A visit to Scandinavia for our next collection, Sweden to be precise and the awesome collection of Heidi. Heidi (@Retro_Game_Blog) who many of you may already know from her retro gaming website or her Instagram pictures has a freshly refurbished game room and gaming collection to die for. We saw it and immediately knew we just had to show it here. Enjoy.

The Collection

Click on images to enlarge

This is an overview of my Retro Room as I like to call it. More or less retro vintage furniture from the 70’s and 80’s and brown/orange colours to match all the retro games ^_^

In this corner I have my desk and beloved iMac, this is where i clean, sort, organize and blog about all my games

I have a total of 4 TV’s setup for gaming. This one unfortunately only have one working input so this one’s dedicated to my PAL NES. I put up the Zappers just using two nails in the wall and balancing them on there.

TV Setup number 2 has LOTS of systems hooked up to it. Thanks to an RGB switch in the back, and a bunch of splitters for the component cables I am managine to have it all connected. There’s an NTSC NES, Super Nintendo, Twin Famicom, PAL Sega Mega Drive 2, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Sega Saturn, N64, Super Famicom, Japanese Sega Master System, Sega CD and the new NEO GEO X.

TV setup number 3 has a japanese Sega Mega Drive, a PC Engine Duo and an Atari 2600 Junior. It also holds all my Japanese Sega Mega Drive games, which is about only 30 so far.

TV setup number 4 is a small flat screen where I mainly have the Commodore 64 connected. This TV is however right next to my desk so I can use it when recording. I have a bunch of extra systems on my desk that are ready to connect, like a Famicom with a Disk System, a Master System and a SNES.

On the shelves in this corner I have one of my three virtual boys and all the games I have for it. I think I’m missing two games for the VB now. There’s also some PAL SNES, N64 some board games and other oddities that doesn’t belong anywhere else, like Intellivision games and such which I don’t have a system for yet..

Here’s my precious Pacman neon sign, I love it! It really lights up the entire room ^_^ On the shelves we have all my SFC boxed games, Famicom boxed games and Atari 2600 cartridges.

Here’s a bit of a Star Wars collage with toys and games to the left, and also all my Famicom Disk System games to the right. And also some boxed Atari’s and the Samda de Amigo maracas ^^

Here’s my couch, it’s from my grandparents and I think it’s really cool. You can puzzle it together and it will make a mattress! Almost like Tetris.

In these shelves I have my Famicom cartridges (I have over 600 of them). Most games I display though are games that are playable, like puzzle, shooters, action and platformers. All the RPG’s and japanese text-heavy games I’ve hidden in boxes elsewhere.. In the two shelves to the right there’s all my boxed GB, GBC and GBA games.

This is painting that is very dear to me. A good friend made it for me a long time ago. He just called and asked what my favorite characters where, then he surprised me with this artwork. It’s Sepiroth from FF7, Samus from Metroid, Lulu from FFX and Halo’s Master chief ^_^

This is my favorite chair, it’s extremely comfortable! and it was cheap at a second hand store ^^The Famicom Pillow was made by Lucy from SewYourSoul in London and the Amiga 500 I just got.. haven’t found a place for it yet..

Here’s a shelf I painted and decorated, it contains all my Famicom Konami games that I don’t have boxes for. I’m also really happy with my Nintendo neon sign ^_^

This shelf is filled with goodies!

The thing I’ve been collecting the most gets the best spot here, Castlevania!  I think I have most castlevania games that have been released. Just gotta love this series ^_^

In the middle part here we have a bunch of boxed goodies, like Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Doom for Atari Jaguar, Zelda for SNES, Mario Bros for Atari 2600, Altered Beast for Famicom, Bucky O’Hare Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, Life Force Salamander, Ninja Baseball Batman! and a bunch of other games. Mainly games that are either pretty, valuable or dear to me.

In the bottom I keep my Sega Saturn games, Atari Jaguar games and all magazines I’ve collected about retro gaming.

Lately I’ve been focusing a lot of my collecting to PC Engine. I just got this system about a year ago and I’ve accumulated quite the library already. It’s a great system with some great games!

And here’s even more PC Engine games. I haven’t found a good place to store them yet, so they’re just waiting on the floor meanwhile…

Here’s another Virtual Boy and my official Nintendo box where I keep some of my favorite NES games, in the top there’s also customized space to store 2 controllers and a Zapper.

Here’s some of my favorite Famicom games displayed.

On the top here I keep a bunch of boxed stuff, then there’s some PS1 games, famicom and then PAL Sega Master System games. I ran out of shelves for this thing, I’m working on making new ones so the SMS games don’t have to be stacked ontop of each other. On the right are my NES games, both NTSC and PAL, and some PS2 games in the bottom.

Here’s my PAL Sega Mega Drive collection. I can’t really buy many more games for it since the whole shelf is full! haha ^_^ But I don’t think I’ll be able to keep myself from that anyway.

All previous images have been taken with a flash. My Retro Room is usually much more cosy with mainly red lights and neon signs.

Q and A with Heidi Ekstrand

When did you become interested in video games and what was the first video game you played?

Heidi: I’ve always been interested in video games! When I was really young, 5 or so, I found my 13 year older brother’s forgotten Donkey Kong Game & Watch. It was orange and pretty, with a multi screen, and the game was really simplistic yet difficult! I played this thing constantly! Until one day it got lost, and I don’t know where it went. Perhaps I had forgotten it someplace, or maybe my parents just hid it. They have never been fans of video games, they assumed games would make you stupid… So I basically never got any games, even when we were going on road trips around Europe and both my cousins had a Game Boy, I never got one. I played games whenever I got the chance! At friend’s places, or my cousins’ places, everything from NES to Sega Mega Drive and I was always quite good at it. My friends used to sometimes call me to come over and help them with a boss, even though I didn’t even have the games myself I could usually figure it out ^_^ I remember fondly playing Super Mario Bros 1, 2 & 3, Metroid, Castlevania, Ice Climbers, Alex the Kidd in Miracle World, Sonic 1 & 2 and many of these common games that people usually had.

What was the first games console or computer you owned and how old were you?

Heidi: When growing up into our early teens my friends starting getting bored of their games, but I hadn’t gotten enough of it. I still always wanted to play games whenever I went to friend’s places. After years and years of begging my parents eventually got me a used Sega Mega Drive briefly, I think I was around 12 or 13, they later borrowed it out to a 5 year old when I wasn’t home, and the kid broke it after I’ve had it just for about a year.

What got you into collecting videogames, computers and consoles?

Heidi: One Christmas when I was 18 or 19 I convinced my Dad to buy me a PS2, making him think it was a special kind of DVD player! He bought it and after that my collecting started escalating. I bought sooo many games for the PS2, and then I bought an Xbox and just kept collecting. By this time I had my own income and I spent most of it on games! (Just imagine how much my Dad regretted ever having bought me that PS2). It didn’t take long until I realized that I could buy all the old systems I never got as a kid online, so I started getting it all! NES, SMS, SMD, SNES, N64 and so on.

Where do you source most of your retro purchases from (ebay, flea markets etc) ?

Heidi: Ebay, and some specialized retro game retailers online here in Sweden. Also a Swedish auction site that is like Ebay, called Tradera. Flea markets aren’t very big here, and especially where I live it’s far from any big city that might have a range of retro games, so I have to do most of my hunting and purchases online.

What is your most prized retrogaming possession and how much did it cost you?

Heidi: I think most people would really appreciate my Nintendo sealed Zelda a Link to the Past, but I don’t really like Zelda (!), so I don’t really care about that possession that much, I still like having it in my collection, and I got it as a gift from a dear friend so I want to keep it ^_^ But something I really care about a lot would be my CiB Bucky O’Hare, since I love that game, and I’m also quite proud of my Virtual Boy collection, I’m only missing 1 or 2 games for that system.

What is your favourite hardware manufacturer (Sega, Nintendo, Atari Commodore etc.) ?

Heidi: Sega… and Nintendo! I can’t choose >-< and I would also like to throw in NEC!! For the fantastic PC Engine ^_^

What is your favourite console or computer?

Heidi: Aaah! That is such a hard question.. well recently I’ve been collecting mostly PC Engine and Famicom games. The PC Engine is really special, and it has some amazing games!! But Nintendo is of course also great, lots of fantastic franchises from Konami & Capcom etc. But I also have a dear place in my heart for the Sega Mega Drive, since I played it a lot as a kid and I love the SMD music ^_^ So I can’t choose just one, I will have to say (in no particular order), NES/Famicom, PC Engine and Sega Mega Drive!

Where do you want to go now with the collection?

Heidi: Well I’ve never been aiming at completing any collection, neither do I collect games that are sealed. I buy games that I can play, and I love trying “new” games that I haven’t heard about before. I usually just browse around Ebay and buy stuff that either looks interesting on the cover art or that has an interesting name, and it doesn’t matter the platform. I have over 60 different systems now, and that is just so that I can play any game I come across. I’m up to over 3000 games, and I’ve mainly been searching for platformers, action, adventure, shmups or puzzle games which are the type of games that I enjoy playing, and that is probably what I will continue to search for.

I also love photographing, I have a Canon d mark 5 so I take a lot of pictures of my gems and spread the love for retro gaming on my blog and through instagram and pinterest. I will definitely continue doing so ^_^

Have you any tips for budding retro games collectors?

Heidi: I import a lot of japanese games, and even though I know some basic japanese it is hard to read what the game is called if it’s only in kanji, for this I found out a great function on Google! If you go to images instead of web you can just drag and drop a picture you take of the game cartridge in there and it will search for similar pictures. This almost always works for finding out the name of the game.
Another advice for NES fans is to get a Famicom, there were more games released for the Famicom than the NES (at least the European one) and also the famicom games are usually much cheaper! You can find amazing games that never left Japan, and you can also find a lot of the desirable games like Mega Man series etc to a much better price for the Famicom than the NES, and it’s still the exact same game!

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector Show us your collection: #18 Heidi stopXwhispering

Mod or Super Famicom?

During the past year or so I have become increasingly convinced that I was missing out on something that my friends were doing on a regular basis – playing Japanese games on the Super Famicom. So having finally decided to do something about this large missing piece in my retrogaming jigsaw I made some enquiries into purchasing a Super Famicom. I very nearly purchased one to sit next to my Super Nintendo but a thought struck me. Why not just mod one of my existing SNES consoles to play all region carts? Better still, also mod them to play them at full speed and full screen. As my skills with a soldering iron are very limited and my electronics knowledge even more so, I therefore decided to search for an expert to mod my console for me.

My search eventually led me to a particular small business offering their services called Retro Mods Ltd (see their Facebook page here). I liked the simplicity of the service they offered; decide what mods you want, pay, send them your console and have it returned to you with the mods done, with free return postage. Pricing was very reasonable so off it went to have PAL/NTSC and 50/60hz switches, a clear cartridge flap and LED mods fitted. I decided against a paint job because the SNES I had chosen wasn’t yellowed at all and keeps the consoles I have on display looking original.

Just less than a week later (only took that long because of a Bank Holiday) I got my console back all modded and ready to play JP SFC games at full speed and full screen! My console is pictured below after being modded.

Needless to say I would definitely recommend their services!

Click on images to enlarge

My SNES with PAL/NTSC 50/60hz mods fitted

My SNES with showing the two switches and LEDs shining through the clear perspex cartridge flap.

Closeup of the PAL/NTSC 50/60hz swtiches.

Back in its rightful place alongside the other consoles.

Gallery of consoles modded by Retro Mods Ltd

Click on images to enlarge

Links

Retro Mods Facebook page

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector Retro Mods Ltd – console modding service

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector Atari 2600 – The History, hardware and how to write programs

Converting my loft (click here to see the finished games room) gave me space enough and an excuse to sort out and catalogue my own hardware collection. I now actually know what I have, what works, what’s boxed or unboxed and what I need to complete certain elements of the collection. It also gave me an opportunity to photograph it all. What follows in this post is not ALL of the collection but most of what I class as the good stuff. I can’t sort out my software just yet, there is crate upon crate of the stuff to go through. So I have just included a few overview shots of the software crates just so you get the idea.

To see my Sinclair hardware collection almost in its entirety see this post.
See my flyer/poster collection here.

The collection

Click on images for titles and to enlarge

My Sega Saturn hardware collection

Sega Master System Mk.1

Inside the box closeup.

Sega Master System Plus. This set comes with 2 games built in, Hang On and Safari Hunt. Also bundled with a Sega Light Phaser.

Inside the ‘Plus’ box closeup.

Sega Master System II with boxed Light Phaser and frankly useless Sega Control Stick.

A Sega MegaDrive hardware overview. The Menacer looked better than the Nintendo Scope but was just as crap.

Sega MegaDrive II box closeup.

…and inside the MegaDrive II box. Mega Games I included Super Hang On, World Cup Italia ’90 and Columns.

My boxed Sega Mega CD Mega CD II and Lethal Enforcers box set with Justifier light gun.

The insides of the Sega Mega CD II box include the rather disappointing Road Avenger. The first Mega CD has a much better pack-in offering of Sol Feace, Cobra Command and Arcade Classics.

Closeup of the Sega Mega CD II contents.

Sega Dreamcast hardware collection including the sublime House of The Dead 2 box set and equally fantastic Arcade Stick.

Boxed and mint Samba De Amigo for Sega Dreamcast.

Inside the Samba De Amigo box.

A bootleg version of Samba De amigo called ‘Samba Fans’. Just as good and almost identical.

Inside the Samba Fans box.

Sega Game Gear and AC Adapter. The latter comes in handy if you aren’t a director at Duracell.

Sinclair ZX81 hardware. Two boxed ZX Printers, two boxed ZX81s and one unboxed along with two boxed 16K RAM packs.

A pair of Sinclair ZX Spectrum (16K models).

And three ZX Spectrums of the 48K kind.

Sinclair ‘Six Pack’ software bundles. This came with the 48K ZX Spectrum and the ZX Spectrum + (top left).

The Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128 was the last true Sinclair machine before the Amstrad takeover in 1986. It could have been worse, it was nearly Robert Maxwell.

Closeup of the ZX Spectrum 128 box.

Closeup of the ZX Spectrum 128 itself showing why they are sometimes nicknamed ‘toast racks’ after the huge heat sink on the right hand edge.

The contents of the ZX Spectrum 128 box (minus computer itself). The two games bundled with this were quite good. Daley Thompsons Super-Test and Never Ending Story, both by Ocean.

Two boxed Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ computers. The replacement for the original rubber keyed Spectrums, these keyboards whilst a slight improvement over the original, suffered in other ways, namely easily broken membranes.

The rare boxed ZX Spectrum Expansion System, comprising of an Interface 1 and Microdrive.

Big rivals in the UK. A Commodore 64 Night Moves pack and a ZX Spectrum +2 Action Pack.

Three packs and three different ZX Spectrums. Top left: The ZX Spectrum +3 Boots Action Pack, Top right: ZX Spectrum +2A Action Pack and bottom: The ZX Spectrum +2 Dixons Computer Outfit.

Two complete boxed Sinclair QLs (Quantum Leap). These suffered from delays in release along with hardware failures and were subsequently only produced for just over a year.

The UK variant of the Fairchild Channel F and the first home console to use programmable ROM cartridges.

My Mattel Aquarius hardware collection.

The contents of one of the Aquarius boxes.

The Mattel Aquarius Data Recorder.

The fairly uncommon Mattel Aquarius Mini Expander, which enabled extra memory and cartridges to be used along with 2 built in controllers.

Closeup of the Mini Expander unit.

One of my favourite consoles from the 70s is this boxed Philips Videopac G7000.

The Philips CDi 450 was the ‘console’ version of the CDi range. It played just like the bigger systems and you still had to add a video cartridge to play movies.

NEC Turbo Grafx TG-16 and Turbo Stick.

The famous Intellivision or ‘Intelligent Television’. When woodgrain was all the rage.

A ColecoVision with Atari 2600 adapter and trackball add-ons. Probably the most capable console of the period.

The retro Playstation family. An original Sony Playstation, Playstation Dual Shock, PSOne and PS2.

The Time Crisis and Guncon controller box-set for Playstation.

My arsenal of retro weapons. Top left to right: Md Dog McCree Justifier box set, Time Crisis Guncon box set, Cheetah Defender, Sinclair Magnum. Middle left to right: Nintendo Scope 6, Sega Light Phaser. Bottom left to right: Predator lightgun, Sega Mancer and Sega Virtua Cop box set.

Grandstand Firefox F7 table top game.

My handheld consoles assembled. Top left to right: Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear, Nintendo Game Boy Color. Bottom left to right: Gamepark GP2X F100, Gamepark GP2X Wiz, Neo Geo Pocket Colour and Bandai Wonderswan.

My Nintendo NES Super Set. Comes with the Nintendo Four Score adapter and 4 control pads for multiplayer mayhem.

Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) Street Fighter II Edition.

Bog standard PAL SNES in box.

Original Game Boy boxed.

Two standard Nintendo 64s with boxed yellow controller and boxed Controller Pak.

Boxed Nintendo 64 Limited Edition Gold Controller.

Boxed Nintendo 64 Super Mario 64 edition.

My least favourite Nintendo console, the Nintendo doorstop, sorry… GameCube.

Boxed Atari VCS (CX2600) with Marjac Romscanner add-on.

The Atari VCS with the Marjac Romscanner attached. Looks great doesn’t it?

Closeup of the Marjac Romscanner. Personally I just love that ‘Activate’ button.

Inside the box of my Sunnyvale ‘light sixer’ Woody. This Atari CX2600 has the lowest serial number I’ve ever seen on a Sunnyvale six switch with a number of 007213. Better still, the serials match on the outer box, inner packaging and the console itself as seen below.

The CX2600 outer box showing serial number.

The bottom of the VCS itself showing the super-low serial number.

If I was asked to choose just ONE Atari console to take with me to my desert island it would be the Atari 7800. Only because it plays 2600 carts too.

Atari Jaguar with Cybermorph pack-in game. Deemed a failure but still has a few must-have titles.

A boxed Night Moves Commodore 64 and a boxed Amiga 500 plus. Not much of a Commodore fan back in the day but learning to appreciate the big beige boxes a little more nowadays.

Boxed Speak and Spell by Texas Instruments. On the right is it’s direct descendant, the Super Speak and Spell.

Amstrad’s attempt at getting a shot at the console market was this, the GX4000. It was never going to compete with the likes of Nintendo and Sega and doomed to failure from the outset.

I run two modded original Xboxes running CoinOPS and a host of emulators and my only next-gen gaming is done on the Xbox 360. Bottom right is the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player.

My Neo Geo X Gold. Ignore the naysayers, I love this machine. I’m able to play SNKs finest without having to second mortgage my home to buy an AES and the carts.

It was fun for a while but all that arm-waving just makes you look silly. Now consigned to a dark corner of the games room my soft-modded Wii is only occasionally dug out and played on.

Amstrad’s answer to the home computer market was actually a great machine. I am in need of a new monitor though.

The rich kids ZX Spectrum but without the good games. My wife wouldn’t thank me for saying that, she had one.

I love British micros from the 80s, the Tangerine Computer Systems Oric Atmos 48K.

The Rick Dickinson designed Sinclair Flat Screen TV. Now useless but an ingenious piece of industrial design.

Sharp MZ-700. A beast of a machine.

The Texas Instruments TI-994A.

Sharp PC-1211 with cassette interface.

My software shelves with a selection of carts/cards/disks from some of the systems I have wired up in the games room.

My consoles all wired up and ready to play on a flat screen CRT.

Another view of the consoles.

The mood lighting is changeable via remote control.

I have a load of software crates in storage, about 70% of which contain ZX Spectrum titles. I will eventually get around to sorting this lot out!

A closer look at some crates of ZX Spectrum titles. Each is 2 or 3 layers deep and contains on average around 200 games.

Inside one of the crates.

Ant Harper interviews himself!

When did you become interested in video games and what was the first video game you played?

Ant: I became interested in arcade games when I was around 6 years old. The mid to late 70s were an exciting time and the arcades were full of strange electro-mechanical beasts where the new-fangled microprocessor based machines like Boot Hill and Space Invaders were being played alongside machines like Killer Shark, Grand Prix and Jet Rocket. I was hooked and every chance I got (mainly during summer holidays), I was in an arcade pumping 10 pence pieces into them.

What was the first games console or computer you owned and how old were you?

Ant: The first home video game console I ever owned (well, family owned) was a Grandstand TV game sometime in the mid 70′s. I can’t actually remember the exact model now, there were so many of them, but I do know it had colour (only one TV in our house was colour at the time), it had built in games mainly based around variations of pong and that it had a light-gun you could make up/break down to use as a pistol or a rifle. We used to love playing as a family on that early games system. The first computer I owned was a Sinclair ZX81 purchased for me by my parents. I learned to program in basic and compile machine code on that little thing.

What got you into collecting videogames, computers and consoles?

Ant: I suppose I didn’t actually collect as such until I was earning a proper wage, around the late 80s. Even then I didn’t have much of a collection, I mainly rented Sega carts from a Video rental store that had diversified to sell and rent video games. When I did finally get into collecting properly (not sure exactly when this was) it was then just a case of getting everything I had longed for as a kid. Nostalgia, reliving the past; call it what you will.

Where do you source most of your retro purchases from (ebay, flea markets etc) ?

Ant: Years gone by I used to source most of my retro stuff from car boot sales, table top sales, jumble sales etc. but since the current retro boom started this has all but dried up. So now I am resigned to buying collections in bulk (I advertise), trading with other collectors or trawling eBay looking for the odd bargain. You can still find bargains on eBay if you know where (and how) to look.

What is your most prized retrogaming possession and how much did it cost you?

Ant: Wow, I’ve been asking this everyone else and now I know how hard this is to answer. Hmm, if I had to pick one it would have to be my old ZX81. I still have my original working computer from 1982 and wouldn’t part with it for all the money on earth. That’s a lie, all the money on earth would be fine. I have no idea how much it cost because it was a present from my parents for Christmas.

What is your favourite hardware manufacturer (Sega, Nintendo, Atari Commodore etc.) ?

Ant: Easy one this. Sinclair without a doubt. Sir Clive made computers accessible to everyone by making them cheap, and this is where their strength lay. OK, they had lousy speakers, colour clash and no sprites but they were easy to program and introduced people to programming like no Commodore or Atari ever could. This is where people miss (or forget) the point. Sinclair machines were for hobbyists, not gamers. The fact that they actually had some great games written for them afterwards was because they taught people to program well and the great games were just the icing on the cake.

What is your favourite console or computer?

Ant: Console? Probably the Atari VCS. Although surprisingly I didn’t actually own one in the late 70s. I used to go to a friends house down the street to play on his around 1978/79 and remember being amazed that I could now play arcade games at home, albeit with graphics hardly recognisable on occasion! Computer? Sinclair’s diminutive little black wedge – the ZX81, for all the reasons I have given in my other answers.

Where do you want to go now with the collection?

Ant: I think I have almost hit the limit where hardware is concerned, there are a few 80s home computers that I would like but don’t crave, namely a Jupiter Ace, Enterprise 64/128 and a SAM Coupe. I more now want to concentrate on software. Specifically, I want to finish my Atari 7800 collection and continue collecting for ZX81, ZX Spectrum and 2600.

Have you any tips for budding retro games collectors?

Ant: As a few of the great gamers I have interviewed previously have said: play what you have. Don’t just put it behind glass, consoles are to be played. Nothing saddens me more to think that there are consoles in boxes out there that will never see the light of day again. If something in them wears out then so what? They are not complex and a little practice with a soldering iron and a trawl on eBay for parts will fix most problems. Get them out, dust them off and play them. If you can’t, sell them to someone who will! My advice concerning software is simple; collect what you enjoy. There are too many collecting sites out there encouraging people to get the rarest carts available for a system. Often (not always!) the reason a cart is rare is because the game was rubbish and it didn’t sell, and do you really want shelf upon shelf of low quality games you don’t want to play? Ask yourself “am I collecting for my own enjoyment, or for someone elses?”.

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector Show us your collection #17: Ant Harper (Retro Games Collector)

I must first congratulate the organisers of Revival 2013 for a fantastic show. I only managed to visit one day unfortunately but there was so much to see and do, it was remarkable how many usable micros were waiting to be played on and even more remarkable how many arcade machines were lined up on freeplay. To say I was like a kid in a sweet shop would be the understatement of the century. I’m not going to do a big write up, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking…

If you are on any of the images and you object to being shown, let me know so I can remove the photo.

Likewise, if you are on any of the images below, leave a comment and let us know what you thought of the show.

Click to enlarge images

There were queues at the entrance at opening time and a steady stream of people coming in all day long.

The Centre for Computing History’s video game timeline from Odyssey 1 to Amstrad Mega PC (foreground).

Missile Command and trackball on the behemoth that is the Atari 5200.

ColecoVision running Zaxxon.

The diminutive Sega SG-1000.

Oli Frey and Roger Kean co-founders of Newsfield (Crash, Zzap! 64 etc.). A little bit of hero worship went on at this point. Sorry guys. And why didn’t I take some mags to get signed?

Kaboom! Another Death Star bites the dust. Star Wars upright cabinet. I think it might still have some of my drool on it.

One from my youth – Speed Race. Yeah I’m that old. And I’m still crap at it.

An amazing lineup of arcade machines, and all set to free play. Oh yeah.

There were a lot of kids with parents at this event, I’m not sure who was enjoying it more.

Yeah, I hung around this machine a lot.

The arcade machines were partly grouped into genres. This was the shoot em up zone.

Over from America for the show. Scott from the Retrogaming Roundup podcast. A really nice guy.

The RetroGaming Roundup’s very own Atari 2600 creation – CGE Adventures. I had a play of this and it was pretty good.

Welcome to the light gun shooters. House of the Dead being my favourite of all time (2nd machine back).

House of the Dead coinop in action. I don’t think this was left alone all day.

A pair of Taito Egret II candy cabs.

I loved this tiny pong unit.

Atari 400 with a bunch of carts to play. I loved how most of the machines had several games left with them to choose from. And I still don’t like Konix Speedking controllers!

Texas Instruments TI-99 with Parsec in the cartridge slot.

About to make himself feel ill on the Nintendo Virtual Boy.

The Sega SC-3000. A home-computer equivalent of the SC-1000 and the only computer that Sega ever manufactured.

The Retro Computer Museum put on a fantastic show of 80s home micros.

This Virtuality 1000 CS VR gaming setup looked fun, never had a go myself though. I believe these were based on an Amiga 3000.

A table full of classic handheld and tabletop games. Astro Wars anyone?

The much underrated (and undersold) 3DO.

There were some oddities there too. This is a ZX Spectrum/Commodore 64 hybrid. The ZX Specadore 64.

More light gun shooters.

Head over Heels on the Amiga.

A rare Philips VG-8235 computer (MSX 2).

Maze-A-Tron on the Mattel Intellivision.

Skidmarks 2 on the Commodore Amiga CD32.

A Commodore SX-64 ‘portable’ computer.

A bunch of Atari computers being shown no love.

There were plenty of things to tempt my wallet open. I didn’t succumb.

I learnt how to program on these at school. The Acorn BBC Model B.

Toshiba MSX running SkyJaguar.

A Tatung Einstein 256.

Philips Videopac G7000 (Odyssey 2).

Nintendo Super Famicom playing Megaman X with a Super Wild Card add-on nearby.

Where it started (at home anyway). Atari Pong and Magnavox Odyssey 1.

The ubiquitous MB Vectrex. An amazing number of these are still around and working. Testament to their build quality.

Acorn Atom on the Retro Computer Museum tables.

Where my obsession with home computers started for me – the Sinclair ZX81.

Sonic The Hedgehog on the Sega Master System.

The Philips CDi and another Vectrex.

The Philips CDi running Mad Dog Mcree. Quick draw with the Konami Justifier light gun.

The Centre for Computing History’s ‘History of Videogames in 9 Screens’.

Amstrad Mega PC – an Amstrad computer with a MegaDrive cartridge slot.

House of the Dead 2 on Sega Dreamcast. Never gets old this one.

Lots more goodies for sale from consoles to plush toys.

Sega Menacer in action.

Q and A session with Mike Montgomery (Bitmap Brothers).

Q and A session with Archer Maclean.

Archer Maclean showing some videos of Mercury.

The producers of ‘From Bedrooms to Billions’ Anthony and Nicola Caulfield with Ben Dalglish.

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector Revival 2013 – Retro Gaming Event Dunstall Park Wolverhampton in pictures

In case you missed it, the rare prototype Sega ‘Pluto’, one of only two known to exist has failed to reach it reserve price in an eBay auction that ended last week. That is despite the bidding reaching a whopping $15,500 (£10,101.67). All this after Roger Vega’s (aka YouTube user kidvid666) previous attempt at selling on Game Gavel failed with a highest bid of $7,600.

The ‘Pluto’ is unusual in that it is probably one of the rarest consoles in existence and there is no precedent for a sale. Perhaps his expectations of what it could fetch are unreasonable or the fact that there is nothing really groundbreaking about the hardware (it’s just a Saturn with internet connectivity and a new case after all). Or perhaps it’s his 0 feedback rating that is stopping a sale. Whatever the reason, the ‘Pluto’ is staying put with Roger for now.

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector Sega Pluto fails to sell at eBay auction with bidding up to $15,500

Some people might wonder what the purpose might be to having a book of reviews of Spectrum games? Such a collection seems unintuitive when you consider that reviews for these games no longer aid consumer decisions, the games being mostly available online to run for free on emulators. To complain that it doesn’t make sense to read a book of reviews though, especially so long after the event, would mistake Speccy Nation as only a book of reviews. Its repeated comparisons between the mores of games past and present are a pause in the whitewater rapids of advertising and launching that accompany technology. It’s easy to get beguiled by these retrospective appraisals that draw you into reading them as an art form in their own right.

Some reviews concentrate on the mechanics of the games and comparisons with others (Dark Sceptre and The Wild Bunch for example), which will appeal more to dedicated gamers than to curious outsiders. That said, these details are often used in revealing ways. The difficulty to The Wild Bunch (heightened by its existence being prior to comforts like Save Game), for example, highlights the way that contemporary games swaddle players with hand-holding and longevity to the gameplay. Another historical comparison is made about Ocean’s When Time Stood Still. Here, there is randomness to events instead of today’s set-pieces. The world the game inhabits is a more compact and eventful experience for the player than today’s pointlessly sprawling landscapes apparently there for their own sake.

Speccy Nation also gives glimpses of the cultural and historical context. The ‘puerile British mindset’ is deemed worthy of mention (regarding Jack The Nipper), something that those who remember the 1980s will recall was prominent (just think about the rise of toilet humour). And when Whitehead reviews Deathchase, he draws attention to the disparity between inlay illustrations and the games they depicted, a disparity that was one of the many aspects to 1980s hype. These and other small descriptives convincingly convey the feel of 8-bit gaming, making the reviews greater than the sum of their parts. It’s pointed out how many games required a pen and graph paper to map them as you went along. Then there’s the way that tips in magazines were such a life-saver for the truly stuck. The multitude of observations begs the question as to why there isn’t a concluding section that pulls them together into an over-arching commentary? This would have given readers some analysis to help form a bigger picture than reviews can achieve on their own.

I can’t help but wonder how Whitehead’s vision would read? Conventional wisdom is sometimes daringly questioned, such as when he criticises the pervasive religiosity towards Ultimate in the light of them milking their cinema 3D engine. And Speccy Nation is full of poetic passages that promise eloquence to any concluding remarks. Take this account of the movement to Nodes of Yesod:

A slow motion, molasses-thick feat of low gravity acrobatics, it takes the Spectrum’s less than athletic pace and turns it into a strength, giving your adventure below the surface of the moon a weird dreamy quality that is enhanced by the typical array of bizarre enemies.

In summary, Speccy Nation offers insight earned through countless hours with these titles and doubtlessly more unmentioned. Its nous, confidence and wordsmithery point to how the instantly likeable and trusty format of the review can do so much more than help consumers make choices. A work borne of love.

Copyright © Jeff Lee 2013.

Jeff Lee was a programmer and photographer in the games industry in the 1980s. Previously wrote under the pen name ‘Marwood Packard’.

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector Speccy Nation by Dan Whitehead – Review

These new figures look fantastic, see the official Press Release below.

[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of RetroGamesCollector.com and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource GamesPress.]

First 4 Figures Pres​​ents SEGA All Stars​:​ Ryo Hazuki​​

May 1^st 2013- First 4 Figures is extremely proud to announce the arrival of a new range of licensed SEGA® statues; the SEGA® All-Stars line. Created in cooperation with SEGA®, and to exacting standards that we have built a reputation for, the upcoming range will deliver high quality, highly collectible and unique merchandise to fans worldwide.

The first piece in this range is Ryo Hazuki, the star of the cult-classic game Shenmue™. Shenmue™ was released for the SEGA Dreamcast™ in 1998 and has since amassed a huge following. Standing at 1/6 scale, 12 inches in height, cast in high quality polystone and painted by hand, Ryo is stood in a ‘ready for action’ stance, ready to take on any challengers as he walks the streets of Yokosuka. There will also be an exclusive version available, which includes a special base crafted after the game’s legendary “Phoenix Mirror”.

Ryo Hazuki will be launching in the fourth quarter of 2013, joining our extensive range of existing statues. Future instalments in the First 4 Figures’ SEGA® All-Stars line will be announced in the coming months.

For more information about First 4 Figures, or to order any of our products please visit http://www.first4figures.com or contact press@first4figures.com.

To view our latest newsletter, click here.

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector Collectible Sega figures announced by First 4 Figures – Ryo Hazuki

Firstly just to say I was honoured when Stu Brett (@superfamicomguy) agreed to show his collection on RGC. He has been gaming with the Super Famicom since its launch and owns 3 different versions of the console along with around 300 games and the rare SFC ‘Hotel Box’. He is also a very talented fellow, designing video game t-shirts over at Redbubble and will shortly have illustrations of his published in an upcoming book about videogames called ‘PressPause’. Look out for his own book dedicated to Japanese SFC games to be launched soon and be sure to check out his website.

The Collection

A rare Japanese copy of Blackthorne, Mario Kart, EDF Force and a mint copy of Undercover Cops.

Some fighting games, Battle Zeque Den and Bonk 2.

A shot of the Games shelf.

Another shot of the Games shelf.

My Nintendo shop light display, Hotel Unit 2 tvs (12”, 21”) running through a Cambridge Audio systems amp and Quad speakers. The Table is a custom-designed graphic I made for it. More details on my blog.

Having a blast on Super Mario U.S.A (Allstars).

Hebereke Popoon, Super Valis, Actraiser 2 and Gunforce.

A complete, boxed copy of Lethal Enforcers, A CIB Super Famicom Console, Justice League America and Hagane.

Ninja Warriors Again. I recommend to any SFC collector to go for the rare games first. SFC games are currently going through the roof in terms of value.

A very rare, complete copy of one of my favourite games. Mode-7 disaster survival game Septentrion (S.O.S). Purchased in 1993.

Super Famicom Guy with Super Famicom Gal.

The custom Super Famicom table in more detail.

A copy of Umihara Kawase. Make this No.1 on your SFC shopping lists

Very rare CIB copy of Wildguns, Area 88 and Assaults suits Valken, Hybrid Wrestler and Some Dragon Ball Z games.

My only non Japanese game, Zelda, Kirby’s Dream Course, a boxed Hudsonsoft Multitap 2 and Prince Of Persia.

Q and A with Super Famicom Guy

When did you become interested in video games and what was the first video game you played?

SFG: I was around 6 years old and it was a little Commodore 16 game called Bandits at Zero, developed in the UK by Mastertronic. It was a horizontal-scrolling shmup with jet fighter planes fighting over an ocean. It was one of those little budget £1.99 games you could buy with your allowance that came out in Britain back in the 1980s. It was hypnotic, simplistic and the very first shmup I ever played. Looking back now, it’s actually really ahead of it’s time – I’m still playing shmups that more or less follow the same structure as this old game. Played Border Down on the Dreamcast? That’s Bandits at Zero on steroids.

What was the first games console or computer you owned and how old were you?

SFG: I was playing on computers from a really early age but I finally got my own computer when I was 6 years old as a Christmas present from my parents. A Spectrum 128K + 2. I think this around ’85 – ’86. That was such an amazing piece of kit back then. I bought games every week and my Dad built me a stack of shelves to keep them on, directly above the computer desk he built me. My Dad’s a musician, record collector and painter so he and my mum made sure I appreciated the visual side of life as a kid. He had his record collection so I had my little Sinclair Spectrum collection. I remember playing games like The Land that Time Forgot  which took over HALF AN HOUR to load! I loved the boxes they came in and especially the airbrushed/painted posters and box covers, particularly Bob Wakelin, who Illustrated for Ocean games throughout the 80′s. Some of those games resembled 70′s prog rock record sleeves and couple of the earlier games came in these big foam-padded boxes and I loved that. Luxury boxes! I used to display all the covers of the games on my shelves and put posters up next to them, much like what I do now. I also learned ‘Basic’ back then and how to hack games, thanks to some computer magazines that taught you how to. It was great fun. All of that stuff fueled my imagination at that age. I was creatively-driven by the images on-screen and the artwork in my hands. It definitely had an influence on my choice of career path, working in the design industry. The Sinclair Spectrum was also such a cool British-made piece of hardware and those little £1.99 games made by bedroom coders were bursting with imagination – I think that’s what made the European computing-era of the 80s so cool. The graphics were limited but the scope and limit of the imagination within those games was endless.

What got you into collecting videogames, computers and consoles?

SFG: My Uncle was only 5 years older than me so we would both collect games and consoles. We also went to visit my Grandmother every month in a coastal town in Scotland (Saltcoats). It had a huge arcade and we would spend hours on stuff like Double Dragon, Star Wars, Vigilante and things like that. In those days it was the arcade games that fuelled your passion for buying consoles. I was always chasing that ‘arcade-perfect’ myth that every developer was after back then, eventually broken with Final Fight on the Mega CD.

… My grandmother is to blame!

Where do you source most of your retro purchases from (ebay, flea markets etc) ?

SFG: I’ve been retro collecting Japanese Super Nintendo games for a number of years now and I’ve built up some friendships with people from all over the world. So whenever I can, I’ll trade with guys I know personally or have via friends in Tokyo. I rarely trade with twitter users, unfortunately – I’m usually too busy with my job & freelance work to get to chat to people via twitter.  So yup, I’ve picked a system that’s really difficult to source locally, but I like a challenge!

What is your most prized retrogaming possession and how much did it cost you?

SFG: Right now I’d say it’s the Super Famicom Hotel System or ‘SFC box’. It cost me about £100 and they range from £300 – £500 online these days. The price of a game isn’t what I’d rate as collectible though, that’s relative to your tastes. For me It’s just abut about owning something unique and there are two hotel systems in existence. Both have different games loaded inside them. It was never commercially released and was only intended for Japanese hotels so that’s really cool. It’s a bespoke console that has completely different internals from the home console. It’s weird, rare and wont be easy to find in another 20 years time and that’s what I love about it. I’m preserving something I regard as unique and great fun to play.

What is your favourite hardware manufacturer (Sega, Nintendo, Atari Commodore etc.) ?

SFG: I don’t really have favourites. I have an equal amount of love for all of the manufacturers, mostly because I’ve bought so many different consoles over the past 30 years. Let me put it this way, I admire Atari’s ambition, SEGA’s creativeness, Nintendo’s originality, SONY’s sheer coolness, Panasonic’s commercial individuality, NEOGEO’s appreciation for the rich (haha!) and Clive Sinclair’s sheer British eccentricity and charm.

To ignore ‘the competition’, as the industry call it, is only to limit your experience as a video gamer.

What is your favourite console or computer?

SFG: Hands-down it’s always going to be the Super Nintendo or the Super Famicom, to be precise. The Japanese console has within it’s roster some of the most incredibly packaged and coded games I’ve ever seen on one system – From the box art and character design, to the music and the twist of genre. It’s sparked franchises that are still being released. It has an incredible sound chip, fantastic graphics, my fave format (cartridge), the most comfortable and intuitive control pad and would last from 1990 (it’s Japanese launch) to 2007 when the last few official games were released via the Satella View Unit. That’s 17 years. There’s not that many consoles around that have that type of life span. Nintendo managed to bottle the magic from the original NES and re-create and enhance that experience with the snes. If you’re a PAL/US snes fan I recommend finding out about the Japanese-exclusive games. I started buying Japanese snes titles as early as 1993 and I’ve always looked to Japan for games, both old and new.

Where do you want to go now with the collection?

SFG: Well, I only collect complete, boxed Super Famicom games. I prefer to focus on one system and devote my time and money into that. It’s been a few years now and I’ve only got a few major titles left to buy. I’m not a number chaser, despite having more than I can fit in my games room but I’m working on that! I spend more time playing them than buying them these days to be honest. But I have around 10 titles I’d like to buy this year but they’re not cheap, unfortunately. What makes it worse is that I owned 4 of them when I was younger!

Have you any tips for budding retro games collectors?

SFG: I’d recommend going for one system that you absolutely loved and just focus on that. You’ll build a collection in no time. Avoid Ebay if you can, search the web for alternatives that will save you money. And don’t imitate, innovate! It’s your collection, no one else’s. Forget about other peoples collections, everyone has to start out somewhere and it doesn’t take long to get a little collection on the go. Don’t feel pressured to own as much as the next guy. You’re collecting for yourself after all. Every collection should be unique and I believe should reflect a collector’s personality. Just like record collections, classic car collectors or people who collect vintage fashion. Video games collections are no different. The best collections are the ones that reflect a collector’s personality and taste. I went for the obscure Japanese stuff to begin with because that’s what I’ve I bought when I was a kid. So my collection reflects my taste for Japanese popular culture and also my appreciation of box art. Forget about collecting cartridges, go for the real deal – the box, manual and inlay cards. Having them boxed retains their individuality on a shelf. A huge part of collecting, for me is about owning the box art and remembering how you felt when you first picked it up, before you even played it. Don’t keep your games sealed, open them up, play them, show them to your girlfriend, pass them down to your kids, get your friends round, get drunk and play them all night! Share all the cool shit you’ve chosen to save from slipping into obscurity because it’s never going to be around forever. Look after your games too, and if you’re able to, put them on display – Make sure they’ll last another twenty years by cleaning them and keeping them out of direct sunlight and depending on which console you collect, try and mimic the original set-up that it was designed for. Vintage games were graphically designed with real CRTV scan lines in mind and in a non-widescreen ratio so go for old school cheap TV’s and they’ll look a hundred times cooler. But most of all, just have fun and create a collection that defines what you like and what you’d like to share with your mates and family.

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector Show us your collection #16: Super Famicom Guy

An interesting article came to my attention today via a friend on Google+. It seems that a former employee of Sega named SuperMagnetic has added photographs and details of one of two alleged prototypes of a Sega console codenamed “Pluto” on the Assembler Games forums. The console appears to fit in between Saturn and Dreamcast but has Saturn branding.

Read the original article over at Polygon.

Original post can be found at Retro Games Collector New Sega Pluto console ‘missing link’ exposed?