Where to buy Japanese PS3 games for your American PS3

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So you know you can play Japanese PS3 games on your US PS3 and you know what are the best Japanese PS3 games our there. Now you are wondering where can I get these Japanese games for my PS3? Let me tell you.

There are a number of ways you can get Japanese games for your PS3. For starters you can physically visit Japan. Visiting Japan is a great experience and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Japanese games or culture. It's a bit pricey but manageable. A cheap round trip ticket from the US costs around $900-1500 as of 2009 depending on time of year. If you are planning to vacation in Japan any way, be sure to schedule a stop by Akihabara (or Akiba for short) in Tokyo. This is the "electronics" district of Tokyo and it's known for it's electronics shops including games of course. There are many shops selling new and used games here. If you are unable to make it to Tokyo don't worry! There are video game shops or department stores with a game section in every small shopping district in Japan that will carry PS3 games that YOU can play on your American PS3.

Another way to get Japanese PS3 games for your US PS3 is via auction sites. You can visit EBay or other auction sites online and look for auctioneers and shops selling Japanese PS3 games. Many of the retailers on EBay stores selling Japanese games are actually located in Japan! You can purchase PS3 games directly from Japanese stores in this way. You will also want to look into proxy bidding. Yahoo auctions is MUCH more popular in Japan than EBay is and a lot of used games, including PS3 games, are sold there. However, they rarely ship to the US. The good news is you can find a proxy bidder who will bid on Japanese PS3 game auctions for you and ship you the game for a fee. Since they are located in Japan, or have people working for them there, they can bid on a game that only ships to Japan and then ship it to you. Do some searches online for Japanese auction proxy services.

The third way is to purchase games from an importer/exporter who imports Japanese PS3 games from Japan to the US or another country and let's you buy directly from them. There are a few big importers in the US and elsewhere but I highly recommend Play-Asia. They are located in Hong-Kong but they ship to the US for any of their items and shipping is affordable. I regularly purchase Japanese PS3 games for my American PS3 from Play-Asia and I'm very satisfied with the prices, selection, and speed of orders.

So now you know how to get PS3 games from Japan to play on your US PS3! For more information visit return to my article Can the American PS3 Play Japanese PS3 Games?