COSMO-LOGI was founded by two Americans from Washington state, Kevin and Zach, with a long-time interest in arcade games from Japan and otherwise.
Kevin
Kevin's interest in Japanese arcade games started at the age of 6, playing Dance Dance Revolution at the Illusionz entertainment center in Issaquah, Washington. He quickly began to play other music games as well as racing games, both hobbies he continues to pursue today. After being introduced to the arcade-only Tetris series, Tetris: The Grand Master, he got his first home arcade cabinet. In college, he packed a New Net City and an Astro City into his dorm bedroom and streamed TGM and shoot-em-up games off the cabinets.
For a time, Kevin got deep into competitive pinball, spending several years playing countless weeklies and traveling the US (and even abroad) for regional and world tournaments. He peaked just inside the IFPA world ranking top 10. He also helped run several pinball tournaments in Washington and has a lot of experience with pinball game setup and maintenance. Despite having retired from competition, he still enjoys playing pinball on occasion.
More recently, Kevin has gotten into simulator racing, initially with Gran Turismo Sport and later switching to iRacing, which has become his main competitive activity. He currently drives for Indy Alliance Racing, focusing on the IndyCar (Dallara IR-18) in both official and league series.
Zach
Zach got into Japanese arcade games through DDR as well around age 13, initially on DDR: Mario Mix for GameCube. He was truly hooked after getting to play the arcade version at the bowling alley arcade in the student union building at the University of Washington in Seattle, while going bowling with his Boy Scout troop. Wanting to be able to practice better at home, he built two "arcade-style" dance pad controllers out of plywood, sheet metal and lexan in his parents' garage based on online designs. He first talked to Kevin through the PNWBemani forum, and started meeting up to play Pump It Up at the Seattle Waterfront arcade around 2006. He also broadened his interests to other music games, puzzle games, pinball and more.
Outside of gaming, Zach enjoys cycling, hiking, cooking, photography, and studying Japanese. An Eagle Scout who's forgotten most of his knot-tying skills, he likes working with his hands and enjoys learning about maintenance and repair of everything from bicycles to PCB's.
We both participated in showing off TGM to a large Western audience at multiple Games Done Quick events from 2015-2017. After the success of the first demo at AGDQ 2015, we started regularly streaming TGM. Later becoming housemates, we channeled our shared interests into setting up a home game center in the basement of our place in Seattle, with multiple CRT candy cabinets, retro consoles, and even pinball machines, all hooked up to capture equipment to do live broadcasts of a variety of arcade and console games.
Owning old arcade machines comes with a lot of work, and we had no choice but to do our own research and experimentation to figure out how to operate, disassemble, clean, and repair them. We got a lot of experience over the years with the ups and downs of dealing with these machines, and quite a few have passed through our hands in the US. Now, we aim to make use of our knowledge to help you get the machine you've always dreamed of owning, either to operate at home or install in your arcade.
Our business goals
Our goal is to provide the best possible experience when purchasing a used arcade machine from Japan. Currently, the prospective overseas buyer has multiple levels of information disconnect to deal with. Most distributors are either not interested in or not capable of making detailed condition assessments of the machines they sell. They will confirm basic operation, and they may be willing to send one or two photos from their warehouse, but getting detailed information beyond that is usually not possible. This isn't their fault, it's just a reality of how their business works, but it can be a less than desirable state of affairs for a potential buyer. Outside of distributor companies, there are private sales in Japan that are simply inaccessible to overseas buyers, and also come with their own risks. To alleviate this situation and give you the best possible opportunity at purchasing the machines you want, in good condition and at fair prices, we have a warehouse and office space of our own in Saitama prefecture, where we can receive and store machines as well as do our own cleaning, inspection, and repair before we send machines overseas.
COSMO-LOGI LLC was incorporated on 2023/10/19. As is required by law in Japan, we have registered with the police department as an approved secondhand goods retailer, receiving our used goods sales permit (古物商許可書) on 2024/4/2. The permit number can be found in our company information page.