Question for the hardcore collectors

[itatton]

I've been dealing with this problem for a while and I'm hoping the DP crowd can help. I have a pretty big game collection that causes two problems. 1) I'm continually running out of room on my game shelves and 2) I want to have most of my systems hooked up to my TVs but I can't find an adequate shelving solution to accomodate the systems and TVs in the space that I have.

So my questions are:

How do you guys store your game collections?

and

Do any of you have all of your systems hooked up at the same time or get them out when you want to play them?

EDIT: Here's my ign collection list to provide an idea of my collection size...

http://users.ign.com/collection/darkizet

...and a picture of the space I have to work with.

http://homepage.mac.com/itatton/lj/watching_small.jpg

[Darren870]

Get a modded xbox and have back up roms for the games you own.

Thats what I do. It would be such a pain to have all my systems hooked up to 1, 2 or 3 tv's.

[Xizer]

I have all of my systems hooked up to a single TV, and I've got over 10 of 'em now.

GameStop sells system splitter boxes. I've got several. You can put 3 systems per box, then hook up another box in the fourth slot. You can hook up 3 more systems on that second box, and keep going until you get all your systems covered.

It doesn't really degrade the picture quality that much, either.

[swlovinist]

I use decorative shelving for my gameroom, along with media shelves form Shopko. I have over 15 of my game systems hooked up to a single 20 inch Flat TV, along with my current systems hooked up in the living room to my 36 inch. My future project is to have a 13 inch TV/Monitor hooked up to several classic gaming systems(a monitor for each). I think for play the multiple Monitor thing is the way to go, if you have the room. I second the modded Xbox for space and tourneys, but I still feel dirty playing roms.

[CYRiX]

You can go for the pelican switcher like the one I have that has 8 connections and even customized name plates for each systems.

And for storage I would recommend building the shelves.

[Darren870]

Yea I hear you on the feeling dirty thing, but its ten times easier to just turn on the xbox then take a cartridge out of its box and put it in and hope it works on the first try.

[TurboGenesis]

I can relate to your problem 100%

When my shelves start to overflow, I just go and buy another shelf. Thats all I can do. I still do not have my SMS games well displayed

Now setting up consoles is my biggest problem. I am currently running a pelican 8 way switch and a pelican 5 way switch. The 8 way supports component, s-vid and composite while the 5 way has s-vid and composite. I also have a radio shack 4 way composite switch as an option. My biggest issues is where to place the Turbo Duo, Super Grafx and Neo Geo AES as these consoles have the shortest cords. Other issues are disc systems with flip top load and cartridge systems in which you need room for placing carts in/out of them.

DOn't know if I could help but multiple switch boxes can help get everything hooked up. IF your TV only has one hook up you can either piggy back the switch boxes ar get some y spliters from radio shack.

[Poofta!]

personally i only have what i play often connected, which in this case is only my xbox and gc. my psone has the little lcd so that can be anywhere when i wanna play it, its small enough to whip out anytime.

as for all old school systems (cartridge based) i play the roms on my pc instead of climbing into the closet each time. besides i dont like my systems getting dusty.

[Nez]

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y221/a16btsuicide/cd.jpg

I have quite a few systems set up here (13). So if you get an entertainment center with some shelfs it makes your life much easier.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y221/a16btsuicide/neo005.jpg

As for hooking everthing up at one I just use that one up there. I have most of my 13 systems hooked up at one time. But to keep thing more organised I use a single cable for multiple systems. For nintendo I use a Madcats S vid cable for my Snes N64 and for audio on my cube. Saved 2 spots right there. And since there right nixt to each other moving cables from one to another in no biggie.

[Slate]

First, i'd reccomend against having every one of your sestems hooked up at once.

Why?

Imagine a power surge knocking out every game system you own.

Secondley, Use Pelican System Selectors, if you do not use them already.

And, for more shelf space, Take the games you will never use (I'm thinking sports games and low quality games) and put them in a box, then stash them in a closet. This saves LOADS of shelf space.

And, lastly, try to use emulators. They save loads of time, and usually run faster when on a computer.

[icbrkr]

I say hook em all up. I have enough surge protectors back there to stop just about anything. Besides, everything stays unplugged except when I use them.

Emulators? Bah! Gotta have the real thing. If I were just going to play ROMs, I'd never have got into collecting. There's nothing quite like using the real equipment to play the game. Playing Atari 2600 stuff with a Sidewinder USB gamepad just isn't right. Why would I want it to run faster? I need to play it the way it was intended - flaws and all.

I've got as much as I can hooked up to my gameroom TV. I have 3 AV switchboxes daisy chained together, and my RF stuff going through my VCR so they can also use the AV hookup. What I don't have hooked up can be at a moment's notice. In my small 10x11 room, I have almost 2,600 games, 45+ systems - it's called organization and it's a challenge :) Turn your closet into a storage area by maxing it out with shelves. Media shelves are great for loose carts. Tubs work too.

Some pics of all this are here: http://www.particles.org/room/room.php

[Jumpman Jr.]

From your picture, you have TONS of room to store games. When looking for more room, if you have any bare wall space, you should be fine. Just put up some more shelves or whatever and you'll have more room than you'll know what to do with.
When you no longer have wall space, you need to look at the set-up of your room and ask yourself "how can I arrange the stuff in here to maximize the amount of space I can have."

[PapaStu]

Ive got a nice 4 slot AV switch thing and am fine with all my stuff (worse case scenario and I need to play some Japanese import PSOne games, I switch out the the plug from my PS2 to the PS Debugger and i'm good to go). Back at my parents house I had the splitter setup and that covered my new systems (which ran thru my VCR) and the Genny/NES were still Channel 3 hookup'd thru the back of the TV so again, I was fine.

Now game wise, I get lots of shelves and stuff and softbooks for the game systems I play more regularly so I dont need to dig around for all the games. I've got LOTS, and despite its amount of space taken up, I can still easily fit in more (just in a different room). I've got alot of games (closing in on 1800 id guess) and I know others here blow me out of the water and they make it happen, I know you can too.

Dont go that 'emu' route because it takes up less space, thats a horrible excuse to pirate shit.

[Gemini-Phoenix]

Space is a premium in the house I live in. I have two bedrooms which my parents let me use, and I really want to keep one as simplya bedroom. The other I use for storing my games and Dvd's etc. Problem is, there's not enough space to do that.

Solution: I had to buy about 20 of those folding collapsable crates that you can find quite cheaply. These I use stacked up in the spare room. It works quite well, as they keep the contents safe as well, and also dust free and out of the way of sunlight. Also means that they are not on display, so there is added security.


As for hooking everything up ~ I tend to keep the current consoles hooked up to a monitor in the corner using a VGA box, which allows four consoles to be connected at one time.

As the PS2 and PlayStation use the same wires, I just have one set. Same goes for the N64 and GameCube's (Plus the imports which also run off the same set of wires). ~ In fact, all the Nintendo consoles work off the same a/v wire, so that keeps that nice and tidy, and is simply a case of putting one end in the right console

AV wires aren't too much of a problem. It's the power wires that are a mess. Most consoles are AC though, so that means you only need one 12V AC wire to power things like Xbox, PS2, PlayStation, Dreamcast Etc... Obviously a few extra ones if it's import consoles, with the exception of the PStwo and GameCube, and a few others...

[kainemaxwell]

Slightly offtopic, love the NWO pillow.

[Xizer]

Switching AV cables and power cords, or re-hooking up systems when you want to use them seems like such a hassle to me. Why not get some surge protectors and multi-system selector boxes? That's my personal preference. No switching AV cables, hooking up systems, or switching AC adapters. All I have to do is hit a nice big button on my switch box to switch the video output to the system I want to play. I've memorized them all, and it only takes a few seconds to power on a system and switch between the four buttons if I forget which one a system is hooked up to to find the video output.

[boatofcar]

I second (or third) adding shelves. It's the best way to keep things organized and on display. I only hook one of my systems up at a time, though.

[MagicMajenta]

I've been dealing with this problem for a while and I'm hoping the DP crowd can help. I have a pretty big game collection that causes two problems. 1) I'm continually running out of room on my game shelves and 2) I want to have most of my systems hooked up to my TVs but I can't find an adequate shelving solution to accomodate the systems and TVs in the space that I have.

So my questions are:

How do you guys store your game collections?

and

Do any of you have all of your systems hooked up at the same time or get them out when you want to play them?

EDIT: Here's my ign collection list to provide an idea of my collection size...

http://users.ign.com/collection/darkizet

...and a picture of the space I have to work with.

http://homepage.mac.com/itatton/lj/watching_small.jpg

You have a problem storing stuff!!! :roll: You should see my room in my basement. I got 3 TV's, lots of systems, bookshelves with books, CD's, VHS tapes, DVD player, Stereo system, boxes. I can hardly move. Compared to my room from that pic of yours your area looks like heaven.

[Buyatari]

You don't have a problem. Your room looks great. Nice neat and organized.

[SkiDragon]

What if you run out of wall room for shelves?

[Buyatari]

You should see my room in my basement. I got 3 TV's, lots of systems, bookshelves with books, CD's, VHS tapes, DVD player, Stereo system, boxes. I can hardly move. Compared to my room from that pic of yours your area looks like heaven.

The skinny girl always complains she is fat. Thats how they get the attention.

[retroman]

i got lucky...when we moved, we had enough money to have a special video game room built in the basement...i had it custom made....so storage isnt a problem anymore...

[chrisbid]

from the sound of things, looks like youre better off than most people here LOL

[itatton]

Sorry about the delay in responding, I've been traveling with work. Thanks for all of the responses though.

The picture is very misleading. I picked that one because it showed the best example of the amount of space I have for storing the systems if I leave them all connected. At the time, my collection was only around 1400 games so it's grown a bit since then. I'll link to some pictures at the bottom of the post with my actual game shelves and why I'm running out of room. It's also no where near as tidy now.

Although it may be inevitable, I was hoping to avoid building custom shelves. I spent a while looking at the collection pictures trying to find a good solution, but it looks like most of them have a storage room outside of their gaming room.. I can't remember whose collection I was looking at, but I saw some metal shelving that looked about 5 feet tall and had 6 shelves. I may get something similar to this since it looked fairly nice and I think Sam's Club had them for a decent price.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. It's definitely appreciated.

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http://homepage.mac.com/itatton/ign/collection1.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/itatton/ign/collection2.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/itatton/ign/collection3.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/itatton/ign/collection4.jpg

[FlufflePuff]

I say hook them all up. I have 15 systems all hooked to the same TV. Using two 5 position Pelican switch boxes, and a string of RF adaptors Im able to get them all working without having to change anything. Its the only way to go. In terms of shelves, I really want to build some myself, but right now I just use the cheapie $20 Target shelves and stack them. I have 9 in my game room and Ive canibalized two more two add a fourth shelf to each of the 9 units.

[EricRyan34]

You have lots of room to work with, just be creative, buy some shelves or make em, whatever. Right now I am only in Bins :( I don't have enough games really to get shelves yet