How To Narrow Down The Number Of Systems You Collect For?

[carlsson]

Keatah, perhaps you want to obtain VICE 3.0 as well, unless you already did or have other options for Commode (*) emulation.

 

(*) Misspelled on intention, as it is how it often is known among people in other communities like e.g. the Speccy world. Not sure if you'd call yourself a Commodore fan or non-fan though.

[Professor Gull]

I had culled down much of what I was after and finally I am resorting to not buying on ebay. I am going to local only for stuff I might want and until the game room gets a makeover I have 5 systems that will sadly not see the light of day.

 

The bad thing is when I am headed to the retro store and I see folks with boxes headed in. I usually ask hey what you got in there just to take a peek before the store gets it. Its gained me a few stacks of Saturn games and even some CIB Atari 2600 games. Of course one has to ask oneself " Do I really need these?". My answer is usually no but I have friends that would so I buy for them.

 

I am debating on dumping a few systems though like my Game gear and original Gameboy since they rarely see play and can be emulated easier but that's to be seen in the future.

 

Now Gamestop is also snagging up retro games locally as well so that is one place I would definitely prefer to take games from if I can since I do find them fairly evil as a game store entity.

Now I got a ps4 finally so I am adding another system but modern games used can be fairly cheap so that's a good thing.

[Keatah]

Keatah, perhaps you want to obtain VICE 3.0 as well, unless you already did or have other options for Commode (*) emulation.

 

(*) Misspelled on intention, as it is how it often is known among people in other communities like e.g. the Speccy world. Not sure if you'd call yourself a Commodore fan or non-fan though.

 

Ahh yes, with all busy-ness going on at this time of year I didn't update my virtual C64 and Vic20. So thanks for the reminder.

 

I had a C64 + Vic20 back in the day, too. But I never went much beyond the insert cartridge play game phase. Coming from the Apple II world with fast floppies, I didn't have the patience to work with the 1541. I also felt I didn't need to know yet another version of BASIC.

 

I like the C64 for what it was, a low-cost computer that played a Gyruss pretty well and had good music capabilities. But I would never put anything professional or mission critical on it.

[Trooper Galactus]

I've been mulling this over myself, as I am collecting for a lot of systems but could probably stand to limit what I'm searching for. As it stands, I'm about ready to give up on handheld games almost entirely outside of my TurboExpress (which plays the console games anyhow) and GBA (which can play basically the entire GB library anyhow and I have sentimental attachment to). This might mean parting with my Neo-Geo Pocket Color, but I don't exactly have a ton invested in it and it isn't taking up much space. Still, I have a lot of GB games in boxes which I'll likely never play, and it's pointless to hold on to a lot of them. Probably can part with my very large and almost complete Atari Lynx collection as well as my Game Gear stuff.

 

As for consoles, I'm strongly considering getting rid of my Saturn and Dreamcast stuff. I didn't keep up with Sega much after the Genesis, and aside from a handful of very expensive games (Panzer Dragoon Saga in particular) I just don't have much interest in anything unique to those systems. I'll probably keep my PS1 games, but shed the system and just use my PS2s. At a minimum, I know I'm keeping my 2600, 5200, Jaguar, Nintendo, SNES, N64, TG-16, Odyssey 2, and Genesis collections for now.

[Tanooki]

For me I wouldn't let anything go from around 1985 through 2004 for basically 20 years. A financial cockpunching (laid off, unemployment dying off, working 2 PT jobs) forced me to change that. It was slow and painful to start, made me feel physically angry and sick too, but I went from a collection into the couple thousands and dozen plus systems to drastically far less basically whittling down to a top 20 for just a few Nintendo systems, and then a bit more for NES/SNES keeping original kid era stuff I bought/was gifted. When things improved I started to buy a bit more, and swung back that way being in the industry (media at that point online) through 06. In time though after sitting on a place like Nintendoage and seeing the rabid collector habits, and then the scalper stuff going worse and worse the last 5 years online (and hurting off too in short time) I got turned off by a lot of it. I started to see a mix of hundreds of disused and never used games and some accessories on the shelf collecting dust and for what?

 

The point, how you narrow, give yourself a reason and an objective. Money still isn't good here (wife mostly out of work) so I mostly have to buy to sell, or sell what I have. I go after loftier stuff and it helps me get rid of things...pinball machine, neo geo arcade, high tier gaming laptop with swappable(clevo) parts, shield tablet, etc. I couldn't get this stuff normally. By removing the fluff and getting down to the most meaningful stuff while rewarding yourself with something you'll commit to keeping and enjoy makes it far easier and makes for a great distraction. But even with that said I've had weak moments when I find a steal and go with it. Over a year ago I found a GG and many months earlier a Genesis. I started to snap up all sorts of games, and while i used the Genesis quite a bit (so I've kept it) the GG I did not and I just shoved the mess up on ebay in the last couple weeks and some has sold already...stuff I used like once or twice in many cases which is just bad. It is a solid (thankfully cheap) reminder to not do stupid crap, or if you see something like this, buy and MOVE it before you get attached. I recently made an exception as I wanted one for years again, a Dreamcast I bagged for $6 with 3 vmu and 2 controllers and I know I'll use it and do. But a week later I found a $20 N64 with a stack of 10 games, 4 controllers, memory pack4x, and the ram expansion. I kept 1 controller as a backup and Banjo Kazooie, the rest went online so I can afford something I want.

 

Find something you like and stick to it, get some iron will going. Get rid of the fluff, and use the money from said fluff to back up your interest and be focused. If that's still not enough pocket the dough and leave it in paypal, still use it on games, but wait until you finish or near to finish a game you're working on or two so you're not swamped and get discouraged. That will help a lot as well.

[HoshiChiri]

 

Find something you like and stick to it, get some iron will going. Get rid of the fluff, and use the money from said fluff to back up your interest and be focused. If that's still not enough pocket the dough and leave it in paypal, still use it on games, but wait until you finish or near to finish a game you're working on or two so you're not swamped and get discouraged. That will help a lot as well.

 

This bit right here is some damn good advice. It's easy to get caught up in the joy of new-ness and grab whatever game you don't have & can afford that's around. Sometimes it's a great way to find a game you didn't know you'd like as much as you do. BUT- I've definitely found over the years that keeping a Game Fund is an invaluable tool in both budgeting and cutting down on frivolous spending. I know it sounds counter-intuitive (setting aside game money makes you spend less?), but it works well. You put aside that $5/10/whatever extra towards a game you REALLY want- like maybe you've always wanted Snatcher on the Sega CD, but it's too expensive- but if a few years of pocket change will get it, why not? What ends up happening though, is that savings starts coloring what you buy. Do you really need that new game right now, or can you save that money for your big game & pick up a GOTY edition in 6 months? Then, when you've actually got enough for that holy grail, you pause- it took you months/years to save that money. Is this really what you're blowing it on? It can really make you think about the real value (personal or otherwise) of your collection.

 

Just be careful not to go too cold turkey. Otherwise you might end up in a position where you didn't buy any new games for 3 months to give your family lots of choices for Christmas & birthday presents, then you only get like 2 games & not the ones you wanted most and you... blow your fund on a Gamestop bender because you had a b2g1 coupon and end up with like 6 games at once. *nervous laughter* I mean, at least I won't want anything for awhile...

[Tanooki]

Cold turkey for almost anyone is a huge issue agreed.

 

Another piece of advice on the game fund, do what I did, get games by burning(selling) games. You'll value it more because you had to give up to get some...then it's not so frivolous. Another solid piece of advice I left out, make a spreadsheet or some kind of document. There's two you can do depending where you are on things. If you're just starting to cut the cord go with option one, then two. One: Do a PRO-CON list of why you'll keep X system (handheld, old computer, etc.) If you don't have a pro list that at the very very minimum isn't even with the cons, but really outweighs it say 60/40...dump the damn thing. IT doesn't matter if you had it 15 days or 15 years...admit it you're done, get an emulator if you're that hurt later or exhibit self control and keep a 'Top 20' with the system and the minimum controllers/memory cards needed and sell the crap NOW. Number two, for someone like me, and I did this and work it currently for the Dreamcast. When I found one back on the 23rd I knew I'd keep it immediately, sales off the table, except for one reason, if the stuff I truly cared about got expensive.

 

What I found was I'd make a list of any game I wanted (or wanted back) and hit ebay. I fired up the listing of anything that only sold, and then I looked at a paid out price range with shipping. I'd then rate a price to price (10-20 example) range on a game from the lowest (complete good shape) to average it sells at, not the upper half where BIN buying collectards and doofuses with more money than common sense spend. Then be a dick to yourself about it. No matter how much you want it, no matter how bad it bugs you, NEVER pull the trigger unless it is in that range and then alone. AND only do this if you're ready to accept playing it, not to shelve it for later once 10 other things are out of the way. Sure to start buy a lot or two, get 10-20 games on the shelf, then quit...quit until you rack enough high scores and finish enough of them to buy another game or two. This will force you not to spend money like water and show some self control.

 

Trust me the stuff before I wrote and this works. You'll find popping that cherry and dumping some of the more expensive stuff will reward you well. I sold off just 10 NES/SNES games, of which 3 totaled $930 in value, to get a home use only Pin-Bot pinball machine which valued at $1500. It cost me nothing. Those 3 overvalued games -- Bonk, Bubble Bobble 2, and Wild Guns. The first I replaced with a FC cart for $20, the 2nd was included with a FC Mobile 88 on a Super Games 500in1 multicart, and the other never really wow'd me but can be now had for $20 on PS4 if I just had to have it again. Just something to consider around all the scalping stupidity and digging yourself into a ditch with a collection.

[Keatah]

There's lots of mental gymnastics that can be performed. But the one important thing is focus on a just a couple of systems. And if those systems have huge libraries of like the Apple II, then you have to double-focus on certain sub-categories.

 

The most rewarding category, any time, any place, covers the material I had as a kid sprinkled with the addition of a few recently acquired titles. At any rate I have a ton of Apple II material from back in the day, and I find it surprisingly satisfying to just get something now and then for it. My collection can never be complete. There will always be something to add. And that's ok.

[madhatter667]

I wish I was half as good at taking the advice that I give. Lol. Some of it I did though (culling out stuff, and some measure of focus). Been on a 16 bit kick lately. Growing the SNES library because I like it. Got an Everdrive for my Mega Drive... so if I have a standalone cart for it, it's because I really like it.

 

The creating a fund seems like a good way to keep priorities straight. I've even thought of setting up a secondary account just to trickle hobby money into before. When the purchase involves spending an amount of money you saved for a while to create... I can imagine it makes a person think more critically about the decision.

 

Using hobbies to pay for themselves is good advice for sure, if you've been into it long enough/deep enough to be able to do this. I have multiple hobbies, and I like to think that I do a decent job of making them pay for themselves when something really big comes along that I gotta dive into. Even if that means selling one item out of an unrelated collection/hobby to fund another. Part of my problem is that I am more likely to make several $20-30 purchases here and there, than I am to say, make one $150. I can't be the only person who does that. On the other hand, if I had saved all the money I've spent over the last several months on say, just SNES repros and translations (in cart form), I could have bought an SD2SNES, and filled it. However, I enjoy having a moderate sized SNES library, and almost all my unofficial carts are cool colored. Different goals where that is concerned. BUT, that kind of perspective is good to keep in mind as well, as it can apply to several systems.

[AtariLeaf]

I'm thinking of doing another serious purge and surprising even myself, that includes my entire Tandy Color Computer collection. I've finally admitted to myself that the coco is in my collection for nostalgia, it's simply not a great gaming machine. Problem is I'm not interested in just parting it out, I'd rather sell it all in one shot but we're talking a dozen or more machines, some boxed, disk drives, MPI's, boxes of joysticks, some disks and a big stack of program paks. So if anyone looking for an instand coco collection, has a healthy bank account and a large truck, hit me up.

 

Also probably going to dump all my Sega Genesis, TG-16's, C64, PS1/PS2, N64 and Colecovision collections. All of these systems just sit on the shelf and other than occasional testing, they never get played.

 

So my goal is to sell all of this off and stick with what I actually do spend time playing which is the 2600.7800, Atari 8-bit, NES, SNES, and Gameboy.

 

And anyone who knows me, will know that selling off the coco collection will be hard but man it takes up a lot of space but I have to admit to myself, I just don't play it.

[gladders]

Another vote for flashcarts here, although I do sympathise with the nostalgic kick from holding the game in your hand, admiring the label and reading the manual. Too expensive for me.

 

My preference to make up for this is buy those lovely coffee-table books like the Visual Compendiums which have interviews, artwork and screenshots. Not the same I know, but still nice.

[Keatah]

The "holding the cartridge" thing is a very short-lived burst of nostalgia. IMHO one that isn't worth a wall full of them. You can only have nostalgia for one cartridge at one instant. Whattyare'll gonna do - sit there and hold each cart for 3 minutes, put it back, take out another one and repeat till you've gone through your entire collection? Baghh! Flashcarts and emulators for the win!

Edited January 20, 2017 by Keatah

[Skippy B. Coyote]

The "holding the cartridge" thing is a very short-lived burst of nostalgia. IMHO one that isn't worth a wall full of them. You can only have nostalgia for one cartridge at one instant. Whattyare'll gonna do - sit there and hold each cart for 3 minutes, put it back, take out another one and repeat till you've gone through your entire collection? Baghh! Flashcarts and emulators for the win!

I actually do that very thing with all the cartridges in my Game Boy / Color collection more often than I'd like to admit. In my case though I usually only spend 10 or 15 seconds on each game before I go onto the next. The Game Boy systems are really the only ones I feel that way about though, where having the original physical games is special and important to me. For the rest of my systems I'm pretty content with flash carts and emulation.

 

Speaking of which, after selling off all my impulse bought Atari 7800 stuff I was able to take the cash from the sales and put it towards a EverDrive N8 for the NES and a Mega EverDrive X5 for the Genesis, both of which are currently in route from Poland. Once they arrive in the mail in a week or two I'll finally have flash carts for all of my non-Game Boy cartridge based systems, and that is something that I am very happy about!

[Andromeda Stardust]

I actually do that very thing with all the cartridges in my Game Boy / Color collection more often than I'd like to admit. In my case though I usually only spend 10 or 15 seconds on each game before I go onto the next. The Game Boy systems are really the only ones I feel that way about though, where having the original physical games is special and important to me. For the rest of my systems I'm pretty content with flash carts and emulation.

 

Speaking of which, after selling off all my impulse bought Atari 7800 stuff I was able to take the cash from the sales and put it towards a EverDrive N8 for the NES and a Mega EverDrive X5 for the Genesis, both of which are currently in route from Poland. Once they arrive in the mail in a week or two I'll finally have flash carts for all of my non-Game Boy cartridge based systems, and that is something that I am very happy about!

Man Jin, that's rough. First the custom Atari 2600 Prosystem joystick, because you were a purist and needed one button (which was also beauty btw, and once I installed that 3 pound JLF spring to cancel the rebound with the extended shaft and heavy aluminum battop I added, it plays and feels great), then sell it off (to me! ) and get the 7800 and Eladdin joystick, then sell off the 7800 stuff because the library wasn't interesting (IMO, it's really only worth getting into 7800 if you collect homebrew)...

 

I have found out in the past when I buy a lot of stuff, it is often difficult to unload without taking a loss on it, with the exception of rampant inflation on certain Nintendo games. And forget reselling to a game store for pennies on the dollar. I only trade in games I no longer want if they're cheap and not worth the hassle of selling online. More often than not, I let stuff pile up and recently started double stacking my Atari and NES carts on my bookshelf. This makes it a pain however to find stuff to play without making a mess!

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Man Jin, that's rough.

It's alright, I'm really not unhappy about it at all. Sure, I lost a little money, but I did learn a great deal from the experience and I wouldn't take any of it back if I could. I think the lesson I learned from it was way more important than the bit of money lost along the way. Sometimes learning what you don't want can be even more beneficial than learning what you do.

[Andromeda Stardust]

It's alright, I'm really not unhappy about it at all. Sure, I lost a little money, but I did learn a great deal from the experience and I wouldn't take any of it back if I could. I think the lesson I learned from it was way more important than the bit of money lost along the way. Sometimes learning what you don't want can be even more beneficial than learning what you do.

That was definitely me in 2012 when I bought my first Atari console, a 4-switch woodgrain. I'd been fed a line of bull from like-minded Nintendo fans since I was a teen, that Atari games were crap and worthless. So finally someone did a thread on "why did Atari values tank" on NintendoAge, and I read up about it, and decided to take a gamble on an eBay system with a bunch of games for $50, and figured if I did not like it, I could flip it for a small loss.

 

Well, I got hooked, and can say I'm now about equally an Atari fan almost as much as I am a Nintendo fan!

 

Still don't want all the systems though. I had Lynx as a kid and have 2600/7800 as an adult, but I just don't see enough gaming value in the 5200 or XEGS/8-bit libraries (likewise for Coleco or Intellivision) to justify a purchase, and the less said about the Jag, the better...

[Schizophretard]

I'm thinking of doing another serious purge and surprising even myself, that includes my entire Tandy Color Computer collection. I've finally admitted to myself that the coco is in my collection for nostalgia, it's simply not a great gaming machine. Problem is I'm not interested in just parting it out, I'd rather sell it all in one shot but we're talking a dozen or more machines, some boxed, disk drives, MPI's, boxes of joysticks, some disks and a big stack of program paks. So if anyone looking for an instand coco collection, has a healthy bank account and a large truck, hit me up.

 

Also probably going to dump all my Sega Genesis, TG-16's, C64, PS1/PS2, N64 and Colecovision collections. All of these systems just sit on the shelf and other than occasional testing, they never get played.

 

So my goal is to sell all of this off and stick with what I actually do spend time playing which is the 2600.7800, Atari 8-bit, NES, SNES, and Gameboy.

 

And anyone who knows me, will know that selling off the coco collection will be hard but man it takes up a lot of space but I have to admit to myself, I just don't play it.

 

I didn't even know what the coco was until I saw your YouTube videos and I found it interesting.

[HoshiChiri]

The "holding the cartridge" thing is a very short-lived burst of nostalgia. IMHO one that isn't worth a wall full of them. You can only have nostalgia for one cartridge at one instant. Whattyare'll gonna do - sit there and hold each cart for 3 minutes, put it back, take out another one and repeat till you've gone through your entire collection? Baghh! Flashcarts and emulators for the win!

 

... Yes. I mean, if I'm doing a mass stare-at-the-box maybe 30 seconds to a minute per game. But yes- I have stare-at-the-box sessions all the time. Makes to hard to reorganize sometimes, I'll tell you what...

 

More often than not, I let stuff pile up and recently started double stacking my Atari and NES carts on my bookshelf. This makes it a pain however to find stuff to play without making a mess!

 

Pop over to a Michael's Arts and Crafts store. They are currently loaded down with chipboard décor boxes & the spring storage bin lineup. I know from experience many of the boxes are sized really well for Atari storage (haven't tried NES though.) Perhaps it could help.

[keepdreamin]

The "holding the cartridge" thing is a very short-lived burst of nostalgia. IMHO one that isn't worth a wall full of them. You can only have nostalgia for one cartridge at one instant. Whattyare'll gonna do - sit there and hold each cart for 3 minutes, put it back, take out another one and repeat till you've gone through your entire collection? Baghh! Flashcarts and emulators for the win!

 

I didn't do that when the games were new. Either it was a scuffed rental from blockbuster, a used copy from Funcoland, or new game was quickly torn from it's packaging. Admiring game packaging on a shelf isn't nostalgic in the slightest.

 

That's not to say some games didn't have amazing artwork. But I don't get how lining boxes on a shelf with the spines facing out portrays this. Makes more sense to get some posters printed and nicely framed. way cheaper too.

Edited January 21, 2017 by keepdreamin

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I didn't do that when the games were new. Either it was a scuffed rental from blockbuster, a used copy from Funcoland, or new game was quickly torn from it's packaging. Admiring game packaging on a shelf isn't nostalgic in the slightest.

 

That's not to say some games didn't have amazing artwork. But I don't get how lining boxes on a shelf with the spines facing out portrays this. Makes more sense to get some posters printed and nicely framed. way cheaper too.

Yes, and the durability of cardboard speaks volumes over why so little of it survived. The whole purpose of the boxart was to be attractive to the consumer so the game sells. Boxes were meant to be disposable.

 

Manuals are more valuable, but now you have Google for stuff like that "747" code. I too am a "loose" collector, and have many "unminty" carts with bad labels I seem to rescue from the dump over the years...

[Keatah]

I have found out in the past when I buy a lot of stuff, it is often difficult to unload without taking a loss on it, with the exception of rampant inflation on certain Nintendo games. And forget reselling to a game store for pennies on the dollar. I only trade in games I no longer want if they're cheap and not worth the hassle of selling online. More often than not, I let stuff pile up and recently started double stacking my Atari and NES carts on my bookshelf. This makes it a pain however to find stuff to play without making a mess!

 

This is especially true if your collecting style is at all similar to mine. I operate like trickle-charger, accumulating things a bit here and a bit there. So I don't mind paying a higher price - it's not like I'm buying 20 things per month where the savings could add up substantially.

 

The occasional overpayment isn't a big deal. Unless I plan to sell it later.

[Keatah]

Still don't want all the systems though. I had Lynx as a kid and have 2600/7800 as an adult, but I just don't see enough gaming value in the 5200 or XEGS/8-bit libraries (likewise for Coleco or Intellivision) to justify a purchase, and the less said about the Jag, the better...

 

There's a ton of gaming value in the Atari 8-bit computer lineup. Maybe not as varied and numerous as the Apple II at the time, but definitely several steps up from my workhorse VCS. It was a pleasure to see a different version of Space Invaders or Missile Command. Shamus, Defender, Necromancer, Buried Bucks, and many others. All favorites of mine. What bothered me about the 5200 was that it was essentially a repackaged 400 with different "bios" and different memory map. So what games that were on the 5200 were out on the 400/800 and later 8-bit computers.

 

It pissed me off because Atari made no mention of this state of affairs and I fell for it. Sucking up every 5200 game hoping that it would be improved beyond my Atari 400 that I got in 1979. Hoping the games would have at least added levels or something. It took me purchasing nearly 15 games to realize the 5200 was the exact same thing as my 400! And boy did I get pissed. By then the controllers were getting flaky, and I had to mod the switchbox back to a real switch-switchbox. Coupled with the huge size (to a kid) it became more trouble than it was worth. A kid my age at the time wouldn't have patience for these kinds of circus acts. I barely did.

 

But I always loved the futuristic Syd Mead like styling. In fact I wouldn't mind getting a couple four-port units, gutting them, and turning them into micro-ITX or micro-ATX emulation machines. They're certainly BIG enough! Mod the controllers with gold contacts or real switches and use the other two ports for stuffing in some USB connectors. Don't know what I would do with that gaping hole in there. Maybe a sammich warmer? Or some sort of motorized pop-up something or other. Or simply a nice cover. Some low-rider BlingBling lights in the back..yeh baby..

 

And if I do build a "special-edition" emulation console, it would certainly have Altirra on it to serve all 8-bit needs. And then some!

Edited January 22, 2017 by Keatah

[Andromeda Stardust]

I've toyed with the idea of getting an XEGS at times, but the fact that many game carts need the keyboard for functions that should have been incorporated in menus is a turn off. I definitely do not want a bulky computer or to fool with flakey disk drives, etc...

[Keatah]

With the XEGS it's almost like Atari wanted to do something. The idea of a keyboard came to be. Then the ideas of what to do with it came to be. Then, ah-ha! Let's use it to select menu options!

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Next month it'll have been 2 years since I started this thread, and I think what I've learned since then are 2 things in particular:

 

1. I invest way too much emotional energy into my video game playing and collecting hobby.

 

2. No matter what I buy or sell or what selection of systems I'm playing and collecting for I will never really be happy.

 

 

The first is kind of obvious, as evidenced by the existence of this thread and how many times I've replied to it. At this point in my life video games are really my only hobby, and being someone on permanent disability with way too much free time on my hands leaves me a whole lot of time to sit around thinking about my hobby. So I end up stressing out a lot over what systems and games I want to own and play and which ones I don't, because when you're on a rather small fixed income there's only so much you can have and if you want a new expensive thing that usually means having to sell something expensive you already own to afford it.

 

Which brings me to the second lesson, that no matter what assortment of games and systems I have at my disposal I don't think I'll ever be happy with them. Over the last few years I've bought and later resold large system and game collections for the Sega Genesis, NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii, Atari 2600, Atari 7800 (two times for that one) and probably a couple others I'm forgetting in an attempt to figure out what I really want to focus on in terms of playing and collecting video games. I also tried emulation and flash carts along the way, having owned and later resold a Harmony Encore cart for the Atari 2600 as well as EverDrives for the Genesis and NES.

 

I tried a lot of different things and a lot of different systems in an attempt to determine what would scratch that itch for playing and collecting video games in a way that would make me happy, and what I've realized at this point is that nothing ever does. I'll get really passionate about a particular system for a month or two then completely lose interest in it and want something else instead. It doesn't matter whether it was a system that I grew up with and have nostalgia for or if it's something I discovered later in my life as an adult, nor does it matter if I have a big collection of physical games for it or if I'm playing the games off flash carts or via emulation (though I have learned that I do have a definite preference for playing games off original physical media, because for some strange reason they just feel more real to me that way). In the long run I never seem to be able to maintain interest in any system for more than a few months before getting all depressed over how much money I spent on it and wanting to resell it so I can go buy some other system and a new selection of games. Sometimes I'll decide I miss the old system and games I sold to buy something new so I'll go back and re-buy them later down the line, but even then I still end up only being able to stay interested in them for a few months before they get sold again and it's on to something else.

 

It hasn't been all doom and gloom though. I still have a lot of fun hunting for and finding new games for what ever system I happen to be interested in at any given time from local game stores then bringing them home and playing them. On average I do spend around 20 hours a week every week playing video games and in spite of never feeling really satisfied with the collecting aspect of my hobby and the selection of systems at my disposal I still enjoy the simple act of playing video games. It gives me something fun to do to pass the time and there is a special joy in the discovery of something you've never played before, as well as going back to revisit old favorites now and again.

 

At this point I think the most honest thing I could say to wrap this post up is that I'm really envious of all the video game players and collectors who feel passionate about a particular system or assortment of systems and can stick with them. Whether that system is a really popular one like the NES or a not so popular one like the Atari Jaguar, or if you're one of those folks who just collect and play all things Atari, being able to maintain a continual interest in and enthusiasm for playing and collecting games on a particular system is something I really wish that I could do.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Jin