Retro Game Store Reviews: Book Off Super Bazaar Machida

Today I’m focusing on a smaller store but a good store nonetheless. Living in Yokohama, I’m constantly heading past the city of Machida on my way to and back from work during the week. Machida is a bedtown, meaning that people who live there commute from their to Yokohama or Tokyo during the week. That means a lot of apartments and a lot of people. There are tons of restaurants and other shops near the station so it’s understandable that the Book Off in this area would have a lot of traffic. Machida also has a great Surugaya that I’ve talked about before so there is no shortage of places to buy retro games.

The Selection

The Machida Book Off Super Bazaar actually splits their retro section into 2 floors. The basement floor is mostly the really old stuff like Famicom, Super Famicom, Gamecube, Nintendo 64, Gameboy, and Gameboy advance. You’ll also find some Sega Saturn and Dreamcast games down there, but not that many. On the first floor of the store you’ll find all the Playstation console and handheld games, DS and 3DS, Nintendo Wii, and of course the other newer games. The consoles and handhelds are also found in cases on the first floor, but there aren’t that many of them. That’s one of this store’s weak points. Every other console has a very healthy stock of games. I was especially impressed with their Super Famicom selection.

The Pricing

The number one reason I wanted to feature this show is because of their pricing. I’ve bought a lot of games at this store over the last few years, and the reason for that is that their pricing is incredibly competitive. It’s like they have big city stock but countryside prices and that’s great. I believe I stated this in the past but every stores’ prices are going to be different, even within the same chain of stores. If one place has a lot of stock they have the freedom to adjust prices to move the inventory. And it’s not just on their retro games. While other places are still selling newer games for near full price, Book Off Machida is usually one of the first places to drop their prices. That’s why you can currently find Dragon Quest 3 HD for 4100 there right now instead of 5000 yen, and Eiyuden Chronicles was only 3600 for me a few months back while it was 4500 yen everywhere else. I’m sure the longer you wait the cheaper games will get. I believe I’ve seen new games like Mario RPG on the Switch even get as low as 2100 yen.

Access

Another great point that the Machida Book Off Super Bazaar has going for it is the location. Machida is located on the JR Yokohama and the Odyaku lines. If you’re coming from the bullet train at Shin Yokohama station or traveling from Tokyo it’s pretty easy to get to. From the bullet train in Shin Yokohama you can transfer to the JR Yokohama line and it takes about 25 minutes to get there. From Shinjuku the Odakyu line takes a little longer, but you should be able to take a direct train there. Once you arrive at Odakyu Machida station it’s about a 7 minute walk, or you can take the JR line to Machida station and walk 7 minutes.

The Verdict

Good prices and a good location more than make up for a smaller inventory at this store. This store seems to move a lot of product and has very high traffic, so you can always find a good deal there. It’s just far enough off the beaten path to allow its prices to be competitive, but not far enough to be a waste of time. It’s also in the same area as the Machida Surugaya store which is definitely worth a visit.

• Selection: 3.5/5
• Pricing: 5/5
• Ease of Access: 5/5

But wait, there’s more!

Do you like this type of content and want to see more? Be sure to let me know by joining me on various social media and dropping me a line. I hope to bring hundreds of articles to this website about not only about my gaming experiences, but also about gaming in Japan, game collecting, and even game stores over here! If you plan on visit and are big into gaming (be it on modern systems or retro ones), be sure to bookmark this website and stop back from time to time for updates!

How to contact me:

• Bluesky: @thejapanhobbyist.bsky.social
• Twitch: TheJapanHobbyist
• Instagram: thejapanhobbyist