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[Mephisto]

I'm not yet sure if this is an unhealthy obsession, but I recently began trawling the Bay of Es for NES stuff. I told my wife that it was a lucrative business, buying nonfunctional NES systems and fixing/modding them, but I really just wanted one of my own. I'm going to do that to fund my habit as well, but that's beside the point.

No pictures yet - my auctions completed yesterday. Some stuff will arrive this/next week and some will take 2-4 weeks (shipping all the way from the golden marshes of Japan in tin cans powered by exploding dinosaurs, yo), so no pictures as of yet.

As of right this second, my collection is as follows:

Spoiler: NES (click to show/hide)

One painted NES complete with 90s stickers, AC adapter, and two RF switches
Two brick controllers
Faxanadu
Gyromite
Simon's Quest

Spoiler: Famicom (click to show/hide)

Lot 1
After Burner
Dragon Ball 3
Mario Bros
Super Mario Bros 3

Lot 2
Dragon Ball
Dragon Quest IV
Famicom Jump: Hero Retsuden
Super Mario Bros

I've also got a load of board games, but they are not my current obsession.

Any other collectors in the house who want to share their collections or tips/tricks for collecting? Suggestions for proper board (GD works, but so would Life Advice or Other Games)?

[Bouchart]

Go to garage/yard sales.  There's probably not too many of them at this time of year, but you can snag some cool things cheaply.  I picked up a copy of Symphony of the Night for $2 at one of them.

Thrift stores are good for old PC games if you like to collect them.  Not so much for console games except for very common sports titles.

[Parsely]

PTW

[Frumple]

Collection stuff is probably fine here in GD, so long as the focus is on that instead of the games themselves.

Me, I don't have much interest in the physical memorabilia -- I've got an old NES/SNES/PSX/etc. laying around somewhere and a fair handful of games, but these days I'd rather find an adapter for the old controllers and plug 'em into a computer than play on the actual system, heh. Emulation has spoiled me

Incidentally, did you know a compressed archive of the entirety of the NES lineup, all sixteen hundred or so of them, is only a bit under 200 megs? Might even be able to get smaller with better compression. It's pretty crazy.

Seconding the thrift stores, though. I've managed to pick up some fairly good stuff from those on the cheap, over the years. It's a decade or so past the point you're likely to find good console games, but you still get some odd PC games or console hardware laying about.

[LordBucket]

Pretty much seconding Frumple's comment. I bought an old NES some number of years back. For a couple weeks I reveled in the novelty, took great joy in the fact that I remembered how to wipe and blow on cartridges, etc.

But rather than tinkering with an old machine and spending countless hours trying to track down individual games, dealing with Zelda cartridges with dead batteries and leaving games on for weeks at a time...it's so much easier to simply download every game ever made and play an emulator with save and load capability.

Though I suppose that probably doesn't satify the "collector" itch, if you have it.

[Mephisto]

I do have the collector itch, but it's going to be nowhere near a 100% collection. I also hate seeing stuff being neglected, especially if it just needs some minor work.

[Tawa]

I'd collect these things if I had the cash. I do have my uncle's old NES, though, and seven games: the first three Super Mario Brothers games, some old shoot-em-up/platformer called Blaster Master, some old Spider-Man game, Metroid, and Gauntlet II.

[Caz]

What's the point? You can pretty much have perfect emulation of that generation of games nowadays, from ZX Spectrum right up to N64/PSX. (Probably more than that, even.)

[Mephisto]

What's the point? You can pretty much have perfect emulation of that generation of games nowadays, from ZX Spectrum right up to N64/PSX. (Probably more than that, even.)

It's fun? I get to learn a skill that not many people have? People are still doing amazing feats of hackery with this equipment?

[Tawa]

What's the point? You can pretty much have perfect emulation of that generation of games nowadays, from ZX Spectrum right up to N64/PSX. (Probably more than that, even.)

There's the nostalgia factor, as well. Don't forget that there's that feeling of holding that blocky controller in your hands as you make that little 8-bit guy move around on the TV.

[TamerVirus]

Wasn't some dude trying to liquidate his entire 100% complete NES collection online for like a million dollars some time ago?

[gigaraptor487]

Wasn't some dude trying to liquidate his entire 100% complete NES collection online for like a million dollars some time ago?

Yeah, he was the lead programmer on the BNES Emulator IIRC.