What Does "Retro Gaming" Mean in Japan?

What Happened

I searched for "retro game" on Mercari, one of Japan's largest second-hand marketplaces, to see what appears when Japanese sellers use that term.

The results were interesting.

Among the listings were:

• Super Mario Kart (Super Famicom) — approximately $3.80 (¥599)

• A vintage television from around 50 years ago — approximately $985 (¥155,555)

• Super Game Boy — approximately $6.20 (¥980)

• Momotaro Dentetsu (Super Famicom) — approximately $4.10 (¥650)

At first glance, these products seem completely unrelated.

However, they all fall under what many Japanese people would consider "retro."

Why This Matters

Many overseas buyers associate Japanese retro gaming with products such as:

• Nintendo

• Game Boy

• Pokémon

• Mario

• Zelda

Those products are certainly important.

However, Japan's retro market is much larger than that.

It includes decades of games, toys, televisions, magazines, accessories, and entertainment products that were popular domestically but never became well known overseas.

For many collectors outside Japan, retro gaming begins with Nintendo.

For many Japanese collectors, Nintendo is only one small part of a much larger nostalgic market.

A Brief Note About Nintendo

Today, Nintendo is one of the most valuable entertainment companies in the world.

Its characters, including Mario and Pikachu, are recognized almost everywhere.

What many people do not realize is that Nintendo originally started as a company that produced playing cards and hanafuda cards in Japan.

Over time, the company transformed itself from a traditional card manufacturer into the owner of some of the most successful intellectual properties ever created.

That transformation is one of the most remarkable business stories in Japanese history.

Jun's Opinion

One of the biggest misconceptions about the Japanese retro market is that every old product has international demand.

In reality, only a small percentage of Japanese retro products are recognized by overseas buyers.

Japanese collectors may feel nostalgic about thousands of products from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.

However, most international buyers only recognize a small fraction of them.

As a result, demand tends to concentrate around a limited number of globally recognized franchises such as Mario, Pokémon, Zelda, Dragon Ball, and other major entertainment brands.

Those products often attract collectors from multiple generations and multiple countries.

Personally, I do not believe that age alone creates value.

What creates value is a combination of nostalgia, cultural relevance, and continued exposure to new audiences.

The strongest retro categories are usually connected to intellectual properties that continue to produce new games, movies, anime, or merchandise.

Japan's retro market is incredibly deep.

The challenge is not finding old products.

The challenge is understanding which products still matter to the world today.

That difference separates a forgotten collectible from a long-term collectible.