Saturday, July 7, 2012

Memory Lane: FuncoLand... Bring Home the Fun



During the course of my travels in the web, I ran into some old FuncoLand commercials. Unlike my view of current brick & mortar video game stores, my memories of FuncoLand were far more exiting.




FuncoLand was the first store I had seen selling only video games and accessories. As a child admist the 3rd and 4th generations of gaming, it was amazing.  You could buy new and used consoles and games, sell your old ones and try out any game in the store.




Using the archive.org "Way Back Machine", I was able to find images of the FuncoLand webpage from late 1996 and early 1997.  I was intrigued to see this information with the given prespective of being a gamer in 2012.




I remember always taking these newspaper style price guides you got at the counter home with me. I would add together trade back values for the games I had made the mistake of purchasing. Even at the time you could get some really great deals on used items. Below is an image of the NES used price list from 1997.




Not bad... Power Glove for $6.99 (nowadays you can fetch one from $50.00-$200.00), Rock N Roller for $0.79 (I can't even find a current used price for that piece of crap) and a U-Force for $1.99 (which go for $50.00-$150)!




Another interesting list was for the Nintendo Virtual Boy. I never owned this system and even after trying the display at the long closed Kay-Bee Toy Store, I still wanted this eyesore.




Amazingly in 1997, you could buy their one each of their entire stock for less than $150.00.


The last list I want to talk about is for the Panasonic 3DO. I always wanted this system even though at the time, I knew little about it and had never seen one in person.




Lucienne’s Quest, with the exception of DinoPark Tycoon is the rarest US title for the 3DO. A copy of this RPG could sell for $90-$400 today depending on condition. In 1997 you could get a used copy for $19.99.


Check out the old website using the "Way Back Machine" and also check out my FuncoLand Collection on Youtube.


Do you have any fond memories of FuncoLand you would like to share?  Get a conversation started by leaving comments on the blog and over at the youtube channel.

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