Slashdot Mirror
The Ultimate Video Game Library up for Auction
Nerds writes "There's an auction on eBay for a console game library that goes back to about 1986. The seller has included all of the boxes and manuals for over 13 systems and a few hundred games. Everything from the NES to the Virtual Boy to the Dreamcast is represented, along with several systems I'd never heard of. Current bid: $15,000. " Its got tons of normal stuff (NES, SNES, SMS, Genesis etc) and a phenomonal number of games. Even a 3DO (when I was a kid, god I wanted one of those things... course now it doesn't even hold up). I hope you get a little jolt of warm memories when you read it too.
Everyone knows you start with small sales. A piece of software here. A movie there. Build up a feedback profile by buying small goods.
Then you can be trusted to sell more expensive goods.
$15,000+ to someone who's never sold anything to eBay, and may pocket the money and run? Fat chance.
And please, a 10 feedback is absolutely nothing. I wouldn't trust you with a $15,000 auction, not by a long shot. Get somewhere in the 1000-5000+ feedback range and we'll talk.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Princess Tomato 0wn3d. Another AWESOME game - StarTropics. Too bad it doesn't emulate right :(
>I wonder, is the 'geek' community especcially
>prone to overbearing sentimentality?
Have you SEEN what people are willing to pay for beenie babies (and other assorted crap) on EBay?
IIRC, SEGA rereleased the Master System with Alex Kidd on a chip that was in the system. Hows that for reducing costs. By the way, was Alex Kidd one of the strangest video games you have ever played? It sure as hell was weird.
Numbers 31:17,18 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,but save for yourselves every virg
Note that he says "mint complete", not "mint condition", implying that it is in a completeness comparable with a mint release of such items, instead of implying that the items are in a condition comparable to a mint release... This could be argued in case of fraud charges...
.50 cent charge for adding pictures too rich for you blood?
Also, a picture would be nice tough guy, or is the
~Patrick
"Lazyness is the first step towards efficiency." -Patrick Bennett
Dude is right. I used to love Paperboy. Man...I actually brought my brother's Nintendo and the good games to the place where I lived this summer...little room, old TV, cranky system and a lot of cleaning fluid...my friends and I played Paperboy, the Mario games, all the cool stuff...Granted, we spent more time at my friend's apartment (since he has a Dreamcast ^_^) but it was a fun summer...
I'd be more impressed if this guy had Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (which I didn't see)...anyone else remember my game? My boyfriend hunted it up on Ebay for me this summer and I had a great time forcing him to play it...
I wonder how necessary it is to buy this collection. With emulators out there, I can download just about all the titles he just listed.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for playstation is IMHO, the best playstation game out there :) (and it is most definatly 'out')
so what if he is new to ebay and doesnt have 'better' neo geo games, i think he has more than enough
side note: if anyone has $16+K to spend on this (its well worth it), then they have enough money to jump on a plane and check it out in person before handing over the money :) (but i dont know how ebay does the money exchange... ive never used it, but i would hope the buyer could see it if they wanted to)
-posting anonymously since i already moderated :(
Nope, the intellivision is a completely different console than the colecovision.
Originally released by Mattel in 1980 I think.
Check it out here
Now there's a real classic system for you, when most people don't even remember it. But man, it rocked. Well, http://www.intellivisionlives.com/ someone remembers it, anyway. Check out the cable network interface it had http://www.makingit.com/bluesky/hardware/playcable _tech.html. Playstations don't even have stuff like that now.
Not even Elite. You can't call something an "Ultimate Video Game Library" unless it has Elite. This guy is very console-oriented, but the NES version is said to be one of the best.
Jeez, give the guy a break. Typos can slip in easily with a collection that big. And if you're gonna spend 20k on a collection, I'm sure you can afford to go check it out in person first.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
...on treatments for his repetitive stress injury he must have gotten from typing all those titles out :)
If you like looking at pictures of old consoles (and I definitely do), check out the linked page.
Click.
I found a walk-through somewhere on the net a few years ago..
With $17,000 on the line, I don't think this guy is about to commit mail fraud. To be frank, he wouldn't get away with it.
-bugg
Net cost to download emulators and ROMs: 5 hours on a cable modem or your corporate LAN :)
I'll take my Gravis gamepad over most console controllers any day. Who's the idiot who designed those bastard NES *square* controllers, anyway!
A true nerd finds ways not to spend his hard earned beer money while still getting his nostalgia fix.
-el spood
---- Just another spud server.
Nobody ever said crooks were smart.
Hahaha What a great auction!!! Quick, sell your RedHat stock to pay for this auction!!!! What. Oh yeah, that stuff's less than IPO now, right??
Wow! Vectrex. Aeons before Erol's became an ISP, they sold TVs, VCRs, and eventually video games out of what's now their corporate office. This other guy and I would go up there and play their Vectrex demo model until they kicked us out. Nobody I know ever bought one.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I haven't checked out the auction, but my primary fear is whether this auction is legitimate.
Assuming it is, this is the kind of stuff that belongs in a real museam. I'd hope that whoever wins will set up some sort of public display. That way everyone can enjoy it.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Actually people cna have a selling history on Ebay and no thave a seller rating,it just depends on whether the lazy ass that bought or sold to him rated him or not. I sold Everquest and it was a great transaction :)
yet I sitll have a rating of zero cause he never rated me :(
I don't even see "A Boy & His Blob" in there. I am thoroughly unimpressed. And where's the photo? I need to see product before purchase, hot dammit! *seethes with jealousy*Sharkey
www.badassmofo.com
BAMF, it does a body good.
Pick axe pete RULED!
And I also had that game with the cloth map. It was useless, and more fun to just choose where you wanted to go.
Unfortunately, that game had some serious flaws that allowed you kill anything.
What was that game with the UFO that had a ring of dots around it. You had one joystick to control the direction you were shooting in, or you could control the ship. You had to flip modes like mad! I loved that game!
Sigh,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Because you missed the keywords, "a console game library that goes back to about 1986."
IIRC, the NES was released in 1985 and 1986 thru 1989 were the NES's prime years. In that time, the Atari (et al) were pretty much forgotten while everyone was busy hailing the Almighty Nintendo and Sega. It is indeed an impressive collection nontheless.
Ideal systems would include: Atari 2600, NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, Sega, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, DreamCast, and Playstation.
IMHO, I would probably modify that list to include the TG16 and remove the Dreamcast. It simply hasn't been around long enough to prove itself to be worth anything. For all we know, it could be the next Jaguar. The Saturn can stay, because it's a great example of that one system that almost everyone wanted at one point but is glad they didn't actually buy.
Also, I am of the adamant opinion that no video game collection is complete without at least a representative collection of Japanese consoles and games.
His insertion fee is only $2.00 and the reserve fee is only $1.00. However, if it sells for $20,000(just guessing), the fees look like this:
$1.25 for the first $25.00.
$24.38 for the next $25.01 to $100.00.
$237.5 for the last $19,000.
Total: $263.13
After the reserve is refunded(assuming it's reached) and the insertion fee is included, the fees would be $264.13. Not to bad for the sale. The total fee is barely over 1%.
Assuming it's real;-)
Exactly. Sega originally released the SMS in three different configurations, actually:
I admit, I used to be a Sega zealot when I was a kid. :)
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
what's the point of setting the initial price to $500 if the reserve is >$17K
In a scam auction, the goal is to set the reserve higher than anyone will bid. When someone wins the auction, the seller can tell the high bidder that they will sell it to them for the high bid even though the reserve price wasn't met. Because the high bidder did not meet the reserve price, eBay will do nothing to help them when they get scammed since they did not win the auction.
One could argue that the NES, SuperNES, Nintendo 64, Sega, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, and the Playstation are Japanese consoles. In most cases, the only difference is a plastic tab that changes the form factor of the cartridges. What game Japanese game consoles would you include?
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
You can avoid the neck pain problems if you lay flat on your back and set the unit such that the stand rests on your chest. I've had many hours of pain-free fun that way (bought a VB for $30 brand new after Nintendo abandoned it). Now if I could just do something about the horrible disorientation experienced upon standing up after playing Red Alarm for a couple hours...
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
I wonder how much trouble I can get into by auctioning a ROMz collection? I have everygame and emulator for NES, SNES, SEGA, SEGA GENESIS and N64, I figure I could sell them for 15k too!
Neuneu writes: Heroin got a lot of loosers hooked, should we display drugs in museums? I don't think so.
Why not? H. Sapiens seems to be a huge user of mind altering substances, yet when I go to a museum, the only drug I see is a rare reference to alcohol or tobacco. Unless ancient cultures were a lot more victorian in their drug use then ours, I'm guessing that the museum's picture is flawed.
Drugs, illegal and legal, are a huge part of life. Coffee, tea, and pop are consumed daily by millions of people, as is tobacco and alcohol. Millions of dollars has been spent on controlling the illegal drug trade and treating legal and illegal drug abuse. Some legal drugs are literal lifesavers, others just improve the quality of life, such as pain relievers. What drugs are used tells a lot about a society. Due to the resources and technology open to us, we are developing new drugs daily.
I don't know about you, but when I visit a museum, I would like to see an accurate representation of a period. That includes drugs, for drugs tell a lot about a society. Sure, drugs or video games might not be as highbrow as some other items, but it doesn't make them any less important. You shouldn't do revisionist history, and try to conceal what you don't like, for all you will end up doing is lying to yourself and others, making a mockery of the sciences involved.
I'll admit to not having read the parent post, I agree that you have to start somewhere, I think people should get a moderate feedback rating as a bidder first because that raises the amount of trust I have in the seller. You'll still get bids but they won't be as high as they could be. I REALLY recommend that sellers photograph their item if they want to get their money's worth, I've seen auction differences by up to 50% that can only be explained by whether or not there is an original photograph (i.e., not ripped from somewhere else on the net).
With no negatives (even with no rating at all) no good seller has good cause to turn you down. There are some sellers that do get touchy about it but they have things planted where the sun don't shine, but one must also understand that there are a LOT of deadbeat bidders that make the effort of listing and paying for a listing not worthwhile just so a bidder can "pretend" to buy stuff with "play money" or whatever the motivation is for not paying when their number is up.
I only get about 5-10% deadbeat bidders, and half the time I end up selling to the next highest bidder. I wonder if there are certain items that just attract deadbeat-ness or what.
Frankly bidding $15,000 on an "item" that has so many questionable entries with a seller of ZERO feedback is touchy at best.
advPAYMENTance
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, was NEVER released! Project was announced but cancelled
That's funny, wonder how it got up there on my shelf between WipeOutXL and Xenogears... pretty neat trick for a game that was never released.
but none of the more famous and "better" ones, like street fighter
You are relying on that crack pipe a bit too much these days if you believe there was ever a Street Fighter for the Neo*Geo.
I really wanted a lynx though. Portable color! I ended up with a Game Gear (and the master gear converter) though, 'cause I liked Sega's hardware. I wonder why there's no lynx listed there (let alone the Atari's and the Intellivision) in his wonderful collection.
ME: yo, you should put a picture up on that auction, lots of people on slashdot think you are a fraud :-(
Baybuy1: nope not at all
Baybuy1: and ill only sell if my reserves met
ME: but why no picture?
Baybuy1: if not real how would i know names of all those games??
Baybuy1: no scanner or dig camera
ME: why are you selling?
Baybuy1: just want to need money
So what do we learn from this? Apparently there aren't any sites with lists of tons of old games out there. And he really wants to need money???
I suggested going to kinko's to use a scanner, he said he wouldn't be able to before it ended... 4 days, no kinko's hmmmm
tony
It's been a while since I sold anything on ebay, so some things could be different now, but the price you pay to have the auction posted is a percentage of the starting price. I never did a reserve auction, so I don't know if that is also factored into the auction fee. So, I suppose it is possible that you set a low starting price but high reserve to save on the auction fee.
Additionally, if the item in question has a lot of emotional value, the seller may still be questioning his desire to sell, and want the ability to gracefully back out.
And yes, there will always be speculators, testing the waters in many markets and pissing people off left and right.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
"Mint" condition has been kind of bastardized in the Ebay world. It now usually means "The condition you would expect if you purchased this item when it was new and did no damage to it between then and now". I'm sure all the coin collectors are up in arms, but that's just what I've noticed. But honestly, most of this stuff hasn't been manufactured in a decade. What this guy appears to be offering is the best condition that you're going to find almost any of those games.
-B
Yes, rec.toys.lego is the OTHER newsgroup I stopped going to. I wanted to talk Technic, but that ng and other hobby-oriented groups are all-ebay nowadays.
That depends on what you think it's worth. There are approximately 1500 games he has listed. Games used to cost anywhere from $50 to $70, but let's say he spent an average of $40 per game, maybe he bought some of them used. That's still $60K, and he probably spent at least $2000 on all the systems. I'm not saying that he ought to make a profit off auctioning them on eBay, but when you compare $17K (what it's at now) to over $60K, that does sound like a good deal.
one summer a friend of mine and i played defender, 2 player version (which iirc meant p1 plays 1 level, p2 plays 1 level, etc) up to the 324th level before we got bored and gave up to go do something else. :)
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
I don't truly believe he would make the whole thing up with that much money at stake, but it does seem a little "wishy-washy," if you will. It will be very interesting to see how this turns out.
samurai showdown I and II were the bomb. :)
even samurai showdown III and IV were ok.
II was my favourite though.
Neo Geo made some neat stuff. Most of it is crap, but i'll defend samurai showdown to the death, bitch!
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
> without having someone who can develop film, any ideas?
did this game come with negatives of the level layouts or somethig? why would one need film processing?
All the systems all the games! Musta had a ball for a very very long time. With all that crap he must of had a seperate house for the games and consoles. I can't imagine having so much, must have been a nightmare.
Uh oh, saw a DreamCast in there, does that mean that the PSX2 replaces all of that fun stuff!?!?!
hehehe
I love games but OMG! Must be a tester eh.
The current bid is at $17,400 And the reserve isn't met yet. How much does he/she think they are going to get from this? Oh well, some little kid is going to have a very merry christmas.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Of course, for those into collecting, it's a quick way to get your hands on a lot of games.
Just idle curiousity (don't get up and look) -- do you have a Wall Ball?
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
What's your problem? I love Virtual Boy. I bought mine for next to nothing and have 16 games for less than $80. Maybe it flopped, but it is totally unique. How many games do you have that are truely 3D? The Virtual Boy is truely 3D, and a gem IMHO. VB is a really hot item on eBay when rare stuff gets up, some games are worth over $1,000 and there are another 2 in the $600-$800 range. There is a good cult following behind it...
How much do you think this guy payed for that stuff? Some quick math on my part say well over $10000 for everything. With the interest that he could have made over the years, he is probably barely making even right now on EBay.
-Cliff
Awwww, the Denver Broncos..."
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
You want to look at feedback when you're buying something like a CPU or graphics card that you're going to stick in your computer and will want to work, since you're (usually) paying less than if you just bought it new at an online retailer. You're putting your trust in them to send you a working product for a low price.
When buying something rare that costs a lot of money, you EXPECT that it'll be legit. Afterall, you can't just make a simple PayPal payment for tens, hundreds of thousands, or even a few million dollars. Both the buyers and seller will have to go through a few more ropes to finalize the sale.
or getting divorced ;p
XML causes global warming.
pick axe pete was known to induce seizure-like results from me as a result of playing it. I was actually reminiscing about that game over the weekend with my younger sister.
I also remember playing that role-playing game it had, with a gameboard and overlay on the console.. I never figured out the damn point of it though, and just ran around killing lots of spiders.
Hmpf, Maniac Mansion on a NES? ..
Get an Amiga and play it for real..
There were quite a few games which were made for the Amiga/others and later released on the NES, pretty crappy imho.. so please, try them out as they should be played, NOT on the NES
Too lazy to log in. Any way - :) (I've beaten Symphony of the Night on the Playstation *and* Saturn)
http://psx.ign.com/games/336.html - kinda hard
for a game that doesn't exist to have codes and reviews
You are right however, he doesn't have Street Fighter on the NeoGeo. That's probably (read : definately) because it's made by Capcom, SNK's (who makes / made the NeoGeo) biggest rival in the 2d fighting game market. Street Fighter came out for the Capcom Play System 2 arcade board, *not* the NeoGeo.
http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/
I agree that this action does look suspicious for a couple of reasons, but one thing that I think is important is that under payment options, COD is accepted.
The ultimate buyer (assuming the reserve ever gets met) would be a fool not to use this, as if the shipping company did not show up with the size equivalent of two refrigerator boxes full of games, it could be returned without a $20K+ loss.
All he has to do is add a PS2 to the auction to make it go up a few thousand... :P
But really... it is sorta weird that he doesn't have an Atari on there... and well... it woulda taken a LOOOOONG time to type all that crap up...
yeah. I remember every one of those game systems. My first console system was Pong. I'm surprised there's no Coleco Adam on there.
i've never seen an auction that big, or that awesome. if there were only a bank worth robbing within range if my house. in mourning, t
!-- wit --!
What are you smoking? I've -played- Castlevania: SOTN on the PlayStation and own the soundtrack (which is pretty good, btw).
OK, gotta say it:
What, no Odyssey 2?
Pick Axe Pete *rulz*!
:^)
the no
the turbographics was a great little system, and it's portable unit was pretty revolutionary for the time. i'm surprised that's not there, and it sure ought to be. can't even count how many hours i wasted on BONK, still the greatest game of all time ;-)
The other original bundled game I was trying to think of was Hang On / Astro Warrior. Still not Alex Kidd.
i'm beginning to wonder, now that it's at about 18 grand, what his reserve price is. perhaps he drafted up this list with no intent of actually selling the games, but just wanted some publicity or something. to do so he set some ridiculous reserve like $11 million or something. is there a limit on the reserve for eBay? i bet not...
I had one of these, you could play Atari-looking games, and program on its membrane keyboard in 4004 assembler. I wrote a great program to make "fart" noises at variable frequency.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This link may shed some light on whether this guy is legit or not - it's a request form to get his most recent seller ID. It's the rating of THAT ID you'd want to go by. I didn't check it myself, quite frankly I don't care that much :P
--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Hey VA, get your money's worth, make the seller kick in a little scratch before you let /. post stories like this in the future :P
--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Aparently COD is an option, so considering that I would belive this guy is legit! Despite his aparent obsession.
AF-Design, web development.
excellent work. funny post. wish i had some mod point(z).
Ummm... Castlevania Symphony of the Night was released Fall of '97 (or '98, not quite sure), for the PlayStation. You're probably thinking about the Dreamcast one, can't remember the title.
If you've ever watched any of the shopping channels, enormous collections of things tend to appear out of nowhere every few months. I especially like seeing them sell the same "we've only got twenty in the warehouse"/while they last swords every week.
(BTW, I've got several TiVo's so I'll never be bored enough to let that crap stay on my TV. In fact, my tivo's don't even know channel 30 exists.)
The systems were probably a lot more than $3000- if you remember, video game stuff was way more expensive "back then." For example, I think the Philips CDI was like $600 new.
Sleep: A completely inadequate substitute for caffeine.
Ahh, the Ti/994a. Speech synthesiser, loading programs off of audio tape, cheap knockoff games. "Munchman", where your little ghost eater leaves benid pellets instead of eating them. What a steamy pile of crap.
Hey, I would!!! Before my parents went abroad, we put everything into storage... even Atari 800XL, the 850 4-port RS-232C module and a couple of 1050 5 1/4" disk drives, and a box full of disks.. After 10 years, we pulled everything out of storage, and crammed it into our basement... In my spare time, for reasons of nostalgia, I'm archiving everything to my PC via RS232 LIST "R1:" Does anyone know of some good Atari 800XL PC emulators? If anyone's interested, I've also found some original game catalogs, which I could scan in.
I think I got Wall Ball about 7 years ago from a thrift store or flea market. When the crash of 83 occured I had a 2600, but was really into my 800. About 1989 I bought a 2600 console at the Monthly electronics and computer swap meet, with the intention of getting 'Adventure' I wound up pruchasing about 150 games before I finally got a copy Adventure. By that time I was hooked.
I've done some 2600 and 7800 programming, but don't have much time for it these days.
collection closet 3
Man, I miss KABOOM! Not only was it intense play, it was also fun to watch.
Either way, most of them probably got thrown into landfills. :)
So what you're saying is that you had to go through hundreds of carts before finally finding that little one-pixel Adventure? That's practically poetic.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
There are still a few Atari 7800 games that were never dumped! I guess you are the last hope to preserve these games forever by dumping them and releasing them to the emulation/rom-scene!
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Not only was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Released, it was ReReleased as a "Greatest Hits" title. I own the greatest hits release, you douchebag. One of the best games ever released for the PSX. An excelent blend of the Castlevania storyline and Metroid-style platform exploration adventure. Plus, that thing had like a hundred hidden items that only enemies drop. Great Replay value, too, what with multiple endings and all.
Learn yer material before you post next time.
"All warfare is based on deception."
Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
I already struggle to get time to do any work, to meet my friends (family have long since been abandoned) or to do anything approaching a life outside computers. And now something like this comes out. I would love to say I resisted temptation but sadly I'm off to meet my bank manager to arrange a $15000 loan ...
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
Hate to say this but the guy's seller rating is zero, there is a good chance he's not legit. Besides this is a heck of a lot of stuff all said to be in mint condition, or so he claims.
I'd be wary...
I live right nere this guy in Minnesota. I have already sent him a friendly offer to come take some pictures gratis for him to attach to his listing to increase his credibility. If he takes me up on the offer I'll greatly enjoy seeing this collection before it most likely leaves the area. Sure wish I'd known about this before. Woulda made friends with the guy :)
Ah, memories. I used to have the original Star Fighter 3K for the Archimedes. Don't know how it compares to the 3DO version, but it was far more playable than the later PSX version. I wonder if emulation has reached the point where I can play this one on my PC now...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
[...]
I read that as "Wall Street Fighter," which would be a pretty cool game now that I think about it:
"HADOUKEN!"
-Legion
I wonder, is the 'geek' community especcially prone to overbearing sentimentality? One might have thought that they would be more rational than the community at large, but they seem to lose that rationality when confronted with some 1980's video games, just like they do when confronted with a ballot box. (joke!)
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
"HADOUKEN!" <Ryu hurls a flaming briefcase>
-Legion
one of my friends has been collecting video games for quite some time, and his collection dwarfs this one. i had no idea that collections like this could cost this much! i cannot wait to tell him!
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
so when do you buy/sell on eBay?
If you just joined eBay, and bid on my item, should I refuse to sell you it cause you have a feedback of 0?
No, you just won't send out the item until my payment arrives. That's the most common way to do business on eBay anyway, and it's no risk to the seller. So you buy a few things to get some feedback, and then think about selling stuff..
Or, more to the point in this case, you don't try to sell something for $15000 until you've gotten some positive feedback selling some smaller items. Then people might not think your auction is a fraud. :-)
Some people I know put up their entire video game music collections (some of the more rare albums can go for over $200 alone!) just to see what the collection is worth. The only problem is that all of their auctions were taken down by eBay's patrols.
Where in the hell is Maniac Mansion for the NES? That was probably the 1st decent role-playing game ever. I still play it during the summers.. Anyways, 15000$ sounds a little steep, especially when you consider that the reserve hasn't even been met yet :-/
Wow! I couldn't remember the games that I liked. I haven't seen the machine since I was 8 (in 1979). The was one of the better games.
Joe
Joe Batt Solid Design
Actually yes, yes I have... It's close to $0. It used to be a lot though. Damnit should have sold my little brother's beanie baby collection when I had the chance.
I have a feeling that this auction is fake, I mean come on, theres no pictures of the games, the least he could have done was take a picture of a bunch of consoles and games sitting next to each other, that would be pretty good proof. In addition, his seller rating is 0, which means he hasn't sold crap on Ebay in the past. Oh well, I hope no slashdotters actually made a bid on this thing, well I have faith no one would pay 15,000 dollars for a bunch of old games!!!! http://www.sju.edu/~tq088283
http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
Well, Street Fighter didn't come out on CPS2. Not until Super Street Fighter II at least. Can't remember offhand what cocktail of CPUs the original Street Fighter was on, but SFII first came out for the Capcom Play System (1). Along with SFII CE, SFII Hyper FIghting, SFII Turbo, and the 12 or so hacks of it.
-- Your IP is showing
...all i have to say is: "Holy fuckin' fuck, batman!"
Considering the cost of catridges in the 80's, I suspect 15k is bargain, or at least close to the original cost.
It would be one kick-ass retro gaming party for whoever buys it... assuming it includes an RF switchbox. D'oh!
---
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
"Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, was NEVER released!"
??? I have a copy sitting about 2 feet away.
I have to disagree with you. I am living in Tokyo, Japan, and I frequently go to AKIHABARA, where you can buy anything with a chip in it. There are tons and tons of shops that sell old, used games from WAY BACK. Many times, there are just open bins of loose games...and they are always in top notch condition, and this being that they are in the open air, being handled by millions of hands a year (unless they are bought quickly).....so, this guy could very well have ALL these games in Mint Condition. Sure there are cases where the labels start to wear, tear, or discolor the plastic.
I think I'm going to go and start buying a shit load of these games for myself...since I can get almost any game, from way back, for less than $5US per game...ok, some of the real rare ones are higher, but not usually. And, you can also buy English versions at some shops!!!! wooohooo!
Maybe I'll post a huge ass Japanese/English collection on Ebay when I'm done.
Last week, I saw one of those really old hand help consoles of FROGGER, anyone remember those? and also, DONKEY KONG and SPACE INVADERS....they were about $200US though.
Jak Din
"As I always say, why jack-off when you can jack-in!" - Plughead from "Circuitry Man" (1990)
Has anyone noticed that this is the seller's first-ever auction?
That's always a bit of a warning sign for me...
--"You can lead a man to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
Who the hell thought that we could /. ebay!
Eh...
And why do collectors collect everything under the sun in mint condition and keep all boxes, manuals, reciepts, etc? If that supposiviely is so they'll still have value later as collectors items, then it would make sense to conclude that someday in the future they might want to sell it for all that money its "worth".
:)
Its possible he's hit a snag in his life and needs a lot of money. Or maybe he's looking for a down payment on a house and has no funds available because all his life he's spent every spare penny on video games. Maybe he's looking at his priorities and is deciding that its time to let this childhood fetish go and get on with his life,
while he can still profit from it. From the way the auction is going, it looks like his plan is succeeding well. Still, I'm curious how much he actually wants for it, considering the reserve hasn't been met yet.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
For those of us, who happen to live in Berlin, Germany, there's an exhibition on Exhibition on handheld computer games from 1976-1985 at the ffwd Galerie, Ackerstr. 154, Berlin-Mitte. The best thing is that you actually get to try the games on display.. The exhibition's last day is on Sunday, Dec. 3rd, so get your tickets to Berlin *now* all non-Germans. Or else, you can check out the book to the exhibition at http://www.die-gestalten.de/gestalten/dgv/books/bo oks.php?var1=electroplast
No money? This thing is way over $10,000 and hes saying he doesn't have any money to borrow for a while to get some pictures up? What a scammer.
Game Trading Zone - http://gametz.com
You collect 2600 stuff for a while, and you find sellers who have one cart that you need, but insist on you buying the console and 15 common carts you've already got as well.
How do you think he got all those spare carts? :)
--
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
I agree that this action does look suspicious for a couple of reasons, but one thing that I think is important is that under payment options, COD is accepted. The ultimate buyer (assuming the reserve ever gets met) would be a fool not to use this, as if the shipping company did not show up with the size equivalent of two refrigerator boxes full of games, it could be returned without a $20K+ loss.
And I thought I spent too much time playing games as a kid...
:-P).
There's nearly 1200 games there (at least, there's 1196 lines of text after cutting out descriptions of the systems). That's madness.
An average game takes what, about a week to play through? (Some more, some less, also depends on how much sleep you get
It'd take about 23 years to play all of those games.
I just tried to view the site at 10:30 pm EST and received an "Unavailable" message. Looks like Ebay has been ./ed
- khill
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I just went to ebay and I can't view any of the auctions, they are down. Could eBay actually get Slashdotted? :)
2 1/2 years ago, a friend of mine picked up a Virtual Boy (incl. 4 games) for $20 at a CompuCentre in New Jersey that was liquidating all of its merchandise. Incredible deal
Fall 1993 actually. At least in NYC.
Wow!
Remember the Intellivision Game Console with it's telephone receiver-like game pads?
Intellivision used to be my favorite game system with hits such as Night Stalker and Pitfall.
Those were the Days.
Jeff -- skibum, among other things
Anyway, why is the seller selling? It seems a pity to have bought the systems and preserved everything only to sell them a mere 13 years later. Why not wait another 13 and sell them to a museum? Are loan sharks after him and he needs the cash? Or did he get RSI from playing too many of those games? :-) In any case, this exposure on Slashdot will get him plenty of new bidders, I'm sure.
Wow, Turbo Duo! There's a name I haven't heard in a while. We should mirror this list for historical purposes, as eBay action pages become inaccessible a few weeks afer the auctions end.
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
there is absolutely no way that he could have possibly played all of those games. whats more, ALL of them can't be in mint condition. granted, this is a collection from hell .... i would never need to leave my house again, but i am a sceptic. when this is over i have the feeling someone is getting screwed. just a thought.
I swear, the holidays bring the losers all to eBay, amazon, bn, toyrus, and all the good stores I freqent. Losers ruin it for the rest of us.
(Lord knows I've submitted enough posts to /. where I wished *I* had hit the preview button!)
So what you are saying is, you are inviting all of your fellow slashdotters over to play video games?
I hope you have enough Atari consoles to go around.
I gotta ask two questions: how does someone keep all that stuff "mint" condition? Imagine the shelves stacked with all those games. Goofy!
;)
The other: did this guy just get married, or what? What makes a game fanatic suddenly say "hey! all those games I've been obsessively collecting for the last 15 years could bring me a lot of cash". I've known DJ's to sell off half of their 1000 LP collections, and its an emotional thing, and I figure this must be the same.
Anyone know what the original cost would have been for all this? I think a museum should pick this stuff up, and add a wack of Atari 2600 and Intellivision stuff too.
He's got the one that counts. :-)
How much longer until that 2.0 is ready, Matt?
(When I read the headline, I actually thought for a moment it was going to be your auction!)
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Oops. I found my backup. They're NTSC after all.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
it's called sarcasm
EBay makes you use a credit card for bids over $15,000. So now that this auction is past that limit, you'll be able to reverse the charge if you don't recieve the goods...
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
If anyone else ever frequents r.g.v.c, you know what I'm talking about, and who Bira Bira and Sum Guy are.
All praise Bira Bira! Death to Mr. Friendly! Cart Dreams of the Reef Store for everyone! Never stop Chasing that Chuckwagon!
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
We are sorry, but our site is temporarily unavailable. We are working to bring the system back up as quickly as possible.
Please check the Announcement Board at http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml for updates. We will keep you posted as work progresses. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.
Regards,
eBay
Hey, what a great way to keep people from outbidding you... just post about it on /. and beat ebay into the ground until the auction is over! (just kidding about this one, but it really isn't a half bad idea for the less ethically-minded)
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Not to mention that if you host pictures on your own server, you get a hit every time someone looks at your auction. You can then track what the *real* interest is in your auction, not just the active bidders.
I wonder if the auction includes Star Fighter for the 3D0, an amazingly good game developed by Fednet (Tim Parry and Andrew Hutchings). I wonder what they are doing now?
$15,000 is an awful lot of money, though - you have to hope it's some sort of public organisation putting in that bid, rather than a `lone nut' (to paraphrase the Warren Report).
arnald
What about this one? :)
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Well it's at $17,400 right now, reserve not yet met, which means this dude feels that this is worth a lot more than that.
Maybe it is though. That Neo-Geo collection is probably worth $2000 alone.
But me thinks that if anything, Slashdot just made this dude very rich, whether the games are worth it or not.
Did you just finish watching Indiana Jones before you posted this?
Heh. You just made me conjure up the image of Indy on that boat in the storm (Lost Ark, I believe?), screaming "It belongs in a museum!"
"I must keep the Sega system out of the hands of the evil Nazis! It belongs in a museum!"
think before YOU post ass... the SMS was out WAAAY before the SMS II with alex kidd bundled. Don't be so hasty with the responses if you all you are is some FAQ reading SOB.
"Click My Computer on my Desktop? My Computer is on the floor under the desk."
All you have to do is grab 200 of your closest friends, have them each dish out $100 and you got yourself a kick ass collection! Heck, you can even bid up to $20,000!
[Got Hosting?]
And I thought my rom collection was big! ;P
Ok...I am geezer gamer at 34, but he is missing WAY TOO MANY systems for this to be the ultimate, although the quantity is impressive. I am not trying to rip on the guy, but there are alot of other old school systems out there. TO me, by far the coolest old one is the Vectrex. He DOES NOT HAVE; ColecoVision (Smurf Wars...Whats blue and smells like smurfette? Papa Smurfs Finger!!) Atari 2600,5200 (first pause button, thank you, thank you!!),7800 (funky non-centering controllers) Vectrex (all-in-one vector graphics unit) NEC Turbo Graphix Portable (first active matrix screen in a portable AND had an optional TVtuner/Vid Input) Atari Lynx (either flavor)Very underated, died a slow death. first functional head-tohead real-time connect)I have a developer manual if any one is interested. Intellivision (either flavor)lousy controller..hated it Magnavox Odessey (look like it was made by Kenmore) Any flavor of PONG Atari Jaguar (to little, too late) Orig Gray Gameboy (mem-reeesss...like the corner...) Neo Geo Portable(gotta get one before they disappear) Sega Gamegear(ditto) Did I miss any? I am sure I did, but this illustrates that the TRUE ultimate collection would be far wider in scope.
I'd say that its probably a fake. Check out the guys eBay user rating. It's 0. And he claims that its all mint, as if he bought it and never opened it. I *highly* doubt that he bought all of that awesome gaming equipment and never touched it. Thats almost a pornographic amount of gaming history hes amassed there. Not saying that i wouldn't give a left testicle to get it all.. ;]
for the 2600? Yep. The ones I don't have by that manufacturer is Shuttle Orbiter and Out of Control.
For 60,000 i'd expect much more than just those systems, which are all fairly recent.
rec.toys.lego is similar. RTL used to be a great newsgroup full of neat posts on stuff people built. Then the Ebayers came. And now it's nothing but what appears to be relatively slimy dealers mangling my favourite hobby. Bastards.
Thank lord for Lugnet.
Calum
Chase the Chuckwagon going on ebay now! http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=510777683
baybuy1@aol.com is going to be quite happy with this new and improved slashdot effect, if this auction is real. i would like to point out that there is no selling history, though...
[|]
Poor guy..
Looks like his life so far has been all about gaming gaming gaming.
Now he's selling it all. Giving it all up. Sad really.
He must be getting married.
Also the reserve price hasn't been met. I wouldn't be surprised if they were just trying to find out the value of their stuff.
Doesn't everyone begin with zero buyer/seller rating?
If this is news, i'd like to see what doesnt get posted...I mean..jeez...this got on the front page?!? oh well...
</rant>
The opinions in this post are ficticious. Any similarity to actual opinions, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
damm how much does this guy want?
maybe i'll start collecting video games and game systems, then in a 30 years sell the whole thing for 500K
this is my sig.
genecyst I sure wish bloodlust would open the source to their emulators so we can port their amazing software creations to other operating systems.
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How old are you anyway, CmdrTaco? As I recall the 3DO came out in 1994...
I have to admit, it is an impressive collection. Also if you figure you play each game for 2 hours, and play 8 hours a day, it would take you about a year to play them all. Impressive.
Of course its hard to put a price on fulfilling a childhood fantasy like this one.
Its not only the sentimentality......finding such a large and complete collection is actually quite hard. I have been casually looking for Strider for Genesis for years, literally. Sure, I could have spent a few moments and tracked it online, paid a high price and had it in a few days, but even freaks have limits. But a few days ago (I am 22, wanted it since hell, like I was 12 or whenever it came out) I found it for 12 dollars, and go it. Try doing that with this guys collection.
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Do you have insurance? against theft, fire, natural disaster etc? Will you be heart broken if any of these were to happen to your collection?
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
It's getting harder and harder to find a lot of the older systems, and rare carts are even harder. Throw in that a lot of these systems have had years of punishment at the hands of many a child, and finding mint-condition equipment gets really difficult.
Yeah, most of us can relieve our nostalgia with emulators, or maybe picking up a beat-up-but-still-working 2600 and a handful of games at a flea market, but some people want more. Some people are collectors. And those people are willing to pay a premium for well maintained and functional equipment. You get this with a lot of things...it's really no different than any other sort of collector...comic book, beanie baby, whatever. Only reason anyone here cares in this case is the intersection of the Geek Set and the Gamer Set is fairly large.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
You think that was weird, you should have played the snail game that was in my SMS. It was just a maze game; It built a basic maze for you and you had to run through it with a little snail (someone explain to me who at sega thought a snail was a good candidate for a maze runner) before the timer ran out. Success meant another maze. Some SMS machines, however, have no built-in game. I don't know if there's anything built into my current SMS, as I have yet to hook it up (but am assured that it works.)
And BTW, I have a fairly sick collection of videogames myself; Atari VCS, Intellivision w/speech mod, Colecovision w/steering wheel, NES (With R.O.B.), SNES, and N64; SMS, Genesis w/SegaCD, Saturn w/Modchip, PSX, a couple game boys (head to head tetris platform, AFAIConcerned) and Virtual Boy (With a mere two games; Red Alarm and Wario Land.) I also have a Jaguar which I use only to play Iron Soldier, and the MGH (Multi-Game Hunter) floppy drive for SNES and Genesis. I don't have anywhere near as many games at this guy purports to have, though, nor do I have the boxes for most of my systems (I do have boxes for Saturn, Intellivision, and Colecovision, though.)
Then again, having the packaging is the least important thing in my opinion, because collecting things just to have them is stupid IMO. I collect my game systems to play with them. I've played games on every system I've bothered to hook up so far. Having the boxes is just icing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's now at $70G's and reserve still hasn't been met.
... I bet $100k its reserve is over $100k
I think some friendly wagering is in order
Dave,
dave
>>Even a 3DO (when I was a kid, god I wanted one of those things... course now it doesn't even hold up).
Oh thanks, now I feel old, I remember when that thing was only discussed about a new generation of consoles, before it actually showed up ANYWHERE......
.... 26..... am I really that old???
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
well, I work in Roseville (where this guy says he's at). I'd love to get to see this collection, snap afew pictures and post them. I may have to drop him a note..
And where is the Atari 2600? You can't call a video game collection complete without the grandaddy of them all, the 2600.
All in all, this is an impressive collection, but how many of these games are crap? Quite a few. I would prefer a smaller collection with a focus on quality games.
Ideal systems would include: Atari 2600, NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, Sega, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, DreamCast, and Playstation.
For interesting historical notes, include the Vectrex, Nintendo Virtual Boy, 3DO, Atari 5200, and Atari Jaguar.
Throw in some of the best, classic games for the above systems and that would do it for me. You can build such a collection on ebay for a hell of a lot less than 16 grand, if you are willing to spend a little time. Did I forget anything important
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
I have about 3,100 console games, many not yet played! Granted they are all ROMS on my Web Surfer Pro with two SNES controllers wired to the printer port with SNESkey, but I'll put it back in the web surfer box and even shrink wrap it with plastic wrap and a hair dryer for $70k (($70,000/($50 WS + $17 2 SNES pads) = 104,477.6% return rate)!
Even if you keep everything in a display case, sometimes the glue used on game labels just eats spots into the label, or discolors it. Nothing this old can all be "mint" condition.
...since just yesterday my wife and I bought an old Genesis and some games to relive those happy memories of 16-bit gaming. Streets of Rage 2 is pretty much her "killer app" of the console market.
What's funny is that in some ways, those old games still look better than what's currently on the market. Sure, there was only one or a few fixed camera angles, with repetitive effects and so on, but on the other hand the people and objects didn't have all of those damn jagged corners that polygon-based 3D brought us. Polygon 3D is going to have to get about an order of magnitude better before I'll give up my bright, shiny, 2D sprite animation.
Of course, at this rate an order of magnitude is just a couple years :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Sure, I'd shown her in emulation, but it's just not the same as a real Atari stick on a real TV (although the damn game had a bad habit of rolling on some sets -- I must have miscounted a cycle somewhere).
More curiousity -- did you buy it back in the day, or more recently?
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
$75K now, passed the reserve!
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
What would be the ethical implications if this is CmdrTaco's own collection that he is selling, and advertising it here on Slashdot?
Reality has a liberal bias
I guess i really missed out, eh?
Did he play beat them all?
You are right, but only to an extent. The Master System came in various combinations (ie packaged with different games). So as to which one was truly first is sort of well, relative to what package was released where you lived. I had the Hang On/Safari Hunt package thought.
"The item you requested (xxxxxxxxx) is invalid or no longer in our database. Please check the number and try again. If this message persists, the item has expired and is no longer available."
---------------
Not like I could afford it anyways...
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
He either liked the current bid, got a side offer, or it was all fraud to begin with. I just checked it at 13:20 EST
So speaketh eBay:
If he's not willing to sell it for $16,200, why didn't he just set the price to his mimimum? The only reason I see for setting a reserve is so you can set it absurdly high to get a sense of what your stuff is worth. If you really want to sell it, why isn't the minimum bid equal to your reserve? Putting something up that you don't really intend to sell just to find it's value seems sleezy to me. Perhaps someone can explain this behavoir.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
This guy collected up through the dreamcast. So obviously hes not just bored with games or anything. He must be in some kind of financial trouble to sell all this stuff (I'd be willing to bet it cost a lot more then $16k to get origionaly).
I can't imagne any one would just sell all this crap on a whim... strange
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
He is probaly needs the money to buy a PS2!
Thinking BACK?! I still get serious over video games sometimes. Then again, I'm a collector as well (though at the low end of the spectrum). I love running a little super breakout (I have the arcade machine) tournament in my apartment. Well, used to anyway. One of the fuses on the power supply board went out...need to order a replacement. Thank god it was a generic part that blew.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
If this guy knew what he was doing, he would have put the lot into the Neiman Marcus catalogue for a quarter-mil.
[toggle IPO Millionaire]
"Honey, what video game should we buy Junior for Christmas?"
"All of them, dear."
[/toggle IPO Millionaire]
He's also got the Adventures of Tom Sawyer for NES, which Something Awful has a hilarious review of in their ROM pit.
Causation can cause correlation
...whose ISP is AOL ? ;)
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
The Atari 2600 is older than 1986. The auction is listed as systems back to then.
Shenmue, Majoras Mask, Skys of Arcadia
VERY recently released games
and he's selling them
hrmm?
His reserve has not been met even with the auction at over $16,000 US. He obviously is a hard core game nut who is just dumping a ton of crap games with some of the extra systems he has collected over the years. By selling it all off he will rake in a ton of cash, replace anything he sold that he really wanted to keep at a used game store cheap, and still have enough loot leftover to buy a playstation 2 and a new honda civic.
Not a bad idea, actually...
There's no way I'd actually buy these, but wow, reading the list is a great nostalgia trip. :-) It'd be cool also, to see a few pics, of some of the games. Not that I don't believe he's legit, more for the "wow, I haven't seen that in AGES" factor.
"This message is composed of 100% recycled electrons."
At $15K I don't think he's making much profit. The 17 consoles alone probably cost $3000, when they were new. And then throw in about a thousand games, many of which are rare imports... $13 a game is not so absurd.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
I believe so.
I remember my cousins having a Colecovision and it being very similar. I don't know if the games work between both consoles because I never tried.
Jeff -- skibum, among other things
Thunder Force V, for the Saturn/PSX, while it was a fun game, lacked a lot of the rich visual detail that its 2D cousins had. I've yet to see a polygon-based game that can contain the level of artistic detail in a 2D world -- simply because current levels of polys/s can't equal the detail of a flat bitmapped image. We're getting there, but still not quite close.
Unfortunately, there's a large concentration on the FPS aspect of 3D games. So the type of game that I like is very hard to find, at least in the US, though I understand in Japan (and Europe to some extent) they are still alive and kicking.
For more info, go to The Shmups! Site.
Where's the submit button??
Comment removed based on user account deletion
sometimes referred to as Zelda 65 :) It came out in mid-late october of this year. A pretty fun play but overall seems sort of short.
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
suprise in-person visits? If someone showed up at my house to collect something , and I didnt list "pick up" as an option,Id send you and your big friends home,and mail your stuff to you.
What's impressive about this collection is not the variety of console systems, because I'd guess there are a lot of spoiled kids who've had each one of the consoles, but the amount of games this guy has for each one.
My Atari 800, acquired a month or two ago, is my first and only gaming console, even though it qualifies as one of the original personal computers.
Sheepdot: Open Source good, Closed Source baaaaaaad!
I don't care what excuse he has, anyone stupid enough to sell all of those games is obviously suffering from a sudden lack of common sense. I hope some good friends of his do whatever it takes to bring the poor bastard to his senses and keep him from doing something that no man could ever forgive himself for.
Jesus, the things I've done to my controllers in anger. Everything from smashing it on the floor to hurling it at the TV hard. Thinking back to our pre-teen days, can you believe how seriously we took these things? To own an NES/SNES/Sega was practically Necessary to have friends. Swaping games, reading Nintendo Power back when it was a good magazine...
Don't be fooled by a high feedback for a large expensive auction. It is reasonable to use some kind escrow service for large sums of money. It's pretty easy to build up a positive feedback doing nothing but making some fake accounts. You need to pay eBay a few cents for each point of feedback you're allowed to leave yourself.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
I would say this auction is a total fraud.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
... very strange. This guy is a true nerd. Even the nerdiest IPO-share-holdin friends of mine enjoy a good game of electronic football every now and then. In the words of Homer Simpson, "Ooooo! I wanna be John Elway!"
Mike
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
Yeah, cause that means getting a life...right?
I frequent rec.games.video.classic, a once-great newsgroup for talking about videogames of yesteryear.
Unfortunately, the newsgroup has turned into a market place. 70% of the newsgroup posts are conssting of "For sale" and "for auction" posts, and the remaining 30% are urls to ridiculous eBay auctions, such as $70 for Pac Man for the Atari 2600.
And now it's on here? Don't mod me down, but this article seems to be more of a "Check THIS ebay auction out!" post, or worse yet, an advertisement.
If anyone else ever frequents r.g.v.c, you know what I'm talking about, and who Bira Bira and Sum Guy are.
. . . wait 'till you see what Mailboxes, Etc. is going to want to pack that stuff! And 90 cents times $16,000 / $700 U.S. postal money order maximum = about $21 :).
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
1) Final fantasy 9 came out last week. He just got the game now he's gonna sell it? He's just listing games
2) Even more damaging... Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, was NEVER released! Project was announced but cancelled
3) He's got lots of crappy Neo-Geo games listed, but none of the more famous and "better" ones, like street fighter and Samarai showdown 1.
4) User has zero feedback
An "ultimate" collection would include the Odyssey2, Atari 2600 and 5200, Mattel Intellivision, Colecovision...gee whiz, is nobody here over 30? Now THOSE systems are CLASSICS. Adventure for the 2600! Donkey Kong on Colecovision! Pitfall, Kaboom! THOSE are CLASSICS!
If I had just kept those pong, duck hunt, atari, calecovision, intellevision, and that Atari 1200xl in mint condition with all those games and such I could have some spending money for the holidays too... Hey, I have an old intellevision and two old nintendos downstairs... Hmmm...
Anybody want a dresser drawer full of games on floppy disk???
"When people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'." -Bakunin
A few other posters here mentioned they have seen collections that dwarf that one. I'm one of those people with such a collection. Alibet the focus of mine has been mostly pre-NES games. In fact, I have a few pictures of my "core" collection up on my web space.
.sig
collection closet 1
collection closet 2
collection closet 3
A rough inventory, not counting the consles themselves:
Atari 2600: 475+ different games, 1000+ "extra" (duplicate) cartridges
Atari 5200: 60+ released games. 100+ extras
Atari 7800: Everything ever Released (60+ titles), shrinkwrapped, times 3. 150+ extras
Colecovision: ~100 different titles, 300 extras
Intellivsion: ~85 different titles, 100 extras
APF M-1000/Imagination Machine: 10 of 12, released,5 extras
Fairchild Channel F: 23 of 26 released, 20 extras
Vectrex: 15 games, Multicart
Emerson Arcadia: 10 games
RCA Studio II: 8 games, 6 extras
Magnavox Odyssey: 5 complete games, 20 circuit boards
Magnavox Odyssey 2: all 50 US released titles, complete, 150+ extras
Phillips Videopac: 66 of 70 releases, Complete Chess and MS Basic modules, 30 extras.
and some more recent items:
Sega Master System + 40 games
NEC Turbographics 16 & Turboexpress + 20 games
Sega Game gear + 20 games
Sega Genesis + 80 games
JVC X'eye + 15 CD games
Atari Jaguar: All cart & CD releases through '99, complete.
and I am sure I forgot something there.
Oddly enough: not a single Nintendo until the N64.
In some ways, collecting for these systems is harder as I wasn't able to uses places like Funcoland and Blockbuster to get the collections going. Instead I've picked them up from flea markets, garage sales, and lots of trades and ebay.
What gets interesting about collecting pre-NES games is the distribution curve. The first 70% of the released games catalog isn't too hard to come by.. Then it starts getting progressivly harder and hard to find the more rare items. For example, Most Atari 2600 games can be had for a few dollars, but recently a boxed complete "Chase the Chuckwagon" went for over $1,000 on eBay. For collectors like myself, things slow down after a while as items you don't have don't come available very often, and when they do, you are bidding against other collectors in the same boat.
The ones that are the rarest are usually the ones that (a) sucked and didn't sell well, or (b) were released late, near the video game crash of 1983.
And that doesn't even begin to take into account unreleased and prototype games. For example, I own two unreleased Atari 7800 games: KLAX and (NTSC) Sentinel. A total of 9 and 8 copies respectively are known to exist. In 5 years only 1 of the 17 has been known to change hands.
After the NES era, companies like Nintendo and Sega exerted much more control over the manufacture and distribution of games for their consoles, and as a result you have fewer unbelievably rare released games like 'Chase the Chuckwagon' and 'Quadrun'. The few unlicensed NES games such as the color dreams stuff and tengen tetris are there though and command the rare premium.
For me it has been more fun colelcting pre-NES games because the industry was so new and didn't have the rules that it has now.
Finally, There are days I am tempted to turn my back on my collections and sell it all off. I can't help but wonder what sort of adventure that would be, and just wast sort of price it would fetch.
.sig? I don't need no stinkin'
Why, in a two story iMac, of course.
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.