Collecting PC-Engine in the early 90s in the UK

[Otaking]

Who remembers collecting PC-Engine games in the early 90s, here in the UK it was only the most Hardcore of Gamers who new about and collected for the PC engine.
Holy grail games of the time were Coryoon, Magical Chase and Dracula X. Games that seem quite common now used to sell for a fortune! one example is Parodius which was considered very rare and would go for a £100, which you can now pick up for around £12. A boxed mint LT seemed to regularly sell for a £1000!! a Super Grafx £300!!
This era ended with the advent of the internet and ebay which made all these import games readily available and the prices dropped.
It seems the reverse has happened with the TG-16 CD titles as in the early 90s they were quite common and cheap but now they're quite expensive particularly the RPGs.

[sunteam_paul]

I remember buying Street Fighter 2 and a 6 button pad for about £75 (I think), the most I'd ever spent on a game. I was lucky to have a friend that would contantly buy new games and end up selling them off to me, so I managed to retain quite a few desirable games from that era. Splatterhouse was really expensive too, I remember picking it up from Raven Games I think when I was out on a day trip to London.

[LMS]

Parasol Stars was another expensive one I think. Do either of you guys remember 'The complete pc engine guide book' by a guy called Richard Gibbs? It was a photocopied book in a yellow cover that a lot of the importers used to stock. I still have an battered copy here from 1993.

I remember calling round different suppliers trying to track down games that had been released in Japan a week or so earlier... Dream Machines 2, PC Engine supplies (later console concepts I believe), Raven games, video games center in Bournemouth, there was one up in Scotland too run by some guy called Keith I think.

[ikobo]

The Scottish one was KT Konsoles. He was a top lad who provided me with my first ever briefcase setup (with arcade card), ah, days gone by!

[shubibiman]

When I was a student, I spent 2 months in London on a summer job in 1998. I found a shop called Computer Exchange. There were 2 shops, one for retro games, not far from the BT Tower. The seller was a very cool guy. As far as I can remember, it was quite a new shop at the time. Prices were not as insane as your examples, still it was much more expensive than in France.

[Otaking]

I remember buying Street Fighter 2 and a 6 button pad for about £75 (I think)

Yeh I remember when SF II was first released on the Super Famicom and the import copies were going for a £100 

Do either of you guys remember 'The complete pc engine guide book' by a guy called Richard Gibbs? It was a photocopied book in a yellow cover that a lot of the importers used to stock. I still have an battered copy here from 1993.

Funny should mention it I put up this post yesterday https://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=6640.0

I remember calling round different suppliers trying to track down games that had been released in Japan a week or so earlier... Dream Machines 2, PC Engine supplies (later console concepts I believe), Raven games, video games center in Bournemouth, there was one up in Scotland too run by some guy called Keith I think.

I used to do the same, I remember you could also trade games with the shops, i did that quite a bit with the Video Game Center in Bournemouth.
Other mail order shops were Console Concepts, Krazy Konsoles and Telegames 

When I was a student, I spent 2 months in London on a summer job in 1998. I found a shop called Computer Exchange. There were 2 shops, one for retro games, not far from the BT Tower. The seller was a very cool guy. As far as I can remember, it was quite a new shop at the time. Prices were not as insane as your examples, still it was much more expensive than in France.

Yeh Computer Exchange is now CEX a big high street chain.

My fondest memories of gaming in the early 90s is every weekend me and my mate would drive around London to all the different games shops looking for bargain PC Engine and Neo Geo stuff.
The shops included Computer Exchange on Whitfield Street which was the first ever one, Shekana in Tottenham Court Road, Advanced Console Entertainment just off Carnaby Street, Games Exchange in Notting hill Gate and the best one Machine Shack in Streatham which had all the new PC-Engine and TG-16 games in stock.

We would sometimes go to Raven Games in Beckenham but they were over priced even back then.

[shubibiman]

The shops included Computer Exchange on Whitfield Street which was the first ever one

That's the one!

[Digi.k]

I think there was also a shop called Advance Consoles . I think they went under the name of ACE before then and they used to do full RGB mods for pc engine/megadrive and snes


I  think I got into the pc engine from a uk magazine called C&VG and bought my first pc-engine console from a shop in tottenham court road back then called Shekhana 

I also remember a mail order shop called....pc engine supplies ?? I'm sure they later renamed themselves as console concepts I think I got a lot of mail order stuff from there including parodius for pce brand new for 65 quid..

[LMS]

Yup, pretty sure ACE was 'Advanced Console Entertainment'.

Anyone remember 'PC Engine Supplies' before it became Console Concepts? I think I still have an old membership card around here somewhere 

[Tatsujin]

i was in london in '97 and found a import store which also sold some pce stuff. iirc i bought my wonderboy III - monsterlair for ￡12 there. if've also bought some other pce stuff, but of which i can't rememeber what it was exactly.

[Digi.k]

I also remeber they had a newly opened japan centre in soho (around 92~93) that provided all the japanese pc engine monthly mags and famitsu and then later imported 2nd hand pc engine HUcard games.

speaking of Advance console I remember hearing a story of a kid that bought a modified SNES from there and got mugged when he walked away from the shop..

And similar thing also happened to the japan centre too a japanese Super famicom got stolen from there.

and I also remember a similar thing happening to Raven games before they opened up a shop. they had a rented office not far from their current shop which also got broken into and had pc engine stuff stolen

[D-Type]

Do either of you guys remember 'The complete pc engine guide book' by a guy called Richard Gibbs? It was a photocopied book in a yellow cover that a lot of the importers used to stock. I still have an battered copy here from 1993.

Have this, even though it's getting a bit faded now. Theres lots of good info in his books, hardware and software. Quite a well informed person on the subject of the PC Engine. I always thought his game reviews were spot on.

I remember the first C&VG magazine which ran PC Engine reviews(APR 1989 #90 Wierd Dreams cover), Vigalante, Space Harrier and Dragon Spirit all got very generous scores. As a kid I had to have this console, then the Megadrive was featured just one month later. Confusing times for a child. 

[esteban]

Do either of you guys remember 'The complete pc engine guide book' by a guy called Richard Gibbs? It was a photocopied book in a yellow cover that a lot of the importers used to stock. I still have an battered copy here from 1993.

Have this, even though it's getting a bit faded now. Theres lots of good info in his books, hardware and software. Quite a well informed person on the subject of the PC Engine. I always thought his game reviews were spot on.

I remember the first C&VG magazine which ran PC Engine reviews(APR 1989 #90 Wierd Dreams cover), Vigalante, Space Harrier and Dragon Spirit all got very generous scores. As a kid I had to have this console, then the Megadrive was featured just one month later. Confusing times for a child. 

It would be awesome if you scanned / took a steady photo of some of the pages. This is the sort of thing that is nice to document and I'd gladly add high-quality scans to my site.

[D-Type]

Here are a few scans from the C&VG magazine.
http://img187.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=cvg900108z.jpg
http://img17.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=cvg900110.jpg


These scans were done by a chap named Mort over at the Zzap forum. They were selling a dvd of the first 126 issues not so long ago. First two are of the reviews, the third being an example of the sellers mentioned in this thread, and the forth was the image that really sold me the console all those years ago.

Will stick some photos up of the fanzine if I can find it.

[Otaking]

They were selling a dvd of the first 126 issues not so long ago.

is that a DVD of the first 126 issues of CVG? sounds interesting...