Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Coin-operated games and arcades.
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poodude
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Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by poodude »

Some of you old timers probably remember the good old days of cheap arcade pcbs. Specifically in the early to mid-2000s there were many a deal to be had.

Here is an old price list I found from 2004 for example:

http://www.multigame.com/sale.html

I specifically remember thinking $300 for a Batsugun pcb was too much money, so I never bought it. :(

When the last few Cave pcbs came out I thought... "Naw they will come down in price, they will get ports and I'll get them cheaper". :(

Any regrets on things you never got or sold only to pay more to buy it back again?
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by arcnl »

As you indicted the only regrets are monetary. Maybe should have waited a year more before offloading boards. I'm a gamer not a collector so i don't miss having half the room full of bubblewrapped computerboards.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by Shou »

It was even cheaper than that years before that.

Some examples from when I started imported boards and cabinets from Japan in the late 90s:
Radiant Silvergun $10
Virtua Fighter 3tb $10
Soukyugurentai $20
SFII $25
Feveron $40
Double Dragon $50
Polystars $50
Dodonpachi $60
Battle Garegga $60
Moonwalker $60
Gaiapolis $100
Cannon Dancer $120
Hyper Duel $280

Pony Mark IV $75
Neo Geo SC19 $100
Astro City $175
Q Grand Am $225
Blast City $425

Conversely, as it has always been, older games were more expensive but nothing like now.
Gradius EPROM version with all 3 other games for 380,000 yen was considered expensive then.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by geotrig »

poodude wrote: May 5th, 2021, 8:05 am Some of you old timers probably remember the good old days of cheap arcade pcbs. Specifically in the early to mid-2000s there were many a deal to be had.

Here is an old price list I found from 2004 for example:

http://www.multigame.com/sale.html

I specifically remember thinking $300 for a Batsugun pcb was too much money, so I never bought it. :(

When the last few Cave pcbs came out I thought... "Naw they will come down in price, they will get ports and I'll get them cheaper". :(

Any regrets on things you never got or sold only to pay more to buy it back again?
I'd say the eur& gbp exchange rate against the dollar was very favorable for us back then too
I remember thinking €65 being too much for aliens and in the later 2000's that £180 was too much for night slashers ,now it was too much at the time but well :(
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by phillv85 »

poodude wrote: May 5th, 2021, 8:05 am Some of you old timers probably remember the good old days of cheap arcade pcbs. Specifically in the early to mid-2000s there were many a deal to be had.

Here is an old price list I found from 2004 for example:

http://www.multigame.com/sale.html

I specifically remember thinking $300 for a Batsugun pcb was too much money, so I never bought it. :(

When the last few Cave pcbs came out I thought... "Naw they will come down in price, they will get ports and I'll get them cheaper". :(

Any regrets on things you never got or sold only to pay more to buy it back again?
Interesting that prices in the UK were quite a lot lower on some of those boards 8-9 years later. I don't know if we've always had our own little pricing bubble but Truxton was £100 for years and I got Hellfire for £80 in probably 2013-14.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by buffi »

Fujita pricelist from 2007:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070329023 ... ucts.shtml

BATTLE BAKRADE 9,500 .- shooting
DODONPACHI 20,000 .- shooting
DOGYUUN 10,000 .- shooting

Yaton pricelist from 2007:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070312132 ... om/mvs.htm

Blazing Star (fake label) $50
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by phillv85 »

Interesting, a lot of CPS2 games haven't moved much in years
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by buffi »

Also, here's an old excellentcom pricelist from 2008 from my mailbox


Some fun examples:
Esprade: 148$
Donpachi: 86$
Dodonpachi 188$
Dolphin Blue ROM: 125$
Batrider: 98$
Battle Bakraid: 118$
Gunbird: 50$
Spectral VS Generation cart: 118$ (this is super rare now)
Bee Storm: 42$
Pochi and Nyaa: 73$


... and a bunch of others
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by nem »

I have a Excellentcom price list from 2011 that also has Batrider for $98 and Bakraid for $118. The prices shot up fast in just a matter of years.

As for older than that, a friend of mine found in an old Finnish videogame magazine a random article about buying arcade games in Japan. The magazine was from 1999. It included some prices:

Darius, 22k
Gradius IV, 480k (it had just come out)
Ehrgeiz, 55k
Street Fighter Zero, 1500
Street Fighter Zero 3, 88k
Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter, 25k

1 USD was around 120 JPY at the time.

At the end were website addresses for TRY and Messe Sanoh. I wonder how many readers contacted them about buying up boards...

Since it somewhat relates to the matter at hand, would be interesting to hear about you selling your collection from before, @Shou? Did it all go in one shot? The logistics must have been a nightmare.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by nem »

Is anyone still here that was involved with the Killercabs container orders? Those prices would interest me. I bought my first cabs from River Service in 2010, so pretty late.

Astros were 20k
New Astro, 30k
Blast City, 50k
Net City, 50k
Versus City, 30k
New Versus City, 60k

Egret II, 50k
Egret 3, 70k
Vewlix F, 200k

TOPS on the other hand offered Blasts and Net Citys for 30k, so those prices were high at RS.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by thegreathopper »

I was on the first killercabs Oder as was probably Pang and a few others, I think I paid £400 for a mint Impress maybe less.. There was a really nice Capcom Q25 that Tony was selling for a couple of hundred pounds, the Astros were about £400 I think.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by nem »

I remember when @redstallone was selling three Candy 18s for 800 euros. Not per cab, but for all three. That has forever ingrained in my memory as a thing I should have jumped on. I want to say that was still at the time of the KC forums.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by cools »

My first KC cab was a Windy II in good shape for £400.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by geldra »

cools wrote: May 5th, 2021, 11:10 am My first KC cab was a Windy II in good shape for £400.
That didn’t happen to end up with penrhos did it?
Astro City is only a letter away from atrocity. Makes you think doesn’t it?
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by SuperPang »

Ah, happy days. I got into the hobby around 2004/5 and I remember picking up some of those $100 Raizing and CAVE boards from ECL. I think the exchange rate wasn't far off $2 to the pound as well. New CAVE releases would drop in price like a stone after a few months. Ibara was famously cheap as it flopped. People thought I was mad for spending $1200 on Mushihimesama.

So yeah, very glad to get into this when I did. Couldn't do it now. I've stopped keeping track of the value of my CAVE gear because it's pretty scary. I never would've imagined that the later games I bought on release would increase in value. That said, I sold an almost complete Japanese AES collection to fund the CAVE hobby. That collection would also look like a shrewd investment today. In fact most Japanese "retro" games have soared in price.

It was never about the money though. It was, and still is about playing on the real gear.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by cools »

geldra wrote: May 5th, 2021, 11:41 am
cools wrote: May 5th, 2021, 11:10 am My first KC cab was a Windy II in good shape for £400.
That didn’t happen to end up with penrhos did it?
Possibly, not directly from me though.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by geotrig »

the ic09 cabs were :shifty: about £400 /Which was a about €650at the time ,I vaguely remember someone like charlie chong or that selling an aero for really cheap like £130 or there abouts

iirc 1st game i bought was metal slug x and mvs mb for about 60 quid :problem:
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by geotrig »

ah I miss getting the old price list to peruse through
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by Shou »

nem wrote: May 5th, 2021, 10:07 am
Since it somewhat relates to the matter at hand, would be interesting to hear about you selling your collection from before, @Shou? Did it all go in one shot? The logistics must have been a nightmare.
The almost complete English AES set was sold separately. Everything else was sold to a big EU collector who came and shipped everything himself across 2 cities.
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Re: Arcade pcb prices of yesteryear

Post by SuperPang »

I see SEGA are planning on selling NFTs now. That could get silly.
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