I was just wondering, does this site have a thread or something that maps good local stores for video games? Whenever I’m out of town I try to visit these types of places. But, despite Google and the like, I find it sort of hard to get good information. One store may bill itself as “your one-stop shop for all things classic video games!!” But they are a glorified vintage store with a few overpriced copies of SMB/Duck Hunt and nothing more. Conversely, until recently I didn’t know there was a store 15 minutes from my apartment with 2 Virtual Boys and an amazing game selection besides. Google searches aren’t smart enough to analyze the true relevance of these stores to gamers like us…it’s better for people who have been to recommend them.

Anyway, enough rambling. Just thinking it would be helpful if people felt like posting the city/state and name of stores that are reliable classic game sources, especially for VB items.

For me, I visit:

Sudden Impact- Winthrop MA
High Energy Vintage- Somerville MA
Replay’D- Allston MA

the best one i know of on the west coast is gamedude in n. hollywood. http://www.gamedude.com/

my local favs:

http://www.destiny-games.com – canton, mi

http://www.getyourgameonline.com/ – ann arbor, mi

http://www.gamersuniverseescanabami.com/
– not local but still the same state.. escanaba, mi

Every year when I make my annual visit to Lincoln I try to make it out to one of their two locations:

http://www.gogamers.com/gogamerscom/index.php

A new gaming store opened in Madison Heights, Michigan called Retro-Taku Videogames

https://www.facebook.com/Retrotakugames

It looks like they have boxed Virtual Boy games too! http://youtu.be/1vHMPB9P4FI?t=2m9s

If you’re ever in Chicago, there is a place called People Play Games on Clark Street in Lakeview. That’s where I got my copy of Teleroboxer from! They tend to have a few VB games at least, roughly about $20 for them too depending on the game. ALWAYS seem to get another copy of Mario Tennis after it sells too haha.

in buffalo ny there is oggie games. http://www.oogiegames.com/ started out as a garage business and now he has 3 stores. he stocks some VB carts.

Awesome guys- especially the one in Chicago, my friend may be visiting home there soon and bringing back his own VB from storage. I’ll tell him to go buy any games at People Play Games 🙂

I wish I could find more besides that Video Game Exchange in NYC…

I live near Boulder, CO, so here’s my current list:

Gameforce, Boulder: http://www.gameforceboulder.com/ — I could spend my *entire* paycheck there *every month* and still not run out of cool things to buy. I’ve occasionally seen Virtual Boy games there, but not too often.

There’s also a Gameforce in my actual city, Longmont, but their selection is way worse: http://gflongmont.com/

I recently went to a store called “2nd & Charles” at the Flatirons mall in Broomfield and was utterly surprised at their selection of retro stuff: http://2ndandcharles.com/ — they had a Sega Master System (one thing my collection is missing) and some hard to find Genesis games, among others. I definitely saw a Teleroboxer and a Mario Tennis there, too.

There’s another game trading store, but I can’t remember it’s name at the moment… when I do, I’ll update. 🙂

The only place I can find a Virtual Boy now is GameStar on Commercial St. in Salem. And that’s it. That’s the bad part about living in a smaller city. But I have had success with Game Crazy Lancaster in the past, but I guess more people are keeping them and selling them on eBay for more money or something.

Hah, I almost regret asking this now because I feel like there are way more cool stores than I expected…and it would take forever to get to them all :p

It’s easy to see most of a paycheck disappear like that. EBay does take a lot of the business away, but I’m constantly surpised at the turnover my local shops have- even with unusual or clearly overpriced items. I guess nothing beats the feeling of taking home the games or system right then and there.