Welcome to my shopping guide of Hong kong, my home away from home.
Prior to writing this guide, it should be noted my wife is from Hong Kong, we have our own appartment here when we go on holiday/come visit the inlaws. I probably know Hong Kong better than I know the city I live in as I moved just a few years ago inside Belgium.
In Hong kong, there are basically 3 big places to visit, Wan Chai (Central), Mongkok and Sham Shui Po. These places have the best game stores and the best selection. I will honorably mention Tsuen Fong shopping Center in Tsuen Wan as well, my personal favourite as it is incredibly close to our place in Tsuen Wan and they always keep the good stuff reserved for me.
Let us start with Wan Chai, right next to central. 188 Oriental shopping arcade is to be found. A little harder to find, so when you are searching for it, make sure to have your GPS on your mobile at hand. This shopping arcade is filled with mostly game shops and some others. Most shops will have staff at hand that speaks English which is always a bonus if you do not have anyone at hand that speaks Cantonese.
The majority of shops will sell current generation with a few exceptions also doing previous generations and one retro game shop with a decent enough selection but they sadly only have a very small shop and let’s just say, hope you are alone in the shop.
188 Oriental also has a decent selection of second hand games spread all over the place. While they do not go back 2 or 3 generations, there is always a nice haul to be bought. Important to note here, is that you need to look at the age certification logos in case of region locking on the console of choice.
Yes, Hong Kong usually sells games from all regions which can be troublesome for foreigners with an American or European 3DS, but it is quite awesome for those of us with Vitas or Switches.
188 Oriental has several floors and you can get lost, but look upwards to see the signs in the small corridors and you will be out and about soon.
Next in our list is Sham Shui Po, the Golden Computer Arcade is literally heaven on earth for the game lover or PC enthusiast. A big shopping center with two floors filled with all possible gaming/PC goodies. The basement floor is filled with cables, pc parts and much more, mostly PC oriented and last I visited a week ago, some pc games here and there, but I did not count 20 games total, the real action here is on the first floor.
That floor is incredibly filled with tons of little shops and at least 15+ of them have games. Prices need to be compared as the cheapest price may not always be the cheapest price after all. Often shops will not put prices on games and good customers may get discounts. Take this as a pro tip!
My favourite shops in Sham Shui Po are Games Pop corner (just outside the center in “Metro Sham Shui”), this lady actually plays herself and is very knowledgeable and fun to talk to! I also like Misonin and Wai Tat, the guy from Wai Tat has gotten me an exclusive iQue GBA SP before and I still cherish that console.
Important to know here, a lot of games have preorder items and once the stock of those games sell out, you may be able to buy the items separately, I love this very much as those items are always quirky or cool. I once bought the two soundtracks for the Superbeat Xonic games for 1 euro each! Keep your eyes open and the good stuff can pop up out of nowhere!
I love this place probably more than 188 Oriental as it is half an hour closer to home and I got some great friends there. Across from the Arcade, is the official Play Asia shop called Pro Gamer LTD, a really unusually pretty shop with a selection that is finger licking good! Go check it out when you are in the neighbourhood.
Last but not least, Mongkok and especially Sino Center. While the greatness of this place has slowly gone down in the past few years, Sino Center is still a great place to visit. What was once the ultimate otaku and gamer paradise is now more mixed when it comes to the selection at hand as more and more stores outside the “sphere” have started to go there.
It has been overrun by vaping stores, Disney items, phone covers/cables, … While nothing wrong with that, that did use to be a small selection of shops and now it’s becoming more and more of them, around half of the shops are taken up. But despite that, it is still a very good place to visit as the overall selection might be the biggest here and we have a few specific shops to thank for that.
In the basement, next to eachother are 3 game shops and the middle of them is a retro store. The owner is a grumpy old man that definitely does not enjoy working, but the selection of his tiny shop is impressive. Ranging from the Famicon games for GBA to the Donkey Kong GBA SP or even most of the pokemon consoles, he has tons of amazing items. Sadly his prices are equally amazing in the negative sense of the word. He is overpriced and bases a lot of his prices off of ebay and scalpers.
The two shops next to his shop provide mostly current generation with a very small selection of second hand games. I have actually bought more from those two alone last time, than I ever bought from the grumpy guy. Just Saying.
Next are all the other shops, as they can be described in general as being mostly current generation and with the exception of the lady on the second floor, the shop with all the PS Vitas, their prices are fair. She is one to avoid as she is often 10 euros more expensive than others and is more of a last resort solution when the others sold out. Luckily I have only had to pay her prices once, haha.
Like usual and like everywhere, it pays to look around. I often find different prices in shops next to each other and in 1 shopping visit, I can easily save out a few bucks per game.
There are tons of smaller shops all over Hong kong, but these places are the main hubs if you want to do a lot of shopping in 1 fell swoop! I know several shops outside these places, but I tend to visit those less often because they are simply not as interesting. There is a shop called Gameman near my place, good prices and all, but a smaller selection. So I just end up in the big Tsuen Fong place near the house instead.
I hope you will enjoy your stay in Hong kong when you go and visit this great place! Should you want to take the boat to Macau and check out the city of gambling, be warned that most Macanese shops are more expensive than their HK counterparts and unless you are looking for second hand games, it is wise to stay in HK if this is your prime objective.
