FAQ

How do you set your prices? Do they include shipping?

For arcade machines or anything else that is container shipped, our prices are inclusive of freight shipping to the US; i.e., if you pick the machine up from our distribution partner's warehouse, that is the total price you would have to pay. Having a machine trucked to you will be its own charge, directly to the trucking company and not through us.

We set prices based on:

• The cost to us of the machine
• Delivery/pickup costs to get it to us
• Our assessment of its condition (for example, machines with burn-free CRTs will be priced higher than those with burn)
• The labor we put into cleaning, repair, and restoration work
• The value of any included accessories (such as reproduction control panels, new joysticks and buttons, etc.)
• The amortized cost of container shipping, customs, etc. to send it overseas
• The typical market value of the machine

Our prices are our prices. Rest assured we are not selling to friends at cut-rate prices and charging everyone else extra to make up the difference. That said, if you are interested in purchasing a large number of machines (like for outfitting a game center) and want to explore volume pricing options, contact us and we may be able to negotiate. This particularly applies if you are interested in machines in more middling cosmetic condition or have burn-in, that are perfectly fine to operate in public but less desirable for home collectors.

Our goal is to reduce uncertainty and always match the customer's expectations. When purchasing from other distributors or importers, you might pay a flat rate for multiple cabinets that, once they arrive, prove to be in drastically varying condition (we know from personal experience!). We don't want buying from us to feel like a roll of the dice.

What is the flow of ordering?

We are based in Saitama, Japan (north of Tokyo). When ready, we will load cabinets onto a container and send them out from Tokyo or Yokohama to the port in Seattle, WA to be received by our logistics coordinator. This process takes at least 4 weeks, probably longer. Once the container has been unloaded on the other end, we can help you arrange with a shipping company, like STI, to have your cabinet picked up and trucked to you, which will also take a week or two depending on the distance and timing.

We do not expect to pre-sell a full container of machines, so we'll be loading the container with some more machines that are not pre-sold. Once they have arrived on the other end, we will list them in our web store as well, noting that these machines are already in the US and can be picked up right away after purchase. This should be clearly noted in the listings.

What if a cabinet I purchased is damaged in shipping?

We will offer compensation, up to a full refund, if a pre-purchased cabinet receives damage in container shipping. If a cabinet is damaged by a trucking company after leaving the warehouse in the US, we can work with you to file an insurance claim. See our sales policy for more details.

Do the cabinets you sell come with locks and keys?

Many cabinets we buy here, especially multi-purpose machines, have had some or all of their locks removed before sale. We will try to note this whenever possible, but if we haven't, please ask and we can check. Some machines will have their generic access door locks but be missing the cash box lock, and others will have no locks at all. Whenever a cabinet does have locks, we will include at least 1 matching key. Machines with missing locks should always have their extra lock tangs included in the cash box, so you can buy and install your own locks. We will note any exceptions to this on the product page.

Can you get me a machine you don't have listed?

Don't see what you're looking for in our products list? Let us know! Beyond what's listed on our site, we have more machines that have not all been tested, prepped or photographed for sale yet. We also have some contacts in Japan we can reach out to who may be able to help source what you are looking for.

In particular, if you are looking for the following items, we can probably help source them!

• All Sega CRT cabs (esp. Aero, Astro, New Astro, Blast, New Net)
• SNK CRT cabs (esp. Candy 26 and various Neo Geo era cabs)
• Taito CRT cabs (Egret 2/3, will be expensive!)
• Capcom Cute (a.k.a. Mini Cute, will be expensive!)
• Other less-common CRT cabs (e.g. Konami, Jaleco, Irem, Namco)
• LCD sit-down cabs (Namco, Taito, Sega)

Konami and Sega music games: depends on machine and budget. IIDX Lightning, SDVX Valkyrie, Maimai DX, and other recent machines are generally in high demand and will be expensive and very hard to procure.

Other machines such as racing games, crane/prize games, and more may also be possible. We are also open to requests for Japanese vending machines, change machines and more.

If you have a specific request, let us know and we can search for it. Please keep in mind that depending on the machine (especially modern games), we may require an advance deposit in order to secure it for you, as they often sell within a day when they come up. Of course, such a deposit would be refundable should we fail to find a machine for you or you change your mind. We can negotiate this on a case-by-case basis, since the amounts of money involved may be large.

Can you sell me control panels, PCBs, or parts?

We have a limited stock of extra control panels, game boards, and parts. Some of these we need to hang onto for testing, but please inquire if you are interested. We also have access to the various PCB shops in Japan, as well as auction and flea-market sites, so depending on what you're looking for we may be able to get it for you and include it with a cabinet; this would require up-front payment and requests will be accepted at our discretion.

Regarding controls parts, we can also source common joysticks and parts to go with a cabinet at a good price, since you can buy them cheaper in Japan than overseas.

Additionally, we have a limited stock of wiring harnesses that allow for JAMMA games to be played in JVS cabinets like the Net City/New Net City. We are able to reproduce these ourselves as well, but it does take a fair amount of parts and labor so they would be made-to-order. If you would like us to make you one, please inquire. In our opinion, using a full JAMMA wiring loom instead of a JVS-to-JAMMA converter board is a superior solution despite the headaches, as it avoids input lag introduced by the conversion.

How do you judge monitor quality?

CRTs

We love CRTs for their ability to faithfully recreate the graphics of classic games, as well as their low lag and good motion clarity, but they can have many issues. A CRT monitor is composed of two main components: a tube with deflection yoke coils, plus a "chassis" composed of two PCBs, the neck board and main board. For a given model of monitor, you can generally swap tubes or chassis and it will work with minor adjustments. When assessing monitor quality, we look at a few main things: geometry/convergence/focus, color/brightness, and burn-in.

Geometry/convergence/focus

Geometry refers to how well the monitor displays an even, rectangular image across the screen. Geometry issues can include pincushion (the left and right edges form arcs instead of straight lines), trapezoid/parallelogram (the left and right edges are slanted), horizontal linearity (the sides are squished relative to the center), vertical linearity (the top and bottom are squished relative to the center), and rotation (the whole image is rotated relative to the tube).

Convergence refers to the beams for the three colors (red, green, and blue) "converging" to the same point across the screen. Convergence is usually a balancing act between the center and the edges, and it will usually never be perfect across the entire screen. Some monitors, especially the MS-293x series used in the Blast City and Net City (not New Net City), tend to have poor convergence in at least some corners, and there's only so much that can be done to alleviate it.

Focus refers to how fine a point the beam forms on the screen. This can be adjusted with the focus potentiometer (or two pots on some monitors) on the flyback transformer, but much like convergence it is a balancing act between the center and the edges.

To assess all of these, we will put up a grid pattern on the screen and make adjustments to try and get it looking as good as possible.

Color/brightness

CRT monitors can look great when adjusted correctly, but they have often drifted way out of adjustment with age. We will use a color ramp test screen to adjust the brightness, contrast, and color cutoffs and gains (depending on the monitor, they may not have all of these adjustments) to make each monitor look as good as we can. Keep in mind old and heavily-used tubes will never get as bright as new ones, but we will do our best and describe the condition as accurately as we can. We also have access to a CRT rejuvenator, which can both measure the overall tube health and the emission levels of the electron guns, and do a "clean/balance" or "rejuvenation" cycle on the guns to improve their emission. Depending on the tube, this can sometimes drastically improve the picture quality!

Burn-in

Burn-in is an unfortunate fact of life for CRTs. Monitors in arcade machines have generally been run 12+ hours per day, every day, year in and year out for many years. When the phosphors on the tube screen frequently display the same image for hundreds of hours, they start to wear out, and this "burns in" an inverse of the image into the screen. There is no known fix for burn-in, but it comes in many forms and may not be a dealbreaker, depending on how burned the phosphors are and where it is on the screen.

We know how much discerning buyers care about burn-in, so we try to always assess it accurately. We generally assess burn-in with the screen off, by looking at the front of the tube under sunlight or a bright light. This usually makes it clearly visible. Burn can also be checked by displaying solid-color (white, red, green and blue) images on the screen and looking for dim spots in the image. CRT burn-in is often very difficult to photograph, due to reflections and problems with focus. Photographing burn accurately is something we are still researching.

For ease of categorization, and to reduce uncertainty, we chose to divide our burn-in assesssment into five levels.

Level 1: "no visible burn"

While one can never truly say a monitor has no burn-in unless you know it's unused, this means we cannot see any kind of pattern or unevenness on the screen.

Level 2: "minimal burn"

There is only faint visible burn-in on the tube, and it isn't towards the center of the screen. This may be from game UI elements around the edges of the screen, such as a fighting game's timer and health bars, "insert coin(s)" text, etc.

Level 3: "notable burn"

There is some visible burn-in on the tube, and it may be towards the center, such as "game over" text or a game logo. At this level you might be able to tell what game the tube has burn from.

Here is an example of what we would consider notable burn. Note the Metal Slug 6 logo, insert coin and credit count text:

Level 4: "significant burn"

There is significant visible burn-in on the tube, and it isn't just towards the edges. This is usually a game logo or the lines of a game's UI (e.g., the vertical lines between lanes on Pop'n Music). However, it is still not severely burned in and won't be obvious unless the image displayed on screen has large blocks of solid color.

Here is an example of what we would consider significant burn of the Gundam vs. Gundam Next logo:

Level 5: "major burn"

The entire visible surface of the tube has major patterning burned in to a significant degree. Whether the monitor is on or off, there is no mistaking the burn-in. This is most common on monitors that ran games with a largely fixed image, such as puzzle games or gambling games.

Here is an example of what we would consider major burn. Can you guess what game was run on this monitor?

It is somewhat situational how big an issue monitor burn-in is. For dedicated games like music games, using a monitor with burn from that same game is usually not a big deal, and you won't notice it during gameplay. Mild to moderate burn-in is also harder to see in dim or indirect light, or when a monitor is turned on and displaying a game instead of a solid-color screen. It's up to the individual how much it bothers them. We will always err on the side of caution when assessing burn-in.

Outside of the above topics, CRT monitors can of course have other kinds of issues, like a noisy image, image size changing a lot with changes in brightness (a little bit of this effect is inevitable on most monitors), excessive coil whine, and more. We will always try our best to note all issues.

LCDs

LCDs can have their own problems, but they are generally far simpler than CRTs to assess. Usually the main things that go wrong with LCDs in arcade machines are that part of the backlight will fail, leaving that section of the screen dark, or that part of the screen will become discolored, usually due to the heat from the monitor's power supply slowly baking it over years of operation. LCDs can also get a form of burn-in when left on a static screen for many hours. We will turn on all LCDs and display solid-color test screens on them to assess these potential issues, and note them in the product page.