ryckster

Someone at Ebay is selling a used copy of NES Super Mario Bros. allegedly autographed by Shigeru Miyamoto himself: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...5&category=3608 Check the ridiculous price he is asking for. *sarcasm* Heck, maybe I should get my old NES Metroid copy, scribble the name "Gumpei Yokoi" on the game's label and sell it too! *sarcasm* lol

You are gonna have to hunt for it at your nearest flea market. You can buy them at Best Electronics. They have a website but I think you can order by phone.

Even with the mentioned problems, I would buy one. It makes for excellent conversation. Too bad it's not available.

I haven't seen the show but by reading your post I get the feeling the show stereotype gamers as being obessive and compulsive. That reminds me of another cliche: In Hollywood movies, if the character plays the piano or is very smart then he is probably the bad guy or has a serious mental illness.

In my case I used vaseline with my paddels and they don't jitter anymore.

I am not surprised that this thread has barely touched upon the subject you wished to discuss. Chrome, don't take it personally. It's not only good etiquette to write properly but it also tells a lot about who you are. It doesn't matter if you are writing for school or just for fun.

Even paying $4 for this at Radio Shack is expensive. Go to R.S. for convenience, but try checking out an electronics store. Maybe you will get lucky and get the RCA-to-Coax adapter for about $1.

Starpath Frogger! IMO it's the most faithful port I have seen for the 2600 in graphics, sound and gameplay. When I first played it I was actually amazed by the amount of content that was kept in this version.

I am sure you will find someone who will pay top dollar to have this. Have you thought scanning a picture of the album's cover and donating it to AtariAge? That would be awesome. I don't wan't this thread to become a debate on digital copyrights, but I have to ask: Before you sell it, could you make MP3 copies of the songs? It doesn't have to be the whole album. One or two songs would be nice, just to see what it's about. It doesn't have to be the full song either (but please, don't let me discourage you). I believe there are many people in this forum who would love to at least hear a snippet of the "Fly, Yar Warriors!"

You can go DeathSkull Laboratories Website (strange name): http://users.erols.com/tiltonj/games/tech/ The site has pinout descriptions of all major pads (with pics).

Yes, thanks for bringing it up. Funny how many games had the infamous "seal of quality" yet they sucked big time (e.g. Deadly Towers, X-Men). Nintendo sued a lot of companies who tried to publish un-licensed games. So the crash was caused by an overflooded market of bad software and the complacency of some people in the business. What other reasons you think contributed to the crash?

Yes, at first Nintendo was looking for someone in the US to help them sell the NES. Eventually they decided to do it themselves and installed an american division of the company in New York (back then of course). All of this happened while the crash was taking place. Big N's change of mind wouldn't surprise me.

Impressive collection man. How are you planning to store it? BTW, has anyone used the tips from AtariAge on storing?

So basically companies sprung to the video game boom to make a quick buck and the market was flooded with crappy games. When stores couldn't sell them many people got financially stung. Another quote, this time from David Sheff's "Game Over": "...but there was a consensus that the 'suck factor' was one of the biggest reasons for the industry's crash. The market has been glutted with terrible games. Pac-Man was a blast in arcades, but the home version 'sucked'. 'ET', ridiculously hyped, 'sucked'." Nintendo was so aware of this that they went through enormous efforts to disassociate the NES from Atari. That's why the US NES was designed with as a grey box and had carts inserted inside the unit. It was also one of the reasons why the NES was sold with the R.O.B. robot toy.

Here are some quotes from Steven Kent's book, "The First Quarter": "On December 7, 1982, Atari announced it expected a 10 to 15% increase in sales in the fourth quarter. Until that announcement, Atari executives had been talking about an increase of 50%." "Atari had deeply rooted problems that eventually infected the entire industry...Atari became top-heavy with marketers and other executives...some executives began to think that they could sell anything as long as it came packaged as a video game. " "The first indication of trouble came in May, 1982, but no one seemed to notice. Atari manufactured 12 million copies of Pac-Man even though the company's research showed that less than 10 million people actually owned and used their 2600s..." [The book goes to explain that Steve Ross, head of Warner communications, made a deal with Steven Spielberg offering him $25 million for E.T., wether the cart did well or not. The cart was rushed out for christmas release and when it did it flopped miserably.] "...the majority of E.T. cartridges remained dead in inventory." "Consumers had already begun losing interest in video arcades, and in 1983, they stopped purchasing video games." "Atari was stuck with enourmous inventories of worthless game cartridges...By the end of 1983, Atari racked up $536 million in losses."