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Games Entertainment

The Ultimate Video Game Library up for Auction 275

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-of-legends dept.
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.
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The Ultimate Video Game Library up for Auction More

The Ultimate Video Game Library up for Auction

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  • Hardly.

    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.

  • 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.
  • 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...

    Also, a picture would be nice tough guy, or is the .50 cent charge for adding pictures too rich for you blood?

    ~Patrick

  • 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 [makingit.com]
  • Remember? Hell, I *have* one hooked up in my living room right now, with a fair amount of games. I don't have pitfall, but I've got night stalker... Almost all of the little slide-in cover things too!

    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/ [intellivisionlives.com] someone remembers it, anyway. Check out the cable network interface it had http://www.makingit.com/bluesky/hardware/playcable _tech.html [makingit.com]. 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.
  • From auction:

    "Note all games will be categorized with the systems they run on"

    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.

  • ...on treatments for his repetitive stress injury he must have gotten from typing all those titles out :)

  • Re:Emulators (Score:3)

    by PsychoKiller ( 20824 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @02:49PM (#597613) Homepage
    Yup... MAME. And it ain't gonna be cheap. I'd say a PII minimum.

    http://www.arcadecontrols.com/arcade_examples.sh tm l
  • If you like looking at pictures of old consoles (and I definitely do), check out the linked page.
  • 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.
  • Net cost on eBay: $25,000 (or whatever the reserve is)

    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

  • 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.

  • Legit? (Score:4)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <(jhummel) (at) (johnhummel.net)> on Monday November 27, 2000 @01:39PM (#597621) Homepage

    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

  • 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 [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
  • Exactly - why buy when one can emulate? It's not like emulation of the older systems harms their sales in any way. But emulation of new systems such as Playstation and N64 is a bit shadier, and has the possibility of damaging the profit of these systems - kinda like putting a mod chip in a playstation and burning games.

    ------

    Shhhhh....there's a dead body in my trunk.
    Wanna see it? Fuck around and you'll be it!

  • 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;-)
  • I *have* an original Sega Master system, and it came with "Hang On/Safari Hunt - the combo cartridge". It also came with a light phaser. There was another non-light phaser version that may have come with something else...

    Exactly. Sega originally released the SMS in three different configurations, actually:

    • Sega Base System: 2 controllers, no gun; included the Hang On/Astro Warrior combo cartridge.
    • Sega Master System: 2 controllers plus gun; included Hang On/Safari Hunt combo cartridge. After a while (~2 years?), some of these came with the Hang On/Astro Warrior cartridge, probably by mistake (it happened to a friend of mine).
    • Sega 3D System: 2 controllers, gun, and 3D LCD-shutter glasses that plugged into the card slot (?). Came with some 3D game that I can't recall at the moment (Zaxxon?)

    I admit, I used to be a Sega zealot when I was a kid. :)

  • 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?
  • 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...

  • 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
  • Loved StarTropics...also loved Maniac Mansion, if you've played that. Couldn't fit the damn meteor in the Edsel for some reason, and I just rented it...when I rented it again my file was gone, oh the pain. And DWIII, my first introduction to RPGs... Fun memories. It was fun having the NES this summer in my crummy little room. Fit the decor well.

  • 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.
  • He claims to have an original sega master system "that came with alex kidd". That's a bunch of crap. I *have* an original Sega Master system, and it came with "Hang On/Safari Hunt - the combo cartridge". It also came with a light phaser. There was another non-light phaser version that may have come with something else, but the Alex Kidd series wasn't released until the Master System had been around for a while, IIRC... Also, the second-generation system that he describes didn't have the hidden built-in snail maze game that the original master system had.

    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.

  • Some interesting info I got from AIM'ing the guy (Score:5)

    by twjordan ( 88132 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @03:02PM (#597639)
    For some reason I wasn't impressed:

    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.

  • Uh, *what* linked page?
  • "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
  • A major thing that makes this seems so fake is that he will supposedly pay for shipping. That would cost a lot more than 500 dollars, yet that was the initial value (ie, he may have been willing to settle for only that). Of course, he knew it would get much higher, but I think his willingness to dispose of the games as well as claims of mint condition really suggest that this is not totally legit.

    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
  • > 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.
  • Most "high profile" auctions that I've seen on eBay, usually linked from other sites, are from sellers that have never sold on eBay before. If I remember correctly, both the recent Cray and id Software SGI were from first-time sellers.

    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.

  • Re:Possible Fraud (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27, 2000 @03:06PM (#597662)
    Too lazy to log in. Any way -
    http://psx.ign.com/games/336.html - kinda hard
    for a game that doesn't exist to have codes and reviews :) (I've beaten Symphony of the Night on the Playstation *and* Saturn)
    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/

  • This [ebay.com] 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
    --
  • Jesus, VA Linux is really getting ripped off every time one of these stories goes up. 4/5 times the thing being auctioned is something /.ers are rabid for, and consequently the /. effect makes the price go through the roof. I'm surprised it was only up to $18k by the time I checked it.

    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
    --

  • For real? (Score:5)

    by retep ( 108840 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @01:42PM (#597694)

    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...
  • Because it seems ridiculous to me that prices for items that are only a few years old can be so high.

    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.

  • I need to see product before purchase, hot dammit!...

    If you have $15,000+ to blow on this, i think not having a picture is the least of your worries.
  • Who the hell thought that we could /. ebay!

  • Re:Damn, this guy must be in some pretty big troub (Score:3)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @03:23PM (#597718) Homepage
    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
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Fall 1993 actually. At least in NYC.
  • After finding out he was in Roseville, I had that idea too.

    Hey, how about this? You take digicam pictures of 1986-1992, and I'll take 1993-2000? He'll have 2 forms of verification, and we'll be able to snapshot the whole lot in about 1, maybe 2 days tops. :)
  • and reading it now, the seller was heard to say:
    Damn! I should have hit that Preview button!

    (Lord knows I've submitted enough posts to /. where I wished *I* had hit the preview button!)

  • It's only a matter of time. I made a 7800 dumper and I even tried to make a copy cart of his Sentinel, but I couldn't get the copy cart circuitry right. I know I dumped those two, but right now I'm not exactly full of free time these days. When I run across those files, I'll let the rgvc folks know.

    Also FWIW, those two were European releases, so they do NOT have the digital signature required to run on an unmodified USA 7800.

  • wow, you must get all the girls.

    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!)

  • Oops. I found my backup. They're NTSC after all.
  • You forgot about that other 30% who thinks some random NES or Playstation game is a "classic". The other day, I think I even saw one of the ebay locusts post about something related to the Dreamcast being a "classic"!

    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!

  • ** Our Site Is Temporarily Unavailable **

    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 [ebay.com] 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)

  • Kinda makes me wonder, what's the point of setting the initial price to $500 if the reserve is >$17K.. Why let people bid on it for days before even reaching the real starting point?!
  • over $60k now...
    --
  • 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.
  • Played Paperboy at my cousin's house at Thanksgiving, along with some other games (the yearly conquests to beat Rad Racer, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Island & Mystery Mansion all in one sitting). Too bad I left A Boy and His Blob at my place... what a game... mmmm.... jellybeans....
    --
  • I'm sure whoever drops $60k+ on this thing could afford an RF switchbox... most of the consoles have that as part of the std equip, but even so, they aren't all that hard to find. You could always use an old C=64 monitor, too 8^)

    --
  • For 60,000 i'd expect much more than just those systems, which are all fairly recent.

  • As for it being his first, well shit happens and maybe this is the easiest way for him to offload the collection as a whole.....but I see your point. However, as for mint, you are right, having collected games over the decades, I have found caring for all the packaging a monster chore. You will be amazed what your family and friends will just randomly do to your stuff, like throwing away your styrofom paackaging and then collapsing your boxes when your away to save room! I could have cried.....
  • 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

  • when you were a kid!? (Score:5)

    by largul ( 183208 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @01:53PM (#597793) Homepage
    How old are you anyway, CmdrTaco? As I recall the 3DO came out in 1994...
  • Ok... about 1200 games, current bid at about $16,000 for the system, and note that the reserve is NOT YET MET. So each of these used games is selling for about $13.33 each. Thats pretty good money for games this old.

    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.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @01:55PM (#597800)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • 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?

  • 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.

  • Anyway, why is the seller selling?

    I asked the same question when I originally saw this auction, and my coworkers spit out the answer almost simultaneously: "He just got married." Maybe, maybe not, but it was just funny that all of the married guys didn't even have to think about it.

  • What, no Vectrex? (Score:3)

    by L-Train8 ( 70991 ) <Matthew_Hawk@@@hotmail...com> on Monday November 27, 2000 @01:57PM (#597808) Homepage Journal
    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

  • How timely... (Score:3)

    by ethereal ( 13958 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @01:59PM (#597813) Journal

    ...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 :)

  • Shit! And I wasted all my youth on girls and sex. (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27, 2000 @02:01PM (#597818)
    I guess i really missed out, eh?
  • 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
  • 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.

  • Ebay Insurance (3rd party) covers all transactions except for the first $50. So, if you spend $20,000 on an item, have the receipt proving you paid, you get $19,950 back. I assume a collection agency/etc goes after the deadbeat seller...
    (I actually had to use there insurance once when I got stiffed on a AMD K6-450 I "won")

  • Dude! (Score:2)

    by Lish ( 95509 )
    I had totally forgotten that game. It ruled. Also missing is "Paperboy". Did anyone else have that? He's got Mighty Bomb Jack even, and I thought I was the only person who'd ever even heard of that, let alone played it.

    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.

  • Don't forget the Colecovision and the Intellivision. I know I wasted countless hours of my youth on these two...

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @02:23PM (#597850)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Remember the Virtual Boy? I can remember the hype when it came out, probably about 7 years ago. I remember the first (and only) time I played on one of those things was when my friend rented one from Blockbuster for his birthday party. I remember thinking it was pretty cool, even if the screen was only red, and I got a crick in the neck playing it, not to mention irreparably damaging my eyesight staring at it. We played the pinball game, and Mario Tennis. What ever happened to Mario Tennis? :-)

    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.

  • ugh (Score:3)

    by British ( 51765 ) <british1500@gmail.com> on Monday November 27, 2000 @03:27PM (#597866) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • 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!
  • CmdrTaco graduated in 1994. It's on http://cmdrtaco.net/ . Yes I did bother to visit it.
    +===========================+
    |http://mere.2y.net/scoop/ |
    |Tome=SCOOP+COOL_CONTENT; |

  • Not that unusual (Score:5)

    by The Optimizer ( 14168 ) on Monday November 27, 2000 @02:32PM (#597873)
    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.

    collection closet 1 [home.net]
    collection closet 2 [home.net]
    collection closet 3 [home.net]

    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' .sig
  • Why, in a two story iMac [ebay.com], of course.

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