The Fine Line Between Junk, and Rare Video Game Consoles

I'm starting to gain a reputation for enquiring/collecting previous gen video games consoles among my friends. Because of that I got the idea to research some really old video game consoles/machines. Using my handy Encyclopedia of Game.Machines, I scoured Ebay for their present day prices, not that I want to buy these junk, but I think it would make for a nice blog entry. Read on.

First up is the Sharp MZ. First introduced in Japan as the MZ-80 in 1979, this was more office equipment, than a video games machine. Among the games produced by this platform were two Mario Bros titles. I've only found one machine, the MZ-700 (1982) for sale on eBay for USD 179.99 (click here)

The next console is probably old as I am. The Commodore C64 debutted in 1982, selling up to 20 million units throughout its lifecycle. You can get one "like new" for a measly USD 49.99 (click here)
The Magnavox Odyssey is touted by the Encyclopedia as the first home videogames system, and I've no reason to believe otherwise, judging that it was introduced way back in 1972 and looked like an oversimplified sewing machine...or something. I found one of these thingamajigs up for auction at USD 142.50 and counting. (click here)

Of all the old junk mentioned so far, I managed to catch this console on TV twice. Actually it was the same documentary. In any case, the Intellivision, produced by Mattel and introduced to the US market in 1980, was competition to the Atari VCS. You can even connect a specially made piano keyboard module to this thing. Prices range from USD 150 to USD 200 for this console, on eBay.

So there you have it, some of the old junk I've been reading up the past few days. And no, there will be no buying of these old junk on my part. But if you are interested to get the Game.Machines Encyclopedia, you can always get it at Play-Asia (click here)

GAMEplan's Game.Machines

Having been on vacation and an enforced break from games for the past 2 days has allowed me to catch up on my reading. The books in question are "Common Sense in Project Management" and "The Encyclopedia of Game.Machines :Consoles, Handhelds & Home Computers 1972-2005"

Since I don't want to bore you dear reader, this book review is about the latter. Published by Gameplan, the original writers, translators, editors and photographers have created a labour of love with articles on some 500 machines and 600 pictures.

The hardware described in this encyclopedia covers almost everything from 1972 to 2005. This ranges from the earliest consoles such as the Magnavox Odyssey to those introduced in the renaissance of the video games industry in the 80s such as the Famicom and Sega Master System and then on to the advent of high tech machines such as the PS2. Also included are current generation handheld consoles such as the Nintendo DS and PSP.

Each article comes with a detailed profile with a box containing nice tid bits such as the year the console was introduced, the media type, number of titles developed and the year software support for the console ended. A couple of mistakes aside, this book has been an eye-opening experience on consoles of yester-years with many of them I've not seen before. A useful comparison chart at the end of the book helps put the consoles into perspective in terms of hardware capabilities.

The entire book is in full colour (224 pages) and in my opinion deserves to be in any video game aficionado's or historian's reading list/bookshelf.

This book is available for purchase at Play-Asia (here) or you can try looking at other online bookstores or shops. The ISBN for this book is: 3-00-015359-4