Japanese Console History, in Tiny Plastic Capsules.

Since the beginning of gaming culture, mass marketing machines have churned out a massive array of licensed products, collectibles, clothing, peripherals etc etc, creating an offshoot merchandising market that gleans profits larger than the GNPs of some Nations (forgive the hyperbole, but it’s probably true).  Of the myriad of secondary market goods related to game culture,  I’ve often been most interested in Japanese collectible culture, more specifically the miniature toys that come in little plastic capsules, known as Gashapon.

Gashapon is the brand name of capsules by Bandai, and it’s subsidiary companies TakaraTomy/ Yujin.   These machines (seen above) are all over in Asia, arcades, shopping malls,  small shops etc.  There are even whole stores that are nothing but Gacha capsule machines and an attendant there to give you change.   My first experience with capsule toys dates back to when I was a kid when you could pop in a quarter and get some cheap ass crappy toy in similar machines placed in malls, grocery and department stores.   But Gashapon toys are (usually) of a much higher quality.

I found my first Gacha capsule machines in a small shopping centre in Chinatown in Toronto years ago, and then discovered a Gacha machine store in the Pacific Mall in the North-Eastern part of Toronto.    Every brand of Asian pop culture has probably been represented in capsule-toy form; anime characters, game characters,  miniature fake foods, mini designer furniture collections, and so much more. Sometimes you can find mini actions figures, keychains, small models and maquettes, even mini capsule machines that spit out even tinier capsules with smaller toys inside of them!.  But years ago I found a series that caught my attention far more than the usual secondary market merchandise you would normally find.

While visiting the capsule store at the Pacific Mall with a couple of friends years ago, I found the Sega History Collection.  The series was essentially mini versions of the entire history of Sega video game consoles.  The master system, the Genesis (MegaDrive), the Sega CD, Saturn, Dreamcast.   Now these were not simply tiny static models.  The game carts are removable, the controllers can be “unplugged”, CDs could be removed and slid into small cases (The Dreamcast came with tiniest of Space Channel 5 game case and disc). AND even the VMUs on the Dreamcast Controllers could be removed and inserted.   This was my first encounter with capsule toys with such a high level of detail.   I bought a couple of them (one of the things about capsule machines is that you don’t know what you’re going to get, which is half of the fun, unless you end up with a duplicate).  But it also inspired me to see what other game hardware had been recreated in mini-model form.  Turns out, pretty much any game console from the history of Japanese Video game culture.

Please keep in mind that I have been a collector of many things in my life, I guess I’ve got just enough of that touch of OCD in me to make me want to collect things.  And as my interests have changed in my life, I have seen different collections of themes and objects come and go.    So when I say that these tiny model game machines have fascinated me for years, more than any other collectible, that’s pretty significant.   I’m not sure exactly why this is the case with these, but I think it’s that they’re more than just toys.   These “History Collections” are like micronized game museums.

At this point in time, any collector/ game historian would have to put out a prohibitive amount of money to collect one of each of these pieces of hardware (I have a rather extensive collection of game hardware and software, but nothing like the scope of these collections).  Yet the Gacha models present an affordable means of collecting the ENTIRE history of Japanese game consoles and their peripherals for fractions of that cost, nevermind they take up a fraction of the amount of space.  With these, the history of Japanese (console) gaming can rest on a single shelf.

While we often see all kinds of toys, and objects related to the characters from game franchises, and I have seen some collections dedicated to the history of game genres (there’s a schmup/ bullet hell history collection that I have found, dedicated to all the vehicles that you pilot in the games),  these History collections are unique, it’s the only instance I know (other than the odd papercraft or DIY project) that focuses on the machines we play the games on; focusing on the technology of gaming.

Through these collections, and their accompanying mini flyers (which are the images in this post), we can see how the technology has progressed,  and how hardware aesthetics have changed over time (arguably, not that much, surprisingly).  While these mini flyers are designed to show you the objects that you did not get, to encourage you to go back and drop more money into the capsule machines, it also gives you the slightest taste of that history, even if it is in a very tiny format.   Although pretty much every console from Japanese manufacturers are represented, it would be nice to see a collection like this that encompasses other consoles, perhaps Atari or even Commodore or Apple computer histories.

There are other large-ish Gacha capsules that have even housed mini vintage Sega arcade machines (such as OutRun, After Burner, etc).  And recently I even found work by model railroad enthusiasts that are making their own mini arcade machines (more on that another time).  But if there’s any question of game culture’s saturation of images, themes and characters, click here to see mugen toys page dedicated to game themed Gacha Capsules.  And these are only the ones that are recent, or haven’t sold out yet.

I for one am going to keep searching for pieces from these history collections.  Maybe I’ll make a mini-museum diorama to house them in.