucking shit now.
Style over substance.

>>9077790
sure if you were already jaded back then I guess most N64 games were mediocre kids stuff. But also remember most adult mature bloody games back then were also laughably bad except a few shooters like doom but most kids didnt own a PC and mom didnt let us buy violent video games. Mario 64 was like the first good 3D platformer and the controls are still good. It sounds like that reviewer critic just hated nintendo or was too stupid to get used to the controls.

>>9077826
watch out we got a contrarian over here. No fun allowed not allowed to like popular things.

>>9077826
He has no style
He has no grace
This kong, has a funny face

>>9077846
Just because something is popular doesn't make it good. Companies pushed these products hard at young new gamers at the time and for many old gamers who were insecure about losing "relevancy" in the new generation of gaming and went along with new bullshit gaming against their better judgement, as well as paying most magazines to give their shit games a good score.
>no fun allowed
No shit. Playing any of those games means you have zero fun. Just because you were fooled into playing style over substance shit and made to think it's "fun" because you were supposed to be having fun didn't make the games actually fun.

>>9077887
go back to playing boring text adventures grandpa.

>>9077910
Text adventures aren't games, kid. Neither are modern 99% storyshit trash "games".

>>9077920
>objective is to go from start to end and figure out how
>"not a game"
You're either senile or a underage larper.

>>9076849
You definitely made the right choice but yeah they're both good. MMPR is actually an okay game too for the record but definitely not a first choice.

>>9077978
I noticed recently a weird quirk of game rarity and values that the Super Famicom version of Power Rangers is equivalent to like a $100 area game. I wonder if its literally just the Rangers version or if they altered the sprites to better match the original source material.

>>9077679
>u-u-u r not alive i r pooroldfag 7 projecting an no hib toys
Fucking embarrassing

>>9077786
So almost a full decade older than my oldest. And his mind wasn't blown. Dismissed as genetics?

>>9077790
It was a good game. Certainly shilled and hyped af at the time. Even more so later. I think more people would accept this if it weren't for the cult of nintoddlers doing that right here right now.

>>9061112

That's 60 to 70 dollars for a new game back then. We're complaining about USED copies costing so much.

>>9076631
I remember we got some of those in high school, we got baked and played mega man x. That bin is burned into my brain.

>>9076350
I used to get random Wii and wiiu and PS3 and DS and 3ds games when Fred's closed down. Usually better games and prices than goodwill, that was just a few years back. Now goodwill wants $7 for Madden on PS3 lol

>>9077790
as a kid I thought mario 64 was fun to play but not as good as the 2d games and I've never been a fan of marios voice. When I got my first n64 I had a choice between mario 64 and mario kart 64 as my first game and I chose mario kart

>>9064073
Where I'm from went from rural, to a small sized city in my life time. I remember as a kid riding on dirt roads with my parents in places there are highways now, and living off a dirt road myself and an old highway going through farm land that became the center of the city with strip malls down it for miles. That's some transformation.

>>9077816
I got a cool poster for preordering pokemon stadium at walmart back then

>>9076849
zombies are my neighbors is way better than wild guns

>>9075668
You're definitely not alone, I've had "The Dream" multiple times (though oddly, it never included any sets past Metru Nui despite the fact I wasn't even into bionicle until Mahri)
Waking up was always the worst part of the day, and the entire rest of the day would be miserable until I forgot about the dream. Probably is just your brain trying to remember better, simpler times.

>>9076659
I miss having more brick and mortar options like that though, places that actually had room to keep a proper selection. Nowadays it feels like if a game isn't a major name, a guaranteed seller, or is remotely niche you're never even gonna see it on store shelves. I remember a little after the Switch released I wanted a copy of Cave Story+, went around to several Walmarts, Best Buys, Target, and even fucking Gamestops in my area, couldn't find it at any of them. After a couple days I had to just relent and order it from Amazon.

>>9077985
wtf anon, I never would've guessed that one would be worth more. they must have collectors of super sentai or whatever

>>9080570
There are a lot of weird western games like that. Plok, Mortal Kombat and fucking Lester the Unlikely super fami versions are all higher priced then most of the library. It will never not be fucking funny that Lester costs more in Japan then friggen Mega Man X3.

There are some odd circumstances though where a western release like Super fami Wolfenstein actually is significantly cheaper then the US cart. But generally, you will find our crap is more pricey over there and a good chunk of the stuff western snes players want, is worth under $10 over there.

>>9078454
Well i got it later on anyway so now i have both and as a kid i was purely going off of cover art.(but i like wild guns more regardless)

>>9078168
Goodwill use to be a good source for liquidation. That Aliens Infestation game for DS had tons of factory sealed copies show up at the stores in my ares for like $8. Wish i had grabbed a bunch of em.

>>9061919
>Only good memories I have left are nostalgia related to the 90s. Slowly over the years watch all the good mom & pop stores closed. All the arcades closed. All the music stores like the Warehouse and electronics stores like Circuit City, Fry's, Radio Shack were out competed or went bankrupt. They were all replaced with shittier stores or restaurants. No fun allowed now you are forced to only buy shit online. Eventually now nobody goes to Malls except looters and since the businesses cant afford the extremely outrageous rent and cost of living in CA the entire Mall closed.
>After plandemic everything closed and its not even worth it or safe going outside anymore.
>Just empty abandoned parking lots everywhere. Forced to drive everywhere. Everything that was once local is now closed.
Klown world sucks. I want to go back.

We had a media play store in my town for a while. I bought Myst for the pc there. Also my first V:tM book.

>>9074373
I pre-ordered my copy of resident evil 2 at Sears and got an RE2 promotional t-shirt with my pre-order.

>>9076701
I remember playing Mario 64 in 1996 at a Toy's R Us after Karate practice. I was legit blown the FUCK away. I couldn't believe what was on the screen desu. Coming from purely SNES (Somehow I didn't know much about or care about the PSX at the time) was just magical. I envy zoom zooms that are growing up in this slop plastic post 9-11 world we live in now.

>>9077826
get a load of this faggot.
I'm meh about MGS (which I still think deserves praise) and never played Metorid Prime, but all the other games I beat and love them all for different reasons. When taking nostalgia out of it, those games are objectively fun and well made.
Stick with your limited NES library then I guess. Or do you think Atari systems were the peak? Man get your head out of your ass.

>>9076697
in my city it was prolonged for at least a year or two because they were bought out by FYE. the store was more or less kept the same. they then closed down and came back as the FYE we know today... small mall locations that only sell funko pops and novelty energy drinks

>>9080686
we as a society peaked in the period of 1997-1999. i'd give almost anything to go back

Canadian bros, does anyone have what Superstore's electronic section used to look like? When it was dimly lit and the video game wall was so long, it wrapped around and came back down the middle wall display.

>>9075201
https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=JPY&to=USD&view=10Y
I can't wait to see several banking systems to collapse in the very near future.

>>9073265
My neighbor was the store manager of the Funcoland (96-99) near me, first dude I ever knew that collected video games. Told me that all the rarer NES games were constantly being traded in on the west coast while harder to find turbografx games were mostly on the east coast. He and two other managers would trade games across country via mail. He offered to sell me his whole set for $500 when he finally transferred from community college, I kick myself a lot.

>>9081554
I remember when gamestop had a huge bin of NES games they would sell for a dollar or less. Back in the early 2000s it seemed like no one gave a fuck about NES collecting

>>9081647
Because of him I worked part-time at EB Games in 2001-2002, key holder so I made $7.25. SNES was gone by then but we had so many loose Genesis games, they sold for $1 and my manager just let me buy every Genesis item we had for $1 when we got the order to trash them.

>>9071882
Me too man. Oblivion for all its faults was a very comfy game and I'm nostalgic for those first few playthroughs