I have recently been visiting 3 retro gaming shops in my "area" with varying levels of success in terms of purchasing items and wanted to report on my experiences and thoughts.
I work in Maidstone currently and the 2 big shops close to me (i.e. within 1 hours drive) is Level Up Games in Canterbury and Xpress Games in Ashford. I will dismiss Xpress Games straight off as they have such a small section of retro games that it cant be considered a part of their business. A "bargain bin" box of PS1 games and a selection of Nintendo 64 cart only of the most common games. Visiting here was a disappointment and I left buying nothing.
I have been to Level Up Games several times now and while they dont have anything wildly new every time I visit, they have a good social media presence, and post new items on Facebook which you can reserve or ask the prices of. One of the features I have discovered about retro gaming shops is that the main store front content doesnt cycle that much, but instead its the new items in that sell quickly, while the older stock just seems to be the same week in and week out. The irony is that you need to be a regular visitor to get these items as they rarely hang around the shop for long, sometimes less than 1 day.
Playnation Games
I have been frequenting this shop quite a lot recently and made most of my recent hardware purchases here. They have a lot of retro games for all platforms, and despite carrying some modern games, their focus is on the retro. They are open longer hours and have the benefit of being about 30 minutes drive from where I go on a Saturday with my youngest children.
Retro Game Base
Im aware the RGB are trying to sell their business which means they are at odds with wanting to move on and also keeping the business open as a viable enterprise. I intend to visit them again more often but this can only be done after work as they have late and early closing times.
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