The PC, Xbox, PS2, GameCube and 2600, Together at Last

The Screen Savers have a story on their website about the building of a single box 2600/PS2/GameCube/Xbox/PC/ NES player. But this is not a mame ^? box. The builder, Yoshi, dismantled, cut,chopped and belt-sanded the consoles to make them all fit in the same Lian-76 case. I can only imagine how hot this case might get. There is a photo album here. It looks like you'd still need a video switcher to take advantage of this completely. A cool mod for this would be to pack in a wintv card for each console or something.

Comments

The Point?

[ajiva]

So what's the point of this contraption? Yes its cool, but isn't the whole point of having multiple consoles is that you can use them seperatly? Not sure about you, but having multiple TVs and multiple consoles sure does keep all my friends happy when they visit

Re:The Point?

[magicslax]

If you have to ask why, don't.

This is the sort of "because we CAN" geek project that needs no practical justification. You don't see the inate brilliance of cutting things out of their boxes and putting them in other boxes? Tough.

Re:The Point?

[Omerna]

The "point" is because that's just incredibly cool. I mean seriously, go look at the pictures. That's an example of synergy (whole is greater then the sum of the parts) plus it would look SO nice sitting on my living room floor.

Re:The Point?

[Anonymous Coward]

having multiple TVs and multiple consoles sure does keep all my friends happy when they visit

I guess it's for those of us who like to be in the same room with out friends when they visit.

Re:The Point?

[doorbot.com]

If you have to ask why, don't.

I agree. Every time there is an article along these lines (one of those things where most people say "Cool!"), there's always those few people who say "What's the point? They could be spending their energy hurling asteroids at the sun or calculating the exact value of Pi."

My question is, are these the same people every time? If so, why are they continually posting to the same kind of stories? Are they trolls? Do they have difficulty not clicking the link if they don't think it's interesting?

If you have to continually post the same responses over and over, I have to ask... what's the point?

Re:The Point?

[DarkZero]

Well, then, you must live in a pretty odd place with pretty odd friends. In my experience, people only use one console at a time when they're home. And when they're with friends, they traditionally all play the same multiplayer game on the same console. The point of this mod, beyond the "Because we CAN!" niftiness, is that it conserves a lot of space. Instead of having a PC, a PS2, a GameCube, an X-Box, an NES, a 2600, and all of the required wires and video switchers between them taking up an entire entertainment center and leaving little room for other important entertainment center appliances like stereos, VCRs, and a television, this box keeps them all together, keeps all of the wires in a small space, and cuts out their ridiculous form factors which rarely go well together. Hell, just between the main three consoles, you've got a huge rectangle, a thin black monolith, and a cube. Those shapes don't exactly go well together within an entertainment center that's divided into rather small square and rectangular spaces.

Re:The Point?

[LadyLucky]

If someone posts a story on Slashdot, and nobody says "What's the Point?", was that story actually posted?

Now what we really need is...

[Giga]

this guy to make it portable.

Re:Now what we really need is...

[56ker]

portable as in the second obsolete meaning :
Portable \Port"a*ble\, a. [L. portabilis, fr. portare to carry: cf. F. portable. See {Port} demeanor.]

1. Capable of being borne or carried; easily transported; conveyed without difficulty; as, a portable bed, desk, engine. --South.

2. Possible to be endured; supportable. [Obs.]

How light and portable my pain seems now! --Shak.

Re:Now what we really need is...

[Shiny Metal S.]

Now what we really need is... this guy to make it portable.

Or this guy.

DVDA

[Professor Oompa]

Wow... so many things shoved in one box. Sounds like something you'd see on skinimax

Dreamcast?

[Frohike66]

I'm wondering where the DreamCast is located? Surely it wouldn't have been left out.

If you got over 3,000 bucks you may get one.

[Typingsux]

Here

It won't do XBOX or PS2 natively, but you have every other emulator that you can think of.

Video switcher is built in

[__aaaaxm1522]

Saw a demo of this on The Screen Savers tonight. The video switcher is built in - it's a knob on the front panel - twist it, and it switches from one feed to another.

2600 receiving mainstream press

[I Want GNU!]

I'm glad that they are bundling the newest issues of 2600 into this mad leet new blue box! Free Kevin!!!!!!

Heat concerns?

[Self-Important]

Even though that Lian Li case is aluminum, I imagine that we're talking about an insane amount of heat that must be dissipated in that cramped little space. How long will this thing last before one of the components dies?

Old consoles are cheap

[freeweed]

I currently own 8 NES units, and 6 2600's, all picked up for basically nothing (got them at garage sales as a bundle with some games for the most part). They all work. In fact, I have yet to find a completely dead console unit (we won't talk about the controllers, mind you).

Just for fun I took out the mainboard from one of each, and hung them on the wall. Also from my spare Sega Master System and Intellivision. Kinda keeps me humble to remember the roots of the whole thing, ya know? It's actually scary just how well the old units are built. Other than the power switch etc, all solid state. Pretty damn hard to break one. Post-PSX... the cd drives are typically the first things to go on a modern console, and I can't imagine what you'd do if the hard drive fails and it's some proprietary standard.

Of course, hacking apart a new $300 unit is something else entirely...