I'm looking for cheap shipping on games to Japan

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vinyl_warrior

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i'm a canadian living in japan and i'm looking for ways to get my hands on north american versions of games on the cheap.

when i think of cheap games, my mind automatically jumps to ebay, but most of the places selling games there charge ridiculous shipping prices.

however, today i found one that only charges $6/game, which is realistic. however, they only had a game that i was marginally interested in (xenosaga II; i still haven't played xI, but i mean to). link to "inflatablemadness" xenosaga auction http://tinyurl.com/2rnpg7

there are other games, shadow of the colossus for example, that i would love to get my hands on.

anyone here have hot tips for getting games to japan for cheap or ebay stores with good shipping prices?
 
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play-asia sometimes carries the more popular ntsc uc releases, and they ship to japan for free. i bought my zelda:twilight princess from them with free shipping and a 5 dollar discount coupon. there is a slight markup, but it's offset by the coupon and free shipping.

they've got god of war for 59.99, and shadow of the colossus for 24.99. both are ntsc u/c.

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-43-77-1-49-en-15-shadow+of+the+colossus-70-v8j.html

edit: haha, looks like you posted while i was typing that cheapy.
 
sorry, forgot to mention that i had been to play-asia. i'm waiting on a copy of ssx blur from them :D

their selection of older stuff isn't huge, though, which leads me to be ebay and the feeling that there must be a place out there doesn't charge crazy shipping prices. i figured if there was one, it would be a fan favourite here ;)

i'll keep looking, and i'll be sure to post if i find something!
 
if you plan to order a large number of games, gamestop ships some games internationally for a 25 dollar fee. i think that the fee is applied to the order rather than each game individually, so you can pick up a few older titles to have sent.

congratulations though. you may be the first person to make a specific request, have it filled, then proceed to tell people that you need to keep looking. ;)
 
thanks for the tip on gamestop! i never think of them. back in the day, ebgames.com used to offer ridiculously cheap shipping to canada. something to the effect of them charging something nominal $15 shipping to send me a launch dreamcast, extra controller, and a couple games via courier. it was great. they also hooked me up with hard to find stuff like my samba de amigo maracas. unfortunately that shipping rate died out.

so anyway, gamestop charges $25 for shipping up to $75 worth of stuff and $5 for every extra $50 ordered. i can sneak three greatest hits in there, totalling around $60, but that's an $8.30 per game shipping charge.

it would get cheaper if i kept piling more stuff on there, but i can't play that many games at once! in truth, i kinda don't need the ones i'm shopping around for now ;)

hopefully my ssx blur will come with a coupon. then i could easily be persuaded to drop some more cash at play-asia :D
 
play-asia orders always come with a coupon. if you don't have one already, you can poke around and find some here at CAG or some other sites. people are inclined to share what they won't use.
 
I also highly recommend Play-Asia for individual games, but I agree their backlog of older titles is pretty slim. Gamestop's an option too, but like you said it only makes sense to pay that much to ship large orders.

Another site that could potentially work out is DeepDiscount.com. I had some DVDs shipped here to Japan about a year or so ago and I believe shipping was a flat rate of $15. They carry games on their new site so its worth looking into.

Out of curiousity, how do you pay for online stuff? Via a Canadian/Japanese credit card or what? A major issue I have is that I only have an American DEBIT card so in order to use it I have to constantly send money home and get REAMED by the exchange rates/transfer fees.

That being said, lately I've just been buying games at import shops in Akihabara. New releases are usually between 6000 and 8000 yen, which is not that bad if you factor in that there is no extra tax or shipping to pay.
If you want to try this out, I highly recommend Games Hollywood and Messe Sanoh. Great selection and decent prices.

Good luck!
 
[quote name='thakingrocka']play-asia orders always come with a coupon. if you don't have one already, you can poke around and find some here at CAG or some other sites. people are inclined to share what they won't use.[/quote]

my wii play didn't come with a coupon :( the last coupon i had i seem to remember being for purchases over $50, and ssx blur clocks in at 49.99, so it wouldn't have been much use then. it might have encouraged me to hold out for them to get sonic and the secret rings back in stock though ;)

thanks for letting me know that people post coupons here, though. i'll have to keep that in mind next time i'm looking for a game :)

to pay for stuff online, i use paypal whenever i can. i kinda dislike them, but i prefer to have money debited from my account rather than charge things to my mastercard. the mastercard, obviously, is my backup plan.

i live in tottori-ken (super inaka), so i'm pretty far away from akihabara. i've only been once in the year and a half i've been in japan. osaka is much closer. next time i go there i'll come and ask around for good places to shop down there :)
 
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