Collector's perspective: Taking care of your collection

Overtime, we collect more and more video games, controllers, and consoles, thus, they pile up in our cabinets and containers. Taking care of them properly is one our responsibility to ensure preservation.

Cleaning BEMANI controllers during summer

Here are my basic helpful tips on how I take care of my collections;

1. Store your collection in a dry, and dust free place. Moisture absorbing desiccants can be used.

2. Avoid contact your collection with wet hands or any kind of liquid. In case of unexpected contact, immediately wipe and inspect for liquid intrusion. Liquids cause corrosion especially in consoles and may cause short-circuit. For games, it may cause box art discoloration and water stains in discs.

3. Avoid direct contact with sunlight. Prolonged exposure may cause console and box art yellowish discoloration especially in white console and controllers. Also, storing your game discs in dark places prevents data rotting.

4. After gameplay, always clean your controllers with damped cloth. Alcohol with cloth can be used to sanitize and remove grease. Keep it mind to apply in minimal amounts.

5. Avoid reaching it by children.

6. When cleaning discs, use microfiber cloth (used in cleaning eyeglasses). Make sure to wipe it vertically, not in circular direction. Check if there are signs of scratches especially in the reading side of the disc.

7. Wrap your large controllers in large plastics or bubble wraps if your controller doesn't have a box.

8. Avoid hitting your game cartridges. When we are young, when a console can't read game carts (i.e. Family Computer) we usually blow the connector thru our mouth or hitting the cart with great force. Frequent trauma to the cartridge can cause severe damage and malfunction. Cleaning the cartridge connector with microfiber will suffice.

Touch, touch, touch, Utacchi 「うたっち」！

Early Friday, I received my newest game in my BEMANI collection,Utacchi / うたっち. The only BEMANI game for Nintendo DS and the only BEMANI CS game that uses a stylus pen. Makes me wonder, why the game is under pop’n music line? The songs? I think.

うたっち box art

I used to play the game 6 years ago, but the copy I have is a downloaded ROM.Tried to play the again, on my first attempt I got a PERFECT FULL COMBO! On the next songs, its already raining GREATS.

MIRACLE FLYER

In Japan, there is an advertisement promoting the game and showing a glimpse on how to play the game and variety songs in it.

This is a hard-to-find game. Last year, a friend of mine had no luck in finding it in any Akihabara video game shops. Meaning, a $17.00 for a used copy with free shipping is a good catch after all.

Asking my friend to buy me stuff in Japan (Part 2)

Last 2015, I asked my friend to buy me stuff in Japan. So this year, he visited Japan again and asked him the same. He went to Japan last November 2016, his stay is in Tokyo. Days before his departure, I gave him 13,000.00 Yen budget.

As he landed in Japan, we are in fluent communication on what are the BEMANI stuff he can see. According to him, there is a scarcity of BEMANI games in Tokyo especially in Akihabara, if available, the prices are expensive unlike outside Tokyo that are cheaper. During his 2 week stay, he managed to buy, a copy of beatmaniaIIDX14 GOLD for PS2, Otomedius Excellent for Xbox 360, and Time Hollow for Nintendo DS. He also bought a Hihumi and Celica Figure and lots of lots of Pocky of course! Most of his purchases he got it from BookOff or HardOff, a well known second hand shop Japan. Aside from scarcity of BEMANI games, special designs eAMUSEMENT cards are scarce as well. The only available is the generic silver and white-red colored card.

The stuff he bought are early Christmas gift to myself which I am very delighted to. My friend told me that he will visit Japan again on Spring 2017, I guess I should start saving on his next trip. It is funny that I never been to Japan, but my money does.

Postscript: Here are the pictures of the prices;

My Gaming collection

Since I was in college, I have been collecting video games. My first item was the PlayStation counterpart of DanceDanceRevolution 3rdMIX, since then, my passion for video game collecting grew. I started to buy games in various such as Japan surpluses in the Metro Manila, online stores such as Tipidpc and ebay, and trade games to other game collectors.

When I was collecting games, I dedicated myself to collect only games from KONAMI such as; Winning Eleven, Jikkyou Pawafuru Proyaku, Genso Suikoden and Gundam video games from BANDAI. There was a time that my games collected was over a hundred and space became a problem. My mother warned me to refrain from collecting because it collects dust and consumes household space. Suddenly, I realized that I have been collecting games that I don't really like. So I decided to relinquish those games that I don't like.

Now, I am still collecting video games from KONAMI, but limited to BEMANI, Metal Gear Solid, KONAMI's Arcade classics ported to consoles such as Gradius and Silent Scope. I think it's better to concentrate on te games we really love because we can enjoy the passion of collecting, unless, a huge space is available inside your house.

Castlevania for DS

Last Saturday afternoon, I rushed towards SM Mall of Asia to meet the seller of the Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrows for Nintendo DS. I found this game on sale at OLX.com.ph . This meet up was settled a week before because he can do meet ups on weekends. When I finally met the seller, he was only at around 15 years of age.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrows for Nintendo DS

Originally, the seller sells the game for 800.00Php but he agrees to sell it for 500.00Php. The condition of the item is in good condition with few signs of discoloration in box art cover.  The game is its fourth re-sale based on Konami's catalog number

Although the seller sell cheap, but in Ebay, someone is selling it for $120.00 excluding shipping. A hefty price for a nine year old used game.

Love Plus plus is here!

When I'm browsing in a Social retro gaming group in Facebook last Tuesday night, I found a Love Plus plus game for Nintendo DS for only 300.00Php(approximately$8.00)! Good thing that no one put a "dibs" (reserve) comment on it, so I'm the first and the last one to dib the game.

Love plus plus for Nintendo DS.

 A few minutes after, the seller contact me regarding meet-up arrangements, I asked him if we close the transaction at a nearby bakery because he was not far from our house and he was the sibling of my Elementary-High School friends. A few minutes after, some of the members of the group feels dismay that the game is on sale for more than a day and they only notice it moments after it was sold to me.

Love plus is a dating simulation game. The game I bought is the sequel of the first game. Where you can ask a Date in one of the 3 main characters of the game. Although, I used to have the demo version of the New Love Plus for 3DS, I managed to delete it because of memory constraints of my console. :(