毎月●●万円をレトロゲームにぶっ込むオタクの資金源が実は…

毎月●●万円をレトロゲームにぶっ込むオタクの資金源が実は…

Hi Hello everyone! I’m Wada. Are you all enjoying Today, I’ll be talking about real money-making strategies to buy a ton of retro games! I get asked about this a lot! About the source of funding for buying retro games. I think some of you are new here, so I’ll give a quick self-introduction. I absolutely love Not just rare items, of course, but even for games I already own, if they’re hard to find or in good condition, I just buy them. It varies, but I spend about 100,000 to 200,000 yen every month. This year in particular has been bad. In September 2025, I ended up spending 900,000 yen… So in the comments, I get messages like, “I really want to know your retro game funding source.” “I’m jealous you’re rich!” I get comments like that a lot. This year, I bought four copies of Pokémon Legends Z-A, and finally managed to buy a Switch 2 as well. Since I’ve been buying not just retro games but also relatively new games, people say that even more often. But let me say this first; I am not some glamorous, rich business owner like you might imagine. I’m seriously just an ordinary person, like Villager A or B. Actually, I once took a poll about whether to discuss this topic. More people said they wanted to hear it, but it’s not directly related to retro games, and I didn’t like how it felt like a self-help video, so I didn’t intend to talk about it. I recorded it once and thought it was a bit off, and was going to archive it, but things have changed quite a bit. If I’m going to talk about my future plans, I need to explain how I make money, otherwise, people might keep thinking I’m a nouveau riche person enjoying an easy and carefree retro gaming life thanks to the power of money. But the reality is not like that, so I wanted to explain the background. That’s why I’m recording this video now. So, whether you’re a first-time viewer who wants to buy lots of retro games, even if you’re just like Wada, or a regular viewer, please watch. Here we go. Let’s get right into the discussion. Since it’s a bit long and I don’t want my thoughts to get jumbled, I’ll be looking at my computer while I talk. First, let’s talk about what’s probably on everyone’s mind; How do I manage the funds to buy so many retro games? I’ll just tell you the conclusion; it’s side job income. And that side job, as you know, is this Wada Retro Games YouTube channel! However, it’s incredibly tough… It was tough, and it still is. It’s quite difficult. So, to properly explain this process, I’ll be discussing four main points today. The first is a brief introduction to Wada’s background. The second is what I actually did to secure the funds for buying retro games. The third is what I’m going to do in December 2025. The fourth is what I want to do in 2026. I plan to talk about these things. Originally, I wanted to talk about the initiatives for December 2025 and 2026 later on, but I thought that would make me look like a nouveau riche person again, so today I decided to first talk about securing the funds as a preliminary step. Now, point one; the introduction of Wada. Let me just say this first; My career history is not important. I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself to prove that absolutely anyone can follow what I’m going to talk about. To summarize briefly; Wada is a scruffy old man in his late 30s (laughs). I’m married and have a wife and daughter. My main job is managing an IT company. I run this YouTube channel as a secondary job. By the way, I recently incorporated this activity (Wada Retro Games) as well. I’ll talk more about what I’m doing in 2025 and what I want to do in 2026 later. Finally, I am extremely unintelligent. It’s sad, isn’t it (laughs). In junior high and high school, my rank in the class was overwhelmingly one of the lowest! Overwhelmingly! To be honest, I’ve even scored single digits on tests 💦. I was that bad. That’s the gist of it. If you only hear the words, “running a company” might be the only term that stands out, but incorporating a company or registering it can be done by anyone for just a few tens of thousands of yen. Even a student doing a part-time job could achieve that in a month. So, that’s the kind of person Wada is. What I did to secure the funding for buying retro games. This is the part everyone is most curious about, right? If you can figure this out, you can buy lots of retro games. The answer is, as I mentioned before, a side job. In my case, that side job is YouTube. I use only the YouTube revenue to buy retro games, repair parts, and other supplies. I started around December 2023. My goal then was 50,000 subscribers in the first year, another 50,000 in the second year, aiming for a total of 100,000 by December 31, 2025. As for the number of videos posted, it’s at least 17 to 18 per month. When I’m behind my goal, I sometimes post daily. The result was that I was monetized exactly three months after starting the channel. The first income I received was about 230,000 yen, I think. After that, combining various factors, the monthly income ranges from around 200,000 yen at the low end to 400,000 to 500,000 yen at the high end. That’s a rough overview from the start of YouTube until now… What do you think? Honestly, just this might still be low-resolution and a bit vague, but what I want to say here is that it was incredibly hard. And to do this, it’s very important to think and take action. If you can keep this up properly, results will start to show in as little as three months, or six months on average. So, the message I want to convey is; let’s work our butts off until then! Let me backtrack a bit and talk about myself again. I’ll say it again; I’m genuinely not smart. Not just studying, but job hunting and work were also terrible for me. I’m still terrible now, but I was even worse back then. But after many twists and turns, here I am, and I strongly realized how important it is to think and take action because of a certain event. That was the first company I joined out of college. It was just one of the many places I applied to. I didn’t have any particular thing I wanted to do. That company was a field-based job, and it was hard in many different ways. I was hired as an office worker, but I would have been better off as a workhorse! What was it like? I started at 10 AM and finished at 2 AM, or as late as 4 AM. Even though I was an office worker, I was doing physical labor the whole time, manually organizing and loading tens of tons of luggage every day. I worked on weekends, too. My basic salary back then was 60,000 yen. I think that’s unbelievable now… I literally got almost no overtime pay. In company meetings, a senior employee would openly yell, “When are you going to pay the overtime wages?!” Because of that work style and salary, I couldn’t rent a place. There are no trains running at 2 AM or 4 AM anyway! Besides the low salary, where did I live? I lived in company housing for 500 yen a month. You think that’s cheap and good, right? It was absolutely not! (laughs) What were the conditions like? First, the room was just one room, about five tatami mats large. The floor was moldy tatami. No gas, no water, literally just the space. When I moved in, there were dead cockroaches and rats just lying around… I thought, “Why didn’t they clean up?” Since they were in the room, cockroaches and rats were naturally all over the building, too. The bath, toilet, and washing machine were shared. The building was 60 years old, and the bath walls and floor were barely cleaned, full of sludge, and the bathtub always had lots of bugs swimming in it. That’s the truth! Really! The bathtub was made of concrete, I think. The communal washing machine was also never cleaned and was always black, and if you were even a little late to pick up your laundry, the other workers would take it out and throw it onto the dirty floor, where cockroaches and rats were common. Well? Would you want to live there? Of course not, right?! Due to the working hours and salary, I was living on the very edge. Also, because of the environment, I couldn’t cook. I think I’ve mentioned it in another video, but I used a cardboard box as a table and ate canned food to survive. I worked in that environment for about three years, I think. Seriously, I’m an idiot, so even in such a tough environment, I just thought, “Being a working adult is hard.” I was honestly so much dumber back then than I am now! Looking back now, that company was the first and last truly miserable environment for me. Since it was physical labor, the energy consumption was insane. I used to eat two cups of rice per meal! I can’t eat that much anymore, but then I had a work-related injury. While working, nearby cargo collapsed, hit me directly, and I was taken to the hospital by ambulance. I spent about six months unable to move. That time was truly the hardest… I worked so desperately in such a miserable environment, doing hard labor for an illegally low salary, got seriously injured, and now I’m staring at the ceiling, thinking, “What a mess I am…” I was on the verge of depression at that time. I cried all the time. Then I slowly started to move again. Since the environment was so brutal, I consulted my boss. He said, “You’re still a rookie, work harder!” That’s what he said. I was furious!! Working such outrageous hours with barely any pay… By the way, when I filed for workers’ compensation, the HR person initially said they wouldn’t certify it! It was clearly a work injury! But that injury and my boss’s words woke me up. The environment might be bad, but I ultimately chose this and wanted to be here. I only realized it when I was taken away by the ambulance. I wish they had fixed my head, not just my body (laughs). That’s when I finally realized the importance of thinking. I don’t want this life anymore. I want to be richer and play games, buy games. I want time. I want to live in a nice room! But how do I do it…? So, should I change jobs? How do you change jobs? Who would even hire an idiot like Wada…? So, instead of job hunting, shouldn’t I get a qualification or something? That’s how I started thinking and acting, which led me to where I am now. Why does this story connect to side jobs and thinking and acting? If I hadn’t thought, I might still have thought that environment was normal. And if I had thought but not acted, the environment obviously wouldn’t change. So, after my body healed, I kept thinking and acting on many things. I’ll talk about it quickly. First, I quit that company. With those hours, I couldn’t properly look for a job or change careers. But the job hunt didn’t go well. I don’t know if it was because I was unintelligent and had only done physical labor, but and very simply, I thought I needed to learn about business management. I searched and found the Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultant certification. Simply put, this qualification is for a professional who provides management strategies and advice. I thought getting this would make my job search successful. I studied for about 2,000 hours in one year. I was passing the practice exams. I was so incredibly moved that even though I was so unintelligent, focusing on studying something I was genuinely interested in could change things so much. I was confidently passing the practice exams, so I took the actual exam full of confidence. I failed… How pathetic! I was really bad! Just a side note; The questions that year were unusually difficult, to the point where everyone received a retroactive point adjustment. Putting that aside, my goal wasn’t the certification itself, so I planned to start job hunting anyway, and I did. I don’t know if the studying helped or not, but I got a job right away. What was all that struggle during my job search a year ago for…? Another side note; After getting the job offer, they asked if I could start in a week, so I signed the apartment contract in two days. I couldn’t arrange a moving company right away, so I drove a truck myself to move! Also, when I was viewing the apartment, I asked the real estate agent, “Are there no dead cockroaches or rats lying around when I move in…?” They gave me a look like, “What is this guy talking about?” but I was so moved by how clean the room was that I cried during the viewing. And the second company. This was a sales job where you wore a suit, not work clothes. It was a startup with a few dozen people. But I made a mistake again. That company was a super toxic black company where power harassment and alcohol abuse were normal! I managed to endure it somehow, but all the female employees, both existing and new ones, were, without exception, taken to the hospital by ambulance! They had seizures due to mental stress, or things like that. It was that much of a black company. As for me, there were times when I couldn’t go home for over a month. I’d just bathe at a nearby public bath and then go back to work, finishing at 3 AM and starting at 5 AM… I was barely sleeping for two hours, or even less. Also, I had to pay for business expenses out of pocket. I even had to provide my own smartphone and computer for work. Looking back now, I think, “What kind of weak security was that?!” That’s unthinkable today. Since I paid for business expenses myself, my savings decreased a lot. But I thought about it. I decided to absorb everything I could about company organization and what work is all about. I might have made a mistake with the job, but I thought, “I’ll absorb what I can and move on to the next one!” I thought positively. And the third company. After learning a certain amount, I switched to the third company, a relatively young but large IT mega-venture with hundreds of employees. The job wasn’t what I wanted, and I had no experience in that field, but it was seriously so much better than the first and second companies! I accepted the offer immediately. Since it was an inexperienced field and the role wasn’t one that would lead to becoming a senior executive, I was already thinking, “I have to change jobs once I build up experience!” when I joined. But in the first company, I overworked my body… In the second company, I mentally overworked myself… It was tough in this company too, but I didn’t feel anything anymore (laughs). About half a year after joining, I was thankfully awarded the company-wide MVP. That moment made me really happy. It felt like my life was finally paying off for the first time. After that, I kept getting promoted to team leader and manager, but I felt I hit a limit, so I changed jobs. And the fourth company. This was a major, well-known corporation! The office was huge! The salary was huge! It was easy to work there, and I was genuinely surprised! But… I wasn’t satisfied. It was too organized. (No offense to the other employees) but the lower you were, like me, the fewer people thought about things, and it was just about going through the daily routine. I was doing sales at the time, but when I said something, I was just met with something like, “Yeah, that’s nice 😊. Hope it works out 😊,” and no one really paid attention. I wanted to grow more, so I focused on thinking about complete efficiency. What I did was create a tool to semi-automate the sales work I was doing. So, I studied programming. Naturally, a machine processes things faster, so this also allowed me to handle an overwhelming volume, and I became the top contract winner within six months of joining. However, that wasn’t because I was amazing; it was just because others weren’t taking action. That was lucky! Still, my evaluation didn’t change much, and it was too unstimulating, so I quit after about a year. Then I started my current company and also took on YouTube as a challenge on the side. I’ve talked about it quickly, but wasn’t that incredibly gritty…? My corporate life was just one blunder after another. It wasn’t glamorous at all, was it? Maybe just a little bit at the end. The high-salary period was only for a moment. Also, when I started this company and YouTube, many things happened up to the present day. Actually, I had a partner when I started this company, but he passed away right when we started the company… He passed away… Let’s call him Mr. A. Mr. A was a very capable person who was already earning on his own. He passed away exactly when we were about to start working together. My wife was also planning to work at this company, but she was so shocked that she developed a mental illness. I quit that major corporation, started with the plan for the three of us, and the moment we started, Mr. A passed away, and my wife got sick… I was suddenly alone. So, for the first year of starting my own company, I did everything alone; company management, nursing my wife, house chores, childcare (since I have a daughter), and running this channel. Weekdays, weekends, morning, noon, night… I was so busy I don’t remember anything from those few years… Regarding the channel, I did things like massive buying sprees, but playing games was impossible. But these things keep happening. Just when my wife was finally starting to recover, she was diagnosed with cancer, which I’ve mentioned in other videos before. So, for several more years, I did everything alone again. Next, isn’t the YouTube channel just a hobby? If it was so hard, why didn’t I just quit? I have various reasons why I must continue this channel. Of course, I genuinely love retro games. I absolutely love them! So, I’m not doing this for business purposes. I mean, if you watch this channel, you know there’s not enough money left over (laughs). If I kept up the spending sprees, the funds would just keep running out! Putting that aside, I continued YouTube under those circumstances. But as I said, thinking and acting is the key to success, and you have to do it seriously for at least six months. That has been my guiding principle. I mentioned the word “half a year” a few times, right? Achieving something in six months, accomplishing things like that. I talked about it a little bit in my background. It’s not a huge success, but things change little by little. When you repeat that process. So, even though the retro game channel wasn’t showing results, I believed it would work if I kept going. I achieved monetization in three months. Things have finally settled down recently, and I can talk about these things. Because I’m not smart, I’ve lived a very inefficient life. So, I was late to get serious about life. But because I realized the importance of it, I’m now building things up, dirty and step-by-step, despite my lack of intelligence. Finally, back to the side job discussion; If you are serious about achieving something like this, it should sprout within six months. I don’t think there are many people less intelligent than me, and I believe most people are smart. So, any side job is fine. However, constantly thinking, trying different things to find out how to succeed, and then taking action is essential. That’s the PDCA cycle. A quick tip; Consistency is the hardest part, so it’s ideal if your side job is something you are interested in. Applying the PDCA cycle by thinking and acting depends on the subject and each person’s style, so it’s hard to generalize. But if you’re interested, you think about it, right? Let’s say, “Let’s have a Pokémon battle!” And there’s prize money for the winner! People who like Pokémon will think about it, right? Like, “What is the current meta?” “What moveset and EV spread should my Pokémon have?” After preparing, you actually battle, gain experience, and then make adjustments… People definitely do this, right? Even among my viewers. That’s right. If you’re interested, you naturally try to think about it, and because you’re interested, you try to think more deeply. That’s why I recommend starting with something you’re interested in for people who are new to work or doing a side job for the first time! Talented people can probably succeed in any field without doing what I did, but that’s my style. And most importantly; Don’t quit! Don’t give up! Don’t blame others! I always think of this when something happens! Kaneki-kun’s words from Tokyo Ghoul; “All the disadvantages in this world stem from a lack of ability on the part of the individual.” I truly believe this. Because if you rely on others, no one will help you, and if you rely on them and they fall short of your expectations, you’ll be disappointed. If something unfavorable happens and you blame others, it solves nothing. You won’t grow either. It really means nothing if you don’t think for yourself about how to face the irrationality or how to improve it. I won’t fall into darkness like Kaneki-kun, but that quote really resonates with me. I’ve rambled on, but to summarize the keys to earning money; Think and take action. Continue for at least 3 to 6 months. Start a side job based on your interests. Be persistent without blaming others. These are the important points for securing funds for retro games. Sorry! I don’t know any easy way to earn a lot of money! But if things change little by little over six months, your life as a whole will change, right? If your YouTube channel is monetized in three months and you start getting 200,000 yen in side income, things change, even if only slightly, right? They changed for me. So please give it a try. Alright, now we finally move on to the future! What I plan to do in December 2025. To conclude; I, Wada, will be going to a live-in training program for circuit board repair for about three weeks! Clap or don’t clap, I don’t know (laughs). That’s right. I’m leaving home to study for three weeks in a live-in arrangement. Actually, through this activity, I want to do much, much more related to retro games. My passion is really high! But my problem is my lack of technical skills. I really don’t have the skills. Yet I have so many things I want to do. I decided to learn, but no matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find anywhere that taught electronic circuit board repair. I finally found a place, but it’s too far away to commute! So I talked to my wife, got her permission, and decided to go and learn in a live-in setting. Honestly, the training fee is expensive, and with the accommodation costs for three weeks, it will cost nearly a million yen in total. If the filming location changes, people might ask, “Why aren’t you filming at home? Did you divorce your wife? Did you fight?” That’s a possibility. And if I explain it by saying, “I’m doing this now,” people might ask, “What? You’re paying rent for another place and paying for training? Is this guy rich, spending so much money outside of retro games?!” I wanted to say, “No, that’s not true… I’m doing this the hard way…” So, I explained the circumstances beforehand. Also, because I’ll probably not be able to upload many videos in December (due to the training), I took this opportunity to talk about it now. If I had only announced the live-in training in December, it would have left many unanswered questions, so today I first talked about securing the retro game funding source. This is the background—I decided not to talk about it when I polled before, but the circumstances changed, and I felt it was better to tell you now! By the way, that training is super intensive; from morning till night, with only one day off a week! I’m so excited! I can take on repairs even now, but if I complete this training, the range of retro game repairs will expand, and I think I’ll be able to do repairs other than games, and solve any problem a viewer might have! I haven’t done it yet, so I don’t know how much I’ll master the technique, but I’m really looking forward to it! The probability of fixing the accumulated junk will increase, and the repair speed should get faster, right? I’m really looking forward to this. Since I had this planned, I thought it would be bad if I didn’t reach 100,000 subscribers by the end of November, as the number of posts would drastically decrease in December. That’s why I’ve been especially desperate lately. To everyone who always watches my Shorts and long videos and supports me, thank you very much. And finally! What I’m doing in 2026. This is what I’ve mentioned several times; restarting the repair business and launching sales of original shells! When I was doing shell replacements and IPS LCD mods for viewers, I often got requests to also repair defects and then do the IPS mod or shell replacement. So I decided to do shell replacements, but as I said in a previous video, many shells currently sold violate intellectual property rights. So I wanted to create original shells and provide a safe and secure service where neither I nor the viewers infringe on any rights! And if I’m going to do all that, I need to improve my repair skills, otherwise, there are things I just wouldn’t be able to handle, which is why I’m doing the training in December. Of course, making the shells will naturally cost millions of yen. The same goes for IPS LCD screens. Game Boy Color and similar models are fine, but the SP models have the Nintendo logo on them. It’s fine on a personal level, but I can’t sell them or offer a paid replacement service as a content creator. I used to do it unknowingly, but honestly, since the SP itself is not currently being sold, I don’t think it’s causing a decrease in Nintendo’s revenue. But I want to do things properly going forward! But if I spend a lot of money there, everyone will doubt Wada again, right? I’ll say it again; that’s not the case… I’m doing this the hard way… So, I explained that first, and then I let you know that I am currently planning these movements for 2026. That’s the flow of things. Yes, that’s all for today. The first part was quite long, but I’m really excited about December 2025 and 2026! As I mentioned briefly at the beginning, I incorporated this channel’s activities, and things are gradually getting organized. I wonder what will happen next year, 2027, and beyond. The repairs might become too much for one person to handle, so I’d like to find people to work with in the future. I might actually recruit employees, or rather, people to work for this channel, in the future. If you’re interested, please keep watching and supporting this channel until then! I’d be very happy! So, that’s all for today. I tried to talk about it without sounding like I was bragging. What did you think? If there are many requests that you are interested in these kinds of stories, I might talk about them again in the future. With that, please subscribe to the channel and give it a thumbs up! Well then, See you later~

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■Instagram：https://www.instagram.com/wada_3090_game/
■TikTok：https://www.tiktok.com/@wada_retro_games

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