Atarinvader

It does all depend on condition, but due to postage costs (magazines are heavy) don't expect much over $70. Which is a shame because I'd love to have a complete US magazine collection.

The problem with that is that there are many games like Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter etc which you can pick up for under £1 ($2-3) because essentially there was a higher demand for the game then than there is now, whereas games such as Panzer Dragoon Saga or Radiant Silvergun, which definetly aren't the rarest of Saturn games demand the highest prices. This due to the fact that people are still playing the Saturn whereas the mass of Atari collectors are just that, collectors. Games for the 2600 can have pure value just due to the fact that they're rare, Chase The Chuck Wagon for example, however, the Saturn or PSX is far off that just yet. If you take the two rarest PAL Dreamcast titles Aerowings 2 and Evolution 2 you'll notice a massive diference in price (about £10 / £40) this is because Evolution 2 is a much better game. I think that this is a trend that will continue for at least enough time until people stop wanting to play the games and the collector becomes the ruling class when it comes to deciding prices.

Any game that is hard to find, but criticaly acclaimed will be collectable or valuable as time goes by. Look at Quadrun for example, good game, low production runs -> high price. I think the future collecatables from this generation will be: Ico (especially Limited Edition with art cards) Viewtiful Joe Donkey Konga Steel Battalion (aka Tekki) Any Street Fighter / Capcom Vs. game Any DDR Gregory Horror Show Ikaragua (cube) Final Fantasy Tactics (GBA) Metal Slug X (PSX PAL) I think that rarity only comes in to play in prices currently either if the game is good (to be honest most rare games aren't) or is extremely-once-in-a-lifetime rare. The above games have a rarity about them, but more importantly are quality games. The PS2 collectables will gradually rise in price similare to the 2600 (with the crap being worth nothing), where as the Cube prices will rise a lot sharper due it's popularity with in the collecting / hardcore scene and low production runs (some games already being out of print, like Ikaragua). At least that seems to be the trend over the last 5 or so years. In the UK you'd be hard pushed over £50 on a PSX game, whereas Samba for the DC can go for as much as £230. Age seems almost irrelivant, it's the desirabilty of games. Some games even become collectable as much as a week after their release, for example Tekki which was only avaliable in the UK through a deposit at the equivalent of EB. It's price doubled as soon as walked out of the shop with it. As long as the collecting scene / market stays stable then current generations will definetly become as collectable as the 2600.

SVC Choas and SVC MOTM are both by SNK, it was part of an agreement between SNK and Capcom to share licences. SVC Choas being developed under Playmore and MOTM being SNK for the NGPC exclusively. EA Vs Marvel sounds like an idiotic idea, although it doesn't seem clear from that article that is what it's going to be. Let's hope whatever it is it's better than Shaq Fu.

I auctually went on line the other day with Version 2, it dialed-up and I went through to the lobby. Is this just a European thing?

I forgot how many good games there were on the Lynx. Excellent site and I'll have to put in an order very soon. Good to see something happening from the UK, and with reasonable prices too!

Here's my list: 2600 (80+ games) 7800 (in the post I think?) Lynx (6 games) Jaguar (~8 games, all NOS) Neo Geo Pocket (8 games) DC (112 games) Master System (~30 games) Mega Drive (~40-50 games) Mega CD (8 games) Gamecube (5 games) PS2 (7 / 7 PSX) GBA (Only thing worth owning: Street Fighter Alpha 3 and GC link for AC) PC Engine Core Grafx (4 games)

At least it's better than N-Gage!

To be honest, unless you're using a projector, LCD or massive CRT you won't need to worry about picture quality that much (in fact I run my DC through composite on my LCD projector and is fine). You'll actually find that (as long as your cables are well screened) the amount of signal lost between what I suggested and that expensive switcher would be minimal. If you want me to build you what I suggested in a nice little steel box then I could sort it for you?

The X-Box and Cube servers for PSO are indeed the same as those used for DC, but they don't allow DC users to play against Cube / X-Box owners. In fact all the Dreamcast infrastructure still remains for current and future Sega on-line games. I did use the Shenmue Passport disc a few times and I thouht it wasn't much cop to be honest, but that said, I never got in to the collecting of the toys thing or the mini-games. I am interested in the rumours that Yu Suzuki is looking in to a completely on-line third and final game! A game I did enjoy on-line was Chu Chu Rocket, but I wished that we'd have seen some of the Matching Service games, especially Street Fighter. The first on-line fighter we've seen in the UK is Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO on the X-Box, the problem is that it's EO (crappy cheaters version), although I do beleve that on-line you have the choice of fighting those with it on and those with it off...

What I would suggest is getting a composite signal out of as many of the systems as possible, then getting a heap of phono sockets and hooking them up in series like below and stick them on a board: ---(0)----(0)----(0)----- Video.......> ---(0)----(0)----(0)----- Sound R ..> To TV ---(0)----(0)----(0)----- Sound L....> You could even pop in a SCART socket and have some serperate rails for RGB / S-Video. This way when one console is on the signal will pass through to the TV, there isn't any need for switching unless more than one machine is outputting a signal at one time. For RF you can use switch boxes, but remeber that the longer the cable the bigger the loss of signal. You'd be much better modding your system for AV.

I say fareplay to him. Supply and demand. I've bought sale items from websites and listed them straight up on eBay (always wait for the goods to arrive now, been caught out in the past). So I can't really see the problem to be honest.

By the way, anyone who wants a DC keyboard give me a shout. I got a stock of new ones here that need to go cheap.

Dreamkey 3 also flashes your modem, but some games are still designed to dial-up to Dreamarena (or whatever the US equivalent is). Which is why some people blagged some games for free using a free dial-up number that was used for registration on Quake.

Vers. 2 conects, although I was the only one running about on the ship. Mind you I didn't check the Jap server. Anyone up for a mission sometime this week?

Some games like Chu Chu Rocket or Worms World Party dial up to a set number, PSO Version 1 does this, however Vers 2 came with Dreamkey 3 that allowed you to dial up to your own ISP, I don't know if the servers for this are still up and running though. I'll check it out now.

Complete my PAL Dreamcast collection, 100 down 117 to go... Also want to play more games, I've been collecting hard recently and haven't been playing them due to lack of time.

Nobody's mentioned Viewtiful Joe yet, probably the newest addition to hardcore classics. Seems to be a lot of love of Mr Driller, which visualy is stunning, but is it as good as Bust-A-Move 4? Oh, also need to chuck in Skies of Arcadia. Probably the longest game I've ever played (and super tough).

If you want a memory card to mess about with I have a new one (sealed) that you can have for cheap or a trade? I'd just want a DC game for it or something.

Okay here we go, we all love Top 5 lists and I decided that recently I've been playing a lot of games you'd class only for the hardcore - maybe a lot of you don't like the term, but what I mean by this is the sort of game that has been shunned by the mainstream of gaming for whatever reason, but has been found and cherished by the likes of people that spend there free time to talk about games on the internet (us, right?) 1 - Rez The best game on arguably the best console ever (okay, I am a fanboy). Looking to track down the PS2 versions and the trance vibrator for my girlfriend... 2 - Gunstar Heores By and far Treasures best game to date, although I'm sure some will argue Radiant... but hey, that's no Layer Section, huh? BTW anyone played the Game Gear or Master System version of this? How does it hold up? 3 - Samba de Amigo The king of all rhythm games. Great idea, brilliantly executed. Just a shame that it's so damn hard to pick up. 4 - Metal Slug X I know a lot of Neo Geo heads swear that 3 is the best, but I think this stands out more as a classic. 5 - Street Fighter 3 Alpha / Zero A lot of people dissed the Alpha series for moving away from the standard Street Fighter look and aiming for a more Anime look, but I have to say that it's my favorite of the era. The GBA version stands up too, probably one of the most accomplished games on the system. Shame about Crawfish though... I guess that there are many glaring omissions (Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Tactics, DDR, King of Fighters etc), but there are only 5 places. What's in your top 5?

I've just got a new clear green case for my DC from Lik-Sang and was looking for a - preferabley offical - clear green controller (and VMU) or arcade stick. I'd be willing to pay / trade quite well for one. I would also consider other clear offical stuff if you have it. Many thanks Will P.S. if anyone knows of any websites that sell these that would be brilliant too.

Our store has it on it's release list, BUT, I would say don't believe it until you see it. You know how crap Nintendo of Europe are... just look at all the shit caused about Animal Crossing! I'm gonna give it 3 months and if it's not here then I'll grab an import version. It was only this and AC I bought the Cube for. I waited long enough for Metal Slug X on PSX.

I think that'd you'll find that the $10,000 is more a licences fee. Could you imagine Microsoft telling EA that if they wanted another dev kit for FIFA 2005 they'd have to pay again? I don't think so...

They don't actually cost jack. At least most of the time, because hardware manufacturers give dev kits to developers (you can be sure as shit EA don't pay a bean), but they are well protected because obviously hardware manufacturers don't want your average Joe getting hold of one and running off mutilple copies of games or snopping to what the machine is internally or writing unlicenced programmes etc. I know the Dreamcast dev kits had GD-R drives (Katana?), and were basically a PC that allowed you to run a programme straight in to the DC (although you can with a normal PC anyways). Maybe Albert would know more about it than me. You can get a PC hook-up for the X-Box, flash the bios and start using it to run programmes from the hard-drive. There are even (illegaly stolen) dev libaries for the X-Box floating about.

A company never has to sell at the sticker price, no matter where you live, it's a common myth. In fact if a shop doesn't want to serve you, for no reason at all, it can as you're on their property. You guys all seem to be taking a moralic high-ground here. I'm not even going to mention some of the stuff I've done to get stuff cheap in the past...