Jay St. Video Games is a video game store that specializes in selling vintage video games and pop culture items. Also, they sell new video games, movie posters, and collectibles. Bearing in mind, this Jay St. location is extremely small and is not as good as their other locations. I personally find a lot of the stuff here cool and I love vintage games, but the prices are ridiculous. A lot of these games cost well over $20 and some are over $100. The old PlayStation 2 games are about $20 a piece and I can buy them online for half that. In similar fashion, the brand new video games usually cost more here than anywhere else, I suggest going to GameStop instead. I would also like to mention that the employees here are usually rude and treat the customers poorly. However, this Jay St. does have a lot of classic movie posters and large variety of vintage games even if they are overpriced. Once and for all, Jay St. is fine vintage game store, but it's expensive and the employees are rude. read more

Jay St. Video Games - Video Game Stores Near Me - Albany, New York

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everyone is always super nice and helpful! always have everything i need within their selection at a great price.

Excellent business, I came here on the 4th of December to get my computer fixed and a lovely employee called Luigi Mangione helped fix it.

I love coming to look at the selection but I absolutely hate the set up of the store. It leads to a severely cramped area. They have a section running through the middle of store which I'm sure provides more areas for them to show stock but seriously congests the flow of things and I personally despise being so close to people while trying to browse. Wish the store had a more open floor plan but other than that I enjoy seeing what they have every once in awhile. read more

I used to like coming to this store. There was always so much variety packed into a tiny space. But for the past year or so it seems like nothing is moving off the shelves. Every time I go there it's the same selection in the same spots. Prices are outrageous. I understand video game collecting has picked up and the prices have gone up, but some of the things that they have there are priced way over their value. I understand they need to make a profit, but again some of these prices are ridiculous. It seems like the way that they price these items is by looking at active eBay listings instead of completed ones or using a tool like pricecharting to determine the average sale price. I wish that there was a video game store in the area that had fair prices but everybody seems to jump on the trend of trying to see how much money they could get from people who are new to the hobby and don't know any better. read more

A cool little store selling used and new video games, consoles, and toys that "Nerds" would think are pretty cool. At least I thought that they were pretty cool. I wanted a specific SNES title and they had it in stock. It cost a lot more than I could have bought it for on EBay, but I am inexperienced with buying used 25-year-old games and wanted a warranty. The game came with a 7 day one (a bit short, if you ask me) but when I got it home it worked fine. read more

I cant speak to other peoples negative reviews but I did have a positive experiance here. I'm very shy and talking with employees can make me nervous. The employee I had been dealing with was very patient and understanding with me. I dont know his name unfortunately but I can speak to one person being kind. (If you really wanna find him hes the one who appraises YuGiOh cards). This may not be much but I figured it would only be fair to them to report a positive experiance when alot of the reviews are overwhelmingly negative. TL:DR Not all employees are bad. read more

I was in on Sunday and found a N64 game in box I was interested in purchasing after getting a price on it which was $210(most games have no price) I was ready to purchase it until I noticed a little sign next to the register stating credit card buyer would be charged an extra 4%. When I asked the young lady about it she said yes that's what we charge. According to NYS DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER PROTECTIONS it isn't legal to do this. Businesses are not allowed to advertise a price and add a surcharge at the point of sale when a consumer elects to pay with a credit card. When I informed the young lady about this she got extremely rude. I showed her the site. she said "your wrong dude" I would never shop here based on the attitude of the employee. read more

Excellent game store. Always on par with customer service, the value is there, and you're supporting a local business. Wide selection of retro and new games! read more

As a longtime fan of the American Wild West, I've always loved to play videogames that cater to that aesthetic. From Custer's Revenge back in the day to Call of Juarez, to Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2, I've played them all. However it has recently come to my attention that there was one game in my cowboy saddlebag that I haven't played and it's Grant MacDonald's classic, Ram Ranch. I've searched far and wide to find the game to no avail for so long until I came across this store. I immediately managed to place a copy on order from a handsome sounding young employee and took it home as soon as I could. The service I received was DEEP DEEP DEEP! I'll be sure to shop there again in the future! - L.D.B read more

If you want to be offered 11 percent of what your clean vintage games are worth go here while other stores 40 yo 70 percent of what they will sell them for. Then they talk down and say how your stuff is not valuable yet they are selling everything 20 to 50 percent higher then every other game store. read more

Awesome selection of super cool stuff, great staff. I love it here!

Incels that love to mansplain how they know better than you when in reality their help is less valuable than their sarcasm.

I wouldn't go as far as another reviewer and say that Jay Street is operated by 'a bunch of scam artists', but I think their quality control is lacking and the owner knows nothing about customer service. I went to pick up an N64 from the Colonie store, and was informed they didn't have one, but that their Crossgates location did. On my way out the door, the employee stopped me and said, "Oh man, there's one right here! Sorry about that!" So, he sold it to me. Plugged it into the living room set, no picture. Hooked it up to the TV in the bedroom, and still nothing. I called the Colonie store and was informed I could bring it to Crossgates for an exchange. At Crossgates, we had them test the replacement consoel before we left. Well, that one didn't work either. So, of course, without a working console in hand - which is what we were paying for - a refund was in order. The Crossgates clerk actually argued that all sales were final, and said something along the lines of, "You must have wanted one when you bought it..." Well yeah, sure. A WORKING one. Anyway, after some arguing, he granted my wife the refund. Needless to say, we weren't happy to argue for the refund given the circumstance. So, I went to Jay Streets Facebook and shared our experience. The owner promptly, and kindly responded in record time, inquiring about the necessary details. Upon explaining evereything to him, he basically told me that his Crossgates employee was in the right, and that I should be happy because he actually did me a favor by processing the refund. Come again? Yep. Despite the fact we had to fight just to get a refund on a console we paid for and couldn't obtain one that worked... we were supposed to be happy. Not only that, but the guy in Colonie did us a massive favor too, because he sold us their test unit. I actually DO appreciate the fact he did that for us - but I had no idea that's what he was doing at the time, but it still doesn't negate the rest of the experience. So I argued back and forth with the owner, and he eventually turned into a keyboard King Kong and began to call me names and resort to other such low means of communication. I told him that bad worth of mouth travels far more than those of a positive experience, and I would do my part to tell my friends and family what kind of place Jay Street was. It should have went without saying, but I did make it a point to tell him I wasn't impressed with how they ran business and apparently didn't check their products before selling them, and that I'd never do business with them again, especially with how out of line the owner was being. It was honestly the most unprofessional individual I've ever encountered in retail. Somehow, it made sense for him to try and turn the tables and tell me I was actually banned from his shops... even though I had already decided, and told him I would never return again anyway. Of course, the conversation was promptly removed from his page so nobody could see how little they care about quality control or how he treats his customers, so he must have known how bad it would have looked for his business if others saw the exchange. So, don't read Robert's review here and assume that the verbal assaults he took from the staff were 'outrageous' accounts that never happened. The owner doesn't take customer complaints on the chin... he instead feels that he needs to go on the defensive and start attacking the customer. It's his business and he can do as he pleases... but then people like me are also likely to go to an online forum such as this and share their negative experience, hoping others will think twice before giving business to a shop that only gets the business it has because of their locations are in high traffic malls. If you want alternatives to Jay Street Video Games, one I cannot recommend enough is Forgotten Freshness in Mechanicville. The guy is knowledgable and friendly, and won't try to BS you into a sale. Consoles that come in are looked over and cleaned inside and out and verified to work before sale. If an old NES game like the gold cart The Legend of Zelda comes in, he'll replace the internal battery - which was required for game saves - before selling. He'll also raise or lower the prices fairly according to the condition of the product. In short, great selection, great staff, great (fair) prices. Replay in Clifton Park isn't bad, either. It's always worth a look if Forgotten Freshness doesn't happen to have what I'm looking for, although that's rare. Stay far away from Jay Street Video Games. They obviously don't test stuff before they sell it, and staff are rude... owner included. By the way... that N64 I believe went for $60 or $70 without a game... Replay had one that worked for $40, WITH a game. That should be an indication of how Jay Street's prices are... read more

If I could give this place no stars, I would. My fiance and I went to the Crossgates location on a whim because we decided to check out a retro video game store in the Albany area that was close to our hotel. Upon arrival, we stepped inside, the store was very neat and organized but we were not greeted by the employee at the register. We decided to look around to see what games they had to offer, we first checked out the case at the register, the case had nothing but overpriced games that were marked $100.00 over their value (they obviously assume every customer is an idiot and think they don't know what certain retro games are really worth). As my fiance stayed by the register to look at the games in the case, I decided to walk around and see what other games they had to offer (I had an itch to spend money on a game). As I looked around, I found a game I wanted finally but realized that of course it was a higher price than it should have been so I put it down. I continued my search, as I did, a mentally challenged man was looking at some games, he decided to ask the cashier a couple of questions about a couple of games on the shelf (he took a few cases off the shelf to bring to the cashier so that he could ask his questions). I could tell the cashier was getting annoyed with him because he was very short with his words towards the man and impatient. The man walked back to the shelf to bring more game cases over to the cashier, a second employee that came out of nowhere screamed at the man to stop taking the cases off the shelf and that the cases needed to stay on the shelf so that they stayed organized. God forbid this employee did any work other than walk around pretending he cared about anything other than himself. At that point, I was not happy about that, I felt the cashier was being extremely rude towards the man. I decided to stand by my fiance as he continued to look at the games in the case. At that point the second employee that came out of nowhere also didn't acknowledge us or bothered to be friendly and say hi. My fiance was taking a couple of pictures to show his friends back home in Connecticut all the great retro games in the case, at that point the second employee was pissed and said to him, "your camera on your phone is on, your camera is on". My fiance then nicely explained to him that he wanted to show his friends back home all the great stuff they had. To smooth things over, my fiance decided to be nice and make a joke to lighten the mood, that didn't go over well with the employees. My fiance proceeded to ask them if they had a particular game in stock, the second employee looked it up and proceeded to tell him they had it at one of their other stores. My fiance let them know that we didn't live here and that we're on a timely schedule. The second employee proceeded to state that they could ship. I chimed in stating that we're leaving the following day. Than the second employee with an attitude said, " we would ship it to your address". As I looked down pretending all of that didn't happen, one of the employees under his breath said, "waste of time". At that point I kept my mouth shut because they would have been verbally abused. I have never experienced such terrible customer service in my life. I work at a job that deals with customers on a daily basis, I would never treat a customer the way these two incompetent employees treated everyone else. I get it, you hate life and video games, but seriously? Whoever owns this store, be prepared for your store to go out of business, it is heading that way. You obviously don't know how to staff or run a store. If I had to choose between you and Gamestop, I would rather shop at Gamestop. read more

I hate to say it but the workers here are complete assholes. A bit too arrogant for Jay street employees. The guy called me an idiot for buying a particular game from my childhood. On another occasion I asked an employee how their knock-off gamecube controllers were. He scoffed at my question, "what do you think?" Well I unfortunately listened to him and bought the controller, which ended up breaking within the week. Jay Street is severely overpriced. Most of the classic games you are looking for can be found cheaper online. If your trying to buy a modern game just go to gamestop. read more

I can't speak to what it's like to buy from them, but never sell to them, and if you ever have to, take the cash not store credit. They tried to give me only $20 for 8 games, 2 full anime dvd collections and 10 full comic runs. Total scam. And then, when I asked about the store credit I already had with them, they couldn't find it. read more

I dont normally write reviews but i felt inspired. I love stopping into the store and seeing whats new. Its always so beautiful and well lit. The collectible stuff is worth the visit alone. usually when i stop by a young man with longer dark hair is there and seems very down and almost seems bothered when i ask questions so i kinda started keeping to my own. i was in last night 2/9/19 and there was two gentleman working. The one i usually see and another gentleman with a beard. The new guy seemed so up beat and friendly and made me laugh while looking. he greeted me and pointed out some cool stuff and it was actually a really fun experience. while shopping the other young man i normally see came up and greeted me. im assuming he didn't notice the other guy who already did. he asked me pretty aggressively if he could help and i said no thank you and that the other guy answered me already. he said fine and went back behind the counter. i dont mean to call anyone out. but it seemed like one employee was really caring and funny and represented good service well and the other seemed very uninterested. i just wanted to say thank you to the bearded guy and im sorry i didn't ask your name but you made that shopping experience very fun!! Once i beat the game you recommended i hope you have the next one ready! read more

---WARNING--- This store is nothing but a front for SCAM ARTISTS. What is the scam? 1. Employees claim to give cash for "any and all" game/toy/comic-related merchandise. They encourage you to bring in everything you have (because of course they can't give you an estimate for your items without seeing them first). 2. Once you have brought your wares to the store the employees shake their heads sadly and proceed to tell you how poor the market is but they will do you the favor of taking your useless junk off your hands for way more money than you'll get for it elsewhere. 3. Should you happen to question the wisdom of the Pawn Stars wannabes you shall hear phrases such as "I'll give it to you straight...", "Look, I'll be honest...", and "Trust me (HA!), this is the best deal you're going to get." 4. At this point most of the store's unwitting adolescent patrons will most likely relent and accept pennies on the dollar for what they've been told by self-proclaimed nerd czars is essentially trash that they're lucky to be rid of. Now, if you were unfortunate enough to have lugged multiple boxes of comics, game consoles and other cumbersome swag, there's the added incentive to accept whatever they offer...lest you be forced to schlep your misbegotten cargo all the way through the mall, back to your car, then home to wherever they'd been collecting dust in first place. Nothing like backbreaking hassle to override one's better judgment after all. And what happens if you are resolute in the face of Jay St.'s scam and simply want to say "thanks but no thanks"? Well, in my case the response was "Get the Hell out of my store". Yes, these were the actual words to come out of the charming gentlemen, who I presume to be the owner, incensed that someone had dared challenge his O'thoritay. He then proceeded, in an exquisite show of customer service, to heckle me with obscenities to his be-zitted cronies while I was left to pack up all my belongings, unassisted, which they had so lovingly scattered to the four winds. Said gentlemen even went so far as to deny me a bag to add insult to injury. (Sweet touch, sir.) Oh, and for the curious, here is a tally of my goods and the scammers' offers: 40 comics, mainstream titles from 80s and 90s in near mint condition: $1 5 action figures from early 1990s, in whole, unopened packages: $1 each ($8 original sticker price, $10 per Ebay, on sale in that very store for $15 and up). X-Box, Nintendo and Sega Genesis game cartridges: $0 (these are what drove the Scam King to fly into his rage) Gamers everywhere: do yourselves a favor and steer clear of this shameless excuse for a pawn shop con job. read more

**WATCH OUT AND MAKE SURE YOU DOUBLE CHECK YOUR STUFF BEFORE PURCHASING FROM HERE** Literally sold me a broken Xbox one. They wouldn't even take a look at it or let me switch it out due to me throwing away my receipt days earlier because the console seemed to be working fine at first. Pretty sure all Xboxes come with their own individual serial numbers to make sure this is actually the one I bought from you guys...but whatever. The Xbox didn't come with its original power cord (this ones wattage was VERY low compared to a standard Xbox one power cord and the console would randomly turn off/over heat). AND it also wasn't even factory reset! Thank God I have a friend who's good with consoles who's going to TRY to fix it and is letting me use his in the mean time. Maybe next time you sell a pre owned item - make sure it actually works and you give people the right stuff with it. I'll be going to Past Time Legends and other BETTER local places from now on for my gaming needs. Very disappointed considering I always went here for games and such. read more

Absolutely epic. Talk about nostalgia. Where else can you get a copy of Madden 1996 for SNES, including the box, for $1.99? Where else can you get ancient NES games that you'd never even heard of? Hell, where else can you walk into a store and walk out with a functioning NES console? This place is awesome. They seem to have everything, and an impressive stock of it at that. The variety is huge: NES/SNES, Intellivision (holy shit), Game Boy, Jaguar, Genesis, and even the newer stuff like PlayStation and Xbox. They also sell the emulator consoles, which are the third-party systems developed to play the old games. Jay Street sells one that will play NES, SNES and Genesis games, and it's only like $60 or so. They also do new stuff, too. What's notable about Jay Street's new games is that they sell them for $5 less than everyone else does for the first week of release. I really can't speak highly enough of this business. I'm really glad I found them because they're now my go-to store for games. They have another location at Colonie Center, but I've only been to the one in Crossgates. read more

I've always had a great experiance. Some aay the games are overpriced but older games tend to be rarer and sell fast.

This place wants $20 for Mario/duck hunt on NES. Twenty dollars. TWENTY. DOLLARS. I would rather take a big old fat one right up my dumper than pay the insane prices that Jay Street asks. This place is a blight on the holy kingdom that is Crossgates Mall. It smells like old Cheetos, stale farts, and broken dreams in there. read more

I always buy my classic games from Jay Street. They have a great selection and they have always priced matched for me. Returns and exchanges are also easy with them. I love the atmosphere and the people. Thank you Jay Street for bringing classic games back. read more

This store has two things that are good about it 1 it has a great varity of stuff to choose from, 2 it's in a good location..... with that being said the staff can be rude, the items are way over priced trust me there's a retro store near by and the prices are much more reasonable, and they have really bad trade offers don't take your stuff there. If your a collector I would highly suggest another store if your going to buy some small items or comics then your in luck it's pretty convenient. read more

Great place with friendly and helpful staff and they offered me WAY MORE then GameStop did on my games when I traded them in .

FIrst I'll start with the good. The store was clean and had a good selection of titles. Most of the prices were in line with Amazon and GameStop. I was going to purchase an Xbox One game until I encountered the salesman. I asked him if they accepted bitcoin - because many gaming companies do including STEAM, Newegg, Tiger Direct, Microsoft's Xbox Live - and he snickered then joked that they accept some made up coin. I would have been ok with "no." Anyway, I ended up buying a digital copy of the game with bitcoin through Microsoft. read more

I came to this place in December and the people of this place sorry the employees they wanted to know why I want to sell my Xbox and make sure you do a factory reset before you give your Xbox because they want it to not to sell my XBox if you did something wrong with my Xbox keep in mind that the computers they have a machine can see how to make your Xbox very slow thank God I did a factory reset and they gave me $80 for the Xbox One my problem with this price is how they take a long time to make sure that your Xbox is working this place is the biggest fraud ever they gave me 80 bucks for Xbox One keep in mind I had this Xbox dance 2017 do not come to this place because they were ask you some personal questions I highly recommend to go to GameStop they asked me where is my Xbox games they're what harassing me with some questions that I didn't like and they did something to my Xbox One to make a slow because when I came here it was walking very fast when it was at my house it was walking very fast they connected to the TV it seems like the TV was old and made my Xbox very slow finally they gave me $80 for an Xbox One read more

wont sell colecovision games unless you buy 200. 200 there isnt even 200 games for the system and they are very rude when you ask

Purchased N64 Cartridge. Did not function. Was offered refund promptly and without question. Excellent employed staff (Jordan in particular was friendly and knew what he was doing, and what products were worth your time.) Purchased a boxed Nintendo 64 game bundle. The box was aged, but the instruction booklet and pack-ins were all present. The included game was in fair condition. Selection library was not all that expansive, but the store has a redeeming trait of constantly-fluctuating stock, with the occasional niche game or object. Not the most amazing game store on the east coast, but definitely one of the most diverse when it comes to collectors items and rare or hard to locate copies. Better than average for sure. 3.7/5. read more

My last review was taken down. im guessing because it wasn't above 4 stars. but officially, i was told my review "lacks a firsthand customer experience." BS. Actually, im not even surprised. This is classic Jay St. rhetoric. i have purchased nes games from these guys numerous times. When i was stupid i even bought a retron from them, a product that they promote heavily in their store. a tip to anybody just getting into retro games. DON'T BUY RETRONS!! it may seem like a great deal but they are incompatible with a lot of great games, suffer from poor sound emulation and break so easily. The nes component in mine broke well within a week. Do you think that me returning it, or even getting store credit was "easy with them"?. no. Speaking of store credit, the money you'll make on trades is abysmal. the owner is notorious for being a douche and runs the place basically like a gamestop that specializes in retro. Any semblance of community that you'd normally get from a mom'npop store is absent here. when i was trying to gather parts for my nes cart album and sell it locally in retro game stores around new york i was able to get support from numerous gamestores including GameXChange, Forgotten Freshness, PastimeLegends and even Video Games New York. Guess which one wouldn't get back to me. Anyway, they have games and they're priced high but thats honestly to be expected because of the high trafic real-estate they've acquired, but really, why bother when there are so many better alternatives so close to them? One of the main draws of retro collecting (imo) is to get away from the soullessness of the modern game industry, i love getting to know the owners of these stores, hearing their past experiences and recommendations, and developing a true customer relationship with them, but once again, you wont find that here! read more

the store is not wheelchair accessible and the employees pushed me down and said get outta here fatty.