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Japanese Nintendo 3DS Import Thread | Brand New 3D, Same Old Region Lock

Garou

Member
So I made Google Spreadsheet to keep track of all the products and corresponding prices at different stores.

Figured this would be easier to edit and maintain than the list in the OP. I've disabled editing to prevent funny people from messing up everything, but leave a comment if I missed something or made a mistake.

Also I'm a complete newbie to spreadsheet formatting so if anyone wants to make it prettier or something send me a PM and I'll give you editing powerz.

The Ultimate New Nintendo 3DS Import Shopping Guide

Both LL at Amazon are 20,304, the higher one is a marketplace-reseller and shouldn't be considered.
 

kubus

Member
Both LL at Amazon are 20,304, the higher one is a marketplace-reseller and shouldn't be considered.
Yeah fixed that mistake, thanks!

Man, looking at the spreadsheet, I can't believe Play-Asia is charging MORE THAN €100 more than amazon for the MH4G bundle. Sad thing is, people are going to buy it P-A not knowing better. The White 3DS just sold out again at P-A even though there are still way cheaper alternatives.
 

Itsuki

Member
I've a japanese 3DS since last year and I don't regret buying one.
I'm still not sure if I should preorder the new 3DSLL and sell my 3DS XL or wait.
I have a question: the games that you buy on the eshop are linked to your Nintendo ID account, right? So if I sell my 3DS XL and when I buy a New 3DS, I can play the games that I bought in the New 3DS?
 

Weils

Neo Member
Yeah fixed that mistake, thanks!

Man, looking at the spreadsheet, I can't believe Play-Asia is charging MORE THAN €100 more than amazon for the MH4G bundle. Sad thing is, people are going to buy it P-A not knowing better. The White 3DS just sold out again at P-A even though there are still way cheaper alternatives.

I initially ordered from Play-Asia, but noticed the prices on Amazon is much cheaper and then immediately cancelled my order with P-A. Also bought Super Mario 3D Land and Ocarina of Time 3D as my first games.

Finally, thank you for putting up this thread! I'm a first time 3DS user (well, soon to be next month when I receive the handheld), thought the new 3DS is a great opportunity to join in at this time. This thread will be very useful for setting up the handheld, though I understand some Japanese. :)
 

Impotaku

Member
Thanks for the heads up with Amazon Jp, last night they were unavailable but this morning everything is now available, went for a white version as i want to use faceplates, also splurged on 9 faceplates & a charging cradle.
 

StayDead

Member
I sorta wish I hadn't ordered with play asia now as I could've saved like £20 if I waited and went with nipponyasan (although not ordered with them before). Ah well, lesson learnt for this time. I'll just avoid buying anything else from them :p
 

Jacobs

Member
Thanks for the heads up with Amazon Jp, last night they were unavailable but this morning everything is now available, went for a white version as i want to use faceplates, also splurged on 9 faceplates & a charging cradle.

I initially ordered from Play-Asia, but noticed the prices on Amazon is much cheaper and then immediately cancelled my order with P-A. Also bought Super Mario 3D Land and Ocarina of Time 3D as my first games.

So you guys use a forwarding site with amazon.jp?
 

kubus

Member
This is bad...

I'm starting to think about going for the Smash New 3DS XL instead of the normal white one...

I'm browsing face plates and while I think the concept is really great, there are no face plates available now that I "ABSOLUTELY" must have :(. I want to get the Mint one with the Mario pattern, and maybe the Kut-Ku one... But both are just.. kinda... meh.

When are the Smash 3DS pre-orders starting anyway?
 

Impotaku

Member
So you guys use a forwarding site with amazon.jp?

Yes i have a Tenso account so on Amazon Japan i have 2 addresses in my address book. If it's a cd/dvd/book i just buy direct with my uk address but if it's anything else or from a marketplace seller i use my Japanese Tenso address and have them forward it to me.
 

Impotaku

Member
Unless they have radically changed anything im assuming the same rules will be in place as the original 3DS where import DS games will work but DSi ones won't due to the DSi region locking.

[edit]
Like the person above says :)
 

Jacobs

Member
Yes i have a Tenso account so on Amazon Japan i have 2 addresses in my address book. If it's a cd/dvd/book i just buy direct with my uk address but if it's anything else or from a marketplace seller i use my Japanese Tenso address and have them forward it to me.

So how long does it them to deliver, asking because I am using Tenso for the first time.
 

Impotaku

Member
So how long does it them to deliver, asking because I am using Tenso for the first time.

From past purchases from Amazon Japan it usually takes a couple of days to get to your Tenso address, it depends on how fast Amazon dispatches it but usually once it's left Amazon it's not that long.

Once at Tenso it depends on how fast you pay for & process your pending shipments with them, if you are wanting to consolidate parcels that takes an extra day or so added before you can finally pay as they have to repack everything up together. If you don't need anything consolidating & pay them right away i have found it's normally been posted within a few days. Then you have to wait for it to reach your destination i live in the UK so it can take anything from 4-14 days depending on if it gets held up in customs.
 

Boogiepop

Member
I don't see why not. You'll only run into problems on DSi-only games, and I think there's only 3 of those made (they have light gray carts).
There's actually a handful of things outside of those that were "DSi enhanced" to add region lock. This is obviously a case of the reverse of a jp 3ds and an American game, but I ended up having to play FE12 on my original 3ds back when I imported it.

Edit: Also, I hadn't thought of these forwarding services in the past. At the very least that helps with Club Nintendo, plus it'd allow me to buy stuff that's not directly from Amazon off of Amazon (though seeing how I'm still mostly interested in manga and it's probably by weight, shipping costs will probably still manage to bite me in the butt.)
 

Zornica

Banned
This is a tough decision. I LOVED Daigasso on DS and would definitely pick up P.

You could get Daigasso P basically for free (until jan. 2015).
If all codes are gone, I've got a few more. Just pm me. (same goes for everyone else).

Edit: Also, awesome thread. Maybe we could also try compiling a list of some of the neat eshop stuff that's Japan exclusive? There's stuff like Flipnote, plenty of Japanese manga, and of course a ton of neat Virtual Console stuff we'll likely never get over here like Picross 2 and For the Frog the Bell Tolls.

there's to much to list... the japanese eShop is like an entirely new world.
Maybe the Dasshutsu games?

[...]
There was also the "Buy 2 games, get 1 free" campaign at the end of last year, which got me Kid Icarus and Culdcept for free, so if they have another promotion like that it'll really pay to have a CN account.

you wouldn't happen to be interested in playing online together sometime by any chance? I already played with Bankslammer a week ago, but with 3 people it'd be even more fun.

I think more people should get it.
 

Letep

Member
After having cancelled a Play-Asia order for New 3DS, I just placed one with Nin Nin Game. Much cheaper.

Wonderful thread; subscribed.
 

Jacobs

Member
Okay, cool, just wanted to check, heh.

Daigasso! Band Bros P Debut Code Distribution: Jam with the GAF Band, for free!

iF29g6y052ftf.gif


So, Daigasso! Band Bros P is this third game in the Band Brothers (Jam with the Band) series, which is a rhythm game that's less about following the beat, and instead has you playing virtual instruments. Since DX, the second game in the series, the games have also put a large focus on music creation and sharing. Rather than simply playing music from whatever song list the game contains, you can download songs from a player-created selection of over 6000 songs.

Anyways, it's been out for almost a year now and it's a really solid game, but just this past week it had a relaunch into its 2.0 version. In addition to leading to a host of new features for the game, it came with the release of a free version of the game: Band Bros P Debut. Basically, every full copy of Band Bros P comes with 10 copies of Band Bros P debut to distribute to others. So, both because it's a cool game and I'd love to see more interest in it, and because they offer incentives in the for of in-game currency for getting more people to play, heh, I figure it'd be a good idea to post some codes for Band Bros P Debut in this thread.

As a disclaimer, it's not the full version of the game, but it's pretty damn packed for being totally free. It has basically all the features of the full game, with just the music composition and Vocaloid vocal recording locked (and the latter can be unlocked for a fee). However, while the full version comes with 100 tomatoes (the in-game currency), Debut doesn't come with any, so unless you spend cash to purchase tomatoes so you can download songs, only the 4 preinstalled songs will be on the cart.

Only being able to play 4 songs would kinda suck, but fortunately, this is not the case! Band Bros Debut can play online with players of the full version of the game! Playing online means the opportunity to play songs that other people have downloaded, so you can essentially play the full library of songs in the game for free, if the people you're playing with have downloaded the songs. If you don't want to play online with randoms or maybe want a bit more input in what songs to play, we have an OT for the game here on GAF and we'd be happy to have people join us to play!

So, tl;dr, get the code, join the GAF band.

Anyways, here are my codes, and I'm sure that other GAFfers with codes will post more soon. If you take one, quote the one you take so I can remove it from the list.
Code (Quote)
Code (Quote)
Code (Quote)
Code (Quote)
Code (Quote)
Code (Quote)
Code (Quote)

Okay, sorry for the long post/pitch, ahaha. Figured that a lot of people might not know about the game so I wanted to stick some more info in. But yeah, we'd totally love to get more people together for the next time we have a GAF jam session!

Thank you very much, I took this code: A05X 83U0 1SKJ V3M0. Interested in trying the game out!
 

Weils

Neo Member
Nippon-Yasan now also lists Charging Docks, Faceplates, a 32GB MicroSD card, and various amounts of Nintendo Pre-Paid Cards

Time to go crazy!!

Just cancelled my amazon.co.jp order. I did some math, I'll post it here in case others are in a similar position.

New 3DS White/Black + Charging Dock + 1x Faceplate (mid price tier) =

19,980 yen total at amazon.co.jp (excluding shipping)
21,230 yen total at nippon-yasan (excluding shipping)

= difference of 1250 yen, or ~€9 / ~$12

For amazon you have to use Tenso or some other forwarding service, and you'd pay more in service costs than that (on top of having to wait extra for your package to arrive). So if you're outside Japan, nippon-yasan is the way to go!


Just checked that buying from Amazon JP and have it shipped it from Tenso would have cost even more, so I decided to cancel my order (with some difficulty as I bought games that were about to ship out soon). Now pre-ordered from Nippon-Yasan. :)

So from Play-Asia -> Amazon JP -> Nippon-Yasan. Hopefully the last item from my almost cancelled order from Play-Asia cancels altogether and I will be home free. :(
 

kubus

Member
Just checked that buying from Amazon JP and have it shipped it from Tenso would have cost even more, so I decided to cancel my order (with some difficulty as I bought games that were about to ship out soon). Now pre-ordered from Nippon-Yasan. :)

So from Play-Asia -> Amazon JP -> Nippon-Yasan. Hopefully the last item from my almost cancelled order from Play-Asia cancels altogether and I will be home free. :(
Yeah, I was really surprised that Nippon-Yasan would come so close to the Amazon prices (which I assume are RRP). I expected them to be way cheaper than Play-Asia, but not this! Hopefully there won't be any problems with orders later, but I trust them.

So what did everyone get? Here's my catch:

MOuuaEn.png


Just over the 200 euro mark. In hindsight I wish I didn't grab a second faceplate to save some money but it's not too bad. Today's my birthday so I'll just see it as a present to myself, haha.
 

Impotaku

Member
I went with a white new 3DS along with a white charging cradle & faceplates no's 1,2,3,4,5,12,21,22,23

Will probably go for some of the other solid colours later on.

Does anyone know which larger micro sd cards are compatable? i remember seeing that Nintendo had listed 2 but i can't find that info anywhere now.
 

StayDead

Member
I'm going to order my charging stand from nipponyasan and I'm seriously considering ordering the peach faceplate. I'm a guy but... Peach >_>

I ordered the new white 3DS from playasia and I may as well stick with them now as I can't work out how to cancel.
 

Jacobs

Member
Nippon-Yasan now also lists Charging Docks, Faceplates, a 32GB MicroSD card, and various amounts of Nintendo Pre-Paid Cards

Time to go crazy!!

Just cancelled my amazon.co.jp order. I did some math, I'll post it here in case others are in a similar position.

New 3DS White/Black + Charging Dock + 1x Faceplate (mid price tier) =

19,980 yen total at amazon.co.jp (excluding shipping)
21,230 yen total at nippon-yasan (excluding shipping)

= difference of 1250 yen, or ~€9 / ~$12

For amazon you have to use Tenso or some other forwarding service, and you'd pay more in service costs than that (on top of having to wait extra for your package to arrive). So if you're outside Japan, nippon-yasan is the way to go!

With the normal new 3ds model nippon-yasan is the best option, however for the MH4g one it is much cheaper via amazon and tenso.
 

Beckx

Member
Yeah, I was really surprised that Nippon-Yasan would come so close to the Amazon prices (which I assume are RRP). I expected them to be way cheaper than Play-Asia, but not this! Hopefully there won't be any problems with orders later, but I trust them.

So what did everyone get? Here's my catch:

White 3DS, two faceplates (animal crossing!), and a cradle. I am sticking with amazon for now, but watching to see what Ami-Ami does.
 

Koppai

Member
Gahhh I'm all caught up in the hype it's so tempting to import one...:(

Wait isn't the charging stand only for LL, not the regular one?
 

Josh7289

Member
I've a japanese 3DS since last year and I don't regret buying one.
I'm still not sure if I should preorder the new 3DSLL and sell my 3DS XL or wait.
I have a question: the games that you buy on the eshop are linked to your Nintendo ID account, right? So if I sell my 3DS XL and when I buy a New 3DS, I can play the games that I bought in the New 3DS?

You must have both 3DS's physically present to transfer content from one of them to another. In other words, if you sell your current 3DS before you buy the new one, you will lose access to all your games. This is the correct order of operations to do what you want to do:

1. Buy new 3DS
2. Transfer content from old 3DS to new 3DS
3. Sell old 3DS
 

kubus

Member
I went with a white new 3DS along with a white charging cradle & faceplates no's 1,2,3,4,5,12,21,22,23

Will probably go for some of the other solid colours later on.

Does anyone know which larger micro sd cards are compatable? i remember seeing that Nintendo had listed 2 but i can't find that info anywhere now.
Nippon-Yasan lists this official Nintendo 32GB microSDHC memory card, but not sure if that would actually be more expensive than if you would buy a third party card.

Also hot damn, you weren't joking when you said you splurged on faceplates!
 

Impotaku

Member
Went to Nintendo Japans site & i managed to find the micro SD cards listed, seems like 2 are compatible

SanDisk Extreme:
16GB (SDSDQX-016G-J35A)
32GB (SDSDQX-032G-J35A)

did a search on Amazon & found the 32GB ver, seems pretty pricy though
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B00DVT966Q/

im assuming a class 10 card is pretty fast hence the price?
 

kubus

Member
Updated the Shop Spreadsheet with currencies. Now you can see how overpriced Play-Asia is in euro, dollars and pounds too!

My order with Nippon-yasan

aaaand

Play-asia order.

Bring it on <3
Can't you email P-A to ask if they can cancel for you? Most websites say that cancellations are not accepted yada yada, but if you ask them they will.
 

StayDead

Member
Updated the Shop Spreadsheet with currencies. Now you can see how overpriced Play-Asia is in euro, dollars and pounds too!


Can't you email P-A to ask if they can cancel for you? Most websites say that cancellations are not accepted yada yada, but if you ask them they will.

Nah I'm ok with the extra tenner or so. It's no big deal.
 

Weils

Neo Member
Nah I'm ok with the extra tenner or so. It's no big deal.

I have updated my "order" with Play-Asia with just 1 item left (while removing the handheld from the list but for some reason I can't update my order with 0 items) and they have yet to cancel my order completely. Here's hoping they respond soon.
 

Impotaku

Member
Might want to add Hero bank to the list of recommended games it's pretty fun to play, can't wait to get the second game.
 

Impotaku

Member
Yeah both taiko games are great, although i prefer the song list a bit more in the second game. But both are definately worth owning though.
 
On the subject of import DS/3DS games, what does everyone's library consist of?

Mine-

DS:
Ni no Kuni: Shikkoku no Madoushi
Tokimeki Memorial Girls Side (1 and 2)
FabStyle
Gyakuten Kenji 2
Okamiden
Love Plus +
Kuroshitsuji: Phantom & Ghost

3DS:
Bravely Default
Youkai Watch
Youkai Watch 2 (Ganso and Honke)
New Love Plus
New Love Plus +
Gyakuten Saiban 5
Makai Ouji: Dairiou no Hihou
Time Travelers
One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP


Incoming additions:
Dairantou Smash Bros.
Bravely Second
Final Fantasy Explorers
Monster Hunter 4G (Via bundle)
Pokemon Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby
Daigyakuten Saiban: Naruhodou Ryuunosuke no Bouken
Soni Pro

Edit: Forgot a couple titles
 
DS:
7th Dragon
Blood of Bahamut
Chousoujuu Mecha MG
Doki Doki Majo Shinpan 2 DUO
Dragon Quest IX
Emblem of Gundam
Game Center CX 2
Gyakuten Saiban: Yomigaeru Gyakuten
Gyakuten Saiban 2
Gyakuten Saiban 3
Gyakuten Saiban 4
Inazuma Eleven
Item Getter
JUMP Ultimate Stars
Mugen no Frontier EXCEED: Super Robot Taisen OG Saga
Ouendan 1
Ouendan 2
SaGa 2
SD Gundam G Generation DS
SD Gundam G Generation Cross Drive
SD Gundam Sangokuden
Shining Force Feather
Sigma Harmonics
Slide Adventure: Mag Kid
Soma Bringer
Suparobo Gakuen
Super Robot Taisen K
Super Robot Taisen W
Tales of Hearts
Tales of Innocence
Tales of the Tempest
Zekkyo Senshi Sakebrain

3DS:
Kokuga
Professor Layton VS Gyakuten Saiban
Project X Zone

out of those that I have actually played.... not too much lol
 

StayDead

Member
On the subject of import DS/3DS games, what does everyone's library consist of?

Senran Kagura
Senran Kagura Burst
Senran Kagura 2
Project X Zone
Super Robot Wars UX
Bravely Default
Gyakuten Saiban 5
Layton vs Ace Attorney
Project Mirai
Project Mirai 2
New Love Plus
New Love Plus+
Rune Factory 4
Etrian Oddesy 4
Etrian Oddesy Millenium Girl (still not even opened this)
EX Troopers
Pro Yakyuu Famista 2011
BlazBlue CSII
Samurai Warriors Chronicle
Oni Training
Animal Crossing
Pokemon Y
Kid Icarus
Luigi's Mansion 2
New Super Mario Bros 2
Super Mario 3D Land
Mario Kart 7
Mario & Luigi Dream Team (still not even opened this >_<)
Mario Tennis Open
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D

That's not including my ambassador/virtual console/eshop stuff. Some of the stuff there is downloaded though. ^^
 
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