Games shopping in Hong Kong/China

[AussieAtari]

I'm heading over to Hong Kong soon and would like to know if there are any recommendations for places to buy GBA/DS games and flash carts? I'll be spending two days in Shenzhen as well, purely to shop.

[panamajoe]

this older article from DP might help...:

 

http://www.digitpress.com/archives/arc00039.htm

[AussieAtari]

Well, I’m back from Hong Kong and China and have the following update in terms of shopping for games and hardware. Needless to say I had a great time and ended up having to buy another suitcase to lug all of my new loot home!

The main hardware and software shopping in Hong Kong is in Sham Shui Po, located some five miles inland from downtown Kowloon. Everything is basically situated inside one large building, the "Golden Shopping Mall", take exit “D” form the MTR at Sham Shui Po station and as you come up the stairs the building is on the directly opposite corner.

Inside the building are two floors crammed with rows of stores selling pretty much everything PC or console/hand-held related. The gaming area is reasonably concentrated at the front (as you walk in form the station) and along the left side row of the first floor.

There is everything there from pretty much every game and accessory for the current consoles, great packages of consoles/hand helds and games and a good selection of second hand games and hardware.

When I was there (May 2006) I bought a Japan-only release DS Lite with accessories, months before it is due to be released in Australia, some Nintendo US games not yet released in Oz and bargain accessories (try AUD$5 for a leather DS Lite case), genuine and 3rd party.

Pirate software (and loaded mini SD cards for the DS) were literally just below the counter with photocopied lists of games on counter tops that showed what was available if you knew to ask.

All prices were very cheap and the latest technology was on offer already at prices equal to or better than current, I purchased a 1Gb mini-SD card for less than the current retail of a 512Mb SD card.

Apart from second-hand games for current consoles and hand helds, there were N64, Saturn, Dreamcast, Wonder Swan, GB Colour and other units widely available along with controllers, light guns etc. I picked up a genuine Arcade Stick for the Dreamcast for AUD$21, a bargain for a pretty rare item in Australia that often goes for well over AUD$50 on eBay.

Closer to central Kowloon, there are several second-hand game and hardware dealers in small arcades in Whampoa where I found top condition Neo Geo consoles for less than HK$1,000 which is a bargain, plus lots of Game Boy and SNES Multi Carts along with clone Super Famicons and other dubious delights. A couple of stores had brand new Dreamcast consoles still in original shrink wrapping and bargains could be had for all sorts of things.

I also found pirate Game Boy games and Multi-Carts in the famous Temple Street night market. I picked up two Multi-Carts which listed heaps of GBA games on one cartridge, an ambitious claim that proved incorrect as the carts were full of arcade ports and SNES games. All worked though and were terrific value at less than HK$100 each.

I then headed further inland to Shenzen, just over the Honk Kong / China border (you’ll need a Chinese Visa) to the famous Lo Wu Commercial Centre which is a huge 5-story shopping arcade crammed with little stores selling every consumer good and clothing imaginable.

If you can stand the “touts” hassling you selling fake Rolex, Gucci, latest release pirate DVDs etc, you can find heaps of Famicon Clones, multi carts and pirate PS 2, PSP, GBA and DS games. Mind you, you can buy most of the games on offer second hand at the same price in Hong Kong and genuine. Whilst it was fun to browse and see what you could get (including watching pirate goods being delivered to stores out of the ceiling!) I did not buy anything there as there was simply no benefit over the genuine article, either second hand or new from Hong Kong.

To sum up, games shopping in Hong Kong and China is lots of fun, even my wife (DS player) loved it and we left with too many games and pieces of hardware, all of which work great and are complete. So if you have the chance, go for it and I hope this little guide helps.