Lost in New York

THE NOMAD ON-THE-GO

This past weekend my girlfriend and I were visiting some old friends in New York City. Our first stop was a visit to VideoGamesNewYork, a small but jam-packed game shop that had everything from the Odyssey to the 360. On our way to the shop, things took a turn for the awesome when we spotted Kevin McCallister himself, Mister Macaulay Culkin!


I managed to snap the photo seen above just before Culkin spotted us and hailed a taxi. Seconds later, and I shit you not, Liev Schreiber (Sabertooth of Wolverine) was walking on the opposite side of the street with his son! The gaming gods must have planned all of this as upon entering VideoGamesNewYork I spotted Home Alone 2 for the Genesis and a poster advertising the next-gen Wolverine game.


So what did the store have to offer in terms of SEGA games and systems? In five words: a hell of a lot. You'd be hared pressed to even find a store back in the mid-90's that had this much Saturn stuff in one spot. There were literally hundreds of US and Japanese games available, as well as boxes full of controllers, multi-taps and 4meg carts. After the excitement receded, I asked myself "how could this much Saturn stuff go unsold?" I quickly had my answer: the prices were (for the most part) ludicrous! Games that would go for $5 on ebay were $25, shrink-wrapped stinkers like CROC went for $60 and used controllers were $25. More examples outside of the Saturn: A new Dreamcast was $140, used VMUs were $14.99 each (without caps), Sonic Adventure was $60 and a used Master System Converter was $90. Ouch.


Despite lots of overly priced items, there were some deals to be found. Many staple Saturn games like Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter 2 were between $5 and $9. The Bomberman Multi-tap was $60, new in box.


On the Dreamcast side, the often overpriced Illbleed was $9 and the rare official Dreamcast to Neo Geo Color link cable was $25 and was well stocked (I counted a dozen or so). Genesis and Sega CD games went for reasonable prices, though if you wanted a boxed cartridge you'd spend $25+ for games like Sonic 2 and Golden Axe.

A healthy supply of Game Gear carts were available, though systems were not to be found. The now defunct (in America) TV tuner was $90 used and a good portion of the games were on the expensive side. In my opinion Krusty's Funhouse should be free.


In the end I left with a small amount but excellent selection of items. I snagged Floigan Bros., Illbleed and a third-party ASCII controller for $30 total. Not too shabby! Unfortunately I didn't obtain any Saturn items, as I really had my eye on their rarer games but couldn't handle their prices.

Overall, visiting VideoGamesNewYork was a great experience, if only for the opportunity to stand before hundreds of classic SEGA games. There ARE deals to be found, but I'd advise making up a list of games you're on the lookout for beforehand and comparing the online price to what VideoGamesNewYork offers. You can check out their website here and view more photos of the shop here.

Note: You can also find this article at The Saturn Junkyard.