Mak Japan and G-Front: On the hunt for arcade boards

By Alex Kierkegaard . August 8, 2006 . 10:42am

I normally do not enjoy window-shopping. Whenever I visit a store, whether game-related or otherwise, I always go there with the intention of buying something. But there are two stores in Akihabara which I’ve visited countless times, and from which I’ve never, ever bought anything (though that is about to change quite soon).

Those two are Mak Japan and G-Front: the largest and most well-known stores in Akihabara specializing in arcade boards and related gear. I’ve spent dozens of hours in those two places during the past couple of years; often going with friends on weekends; other times alone, when I happen to find myself in the area with extra time on my hands. They are without a doubt two of the most unique, wonderful stores to go browsing for games in Tokyo, though admittedly the barriers to entry are pretty high if you want to do more than look: You have to have at least a little knowledge in how these things work, and, more importantly, plenty of spare cash to burn.

But what’s the attraction? Well, you either love arcade games, in which case any explanation is unnecessary; or you don’t see what all the fuss is about, in which case it would take me far more space than I have available here to explain. But if I was asked to give a reason for all the time I’ve spent in these joints, despite the fact I can hardly afford to buy anything, this is what I’d say: There’s just something endlessly fascinating about a store that sells games which you were not meant to own. (The fact that many of those games kick ass, and are not available on home systems, may also have something to do with it.)

Mak Japan

(>> visit website)

This is the better store to go to if you are actually planning on buying something — mainly because it’s the cheapest, but also because the people who work here tend to be more friendly and forthcoming with advice (note, however, that none of the staff I’ve talked to so far speak English with any degree of competence).

The problem with Mak is that it’s a small place, so they are not able to carry nearly as much stuff as G-Front. Also, browsing is not as enjoyable, because everything is kept inside glass displays, presumably to save the staff the trouble of having to watch over suspect customers. You can look all you want but not touch, then, though with so much cool stuff to look at you won’t see me complaining.

The instant you walk through the front door you come face-to-face with a large display showing off the store’s most prized merchandise. The really expensive stuff is on the highest shelf: Espgaluda II going for 167,000 yen, Mushihime-sama for 120,000, and Melty Blood for the Naomi GD-ROM unit at 148,000. Arranged below are Atomiswave motherboards and carts, including KOF XI, a complete kit of the ever-popular Espgaluda, Milestone’s cell-shaded shooter Rajirugi, G-Rev’s Senko no Ronde (which was just recently released in updated form on the 360), the latest Guilty Gear, and Idea Factory’s surprisingly well-made 2D fighter, Spectral vs Generation. All in all the most important and popular arcade releases in recent times. Worth a closer look is the bottom shelf, which showcases Tecmo’s Dead Or Alive 2 on a ghetto LCD — the staff’s way of telling you they’re "hardcore," as if that wasn’t obvious enough already. Finally, placed right next to DOA 2 is an anime-styled game from Namco, which I won’t even pretend to know what it’s about. Suffice it to say it must be cool and/or popular, otherwise they wouldn’t have placed it there.

Of course the contents of this display, as well as their prices, change constantly. Note that I took these pictures several months ago, so all the prices quoted above are grossly outdated. Mushi currently goes for about 20,000 yen less than it did back then, for example. One thing that never changes, however, is that Cave’s latest shooters always occupy the highest shelf (that has been so for at least as long as I’ve lived in Tokyo — going on almost two years now). Fighting games might be far more popular among arcade-goers, but shooting games generate just as much, if not more, buzz among those who actually go to the trouble and expense of buying these boards to play at home. That should tell you something, I guess, though right now I am not exactly sure what that something is.

To the right of this über-display is another, more unassuming, but equally important one. Here is all the hardware you’ll need to hook up any arcade board (or motherboard plus cart/optical disc combo) to your TV or RGB monitor, if you don’t own a proper Jamma cabinet. You’ll find the top-quality Sigma superguns (known as control boxes in Japan), as well as harnesses, control panels and all necessary cables. For close-up pictures, descriptions (in Japanese), and prices of all these items check this page on Mak’s website. Note that G-Front sells mostly the same stuff, but usually at slightly higher prices.

There are several other cool displays around. One holds a collection of Naomi carts; others have stacks of Capcom CPS-2 boards or Naomi GD-ROMs, and many more are packed full of "plain-old" PCBs. If you are trying to find a particular game I would advise you to forget about browsing, and instead pick up the latest price list and ask the staff for help. That’s going to save you considerable time, and in any case some of their stock at any given moment isn’t even on display (though the most popular stuff usually is).

Then there’s one display that stands out among all the others like a bright-pink elephant inside a coal-processing plant, and which causes all eyes to naturally gravitate towards it. I am of course referring to the one with the arcade controls, if you haven’t figured that out already just by looking at the pictures. I think you’ll agree with me that the multi-colored joys, balltops and push buttons look good enough to eat, and let me tell you, they certainly make me wish I knew how to mod arcade sticks. I am told it’s not as difficult as you’d imagine, though, so I expect I’ll get around to learning how to do it sooner rather than later. For bonus points, the same display also contains a few superplay DVDs and soundtracks, more of which you can also find at the front counter. Rounding off this nice selection of stuff peripherally related to arcade gaming is a stack of old issues of Arcadia magazine, which can be found nearby, inside yet another glass display.

And of course they also sell games that could not possibly fit inside their tiny little store. To give you one example, according to their website, the twin-seat version of Afterburner Climax is scheduled to go on sale sometime in the middle of October, for a cool 3,423,000 yen. Oh yeah.

G-Front

(>> visit website)

G-Front is the better-known of the two stores, especially among people like me who never buy anything, because it’s located on a highly-visible corner, and as a result gets a lot more walk-in customers. It’s actually spread over three floors, though it’s only the second floor that’s of interest to us here, as the other two comprise their offices and a trading section. More importantly, I’ve only been inside the main floor, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about the other two.

The main draw of this place is that it’s massive, with so much stuff inside that if it burned down I am almost certain it would cause a significant price re-adjustment in the secondhand PCB market. Stacks and stacks of bubble-wrapped boards reach from floor to ceiling along one wall, and ninety per cent of the floor space is covered with stands full of Neo Geo MVS carts and Naomi GD-ROMs. It’s impossible not to be mightily impressed the first time you go inside. Just by eye I’d estimate their in-store stock to be about three times greater than that of Mak. If you compare their online stock lists, the difference might be even greater.

And here lies the attraction of G-Front. Though Mak is usually cheaper and favored by more knowledgeable buyers, that’s of little significance to someone who is looking for a particular game, and who can only find it here.

Case in point, just a couple of days ago they listed a G-Stream 2020 board for 15,000 yen. G-Stream is such an obscure shooting game that even on the Shmups boards they don’t know anything about it. Of course it hasn’t been emulated, and there are no ROMs of it to be found anywhere, and even Googling it (Ｇストリーム2020, in Japanese) won’t turn up anything much (the first search result is, indeed, G-Front’s page). If you were interested in buying it to find out what the hell this game is, but decided to wait until Mak brought it in, you might have waited for years. That’s how the PCB market works: Price is an important factor, but availability can often be just as important, if not more so.

Another advantage of G-Front is that they occasionally sell brand-new kits, something that Mak never does (at least in principle; titles like the aforementioned Afterburner Climax are exceptions). Those cost a great deal more, of course. The new Mushihime-sama kits you can see in the left picture above are priced at 168,000 yen — 48,000 more than the used ones were going for at about the same time at Mak. Don’t ask how much the new Ibara Kuro kit, also pictured, goes for: Much more than it’s worth, that’s for sure.

But expensive Cave titles aside, a few really great deals on new boards can be found here from time to time. Just a quick look through their latest price list (August 1st) reveals the following: Capcom vs SNK 2 for 5,250 yen, Samurai Spirits Zero for 10,500, and Psyvariar 2 for 29,400. Sure, the last one is a bit pricey, but the other two are real bargains if you consider how much greater their original price was. They are all pretty neat games too.

Another reason to come here is if you are in the market for a cab. They have several for sale at any given moment, and you can even sit down and try out whichever ones they happen to have hooked up — for 50 yen a go, of course (if you think it’s cheap of them to charge you for trying out a cabinet which you are considering buying, just think what would happen if they put them on freeplay). At the time of my last visit they had, among others, an Atomiswave S/D for 105,000 yen and two New Astro City cabs for 42,000 each. I am also fairly sure they can get you other ones if you order them, though it’s nice to be able to see and touch what you are buying. Worth noting is that Mak also has a couple of cabs for sale at any given time, but they are usually much older, crappier-looking models.

An interesting aside: Since December 2004 G-Front has been running an official blog (see here), where the various staff members post pictures and descriptions of all the new games and hardware they bring in. It’s the kind of thing that web logs were invented for in the first place, I believe, and a nice way to keep updated with what’s happening in one of the largest arcade board stores in Japan, if you are seriously into the PCB-buying hobby. I sometimes look through year-old posts to see what great deals I missed out on, in a kind of self-inflicted frustration trip. New Espgaluda kits for 52,500? If only…

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