historicalgamer.com

A few months ago I decided to go and hunt down a Nintendo Entertainment System. It had been ages since I had played one and I was thinking of Duck Hunt and Donkey Kong. My son experienced Bubble Bobble on an arcade cabinet I had built and for the last 12 months we would light it up on rainy days and crank out a couple of hours worth of arcade classics. It didn't take long and he was smashing the opposition with me on games that I had grown up with as a kid. I now find myself having a blast with my 5 year old son on the same thing that captivated my mind almost 30 years ago. I had to get a Nintendo!
I got on to a well known trading website and was quickly greeted with quite a few 3 figure numbers. Wow! I thought I would get one for $5... So I checked another well known but localised to Australia trading website and was greeted with the same numbers. Seriously? Yes, Sir! These things are Retro...
OK, so do I really want a Nintendo that much?
Yeah, I think I do!
So I search around and compare and eventually get a deal for a lower 3 figure amount. I end up with a scratched, discoloured console that you had to wiggle the cartridges in for 20 minutes to even get the game to start. I bought another, I wanted to be able to turn it on and play Super Mario for hours. I ended up buying about 4 consoles in the end to make myself a nice console that I could not only reliably play but looked like its 3 figure price tag. Now I had a bunch of expensive parts sitting around but I had a ball restoring the one I had done for myself. I decided to do a few more, There was so much crap out there and everyone was getting dudded with stuff that was clearly past its use by date. I started buying all the crap, stripping it down and using all the parts to build up good reliable consoles again. I decided to concentrate on the cart based systems (Nintendo, Sega, Atari etc). These things are awesome fun and very interactive with people you play with, much different to the online games of today. I get amazing feedback from people that purchase them and it's good to know that there are other people that enjoy this old era of gaming as much as I do. These consoles are for the collectors and the enthusiasts just like me who still want to enjoy them.

But enough banter, do yourself a favour... Get a Nintendo 64 and a copy of Mario Kart and sit around with your friends and do what you do... Guaranteed you will have fun...