HoshiChiri

So what's it like working on the helicarrier? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Fy6AUMv8E

But I don't want realism, I want Zelda! *pouts* I'm not really upset, actually- like I said, I will reserve any serious judgment until closer to release date, there's still lots of time for things to change. Or just for them to sell me on a new direction. I guess, if anything, I'm just annoyed at the AAA-type games homogenizing into 2-3 archetypes. It makes it boring to check out new games, and frustrating if you're not a fan of one the Chosen Game Styles. I already feel like I'm losing out on half of modern gaming because I don't like FPS/multiplayer and I'm impartial to Uncharted-style action games. Nintendo may copy themselves ad nausem, but at least it was different than everyone else! I'm gonna be very disappointed if a 'fresh new Zelda' ends up meaning 'Monster Hunter Clone'.

Honestly, I find that aspect of it a turn-off. I don't want generic action RPG #2,317, I want a bloody Zelda game! I'm not overly concerned right now though- I mean, it won't even be out till next year. I try not to get too hyped for most games... at least not right away.

Generation roll. The kids who grew up on NES got their nostalgia fix. The keepers kept, the rest sold off. Now the 16-bit generation is coming of age to want their childhood games back- and Genesis was the dominant system then, so more people want it now. I'm just curious to see if enough of it's going back to market to affect prices, or if the retrons and what-nots will keep more games in collections. A kid who's willing to play ET ironically is willing to keep a 5200 as a beer holder for the same reason. Good or bad, as long as it's a known thing they'll be an assumption of value. Which means the Odyssey 2 (or a Fairchild Channel F) are most likely to get tossed. I don't think, at this point, we'll see any real value change for pre-crash. The nostalgia bubble is long burst, the people moving into/out of it aren't enough to affect things. If anything, we'll reach a point where there is no value consensus because so few items are changing hands (you can already see that to a point with Channel F games.) We might see a spike if they become 'historic'and/or 'decorative'. Kind of like how some people buy turn of the century radios and old cameras for décor purposes.

I feel this way too- console gamers tend to be a bit more conservative about new distribution methods. Plus, people are seeing the issues with digital only start to creep though here and there (especially on the Nintendo end, with system-tied content and all.) There's enough holdouts for physical media to still be profitable for a bit longer. I think we'll have to watch the PS3/360 generation fully slide into retro first- give people a chance to see how their digital content will work long term.

Not really- it's all just stuff. There's nothing wrong with entertaining the idea of wanting one chunk of stuff over another because you're not really using one & you'll think you'll use the other. Heck, I sold a copy of the Mask for SNES on Ebay a recently for $20. I didn't even know I owned that- I was checking my collection for licensed stuff I knew I'd never play. I would forget I ever owned it, except I put the proceeds ($17 profit+ $35 in Ebay coupons) towards a copy of Jumping Flash on PS1. Now it's the 'Oddly expensive crap movie game that got me this awesome one'. The important thing is to be sure you won't regret it. if you're not sure, don't.

Getting a PS4 really isn't part of the equation, you'll have lots of time to do that. The value isn't important, the money will be gone quickly enough. It's a simple question: can you stand to not own this system anymore? If you genuinely don't use it, and have no attachment to it to the point that you forget it's there, then sure- sell it. You'll forget about it soon enough while you play your sweet new PS4. If it does have value, even just as a completion piece, don't sell it- at least not yet. Don't risk being bothered enough by the hole in your collection to spend extra money replacing it. If you actually needed the money for something important- a medical thing, an emergency house repair, etc- it'd be different. You could say to yourself, "It sucks that it's gone, but it's nice to know my sibling has a running car for work & taking care of their kids again" or "at least my dog is alive" or whatnot. You're not gonna think about it and say to yourself, "but I got this PS4 instead!" Especially knowing they will go down in price- every sale & price drop will remind you of what you sold to get it right now. Think it over- while you think it over, start dropping change & extra money into a jar or something. You might just be able to buy it outright sooner than you think.

This- keep the information clean as long as we can, it'll corrupt after we all die anyway. It should be mind-blowing enough to know there was a time when Nintendo made games for someone else's console. It's something that hasn't really happened for about 30 years.

So apparently this Steve guy is just running around posting his phone number in every thread that mentions the item he has for sale, regardless of age. Dude, we have a market forum for that! Plus no one's gonna buy from a random newbie who just lists an item and a phone number. Market thread, pics, email+phone, proof of not-scammery- that's how you'll get some attention. Anyhow, since I'm here: based purely on sentimental value, in no particular order: Lunar Collection, but especially the PS1 games: I remember seeing an ad in a gaming magazine announcing that Lunar was going out-of-print at the end of the year, so buy it now. I'd never heard of it, but it looked amazing & I wanted it. I begged my mom to get it as a Christmas present, which she delivered- along with Eternal Blue for my birthday two weeks later. She then told me her story, of hours spent driving to EVERY BLOODY GAMESTORE in a 30 mile radius looking for this "damn game". Clerks actually laughed at her when she asked for it. Finally a guy at Gamestop actually checked the computer for her & found 1 store with 1 copy of each still available. I assume today it was somebody's unclaimed preorder, because they gave her the Ghaleon punching puppet when she picked them up. I was super excited about that. Today I have a complete copy of every US-released Lunar (but not every variant. I don't have THAT kind of money!) My PS2: Nothing too special here, just the oldest system I own that wasn't bought secondhand. I'd been planning the purchase for a year, after seeing the money my sister got for graduation. I had to have the laser replaced at one point, but it's been going great since! My CD-based games: After years of effort, my disc games are now all complete copies. Ok, well, not fully complete- I'm missing some swag & inserts here and there- but case & manual for every single one. That's about 10 systems worth, and includes my Sega CD. (I am NOT looking forward to how much it's gonna cost me to have a Saturn library.) Lightening Force: Once again, nothing too special, just my favorite Genesis games & one of the few I have left from our original Genesis library, making it amongst my longest-owned games (we sold the NES stuff, so none of that is 'original'.) The Guardian Legend: Man, I wish this was original, because it'd make a better story! We had this back when we first has the NES as kids, but couldn't beat stage 1. Then someone broke into our house and stole it- just that game, nothing else. Mom filed a report and assumed that'd be the end of it (how can the police track 1 game cart.) Six months later, we had it back- turned out one of my sister's classmates had stolen it. He gave it to a friend, heard my sister talking about it months later, was afraid he'd get caught, took it back & gave it to a different friend. That friend's mom knew something was up, called his parents, and he had to admit the truth. Only after the games was returned did we beat that first stage and learn just how different the game became. I fell in love with it. I will never be without a copy of that game for the rest of my life. (Ironincally, I'm terrible at it & I've never beaten it.)

I don't think it will, because it doesn't really have to- for the most part, NES and SNES are a blended generation. There's a graphics improvement, but the style of games didn't really change. We might see more coverage of SNES titles, but it'll still be a general focus on 'nintendo'. I'm gonna be interested to see when the Playstation generation takes over. I do agree with bretthorror's statement that 'precrash systems are a pain in the ass'- at least as far as getting younger gamers on board. The NES & up will still plug into most modern TVs using stock equipment. Precrash needs an adapter (possibly two), that isn't generally marked as being for that purpose. Then you still have to hope the unit will get along with your TV. My inty worked fine on my CRT, but it's unplayable on my LED. Your average gamer isn't going to jump through that many hoops for blocks & beeps. If the machines aren't modernized on a large scale, people will forget how they work & not bother. Since we're many years out from the bubble where a pre-crash retron would be really profitable, I don't think it's gonna happen (short of someone with a lot of money taking on a passion project.)

You should look into some nice storage boxes- fancy shoeboxes are usually great sizes (or sometimes you can get regular ones and repaper them). That way you can put the games & cords under the systems for improved access (just pull down system & box at the same time). I'm not trying to rag on you, I've spent a great deal of time mushing my collection into a small area & keep it accessible. It's become almost instinctive.

I know it's a bit new for most of the people here, but I'm curious if any other Atariagers were lucky enough to get tickets for PAX West. I always get excited once I know for sure I can go... although this year my phone fell victim to a glitch on the hotel site, so I'm still looking for a room I hope I can catch the retro-room salesmen do his pitch again. I love that guy!

But I LOVE cleaning up someone else's dirty ratbag console! It's one of the best parts of collecting! It's like taking a thing that was dying forgotten in a corner or a bin, and making it matter again. I guess this old cartoon sums it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTF6v3ejaJQ

Well of course- I was speaking in general terms. Most of the time, if a reseller says "tested, working, great condition", that is what you get. Just like most of the time, "I'll take it, here's my credit card" means they earned money- but sometimes the card is stolen & they have to eat the loss. The point is, collectors and resellers simultaneously hurt and need each other. It's just how the while thing works.

I figured out my mistake... turns out when I was moving the controller plugs around,I bumped the memory card loose. I feel silly now. But I'm enjoying my game!

How many silent movies have you seen? How many have your kids (if you have them) seen? It's simply the nature of things- our pop culture will wither and die with the generation that created it. Very few properties manage to become timeless. By the time these early games become old enough to seem truly historic/scholarly/worthy of preservation & study, very little will have survived & those future game enthusiasts will bemoan our lack of attention to perseveration. But, you know what? I bet the surviving examples of the earliest of gaming will be due to people like us, trying desperately to keep it out of landfills, opening up units and learning how they work & how to fix them, updating their hardware to make them compatible with devices that didn't exist when they were first made. The best we can do is relay what we love about these old machines to the gamers younger than us. Most of them won't listen. Some will. I did- and as long as I can get another person or two to care, they'll be someone to carry this stuff into its place in history.

Bump again, I now have my Surround Gatefold version! On to the next hunt!

There's no telling what people will pay for something, depending on circumstances. Notch spent $10,000 on a packet of silica gel once, y'know. I do think that's about your cap, though. Just based on what I've seen for other systems, I think we're pretty much at the peak of SNES nostalgia. I imagine it'll drop down in a couple years.

You can't put down the entire reseller market for that. For starters, the only reason there's a repro for them to fake is because the game was popular & rare enough to warrant a repro in the first place. No one's making copies of Sonic the Hedgehog to meet demand. Nasty folks turn up anywhere there seems to be an easy dollar to be had. We have a kind of weird symbiosis with the resellers. We need them because they did through all the dusty, gross places we can't or won't to find games. They put up the money for the untested, unsorted piles of random junk. They do the cleaning and the testing- we just get to come along at our leisure and cherry-pick what we want, without the risk. At the same time, we hate the resellers because sometimes we want to dig through the dirty junk and clean and test and take the risks ourselves... and we can't if they've gone through first. Resellers like us because they can make money from us. We pay the markups, we provide tips for what we want to buy so they know what to find, we promote their business for them if they do a good job. They also hate us, because we can be demanding and picky, condemn even the tiniest mistakes, or worse- scam them out of their product. Basically, we're one big pride of cannibalistic lions. You never know if the other's guy going to hunt with you, or just hunt you. They might just do both.

How small are we talking, here? I mean, I've got 11 decks set up in an entertainment center that's about 4 feet wide, with room for 3 more, and have everything good to go. You'd be surprised how much you can squeeze in if you plan it right!

So I've finally picked up a Pop n' music game and controller for my Dreamcast. I've always wanted to try and get good at that game, and my Dreamcast is the only console I've currently got I can run imports on (yay, boot disc!) Here is my dilemma: I can't figure out how to save my game! The Pop n' Controller has no vmu slot. So, I must need a standard controller. I plug one in- the system instantly recognizes it as the main controller & no longer even knows the pop n' controller is there. What the heck am I doing wrong?

This weekend is the community yard sale for my town. Can't go out today/tomorrow (Work. Bleh.) I did got out yesterday though- there were a surprising number of games around. I mean, it was almost entirely sports titles, but considering how rare it is for me to find any games it was nice! I did get a couple things: Wario World was $1 & is missing the manual, Devil Summoner 2 was $2 and is complete- although I've never seen a PS2 case without a memory card holder before. I know it's a proper case because it has the PS logo on the inside. It's just odd. I still need to clean them up a bit. I was more focused on cleaning up this one! It's a 3000 model, and everything in the picture was 5 bucks. It's honestly in really good shape for as dirty was it was- the screen's only got some minor superficial scratching, everything plays well. The back's a little scuffy around the edges, but you can hardly complain for the price. I'm actually really excited about this one, my sister in law has been looking for a PSP for several months now, I'm looking forward to surprising her with this! I have another friend who's donating a spare charger she's got to the set. I actually have no idea what the cable it came with is for. I'm pretty sure it got stuck in the bag by mistake.