One of my favorite aspects of game collecting is finding ridiculously old titles still new at retail. (Gamecube launch titles at Wal-Mart, anyone?) I remember seeing a copy of Soul Blade at an outside-of-town Dollar General about a year ago. It was $10 at the time, a bit too steep for any PS1 game still kicking around on  shelves. I happened to be driving by the same store yesterday, and thought I would stop just to see if they still had it and if it had been marked down any.

To my luck, not only had Dollar General marked it down to $8 at some point, it was in the middle of 2 big “50% off” clearance aisles. That made it $4 out the door. For reference, they had several other less-than-stellar titles like Wild 9 (PS1, $4), Ultimate Board Games (PS2, $7.50), Dragonball GT (GBA, $7.50), and Veggie Tales (PS2, $7.50).

It’s rare to see any new PS1 games still at retail these days, let alone one that’s part of a well-respected franchise (Soul Calibur). Did I mention the cheapest sealed copy on eBay is $20?

The game rang up as “Xmas 05 Assort,” so it’s been there for at least 3 years. As a funny side note, the store didn’t even have the tool to unlock the plastic bracket that held the game. It came out with a quick snip from a pair of wire cutters.

User “Randam_Hajile” at the NeoGAF forums was able to snag a Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 bundle today at Wal-Mart, breaking the street date by nearly a week. Here’s his photo for proof:

In related news, the MGS4 bundles went on sale less than an hour ago from Amazon, beginning at 10:00 AM PST. The demand is so high that Amazon’s servers — yes, the entire site — have crashed. I’ve taken a screenshot of this unusual and somewhat historic moment…

Update: It appears the Amazon crash was unrelated to MGS4, except that it coincidentally occurred within a half hour of putting the bundle on sale.

A book/video store about an hour from home is set to go out of business soon. It’s a chain of stores across the state, and they rotate merchandise from time to time. I hadn’t been to this store since January, but when I went this weekend, they had a goldmine of stuff that was definitely not there before, and all priced to sell.

The first thing I found when I walked in was a rack filled to overflowing with mostly junk Genesis and SNES sports titles. Funnily enough, they also had a ton of new-in-box PS1 “game enhancers” — ie, import enablers that plugged into the PS1’s parallel port (marked at $0.95 ea). Too bad they’ve sort of outlived their usefulness, ‘cos they were a fascinating device back in the day. (I even wrote a couple of FAQs about them for GameFAQs nearly a decade ago!)

On the back of the rack, I found an unexpected gem: Metal Gear Solid for PS1. It was the start of good things.

Next, walking down a main aisle, I spotted a box I’m well familiar with — DDR Mario Mix! No game, unfortunately, but $5 for the pad is still a good find. I’m betting someone traded in the game into Gamestop and they refused the pad “for sanitary reasons.” Apparently in Gamestop-speak, “sanitary reasons” translated to “We’d rather force people to buy our own branded pad and make profit from the ludicrous markup.” I digress.

Next, at the end of the computer and gaming aisle, there were 2 boxes full of lovely vintage 90s gaming magazines. I would have loved to have taken the 2 big boxes that they had home, but I know full well that I have no room for them, so I cherry picked the Final Fantasy covers.

And lastly, I discovered the crown jewel… on the bottom shelf of the computer aisle, stuck in sideways, I spied a red border that I have drooled over on eBay many times. Could it be? Yes! The Final Fantasy (1) Nintendo Power Strategy Guide, in excellent shape. I felt my heart flutter a bit. It’s not a particularly valuable item, but I have indeed coveted it for awhile, and this is the first one I’ve seen in person. Oh, the price? 50 cents.

• Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix (pad only) — $5.00
• Metal Gear Solid (PS1 Greatest Hits) — $5.90 — this was mixed in with a bunch of crap sports Genny and SNES games, all priced $5.90. Have no idea where this gem came from!
• Tons of mid-90s gaming magazines — $0.50 ea

  And the crown jewel…

• Final Fantasy 1 Nintendo Power strategy guide — $0.50

One of my local (franchise) Blockbusters cleared out a ton of their Gamecube games, including a bunch of first-party goodies. I got all of the following under a buy 2, get 1 free sale, making them roughly $6.67 a piece. You really can’t do much better than that for quality Gamecube titles.

Not to mention, I personally think the dominance of the Wii and its backwards compatibility is going to give the Gamecube a much more favorable retroactive “legacy” than the N64 had.

• Pokemon Colosseum
• Disney Sports Basketball
• Paper Mario
• Disney Extreme Skate
• Luigi’s Mansion (I really want to play this one someday)
• Mario Party 4
• Mario Golf
• Animal Crossing
• Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

After reading oodles about Hollywood Video’s financial woes in recent years, myself and other gamers have been worrying about their pretty-awesome game chain, GameCrazy. (Several GameCrazys closed when Hollywood Video shut down 400 or so stores last year.) I heard some good news yesterday from the manager at the Hagerstown, Maryland, store that it is set to expand soon.

The manager told me in a casual chat yesterday that even though the GameCrazy only takes up about 1/3 of the total floor space that it shares with Hollywood Video, it rakes in about 2/3 of the revenue yearly. So, as you might expect, the location is will soon shrink the floor space of Hollywood Video’s stagnating rentals and will be expanding GameCrazy’s retail space.

I hope this is the start of a trend for other GameCrazy locations, and quite frankly, it’s the first growth-oriented news I’ve heard coming out of the Hollywood Video camp in awhile.

He also told me anecdotally that the nearby Valley Mall, which has no fewer than 2 Gamestops inside, “hates” the nearby GameCrazy location because their better customer service is siphoning away customers. I believe it, although I’m not sure “Better service than Gamestop!” is actually a brag.

All in all, great news for gamers in western Maryland, especially ones who don’t like retail monopolies.

I went to my first yard sales of the year yesterday. Unfortunately it was kind of a bust. All I got was:

Streets of Rage 2, “Not for Resale” version, $0.50

I had a shocking find last week at the Goodwill in Charlottesville VA:

Uncharted Waters, Genesis, complete, $1.95
Super Famicom (!!??) $9.95

I was happy enough to find Uncharted Waters, but I said “Do you believe it??” when my boyfriend and I found the Famicom. He’s a big Nintendo geek too so I know he was jealous. But I’m the one who made him stop at Goodwill in the first place, so I got dibs.

There was an N64 ($9.95) that I passed on. It could have been Japanese too but I didn’t think to look at the time.

The SF is missing the power adapter, which is OK since I’ll probably have to track one that will work with US voltage anyway.

Definitely one of the most unexpected things I’ve ever found in the wild.

They also had a very nice Saturn set — system, 2 controllers, and around 8 complete games like Sonic 3D, Bust-a-Move 2, Baku Baku Animal. They wanted $49.95, so I passed. Though it was probably the nicest, most complete Saturn I’ve ever seen in the wild.

I hope to be putting some enviable posts in here in the coming weeks.

This amuses me. As much as I like to make fun of K Mart and fye for having ancient stock (”The Bouncer” for $52.99, anyone? Anyone?), this really takes the cake. Fairyland on Cheapassgamer reports that some KB Toys locations are still kicking around Atari Jaguar stuff… and at a price about as cheap as it gets.

I personally did not find this, but my friend found and bought Zool 2 at his KB in New Jersey, somewhere near Rahway, for only a quarter! He said it was next to the PS2 games that they was liquidating. When he went to check out, the employee thought it was some PC game. It appears this was the same store where my friend just got some 10 year old Sailor Moon dolls as well. It appears that some KB Toys are extremely stuck back in time. Simply amazing.

Amazing indeed. It reminds me of when I picked up a box of new overstock Sega Game Gear games earlier this year at a flea market for $0.25 ea. (Nothing amazing, just Disney’s Aladdin, a tank sim, and some poker games.)

I’ve also heard reports this year of Wal-Mart still carrying late gen PS1 Square titles (Black label “Vagrant Story” for $19.99?? Are you kidding me?) and K Mart carrying N64 Diddy Kart strategy guides.

Have you spotted ancient gaming merchandise at a retail store? Send it in and we’ll post it! Pics are a plus!