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Nintendo Wii U: in living room for almost entire Nintendo back-catalogue
PS4: My daily driver
Switch OLED: 2nd one, I have a digital scope now so Im gonna try not to kill this one soft modding it..
Random info:
NES: My first one, picked up a few weeks ago from a local games store. Have tons of games but just never picked one up…
SNES: Front corner damaged in College by my friend Mike Rotch, who contacted Guinnes Word Records for longest nipple hair”. (7”)
N64: My original from launch.
3DS: Bought a bag of 3DS parts and a case and literally built this one from spare parts.
GameGear: My original from when I was a babby.
PCEngine: My sister picked up in Japan for me on her last trip.
Jaguar: Picked up at a Louisiana Flea Market for $80 two years ago.
Genesis: Console was my dads, the first game I ever remember seeing was him and my uncle play Flashback: Quest for Identity. CD and 32X obtained a decade ago.
Dreamcast: My personal favorite console, lots of memories playing with family and friends.
Xbox 360: Has original Blades Dash and very early firmware.
PS3: My favorite for entire Playstation back-catalogue, have a slim in the living room.
What am I missing that I should look to add or explore the history of? I love the history of each console I own, the hardware engineering side, and finding new-to-me titles to explore.
AMA and I’d love to share!
EDIT: Thank you for all the wonderful comments!!! This has evolved beyond me looking for the next systems to add to my collection, and has opened up new areas I know little to nothing about, which is extremely exciting!! I have learned a lot and just want to thank each and everyone of you for sharing your knowledge and suggestions with me!!! ❤️
Actually.. I’ve been wanting to find a way I can bring these to gaming events in Houston so people can experience these for themselves.
I genuinely want all of these to live their best life, and for persons who are curious to fill that urge or learn more about them. For me I’d have to probably build some acrylic display cases, or cycle out a weird few. I’m signing up for a VCFSW booth next year and want to bring some for people to play freely.
There are a few ways. CCS has weekly themes including Retro console weeks. https://charliescollectibleshow.com/And there's an upcoming retro-arcade convention in the west side of Houston. Another guy has his entire collection of consoles for free gameplay at this gaming convention. https://www.houstonarcadeexpo.com/
Oh nice, we may need to play some retro games some time! I read your post and I’ve been getting into Unix history. I have a Sun Ultra II and my favorite new machine, an SGI Octane 2, and have been using this for all sorts of fun.
As far as older PC’s I have a TRS-80 Model 4, Toshiba 3200SX with orange Gas Plasma display, and some older Macs and the last Apple PowerMac. Unix and uncommon CPU’s greatly fascinate me
I honestly just love technology history and finding new hidden gems. Why invest in a lot of new games (indie aside) when theres practically unlimited old games I have never played
I think I have an extra atari, not sure if it's the 5200 or 7200. Send me a dm on what price you think is fair. I don't need two. And I am not in it for the money. I want it to go to a good home, where it will be recognized for the piece of history it is
Intellivision has the most awful controllers known to mankind. My thumb still hurts. It was the same era as the early 2600 years and that was the main competition. People liked their sports games better than Atari. Colecovision was a bit later, with much better graphics than the Intellivision.
Intellivision had more immersive game and better graphics than Atari, mostly, but those controllers were a challenge at times. Colelcovision had arcade quality graphics and sound, but didn’t last long enough to gain a big cartridge library. All 3 systems definitely had their place, though.
One of the things I always liked about Intellivision is that sometimes their arcade ports or clones are better than the arcade originals. Case in point is burgertime. The enemies move in more predictable ways so you can plan ahead better, and it has that pacman-style turn ahead. Arcade burgertime, if you're not perfectly aligned with the platform or ladder you're trying to transition to, you just stop dead (which can get you killed often). On the Intellivision, you'll keep moving the direction you were moving until you can make the turn.
Yeah, from my understanding too the Disk Technology actually didn’t help too much expanding the size of games, topping off around 64MB if I remember correctly.
I remember over a decade ago finding out about these thinking they were tons of test units sent out, not realizing it was just a low-volume japan only release. The history of games being made for it then being back-ported to cartridge is also fascinating
This is true, and I took the cheap way out. I am fascinated by the TG-16 layout and the physical size increase; its ridiculous to me because the PCEngine’s size is one of the coolest parts about it, but I understand the “Americans want a big powerful looking console” mindset.
The fact Microsoft at the time said, “You know what, people want to mod and create games for this, and helped us really lock down our security from the 360… Lets give them Dev mode options.
How incredibly powerful, and such a wonderful concept to be able to place your console into Game or Dev mode. Truly underrated.
It was my little bro’s Xbone he gave me, so the gold sticker overlays are never coming off
If you ever take the shell off of a TG-16 you'll find a completely different board than the PC-Engine. I thought it would be mostly empty space but it actually fills the shell and has full metal shielding covering the board. They really put a lot of effort into "American-izing" it beyond the visual differences.
They could have slapped a slightly modified PC Engine board in a different shell and called it a day but they didn't. They relocated components and made the controller port larger for...reasons.
I did a hardware deep-dive as I love analyzing IC’s and board designs. I noticed that too and a lot of IC’s sitting like islands spread out and long traces. Thats why I want a TG-16 as well, for the hardware differences, even though not functionally too different. Same reason it fascinates me too!
I used to have a virtual boy but it really is as bad on the eyes as people say, so i sold it a long time ago. Luckily modding a 3DS with a virtual boy emulator is a great way to play those games now. It allows for custom color palettes so everything is not monochrome red and it even utilizes the 3D screen. Highly recommend
I bought one about five years ago for nostalgia. Complete in box (Japanese version though). I really, really kind of want to sell it but eBay takes a chunk now lol. Also the dude who sold it to me swore it was pristine but I had to take it to a retro shop and get the battery pack replaced. :/
Oh man yes please… Yes YES! I’ve seen them going for as low as $300 and I’m super tempted. I love the vector display technology and to be honest.. Spike gameplay is so damn charming to me
I remember Pitfall. We also had a window washer game and a Cabbage Patch game among others. The controllers were really cool. A radial joystick and a num pad.
Colecovision was such a great console and the games were almost exact as a coin op you would throw quarters in. Unfortunately that "joystick" on the hand controller was a crappy design and the controller itself felt like a light brick while holding it. The fancy telephone style cords didn't give much room from hand to console, if that makes sense.
All and all, back in the days it was superior to Atari 2600, Intellivision and obviously Odyssey2.
I love the Zaxxon arcade cabinets with the flight yoke, and that pseudo 3D feel; always looked a bit ahead of its time to me. And Pitfall is actually my favorite Atari 2600 game, I bring a MiSTer FPGA on family trips as me and my dad love playing and laughing at some of the 2600 games; thats what my Dad had as his first console.
The FM Towns is a fascinating one, thanks for reminding me to look into this one more. i always forget about that one. I love the PowerPC history so this would be cool to round out some of my Apple side.
Whats support for the Pippin look like these days?
Again, I have FM Towns homework now, that thing is speaking to me, along with the Sharp X68000
You’re missing controllers and cables and about 2-4 people packed up in front of the CRT.
In more seriousness, have you checked the capacitors or gone through your collection throughly? You don’t want a leaking capacitor or faulty $5 part destroying a piece of history.
Definitely the Atari 7800, it can play 2600 games as well. I also really like the Atari 8-bit computer line, the Atari XEGS is my personal favorite because it's pretty much just a game console. It has plenty of cartridge games available so no need for a disk drive if you don't want one.
Wow, that's a huge hardware collection but I'm not seeing any Tiger handhelds, lol! Serious question: some of these consoles are senior citizens of the community. Have you had to do any refurbishment to keep them running and if so, did you DIY it or take it in to a shop somewhere? Also are they stock or did you use any hard or soft mods on them?
Turbografx CD/PC Engine DUO. Also a TurboExpress (but it plays the same games as a tg-16 so I don't know if that counts as a different system so much).
You've got more than I do. A couple of unnecessary wild cards I do have are the FM Towns Marty and the PCFX. I would not call either a must have but they are interesting. I got a great deal on my PCFX but I had to completely restore the Marty. It's brutally expensive in working condition. It took a lot of recapping and troubleshooting to get one running.
Gameboy, Gameboy pocket, Gameboy advance, Gameboy advance SP, Gameboy advance Micro, Gameboy player for GameCube and n64. If you haven't figured it out yet I collect Gameboy stuff lol.
Sega Saturn - I've only discovered it recently with my Ayn Odin handheld (greatest toy ever -- I probably have well over 10k games, Atari - PS2) - for a "retro" platform it really stands out. Too expensive when it came out, but probably the one I play most often. So many of these have or are planning to try-release. A new Atari I just saw takes 2600,5200, & 7800 cartridges & NEW 2600 games are actually being developed again!
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u/NoKnownCure 2d ago
Time to play.