Unofficial Controller Podcast
Your number one weekly gaming podcast for all the latest Sony Playstation , Microsoft Xbox , Nintendo Switch and PC News. Retrospectives , Readers Mail and Industry Chat.
Unofficial Controller Podcast
Budget-Friendly Ideas for Ultimate Gaming Setups
Ever wondered how to transform a simple space into the ultimate gaming sanctuary? Imagine stepping into a shed that has been transformed into a Star Wars-themed gaming haven, or a cluttered storage room turned retro paradise. Join me, RGT, and my co-host Scott, aka Mr. Marathon Gaming, as we explore these captivating journeys of creating personalized gaming rooms. We promise you'll walk away with actionable insights on everything from innovative shelving solutions and cost-effective cable management to the art of displaying your game collections in a way that truly reflects your personality.
Together with Scott, we share our personal stories of crafting unique gaming environments—each as distinct as the gamers themselves. Learn how to use everyday items like picture shelves and 3D-printed cartridge holders to elevate your game storage and display. Whether you're starting from scratch or looking to enhance your existing setup, our discussion will guide you through the practicalities of setting up a cost-effective gaming room, with advice on everything from insulation and temperature control to leveraging multi-system gaming consoles like the Retron 5.
Ever curious about maintaining your beloved retro consoles or thinking about custom bar top arcades? We delve into the importance of preservation techniques and the untapped potential of modern upgrades, while also celebrating the charm of retro gaming through custom arcade setups. Throughout, we express gratitude to our vibrant community, and invite you to engage with us on platforms like Discord, where inspiration and tips flow freely. Join us for an episode that is as much about personal expression as it is about gaming, and discover the joy of sharing these experiences with fellow enthusiasts.
Hello and thanks for joining us on the Underfish Controller podcast. It's me RGT and I am joined by the Essex Switch man himself. The main man when it comes to anything Switch, anything game gear, anything gaming. To be honest, that's Mr Marathon Gaming aka Scott. How you doing, scott?
Speaker 1:Hey, don't forget the Switch 2. I'm a Switch 2 man as well. Now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you will be. You'll be the big Switch 2 man when that comes out. So will I, hopefully, if I get one. Yeah, so this is a little show me and Scott are doing, and this is basically video game room tips and tricks, a bit of a buying guide guide, bit of showing you how to set up, bit of trying to point you in the right direction.
Speaker 2:Um, basically, scott has his own game room, and also awesome, it is too. I have my own game room, but they're all different. We'll do things different ways. But I remember when I started my game room, I always used to think how am I going to do this? What's the best way to do that? Where can I? I find this? Well, hopefully this will cover a few of these little pointers, a few of these little bases. This will tick off a bit of your list and think, ah, that's how I do it. Ah, should I use that TV? Ah, should I use that system? Hopefully this will be a little bit of a show you can come back to mad on our games, aren't we, scott? I mean, our game rooms are very different, but very similar in other ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why I think this would be really good, because we've got two, I think, very different games rooms. I think one of us may be more organised than the other and I think yours is probably more purposed and mine, I think, has just started off as not knowing it was a games room. Then it turned into it. So I think that's why it's really good having us talk about this, and if you're listening to this show, you might be thinking, you know you might be thinking I've already got a games room, but you might pick up a few things and change it. You might be listening, thinking, oh, I want to have a games room. You know you may have already have one, you may not have one. It might be something that you're alluring to and inspiring to do in the future. So I think, between the two of us talking, I think it would be good to share quite a few tips. I'm hoping to get some tips from yourself, rgtc, and I'm sure it's feelings mutual and it's vice versa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, vice versa definitely.
Speaker 1:It's always good to talk game rooms and the truth is, for anyone who's got a game room or has had one in the past, you know whether space has allowed you to. It really is never finished, and that's the beauty of it. It's always evolving, it's always adapting, things always changing and whenever you think that's how I want it, give it 12 months and you're. As soon as you've got more stuff, you have to move things around, you have to change things, so it's forever changing. So that's what we're going to jump into today. We're going to go through everything from cable management like rgt said from crt so what systems we've got to storage, to shelves, to displays. We're going to cover everything. So strap yourselves in and you're in for a nice show definitely, and I mean and don't forget people.
Speaker 2:I mean you may look at some of the things we do and think, oh well, I'd rather do it this way. If that's the case, jump in our discord, have a chat about the show, jump on and say, oh, that's a great idea. Or have you thought of doing this? And always remember there's no right way of doing a games room. Every games room is individual to you. Whether you collect just Switch, whether you collect any Mega Drive, whether you collect a bit of everything. That's your own individual taste. I mean individual taste. I mean, if you're new to the show and this is the first time listening if you've got a games room, join our discord, chuck your pictures up on there.
Speaker 1:Oh, please. I was gonna say we'd love to everyone in the discord loves to see people's collections and games rooms, so please do it would be warmly welcome to receive that. We'd love to see it and it's a great bunch of people. It's not like you're going to get critiqued, we're just literally no, no, definitely not. We're like kids on a school playground. We just want to see who's got the shiny Pokemon card and have a little look. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean we've got Go put up.
Speaker 1:Discord send a picture.
Speaker 2:Definitely. I mean, we've got people in Discord. We've got a guy who's just going for a full Dreamcast collection, we games room in the garage. Um, we've got people who just collect japanese shooter imports. We've got a bit of everything and us and they're all brilliant. There's no right or wrong way, but this might be a little help a little, a few little tips for you to put you in the right direction, especially if you're new to, or even help you, even if you've got a game, some you've been building for years. There might be a few little bits in here. We can push you the right way and go. Well, actually, we try this. This might be easier to try that.
Speaker 1:So, um, we'll start off sorry, I'm gonna say no, I'm just gonna say I think you that's a great place to start. I think you just mentioned whether you've got it indoors or outdoors, so perhaps we could start off there with location of the games room is probably a best place to start, whether it is inside or outside yes, I mean, um, mine and scott's differed like that.
Speaker 2:Although mine is being, uh, a new, one of mine is being built at a moment, but we'll use my original for the purpose of this. Um, scott's is indoor in his house, whereas mine was a purpose-built one in my garden. Um, I'll start off with why mine was like I live in a very small place, um, so an extra room in the house was not the option, wasn't there? Um, and having chatted to my father who was a builder, he said well, why don't we buy you rather than buy something bespoke which is quite expensive? Um, why don't we go down the route of buying a large shed stroke workshop and then kitting out as a games room? What I mean kitting out? It was, um, what if you bought a bespoke lodge or um room or office for this? You, you're looking around about £10,000.
Speaker 2:But I went with, like I say, I went with a 20 foot by 12 foot. It was not a workshop really, but a shed workshop. I upgraded it a bit to log lap rather than ship lap, so it was a bit nicer on the outside, a bit more sturdy. I upgraded the A-frames inside because I put real heavy duty felt on. That were the only changes I made.
Speaker 2:I had windows down one side with doors in the gable. The windows I boarded up on the inside to prevent light coming in and I also caged over those windows. But we'll go into that more with security. And then it was a case of having it put up fully insulated, bordered, painted, carpeted. I found a Star Wars carpet which was ideal for this room to give it that arcade vibe, and then electric. So it was a very cost effective and low cost way of having a games room. Yes, I know some people will say security, I'm lucky. Where I live the crime rates are very low on that sort of thing. Um, but it it? They do well to get inside because, as I said, windows are caged up and boarded up from the inside, so there's no way getting in there. Doors had two full length galvanized bars across, don't forget them.
Speaker 1:The moat around the outside, but a crocodile in our exactly motor of crocodile.
Speaker 2:Um, full locks top, bottom and doors. There's probably five locks on each door, but a way of doing it so you could get in the keys without having to undo too many. Um, security lights, cameras and alarms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can, exactly. You can have alarms these days. I mean, ring doorbells are brilliant, aren't they? Yes, and I had everything.
Speaker 2:I've had. As I said before, I am now building a new one due to different circumstances, but anyway I had this one for 10 years, never had a leak, never had any maintenance. The only thing I'd done for the first three years was another coat of heavy-duty stain to keep on top of that. Other than that three years was another coat of heavy duty stain to keep on top of that oven and that never had a problem, never had damp. I always had in me um winter time.
Speaker 2:I always done um, I always had heaters in on timers because you want to keep, you want to keep the, the temperature now at the right temperature. You, you don't want damp, you don't want cold, especially with discs, and people worry about disc rot bits and pieces. This way you keep on top of that. So a little time I kept that temperature all the same. Summertime I had an air cooler, air conditioner unit to keep it cooler because it did hold the heat in there really well.
Speaker 2:I mean, other than that, that was a very cost-effective way. I mean, if you're listening to this and you're interested I know I keep saying that at Discord, but it's the best way of contacting us contact in there, tag me in RGT and say can you give me some tips, can you give me some help how to do this, where I got it from, how I set it up? I'll be more than happy to help you, but that was a very good way of doing it. Um, electric wise, I had an electrician come in for a day, um, and I had four double plug sockets fitted along each side, um to which then I then and obviously I had breakers and bits fitted, but also and then had um onto power from then on for my consoles and lighting and bits and pieces from there.
Speaker 1:But, um, that was my games room, but obviously yours, scott, is very much different, being an interior interior room yeah, well, I thought I'll just touch on a couple of bits um you said because quite interesting, just if anyone listening if you are thinking of having one external um, just in case you're not familiar with dr lie or anything like that something is quite um worth thinking about. Um, for example, I've got a garage at the back of my house. A lot of people when you say um games room externally, they think it would be either a, you know, a purpose-built shed, if you like, like a purpose-built shed, or um it will be a garage. Um, but I there you can get you external. People get old shipping containers. People get old, almost like if you work on construction sites you might see like they're not the metal shipping containers, but you can get like temporary site offices. People buy those and people sell them, get it out. So there are actually some other options you can do.
Speaker 1:And I've actually got quite a few friends. We've actually got some very large sheds and they do just sit in there. I can name a few YouTubers. One that comes straight to the head I've got a friend, paul Retrobait, on YouTube. He has got a very modest-sized shed in his garden no difference to any shed, but he's kitted it out so well and he's got a massive Commodore 64 collection in his shed. It's easy enough to chuck a bit of Sellotex, which is basically like some rigid Kingspan, which is a rigid insulation all around the walls and the top, and then you can cover that up and, like you say, you can get battery light in temporary. It's as much as you want to make of it of how much time you're in there.
Speaker 1:But if you are looking to have a garage, which a lot of people do, so at the moment I've got basically from my old house've got a um like my own personal gym. But when we moved house so many years ago this wasn't kitted out of electrics, the roof leaks, asbestos and all that stuff, so it's never been sorted out. Um, but about going off onto different things, I've basically changed my exercise and things. I've less weights these days and I'm more running and everything else. But I went to look recently, just um, in the past six months or so, of finally getting that done, you know, getting the garage sorted. So the first thing you need is power. Now what stopped me from doing it was just how much it costs. So you've got to think, if you want to get power, um, to your garage, you've got to really think where your consumer unit is, which is where all your switches are in your house, whether that be near your electric meter or wherever it is in your house, and you've normally got to get an armored cable from there to the garage.
Speaker 1:So mine's behind the garden, so it's a long way, which means it would be cutting multiple holes through the ceiling. So I need a cable run all the way through there. Then you need another tray behind that, you know, to make good the plastering, then painting and then you've got to get the cable, you know under your slabbing or decking all the way you should. Normally you buried it because normally a big armored cable and then you've got to get it all the way to your garage and normally has its own consumer box there like a small one if uses. So it's worth thinking about because I know I've got a lot. I had a lot of friends in the past where they tried to do a games room and I've seen it before where they've rather than do that and it is quite expensive, but that is the correct way. So do have a look. It put me off doing it because I couldn't afford it, but if you've got electric near the back of your house you're fine. Mine was a complete other end, so it would have cost a fortune, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was lucky with mine. Mine ran off the back of the house from a plug socket which is literally 20 feet away armoured cable.
Speaker 2:Well, that yeah then I had breaker box, fuse box, and then I had four double sockets, which doesn't sound a lot. But the reason I've done that was I then ran multi sockets. Now I'll recommend sockets for you. This is another little tip go for multi sockets, but go for them with individual switches on each plug, because you don't want, you don't want all that power going through. Then all that off, because if you then start putting a couple of heaters in in the winter, they're high wattage, they'll blow that fuse.
Speaker 2:So put individual plug, multi-sockets of individual on off switches and make sure they're surge protected. So if you do get a surge bit, like anything, you aren't going to fry your consoles. I mean, they're about 20, 25 pound each, but if you get, you get 10 block or 12 block ones of those, you get four of those. You've got more than enough for your tvs and your consoles, depending on what you want. Plus you then got led light and round. I never had lights wired in or anything, I just done plug-in leds. That was more than good enough, um, and it gave it that arcade feel as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I was going to say that by the sounds of it, yours is like so you've come off the back of your house from a socket, so some electricians will come around, depending what you're powering up on there.
Speaker 1:So if you're having multiple arcade cabs a lot of people have arcade cabs in the garages because they're too heavy to get upstairs, so in the house, unless you're on the ground floor flat or something and you've got the room for it. But if you come off of a cable, it depends on how. So my cabling, I think, is not a new build, it's quite fairly old, so it wouldn't have held a capacity. So the electrician said look, I can do it, but it's a bit naughty. So that's why we didn't go down that route. But if you can just tap off the closest external socket you can definitely do that um, but really, like I say, surge protect is a great shout, but really what you want to get is enough power there so you can have your own um, what you call it, your own rcd. You want it to trip out your own breaker and all that means really, it's on any modern house, any new build.
Speaker 1:It's standard regs. All it means is, if you plug something old in like an old machine, if it's something wrong with it, rather than it causing a fire or blowing a machine, all it does it trips a switch out, yeah, and it protects everything. That's literally all it does.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, so yeah there are options.
Speaker 1:But speak to electrician is what I'd say, um, because yeah, there's all sorts of different things you can do. But yeah, I mean, you can have purpose-built sheds, old offices, containers people built them out of anything really. So there's lots of different things. It's not just it has to be in a garage, um. So yeah, it's really yeah so that's so that's what um rgt's got a nice external and you're on. You're on 2.0 now, or 3.0? Is this the second one you're building?
Speaker 2:second one I'm building now, so this one's going to be a bit of a different design. Still going to be a shed, but it's custom built. This one Hopefully, if the plans work out right, it's going to be an L shape, so yeah, so it's a way of putting it in a corner, with a bit more wall space but a smaller footprint on the floor, if you see what I mean because of the old shape.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is that a nod to Longhorn? Or 2024 season of the Unofficial Controller podcast? Is it a nod to him?
Speaker 2:If you're looking from Starlink or one of the satellites, you'll see a nice big L in my garden in tribute to Longhorn. But yeah, so I'm going to that route. Um, I forgot actually how, how big a job it was when I first done it, but this time I I had friends and that, and, um, my father and that helped me build the last one. We bought the shed, uh, locally but, um, flat, you know, come on a flatbed and we built ourselves in the day and then went over the next couple of weeks insulating board and paint and getting the car.
Speaker 1:Fair play to you, mate.
Speaker 2:I hate doing diy, yeah, well this, this one, the company that are doing it. They say, oh, do you want us to come and fit it? Uh, yes, please. Do you want us to insulate it for you? Uh, yes, please. Do you want us to board it for you? Uh, yes, please. So I thought, well, I'll slap a bit of paint about, I'm fine with that, and then the rest I can just tweak as I go along then. But yeah, that's mine. So what about your room then then?
Speaker 1:so mine's probably seen as more of a conventional um. So it is inside, um, mine is in a spare room, um, so it is a proper spare room. So we have like a, you know, a guest bedroom and we often have family around and sisters because they live up in the city in London, so we have a spare room. But then basically this bedroom it just kind of it was never planned to be a games room, so it basically was just full of junk. So it'd be where you get changed in the morning If you don't want to wake your other half up. It would be almost like an extension of your loft. You know, it would be the Christmas tree tree wedding there, the hoover, anything you don't want guests to see. We're in this room. And it ended up being a bit of a junk room. I turned into a bit of a workout room and it kind of become a bit of everything. And then I basically in the previous houses I think, when I started getting into retro gaming and started buying it for it again, so so I got rid of all my stuff. I re-brought it.
Speaker 1:First things I got was an NES and the Pikachu N64. It was in our first flat, so it was a couple of properties ago and we got married in 2013. So it must have been 2012,. I guess around London Olympics time. Yeah, it must have been 2012, around London Olympics time. Yeah, it must have been 2012, around London Olympics time. So I bought those two consoles, I kept them in a tub, I played them and put them away.
Speaker 1:Obviously, your missus doesn't want to see things out. These days you have all your media on a nice shelf. Well, back then you had little shelves underneath, didn't you? Now it's minimal. So I had a little tub. We moved house. The tub was there, but it got bigger. There was two tubs. I found the local gaming shop. I started proper, getting into my retro again. It grew.
Speaker 1:Then we got to this house and then I realized with the junk room I was like hold on a minute, I don't need to put things back in my tub anymore. So all I did was I had an LCD TV in the corner and it's a perfect TV. It's still my favorite TV in this room. It's like a perfect um hybrid of old and modern. So it's got like it plays atari like through an rf, brilliantly. But it's got like hdmi. It's got scar points, it's got the red, green blue, it's got everything in there.
Speaker 1:Um, it's basically I've had one little tv in the corner on a box which all my games are in, and I just sat in there like in the corner on the floor, and then when I realized the missus didn't say anything and realized hold on a minute, she's not telling me to put this stuff away, I was like I could expand here. Then I basically went on to Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree, whatever it was, and I just got a free gaming chair that someone was getting rid of. It started in that corner, basically all of my games room. If you watch, like my early videos on Marathon Gaming on YouTube, everything's from one angle and that's because all my stuff was two meters. All I had was a corner of the room and then it built out.
Speaker 2:So my room you ought to do a time-lapse of it. That'd look like Venom climbing over Peter.
Speaker 1:Parker as it grows out of the corner of the room.
Speaker 1:But that's literally what. So I used the corner of a room and then basically the deal with the missus was she said look, happy for you to have turn this into a games room to grow, grow, as long as you keep it tidy. So I basically found a place. Everything else that was there, the old gym stuff, went back in the garage, things went upstairs in the loft and whatnot got rid of some stuff and basically came the games room. So that's's quite interesting.
Speaker 1:As we go through this list of things, you'll realize that there is more than one way to do things. So you can buy things purposely from Ikea and if you watch big YouTubers or whatnot like, for example, retro Ghetto has got nice picture shelving for the games there's a certain way people display things. Now I've done things that were different because mine's grown. Everything in it is pretty much free. Like there's a tv that I found, um, some old lady was giving away around the corner. The stand underneath it I found outside someone's house as I was jogging past and I chucked it over my shoulder and carried it. So you don't have to.
Speaker 1:You don't have to have money to do it you know, you can do it on a complete budget and that's what this is going to be great for. Before I wrap up, just saying that this is an internal one. A spare room isn't the only place you can do it like how I started. You can just do it in a corner. You might just have an office at home. You might think, hey, scott, rgt, I haven't got a room, I've got kids in a house. You know I'm in a two-bedroom flat. I can't do this. But you can just have a look. You don't need a lot of space. Especially watch my early videos. I had so much stuff and had so many games and stuff and I just kept it in a corner and you know you can keep things in these plastic storage tubs. Another great place you can have a games room inside as well.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm going to give a shout out to him. He's actually had to change his youtube name because he lost access to the account, unfortunately, but his name's roger. He lives in clacton in essex. Roger, retro gamer it used to be called, now he's called retro. I think it's called roger hulkster. He's a very big guy. He's in his gym. He loves collecting, like mega drive, mask system 60, everything. He's got an impressive collection, just like yours. Rgt and his videos are brilliant because his is in the loft and you can sort of. It takes you a while to realise that, but, yeah, a lot of people will turn their lofts into games rooms. But I just want to say and again, another disclaimer just to help people If you do do that, make sure you have got insulation before you build out your loft between each of the joists, well, between the trusses, and then get a nice deck over it and just be aware with how much weight you're putting on.
Speaker 1:So look at where, like, the rafters are and put heavy things on there. And then do also be cautious of circulation with air. So, for example, on old houses we used to have a wet ridge tile and that's why if you go in, like you know, your mum or your nan's house, you might find in a loft there's always moisture. If you touch the side there's moisture. So these days, new builds in the last 10 years or so, what you have now is like a dry ridge tile on the top, without getting too boring and technical. All it is is it's mechanically fixed and there's a gap between the felt of about an inch right at the top and all that does. It allows a bit of air to circulate and it allows it to scape. So it stops you getting condensation, stops you getting too hot. But I have, I'm sure I've seen it, I've seen gamers sweating and they can't go out there in the summer. So when you balled out your loft which you can do, you know make it look nice, just make sure you don't cover the top.
Speaker 1:You've've got to give somewhere for the air to go yeah, exactly Because otherwise you're going to cause yourself a lot of problems, and I'm not a construction guru, but I am in the industry. So I just thought I might as well just share the tip, just in case.
Speaker 2:Great tip, that's a brilliant tip. This will move us on. You've heard us with our rooms now, but this will move us on now to shelving. Now, our rooms now. But this move us on now to shelvin. Now, my first tip for shelvin is I've had a lot of people, I've seen a lot of people do this. This might work for you, but I'll give you my tips.
Speaker 2:A lot of people, when they buy shelvin, buy bookcases. Now, if you're collecting mostly games, bookcases are good for big box pc games, figures, special editions, collector's editions are good on a bookcase. If you're collecting games themselves for instance, anything from mega drive to switch anything do not buy bookcases. And I will tell you why. Buy dvd cases. Now I use a. I think it's from a company called on buy online. I buy um dvd shelves and they hold I think they hold about 1,100 DVDs.
Speaker 2:Now the difference between DVD cases and bookcases bookcases will tend to have only five shelves with massive gaps. The problem with that is you can then double stack on them shelves, but it's really awkward to get the games out underneath. Secondly, bookcases are quite deep, so then you'll you'll protrude and more into your room if you get a dvd case. They're very narrow, about six inches, so you can go flush against the wall. You're not protruding far in the room. Plus, they look this is the anal side of it.
Speaker 2:They look very, very uniform and if you get three or four of these dvd units they've taken up eight foot of space on your floor. They're six inches out, but you can store three and a half, four thousand games on there. So it's. They're made for storing that sort of media, whereas bookcases aren't. Now, like I say, there is a place for bookcases and I started with those until I worked out a few years down the line dvd cases. Hang on. I had three bookcases double stacked. I've now fitted them all into one DVD case which has got half the footprint on the floor.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and I bought these black ones and just went and in the end, if you go on, if you're on a Discord, you'll know If you're regular, you'll know If you don't. My shed, I had one wall 20 foot long just full of these. Um, I had five or six of these along the wall, all my games in uniform, playstation next, but all the rest of it blah, blah, blah, um that's my yes, sorry, just while you're on that.
Speaker 1:So where you said there's a great, I've already wrote down this tip, so that's why I thought it'd be great chatting to you today, because I didn't know that. But, um, when you say about not to buy the bookcases as they're deeper and you're losing footprint, so whether it's depth and height, a bit ways to get what you mean with sliding the games horizontally rather than vertically, it's a great tip. But for displaying consoles, would you say, then that's when it's good to have a bookcase, because obviously that's a bit wider and deeper and generally console boxes can be quite deep, can't they?
Speaker 2:Yes, definitely 300 to 500 mil. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, if you've got a lot of big box things, like I say no-transcript, you can get some larger bookcases with only three or four shelves in which can sit perfectly. You can display them as you want. Also, what I was then in the process of doing but now obviously I'm building a new shed but I was in the process of doing where they only had a small top I mean six inches deep, as all these DVD cases were, so they had a small top I was putting a shelf on the top of those to then display along the top. So there is a way of doing it along the top, depending on the height of your ceilings, if you want. But yes, like I say, sometimes that's nice if you have I'd seen it done before where you have DVD shelf, say, you've got your PlayStation collection on there, next to it a matching color bookcase with your special editions PlayStation on, then another DVD case with your Nintendo switch on, then a bookcase. So there's ways around doing it like that.
Speaker 2:I mean, don't forget, I mean we're talking all about this like thousands of games. You don't have to have thousands of games. The games room doesn't have to be big. We'll get on to that when we start talking about consoles and bits. I mean, if emulations your thing, you can. You can have a nice big james fiction just on your tv at home. There's ways around it, but at the moment for shelvin, that's what I prefer to do.
Speaker 2:Um, games wise, because I mean I'm at about three and a half hours in games, so I need that. I need that space, but as effective as possible possible and as less footprint as possible. And I found these units really good. They were around £100 each and you build them yourself. They're not too hard to build, but then you can put the segments in as you want. So I've got smaller segments for PS1 games and then it opens up and you can. Even, if you want, you can put a little middle shelf in, just with a display on or a light-up thing in the middle, so you can raise the peg, sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can raise the peg smaller, narrower, wider, really good.
Speaker 2:They're great units and very, very space effective if you need it. But I also had in my game shed I had an X-Shot display, double-sided, sort of a triangular shaped one, um, which is now in digital mongries collection, um, that takes up a lot of room but it's unique and I had all my cartridge games on there mega drive, super nintendo mass system, uh, nintendo entertainment system, they're all on there, and so that gave it that 80s, 90s shop style you know. So there is displays you can pick up. They're rare, hard to find. If you've got a bigger room, that gives it a little bit of a look, you know, um, but if you want efficiency of space even, then go down the the uh dvd shelf route. So I noticed, with your switch games you have have the game racks, don't you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we go through. I've got some different sort of customized bits, but in terms of just shelving, again, I'm sort of at the utilizing space. A great thing because you've got such a big collection, Whereas I didn't have and don't have as much stuff, so I can be a little bit more picky, I guess, so I could look for purpose things, but I've been very lazy and a little bit frugal with that, if you like. So I've sort of looked more at what I can get hold of pretty much for nothing. So before I say that you just gave me a great idea, I was just thinking, I was looking to the left of me, like what you said about games, sorry, about custom storage cases. I've got some storage stands on a windowsill, so utilize what you've got.
Speaker 1:And the reason why I say that your windowsill is a shelf and something that I'm glad this has come up because it's very important something that your games do not like is UV rays from the sun, Exactly. So if you've got any consoles, if you've ever picked anything up that's yellowing, it's because of the sun. Now there's a shop. I won't say who's shop it is, because I don't want them to come after me, but I did show it in a short so you can find it on my YouTube, but it was up in Bury Manchester. I was visiting an arcade club. I went hunting in a day looking for a cex. In that high street there is a shop and they've stuck their old stuff in the front window and it looks almost here in a beige. It looks like an american school bus. It's so yellow and I'll give you.
Speaker 2:While you're on that, I'll give you a quick tip. Yeah, because, um, people think it's the sun that fades, and it isn't the sun. It's the sun once it's come through a double glazed window, because the the uv blockers actually turn it yellow.
Speaker 1:Now this is true, and I've tried this I I had a yellowed dreamcast and I put it outside I put it outside for a morning what an?
Speaker 2:experiment. Yeah, and I covered the front little piece up rgt's in mythbusters here. Okay, because I'd heard of this. There was a professor in America said you don't need retro bright, you don't need bleach, you don't need any of this. If you put it in the sun, it will whiten it. It's only when it's in a UV blocked window. Wow. So anyway, I put the Dreamcast outside. I took this cover off after about 5-6 hours on the front and it was crystal white no way.
Speaker 2:This is blowing my mind so I left it a bit more to get the other front bit to match it, which it did um, and I need to do it again because once I got it inside under light I thought, oh, we're still a little tiny bit yellow, but yeah, it's, you can actually be obviously be careful of the british weather if you live in the UK, Disclaimer RGT, just in case. Do not put your white card soles.
Speaker 2:Don't put your whole collection outside, and then go to work because either it's going to be missing or soaked. But if you've got a hot day and you want something there, you also have to be careful of. You have got capacitors, you have got bits inside these machines that are probably not going to like getting too hot, so machines that are probably not going to like getting too hot.
Speaker 1:So make sure you've got it so it's not scold or not, but if you've got a good, nice, bright day, um, believe me, even if you want to test, not in the summer- a spring, spring day, that's what you want.
Speaker 2:Stick it out in a nice, clear, bright day and you'll be surprised how that will change.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so we remind, remind everyone in april so you've heard it here first unofficial controller podcast with the latest myth busting technology. Yeah, we have got all of the facts and discoveries. Some good windows back, yes, so what I was going to say with what I've done is I've got blinds which I've just completely turned closed you still?
Speaker 1:get light come through and I it pains me to see them going on my box consoles behind me. So what I've done is you can you know people can black them out and then put more shelves up there, but I know some people have even bricked them up. Obviously you don't want to affect the aesthetics of your house because your wife will probably kill you. Yeah, exactly, but but yeah, you're what I've done. I've just hung a load of t-shirts gaming t-shirts on the rail and it literally has blocked it out perfectly. So, um, yeah, so I just wanted to mention that.
Speaker 1:But in terms of shelving, yes, what I've done, and you probably won't see this anywhere. I don't think you see it a lot in barber shops and if you go to a turkish barber, you'll see that they seem to use what they can and that's kind of what I've done. So I've used, um some scaffold boards from work, old scaffold boards which were no longer able to use because it's got a hairline cracking it and you can't um, so a scaffold board's basically 225 millimeters um, by 38 millimeters, I believe, and you can get different lengths, but you can cut them down, so they're perfect in terms of the depth of them. And all I did was I took them home, gave them a light sand. I went to like b and q or home base or wicks or whatever it was. I literally just brought a nice varnish and I just stained all of them. And it's only when you look close they look like they're really expensive, but they're just a scaffold board, yeah they're nice.
Speaker 2:I've seen them in your videos. They look good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then all I did was I've got a friend. I could have used anything for brackets, but I lucked out. Really, one of my good friends, sam, is a plumber and I basically told him what I was doing. He rang me one day and he went oh, do you want me to make you some brackets? I was like, oh, what do you mean? He goes oh, I'll just bend copper to what size? So I told him the size and he made me a bracket racket.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so it's proper custom and it looks very. It looks a bit like you're in a distillery because you've got the copper with the um, with the timber, and then I could set the height. So again, I have regretted a little bit. I'm glad you said about the space, because it's good for consoles, but then you double stack the game so you lose a bit of depth, you can't get to the games behind. And then I did some of the shelves are a different height to others, so I could have really I've left one. I was thinking about consoles, height to consoles. So I made them all to the height of consoles. But what I should have done was kept a couple of shelves and made them lower, put more boards in so I could have got more games.
Speaker 1:So just talking out loud, you know it's not trial and error, so just talking out loud. Um, you know, yeah, exactly so it's. I'm happy and satisfied what I've got, but I could have really of um, I've tweaked it slightly, um, and I've had, you know, I've had friends coming here. Um lee retro chef, if he is listening, it was probably the first person to come and see my games room and he was quite impressed with the amount of stuff that's in here. But it was like you could get a lot more in here if you tweaked things around. But again, it's your preference. I don't like necessarily things all white and clinical, whereas some people would like everything uniform.
Speaker 2:I don't mind a bit of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mine looks more like a gamers room rather than a collectors room, so it depends what sort of look you're after as well. At the end of the day, I think it's not a museum. I want to be able to get to the games and I want to be able to play them and you know that's what we're saying on here.
Speaker 2:There's no right or wrong way to do it. You make your games room how you want, but hopefully with our little tips on here we can just give you these little tips, just um.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do think picture shelves are good, though rgt. You know like you can get, like um we're saying earlier, but that callum's got. But you can get them from argos like very, very cheap. I know people get a lot of stuff from ikea, um, like the billy bookcases come to mind but people do get a lot of stuff. So if you're buying brand new you can get cheap.
Speaker 1:But do just have a look around because, like earlier you said about dvd shelves, now dvd racks are literally free. People are just chucking them everywhere like you're. You went down your tip, you'd find them in in the metal bin. I'm sure they'll let you pull them out, but I see them in charity shops all the time. You know, if you went onto a facebook marketplace, a gum tree, people don't want them and they don't want to sell them. Because, I mean to be fair, people are starting to a bit like records. They're coming back in again. But the last couple of years you can pick up cd racks and dvd racks for literally nothing and, to be fair, nintendo switch games probably slide in a cd rack, pretty much perfect. So yeah, just have a little look, have a little think and, um, go about it any way you please. I suppose have it will try and error yeah, I, I mean also.
Speaker 2:I also noticed with your cartridges, like your Game Gear. You have those. Are they from Etsy?
Speaker 1:You have those little Game yeah so anything people hear that they're you know they think, oh, I want to try that jump in Discord. Let us know Me and RGT we'll post any links to where we got things. Yeah, definitely definitely discord. Let us know me and rgt will post any links where we got things. Yeah, definitely so. So the game gear cartridge holders I've got. They're from etsy. I can't remember the seller's name, but again, contact me, I'll let you know. But if you just typed in game gear game holders they'll come straight up yeah, I've even got and you can change the colors.
Speaker 1:I've also got them for the gameboy color, so you can get bespoke cartridge um holders and they're very affordable because, let's be honest, you don't have to have a lot of money these days to have a 3d printing machine. So they're becoming very more common.
Speaker 2:They're more household than they were, and I think I like about them they're not only just for storage, they're displays as well. So not only are you displaying your games, but they're like tiered for the audio listeners. They're like 3D printed with Game Gear on the front. Is there four shelves on them, or three?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is one, two, three, four. There's actually six, six shelves on there, six shelves, so they're teared down like steps.
Speaker 2:So you can see all the labels of the games and also it displays them in a nice little Game Gear unit. But it looks good and they're quite good for space-saving as well. They're good and they're quite. They're quite good for, you know, for space haven as well. They're nice as well. So, yeah, especially for cartridges. I mean, like you know, heading on to games, if you're into your retro and you like your cartridge games, I, I originally went down the route of universal cases. Um, you can buy these online or in, uh, on ebay, and these universal cases are cases from an american company, but inside they've got little tabs to fit various different games, so they fit nes, super nintendo, uh, I think they fit jaguar, megadrive. And then you can go on their website called the universal cover project and you can print off custom covers for these cases.
Speaker 1:So I don't as well phenomenal yeah, so I done.
Speaker 2:I done all my loose cartridges I've done in those. Now the plus side is they look like videos. They're all lined up. You can pick your covers you want, which look really good. Downside is, which I'm thinking of changing in my new games room is the space. You then take up, a shelf full of these video cases where you think, oh, if I just had the cartridges on end I'd have a lot more room. So to have the, because they're, you know, technically they're not cib, they are just loose cartridges. So it's all about the look. But the plus side is there. That option is there if you, if you're on a budget and you're buying loose cartridges, which especially nintendo world is, scott will vouch for a super nintendo cartridge compared to a super nintendo completing box, the box can be worth more than the game. So if you're on a budget and you're buying loose cartridges, this is a way of having a nice display, having them in a case and also protecting that cartridges, you know.
Speaker 1:So can I? I've got a little tip for you, rgt, that might be handy for yourself. I was just looking for it then and I seem to have misplaced it. But for loose cartridges I have, and I do this for plugs as well. We'll come on to cable management. But all the ends of my plugs. I haven't done all the cartridges yet, so I haven't got too many.
Speaker 1:But, um, a label printing machine, yeah, literally 20 pound, like from argos or staples. They are brilliant. You can change the font from like six up to 12 like word document, and there's nothing wrong with that. Like a lot of the americans do it, we seem really obsessed. I mean, they've done it because games are more expensive. But uk is getting that with wave retro, don't?
Speaker 1:You don't have to go for a completing box. I love the boxes but to be honest with you, I'm not too bothered. The manual, in truth, with me the only reason why I pick up when I get a box game I go for the manual one is because I know if I go to set in the future people aren't interested unless it's got the manual. So that's why I do it. But that's the reason why I've collected so many loose games lately with the handheld stuff is literally just because of budget. So if you are collecting the budget you want everything to be uniform. Like RGT says, you can stack them all and then you can get a label printer stick them on the side. The only other thing I have seen like on Etsy is you can get trays, which is almost a bit like a file effect with grooves and you can scroll through the games. But again, that's quite deep. I think you're better off stacking them and N64 stack great.
Speaker 2:NES games stack great. And also, you said about the labels n64. Yeah, you, you can buy. There's people on etsy who make, yeah, the actual game labels to put on the top of the cartridge. If you stand them up on end you can see all the games listed along. Now, yes, that is a bit more expense, but if you want it, so it's uniform and also looks like the cover art, you can have all your n64 games of all their cover-up labels on now. Same again as your personal preference. If you're really, really into a game and you want that cib, go for it. If you just want to play the game, there's nothing wrong having loose cartridges. I've got as many loose cartridges as I have cib box games. For me it's about having a mixture of games I want to play on a budget, also have a nice display, so you can mix that all up with with cartridges to complete in box games and you might get lucky as well, like depending on what you're collecting, but if you're going really retro.
Speaker 1:I just had a little glance behind me on the shelf because I haven't labeled my 64 games yet, but next to them are atari 26 and 7800 games. Now those have actually got the labels pretty beautifully on this on the yeah it depends what you're collecting.
Speaker 1:I mean Super Nintendo. That doesn't quite lip round either, does it? So yeah, it depends what you're going for really. Exactly the other storage shelf I have got, which, again, are quite easy to find a bit of mixed opinion really but my Nintendo Switch games, I've got them on these towers. You can stack them, but they're not most stable things in the world. I wouldn't stack more than two high. So I've just found a place for them. I've stacked them two high. I've got enough where I can store basically 200 Switch games, I think, and then that's my collection there. It doesn't get any bigger when new games come in, old games come out.
Speaker 1:Now I think I got it through. I think it was just called adz or something like that. But if you type in nintendo switch storage tower, if you see something called adz, it's a very good website, very affordable, comes very fast. Now they actually hold ps5, xbox, they hold all the system games, but it's all the same link. Whether you click on the xbox playstation or the switch, it comes up with the same thing. I think you can choose a slightly different color, like a black or gray. Now those are great. They're more great if you are of the latter like PS5 and Xbox, because the only thing I have found they're great for displaying on Switch games. They look great.
Speaker 1:But when I keep pulling games in and out because the case is so small and it's designed for all of those platforms, sometimes they, um like one will fall down and then they all sort of in that tower, fall and you've got to re sort of stack them in there. Yeah, not in case they fall out, but it's, it's very. You've got to be careful. If I have a few beers and stumble in the games room, if I pull a game out, I guarantee you I'll pull three out. So if I saw this around a friend's house and I wanted it for my switch, I probably wouldn't buy it. So, personally, for my switch, I don't know if I'd buy this one again. I'll look for ones which are a bit more tighter, because it's too loose, it's too much play. However, I think these are fantastic for any of the bigger physical cases that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Another little tip I'll say if you are really challenged for room and you're into your switch, especially the switch um, I can't remember the name of this, it's another one if you ask me on the discord or contact me on instagram, I'll let you know. I've got on my oled switch. It's a white case that slides over the front and it's got a little clear plastic front door that opens down and you can push 20 I think it's 20, I'm looking at it now. No two, four, six, eight, ten it's uh sorry 12 cartridges you can put in and you can put memory cards in in the middle and it slots over the front of your dock on your switch so you can have all your games on display, just as cartridges I've also got. It's not much bigger than what a modern smartphone is and not much deeper. It's about half an inch thick and you flip it open. It holds 20 games and memory cards.
Speaker 2:So if you are collecting but you're really limited for space, you can buy your switch games, either loose or, if you buy them, put the cases in a in a plastic box with a lid, put that in a loft. You can have them all stored in these cases, or even on display on the front of your switch dock. I mean that one on my Switch dock was less than £10. And it looks Nintendo. It looks really good. If you want pictures of that, let me know. I can send you pictures of that. We'll move along.
Speaker 1:We'll move on to. What about the console units RGT? I know we sort of mentioned it briefly, but obviously you can add a bit of storage in there as well, because I mean, how many monitors or TVs have you got in your room?
Speaker 2:I've varied throughout the times of what I've had. I'll start off with my original setup. My original setup I wanted to have like almost like the billy boxes like you see in Ikea. A lot of people get them and turn them on their side and then they have the consoles in the box. I wanted a similar thing to that, but the thing that worried me was the size of the boxes. If you're sticking ps3 now the consoles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't see it fitting in there with the tv and also I've seen people have them put in there and it's completely blocked the sides and I'm like that is going to overheat in about three hours. So I wanted space. So what I'd done? Um, I sort of I bought pre-packed but also built it myself. I bought, yeah, uh, two, four, six. I bought six argos, white, uh, melamine tv units. Now each of these had, uh, I believe, one, two, three. They had six boxes in and then they just had a four inch sort of kickboard on the bottom. Now what I've done, I put two and then screwed the two on the top so it looked like one massive unit with the kickboard in the middle like a spacer, and then, because of the corner, I had two more on the corner there. So I had six of these units screwed together. And then I bought LED plastic strip kitchen lights for under a unit and I drilled through and wired one in each box and all six boxes on all six units. So it's 36 of these lights, which cost about 30 pound. Then they they ran off. Four of them would run off one plug. So you had like four, five plugs and then they were all lit up in the boxes and I had them all stacked all the way around, and that's what I'd done originally.
Speaker 2:After about seven, eight years, I wanted to freshen up the games room, so everything came out repainted. Any holes of pictures I'd put up were redone, and I thought I'm going to go down a different route and I wanted this is is gonna sound silly any fans of red dwarf or anything like that. I wanted a bit of a um, almost not steampunk, but more um sort of mechanical look. I wanted something a bit more almost like a an old spaceship look. So what I've done? I bought warehouse racks. Now they had an offer on for this from rack andcom over two for the price of one. They were 149 pound. I ended up getting two for 149 pound and now you've probably seen these in warehouses. They're orange with blue struts. I bought two of them.
Speaker 2:The good thing with these is this is why I recommend these these hold up to 800 kilos each unit. These things weigh a ton, but once they're in, you can put as many CRTs as you want on that bad boy and that ain't going to break it off. So what I'd done was I'd put a backing on which, if people have seen the pictures on Instagram, I'd put a fake wall backing in which I'd drilled through big holes with a pilot drill, drilled holes through and I then put um, you know, when you have a pc and you have a monitor razor. So it raised the monitor up. I had those all the way along as well.
Speaker 2:So I had consoles on monitor razors at the back and ones lower down at the front. All the cables are hidden underneath went up around the back through a hole in the, what I drilled through in the chipboard at the top and then through to the tvs and monitors to hide the cables. But that's what I used. So I went from tv units on sort of custom built to units and then went on to warehouse racking for that more industrial sort of look. I don't know. Yeah, which is very nice, because Because I had one, two, three, four, I had five TVs on. So I had four CRTs and then a HD TV in the middle for all the PS3s and bits and pieces.
Speaker 1:That's my problem is getting the where to put the consoles. So that's why I just quite like the TV stand. So I've got three which I use and then basically one's kind of just for a switch, and nintendo wii mainly, yeah, bigger flat screen. They've got a little crt um which, can you know? A few things go into their mega drive mask system, ps1. But to be honest with you, like I said, the one behind me that's got loads of consoles on it, it's got gamecube, the original xbox, yeah, what else I got? Nes, n64, snes, xbox 360, ps2 is literally about nine consoles plugged into it, but it's perfect because it's on one of them glass tv stands, I think those tv stands you pick them up for nothing and everything fits under perfect. Yes, again, it doesn't look great like. It doesn't look as nice as anything you've got rgt.
Speaker 1:But again, depends what you want. Guys, you know especially. You know I'm on, I'm on bloody youtube and mine still doesn't look good, so I don't mind, it's still what you want. So if you're not, for example, got um, you know youtube, or you're not necessarily showing it, or you're not posting on instagram regularly and you just want it just for you and it's for purpose only and for function, then I would recommend the TV stands, because you'll get them for nothing and they'll fit multiple consoles underneath.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah. And also the last thing, for me as well, and it's probably the same as you we're all busy, we're all working. Yeah, the last thing you want to come back and think, oh, I'm going to play Star Fox Adventures on the GameCube. You don't want to then be getting the GameCube out, wiring it up, getting the CRT out. If you can have these consoles set up, whatever you've got them set up on, if they're not in the way and they're plugged in, ready to go and all you've got to do is plug the controller in, turn the telly on. That's what I want them all ready to go. And I think in the end I've had 25 consoles or 30. It's about 25 consoles, I think set up, ready to go on all these TVs which will move on to screens. So, depending on what you want from your collection, if you want that original experience and you want crts, which are getting scarce and getting expensive now and will eventually need maintenance, um, you can go down that route. You can get nice crts.
Speaker 2:Um, I was lucky enough. I had a friend who worked at an old people's home and they were then changing over from crts to flat screens and they said, wow, they've just put five crts in the skip. Do you want them? They all work. Fine, I said, make sure they don't get. Well, I'll be there in a minute. One of them was. One of them was, uh, 24 inch, four by three, panasonic, beautiful picture, um, and I had there was. There was a bush one, a sharp one, one, there was a big, big, 20, I think it was a 28, big heavy duty one. But I took them all. They all worked.
Speaker 2:I've got a couple in storage, a couple I used. Now. Yes, it's not always practical to have loads of CRTs set up and it's not practical to try and get them. You might know people who have thrown them away. You might be able to get some from your local recycling centre them. You might know people who are throwing them away. You might be able to get some from your local recycling center.
Speaker 2:Now, the other options for that is if you want to use original hardware but you want to use a modern tv, because they the modern tvs nowadays, your 4k units won't come with composite, they won't come with component um or scar. So your your options there are to get HD cables, which I've had various luck with. Probably the best results I've had is from my Dreamcast. I've got a Calcio HDMI lead and the reason that looks so good is because the Dreamcast had VGA which, upscaled on HD, looks really good. It looks really good on a flat screen on the Dreamcast. Had VGA which, upscaled on HD, looks really good. It looks really good on a flat screen on the Dreamcast. The only issue is there's about four or five games that won't play because they wouldn't play from VGA.
Speaker 2:They would only play through component. So that is one thing to bear in mind. But that was about a £15 lead. Now I have tried hdmi leads for my original xbox and they look trash. They're 15, 16 pound. They look trash. Now the way I'm probably going to go in my new shed for space saving is I'm still going to have a crt, which will be my panasonic to to run a few of my consoles. I really want to play in that original experience, but I am going to go down the route of an OSSC. If you don't know what an OSSC is, um, it's an open source scan, so it's um. Let me get the full name for you to make sure I've got this right uh.
Speaker 1:I think it's what I think it is. Is it where you put all of your cables into it and then you've got a flick of a switch?
Speaker 2:Well, basically what it is, it's a custom little box. These used to be yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's what I'm picturing.
Speaker 2:These used to be a lot of money. Nowadays you can start picking these up. They've come right down. There's bigger companies making them. You can pick a decent OSSC up for £90 to £100. Now you might be thinking, hang on, RGT, £90 to £100 for one console. No, what this OSSC will have? It will have a SCART input, it will have a component input, it will have a VGA input. Now what you'll do is you'll buy a £10 SCART adapter Make sure all your old consoles have SCART, because that is the best picture output for those and then your SCART selector will use the one SCART port on your OSSC and into your telly and HDMI.
Speaker 2:So you'll basically have, if you've got a NES, a Super NES, mega Drive mass system. Put them all in a big SCART selector and then plug that SCART selector into your OSSC. So then for 90 pound you've got all them consoles running HD, and at good quality as well, because these HD cables one, you'll need an HD selector box to put them all through, and two, they're very mixed quality and nine times out of ten they're not brilliant. They don't do a lot. All they're doing is a lot of these will transfer, um, an analog signal to hd rather than actually upscaling that, whereas an oss will upscale it to the best it can be. You know, they'll have its own little screen on. It, will have its own little inputs you can change if you want, scan lines etc.
Speaker 1:um that is a great consoles. Can you go into that rgt?
Speaker 2:like I say there'll be one port of each, but what you do, right, okay. But what I mean is so if you buy a SCART cable for each of your retro consoles so your NES, your SNES, your Mega Drive, your Master System buy the SCART cables which you can buy. You can buy new ones as well. They're cheap, they're well-made and then have a SCART selector box, put them all into that and then plug that one SCART selector into the OSSC so you're running all from that one socket. You'll be running all those retro consoles through and you'll have a great picture on that HDTV as a very literal multiple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I've seen, because I've always used switcher boxes.
Speaker 2:I always have used switcher boxes. Um, it's so much easier for using because some of the older crts only have one port on. I've always used switcher boxes. And then, like you say, I've got one of the little label printers and I've got an n64 mega drive on each button. So I just click each button I want to play so that's so much better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so mine's terrible. I'm literally don't do it how I do it. I mean, look into something rgt's done. I'm just not very tech savvy with certain things, so I've literally just got plugged to labelled and I literally just have to go behind, which is a pain, because you know it's like you store things in your games. You might have a little light above your telly. I have to literally physically pull the lead things. I'll play on each one because it's annoying, keep pulling them out.
Speaker 1:But I know there was a gentleman who lives not too far from me. I haven't seen for a long time, but he used to have a massive games room collection. That he's the first time I saw one of these boxes and he had like 10 consoles like I've got by atelier, but everything was plugged into it and he just literally flick of a switch. He didn't have to get up. Everything was in there. Um, I don't know if you know retro break nick. Um, I love to watch on youtube. He's got something similar mounted. All of these videos are blurred in the background, but he has done the odd game room tour like once a year and he's got a big uh behind him. Um, he's got like a big thing mounted on the wall and that is just a very top spec of what you were describing, I believe. So, yeah, anything that's that sounds quite reasonable price. So, yeah, maybe share it with everyone in the discord. I the discord, I mean, I'll probably check that out myself.
Speaker 2:Even if you're using, even if you're using the CRT, if you've only got one CRT, make sure you upgrade your retro consoles to SCART cables and then get yourself a SCART selector box, because then you can have up to eight, 10, maybe even 12 consoles for that one SCART port on your TV. And I used to on my CRT. I had my Panasonic, I had a SCART selector on the top that was consoles going in and out. I had another CRT with another SCART selector with that going in and out. Then on my HD TV I had two four-way HDMI selectors so I could have 360, ps3, ps4 Pro, xbox One all running up and then when you want to turn which one on, you just click click onto that and that all go through one HDMI port. So for two HDMI ports I had eight consoles wired up. You never got to tap a plug out, and these selectors are cheap. Now they're pass-throughs, they're cheap, they're little buttons and they work a treat. But like I I say, if you want to put your old consoles on a modern tv, I'd highly recommend an ossc and then, with the one plug, still use your old scart selector, plug it through. So the ossc is then that little buffer into hdmi and they work a treat. They're really good. That's a great way of doing it.
Speaker 2:Now, going on to consoles themselves. You might think hang on, rgt, I don't want 20 console. I ain't got room for 20 consoles. Well, there is options. There is options. If you don't want all those consoles I mean I even have I've got a hyperkin retron 5. Um, if you don't know who hyperkin are, they make a lot of controllers, they make a lot of accessories, but they also make consoles. Now there'll probably be people screaming at this and listening to this saying, yeah, but rgt, that's not fbga, you know that's not. It's emulation. It technically is emulation. But basically, what rectron 5 is, you've never heard. It's got slots on for multiple consoles, for your one, hdmi. So if you want to buy the cartridges you don't want to buy all the old consoles which may need maintenance you buy rectron 5. Now it comes with a controller which is absolute trash. Don't want to buy all the old consoles which may need maintenance? You can buy a Retron 5. Now it comes with a controller which is absolute trash. Don't bother. Buy the original controller which they've got six ports on so you can plug NES, snes, mega Drive, all in If you don't want to do that, well, get onto controllers. It's a modern options Now. This has got Super Nintendo slot. It's got a Nintendo slot. This has got Super Nintendo slot. It's got a Nintendo slot. It's got a Mega Drive slot. It's even, on the front, got Game Boy slots.
Speaker 2:You can play Game Boy, game Boy Advance. So you can play Game Boy, game Boy Advance. You can play Mega Drive. You can play Super Nintendo. You can play Nintendo. It's multi-region. You can play Famicom. You can play Super Famicom. You can play Genesis famicon. You can play um genesis.
Speaker 2:On top of that, the master system converter works in it. You can plug that in. You can play master system on top. On top of that you play my system card games. It's very versatile. On top of that, loads of menus. You can have upscaling, you can have filters, you can have scan lines. You can have what you want. On top of that you can have an sd card slot so you can then download literally the whole library of cheats for that system. Every single game cheat on an SD card in the back. So then when you go, it says enable cheats. Yes, it'll come up with a list. What do you want? Infinite lies, bang you're off. Now.
Speaker 2:The reason some people don't like these is because they are an emulation. So basically what they do is when you plug your cartridge in, it dumps the ROM and then plays the ROM itself rather than playing FPGA. But if you want a cost-effective way, I think I had a Retron 5 from when they first came out. I think I paid £120 for a Retron 5. Out of the box, for one plug, for one HDMI lead, you can play up to 12 different systems and I think there's even a Game Gear converter for it that can plug in so you can plug up to 12 different systems.
Speaker 2:I believe on this and it's for one console when you're living on it, so you can collect the games you want and you're just playing for your big TV. It's a great way of doing it. They've done a Retron 3 as well, which has done three consoles. They've even released a tiny, little square Game Boy player little square game boy player, hd game boy player. So you have a little tiny console on the side you can have out and play game boy, but the retron 5 plays all game boy, um. Yes, it's not that original look of a crt. You can make it look a bit more crt, um, but if you just want to play the games and you want them on your big tv, it's a great investment. Um, I can't rate it enough.
Speaker 2:But you can also go on to like if you're, if you've got deep pockets, analog, the company analog do specific consoles. Now they are fpga, hdmi, fpga. If you want to have pga is it's running that original game from that system, from that cartridge straight away. And they've done a mega drive one. They've done a super nintendo one. They've done a Mega Drive one, they've done a Super Nintendo one. They've done a handheld. They've done a PC Engine Duo so you can play the PC Engine CDs and cards, two cards and they're now coming out.
Speaker 1:It's basically emulating the hardware, so it's like a mock console A bit like these Mega Drive but licensed A bit like these Mega Drive Minis and Atari Minis, commodore you get all those, but it actually plays the original yeah it plays the original.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's cool. And they've now announced an N64, which is coming out. Now what I will say about Analog is they're very limited in numbers, they're hard to get hold of, they're expensive. I mean, you get a hell of a system, probably the best that is out there for FPGA. If you get the handheld, it's aluminium.
Speaker 1:It is a nice piece of gear. Yeah, that's the only one I've seen is a little handheld for the Game Boy and they do these other ones as well, which are really good.
Speaker 2:But I think if you're, they're good. I mean you've even got a Polymega Now they've never kicked off as much as what they were. If If you haven't heard of Polymega, that is a modular console. Originally they tapered it as FPGA. It's now an emulator. But you get a base console unit with your cartridge slot in and you can take the front off and add the modular you want. So if you want a disk system modular, you put it on the front and that will play PS1, sega, saturn, pc Engine CDs and you've got these little modules you can add to it.
Speaker 2:Now, as far as I know, at the moment it hasn't come to the uk. It is us only. I've seen a few people use them, um, they look pretty good. There's not many games that don't play on them um, but other than that they look decent. I mean, I will say about the hyperkin retron 5, there may be the odd game that won't play, but I've very rarely come along one that doesn't um. But there there is ways. You don't need to have 30 consoles. You don't need to have every console going, like me and scott have, if you want to play the games and you've only got your big TV. There's ways around that and ways of doing it. Like I say, I covered cables. I mean, let's go on to a bit of cable management. How do you deal with your cable management then, scott?
Speaker 1:Well my needs sorted out. I'm embarrassed to say I had a friend, ed, around not too long ago. He was playing some games, a bit of arcade, up here, and it's terrible. So I have literally just gone a very traditional way. I have literally just got extension leads and I've tried to run them along the edge like the cable, hide it behind something. Then I've got the reel and again I've got the plunks. Just in that my cable management isn't good. I mean I could do things better. I'm a bit reluctant to, um, getting some little cable tidy pins or you know, like a little board or conduit or running along the skirt, and I'm a bit reluctant to make them tidy, getting them all straight, coiling them up with a cable tie, because I keep moving things around so much that's so for me yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you, if you think so, you've got a small space. It's got to be really tidy. You're like, right, this is where it's going. I'm having this here and that here it's only gonna be this many consoles and this is how it's going to be, then great, I'd say, get everything nice and tight, reel it up, get some cable ties on there. Um, you can get I can't remember their calls. You know, like, um, when your skyman comes around, it's like a little pin, like a little now, and you've got like a little return on it which clips a cable. Uh, I don't know the exact names for them.
Speaker 1:So those are all great, but for me, because I'm always moving things around, I haven't really felt the need to do it and I'm not too bothered with how it looks really, um. But, like I say, if it was in the lounge and I had my games room you know it's just open to the elements and my all my games and collection was just in the living room and you had people come around all the time and seeing it, then I'll probably be a bit more of thinking how to hide things. For example, like my tv, I've got it mounted on a wall and, you know, in a cavity in the wall I've put the cables down, so that's something I could do. I just haven't needed to put that extra effort in. Yeah, because it's not really on shows. It depends on how much it bothers you really and what you need to do, what you don't need to do.
Speaker 2:So it's again like most things, it's purely preference, I suppose yeah, I think if you know what you want when you build your games room, if you've got a lot of consoles set up, you know how you're going to get them set up, you've got a picture in your mind. Then, yes, go for those. Cable management, the more permanent solutions, the tacks, even the trunk and on the wall, whatever. Now, I was a bit like you. I had a permanent setup, but I wanted to have the option of changing it. So what I'd done, I used those. I don't know if you've seen them. They're like that spiral wrap that goes around the cables. You know what I mean. It's like the plastic wrap.
Speaker 2:So what I'd done is where I had my selector box, so I'd have the scart cables going in, so it'd be mass system mega drive, super nintendo, original xbox, ps1, for instance, for example. And as they came out the back I had I had one of those cable wraps all the way down to the back to then where the consoles were, and then about two foot from where the consoles were. They then separate to the console. So basically I had one cable coming out the back that you could hardly see going beside the TV and that way if I needed to move them I could unwrap that cable pretty easily, unplug, put a new console in, wrap them back up. It's not the quickest way, but it's a way of so. It's only semi-permanent, but it also. You haven't got cables lying across the back of your console unit, you've only got one big thick cable that you can hide pretty well yeah, lighting can help that as well.
Speaker 1:A little bit, I feel like, because, um, yes, obviously you have like custom lighting in your own games room and like I've got a um, just again, it's hanging again a bit the cable, but I've got like strip lightings. Fantastic isn't it?
Speaker 1:but you'll find yourself forced to. Then they're so cheap, they let you just stick on the wall, but that gives you a nice bit of lighting. But you'll end up um, you have to do something with the end of it, because it does come to an end, so so you'll have to sort of hide it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I put them underneath because it's obviously two shelves on my rack. So the TV's on the top and then underneath. I put the LEDs down the middle of the underneath and then it shined down, lit all my consoles up A little thing, but it's nice. It gives you a bit of light to see what you're doing. It gives that look. You know. It gives the. It shows those consoles off, which. That's another way. You know a brilliant way of a budget way of doing that part of your no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Everyone's different. There's no right way of what you collect, how you collect. I mean, you might be into getting a full set of wii games, you might be into anything sega, you might be, you know, collecting whatever you want. Now, different people collect different things.
Speaker 2:A lot of people, when they first start collecting, just grab any game for that system. They can now in some ways like mega drive mask system. That's quite nice because they're rare. You don't see them very often. They're quite good to collect. For if you're going down, like I say, the wii route, there's going to be a lot of shovelware on there. Now all you're going to be doing is having up shelf space. Now if you want to collect anything that goes to that system ds. We by all means that's your prerogative. You do that now for me. Um, I love, especially for them, systems I'm in no rush to collect for. So I have probably 100 wii games, but they're all games I want and now I've either played or want to play. So you know, like from anything from what is it Cursed Mountain, to the Marios, to Mario Party, to some of the rarer sort of games you don't see so much of the Silent Hills, or there's some good shooter games.
Speaker 1:Nothing but bangers RGT. Nothing but bangers and a few golf games.
Speaker 2:Yeah For me, because I find if you've got things on there like my Pet or Brain training or anything like that, it's nothing I'm ever going to play and all it's doing is it's making you look like you've got a big collection, but when you actually go through it it's nothing I'm going to play. Yeah, like that, and everyone's game is is different, what they want. But I think if you're in a limited space, there's no rush. You don't need to go out and fill them shelves straight away. Fill them with stuff you're going to play and you want to play, and that's a bit of a dead giveaway, I think those games you just mentioned.
Speaker 1:People tend to call them shelf fillers and I hear it a lot on certain groups and stuff and they go. I think I've got these shelf, you know, sending some games from shelf fillers, some old FIFAs, and that to me, is a dead giveaway for someone who has started a games room, um, but they're not enjoying the process of it. So, again, it's up to you. But enjoy the process of it, because once it's full it's a nightmare. So I'll just play with everyone, like, do not rush it. People think like obviously everything looks better complete when you've got gaps and shelves. It's not good, um, because it might not look good. But just, there are other ways, like, rather than having all side on, choose your favourite game and then just turn it face on to take up a bit more room.
Speaker 1:Little things like that, but when it does pay me, when I see people buying games and they go oh, has anyone got any shelf fillers to sell? And I think the fact that you're saying that like just calm down, relax, you don't need to like it doesn't happen overnight, like it doesn't happen overnight, um, and it wants his fall like it's a nightmare. Poor rgt's had to move house because he's he's outgrown it he's outgrown it.
Speaker 2:And I think I think also what you've got to remember is you'll start off with shovelware. If you've got, say, 50 shovelware games for a system, yeah, but actually two decent games and two games you've played and want to play, that five years later those 50 games could have all been games you wanted to play, rather than just these random games that are just on there for the look. It might be your thing. You might be going for a complete collection. If you're going for a complete collection of a system, fair play to you, because some people are more collectors than they are gamers. So it's all probably.
Speaker 2:But if you're a gamer, get games, because you'll find it really hard. If you've got your walls filled of these rubbish games, you'll get a few years down the line where you're thinking, right, what am I going to play? And you'll just be going along going no, no, no. Whereas if you've got heavy hitters, there's so much you can choose from. You'll just be I'll try that, I'll try that, I'll try that. So it's, it's down to personal preference, but if you're going, to be a gamer rather than a collector, then yeah, don't just.
Speaker 2:Don't just hoover up all the shovelware out the charity shop. Be selective and curate what you want. Make it curated to what your tastes are.
Speaker 1:I mean going on, sorry, carry on no, I was just going to say something that you just made me think of just while we were talking out loud is there's something we haven't considered and it's probably going to be a lot more of these, as you know, from the younger generation going forward. We're in a, you know, a bit of a sort of more headspace aware now in terms of stress, declutter, minimalism, all these sort of things. Think with e-shops with full electronic games and stuff like, for example, um, co-host of our show, um sebastian. He doesn't have physical game collection. So you, you might be listening to this and you might be taking some parts from it, but you can still have a games room. You might not have a physical collection at all, and I've seen this before. I've seen someone have a nice little, you know home office and then they fill it with things which they like. So they'll have, you know, some nice plants and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I don't want games everywhere, but then they might have, you know, some the I don't know the amiibos, like the toys. They might have some gaming posters on the wall, they might have some framed um bits, some actual toys and figures, they might have it real minimal and they might just have one tv and then all they don? They don't play retro, they just play PS5. They just play Xbox Series X. They've got a nice comfy gaming chair or they're a PC gamer. So you might be listening to this. It's not necessarily you have to be a collector or retro games collector, it could just be you're a gamer and you want to get your. You want to go in the room and you don't want to think, oh, there's clutter. Like RGT said, you don't want to be buying things for the sake of things, because clutter does bother you and you can't relax. If you go into your games room and you can't sit there and enjoy a game for an hour, just sit in your games room. And if you can't just sit there for more than an hour, then something isn't right. It's got to be a place you want to go and game and I've been guilty of this because I've had times where I've not been happy with my games room.
Speaker 1:I've done nothing about it. It's too much mess. I remember one year I went boot sale mad. I was buying things, knowing I could flip them and make a profit, and then I got lazy. I couldn't bother to go CEX. I got bored of the process. I had stuff everywhere and, yeah, I'd end up with loads of things and then I ended up just constantly gaming downstairs. So I had to be. You know, my wife was happy for when she was out or if she was happy to be playing the big screen, and she'd be like, oh, why don't you just play upstairs? And I was kind of like I didn't want it. It was a good few months where I didn't and then I went in and I was like, right, and I had a big declutter and it's a hard thing for us as collectors.
Speaker 1:Um, rgt, you probably feel the same way, is you hold on to things. Um, I don't want to use the word holder, but there's a little bit of you that there's a fine line between the collection holding and you hold on to things and you think you don't want to get rid of it because, even though you might not love it now you've had to time when you want to get rid of it. But as kids it's all happened to us. We've got rid of things and years later we've gotten them back. It's cost us an arm and a leg, but sometimes you've got to be brutal and go do you know what I don't need that. I haven't got space for it. I'm going to get rid of it.
Speaker 1:And then I did that and then I literally I've done a little series about it. I did a few videos changing my games room. I asked people on youtube to comment ideas and I put some of them and I showed it back what I'd done and I managed to make it a place where I was happy with and that was why, actually, um going off on one a little bit, but that was why in 2024 I had very little buying. I didn't bring much stuff on. I didn't visit CX independent stores. I did a whole year without going to one car boot sale because I didn't want to be in a position where I was picking things up for the sake of it.
Speaker 1:And it is hard because, especially as someone like me and you, rgt, we don't need to look up games. I know the value of them. I see a game and my brain's calculating how much it's worth. So I see things and I'll pick something up for 50p. You know it's worth three pounds, but really it's not worth my time in petrol driving somewhere unless I need it to trade it in. It's very counterproductive. So yeah, exactly, um, don't it's again, with no pun intended for marathon gaming. Um, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
Speaker 2:Just take the time of it and also, if you are listening to this, thinking, well, I want to play retro, but I don't want to have a big collection, there's ways around that as well. This leads us into um, this isn't sponsored, and I know I talked about this company a lot. Hashtag not sponsored, but Evercade. Now, if you want to play retro and you're on a budget, or you want to have a little collection, but you just want the one system, get yourself an Evercade. I've got an Evercade Versus.
Speaker 2:Or if you don't want an old TV, that's perfect If you just want to put it in your lounge. You can't have a games room. It's a little console.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you might be listening to this and you're thinking I'd love to have a games room but I can't. I'll tell you what I haven't got one, but I would recommend an Everkay for that very purpose.
Speaker 2:I haven't got the handheld. I have played a handheld. I haven't got the handheld. I've got the Versus R. It's a little console, little flat. You can do updates on there. The games tend to come out under £20, which will be multi-cards. You get manuals in the cases. You can line them up on the shelf. They're small, they take up a little room but you've got a little game collection there. They play really well. They're great ports. There's now I think there's 70 cartridges for the system which is in total. It's over 500 games there is I was gonna say there's a.
Speaker 1:There's about half a dozen games at least on each console. They've got a lovely interface.
Speaker 2:They look good on your big tv. They, if they've even done little things because you can put two cartridges in at once so you can have up to however many games on the cartridge. So, like I've got in mine at the moment, I've got tomb raiderider, which has got one, two and three on the cartridge, and I've got the Irem collection, in which is about five. So you've got like eight games all on your screen ready to play. But if you put two certain games in, that will give you a hidden game as well. There's hidden games in the system.
Speaker 1:RGT hold up. I did not know this and also you said this sponsor video. But you're sitting there shirtless with your evercade pants on evercade hat on evercade tattoo across your forehead evercade poster. I think I could see george in the background eating a pot noodle with his evercade pants on. Yeah, are you sure? Because you seem to know a lot about? I didn't know that. About the free hidden game free hidden game I mentioned that they give you a month another exclusive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they give you a monthly game to download as well. Wow, controllers are decent, but this is another thing I'll go on to. With your old consoles, if you don't want to use the Evercade controller, you can get yourself aftermarket controllers which I go between for my systems I use for my older consoles I use 8BitDo controllers which are wireless and have a dongle to plug into your systems, which work on the hyperkin and will also work on your evercade. If you want the wireless controller, um also for the um for more modern consoles like your 360 or your ps3, I use retro fighters. They do a retro fighters defender controller oh crap. Controller, oh crap, hang on.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, please do.
Speaker 2:This is the Defender controller Now. This is the Blue Edition. Now this will have a dongle with it. Right, it will work on PS1, PS2, and PS3, this controller and you can pick this up for about £35. You can get various different colours. It's a fantastic controller. Now you try and pick up an old, decent PS3 controller. They're getting expensive. If you buy one this new, old stock, it costs a fortune. If you buy it second-hand, you don't know how well it's going to do. These are brilliant. I've also got a got a retro fighters one for my dreamcast which has a vmu slot in to put in. It's a modern analog stick for your dreamcast. These are brilliant, so you ain't got to worry about your peripherals. There's ways of doing it. And also these work on multiple consoles, old and new. You can buy them. Even if you're gaming on an emulator on a pc, you can buy a pc dongle for them.
Speaker 1:So yeah, there's small companies that do a lot, isn't there, like I've had one of? Yeah, there is. I've had some custom controllers for like a six button one for the megadrive.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, yeah you're right, I've got an eight. I think I paid 1999 for an 8bitdo megadrive one. It's got a little megadrive dongle with. It's fantastic, it's. The d-pad is as good as a Mega Drive D-pad, even probably better. Six buttons, little wireless as well. So you ain't got to worry about booting the cables and ripping it out of your Mega Drive Brilliant. But they work also on your Hyperkin and you can get USB dongles and they'll work on your Evercade. So they versatile, they're cheap and they're really reliable. And they're made of modern parts so the membranes last longer. A button, your presses last longer, so they're really good.
Speaker 2:Um, that's one way of doing it if you're on on a budget. Um, if you, if you are going for game collecting. Um, people always ask me where do you get games from? Where do you get your games from? Well, originally, back in the day, it would have been ebay. Um, and then you always found that retro video game independent stores were more expensive. Well, them days are gone now I would recommend ebay as a last resort, because even cex is cheaper nine times out of ten than ebay. If I know you take a bit of roulette, I'd say bundles are still.
Speaker 1:I'd say, when you're starting though, igt, I would say bundles are good. For example, starting my game gear collection from scratch, the best thing was really bundles because eventually I was going to buy 10 games. But if I bought 10 games at once I was paying a price of five. Now it gets harder once you've got a lot of stuff, because you end up with doubles. But um yeah, if you're, if you're starting from the beginning in terms of of games and even consoles, you can get some good bundles. That's a good point.
Speaker 2:That's a good point, because I mean there's certain sellers on eBay that will do genre-specific bundles which are quite good. So you'll see a drive-in bundle for PS2, so you'll get Burnout. You'll get Need for Speed. You'll get five or six games for £25. So that is a good point. There is speed. You'll get five or six games for 25 pound. So there is. That is a good point. There is bundles on there.
Speaker 2:But I think, as you go through for if you were looking for specific games, yeah, um, cex, if you're in the store, you can look at them. If you buy online, as everyone says, a cex roulette as to what you're going to get, but they tend to be slightly cheaper than the ebay. Also, I can't recommend independent game stores enough. Nowadays you have a port of call, you have a shop to look around. You don't always know what you want to buy. Sometimes that's nice to view and then you'll see a game you haven't seen for years and think, oh, I was. After that I forgot about it. You could talk to the guy. Nine times out of ten. They've already been tested. You're buying from the store. You're seeing the product. Nine times out of ten, they've already been tested. You're buying from the store. You're seeing the product and nowadays I don't think they're overpriced in an independent store.
Speaker 1:No, I was just going to say I tend to buy most of mine from independent stores.
Speaker 2:now I go to Last Level in Norwich. You go to which one are you in? Well, I was going to say I'm quite lucky.
Speaker 1:I've got two there. I try to get there as much as I can. But the only thing I would say and this is no disrespect to independent stores I love them and I always say support them first. However, there is a clean cut difference between CEX and independent stores. And then what I would say is obviously, with CEX, obviously you've got that nice trust factor taking games back, et cetera that nice trust factor of taking games back, et cetera. Of course you get independent stores.
Speaker 1:But all I would say because I've been stung before and it goes both ways I've had bargains before and I've had to let them know because I'm good friends with the owner, I've gone by the way. So in independent stores, depending on the size of the store, they will have a game in and they won't be aware of the fluctuation of the market. So he might buy a game in, it might sit there for years and it might have gone up or it might attain. Now I've overpaid massively for a game and I've underpaid massively for a game. So I would say is you know? You don't want to offend them or be cheeky, but if you're picking up a few games, just have a little look before you go in the shop with something you're looking for and before you go to a counter, just double check because, do you see, x is quite a good guide, the game's out of stock. Obviously it's your imagination of how much you want to pay for it, it's, you know, buyers or sellers, market. But do check that, because I've had conversations as well and I've mentioned it to my friend daddy and I've said oh, by the way, you know, I said to him recently. I said 360s gone through the roof, mate, you might want to have a look at some of these because you've got them as a pound and I can tell you these are all a tenner in CEX. And he very modestly said he said I do not change the prices, he goes because I brought them at the time. So I would have brought it at what it was worth. So if it's gone up more, then obviously you're getting a bargain. But what I would say is check, because it goes both ways. I brought something which I thought was worth a lot of money because it was priced quite a bit, like a mega drive game or something like that, or a super nintendo game. I brought it and I realized I'd overpaid quite a bit. Um, so I would just say just do, because these are small businesses, guys, and they don't have the same resources. And obviously, imagine if you're in a shop and you've got to, uh, check everything. It's outrageous.
Speaker 1:Now there is actually a store which um operates completely differently. I don't really like the style of it because it it kind of puts you off picking up a lot of stuff. But I brought beavis and butt head on a game gear a long time ago, before I was even collecting for the game gear. We was um. I met up with a few tubers at a gaming market I think it was Black Country Games Fair, so I guess Wolverhampton way, and there was a retro shop. There's a local lad there called Dale. He goes. I want to show you some game shops, guys. Well, you're here, some independent stores. I was like brilliant. We went to one of them that was open. It was a Sunday, some shops close on a Sunday in the afternoon and we went there and nothing was priced but it was games floor to ceiling as far as your eyes could see. I've been one.
Speaker 2:I've got one round here like that I've got one round here like that and I was like how does this?
Speaker 1:There's no price? And he goes, no, you take it to the counter, then they work out the price. And all they did was they look at eBay. So I kind I didn't get the biggest bargain, but I thought I could have influenced that. I could have known what I wanted. I could have set up a few. You know, you could wait till one sold cheap, couldn't you, and really fluctuate it. So I wasn't too sure about how they'd done that. I was like, oh, I'm not sure about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the one round the run round my way is about 20 miles away. It's called Games Exchange in Lowestoft and the way he stuff everywhere he had some right hidden gems. Yeah, things are. But you'd go up and he'd go on ebay and he'd always be 20 less.
Speaker 1:He'd give you a reason I get it, but it's such a queue so like I was taking ages and I thought, oh, everyone must be trading in. They got to the front with two games. I realized he spends five minutes looking up how much they're worth there is that?
Speaker 1:yeah, and obviously you want to if you go in with, say, you've got a budget right and we spend 50 pounds today, I don't know if I'm picking up one game or five, because there's no prices and it must be hard to evaluate your stock because you, if you, obviously don't know what you've paid for that.
Speaker 2:So no, you don't know. So if the game's gone down, it could be that. But um, well, I'll add a few more tips in here before we wrap up. Um, one more little thing I'd say is, if you're collecting Nintendo cardboard, I would thoroughly recommend protector boxes, shark protectors or there's various different makes. If you're going for a big collection, it will cost you more up front, but the more you buy, the cheaper they are individually. So if you can afford to get a pack of 50, 60 of them, get them. You make them up. One they look, make your boxers look even better than an ice and square, but it protects that cardboard and we all know what the cardboard's like yeah, makes them really good.
Speaker 2:You can get them for big boxes. You can get them even for ps4 games. If you want to protect those, I get them for my rarer ps1 games or the dual cases, double dual cases I've seen them for consoles as well RGT, I haven't got one, but I've seen them.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you really want to go expensive, you can even get some acrylic cases made up, but I wouldn't, you know, unless it's really rare and expensive. You know, and you want it on a shelf shown up. You can get acrylic ones made, but they're not cheap. And also I know Digital Munkery our guy off of Discord will be laughing at me now because I always say this and I think they think I drone on a lot about it but if you have older consoles or you're buying an older console, believe me it is worth getting it recapped. Get that console recapped because if it's over 25 years old, the caps years ago were crap and they leak. And if they leak in various places on that board, that console will die and there is no way of repairing it.
Speaker 1:Is that the capacitors? Is that what you mean by recap?
Speaker 2:Yeah, get all the capacitors done. I had, for instance, I have a local guy do mine. He's an old TV and radio engineer but he's very good at soldering and radio engineer, but he's very good at soldering. I bought a recap pack for my mega drive at mark one and my mega drive mega cd, mark one. Um, the two packs cost me 20 pound of caps, but they're modern caps. You get them from these retro game stores online and he charged me 60 pound for recapping the two consoles, which was 90 odd caps. So for for an outlay of £80, I will never have to have those caps done again because they're modern caps. They will last the life of that.
Speaker 1:And what you mean is it won't break and you won't have to buy a new console. Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:So he's saving himself the money in the long run. And also, I thought my Mega Drive and Mega CD played really well. He turned around and told me that they had been leaking and I was weeks away. I had just timed it right. Not only that, when I put it back on my CRT, the colours absolutely popped. It looked so different. Oh yeah of course, Because it gradually goes. You don't realise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't done it personally. The only thing I've been forced to do it on is the game gears because they are the most notorious for going. So I've had to and that's how I heard the recapping service. I didn't know, and I'll be completely honest, the reason why I said capacitors, just in case anyone didn't know, because I'm into my games and until I got the game gear I saw it always says no-transcript, as I am.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, it's just all the capacitors in there. They do leak after time, they do damage your board. They will solder all those out and replace them and it's worth the money. I mean I'm my Amiga CD, which is a rare console, was very niche. Most people won't want an Amiga CD. They're quite expensive to buy now. But I went to a specific place that does Amiga CD, upgraded cables, upgraded power supplies, which is another thing, and the recap pack for that was £15. Now, £15 and about £30, £40 to get it recapped is a bargain in my eyes for a console that's probably going for 350, 400 pound. You've you've secured the longevity of that console and you won't have to replace it.
Speaker 2:And plus, if you are using old consoles, I highly recommend getting modern power supplies because them old big plug supplies they get hot, they're not very reliable, especially if you're using 8-bit computers. Get modern scart cables which you can buy. There's a great guy on on ebay that makes all these cables for old systems so you can get and you can plug them into lcds scarts. They look really good. And also the power supplies. If you've got an old spectrum, if you've got a common or 64, buy a new power supply. I've done all mine. They range from between, depending on how rare the console is, 10 to 30 pound of power supply. But you won't have to worry because them old them old brick power supplies can. They can smell a burn and if they pop they can fry your system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always worry about my. Yeah, I always worry about my nes one, but it's actually I haven't changed any the only console which I have been very warned and I'm actually looking at the Senate you've got it as well, because I saw it when Dan the Games man toured your games room. You had the same console I've got. It's an Amstrad I'm trying to remember. Is it the?
Speaker 2:GX GX4000.
Speaker 1:Now I mine, I've already replaced mine. So I was warned. My friend sy uh ginger hippie gamer. He told me do not plug that in scott, it goes. The reason why I didn't sell so many units was because they were catching fire.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was like hold on. I can send you a link for that, I think I think my new power supply for that was like 12.99 oh, yeah so it's a modern power supply.
Speaker 1:So that's I haven't even plugged it in to test it so I'm too scared yeah um, so, yeah, that's, that's a good way.
Speaker 2:Um, also, don't forget, you don't have to have a massive collection, but you still can have original hardware. Get a mega drive, get yourself an ever drive. Yes, they're a bit expensive, about 100 pound with an sd card slot. So it's got that original cartridge. You can put all the games you want on there. Obviously, you've got to be careful of licensing. We're not telling you to pirate games, we're not saying that. But there is ways of playing games without having to have a wall full of cartridges.
Speaker 1:I've got a good tip for that, actually, yeah, one we can sort of sort of wrap up with. A little bit is a bit of a story I can share. So I so I've got a friend and this is just recently. I'll shout out Peter, I'm Peter. So he actually just texted me earlier while I was recording. Very annoying, but never mind. He doesn't have a games room and some people might be listening and having a bit of this is what they want to have. But he's got a man cave, which is very common. A lot of people have man caves.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then they want to have a pool table in there. A lot of time they want an arcade machine. So I've got friends at football and I said, scott, I want an arcade machine. And they've told them how much they are or what to get and they've gone down the one-up route and that's all they want is for show. They want to have one-up arcade and that's fine. It does what it does, but they're not great for me. To be honest, I would always recommend, if someone was a proper gamer, to get some of those, you know, a bit like a retro pile, like a PC, an original arcade cab a bit like what I've got.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's got all of the games.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife done me a bar top, so she had one made for me for Christmas.
Speaker 1:Well that's what I was going to say. So my friend Peter. So he wanted so cab and I said, look, and he's a proper gamer, you know he's into his games. And I said to him look, I told him how much the cabs are. I said they're a lot of money and obviously it's one cab, unless there's something you love and you remember. You know you want to get a pac-man or whatever it was. So I've got a few original cabs. To the right of me I've got a frog and a donkey kong and I'm getting a miss pac-man soon. So I've got some original cabs, but they're limited for that. You know, for that game.
Speaker 1:Now what I play all my games on is a cab behind me which has got like a computer in, which is what you just mentioned. So I just said to him look, you should look at getting like one of these bar tops, because that way you can put it on a barrel, we can put it literally in a bar and you'll have everything in there. And and I said, mate, you can pick them up cheaply, you think. And I found one from someone within the community a very good deal, and I think we only paid 300 or 400 quid for it. But you can pay, you know, just 500 or 600 quid. It might sound a lot but it's a price of like a modern console. You know it might be the price of an Xbox or a PS5. But that will have everything on and don't forget, it doesn't age like a PlayStation 5. It'd be worth the same money in 10 years' time because it doesn't get old and people make them, custom-built them.
Speaker 1:He's got a lovely one and it was actually built. A very big YouTuber actually built it, so I'll give a shout-out to him Pete as well. His name is on a retro tip. He's actually done a video recently of 10 years on YouTube, over 400 videos. He's a very big channel. He's got over 40 000 subscribers really nice guy and a good friend of mine and he actually um put me into contact with his bar top and um, I got it for my friend's bar and that was all he wanted. Because he wanted.
Speaker 1:You know he was like I haven't got room for my games. He was going oh, I'm gonna. I don't know if you've ever been to like nq64 what am I thinking of? The one in london there's called Four Quarters and that's in Stratford. It's my friend Pete's who's building the he's like man shed bar, basically a bar they have. He was trying to replicate what they have. So it's a bar. Then you've got a pool table, consoles and sofas. I said, look, you don't need all that, cause he was worried about room, what you can even get coffee tables. Now where it's got a screen in it, there's a lot of options. So do just have a look. Don't think right, it's not a games room, so I've got an arcade. Don't be fooled by all that.
Speaker 2:I mean mine's right behind me here. You can just see mine just poking out here. Mine is a bar top Wife had made for me.
Speaker 2:They're the best. This is by. I don't know if he's still going go, and it's quite a few years ago now. Um, there's a guy who's paul's customs cabs in black gold and he'd make them to your designs. If you want a turtles, one, yellow and green, this one's black. I've got r-type marquee on the top that lights up and I've got blue light up buttons as two player.
Speaker 2:It originally came with god of game on with 900 games. After about six years the board went and I thought oh no, it runs on vga on a hp monitor. That's in there, but you wouldn't think it looks just like an arcade. So I upgraded to Pandora's Box 6, I believe, which has got 1,300 games on. It cost me £30 to import that box with 1,300 games on, screwed it in, plugged all the wires back in. It can have HD on. If you want to upgrade the screen, it's got sd card slot if you want to put 10 000 games on it. And the only extra I bought for that is I bought a um. I went to if you go to uk arcade supplies I bought a stand so it stands up at stand heights. You can stand and play it. So it's a bar top on a stand with little shelves. You can put games or trinkets in underneath, but if you're limited for space, these things are amazing.
Speaker 2:They're perfect mate, and you can move them easily and if you want to get into it more when you get down the line and you want original Sanmar arcade parts, you can just pop the buttons out, put some better sticks in, put some clicky buttons in. You can do what you want with them. They're easy enough. But I'm happy with what I've got on there. They play well. There's plenty of people doing custom ones on Etsy or actual proper websites and for the money, like I say, this was about £400.
Speaker 2:Bargain yeah, for what you're getting on it, all the games on it, and if you just want casual retro gaming, you'll never have to buy anything else. You're all in on it. Yeah, I will say before we wrap up and do our tiers list of bits and pieces all right, make your games room your own. Whether you want figures, collectibles, whether you want big boxes, posters, whether you want different lights, whether you want it to look like an arcade, whether you're just going to have an evercade in the corner, we're all gamers, we're all nerds. Do whatever you want to do. There's no right way. There's no wrong way. You know, don't listen to people who are online, who are purists and you should do fpga. You should do this, you should. You don't have to do anything. You just do whatever's you and hopefully, with what me and scott have said today, there's little tips, little tricks there. There's new ideas for you to take your room forward or to start a room. Um, you've probably heard us talking on here as well about our discord and our bits and pieces for the show. Um, discord will be in the show notes. If you want to jump on, come and say hi. If you're building a games room and you want some tips, come on there. We've got people in there like I say, we've converted garages. We've got people who are going for full dreamcast sets. We've got people who import japanese consoles and only play certain games. We've got people who just do everything through emulation. So there's what something for everyone. If you've got questions, jump in there, come and chat. It's very friendly. We're a very chilled out community. Um same with scott, obviously scott's marathon game on youtube. He's got his own community as well. Brilliant guys on there. You can ask them anything. There's no animosity, there's no hierarchy, there's no right way of doing anything. Just chat, share what you like in games, share what your games is going to look like, and there's just a plus for everyone.
Speaker 2:Um, we do have um subscribers as well. Um, show's always free. If you listen to us for years, you know that if you're new to the show, it's always going to be free. But we do have the option of a tiers list subscriptions, which just helps with the run of the show, helps us pay our subscriptions, help us buy equipment, helps us put shows on, helps us do everything we can to keep the show coming each week. Um, we have four tiers which we have a free dollar, which is uh, you get read out on show, which you'll hear in a minute. We have $5, which is read out on every show. And you get yearly art merch, because we change our artwork every year, which we'll soon be doing for the new one, so keep an eye out for that. $8 is read out on every show.
Speaker 2:Yearly art merch plus, you get access to Unglorious Chat. If you want to know what Unglorious Chat is it. If you want to know what Unglorious Chat is, it is the section of the Discord which is just for those tiers and above the people who subscribe. Now we're not gating anything off, but it's also just a little private area for people to chat if they want. The rest of the Discord is all there for everyone to use, but it just gives them that little bit more reward to say here's a little chat room for you, thanks for what you do. And then the top tier is $10. That's read out in the show.
Speaker 2:Yearly art merch, access to your own glorious chat and you get a quarterly Zoom chat with the host, which I think the last one I've done was end of November time, so I reckon the next one will be end of February, start of March. I've done the last two. I might even do the next one, but we try and get Scott or George or maybe even Seb, if the times link up in America or Bobby from New York. Basically what we do, we chat for about an hour, hour and a half. We sometimes record them to put them on YouTube and we just nerd out. We talk about games, we talk about systems.
Speaker 2:If you want to come on and show us what your pickups are, show us on the screen, we'll all be there. We'll all be having a chat. Get a couple of beers or your drink of choice and we all just talk games and have a little nerd out for an evening. Great fun and it's a little reward for us giving back to you. You come and chat to us guys, ask us any questions, tell us how rubbish we are on the show and how our opinions on games is stupid, but just come and have a chat with us. It's a. It's a great bit of fun, um, and it's just. It's good to keep in contact with the community and chat to all you guys on a regular basis. Right, we'd better move on to our tiers list, our subscriber list. Beg my pardon there, scott. So we will start with. I always get this one, the one man, george, fan club, carlos. Notice, there's only one guy in his fan club, but it is bless his heart for doing it. It's Carlos.
Speaker 1:Thank you, carlos thank you very much, carlos, and also thank you to Firm Returns, absolute top guy and very active in the Biscol really really nice guy.
Speaker 2:So big shout out to Firm Returns yeah, brilliant guy also, scott Tressels, new York, long time listener and sub to the channel.
Speaker 1:So thank you, tressels and in a big thank you to our italian friend and not too far from me, big up the one and only manabing star.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, what a legend. Great guy. I mean. That guy has got everything from emulators to consoles to collections. He's, he knows everything, from emulated handhelds packed with games to original systems. He, he knows his stuff. Then we've got TingleTuner with his great Switch and 3DS collection Amazing.
Speaker 1:And from great Switch collection to a great Sega Mega Drive and UMD collection.
Speaker 2:He is the master of the Challenge Accepted and that is Digital Monkery and if you want to know what Challenge Accepted is, it's a monthly competition. He runs on our Discord, this month full guys. You have to get as many crayons as you can. That was a slow start to this, but it's I. I was the first one to get a crown. Hey, scott's got a crown now. Roast space monk has got two crayons, just heating up the bill I'll be back on it tonight, and it's not only for bragging rights.
Speaker 2:You get a custom-made sticker for the winner and sometimes you get extra, extra prizes. So sometimes Scott will do a mug, or bits and pieces We'll chuck in, but it's more for bragging rights and just a bit of fun, really. Um. Next up we have Rose Spaceman.
Speaker 1:Thank you to Rose Spaceman and also a big thank you and shout out to the great gaming Graham, an absolute hero. The big up to the gaming Graham.
Speaker 2:Yeah, brilliant Thanks, tim. Also a massive thanks to Paul Border, your legend.
Speaker 1:And a big shout out to Boba and I believe he is. Is he the community? He's our community manager, Is he?
Speaker 2:highly ranked. He's community manager, he's Discord manager. He's a guy. You don't miss this. Man's a human, yeah, guy, you don't know this man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got a, so I need to put proper pronunciation, otherwise he might kick me off the show. So a big shout out to bulba yeah, powerful.
Speaker 2:Then we've got this guy. I never heard of him marathon gaming. Who's that?
Speaker 1:I don't know, never heard of him some sort of square, but I'll tell you isn't a square. This next guy, seal master elliot, I've heard he has got a fighter jet in his garden right but not ready to fly into the sky. It's sealed, it's wrapped, it's mint in box. He is the Seal Master King. Seal Master Elliot. We love.
Speaker 2:You Still got the tag on and everything. Yeah, and we've got our. I think he must be five times champion now. Ginge absolute legend at Challenge Accepted, but an awesome guy as Ginge. Ginge absolute legend at Challenge Accepted, but an awesome guy as Ginge. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Ginge was our 2024 Challenge Accepted King so he won so many months he actually had won more months than anybody else so he got a very special prize and he got a nice little custom trophy. So he is our champion, so someone has got to challenge him. So if you think you're good at games, if you're not just jump in a challenge accepted because you never know what game is going to be picked each month and you never know it could be the game you're good at. We've been ticked off. That ging is very good at crash team racing and that is why we will never choose it, because he doesn't need any help it destroys, yeah.
Speaker 1:Next one is big, big shout out to the one and only YouTube legend, harvey Retro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, check out his Eligmatic Productions brilliant YouTube channel. And then we've got the lovely Emma Sharp. Thank you, Emma.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, Emma. A big shout out to Nowhere Near Berlin. He is the guy that ties my tongue up in knots every week trying to think of what to say, so I'm going to keep it very short and sweet. Bless him. Thank you to nowhere near Berlin.
Speaker 2:And if you ever heard the game Forever Skies, then Greg works for them. He's nowhere near Berlin, so he's in the industry. He's a great guy and been a longsy. Then we have. I'm glad this has fallen for me.
Speaker 1:We got the rgt fan club. Baby, yeah, the rgt fan club. We don't know who's behind that um, and what the movement is. We don't know what the limitations are or where it's going to go, but I know, I know it's anonymous, but I know at the moment it's going to go.
Speaker 2:But it's LGT FanCon. I know it's anonymous, but I know at the moment it's up to 30 members. So, george, you've got a long way to go. So next we have Pete Brocklehurst. Thank you very much for your long-term support, pete.
Speaker 1:And a big shout-out to Billy Marmite. An absolutely legend. Again Billy legend. Again Billy Marmite. Big shout out and thank you to you, mate, top of the line. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:Billy, also my good friend Simon Pryke. He's not very well at the moment, so I'm wishing you poor Simon. I hope you get better soon, mate. You'll probably listen to this, and so I hope by the time you do you're better mate. So best of luck, fella now.
Speaker 1:This leaves me with the last and and probably the most funnest one. And I've got very good at doing this and I've been really tuning in, I've been practicing. So, ray, what Longhorns took the jam? What do you mean? Elon's got the loop. He's got it up in space. I forgot you guys took it with you. I'm going to have to go in dry. I'm going to have to go in dry. Right, get ready. If you're driving your car, pull over at a lay-by. Do not adjust your stereo other than turn the volume right up. If you're sitting on a train, pull out your iphone jack. It doesn't have a jack. Unplug it. I want the whole carriage to hear. Let everybody know what's going to happen. Announce it on a tannoy. If you're working in a supermarket, in tesco's, press the button and say attention please, because this is matt zan geef oh nice.
Speaker 2:We're contractually obliged to do that every show. So if you're wondering why we do it like that, we have to yes, um, yeah, so that's our list.
Speaker 2:If you ever us, there's a little bit on the end of our show notes that will just say support the show, have a look. If not, no pressure, the show's always free. Always listen, jump on the Discord, Come have a chat with us guys. We'd love to speak to you, love to chat games. If it's your first time listening to the show, we do weekly shows. Normally. We do news shows. We do normally we do news and we do what's happening this week in game and what we've been playing, what we're hoping to play, um, and this is a little you know.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we do these little special shows, little sideline shows, will be more of these this year, so I hope you enjoy them. Thank you for listening. Thanks for tuning in, um, and if you are watching us on youtube, give us a thumbs up, give us a subscribe, give us a comment up, give us a subscribe, give us a comment. You know, tell us your tips, put some little tips down in the comments. If you're listening on your podcast, we've got well over 250 episodes back catalog. Download them, have a listen, give us a review, give us a like. Come join the discord, come say hi, because if you're happy gamers, we're all happy gamers, aren't we? Hey, don't be lonely, jump, let's all have a bit of fun. So thanks, scott, it's been good.
Speaker 1:I've enjoyed this thank you to you. My friend really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the tips, buddy brilliant fun, yeah, anything that's come to gaming in those games rooms. I love chatting about that, as you can probably tell, but it only leaves me to say, like I say, thanks for listening, thanks for joining, thanks for watching, and there's nothing wrong with being given the unofficial controller. That's what you do, that counts. See you later. Scott, peace out homies. Outro Music.