my hometown rental store just shut down last year after 20+ years of market dominance. the owner had a fair offer for all his inventory and took it. everything you could get you could find it there. the first time I saw blu-ray was there as well, way before anywhere else. I rented so many n64 games that I had discount after a while. oh good memories.

Ahhh i miss you FuncoLand :'(

I remember as a kid I rented Golden Axe II so many times that we easily spent way more than $60 renting it, I'm not kidding I rented that game like FIFTEEN TIMES before the owner let me keep it. Definitely the only time that's ever happened to me, but I laugh thinking how much I must have made my Dad pay to rent that game every week.

In my Grandparents town there was a rental place called Age of Video that rented out NES games well after the year 2000. I always wondered who the hell was still renting them, but I used to love looking at all the boxes they had displayed (several hundred)

im damn sure if someone would actually open a store and start renting NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Atari, etc stuff again, im 100% sure it would do pretty well.

Man, I remember a lot of these stores.  There used to be an Ames in my town growing up, but it seemed like they closed down about a year or two after I moved there.  We also had a place called Big Wheel that was a lot like Wal-Mart and K-Mart.  They closed down about the time my town got a Wal-Mart.  This is the best picture I could find of a Big Wheel.  I used to get Ninja Turtle action figures there a lot lol.

I remember going into a Children's Palace that was about 30 minutes from where I live several times.  I remember when they closed down and Borders moved in there and now Borders is gone.  The same town had a Funcoland that I used to go into a lot when I was a kid.  Then they became Gamestop and it's still there today.  And there is a mall just down the road from where Children's Palace and Funcoland used to be that had a Kay-Bee Toys.  Was super bummed when they closed down.  Last thing I remember buying there was NHL 98 on the SNES for $20.

You are talking about Michigan in all of those places? I believe that is the furthest West that Ames Dept Store reached out. They went as far south as Florida too, but all of those locations (all former Zayre) closed in the Summer of 1990.

Yes, all those locations were in Michigan.  Should've mentioned that before lol.  Ames and Big Wheel were in the town I grew up, and still live, Howell.  1990 sounds about right for when Ames closed down in my town.  My family and I moved to Howell in August 1989 and it seemed like Ames was gone about a year later.  I was only about 7 at the time they closed so my memory from then is a little fuzzy about some things lol.  I don't ever recall going in there (it may have been once with my parents when the store was going out of business), but I do remember seeing the building vacant every time we would drive by there after they closed.  We used to go into Big Wheel a lot (mostly for toys) and I think they closed in 1993 when we got our Wal-Mart.

The other places (Children's Palace, Kay-Bee Toys, and Funcoland) were all in Novi.  For those Michigan members who know the Novi area, Kay-Bee Toys was inside Twelve Oaks Mall just to the left of the mall entrance for Hudsons (later Marshall Fields and now Macy's).  The Funcoland was across the street, and after they became Gamestop, I pretty much stopped going in there because a Gamestop opened like 15 minutes from my house and it didn't make sense to drive 30 minutes to Novi anymore.  The Gamestop is still there in Novi, just a few doors down from Toys R US, another store my brother and I used to frequent growing up lol.

Ames Dept Store
Store # 0404
Closed: 1992

2300 E. Grand River Ave.
Howell, MI 48843

1-(517)-548-5525

Anyone else with memories? I know I'm not the only one that remembers the magic of going to the video game kiosks and seeing new games in motion for the first time. A thrill the internet surely squashed.

I had an Ames in my town that didn't go out of business until the somewhere in 2000-2002. I remember buying the Pokedex toy when it first came out there.

I feel like Ames was the only place I EVER saw the Sega Pico system, and you could find them for years and years after they were released well into the 2000's. One thing I miss about the electronics department of every Ames I ever went to is the little chime that would go off every time you entered Electronics. As a kid I used to repeatedly go in and out of the department, setting off the chime, driving everyone nuts.

Oh yes, I have many memories of this sort of thing. I'm a bit on the, uh, "old" side and happened to grow up in the original NES test market area (northern NJ, just a few miles from NYC) so I got to see all of the earliest NES promotional stuff in real time. There were great displays set up in a number of local stores (Toys R Us in Totowa had a particularly large section dedicated to the NES at launch) and malls (such as Bergen, Willowbrook, etc.). You can see some pictures of them from FAO Schwarz in this thread I made earlier this year:

http://nintendoage.com/forum/mess...

The new releases were somewhat sparse in those early days, so I can specifically remember when each new title popped up, and often which local store had it first. A few memories, in roughly chronological order:

At first, only the original "black box" launch titles were around. My prime places to buy them (or more to the point, for my mom to buy them for me) were Toys R Us in Totowa and a small video store in my hometown. This place seemed unique for the time, as it was run by really hardcore gamers who had the NES featured in one of those store displays right when you walked in, before you even got to the videos!  From late '85 to around early '89, they carried every single title that was released, and even printed out lists of the upcoming release schedule (wish I still had some of those...) and later on, carried the earliest of the new wave of game mags, like Electronic Game Player. The fact that this place was actually walking distance from my house made it even better. I'll never forget the sight of all those black boxes lined up in that display case...

Then the first wave of third party titles hit in late '86. I remember that JC Penny in Willowbrook was the first place I saw the new Bandai games. I bought Chubby Cherub there, and my friends Joe and Jason bought MUSCLE and Ninja Kid. Just after that, the first Data East and Capcom games showed up at Toys R Us and that local video store.

Going into '87, I remember that the Kaybee in Willowbrook seemed to be the first place to stock the earliest Konami titles. I also remember getting Zelda there when it launched. I was desperate to get my hands on that gold box! Just after that, I started calling the guy at the video game counter at Toys R Us on an almost daily basis, harassing him about the release date for Metroid and Kid Icarus. When they finally came in in August, I remember begging him to hold them for me, basically forcing my poor mother into the car and booking it over there so I could get the first copies. Fast forward a month or two, and the fever for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out was building to insane levels. My friend Joe and I got wind that the local Consumers (a defunct catalog store chain, somewhat like Service Merchandise) were going to get it first. We knew the guy who handled the video games there, so we basically pestered him non-stop until he agreed to sell us the first copies a few days before they were even supposed to be available. I remember buying a lot of Master System games there back then as well. It seemed like Consumers and Child's World had the most Master System games, for some reason.

Well, I could go on and on, but I'm sure this is too long already. Hope you got some enjoyment out of my blathering, in any case.

Oh no, you could go all day, there's no such thing as too long for this guy. You easily put up the most detailed and informative post yet! Awesome memories, and an awesome ability to remember on your part, I think we share the same type of memory for the details, in particular chronology. Your story reminds me of the one from Nintendo Power back in the 80's where they traveled across like 5 states and spent nearly $1000 trying to track down a copy of Ice Hockey. And we complain about the costs of today!

Unless you are renting the console too I don't see that taking off on a massive scale....

I used to always rent games and it seemed like all the grocery stores had them.

On top of that, you'd have to be cautious with titles that are worth more than the rental cost. Who wouldn't go in, rent little sampson for $10, then just keep it? Too much risk involved with out of print items and renting.

There was a grocery store up the road from me (in both directions) that did game and movie rentals in the 80's and mid 90's (Better Value and A&P). There was also a video game store (Hall of Games) that was opened for at least 6 to 8 years before the owner beat feet.

Yep, I remember renting games or movies everytime I went to the Kroger with my mom. If I was quiet and didn't cause trouble, I got to pick something to rent.

Love this thread. I genuinely miss Funcoland. Back then, I hated their paper sleeves and postcard style replacement manuals... but the selection was ridiculous.

And who else missed the Electronics Boutique mascot, ElBo? I believe it was a dog of some sort.

yeah ture dat but that's where you would have to do some basics rules and guidelines. have your credit card number when you register and put down the value of games with the current market, ie if little samson is worth 600$ and you steal it, then you get charge that amount. im sure there would be something to do.

All the Supermarkets around me used to rent VHS & games too in the 80's and 90's. Shaws, Shop n' Save (Hannaford), A&P, Edwards, Big Y, Stop & Shop, and more, I remember them all having rental sections, and amazingly I've NEVER stumbled on any copies of games from grocery stores ever!

Speaking of Supermarkets, this is one of my favorite Youtube videos of all time and almost no one has ever seen it.
In the Summer of 1989, this kid took a video camera inside of Big Y supermarket in Massachusetts (complete with classic New England accents) and recorded his demo of Mario 3, the summer before it was released! It's so neat to watch someone play it for one of the first times ever








I can't say I remember a mascot! I do still have my EBEdge card in my wallet all these years later though.

anyone remember zainybrainy? I'm pretty sure they went out of business ages ago but they were a neat little toy shop.

There is a Kids R Us store in Columbia, Maryland.

Surely you are thinking of Babies R Us? Kids R Us has been gone for about ten years.

I added more to the OP if anyone is interested.

Yeah; I think you're right. Sorry about that! it probably is a Babies R Us.

I seem to remember the gift cards to Kay-Bee being really cool Monopoly-esque play money with the nutcracker as the "President" on the bill and you could buy them in a few different preset amounts. I had really forgotten that until right now, and I'm not quite sure if I'm making it up in my head or that actually happened.