Skippy's Retro Game Center & Collections

[Skippy B. Coyote]

cool pics, I am inspired to take more spread out pics of my random drawers... maybe someday, I will do that too.

 

I can't tell if that was a compliment or passive aggressive criticism of my setup. Tone can be hard to decipher on the internet.

[Keatah]

The tone is complimentary.

[atarilovesyou]

It's been a long, long time since I updated this thread and many consoles have come and gone from my retro gaming center since then. I finally got the home console selection arranged just the way I want it though so I figured now would be a good time to post a new pic of what my gaming center looks like, since it's likely to stay the same for the foreseeable future.

 

Looks quite streamlined, Jin. Can you give a quick update on what is there compared to what was? Ballpark? I know you got rid of a bunch of stuff a while back but in other threads it seems like you are picking up more systems and games...yet this latest pic looks really organized. Are there any systems in storage?

[wafflerevolution]

 

I can't tell if that was a compliment or passive aggressive criticism of my setup. Tone can be hard to decipher on the internet.

 

I love your setup. not criticizing.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I love your setup. not criticizing.

Whew! Sorry for questioning ya, we've had a few newer forum members lately kinda giving people crap for no apparent reason so I wasn't too sure. Thank you for the kind words!

 

 

Looks quite streamlined, Jin. Can you give a quick update on what is there compared to what was? Ballpark? I know you got rid of a bunch of stuff a while back but in other threads it seems like you are picking up more systems and games...yet this latest pic looks really organized. Are there any systems in storage?

Sure, I'll do a complete collection update right now. Over the last few years I've streamlined my gaming center a lot so it's down to just the systems that I owned growing up and know that I'll play regularly, though I've definitely made some mistakes along the way and do have some regrets about stuff that was sold while I was trying to figure out what I wanted and didn't want collection wise. I've only got one major regret from all the downsizing, but I'll get to that in a bit. First off, there are no consoles in storage at all. The only home consoles I have at this point are (in order from left to right):

 

 

 

An Atari 2600 Light Sixer (in the Atari Game Center on the upper left), original toaster model NES, Model 1 "High Definition Graphics" VA6 Sega Genesis with stereo composite cable, original PlayStation (my wife's system), GameCube with Game Boy Player, and finally an original Wii with official component cables that I got at launch in the upper right on top of the VCR. Between those 6 systems I'm really happy with my home console selection and I have no plans to add or remove any consoles. Those are all the consoles I've owned and enjoyed from the time I was 5 years old until I turned 21, so I've got all my childhood and young adult gaming systems covered.

 

Moving on to the handhelds, that's where mistakes were made. At the moment the only handheld systems I own are:

 

 

 

A slightly customized Game Boy Color and a Galaxy Style New 3DS XL. The one big regret I have from the past few years of streamlining and downsizing is that I sold my backlit original Game Boy setup to a fellow AtariAger about a year ago and I've been kicking the crap out of myself for selling it ever since, especially since the original Game Boy was the first system I ever had as a kid that I could call my own and I didn't even want to get rid of that one; I was just hard up for cash to pay some bills at the time I sold it. I've spent the past year since then trying to find another original Game Boy in equally nice condition with no yellowing, no scratches on the buttons or housing, and both stickers on the back fully intact and unblemished but have come up empty handed. And even if I did find one as nice as my old one the company that made the olive green colored backlight that was so perfectly accurate to color of the original Game Boy's screen stopped producing them, which is almost as hard of a kick in the nuts. I've contacted the AtariAger who bought my old Game Boy a couple times since then about selling or trading it back to me, and while at first it seemed like he might let me get it back he eventually decided to keep it so it looks like I'm probably screwed there. I would trade literally anything I own other than my Sega Genesis (since that was my first childhood home console) to get that Game Boy back.

 

So that's my one big regret from all the downsizing, since it was by far the most sentimentally important thing in my collection and it's something I'll likely never get back, but time to move onto the games. At the moment my home console game library is rather meager aside from a fairly decent Wii collection and my wife's pretty sizable PlayStation collection:

 

 

 

 

And my handheld game library hasn't fared any better:

 

 

 

 

At this point my biggest game collecting wants are just to work on rebuilding my former Game Boy and Sega Genesis collections showcased on the previous page, since those were the two systems I had as a kid and mean the most to me personally, but I'm also slowly picking up Atari 2600 games again when I find them at reasonable prices and adding to the Wii collection a little here and there while Wii games are still cheap. I'll try to update this thread regularly with new game pickups as they come in, and maybe some day I'll find an original Game Boy as nice as the one I used to own. I have zero regrets about selling any of the other systems I used to own (a Vader model Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari 400 computer, Model 2 Genesis, Sega 32X, Sega CD, Xbox One, Game Boy Advance SP, DS Lite, etc.) but man do I miss that Game Boy. I can always replace the games I used to own with new copies, but I don't know if I'll ever find a Game Boy as nice as that one again. Mistakes were made.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Jin

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Yesterday's collection update got me feeling more enthused about taking pictures and talking about the current state of my collection and where I hope to go with it in the future, so with that in mind I thought I'd start by focusing on the one home console that I'd really like to rebuild my former collection for: The Sega Genesis. It was the first home console that I could call my own as a kid, so the Genesis along with the original Game Boy (which was my first game system period) are really what I want to focus on rebuilding my collections for going forward.

To start off, let's take a look at what my Sega Genesis library looked like at the height of my collection 3 years or so ago:

Not too shabby, but unfortunately I was a bit of a dumbass back then and wasn't sure exactly what systems I wanted to collect for at the time and I ended up selling my entire Sega Genesis game library not long after those pictures were taken. Now let's take a look at my current Genesis game library:





Yeeaaaah… not doing so good. I think "mistakes were made" is going to be the general theme of my collection updates for a while. In any case, I have been really itching to spend some more time playing the Genesis as of late but I've been rather short on cash for gaming due to all the summertime festivities like fairs and conventions going on. I did score one new Genesis cart on eBay last week that should keep me busy for a while though, and it arrived in the mail today. While I was waiting for the cart to arrive I also took some time to clean and refurbish my 3-button Genesis controller with new contact pads and a little Shin Etsu grease on the D-pad pivot and sliding button tabs to get it ready for action.





While not as pretty to look at as my previous copies of Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe, Revenge of Shinobi, and Columns the Genesis 6-Pak was a pretty outstanding bargain at $9 shipped and it will get me playing some old favorites on real hardware again; along with Streets of Rage and Super Hang-On, neither of which I've ever played before. The controller is working great now too, smooth as silk.

Speaking of hardware, as long as I'm doing this Genesis focused collection update I should probably talk a little bit about the system and controllers I'm working with. As a kid in the 90's I had a Model 1 "High Definition Graphics" VA6 Sega Genesis system, but up until this year I had only owned Model 2 systems as an adult. So, to get the most enjoyment out of my Genesis gaming, a few months ago I decided to sell my Model 2 and go hunting for a nice condition High Def VA6 Model 1 like the one I had as a kid (which also happens to have the best composite video output of any Genesis variation from what I've read), and after searching around for a bit I found just what I was looking for at a local game store:





Along with the system I also picked up a set of stereo composite cables for the Model 1 that splice the stereo audio output from the headphone jack on the front into the composite cables on the back for a nice streamlined setup. It sounds amazing and the picture quality looks great on my Sony KV-20FS120 WEGA Trinitron CRT TV, vastly nicer than any of the Model 2s I've had in both respects.

As far as controllers go, even though I foolishly sold all my Genesis games 3 years back I did actually manage to hold on to the really nice condition Genesis controllers I've picked up over the years; and scored a few new ones this year as well:





The official 3-button standard controller and 3-button arcade stick were pickups from local stores that I've had for half a decade or so, since I first got into retro gaming, and the official 6-button standard controller and 6-button arcade stick were both purchased brand new on eBay earlier this year; the arcade stick new in box and the regular controller new without box. The Konami Justifier light gun was actually a freebie given to me by my favorite local game store this summer.

I had been asking if they had any every time I went in for a good year or so and one day they did indeed get one in, but it was covered in two decade old spilled soda and they didn't want to go through the work of cleaning and testing it so they just gave it to me for free. After a couple hours of thorough scrubbing with rubbing alcohol on some paper towels and q-tips it cleaned up quite nicely, and it worked great when I tested it out with Lethal Enforcers on the Sega CD that I used to own before I pared down my console selection to just the systems I had growing up. I'm still looking for copies of Lethal Enforcers I & II for the Genesis with clean unblemished labels, but it's nice to know that when I do find them I'll already have the light gun to play them with.


Speaking of "clean unblemished labels", that's really the main reason I haven't rebuilt my Sega Genesis game library to it's former size yet. There are plenty of local stores around where I live with a good selection of Genesis games to choose from, but I've always been pretty picky about label condition and trying to find Genesis games with nice undamaged labels locally has been tough as nails. With that in mind I'll probably have to stick to scouring eBay for all the Genesis games I previously owned to get them back again, but I think that with patience and persistence I should be able to get them all back within a year or two.

Well, I think that about covers everything for my Sega Genesis collection update! I hope you enjoyed reading it and if you happen to have extra copies of any of the Sega Genesis games that I previously owned with undamaged labels that you'd like to sell then feel free to shoot me a PM about it. You can find the full list of all the previously owned Genesis games that I'd like to pick up again along with the general prices I'm looking to pay for cartridges with mint condition labels in the spoiler tag below.

Alien 3 - $10
Altered Beast - $10
Beavis and Butt-Head - $9
B.O.B. - $10
Bram Stoker's Dracula - $8
Brutal: Paws of Fury - $7
Bubsy - $8
Castlevania: Bloodlines - $54
Chakan: The Forever Man - $10
Columns - $7
Comix Zone - $16
Disney's The Lion King - $10
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine - $9
Earthworm Jim - $17
Earthworm Jim 2 - $20
Ecco: The Tides of Time - $5
Golden Axe - $15
Golden Axe II - $14
Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude! - $6
Jurassic Park - $5
Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition - $9
Kid Chameleon - $13
Mick & Mack as the Global Gladiators - $6
Mortal Kombat II - $8
Ms. Pac-Man - $4
NBA Jam: Tournament Edition - $9
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure - $5
Predator 2 - $14
Primal Rage - $7
Raiden Trad - $24
The Revenge of Shinobi - $19
Ristar - $31
RoboCop Versus The Terminator - $20
Samurai Shodown - $9
Scooby-Doo Mystery - $27
Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi - $15
Shining in the Darkness - $16
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master - $14
Sonic 3D Blast - $9
Sonic the Hedgehog - $8
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - $15
Sonic & Knuckles - $12
Sonic Spinball - $5
Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition - $5
Thunder Force III - $37
Truxton - $55
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 - $16
Zero Tolerance - $11
Zool: Ninja of the "Nth" Dimension - $9

 

Edited September 13, 2018 by Jin

[Skippy B. Coyote]

With a bunch of new game pickups over the past few months the rebuilding of my former Sega Genesis collection is coming along quite nicely! I also scored a few games that were new to me while I was at it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That'll probably be it for game pickups for the rest of the rest of the year, barring the possibility of getting some games for Christmas, but I'm pretty happy with the rate at which I've been able to track down fun Genesis games with mint labels thus far.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Jin

[Skippy B. Coyote]

It's been 26 years since it was first released, and to this day I don't think there has ever been any joypad controller as perfectly suited to fighting games as the official Sega Genesis / Mega Drive 6 Button Arcade Pad.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

My Sega Genesis game library just hit 30 games this past week so I think it's about time for cartridge collection update pictures! A lot of these games are ones I had previously owned and have been recollecting, but a little over a third of them are games that have been brand new to me and were titles I had never played prior to this year. There's still a couple dozen Genesis games that I plan to hunt down near mint condition cartridge copies of over the course of the rest of year and I'm hoping to hit 50 games by the end of 2019, but for now I'm pretty darn happy with how well I've done building up my Genesis library with games that I've genuinely enjoyed playing over the past 6 months. Every one of these games has seen a good bit of play since I picked them up and I feel very fortunate to have all of them in my humble little collection.

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2019 by Jin

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Just felt like snapping a couple pictures of my two favorite systems, one old and one new! :) 

 

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Who likes horror games?  

 

[+GoldLeader]

On 7/10/2019 at 4:20 AM, Jin said:

Who likes horror games?  

 

 

 

Nope!  Too Scary!!  ?  ☠️  ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PSYCHE!!

 

 

Just Kidding!   I love horror games!... and horror movies!

 

You have quite a collection there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

11 hours ago, GoldLeader said:

 

 

Nope!  Too Scary!!  ?  ☠️  ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PSYCHE!!

 

 

Just Kidding!   I love horror games!... and horror movies!

 

You have quite a collection there.

 

 

Thanks GoldLeader! Truth be told all the PS1 games belong to the misses, but I guess it's kind of a shared collection. That's only about half of the horror games we've got, I just picked out some favorites to throw together for a fun picture.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Would you look at this completely archaic yet strangely aesthetically pleasing tower of plastic! I mean, just look at it. This is how DLC worked back in the 90's

 

 

 

 

[Keatah]

Love all the Genesis stuff! So colorful..

[Skippy B. Coyote]

My plethora of Sega Genesis controllers! I was never actively trying to collect these things, I just kept running into new in box or mint condition unboxed controllers for reasonable prices and couldn't resist picking them up.  

 

 

 

Also, Retro-Bit's new Genesis controllers are the bee's knees! Aside from an ever so slightly more matte finish in the buttons and D-pad on Retro-Bit's controllers they are absolutely identical to Sega's originals from the 90's both inside and out. Take it from someone with a fudge ton of Genesis controllers, if you need a Genesis controller then just go buy one of Retro-Bit's for $15. They're the same as the originals and way cheaper to pick up these days. 

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Every year I set a retro game collecting goal for myself, and my goal for 2019 was to expand my Sega Genesis collection. At the start of the year I had just a Model 1 Genesis with 19 games and no Sega CD or 32X, and now... well, I think I did pretty darn well this past year!

 

 

 

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

It's been nearly half a year since I updated this thread, but boy do I have a big update to share today! Early this year I started feeling pretty burnt out on collecting, and at the same time (thanks to the SNES Classic Edition) I discovered that I really like the way my old games look when displayed in HD on a modern TV. So, with those two factors in mind I set about saving up for ways to get my classic games looking razor sharp on my modern TV without too much hassle; and getting some nice flash carts for them as well so I could play all the games I wanted without having to go through the work and frustration of hunting down original copies.

 

After 5 months of effort I now have a RetroUSB AVS paired with an EverDrive N8 Pro for NES games, an Analogue Mega SG and TerraOnion Mega SD for Genesis / Master System / Sega CD games, and a SNES Classic Edition to tide me over until I can get my paws on a Analogue Super NT and FXPak Pro. I've also got my Nintendo Switch hooked up to the same TV for some modern gaming too. I've still got all my original hardware pictured earlier in the thread, they're just packed away in the closet since I'm not using them right now but don't particularly want to part with them either.

 

At this point the only consoles I'd like to add to my gaming center are a composite and ideally S-video modded Atari 7800 to run through a RetroTINK 2X Pro for Atari fixes (I've already got a Harmony Encore for 2600 games at least), an original PlayStation with a PSIO that I'll be hooking up to the TV with a RAD2X cable, and an Analogue Pocket with the dock when it comes out. Thankfully I've got room on the bottom shelf for the three of them and I'm hoping to have my modernized retro gaming center setup done by the end of the year, but for now I'm pretty darn pleased with how it's coming along!

 

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Skippy B. Coyote

[Skippy B. Coyote]

A long time ago in a room not all that far away... I had a pretty awesome collection of about 120 games for the Atari 2600. But, life happened and due to some unfortunate circumstances I ended up selling my whole collection. Now, many years later, I'm finally starting to rebuild it