United States, game prices can rise and fall based on "hype and demand," but in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district, a retrogame's relative scarcity drives pricing, collector Jason Wilson told Wired.com in instant message.

"When only a handful of games are made, they can charge what they want for it," said Wilson, who lives in Nashville. "It won't necessarily sell — but if you have to have it, this is where you would get it."

Such retrogames used to be spread all over Akihabara, but these days the rarest ones have funneled into three specialty stores: Mandarake, Trader and Super Potato.

Feast your eyes on 12 of the most expensive game cartridges in all of Akihabara, photographed in the three retrogame superstores. If you bought the full dozen, it would cost you 1,248,150 yen — about $15,250.

Above:

Time Gal

The Price: 68,250 yen (approximately $833)

The original Time Gal was a 1985 arcade game released by Taito. Like Dragon's Lair, it used animation clips stored on a laserdisc for graphics. Home versions were released on platforms like the Sega CD and PlayStation, but the most faithful translation was this version for the laserdisc-based Pioneer LaserActive platform.

Games on LaserActive can sell for upward of $100, but Time Gal is by far the most expensive. This copy is actually a bargain — the piece of paper in the lower left corner says the paper obi wrapped around the left side of the disc has slight damage, resulting in the price being lowered. (Said damage is apparently invisible to anyone who is not an anal-retentive Japanese store clerk.)

Authors: Chris Kohler

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