Last year for Christmas, my sister was getting ready to move out of state and thus was getting rid of a lot of stuff. Some of the items that they indicated that they were putting up for sale was their old Nintendo system and games. Naturally i bought them at a fairly low price because
I always love having more games in my collection. That particular stockpile got me a NES complete in box, a Nintendo Power Pad in Box, Jack Nicholas Golf Complete in Box, Super Spike V’Ball in box, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, Super Mario Bros. 2, R.C. Pro Am, and a few other minor games that I can’t recall off the top of my head. In addition, my brother-in-law gave me his Intellivision console and about 20 games from when he was a child. The Intellivision doesn’t work, but I think all it may need is a power supply (hard to say for sure though).
I never really thought about these games and systems again. I stored them in my mom’s basement and that was that. However, when I bought my new condo, I also went out and bought a new television stand as my old one had not weathered some previous moves very well. After setting up my new stand, I looked at the shelves under the television and wondered what to put there and soon decided to put my GameCube, N64 and Sony Playstation there. I decided that they looked really good and then sparked a thought. Why not collect console games?
I’ve always been a huge Nintendo fan (big surprise I know), and have heard the stories of people getting a complete collection of NES games. I have always been fairly jealous of these people because NES and SNES was the generations that I grew up with. I very much remember going to the video rental place and oggling at all their games, being sad that I can only choose one and then two days later sadly bring the game back, wanting more time but not having enough money to rent it longer. Owning games never really came natural to me.
I was always relegated to owning whatever we could find at garage sales and saving pennies in order to purchase the few games that I owned straight out like Super Mario Bros. 3. I did manage a decent collection of SNES games in Junior High and early High School, but come the N64, I really only had one game (Banjo-Kazooie). Everything else was based off rental. It wasn’t until I started getting better jobs in the GameCube era that my game collection really grew and with the Wii, I own 30-40 games (still wish I had more too).
Now I’ve decided I want to get these things permanently to allow me to just sit down with NES controller in hand and play whatever I feel like. It feels like kismet after all. PC games are dying out and more and more I find myself being pushed towards consoles but still unimpressed with most modern games. Why not go back.
I have done some minor purchases so far, gone to a few thrift stores and flea markets to find bargains. And so far have found myself Hybrid Heaven Complete in Box (CIB), Star Wars Rogue Squadron CIB, Star Tropics CIB, Driver, Final Fantasy VII Black Box, Secret of Mana and Dragon Warrior. None of these are particularly high value games, but I decided that to start with, I want to get the low value games that I’ve always wanted.
Originally I also didn’t care about the boxes, but I decided they would probably maintain value better if I had the boxes and they just look nicer on the shelves (also for N64 and atari games, they are just easier to store in boxes). The collecting has run into a bit of a stall when my car broke down and I went out and bought a new car. But I think I have some good additions to the collection overall. Hopefully in a few months, if I continue all my savings and can get some bonus money, I can get back in the collecting habit.