What’s the rarest thing you guys have here?

Well it depends on what you consider, personally, rare because I have a lot of crazy things that may be worthless to you. It’s all about the perspective. Like I have an original DS signed by Miyamoto not once but twice. Hand-signed by him. At the original launch, they had an event where the first 100 people got to go in and have something signed by him and for the first 200 people he actually hand-signed DS skins that Nintendo gave out to everyone in line. So that person, in turn, got his DS signed and then put the signed skin inside. It’s a little redundant, a little silly but it’s an original DS. To some people it’s just a signature from some guy and to someone else it’s the greatest thing in the world. And with something like a Metal Gear Solid PS3 signed by Hideo Kojima, it’s another thing that, to some people it’s worth something and to other people it’s not.

Then you have stuff that you cannot find value for; the weirdest stuff in the world. I have a brand new factory-sealed Game and Watch unit. The story behind that is incredibly interesting because if you bought a Game and Watch when it came out in the stores, Nintendo did not seal these units at all. The only way to get an actual Nintendo sealed one was to order it through the mail. So a lot of collectors have looked into this and most of them have never seen a seal in their life on one. It just came that way. It’s just bizarre to even find that thing. Another thing is Ms. Pac Man Coleco Vision mini tabletop. It’s brand new. Never been opened. I cannot find history of any of those on ebay ever being sold or being verified as new so the value is whatever. So that could be a million dollars or a thousand dollars. It depends on the person who wants it and the person who understands it.

So those don’t have a set price I’m assuming?

Right. You’ll find items in our store that we don’t put a price on that’s important to be here. Our original Odyssey and some of the sealed things. We are still a store so everything is at some point open to offers. We even have a Nintendo World Championship cartridge, again, that would be incredibly valuable. Some of this we retain as a part of the culture that we’re in to. We’re not a pressure environment. We don’t require you to buy something when you come in. We’re used to people bringing their friends here and just showing them stuff. And part of this we’ve dedicated to maintaining certain things that’s fun to actually come in and show people. Parents showing kids what they had back in the day and other people from different countries showing what they used to play and what was available to them and what wasn’t available.

This is a very big part of history that’s a part of our country. Video games have grown to become the largest medium in the world and everyone’s now getting into the preservation of it and showing it off. MoMA has an exhibit and Sony’s wonder lab and the Museum of the Moving Image. A lot of that we’ve actually helped them out with, donated stuff and worked with them. Other stuff we just maintain here. There’s a few things that are just impressive whenever you come in for the first time to really get to see things that were from your childhood and to learn there was more from your childhood or for someone to show you “this is what I had”.

Any final words to anyone looking to visit?

We’re not scary. We’re open late and we’re open every day of the year. Just come by and feel free to talk with any people in the store. You can send us emails if you’re looking for anything specific to add to your collection. We’re generally a fun place to visit. Great place to buy gifts. We repair a lot of stuff, we buy a lot of stuff, we have just walls and walls of games to browse through. Come by and see us!

VIDEOGAMESNEWYORK

202 East 6th street

New York, NY 10003

Tel. (212) 539–1039

videogamesnewyork.com