Feature: Remembering Toys R Us, The '90s Gamer's Paradise

I did go in to the store in Warrington just a few weeks back and was very disappointed in their Video Game section, very little choice even for PS4 / Xbone. Not just their Nintendo selection

I find that Smyths are much much better these days (not just for Video games but Toys in general) so its no surprise to see them struggling unfortunately

Such a shame as even now as a 35 year old man I do still get that same feel of nostalgic excitement I used to get as a child when walking in there.

While i feel for the staff toys r us brought it onto themselves they refused to change and evolve and that's partly caused this combined with cheaper competition

Really sad. My son gets taken by his grandmother every year to pick out a few treats for Christmas and he has always looked forward to this. Be sad to see this place go.

Awww

I remember back in 2002 going into Toys R Us and seeing a Gamecube for the first time and not only that it was a demo unit so could play demo's of the launch games. It was great fun going to Toys R Us in the N64/early Gamecube era before I moved onto online ordering.

I still try and visit GAME stores rather than ordering online as I like going to a store and still buy physical games.

I'm not sure if I was ever actually aware that Toys R Us was once a great place to source video games.The nearest store to me growing up was in Edinburgh, around 30 miles away and I don't think it even opened up until I was slightly older so sadly I never got to go there. So it being a once magical place for video games is something that completely passed me by. There is a store in my home town now though, it opened up after they built the depressing retail park which in turn killed our High Street. I've been in it a few times and their video game selection is threadbare to say the least. Sad to hear that they'll soon be no more though.

I remember for my 7th Birthday my Dad took me to toys r us to get me a gameboy with tetris and kirbys dreamland, I still have my Kirbys Dreamland cartridge

Watching Toys R Us go has been painful for us '90s kids. I'm surprised no one commented on its role during the initial Pokemon craze.

I was pretty young when the first Pokemon tidal wave swept millennial culture. These were the days of "Pikablu" and Japanese Pokemon cards illuminating a distant and thought-provoking future generation. My mother took me to the trade/battle meetups at the local Toys R Us advertised in Nintendo Power magazine; special events that were the precursors to contemporary DLC. Toys R Us and its collaborations resulted in me receiving my very own Nintendo-distributed Mew, and . . . briefly, I was one of the cool kids showing off a rare 'Mon no one else had. Good times!

I had to get the bus to Basildon for Toys R’ Us. They had a massive selection of games. It’s a huge property with high a ceiling which made it more exciting to go there. However, it wasn’t my main go to store for games. I remember, I think it was called Future Zone which may have become Electronics Boutique in Basildon and Southend on Sea. Southend also had Keddies where I bought my first megadrive games. There always seemed to be multiple options for games but Toys R’ Us were certainly a big player.
It was an exciting experience to pick up a new game from a store and read the case / manual on the way home.

Well time to grab those bargains! Shame Toys R Us is going as their prices / stock on games was really good. Anyone remember the amiibo crisis? Well the one in Peterborough had plenty in stock. Just a shame to get to Peterborough Toys R Us you have to drive out of the town center to get there.

I still remember getting Crash Bash on PS1 from there, and such a fun game it was. Shame I lost it. Also remember seeing a Mario Party 4 demo there, which was awesome.

I think I bought Crush 3D on the Nintendo 3DS for £5, brand new from Toys R Us. Good times.

They were ace. The wall of games!

It’s being used as an example of the death of physical shops but - actually - I think it’s just an example of bad management. I went into a random Toys r us a few years ago and it was exactly (exactly) the same as the Manchester branch in the uber 80s retail estate that I remember from being a child of the early 90s.

They never adapted or changed and found themselves rooted at the lower end of the market. Just like Woolworths (where I bought most of my games).

However there’s still a huge potential for a big physical shop toy shop chain. Hence Smyths are doing well. I expect they’ll expand into the void left or there’ll be a new low end ‘B&M Toyshop’ chain that springs up.

Strange, I remember regularly going into Toys R Us in Thurrock, finding the box on the shelf of the game I wanted, going to the desk and repeatedly being told 'no, we haven't got that.'

Frankly it's had the wrong products, been messy and dirty, and the staff have avoided interacting with the customers for a LOOONGGGGG time. There was rarely anyone manning the checkouts. When you look at how Smyths, The Entertainer, and the Disney shop are run, you can see where their customers have gone.

Toys r us was good but back then boots (yes the pharmacy). Woolworths. Electronics boutique was my go to games.
Like @damo said mega drive was massive in uk. Most of us in the uk bought the snes really for street fighter 2 turbo

What's going to happen to Geoffrey?

@antster1983 He will be taking out back and shot. Expect to see some limited edition burgers at McDonald's next week.

I don't think I have any actual physical memories of the store from when I was a kid, to me it's the place I never went to with the great commercials.

The world's biggest toy store is Toys R Us
The biggest selection, Toys R Us
Bike and trikes and wagons you can trust
A telescope for learning, Toys R Us

That and Geoffrey the giraffee.

Now Woolworths, the Five and Dime, that was the place for me. The small one near home and the big one we had to take the bus yoo. Best hot dogs ever. Of course I'm also a child of the 70's, not the 90's, so there's that.

So is it a done deal over there then? They are still ongoing in the US despite what seems like a never ending string of bankruptcies. I think theyll continue as they merge their TRU and Babies R Us stores. Kids may not need as many physical video games but you can't buy a baby digital diapers or show up empty handed at the baby shower.

And don't worry about today's kids, they'll all get a thrill going to the Apple store to buy their first iPhone. And going back every year after that to upgrade. 😛

My go to places were Dixons, John Menzies and Woolies. For 2 or 3 years of the peak Megadrive era though, I had this amazing store called the Sega Swap Shop. It wasn't exclusively Sega but it was mostly focused on them. I was in there nearly every day after school. They had Japanese Megadrive's and loads of imported games. It was a magical place for me. I was friendly with the owner too so always got favourable trade-ins. It eventually moved to a new location which was bigger and more central on the high street, it lost some of its charm but that move should have seen it grow to something bigger but within months it was gone. No idea if it was a business decision or something more personal.

Toysrus is a shockingly dreadful shop, and clearly has been outdone by the far superior smyths toy stores! Who stack it to the Celling far higher than toysrus ever did.
Ps bigger gaming section and better offers for a bricks and mortar business!

Never lived close enough to a Toys R Us to enjoy it, but the commercials I saw always made them seem so appealing. Almost all of our NES, SNES, and Genesis games came from pawnshops courtesy of my father. N64 and Dreamcast came from the local US Air Force Base eXchange, and everything onwards came from either Gamestop or Game Crazy until the Switch. Now I buy everything off Amazon for the Prime discounts.

I remember when the demo unit for Mario 64 was set up at the Fosse Park store. My mum would go and do the shopping while I stood there for hours. People would queue behind me but I'd just keep playing until they left. One frustrated kid hit the reset button and walked off. Paid £70 for the first Turok in there too. Crazy money for a game by today's standards. Shoe City was next door and they had the most amazing Funhouse style play area at the back of the shop.

As a kid I would always see the Toys r us adverts on the tv every Christmas. I never went into one until I was almost 30. Growing up in South East London there were so many places big and small selling games and a toy stall in East street market that had a ton of toys.

One of the casualties of the internet and having everything at our fingertips. We spend less and less time at actual stores and probably with people in general. Makes me sad to know that in a few years all we will have are Target/Walmart and very small mom and pop stores.

Anybody remember back when buying video games at Toys R' Us required grabbing a paper ticket off the shelf and taking that ticket to a back area where they went to grab the game from storage?

I can specifically remember doing that to purchase Pokemon Red.

There wasn't a Toys R Us near me growing up cause I lived in the middle of nowhere, but when I did get to one, it made it much more magical. This is an utter shame, always awful for the people employed there. Some stores are still around, but obviously kids just aren't into toys as much anymore, I think anyway. They're more into cool gadgets and electronics. Times are changing.

I bought my N64 from Toys R Us! Nevermind I didn't actually have a game on it for a months (Blast Corps) or an RF connector for my TV, but I was proud of this status symbol achievement. I think the last time I bought games from there was a "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" on Wii games.

@antster1983 he ded

The Toys r Us "near" where I grew up (it was about 30 miles away) was incredible. Alongside Dixons it was absolutely the best place to get video games in the '90's - maybe even better. I remember going there with my Mum to do some Christmas shopping and playing a demo for the newly released Diddy Kong Racing. I was completely and utterly blown away as it was the first time I had played an N64 game and it looked glorious. I knew my Dad was getting me an N64 for Christmas so my Mum got me Diddy Kong Racing and Super Mario 64. The '90's were awesome!

I was 19 when I saw the Sega Genesis playing Altered Beast and Tommy Lasorda baseball behind a glass case the first day they put it on display. I had played games in the Atari 2600 era as a child. But mostly played NES games as a teenager. So this was the first time I saw that "step up" in graphics, speed, colors and fidelity that a next gen console gifted us with. It was at that visit that I saw the future of games and had such a thrill inside for things to come. That day, I went from simply playing video games (a lot) to being a Gamer. I will always have that memory and I will always have Toys R Us to thank for it.

So much fond memories of Toys R Us. It was were I got my 1st SNES combo with Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World back 1995. The pokemon Mew event for Pokemon Emerald, Ruby and Sapphire back in 2006. The BIG Darkrai giveaway for Pokemon Diamond & Pearl in 2008 or 2009. That was HUGE because we really didnt have Pokemon events like that where we could trade pokemon wirelessly on the DS/DS Lite. Made some friends, got amazing pokemon trades like Ho-oh and Celebi and won a really tough Pokemon at this same event.

It's definitely sad to see it go but I'm so GLAD, HAPPY and GRATEFUL for the memories I'll always have with Toys R Us! As a 90s kid, it's super critical and important to that era. So amazing! So awesome! Later Toys R Us! It's been real.

Some happy memories of the old Toys R Us...really, they weren't the best place to get games, but their close out sales were awesome. I'll always remember them as the place where I tried out Super Mario 64 before launch, and knew right away that Nintendo had a masterpiece! I proceeded right away to pre-order it and an N64, which I still have to this day. Cheers!

Most of all, they contributed to premium prices for everything. The last thing I bought from them was the N64 at launch. Haven't remembered them since..

Not surprised by them going under. Almost everything there is 2 to 5 dollars or more than everywhere else. Like a "toystore-tax" or something. Fond memories when I was growing up though.

There was something oddly charming about their slip of paper process. It added a bit of mystery to the game buying process

But when it comes to my best memories of gaming and Toys R' Us, two stick out in my mind. The first was the day after Christmas when I got a SNES, my dad said I could pick out one game. Based on the game art alone, I picked F-Zero, not really knowing how special that game was or how special the franchise would become.

The second is it was where I first saw and played Ocarina of Time. They had a demo kiosk there. I tried it. There was no doubt after that I had to have that game.

As far as I remember the only video game I bought in Toys R Us was a Game & Watch Zelda. I was PC gamer back in the 90s though.

Perhaps the situation is different in the UK, but I'm far from convinced Toys "R" Us is in its final days here in America quite yet. Plenty of companies file for Chapter 11 and end up coming out of it fine (that's the whole point behind it in the first place). Some stores closing doesn't mean much if the ones that stay open do well (which my local one appears to). We'll see how things go, but I tend to think you guys are being a bit over dramatic right now.

Sad to see them on their last legs. It was nice to have a dedicated toy store to take our kids to and now I have a granddaughter who will probably miss out on it. It's sad that eventually there will be nothing but Walmart and Amazon left standing.

All these people talking about grabbing tickets and stuff - meanwhile in the Toys "R" Us of old I just walked in, picked a game and yelled at nearby staff to unlock it (they were just set up neatly behind a glass panel), and they'd even have a console where you could try the games on for a few minutes. Super great experience Suffice to say, I guess there are differences based on nationality, this was my local Danish Toys "R" Us.

@AlphaElite I do! They had a wall full of little flaps that you could lift up to see the back of the box art, grab a ticket and pay for it, then take it to have some guy get it from the front storage area. That is also how I bought my Sega CD - they had a aisle-long glass display case with the game consoles in it, and you just grabbed a ticket to buy!

Growing up with the original legacy consoles, the late 80s and early 90s were my favorite memories of Toys R Us. I remember the first time I took the little slip of paper to the checkout counter when games were locked in a separate room with a window of its own. You'd pay for the game then take your little paper slip to a window, kind of like how you order inside at a Rally's, and exchange the paper for the actual game. In later years I kind of missed the paper slips.

Never care about TRU when it comes to gaming, to me Funcoland and Blockbuster is where it's at.

I’m sure no-one will read this - but I have read every one above and will post this anyway.

I am more sad than anyone has any right to be over this.

My first experience with Toys R Us was back in the nineties when I was at University in Exmouth. There weren’t many games shops in Exmouth and I remember driving all the way to Plymouth Tom buy games. I seem to remember an early RARE game called Snake rattle and roll (I think) that I got from there.

Once I was in my first teaching job, I still remember the excitement of heading towards the Peterborough branch and picking up a PlayStation on the day of release, with RIIIIIIIIDGE RACER! I loved that game in the arcade and playing it perfectly in the home was such a novel experience.

Even today - I am 48 years old in three weeks time, and my partner wouldn’t let me preorder a switch and on the day after release after much sulking on my part (yes, at 48 and yes I’m ashamed) she agreed I could get one. Of course no-one had any in stock but Toys r Us in Norwich had one left. I rang them up and asked them to hold it by for me, bearing in mind that it was an hour’s drive they could easily have said no but they didn’t. They held it for me even without a deposit.

That’s customer service.

To move off the topic of video games for a minute. I have children of my own now. A 22 month old and a 9 month old. We have brought all our baby stuff from them. Pushchairs, car seats. Always we get excellent customer service, and they always check the internet for us and charge us the lowest price. The knowledge and service from the staff is superb.

I am gutted that my daughters will not get the Toys r Us experience. What others have talked about. Physical items, excitement, holding the item in your hands. Reading the instruction manual with anticipation - remember that?

We have a Smyths in our city too. We went there the other day and it was dreadful. Soulless, rude staff, and dreadful customer service.

This family is gutted.

@Lord Smyths is not superior at all. 1) it's full of chavs and 2) by stacking it so high you can't reach anything. Dreadful shop but admittedly it's cheap

It's strange, I never went to toys r us exclusively for video games. The main reason I recall visiting the store at all is for Pokemon.
Card Packs, tickets, games (duh) and my personal favorite: EVENTS
When I found out that the store was Releasing a rare 'Mon like Mew or shiny lucario I'd have to rush down there

Still remember the madness when the first store opened shop in Lisbon. I bought a lot of Playstation and N64 game in there (yep, they arrived here that late!). Another slice of the past that became obsolete I guess. Hope all the people who will be out of a job quickly find new ones.

@norwichred

I read it just to let you know

You know what else used to be awesome for gamers? Target! I remember back in '95 I could walk into Target and play Gameboy, PS1, Sega Saturn, Genesis, Virtual Boy, and Super Nintendo. It was gaming nirvana.

I was too poor to shop at toys r us lol
Place charged in excess!

I worked for Toys R Us Canada throughout my high school and university years. It was the best retail working environment I've ever been in. I cant' tell you how many amazing friendships came out of that experience...and the super fun drag races we had with the employees at Sears in Power Wheel cars through the hallways of our mall during closing hours. It's really sad to see the U.S. arm of Toys R Us sucking the money out of profitable subsidiaries like the Canadian operation. I really hope they're able to restructure because stores like Toys R Us offer not just an incredible working experience but there's something incredibly magical about the "toy store" to kids. You can't replicate it online with Amazon and Walmart is just such a depressing experience and their toy sections are complete chaotic messes. Toys R Us and other stores like it need to be supported.

My memories are, I bought a Wii at launch and it was faulty! I could either get it fixed by Nintendo or wait for a new one to come in which at the time was a long wait. AT the time my wife and I worked at a petrol station and had told him the night man about the wii being faulty, when we took over from him the next day he said that he heard on the radio that Toys R us in Basildon were getting more Nintendo Wii's in the next day. It was about two weeks before Christmas 2006, so we headed out at 3:30AM and people were queuing up! (In line)

It was a lovely atmosphere if you wanted a hot drink the guy in front of you was going to the garage, if you wanted a smoke and didn't have any no problem you can have one of mine! Whilst in the que people were saying that Toys r us didn't mean to broadcast the fact they were getting more Wii's were coming. It got to about 8AM and a lady came out and was giving out tickets, someone dubbed them the Willy wonka golden tickets! The guy in front asked for two! And the lady asked him why, he said one for me and the other is for the children! REALLY? They were in pushchairs. Then at around 8:45AM they let us into the store, they also made it clear that you had to pick up a game with your system. We choose 'Happy feet' as people were picking up their systems and walking off with them as you had to go to the entertainment counter people were still talking to each other. Some people were coming into the store to get one but it was too late for them. I can’t remember the actual date for this but it was a Friday night in December (I think) 2006 was anyone else there?

Loving the old school adverts! Brings back fond memories of my childhood. I'd love to pick up that brand new mint in box NES with ROB and light gun at that price today.

PS: Hero Quest was awesome! And Space Crusade. I loved those board games of the 80's.

Did Radio Shack sell video games in the UK? Because I sure don't remember them doing that in the US. The closest thing to a video game I ever got there was an adapter to use my PS2 controller on the PC. (though the adapter eventually died out after years of use, the controller still worked fine)

I surprisingly didn't go to Toys R Us very much as a kid. Our parents did most of the toy shopping at Target, with most of my games coming from them, Best Buy or the stores that would eventually fold into the GameStop Empire (Babbage's, EB and Software Etc. The only store actually branded GameStop around here then was one tiny little store in one of the malls.)

Wait, so toys r us is closing? worldwide?

Got my first holographic Pokémon card from a booster pack there

I live in LA, in the exact neighborhood I grew up in, and the Toys R Us I grew up with is still open as of today. It’s quite the treat to be able to go the in as an adult.

My best memory was seeing The Wizard and then going to Toys R Us to try to find SMB3 for sale. I remember going to the front of the store where they kept all the games and asking them if they had it, as the slips were all empty inside the “Nintendo World” section of Toys R Us. And lucky for me, I showed up one day right when they got them in. To this day, even though it wasn’t Xmas, it remains one of my most cherished videogames memories. I can still go exactly where all the Nintendo stuff was in the late 80s and get chills.

Toys R Us was always a place of wonder and excitement. I loved their little plastic cards showing the games and I truly enjoyed perousing both Nintendo World and the Sega aisle as well.

“I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid” will always remain a special mantra for me.

Here’s to you, Geoffrey.

As a kid it felt like endless rows and shelves of video games. I remember picking out Guardian Legend for my birthday because I liked the cover. Still have the game, box, and manual.

@norwichred

I feel you man. I’m 41 and it also holds a very emotional place in my heart. It’s interesting how a retail store can do that but this one surely did. It is a place where many of us began great videogames journeys, some of which, emotionally speaking, were much more ample and greater than playing a simple toy or game.

I’m sorry you guys in the UK are losing out. The local Toys R Us I grew up with in LA is still with me and i will continue to cherish it’s existence and memories deeply.

Cheers to all of us grown up kids.

Toys R Us is terrible any more. They used to have better prices than any other toy retailer, but are literally the most expensive now. And instead of having 1 themed aisle, they have tons of smaller mixed up theme aisles and half the toys they used to because they threw in tons of baby products in the store.

@OorWullie It used to be a great place. You could always buy great games like MMPR on Sega CD for $5.00, CastleVania Bloodlines for $9.99, Final Fantasy I & II on GBA for $5.00, and F-Zero GP Legend for $5.00.

Even before Nintendo and Sega stuff really came to dominate, they had these great long aisles jam packed with games on casettes for the Sinclair Spectrum, Amiga and Commodore 64 back in the 80s.
My dad used to take me there as a small boy every Saturday to buy a few. They were only about a fiver each. Fond memories.

@sketchturner Yeah. Target used to have tons of great SNES Accessories back in the day. I only buy games at Target when they're on clearance. I recently picked up Dragon Quest VIII and Yo Kai Watch 2 for $11.88 each brand new. They even had Naruto 4 for $8.98 on Xbox One brand new.

@TheGreenMiner13 At this point, it looks like they're just closing 20% of their US locations. There's a list of the upcoming store closures online that specifies which locations will be affected. I was glad to see our local TRU was not on the list.

@Captain_Gonru I almost called you in here but wasn't sure you'd want to get involved and blow your cover. You probably have better clearance now than Jared.

And it doesn't surprise me people think stores are closing, they've been in bankruptcy so many times already, even before this announcement people already thought they were going out of business months before Christmas. Nobody is coming back whether they leave the stores open or not.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/business/toys-r-us-stores.html

Wait they’re going out of business? Like the US ones are on their last legs too?

I never really went to TRU because they were so far from my home as a kid, though I remember waiting outside one before the store opened with my dad for a Wii preorder... only to find out they ran out of preorders and we were one person too late (we found one at GameStop though so I still got it day 1). Otherwise, I frequented there only a few years ago as it was close to my college and had the best Disney Infinity sales I could find - thanks to them I have a DI collection at like half the price it would’ve cost me, I just patiently waited for sales. They never seemed too empty either...

Oh boy, so many memories. I remember stopping in once when I was saving up to buy Elite for the NES. Seeing a sale I blew my money on a cheaper copy of Solar Jet man. It was rock hard for the young me and I cried all night as I had wasted my money. Luckily my parents were able to return it and I got Elite. Important lesson learnt.

I was never really a Toys R Us person, as we always just bought games from Target, Walmart, Gamestop or Best Buy. Still sad nonetheless though

Moment of silence for toysrus.....annnd moving on

Will always remember me and my friend walking 45 minutes to the nearest store to play on Mario 64. Those were the days.

For me, it was always Toys R Us for electronics and Children’s Palace for action figures. They were pretty magical. I can still remember the distinct smell of each place. Children’s Palace is long gone. The TRU I visit with my kids on rare occasion is really gross. It’s filthy, disorganized and staffed exclusively with the kind of teens, tweakers, and retirees who turn and run for cover if they get even the slightest sense that a customer may need assistance.

@StuTwo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JYUo9WKkao
for you and everyone else, this video explains exactly why ToysRus is going under.

I presumed that Damien was about to tell all about his obsession with Barbie. Alas, it was not to be.

i remember all the free systems and games i got from toys r us.
i seen the n64 vs playstation wars. all i can say is thanks to a few people there for 2 years of free gaming products.
thats all im gonna say.

Have fond memories going to mine as a child (Only a 10-20 min bus ride), mostly for toys. As a teen, I got very sick one time and on the way home from the hospital, we went to Toys-R-Us to pick out a "getting well" game where I picked out Diddy Kong Racing. Still had to spend 2 weeks off school in-fact of infection from where I was stitched up, so that was 2 weeks playing that. XD

Then there was the one time I pasted up a boxed copy of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for £5 because I already "had the game." Could of made a good resale on that. T.T

Was hoping when I did get a big enough place I could step back into Power Rangers collecting by not only rebuying the stuff from childhood but the Legacy line. Funny how first Bandai US losing the toy license happened and now this make that dream just a fantasy.

You bet your butt I'll be visiting mine one more time for nostalgia, and any bargains.... T.T

In the 90s, the vast majority of everything gaming that I owned came from Toys R Us. (My toys too when I was a child.) I went there on a weekly basis for six months straight just to play the Virtual Boy demo of Wario Land. To this day, I still don't own the system, but I love that game. When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, I went to Funcoland and EB Games because they had the bigger selection and sweet deals on older games. I made one last giant purchase there a few days ago. The games weren't affected by the closing sale, but I walked away with a lot of dirt cheap Nintendo accessories for the 3DS.

Interesting subtitle. I do indeed remember Gamer's Paradise- it was a store in a Chicago-area mall that dealt with all things gaming (not just video games like EB Games/Gamestop). It was in fact where I picked up a copy of Zelda II for a large sum before it was released in the US (European import no doubt considering it had several languages, but I didn't know it at the time). The store lasted almost as long as the indoor part of the mall, before it was demolished and converted into a completely outdoor mall. There was a great arcade there as well.

Of course I know of the big box toy store you're referring to. Though I have shopped there I don't have the fond memories of it as I do Gamer's Paradise.

It's only now I think about how much my early gaming days were influenced by Toys R Us, my Gamecube came from there which was the Zelda silver pak with 5 extra EA games - Tiger Woods 03 being a surprise hit in my group of friends, the bundle I remember being the cheapest in town at like £179.99 or something, also my second N64 came from them when they were selling them off for £49.99 with 4 (now rare) games, the console was blue and clear too.

I think their biggest part to play in my early teen years was seeing the Dreamcast demo console in the Plymouth branch, it was running Sonic Adventure and it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before - I knew I had to have one, and all those years later, I've got the full set of games for it! Cheers Toys 'R' Us - you were actually alright.

Toys R Us was NEVER a good place to buy games in my town. Anything at Toys R Us would always be about 5% more expensive that Target or other stores...

Hm. Last time I was there was around 2013/2014.

Wondering if it would still be acceptable to walk in as a teenager...

Maybe not...

I bought my very first video game system, a clear Gameboy Pocket with Pokemon Blue, from Toys R Us. I remember the two (count 'em - TWO) FULL aisles of video games they had back in the day, every box on display with a little thing full of paper slips underneath you had to take to the front if you wanted that game, and the systems on display as well. I bought my N64, which came with Star Wars Episode I Racer, from them a few months later. Any time I had the slightest bit of money after that I would come back for a Gameboy or N64 game. I still have pretty much all of them to this day as well. I racked up a good library of eight or nine N64 games and ten or eleven Gameboy games - I was doing a lot of chores back then! That was over the course of '98 to about 2001.

My mother created a monster. She wouldn't let me have any video games at all when she was alive so when she died I went and did this, aided and abetted by the good folks at TRU. My dad didn't care if I had video games or not. I started with those two systems, the Gameboy Pocket and N64 and about 20 games and now I'm at 18 systems and over 500 games. That's what happens if you tell your kids "no" I guess!

dude that sucks

Here in Australia, TRU is just an overpriced store with no real specialist toys for an older demographic.

By that I mean stuff like NECA and McFarlane et al.

You can pretty much go to any other general store like Target or Kmart and pick up the same toys just cheaper.

The only time TRU came through was back when the PSP launched. They had a strong selection of games and consoles back then and I pre-ordered mine from them.

Apart from that, they dont really offer anything different to be missed in Australia apart from being way more expensive than anyone else for toys you can get anywhere..

I hope the affected employees will bounce back soon, should this turn out to be the worst-case scenario. That's unfortunate.

@Captain_Gonru "Your "Jared" reference threw me for a sec"

Those are the best references, the ones that take a second. I knew you'd get it, your on top of things. Never doubted it for a minute.

TRU may have a great selection but the worst prices. They often have Pokemon cards on sale, buy 1 set get 1 50% off, but even my kids know that just makes the combined prices the same as anywhere else. They are also slow and dropping prices on old games, Target clearance has them beat, and they dont' have anything like the Amazon Prime 20% discount, GCU at Best Buy or even lame GS Pro. They always do have a huge selection of old dead toys-to-life Skylanders, DI and amiibo, but that's about it.

They'll survive alongside Babies R Us as I said, but they may drop videogames entirely and focus on toys for kids, maybe STEM. Maybe Labo, but I don't think there's any money in video games. Have you been inside a Gamestop lately, it's getting hard to find a game in there, resembles Five Below.

@TheLobster Well that story went from cute Anakin to Darth Vader really fast. Good read though.

@Anti-Matter Shattered Dreams is the better song from Johnny Hates Jazz! Would apply to this Toys R Us situation too.

@eaglesfly76
Um... yeah.

Woke up to reality
And found the future not so bright
I dreamt the impossible
That maybe things could work out right
I thought it was you
Who would do me no wrong

But now you've given me, given me
Nothing but shattered dreams, shattered dreams
Feel like I could run away, run away
From this empty heart

@Anti-Matter There you go! Good tune.

@khaosklub Thanks for that link. I didn’t realise they’d been subject to a leveraged buyout.

I still don’t understand why it’s still legal to take an effectively free gamble with hundreds of people’s livelihoods at stake. Large companies shouldn’t be treated like buying a house - the debt can cripple competitiveness.

That said many companies are successful after leveraged buyouts. TRU has a failure of vision for many years before and after in my opinion.

@FinalFrog Not for an 8 year old. I spent ages pretending by bedroom was a spaceship and I was a space pirate. Plus I love Blue Danube.

Yes very fond memories of Toys r Us. It wasn't the closest store so going there was always an adventure. The rainbow entrance way they had was like some sort of magical gateway to fun for me !

Besides all the games and LEGOs I purchased over the years, one of my favorite memories of Toys B Us is how they would put out super awesome cardboard displays for Sega Saturn (and later, Dreamcast) games and sometimes those displays would accidentally find their way into my home. For example, the ChuChu Rocket! stand-up cardboard display that snuck itself into my suitcase when I moved permanently to Japan. Uh oh... I just came to realize that it could very well be because of my theftery antics that they're going out of business.

I live in upstate New York now but I grew up in Westchester county down near NYC. First time I remember going to Toys R Us I was 3 or 4 and my grandmother took me to one of the stores in Yonkers. Always had fond memories of going there around Christmas time or in the Summer and looking through the game section. It's a lot different these days, various things made me go to Gamestop and more recent Best Buy, but I drive by a Toys R Us, one that's unfortunately being shut down, on my way to work. Stopped in there last year actually to pick up some accessories for the Switch. Will be sad to see it to go.

I'll always remember going to my local store and playing Mario Tennis with a buddy on the display 64 they had

Only time I went there as a kid was to buy Vigilante 8: Second Offense for PS1.

I was, and likely still am, the only person I knew who preferred V8 over Twisted Metal.

I’ve been going to Toys R Us for over 40 years to buy video games!! Of course it all began with the Atari 2600,5200,Intellivision & Colecovision and continues to today with the current gen systems i shop for! Will be a dark dark day for video games when & IF they close down completely!! ☹️

@rjejr Yeah, the story of how I got into video game collecting is not really a happy one. But it's one of the only things that I have good memories of from that time so it's not all bad. I think without video games I might not be here, as dark as that sounds.

@samuelvictor Wow, that's a pretty good story! You and I sound a lot alike to be sure! I especially love the 80s and 90s games myself as well!

@Captain_Gonru Ugh. Yes. When I started working there and I found out we were to throw out all DS cases, and all 3DS cases if the value of the game was below a certain amount (we had a bargain bin for 3DS games) I about blew my stack. I managed to "rescue" several cases that were traded in!

@Captain_Gonru They needed space for more Pokemon collectors glasses and Batman sweatshirts.

I bought my SNES, N64, GBA and GC at TRU. Does anyone remember when they had the little slips of paper you had to take to the register to buy games?

@coxy100 fair comment but it will only be filled with chavs if you live in an area full of chavs.

@Lord nah - I live in Derby (so plenty of chavs) but Toys r us was always full of us upmarket types. Smyths is always full of the chavs.

No one will forget their wall of games, with the tickets used to determine how many they had. They were the only store I know of who was openly admitting how many copies of each game they had in stock. Most would have them behind glass counters or such, and sometimes in the back, so customers rarely knew if they had 3 copies of Mario, or 30 copies. Toys R Us you'd know, just by counting the tickets! If they had 21 tickets, that means they had 21 copies of the game (at least, assuming someone wasn't holding one). Then, they moved their game selections into "R Zone" where again, they let people know how many copies they had by using those security cases- one per game. And again, if you counted 5 games on the shelf in those cases, they had 5 copies of that game. Toys R Us's transparency was amazing, and remained that way until they changed their "R Zone" to make it more like everyone else, and just threw them into a tall display case, where you had to sometimes guess how many copies of the game were there- is that one behind the 4th the same game, or a different game?

Can anyone remember a PONG game that was virtual? Pong is the bar and it has diff games and levels. It was a PC game