What do you collect and what is your goal?

As of writing this I like to collect: Gameboy, Gameboy Colour, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, and Xbox 360.

My goal right now is to collect every physical version of Terraria. I'm also looking for a complete in box Atari Jaguar CD and Magnavox Odyssey.

When did you start collecting?

I started collecting old video game controllers in late 2018. It got a Super Smash Bros GameCube controller from Goodwill.

I started collecting older handheld video game consoles on February 15th, 2019. It got a DS lite from GameStop.

I started collecting older video game consoles on April 28, 2019. I got a Playstation 2 from the same Goodwill.

How did you get the idea to collect video games/consoles?

In late 2018, I was at Goodwill one day and saw a Nintendo GameCube smash bros controller and bought it for like $10. It was for the Nintendo Wii U. I thought that maybe I should get a Wii U (as of typing this I don't have a Wii U yet) because I would always go to my friends house after school and we would play on his Wii (this would be in like 2011 to 2015). On January 10th of the new year, I asked a bunch of friends on what console I should get. Many people would say NES, N64, Original Xbox, "classic ps", "GameCub", or "something old".

On February 15th, I went to a GameStop near me and picked up a black DS Lite for like $40 - $50 (I was 14 at the time so I had to bike a few miles do get there. I loved using it so much. I don't know why it appealed to me but it did. In the middle of March my I was heading to my soccer teammates house so that he could drive him and I to the game we had. I saw that in his garage that he had a bunch of Nintendo 64 and NES games. He let me have one of each so I grabbed Super Smash Bros 64 and Super Mario Bros. A few weeks later in April of 2019, I saw a Playstation 2 at the same Goodwill from before and bought it because I thought it was cool that it was old. It didn't work for like a month but that is because I had no old TV's or any knowledge on what I was dealing with.

While ALL of this was happening I was downloading and playing roms on the emulators on my laptop that I had gotten a long time ago for school. I would be playing mostly Nintendo 64 games but I would try to play some GameCube games. Unfortunately whenever I did play some GameCube games, my computer would lag like crazy. So I stuck with NES, SNES, Gameboy, and sometimes Gameboy Advance games (yeah my laptop was pretty bad). But then on June 10th of 2019, I would discover something amazing...

I convinced my mum to take my to a local retro game-store in downtown San Jose, California called GameShop Downstairs. I was mesmerized by the amount of amazing old video game stuff that they were selling. I remember the first time I visited there. They had everything from NES games to Xbox 360 games. My 15th birthday was coming up but I got one more old game console: the original Nintendo DS. It arrived on Saturday of July 13th, 2019. I fell in love with the shape of it. It looks so much more like a tool than a video game console but it still is my favourite looking DS model today.

The last thing that I got that kind of started my love for video game consoles was giving to me on my 15th birthday, July 22nd. It was a platinum Nintendo GameCube! It came with Spiderman 1 and SUPER SMASH BROS. MELEE!!! I still look at the old images I have of this day and smile. I can easily say that this was what REALLY got me into collecting video games/consoles.

What is your most memorable collecting story/experience?

I was working at my local retro game store, GameShop Downstairs, on February 13th of 2021. It was just a normal day when someone came in to sell their Nintendo 64 Pikachu Console [NA]". I was trying not to explode with happiness because I was under the impression that these are rare. I wasn't wrong but I still love it. My boss bought it from the man but learned that it wasn't working and after further inspection, it was because the motherboard of the console had rusted like hell. Nevertheless he was able to replace so that it almost works flawlessly. He put it on display but the longer I was staring at it, the more I wanted it (I only had one Nintendo 64 game and that was Smash Bros). After a few hours of the temptations, I finally decided to buy it. He sold me it for $150!!!! That was crazy because he could easily sell it for $250 but he didn't. I am still pretty shocked and extremely happy because of all of this. The console sits next to my GameCube for easily access to play (and yes it did come with one authentic matching controller).