Wednesday - posted Thursday Japan time.
Wednesday marked the end of my stay in Shibuya as I had made arrangements to stay closer to the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba city, location of the Tokyo Game Show. After today's train ride, I'm so glad I did move closer to the show, because it's pretty damn far out and commuting everyday from Shibuya was out of the question.
Riding the busy train with all the luggage, and hauling it through the various stations was a pain, but worth it.
The move to Chiba took about an hour, and a half, being we got off at the wrong station, and decided to cab to the hotel, which took longer than the train, but was more relaxing to be driven.
I do miss Shibuya though, and am planning on heading back there for the last leg of my trip after TGS.
After we settled in to the hotel, we went to the Messe to see if they were allowing for pass pickups, but they weren't. Nothing was really set up yet.
We decided to head back out to hit up the very famous Electric City of Akiba, or more formally known as Akihabara.
All I gotta say is, shit, this place will make you broke in a matter of seconds if you're not careful.
I had some names of stores in mind, but I didn't know exactly where they were. As we walked around, the first real gamer store we saw was Super Potato. The Chiptune music gave it away, as well as the film crew of Playstation Networks new show 'Qore' filming out in front of it. (They later made their way inside) I spoke with Veronica, and Audrey (hosts of Qore) for a bit in between checking out the wide selection of games, and they were pretty nice.
I didn't know what to expect from this place, but as soon as we entered I was blown away. 5 floors of awesome gaming, 5 FLOORS with many game consoles and titles that never made it overseas. Famicom, Super Famicom, Mastersystem, PC engine, they even had an Atari Jaguar for sale, and a decent selection of games. There is so much stuff in Super Potato, I honestly didn't know where to start. I knew I wanted a classic Famicom, so I got one, with some games. I also got some sega Saturn games for my Japanese Sega Saturn. I seriously need to go back and pickup a Super Famicom too.
I may not have an encyclopedic mind of obscure Japanese classic games, but I still managed to find some stuff to buy. I even negotiated for a Super Potato Jacket and shirt, that the employees wear, which isn't normally sold to customers. They were charging 85bucks for the jacket, but after telling them I only had 70bucks (lie) left after spending over one hundred dollars on games, they let me take the Jacket for 70, and the shirt for 20.
On the fifth floor was the classic arcade area.
After shopping we got ate some sushi, then headed to the Sega Club for some Virtua Fighter R. I purchased one of those Terminal Character access cards, but I can't figure out how to get it to work. Apparently you have to go online, and create several profiles before you can pop it into the machine... Frustrating!
What else did I see in Akiba?
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