The Real Price of Japanese Retro Games: Sony and Sega

If you follow me or any other content creator in Japan that posts their pick-ups and trips to Japanese thrift stores, then you already know that the price of Japanese retro games are a fraction of the cost of their counterparts in the USA. Just how different are the prices though? And are all the stores in Japan the same price wise? While the stores in the USA selling retro games also vary in terms of pricing, in my opinion those prices tend to stay close to the average price of the product within 10-20% of the market.

Japan is not like that. One store could be selling a product close to the American price, but others could be selling it for 10% of that. The price difference is so profound that I thought it would be a good idea to write an article about these prices differences. While doing research for this article I set out to answer a few questions that people might ask when they go shopping for retro games in Japan.

• What is the actual price difference between English and Japanese games?
• Why is the Japanese version priced at that level?
• How easy is it to pick this game up in Japan and where can you get it? (on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the most difficult to find)
• What is the price difference between the various game stores in Japan? (For this article I decided to use Super Potato as the high end store chain, Surugaya as the mid-priced store chain, and Book Off/Hard Off as the lower end stores).

To show how the prices are different, I decided to use a wide variety of games from a number of systems. I didn’t choose only the most expensive games for each console, but rather what I thought was popular and easy to find in Japan. Also I didn’t choose games from each and every system out there. I felt it was better to go with ones that are well-known (sorry PC Engine and Wonderswan). The prices for the English games are taken from Price Charting using the complete in box average price, while the prices for Japanese games is using their non-damaged/slightly damaged prices that I collected at the major chains that sell retro games (stores tend to take a percentage off if the box or manual is damaged, or the disc is scratched). I will also be posting the price of Japanese games using the current exchange rate as of writing this article, which is about 153 yen to $1 US. The Japanese prices of games is what they were as of the end of December, 2025.

Sony Playstation

• Persona 2: Eternal Punishment = US Price $338 Vs 3600 yen ($23.50, Surugaya), 3300 yen ($21.50, Hard Off/Book Off)
• Xenogears = US Price $134 Vs 3500 yen ($23, Super Potato), 1900 yen ($12, Surugaya), 1650 yen ($11, HO/BO)
• Parappa the Rappa = US Price $144 Vs 2000 yen ($13, Super Potato), 1100 yen ($7, Surugaya), 530 yen ($3.50, HO/BO)

Prices of Sony Playstation games aren’t too bad in the USA, but they are getting there. The console is full of great RPGs and other popular retro franchises, so a nice chunk of games are closing in on $100 or are just above it. That is not the case in Japan. There are a couple series that are popular and hold some value, but for the most part PSOne games are extremely cheap and a lot of them can be bought for pennies on the dollar. Playstation One sections of thrift stores are usually larger in size, second only to PS2 games in the retro sections. Hopefully you’ll believe me then when I say Persona 2, Xenogears, and Parappa the Rappa can be had for less than 10% of their English price in Japan. While Persona 2 and Xenogears are text heavy games and might cause some people to shy away from them, Parappa the Rappa is almost 100% in English, despite being a Japanese game. I got my copy for $1.50 at a Book Off last year and it’s basically cheaper to get a Japanese PS1 and that game than to pay for the English copy. I’m actually kind of surprised that Super Potato sells these games so low, but I guess even they have to admit there is no overseas market for a lot of Playstation games in Japanese.

These titles might be a little hard to find at places like Super Potato, but they are pretty easy to find at Surugaya’s and Book Offs/Hard Offs. Persona 2 ranks around a 4 in difficulty of tracking down, Xenogears is about a 3 or 4, and Parappa the Rappa is a 2. Parappa the Rappa seems to always show up at thrift stores in Japan. Um Jammer Lammy can be held for a similar price as well. When I found out that my Japanese PS3 could play Japanese PS1 games last year, I went on a buying spree and most of the games I bought were under 500 yen. The highest I’ve paid for a PS1 game has probably been 3000 yen, but there are definitely some rare titles that get up to 5000-6000 yen here.

Sony Playstation 2

• .hack//Quarantine = US Price $299 Vs 1300 yen ($5.50, Surugaya), 525 yen ($3.50, HO/BO)
• Silent Hill 2 = US Price $173 Vs 11000 ($72, Super Potato), 6700 yen ($44, Surugaya), 3500 ($23, HO/BO)
• Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (DBZ Sparking! METEOR) = US Price $148 Vs 3800 yen ($25, Super Potato), 2700 yen ($18, Surugaya), 1650 yen ($11, HO/BO)

You guys know how .hack//quarantine is like a bajillion dollars in the USA because it released at the end of the PS2 life cycle and had a very limited run? Yeah that didn’t happen in Japan. I’ve actually found it difficult to find just Quarantine when I go to stores here, as the .hack games always seem to come in the bundle with the other entries. Even when I do, they are about the same price as the bundles; around 1000 yen. There is no profit to be had from it, so I can understand why Super Potato doesn’t always carry it. Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4 have been creeping up in price lately due to the series being popular with tourists, but they are still a great deal. You can save even more money by tracking down copies at a Book Off or Hard Off. Dragon Ball Z games always tend to be popular in Japan, and that means that there are a lot of them. Not all of them are made alike though, so some will be more expensive than others. In the USA, DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is considered the pinnacle of DBZ games on the PS2, and the price shows that accordingly. However, if you don’t mind the voices being in the original Japanese, you can get it a great deal on it in Japan. As with Parappa the Rappa, you could buy Tenkaichi 3 in Japanese and a PS2 for less than the price of getting the English copy and you will still be able to enjoy the great gameplay.

Dot Hack Quarantine, and the other games in the series on PS2 are a little bit harder to find in Japan than these other titles. I would probably rank Quarantine itself at around a 5 or 6 difficulty, and the others about the same. Tracking down all of them might take you some time though. Silent Hill 2 (and the other Silent Hill games) are usually buy-listed over here so they tend to be in stock rather often. The higher prices for them also tend to keep a lot of Japanese collectors away so they stay on the shelves a little longer. I would probably say SH2 and SH3 are about a 4, and SH4 is probably closer to 5 or 6. With PS2 sections usually being the largest retro section at stores, the Dragon Ball Z game isn’t that hard to find. I would say it’s a 3 in difficulty.

Playstation Portable

• Shin Megami Tensei Persona 2: Innocent Sin = US Price $203 Vs 23000 yen ($150, Super Potato), 3000 yen ($19.50, Surugaya), 3300 yen ($21.50, Surugaya)
• The 3rd Birthday = US Price $69 Vs 4400 yen ($29, Super Potato), 1600 yen ($10, Surugaya), 1000 yen ($6.50, HO/BO)
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker = US Price $53 Vs 800 yen ($5, Surugaya), 528 yen ($3.50, HO/BO)

Let me just come out and say that NOBODY wants PSP games in Japan anymore. They always seem to be languishing on shelves compared to their more popular cousins, the PS Vita games. A large majority of them can be found in the junk and outlet sections of places like Surugaya and Hard Off, and you can get them for under 300 yen each. Part of the blame is probably on the UMD drives of PSPs failing, but if you can get around that you can get all of the titles you want for a song in Japan. I picked up a stack of games about 2 years ago, and I’m planning to get a few more in a the coming months that shouldn’t be too hard to play in Japanese.

Looking at the price differences above though, you can see that games like Persona 2 still have quite the following of Japanese players. It’s one of the few games to be priced high on the handheld, though the price Super Potato charges for it is outrageous. You can see for yourself how much the other places charge for it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s that price at Super Potato merely because they know tourists will pay for it. The 3rd Birthday was a big let down for Parasite Eve fans but it still tends to hold some value in English due to curious collectors. If you are one of those curious collectors, then paying 10% of the English value might be just what you need to scratch that itch of trying that game without breaking your bank. I’ve seen MGS Peace Walker for around 250 yen in a lot of places (mostly at Hard Offs and Book Offs), so it’s another title you might not find at Super Potatoes because there isn’t any profit in it.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin is pretty easy to find, around 3 in difficulty, The 3rd Birthday is also relatively easy to find (another 3), and Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is probably a 1. It is in basically every thrift store PSP section. You could realistically come to Japan and spend $50 on PSP games and leave with a stack of 20-30 games. You could get every game you ever wanted to try on the system and not even break a sweat doing it.

Sega Dreamcast

• Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure = US Price $172 Vs 27300 yen ($178, Super Potato), 14000 yen ($91, Surugaya), 6600 yen ($43, HO/BO)
• Sonic Adventure 2 = US Price $163 Vs 17400 ($113, Super Potato), 10000 yen ($65, Surugaya), 6600 ($43, HO/BO)
• Skies of Arcadia = US Price $140 Vs 4000 yen ($26, Surugaya), 5500 yen ($36, HO/BO)

I decided to do Sega Dreamcast for my sole Sega product because I know that console the best, both from selling them when I worked at Electronics Boutique in high school/college, as well as playing a lot of the titles on other consoles around that time (PS2, Gamecube, etc). Dreamcast games in Japan tend to be a little on the rarer side, as are most Sega products. From my experience, Sega Saturn and Dreamcast tend to swing back and forth in terms of the size of their selections in thrift stores in Japan. Some stores will have tons of Dreamcast games and a few Sega Saturn games, while other shops will have a lot of Sega Saturn games but not that many Dreamcast games. That would explain why prices on games such as Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure vary so wildly. The price at Super Potato is even more than the English version, while the Surugaya copies are half the price, and Book Off/Hard Off has it at even half of that. It really all depends, but you can definitely get a cheap version with a little work.

Sonic Adventure 2 is kind of in the same boat. Super Potato is playing with fire by selling at close to the English copy, whereas the other stores sell them for much less. To be honest I don’t know why you wouldn’t just get it on a Japanese Gamecube for even cheaper, and I think there is even dual language settings on it so you can play it in English! Skies of Arcadia is a game I always wanted to play but never go around to buying when it was affordable (at least in English). It’s on more of the pricier side in Japan, but cheaper than a good chunk of others.

Gauging the difficulty of picking up these Dreamcast titles is where I tend to struggle. I don’t actively search them out to purchase and only did research on them for this article. If I had to guess though from my limited experience, I would say that Sonic Adventure 2 is probably the easiest one to find at around a 3, Jojo’s is about a 4, and Skies of Arcadia is around a 6 (I really struggled to track down copies of it at stores in downtown Osaka).

What’s Missing

You can see that this article is a bit shorter than the other one I wrote about Nintendo products, and that’s mainly because I am not too knowledgeable about other systems, and the price differences might not be as different as you think. I am sure that Sega Saturn games are a lot cheaper in Japan than overseas, but I wouldn’t even know where to start when choosing titles to talk about. Also Nintendo and Mega Drive are outside of my wheelhouse as well. It would have been cool to talk about a few more consoles, but I will leave that up to another creator who wants to do research into them. I hope you retro gaming fans appreciated these articles about the price differences though. Some people in Japan might hate me for sharing this type of information because they want to keep it secret and for themselves, but to be honest if tourists are coming over to raid junk and outlet sections of stores for great deals, they are putting more money in those companies pockets so they can continue to put out even more games and to refine their selections to have better titles. When games sit on shelves, companies want to liquidate them to clear up shelf space and then rarely replace them. By keeping people buying and selling their games to refill and expand their selections, shoppers will get to have a much better shopping experience.

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 to 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