How you get started

so guys and gals

the big question.

what got you all started in the retro and not so retro game collecting

lets here the stories

 

Well, my collection is not so big... it would be big but i sadly sold alot of stuff and i also passed alot of factory sealed games that go for alot and at the time i saw them they were 19.99 , i guess i started collecting once i started posting in the old forum, i was a big pirate , but i always liked original stuff better, from now on i only buy original stuff and my collection is growing little by little

 

Some day, I realized that I had a few hundred video games. I realized that I had more than anybody I had ever met. Ta-da.

 

well, when i was a kid, my mom wouldn't buy me a nes or an snes, and i wanted one so badly. at my 8 anniversary, my grand-mother buyed me super mario bros and dunk-hunt, but i still had no NES. and i finally got one because of this. i was always late with those kind of machine,
and soon all my friends had GENESISs, SNESs and even saturns and psxs, but i wasn't jealous, 'cause i started to understand that graphics couldn't really make a game better, enhance it in a certain manner, sure, but nothing else. I enjoyed my NES, most of my games where bought in garage sales, since they couldn't be found in stores anymore. I had mario bros 1, 2, 3, teenage mutan ninja turtles, zelda (damn, i loved that one!) zelda II, mickey mouse escaped (or something like that) track and field 2 and other ones that i don't remember. what i enjoyed the most though (apart zelda, for sure) were the RPGs that the friends of my grand brother gived us (well, in a way, since we exchanged some games together for a time, and since they had snes and all, they gived us back our games, and wouldn't ask for theirs. (pretty cool!) especially Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (how many hours did i passed playing ff1? many.)

One day, maybe four or five years later (maybe more) because i wanted a psx with gran tourismo and the new final fantasy, FF7, i sold everything: My boxed NES, My boxed Advantage controller, and every games for the most of part to my friend. Everything was sold, apart dragon warrior and ff1 (since they weren't really ours)

but like 4 years later, i still had ff1 and dragon warrior, and i wanted to play them so badly. so i searched in flea markets and garages sales, and i started to realise that these old games started to be research by all kind of people, and that slowly but certainly it gained in value. So i picked a nes, and rebuyed most of my old games from my friend, including the two zeldas. and i started to feel nostaligic, and i took a good time to rediscover my games and remember the old days and all sort of related stories.

after i picked an other nes, while i was searching for nothing a garage sale, i found an old snes, i haven't took a second to think about the deal, i needed it, because long ago, before i had a nes, i liked to go at my cousin house and play with it's snes. But this deal made me think about the other console of my cousin, the console that i played the most before my nes, that black, stylish and mature console with that blue and speedy mascot, those beat-'em ups and the Rpg i liked the most with ff1, Phantasy star 4. So i searched everywhere and buyed one. so i stared to search for nes games, snes games, and genesis games at the same time.

the next machine was the ps2 and then a n64 because i always wanted to get one, but i couldn't afford it. I even had a little war with my brothers about wich console should we get: PSX or N64, but finally, they've won. then i started to realise that i was starting a little collection whitout even knowing it, and i started to get alot of interest into rare console, and i got a sega cd, and i was desesperatly trying to find a 32x (without the help of ebay, it can be though to find those kind of thing.) and finally found one. then i got a game cube, my brother buyed a xbox and another ps2 (since our first (wich i paid) had those damn DREs) and i buyed an used dreamcast from my friend that was broken, i bought it remembered me the times we've passed playing it (my friend have no nostalgic feelings at all. ) and i repaired it by myself (and with the help of a forum i found while searching on google on the M2 subject, the assembler!)). got a saturn. a gameboy, a sms and a gamegear, and that's about it, here i am now!




EDIT:
My next big hit? i don't know, i think i have enough consoles right now (or too much, but i can't choose wich one i should sell (uhhh...well, i'm looking at you , sms!) so unless i see a neo-geo around (miracle!) i guess it will wait 'till 2007, for the revolution, the only next-gen system that could still apeal me. After that, i don't know, maybe i will quit the ''new market'' to only play those old games in the good days, since the market p going way too much in the casual-ism, lack of idea, and ''look, i have better graphics, so i'm better!'' you just have to ear the kids talking about video games to get knocked-off, and even people of our age now, so yeah, maybe the revo. will be my last console i'll buy in a store (or just buy, dot at the line) sadly (or maybe the ds, but i don't really count handhelds as consoles (well,..)) i'm not as much in collecting as i was like 1 year or 2 ago, but i still really do love video games.

cahaz _

 

My first video game was the odyssey with the tape up screens. At the time my dad worked for CSAA and as a promotion for most sales you could win the Odyssey or I believe it was a betamax not positive on the second Anyways dad gave my sister adn me a choice and we chose the Odyssey. Years later as the atari released we were able to get it. Being I grew up with the old consoles they are still my favorite systems

 

My first was the NES. Loved it, but then my stepdad cut the power cord, because I slacked on my chores. I was little and didn't know how to fix it, but I fell back into videogames when the Genesis and SNES came out. Love the Genesis and I'm noticing I own more Sega hardware than most other hardware. I actually started to buy games for the sake of just owning them when I was given the PSX. I started to buy up RPGs left and right. I had all FF games for the PSX until I was seriously low on cash and had to sell them. The systems I have been collecting for as of late are: Genesis, Sega CD, 32x, PSX, Saturn, N64, and DC. There are very few games on the PS2 that appeal to me, and I do not own an xbox and GC for the same reasons.

 

I never really started collecting until a few years ago. Way back in da day, my parents bought me an NES, which came with Mario/Duck Hunt and a zapper. Now, during my NES years I was very young, so I couldn't be a collector, nor did I have the intentions. I just liked jumping around as Mario. However, I have always been a "packrat" type person. I wouldn't keep anything and everything, by no means. But the toys or Games I got I would keep in good condition. I always kept the box, and I made sure I kept my stuff in the best of condition. I was young, but I was still adamant about keeping everything in great condition. I don't know what it was, but it could be a slight case of OCD Anyway, as the years went on, I got an SNES, then N64, and I was happy with what I had, and even though I had newer games and systems, I would never sell my old ones. My mindset was, and still is, I paid good money for them and I am not going to turn around and sell them. After all, I would only get about five cents anyway. I think when I was in about the 8th grade, I got a lot of old video game magazines from Mr. Casual, which he got from his older brother. In them I saw systems I never even knew existed. Neo Geo CD, 3DO, Jaguar, CD-i, Sega CD, TurboGrafx 16, etc. All this cool stuff I never knew existed, and for some reason I automatically fell in love with the 3DO, don't ask -_- Any way, after this discovery came what I call the "research years." I did as much research as I could on teh interweb, to find out as much info as possible on all this crazy stuff. Not only that, but I must have flipped/read/slept through about 50 to 60 old video game magazines. During my research, I found several sites that were dedicated to collecting, Vidgame.net, Digitalpress, ASSEMbler, etc. I realized I had a good start with my decent Nintendo collection, plus I had a DC and PSX so I thought I was ready. That's when I officially became a videogame collector. However, my collecting habits are a bit strange in the world of videogame collecting. Most people collect as many games as possible, or collect for only one system. I am a hardware collector. I collect mostly consoles, and while my console collection isn't the greatest, I think it's decent. My favorite item is probably my Super A'Can Anyway, that's my story, and of course it’s longwinded!

 

Agree. I started collecting all the old things i had when i was younger, granted that was only Amiga/NES but all the same it's classic to me.

 

Same here.

 

OMG ppl. What about the first Atari 2600? I started with the Sears VCS (aka Atari 2600). Then progressed to the Atari 800 and 1200XL. I remember having a tape drive for it and buying games on cassettes. Then I got a modem and found out what a BBS was quickly and joined an elite BBS where I was drafted into a "trading ring" as you may call it. That ring was called WASP. (W_ Atari Software P_) "W" meaning the town and "P" meaning something different (use your imagination). At one time I had over 1,000 games for the Atari 8 bit computer (at least from my memory). Then I got an Atari 1040ST to stay faithful to the Atari family even though by then the old Commodore boss owned them. BTW, during the time I bought the ST I was trying to decide if I should go with the ST or this weird contraption that included a robot and played games. Since it didn't look like it would succeed, I stuck with the ST. Come to find out, that contraption was the NES by Nintendo. I had fun with the ST though. I still miss it.

Then I hit my late highschool and early college years. No time for games...only drinking and girls. Then I longed for an Amiga and finally bought one. Amiga rules. For so long I hated Commodore because I was an Atari addict. Then I got into Amiga big time, met some people, got introduced to the SNES dumping scene. Bought an SNES over the genesis because I was excited about this CD attachment that was coming out for it! Come to find out, Nintendo never followed through.

Then from there I acquire a bunch of crap: Amiga CD32, Jaguar, Genesis, Nomad, 3DO (when it first was released for $700!! Ugh), Sega CD.....etc. Too many to list now. Never had Turbo Grfx though.

 

Haha, I love atari, and I also love playing sonic on genesis with the atari joystick...

 

I am gonna try to start collecting I dont really have that much the oldest things I have are n64 and psx.

My systems are:

Playstation2 (2)
Xbox
ps1
n64
gbc
gba (2)
gba sp
nintendo ds

So I have 10 systems not bad for a beginner.

 

I started collecting (my own consoles) maybe around ~1999-2000~
I have sold some stuff since then, but I quit selling my games in 2002. My bro introduced me to video games. He first had a NES, and I played Mario all the time. Soon we got a SNES, and I loved it, too. I still remember playing Super Mari Bros and the first time I killed 20 koopa all at once! We used to rent the Zelda games, but never had copies of them. Im glad to have them now. Soon my bro got a genesis, and then a sega Cd. I want to get a Genesis and a CD VERY badly, too, since my bor moved and took all his stuff with him. My first system to call my own was my N64 (I dont have it anymore) and my second was the Playstation, which is one of my fave consoles since I like RPGs A LOT. As the years went by I sold my N64, but kept collecting for my Game boy stuff, PSX, and so on, until I amassed a collection of about 100. (I know, thats small). Soon, I hope to have all of the 'major' consoles, and then some.

 

my mother gave me a family games (nes clone) when i was 9, and i didn't touch it very much.
later i that year i wanted a game boy and my mother went looking for the best portable on the market and gave me a gamegear. I didn't touch it very much either.
when i made 12, i got a sega saturn (it was the big thing back then), but as the other two i didn't use it very much.
but in christmas of 1999 i received a dreamcast and when i triend soul calibur i started to enjoy gaming, so i bought in the nesxt week sonic adventure, and the next week SWWS 2K(shity soccer game) and continued to buy more games.

then i realized much of the games i liked on the dreamcast were second versions of saturn games, so i bought them to because i had a saturn and i wanted to try them, then i began to love the satun to.
When buying old saturn games to friends and discovered they had game gear games so i bought them to.
i continued to buy old games, old systems and new games and systems.

one day i woke up and i had the room fool with games and consoles.

today i want to sell them and get some space on the room, but it's hard and sometimes i lose my head and start buying games of ebay again.lolol

i realized gamimng it's a expensive and dangerous hobby

 

My siblings and I recieved a NES for Christmas when I was about 5 years old, and that got me hooked on videogames. The first game I ever purchased with my own saved money was the original Final Fantasy a few years later, and I still have it along with the Super Mario Bros. 3 I got for my 7th birthday. Years went by, and although I played many systems with friends, all we continued to have at home were the NES and the Gameboy that followed it two years later. Finally, my second year of high school, I purchased a boxed SNES with Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, and Doom from a friend. I enjoyed the games and system for about a year and a half, then traded them in to buy a Playstation and a brand spanking new copy of Final Fantasy VII. I then went off to college, and the combination of turning 18 (eBay account!) and having disposable income through financial aid/part-time jobs allowed my collection to increase - slowly at first, with a Dreamcast and Genesis, but as time went on and I became wiser in the art of hunting thrift stores, the collection grew to its current size of 16 systems and 3 handhelds. Thankfully, I was able to track down another SNES to replace the one I traded all those years ago, as well as Chrono Trigger and SMRPG. I aquired a NES of my own, and I still have those Final Fantasy and Super Mario 3 carts, which were really what started it all for me.

 

Long story. I've been addicted to gaming since I was 3.
See, my brother was 11 and my sister 15 when I was born, in July 1981. Of course, they had an Atari 2600. In fact, two of them, and a mighty fuckload of cartridges. By 1984 I was three and able to play - even more so because my brother bought those Sesame Street games with the blue controller for kids, so I could play more.
My mom and dad had some friend back when we lived in Veracruz. In 1987, he had this cool thing he brought from the States on which you could shoot some ducks on the TV (guess?). I loved the thing, but my parents didn't really know what the hell it was, so they got me an ActionMax from the states. I was a bit disappointed, though the video part was really cool at the time.
Then, when I was 7 or 8 and everybody was getting NES systems, I got a really cool machine that played games on discs and used my old Atari joysticks. Since I didn't really have all the "cool" games and I was one of the weird kids, me and my Commodore spent many lonely afternoons together in the late 80s and Early 90s - programming very simple Basic (since, after all, I was 9 or 10), playing all the classic 80s arcade game ports - Dig Dug, Moon Patrol, Choplifter, Mr. Do's Castle.
I got a NES some years later when it was almost no longer cool, but I got a Snes soon after. I had a love for the Super Mario games, but also Zelda II was great. On the Snes, however, I was completely turned into an addict by Final Fantasy III / VI, then Chrono Trigger. I had Dragon Warrior II for the NES earlier, but really, It was RPGs, Shooters and Super Metroid that made me an addict. By the time I finished Chrono Trigger, I was already in high school, and this new Sony machine was out that was going to get the new Final Fantasy and some cool games like Vandal Hearts and Wild Arms, according to the american magazines. So I went and got it. It was 1997 already, and the Snes was not precisely getting younger.
I got all the RPGs I could for the machine, but, since Mexico had entered a monetary crisis in early 1995, it was hard to get games. And then "legitimate" stores stopped carrying RPGs, so I went into bootlegs. That's how I played most classic games of the 32 bit era. I still loved the PSX and the Snes to death. I got a PS2 and was very disappointed with the lack of decent software, so I got a dreamcast immediately after that, when it was pretty much dead, so it was VERY cheap. I love it to death as well.

Today, I'm more of a Retro-Gamer than any other type of gaming. I play, through IMBNes, all the NES games I couldn't have as a kid, and many that I played so much I memorised. I still have my SNes, though I don't have many of my old cartridges (but I'm re-collecting them at flea markets). I love Atari stuff, and I also have an Intellivision (I started reading English in many of the 2600 cartridges' manuals and pamphlets from back then), and I really love the pre-crash era.
One day, I'll also get a Japanese Saturn, a Turbo-Duo, and a ColecoVision - but for now, I still have to have my PS2 repaired, buy a DS and save for when Revolution comes out.

 

I quess my mag collection got me started. I just kept all my EGMs and other all the way back to about 92. Then i went through about 5 years of crap in my life, buying mags but really no games, playing whatever my roomates brought home.

One night i started going through my old mags and it was great, memories galore, to a better, simpler time. I turned the page from buying everthing new to liking the old stuff in about 99. Thats when alot of the new stuff didnt apeal to me so i started buying the old stuff, SNES,TG16. right now im playing runscape and wating for zelda, nothing else, might pick a couple GC games when they hit the 20$.

 

Well....

My dad was always into computers. So the first console I ever owned was an Odyssey 2, at the age of 6. He got it becasue it had a keyboard, and somehow thought it would be "educational." We also owned a Colecovision for about three days. He returned it becasue it was "crap" and we stuck with Atari 8 bit computers, then Macintosh, then PCs, etc.

So I got an NES when I was 13, but by that time they were already on the way out. My Mom used to work for GTE as a sales rep before they were bought out by Verison, and part of her compensation was that she got to order stuff through these catalogs with points accumulated though sales. I got all my game systems that way when I was a kid all the way though high shcool, Snes, 3DO, Game Boy, even got a Turbo Express this way.

But I didn't start collecting like a madman until I got my first job in about 1996 and suddenly had money. This was also when Shlockbuster started selling used NES and SNES games real cheap. But the collection stayed small until I got on Ebay in 1999. Back in the begining nobody knew how valuble all this stuff was (or it's percieved value anyway) and I scored all lot of stuff real cheap. Sadly the days of some old lady selling thier kids "junk" for pennies on Ebay are pretty much over. Anyway I've lately taken a break from collecting as now I've got like 52 systems and 400 games and have run out of room under the TV, although I did buy an X-Box becasue they're so cheap now. As you may have gathered I come from the I'm-a-cheap-ass school of collecting. Anything over $50 is expensive to me. As a consequence I don't have much in the way of Rare or valuble items bought for collecting's sake (the rare one in a thousand oginal import Saturn game still sealed and such) as I tend to buy stuff second hand, which mean's it's usually opened. But I do have a few things I'm hanging onto for investment value, rare NES games, prototype PS2 games, etc.

I don't know, just always been kinda fascinated by video games, ever since I was a kid.

My console list: Some other time. It would take too long, and I am hungry now.

 

Wow, your TV must be quite spacious if you run out of space only after amassing 52 consoles under it ;-)

Anyway, I remember playing NES games on an M82 demo system in Ikea when I was 8 years old, and later at friend's places (this was in the early 90s). A few years later, when the SNES was already out, my parents got me a NES action set for Christmas, and between ~1993 and 1998 I bought a shitload of games, most of them complete, only to sell it all to a friend for about 45e. Then followed a long period of PC gaming (and learning to program), while playing an occasional PS or N64 game at friends (I never saw a Saturn before I bought my own in 2003, not that I remember). In 2002, though, a friend of mine got a PS2 and sold me his N64 with a crapload of carts, and that's where it started
Not too soon after, I bought a PSone on ebay and started hoarding (I had quite a lot of money back then), and in 2003 I finally realized my dream of owning a Saturn, which is my favourite system. And after purchasing an ST-V board last summer I've started a small PCB collection.