180kg (306 Issues) of Famitsu for $10

[kitsunebi]

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/m213511276

The sick twisted part of my brain says grab this.  But the healthy and rational part of my brain reminds me that I already have hundreds more issues than I need or even want, really.

Not sure what it'll close at, but for now, it's around $10.  Shipping (for me) is another $50.  That's 20 cents per issue, folks.

*btw, for the metrically disinclined, this is nearly 400 lbs of mags

[kitsunebi]

Same dude selling 206 issues of Gamest, starting with issue 1 from 1986.

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/m213985865

Now at around $14.  I expect this one to close quite high, but you never know...

[sqwirral]

Meanwhile on eBay UK, $26 for one issue :/ http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/170947549788

[sqwirral]

Feel free to buy them and sell half to me

[Depressor]

I'll take another half)

BTW, postage in Japan very expensive?

[kitsunebi]

58 minutes ago, Depressor said:

BTW, postage in Japan very expensive?

$50 to ship 180kg?  Hell no, that's super cheap.

In America, that would cost hundreds of dollars (using the postal service, at any rate).  Not sure about a freight shipping service, but I can guarantee that freight shipping in the US won't deliver it in 1-2 days like pretty much every shipping service in Japan.

Of course, if you were trying to have a package of this size delivered outside of Japan, I shudder to think what it would cost.

BTW, the Famitsu bid hasn't changed since yesterday, but as I predicted, the Gamest auction is on the move and is now at around $470 with 4 days left to go.

[KiwiArcader]

These would certainly be fantastic to add to Retromags or Kiwis.world. I'd scan these in an instant but I couldn't even begin to imagine what 400lbs of mags would cost to ship to New Zealand. Yikes!!! 

[kitsunebi]

5 minutes ago, KiwiArcader said:

These would certainly be fantastic to add to Retromags or Kiwis.world. I'd scan these in an instant but I couldn't even begin to imagine what 400lbs of mags would cost to ship to New Zealand. Yikes!!! 

Well, it might take a bit longer than an instant

I'm going to be moving into a much bigger place in a couple of weeks, so if I really could get it at the current bid price, it would be tempting.  But I have a feeling as soon as anyone places a bid, their maximum bid will be matched and beaten by the current bidder.  I imagine the price will jump significantly before it ends.  It'll probably still be a bargain on a per-issue price, though.  Too bad I'm the only one living in Japan.

Actually I already own about 50 issues from this lot.  Which sounds like a lot, but is really only about a year's worth of mags for a weekly publication... It's amazing how many pages they produce.  In an era where most English-language mags are putting out 100 pages per month, Famitsu still puts out 1000 pages per month.  And compared to American mags, there are relatively few ad pages.

[sqwirral]

1 hour ago, kitsunebi77 said:

It's amazing how many pages they produce.  In an era where most English-language mags are putting out 100 pages per month, Famitsu still puts out 1000 pages per month.  And compared to American mags, there are relatively few ad pages.

Yes. I just bought my first issue, 465, and was surprised how big it is. 238 pages and it must be the thickest mag I own. I assumed that being a weekly pub it would be tiny! Plus there's a lot more packed onto every page than English mags due to the typically busy Japanese design.

[kitsunebi]

1 hour ago, sqwirral said:

Yes. I just bought my first issue, 465, and was surprised how big it is. 238 pages and it must be the thickest mag I own. I assumed that being a weekly pub it would be tiny! Plus there's a lot more packed onto every page than English mags due to the typically busy Japanese design.

American mags in the 90s were often that size or bigger (biggest issue ever - Computer Gaming World Dec.'97 - 506 pages!), but then again, they only had to put out one issue per month, and around 20% of the pages were ads.  But yeah, most Japanese mags including current ones are between 200-250 pages with only a handful of ads.  Often times there are extensive strategy sections for games which are split up over several issues.  Brands like Famitsu also have book publishing divisions which release official strategy guides, presumably reusing and expanding upon the strategy content printed in the magazines.

Another interesting fact - Japanese magazines don't offer subscriptions.  Everyone buys them at the newsstand/bookstore.  Lack of subscriptions also frees them up to charge different prices depending on the number of pages, so if an issue is particularly long or unusually short, they can adjust the price accordingly, unlike an American mags which were the same price every month regardless of the number of pages. (Not that the price would change too much.  I just looked at a 270 pg. Famitsu from 2002 which sold for 350yen, and a 400 page issue a couple months later which sold for 400yen.)

[kitsunebi]

LOL.  Gamest is up to around $730 with 3 days left.  Famitsu is still $10 with 2 days to go.  Guess which one of these mags is more common than the other

 

[KiwiArcader]

I'd take the Famitsu's at $10 but it would cost $1000 to ship them. That's a few too many zeroes for my budget 

[kitsunebi]

47 minutes ago, KiwiArcader said:

I'd take the Famitsu's at $10 but it would cost $1000 to ship them. That's a few too many zeroes for my budget 

Gamest is up to $930.

Famitsu is now almost 12 whole dollars!!!!

...nobody loves Famitsu...

[kitsunebi]

Goddammit.  This always happens when I start looking at auctions.

I just put in a bid for a lot of PC game mags.  One day left, but right now I'm the only bidder winning at $0.09.  With free shipping.

If someone doesn't outbid me, I fully expect the seller to cancel the auction (they do that in Japan all the time).

[sqwirral]

Sort of related; I was just reading N64 Magazine and they have a feature on Japanese mags. There's Famimaga 64, TV Gamer, Dengeki Nintendo 64, and The 64 Dream, with brief interviews with the editors, etc. One paragraph talks about what we mentioned above, about page count and adverts:

"...what first strikes you is the size of the things. The leanest example here weighs in at 118 pages, and 'The 64 Dream' tips the scales at an Arnie-challenging 164 pages. How Japanese publishers are able to provide this apparent value for money (with the previously-stated proviso concerning overall quality) is not immediately apparent. None of the mags here are subsidised, paper and printing costs in Japan are extortionate, and, perhaps more surprisingly, in-publication advertising is minimal."

The mag is Issue 7, Oct 1997, p74-78 if anyone wants to check out the whole thing. You can grab it at Kiwi's site or OoPA.

Edited August 14, 2017 by sqwirral

[kitsunebi]

49 minutes ago, sqwirral said:

The leanest example here weighs in at 118 pages, and 'The 64 Dream' tips the scales at an Arnie-challenging 164 pages.
 

That's funny.  They're talking as if those are big, but both of those are smaller than 90% of the hundreds of Japanese mags I've seen.  Between 170-250 pages is normal; anything less is unusual. 

Of course, none of the magazines they're talking about exist anymore (obviously).  But considering they're all N64 mags, that probably explains the paucity of pages, since in '97, there just weren't that many games coming out for the N64.  I scanned two issues of Dengeki N64 from '97 -- one issue has 3 game reviews, and the other has zero.

[kitsunebi]

On 8/14/2017 at 7:17 PM, kitsunebi77 said:

 

LOL.

Oh man.  I won this auction.  For 10 yen and free shipping.  Again, that's $0.09, folks.

Cheapest win ever?

There just ain't no love for PC games that don't have naked girls in them in Japan, I guess.  Well, that's not entirely true.  Older PC game mags like Login sell for decent sums.  But these are all from the late 90s/early 00s, by which point PC gamers in Japan had largely moved on to nothing but visual novels and dating sims.  These days, there isn't a single mag in Japan that covers normal PC games (although there are about 6 or 7 covering adult games.)

Lack of a thriving PC development scene is part of the reason I feel Japanese game development has remained relatively stagnant for such a long time.

In other news, the Gamest is holding steady at $930 and the Famitsu has surged forward to $30 (almost $0.10 per issue)

[sqwirral]

I can't believe somebody is essentially paying you to take those mags. Madness.

[kitsunebi]

13 minutes ago, sqwirral said:

I can't believe somebody is essentially paying you to take those mags. Madness.

I know, right?  I always pay for my auction wins at the convenience store.  I felt pretty stupid handing the clerk a single 10 yen coin to pay for it earlier today. 

Looks like the Famitsu auction took a bit of a last minute jump to $113 or so. The thing about Yahoo auctions is, if somebody makes a last minute bid, the auction automatically gets extended for 10 minutes to eliminate last second sniping.  This can go on for hours past the original ending time if people are in a bidding war.  I was tempted to put in a bid just to bump it up some more since I'm sure the guy had a higher max (I'm mean like that), but I didn't want to accidentally win it.

At any rate, it was still only $0.37 per issue, so not too bad a deal for somebody.

[Depressor]

On 14.08.2017 at 1:17 PM, kitsunebi77 said:

Goddammit.  This always happens when I start looking at auctions.

Same thing man, same thing...