HoshiChiri

That's an awful lot of work when you could just get the Besta line instead. https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/living_room/11794/ I have a Besta bookcase- it has many pros for this kind of thing: -comes with backing -available in 7 7/8" and 15 3/4" deep frames, depending on if you're storing media or consoles -frames are lined with pegholes spaced 1" apart for the whole of the piece, and no fixed shelves to work around -shelves sold separately if you need to add more - doors & drawers available, as well as felt baskets designed to fit the units (for cables/controllers) The main issue I see for you is the shelf width is 22", so you'd have to add a vertical piece if you don't want two systems sharing a shelf. Maybe give it a look-over, it could save you a lot of modding time. As far as the actual AV end goes, I can't offer much help as I went with convenience over pristine video in my current setup & didn't do any upscaling (I have a CRT in storage I hope to bring out at some point when I can devote more space to my setup.) But I have learned this- every TV reacts differently to the various upscalers & switchers out there, so just take your time. If you try to make it perfect in one go, you'll just frustrate yourself to no end trying to do all your troubleshooting. Also, don't cheap out on your surge protectors & only plug one into each wall outlet, lest your overload the circuit & start a fire.

I've never really had a huge 'this stuff is now old & outdated, what's up' kind of moment. Then again, I've always been sort of unstuck in time... I graduated high school in 2001, but spent most of my freshman year in tie-dye and homemade bell bottom pants. I only started wearing jeans becuase it was required for my horse riding lessons. (Ironically, flares got big right after I quit wearing the bell bottoms). I used to make my friends mad on car rides becuase when they wanted control of the radio, their parents would let me pick instead becuase I was into classic rock. It's not like I didn't watch/listen to/play current things, I just never considered it important. The end result is a weird mish-mash of eras in my favorites that means if I'm picking the movie on movie night, you have equal chances for it to be The Avengers, Short Circuit, or How to Stuff a Wild Bikini. I think there's just a certain amount of what you're after in any given moment affecting which decade's output you're largely in. I did have a stint awhile ago where I just didn't play anything 8-bit. It made sense in the moment though- when I was looking to play a game, I either wanted something quick & easy, like an Atari era shooter, or a meatier side-scrolling type game. 8-bit was too slow for the easy option, but too primitive for the meaty one. Lately though? I'm not really looking for quick, I want a nice sit down & play set of games. When I'm looking to play at a (usually) slower pace, the 8-bit games work, so they've been coming out again. Alternatively, I've also been feeling my PS2 a lot more lately too, and it's been ages since I spent any serious time with that. I think it's less of a 'I don't love this anymore', but instead a 'I don't love this right now'. This time next year you might be craving the simple, one-directional gameplay of your old favorites & the familiar old tropes of classic movies. Just roll with it, there's a smorgasbord of pop culture old & new in the world, it only makes sense you'd want to switch things up from time to time.

Do neighbors borrow lawnmowers? Yes. Have you ever seen a cool lawnmower? No. The logic fits!

That's the one that prints stickers, right?

Count me in! Was trying to think of a cute country-ism for this post, but 'well butter my butt & call me a biscuit' didn't fit right. Oh well.

Don't try to sway me with your Logic and Facts! I need someone to vent my frustration at and you're convenient! You will rue the day you got a better deal than me I wasn't even aware existed until this morning! *poofs out ninja style* (Obviously, I kid, I'm just a bit jealous.)

$320 for Magic Knight Rayearth for Saturn, with second place taken by a $275 copy of Popful Mail on Sega CD. Yes, I am the horrible monster who pays inflated Ebay prices thus justifying their continued existence! *mwahaha* In all seriousness- this isn't an everyday kind of thing for me. While I may break into triple digits once or twice a year if I happen to be particularly flush with extra cash, the above two are the only instances of going over $200 for a game, ever. I have a more unique relationship with my Saturn in that I had intended to buy one with holiday money when I was 12 but soured on the idea after the Christmas Nights demo I was supposed to get with my Game Players subscription got stolen in the mail. In a way, I view these overpriced Saturn games as buying back a piece of my childhood that was stolen, which softens the cost blow a bit. Plus Rayearth was purchased with money from selling old anime boxsets, so it felt more like a trade-up than anything else. As for Popful Mail, when I got my Sega CD it came with Lunar: Sliver Star & Vay, and I ended up falling madly in love with Working Designs games (which explains Rayearth a bit too). I managed to get Eternal Blue for just over $100 a few years ago, but Popful Mail kept rising in price just out of my comfort zone. I had been hoping to get a copy at this year's Seattle Retro Game show (since I'd managed to save a hefty chunk of change for it), but I didn't find a copy. Shortly thereafter Ebay did a 15% off coupon, and I decided to buy one now before it pulled a Keio Flying Squadron & moved completely out of my price range. (If I hadn't had the coupon, it would have beat Rayearth by 5 bucks.) So, it was YOU! *shakes fist* We bought our copies about the same time, and I kept missing the sub-$300 auctions by mere minutes becuase I was asleep or at work. I'm pretty sure your auction was one of the ones that got away. I will have my revenge! *swoops off dramatically*

You don't get to see the ships unless you hit them, if I recall correctly- after you fire, you need to listen to the number of pings you get coming back- less pings tells you how close to are to a ship. It's been awhile since I played it, there's a specific ratio of number of pings to number of squares away, but I forget what it is.

Well this is just unnecessarily hostile- no one's accused anyone of playing the PC Master Race card- although you are going out of your way to call anyone who thinks computers are complicated 'lazy buttercups'. It's something I ascribe to 'expert blindess'... when we know how something works & have done it a long time, we can forget how daunting it is for a newcomer. I've worked retail for 15 years, and this is the time of year we bring in the seasonal hires- often teens working their first job, who absolutely panic over the idea of answering the phone, being at the register alone, getting clothes put away... not becuase these things are hard specifically, but they have no frame of reference for doing them & they don't want to lose their job over a mistake. Despite my best efforts, there's always one seemingly obvious thing I catch someone missing- like entering exact amounts for cash & then using a calculator or pen & paper to make change. Then I get to come explain 'oh- you just put in the amount you were given, and the register tells you the change due'. Quite simply, I'm afraid to much with my laptop outside of basic file management & using a web browser. I can't afford to replace it if I somehow damage it. I don't need help buying a machine, I need help understanding it & using it. Yes, I could spend my limited time away from work trying to find resources & studying- or, I can just play games on my consoles, which don't require me to understand their insides. It's all basically file management for saves & hitting the 'launch game' icon. I know consoles aren't going to get easier to use, and someday they will require knowing the internals to get certain games working. And that's when I'll get online, find those resources, and start learning. If that makes me lazy, fine- I guess I'm lazy. But at least I'm having fun playing a game.

I don't feel singled out, I assure you- I'm just trying to articulate just how little sense this truly makes to those outside the PC world. You're all assuming anyone who's new can just go read some specs & figure things out. But- we don't know what the specs mean! This goes beyond just learning what is & isn't available in modern machines, it's learning a whole new language to decipher what you're even looking at to begin with! So, as an example, I clicked on this link- let me go over what I see here: A Ryzen is a processor? I thought it was a brand- like, "my new computer is a Ryzen". I've learned that at least. Ok, from title to description I guessed right- an 'AMD Raedon' is a graphics card. I don't know if that's better or worse than a 'Nvidia Geforce' (I still don't know if that's my computer's graphics card or not). What the HELL is 4 GB GDDR5? My only interpretation of that is some sort of Grand Dance Dance Revolution expansion, and that's clearly wrong. So, RAM is Random Access Memory. I don't know why this RAM is SD (like the memory card, or the short Gundams?) I have no idea what any of the preceding letters & numbers mean (more Dance Dance Revolution?), or if 8GB of it is good or bad... more is good, right? Ooo! 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA... I know what his means, it's a high speed 1 terabyte hard drive formatted to SATA standard. I don't know what SATA standard is, just that some things need that specifically over other standards like FAT32, which is what I need for my 360 to read USB sticks. (I had to do a manual update the other day.) Is a Base-T Network in metric? That's the only reason I know for that string of divisible by 10 numbers there. Is a DisplayPort where you plug in the monitor? USB has too many standards, I would just be moving things from plug to plug until they work. Nice to see they're all accounted for though. And the picture tells me it has a disc drive, that's a big plus in my book. _________________________________ It's worth pointing out at this point that I'm the most tech-savvy person in my immediate family (maybe second, I haven't seen my brother's computer in awhile). I had to teach my mom how to double-click, and my dad that if a window pops up and says he has a virus, don't click on the 'clean your computer' button (multiple times, acutally.) On the other side, over in my fiancé's sister had to tell their dad there is no 'any' key a couple weeks after he deleted Windows from the computer to save space (I think it took 2 or 3 days to get that fixed.) I can't imagine any of these people being able to pick out their own everyday PC, let alone a gaming one. Sure, I can let someone else pick the computer for me. In fact, I kinda did- my fiancé bought this one after learning my only criteria were 'not black' and 'has a disc drive'. It doesn't mean I know how to make things run on it, though- I'm assuming that 'Can my PC run it' site will just check specs, not help with configuration. (Didn't know that site existed, by the way- that's probably really handy!) There's a fear factor involved too- even $500 is a sizeable investment on my income (several months of saving, certainly)- and I'm fairly certain my current laptop cost twice that. The LAST thing I want to do is call my fiancé and tell him I downloaded a game, something went wrong, and now the laptop doesn't work. And considering I struggle just to find where to click to extract a zip file, I'm not risking it for a game I can buy on a console that will guide my dumb butt through the patching process, then launch it for me. I'm sure someday soon console will cross the line & I'll have to learn PC... that's just going to involve a lot of YouTube videos and research to make sure I know what I'm doing. Then I'll find out why computers care so much about dancing games.

Of course people are surprised when their new computer doesn't play new games- they don't know what the specs are, or what they mean. I follow people talking about this stuff all the time, and I don't know what my machine can run! I know it has 'Nividia Geforce', becuase there's a sticker that says that on here. I have no damn idea what that is- I think it has something to do with graphics, but I'm not sure. I definitely don't know how it relates to other things in terms of what it's better or worse than. If you're not already familiar with computer parts & terms, there's a HUGE learning curve for even being able to try and find out what you'll need. For many, consoles are simply easier- you still have to go through all the patches, downloads, installs, and upgrades, but at least you know what games it'll play. I did forget about the New Nintendo 3DS nubbin' preventing certain games from running on older handhelds without a circle pad pro- but quite frankly? There is a reason Nintendo was sliding downhill up until the Switch yanked them back up. (I don't think the Gameboys ever confused anyone, though.)

No, I get what he means. All of what you said is true & annoying, but there are two truths to keep in mind. 1- the game's still gimped on PC. They pull content out for DLC on all fronts. Unpatched bugs tend to exist across all fronts too. 2- and this is the big one- despite the annoying downloads, if I buy a PS4 game, and I put it in a PS4, it's going to work. I don't have to worry that my vid card has the wrong driver, or my sound board is below spec, or my CPU needs an upgrade. I don't have to wonder if that glitch is the game being broken or my computer having a single part out of sync with the game's expectations. I know that if I have a PS4, any PS4, I can play any PS4 disc. And that's really the one thing holding me to console right now, that assuredness of what will run. The day I see 'oh, this game runs on Xbox One X, but not Xbox One... and it can work on Xbox One S, but only if I buy the SX expansion device" or something along those lines is the day I move to PC. Becuase if I have to jump through hoops to be sure my machine can actually run the game, I might as well get the advantages of user-created early bug fixes, patches, & mods, plus overall more powerful machines.

I feel like games, unlike some classic cars, aren't nessecarily 'fun' to look at if they aren't working. It's not like a Master System game or Turbografx sitting alone on a mantel is gonna be a great visual piece. Games are fun becuase of the games, not the plastic housing things. Right now there's enough authentic functional gear out there that replacement parts can definitely be a turn-off... but as this stuff continues to age & break, I think it will become less and less important. While there's definitely shelf collectors out there, most game collectors do play their games- as long as it doesn't look wrong, a good functionality mod can actually increase value. Think a Mcwill screen in a Game Gear. Oh, I like this word! Why don't gamers use this word?

I feel like there is an accessibility issue with pre-NES systems. Most (not all) of the post-NES systems use video hookups still fairly common in typical modern TVs and electronic sections. The games aren't overly cryptic, so you can put it in blind & figure out what you're supposed to be doing. This really isn't the case for pre-NES. Sure, it's easy enough to get a coaxial adapter for an f-plug connection online, but it's not available in stores. As for the games- the limited nature of the era means a manual is necessary for many titles... and a kid buying this systems today isn't likely to have access to the manuals or the hookup workarounds. This is assuming said kid can even find the systems at all- I live in a paradise of local retro shops, but only a handful actively deal in pre-NES... and those rarely have things other than 2600s around. So, both the 30-somethings buying games for video content & the kids watching said videos will have to hunt down a working machine, and the parts to hook it up, and some games, and the directions to said games to even begin to play. Is it so surprising to think they'd push a hard pass agenda to justify not putting in the work? If devices that played this systems were as common as the multitude of clones out there now, I think Atari might have a better repuation. Actually, you know what could really help Pre-nes? Mobile releases. Short bursts of arcade style gaming, with minimal inputs to run? Sounds like a good way to kill time at a bus stop. Turning the old games into something that slots better into modern life could let more people try & appreciate them.

It's not about useage, it's about relevance. For example: 2 generations ago, I used to have kids come into work with DS in hand. I'd ask what they're playing, comment on the game, and eventually get the question: "What system do you have?" I would tell them I have over 30. "Wow! Do you have a Wii?" Well, at the time I didn't. And they'd immediately lose interest- what good is 30+ game consoles if you don't even have The Good One? It was around that time the Nintendogs pink & teal DS bundles released for Christmas. You remember how hard those were to get? My fiancé managed to get me the last pink one in our county. Friends online were jealous, no one else got a pink one. People commented in stores, asked if I might sell it. Then 3 months later the DS Lite came out. By next Christmas it was available in pink. And no one gave a crap about my system anymore. Today, there is no notable price difference for my 'limited' color. Six years ago, people were still playing & caring about the 360. So having an expensive limited version was brag-worthy. But now the 360 is 'old' (NOT retro), so it's not impressive to most. Losing that prestige will affect your buying pool, plain and simple. Now unlike my above examples, your system is good and truly limited, and you're probably the only one selling one. Anybody who wants it has to meet your pricing. I'm just offering a simple warning that you may be hurting your chances by setting the bar well above your buying pool's resources. Honestly? If you want a better return, you might be better off storing it for 20-25 years and seeing if the retro market heats up for 360 as it continues to age.

Ok... don't have too much hope for getting close to that 10k. That's top dollar, full-scale holy grail level pricing. Red Sea Crossing, Nintendo World Championship gold cart pricing. Consoles don't really pull that kind of money, especially ones not well-known amongst the public. You have to remember, when this was pulling 3k the next-gen weren't even out yet, so it was still a relevant console. At this point it's purely for collectors- and 360 collecting isn't really a thing right now. Not saying change your price- it's a rare enough item that whoever's got one gets to set the market- just temper your expectations.

This is largely my mindset, except I have kept up with modern consoles. Despite the annoyances of patch downloads, system updates, managing an all-too-small hard drive, it is still true that if I put a ps4 disc in a ps4 system (or Xbox One or what-not), it will play. When that changes- I'm out, becuase it will basically be a PC at that point.

Ok, Mr. Bomb- while we're a bit looser over here than VGCollect for joining a forum solely to sell an item, some tips to actually get interest going: 1- PHOTOS. Anyone can say they have a rare item- why, I just happen to have a copy of Keio Flying Squadron for sale! Send me offers! Actually, don't- I'm lying. And photos are the best way to prove you aren't too. 2- Provenance. Just how did you come across such a rare system? Are you the original owner? Did you buy it from someone else? People like history with things like this, especially if it's verifiable- for example, if you're the original owner, what's your Xbox live username? 3- Accountability. So, just who are you, anyway? Why should we believe you'd ship such an item carefully enough? Anything that can prove you're trustworthy for online deals is great- an Ebay account in good standing, for example. Basically, if you really want to get people salivating over your rare goodie, give them assurance that it's a real, legitimate offer. Publicly- a lot of deep pocketed people don't have the time to even DM you if you don't present something to suggest it's worth their time. Copy-pasting your opening post from your locked thread on another forum isn't the best way to go.

17. Monument Valley (Android) I've been meaning to pick this up for awhile now- I didn't realize how short it is! I mean, what's there is fantastic, but if I'd bought it with money instead of Amazon no-rush shipping credit, I think I might've been fairly disappointed. Now I need to order something else so I can have enough credit for the forgotten shores DLC.

All the more reason (to me) to believe this whole thing was a big ol' scam.

If you have enough extra money to tie up over a grand in Ebay shenanigans for the slight possibility of a rare game, good on you I guess. What I see here, is a seller who: -knows to look online for rarity, but doesn't say where they looked ('rare games wiki'?) -selling for 'a cousin' (you're not asking them anything else about it?) -found prices indicating a worth of around 10k, but starts bidding at 1k, no reserve, and no further research (so you're giving up thousands?) -claims a store owner couldn't find a working Atari to test the game (why check now? Why didn't the owner offer them a buyout or a consignment?) -now claims a store owner did verify it (but still no buyout/consignment?), offers no pictures of the game running (weren't you there?), just a handwritten note (WHY?!) -Also claims store owner took pictures (so there was a camera to record it working), but store website offers no mention of game & the owner's personal facebook hasn't updated in almost 2 years This doesn't come off as random clueless, this comes off as the kind of calculated clueless designed to sound credible but offer no real validation. They know how to find the value, they know how to get the game tested, but they don't bother to find out how to set a reserve or get footage of the game running, and TWO different store owners don't offer them any advice on that front? I will give you that the cart looks good- but no damage after 35 years, a crease similar to the Atarimania one but in the wrong spot, it's grey where the other two are black, plus it's cut crooked... I'm just not convinced. I imagine that store is getting hit with a ton of calls, hopefully they'll respond before the auction ends.

I'd want to say "oh, they got it at an estate sale, they don't know it's not a set"- but then you check their store and they have a sealed intellvision redbox (Vegas poker & Blackjack) listed separately AS intellivision… so they have to know! EDIT- hold up, that sealed game is in the lot's photo! So they're double-dipping, or do they have two? It look like the same copy...