Completed Collections...How Long Did It Take?

[zektor]

I am always reading posts of people speaking of complete NES collections, or almost complete with a few titles to go. But, I never hear how LONG it took to accomplish this. For those with complete, monster collections (NES, Genesis, SNES..etc), how long did it take you?

[Steven]

well did you mean every game in the system's library, or every game in a MONSTER want list?

My Saturn collection topped at 340, and I pretty much had 99% of all the games I ever wanted.

Took me 4 and a half years.

[PapaStu]

I've only got one collection and its no monster (NGPC, 32 total games), but it took me almost 5 years to get a complete boxed US set of games, accessories and most of the systems.

I didn't really hunt for a 2 year span and thus didn't really add many games during late 01-03, but the last two years were ones spent hunting long and hard for the remaining games. One of which I didn't see at all the entire time until I found two in the same week and ended up buying them both.

[zektor]

well did you mean every game in the system's library, or every game in a MONSTER want list?

My Saturn collection topped at 340, and I pretty much had 99% of all the games I ever wanted.

Took me 4 and a half years.

Every game in a system's library is what I meant. Sure there are many factors that play a part in completing the collection. Amount of money to play with, if you buy on ebay or not, and so on.

I personally have only been purchasing on ebay. Only due to the fact that I have literally NO time to go out on hunts anymore. I just work way too much, and spend any free time on days off with my daughter, and some late nights playing games. I have come across some great deals on ebay however, and have built a SNES collection of 100 carts inside a month...including some hard to find (Starfox SW, Fun N Games, etc) titles.

I am just wondering how many years it is going to take me to complete the collection. I have never completed a collection before (although I came DAMN close with the SMS) and am thinking how good it will feel when it is done. I think I may throw a party :)

[Perkar]

full US dreamcast set. 1 year 9 months. (252 games)

working on PAL exclusives now... only 25 games there, but already i'm at 1 year 2 months, and i'm only at 14/25)

[Steven]

well did you mean every game in the system's library, or every game in a MONSTER want list?

My Saturn collection topped at 340, and I pretty much had 99% of all the games I ever wanted.

Took me 4 and a half years.

Every game in a system's library is what I meant. Sure there are many factors that play a part in completing the collection. Amount of money to play with, if you buy on ebay or not, and so on.

I personally have only been purchasing on ebay. Only due to the fact that I have literally NO time to go out on hunts anymore. I just work way too much, and spend any free time on days off with my daughter, and some late nights playing games. I have come across some great deals on ebay however, and have built a SNES collection of 100 carts inside a month...including some hard to find (Starfox SW, Fun N Games, etc) titles.

100 inside a month eh? Damn, how much money was that you think?

You and I are on the same torrid pace. I too bought 100 games (20 days it took me...)

Maybe we're crazy...

[FlufflePuff]

Well, with me I'm always collecting games for any system with few complete collections in mind. So, when I decide to go for complete I usually have a base to build from. When I went to complete my 32x collection I had 5 games and completed it in about 1 month. My NES collection, which I'm getting semi-close to finishing has been a work in progress for over 4 years now.

[zektor]

well did you mean every game in the system's library, or every game in a MONSTER want list?

My Saturn collection topped at 340, and I pretty much had 99% of all the games I ever wanted.

Took me 4 and a half years.

Every game in a system's library is what I meant. Sure there are many factors that play a part in completing the collection. Amount of money to play with, if you buy on ebay or not, and so on.

I personally have only been purchasing on ebay. Only due to the fact that I have literally NO time to go out on hunts anymore. I just work way too much, and spend any free time on days off with my daughter, and some late nights playing games. I have come across some great deals on ebay however, and have built a SNES collection of 100 carts inside a month...including some hard to find (Starfox SW, Fun N Games, etc) titles.

100 inside a month eh? Damn, how much money was that you think?

You and I are on the same torrid pace. I too bought 100 games (20 days it took me...)

Maybe we're crazy...

How much? ALOT. I don't even want to think about it. Let's just put it this way, I sold two PSP's, and even then I spent a lot of cash. Some of the rare titles/good titles ran me some bucks, and Starfox Super Weekend ran me nearly $300. Yeah, I think I got alittle crazy.

The best is yet to come. I have my first prototype on the way. I'm not going to give any details (yet) until it arrives and I can confirm it is indeed a legit proto, but it is one that I have never seen in prototype form before :)

[Steven]

All that plus HardBall III. Man, you got it made ;)

[anagrama]

I had gathered around 100 Euro SMS games over about 4 years before I seriously started trying to finish the collection (280 total) - it took about another 2 and a half years to wrap it up after that.

[Policenaut]

Before trying to complete my set, I had 43 titles. It took me about 3 years to get a complete set of US SMS games. Now I have broaden my horizons with the SMS; Anagrama, Cauterize , Steempy and other friends are helping with a Euro set, wich will take me more than 3 years.

[Dangerboy]

Actually "collecting" for the PlayStation and achieving the full retail set took about 3 to 4 years, at 1280 games with some variants not counted.

Right now trying to track down all the variants and demos will prove....timely.

I think my complete Game.com library took...a month. ;)

Complete Laseractive took about 2 and 1/2 to 3 years, and of that 2 years was literally just looking for Blue Chicago Blues.

32 took several years, but then I wasn't really hardcore trying to collect for it. The damn baseball game from Sega proved harder to find than the Spider-Man one.

All this comes at a toll though...after taking a look back, I'm realizing that I don't need to collect everything, and have started selling off a lot of my collection so I can focus on the other ones.

Next up on the complete list would probably be trying to finish just the retail release of Dreamcast, Saturn, and Sega CD.

without variants..... @_@

[Mayhem]

On the NGPC front, the UK set took about 2 years for me to get. Japanese front (and these are just the exclusives, I don't yet have the 39 games that also came out in the UK) took another couple of years on top. B&W games were a bitch to locate, but not that tricky thankfully.

Atari 7800 took under 2 years in total, split between PAL and NTSC. I have every game, though some are PAL and some are NTSC. Just need to acquire a few NTSC titles where I only have PAL (the third party ones) and there's a couple likewise I have NTSC where I don't have the PAL yet. All the official Atari releases I have only in PAL, except where it never came out in PAL, then I have NTSC (eg. Robotron).

Not too confusing that, eh? :P

I'm just one away from a complete "complete" (as in fully boxed with manual and overlay) US Vectrex set (27 games) and I've only been seriously going at it for a few months (pretty much since CGE last year).

[ClubNinja]

Neo Geo MVS took about 2.5 years. And now, I'm selling off many of them.

[fishsandwich]

N-gage took about two weeks. Went from nothing to a system with 38 games to a system 52 games in that time period.

Took about two years for the 32x collection... the two exclusive PAL games and Romance of the 3 Kingdoms 4 (Japanese) took up about one and one-half years of that two-year period.

I could probably finish the domestic Saturn and the N64 in a few weeks if I concentrated, but I have run out of room for big boxed games and it's tax season.

Nothing else is complete. Nothing else probably ever will be to be honest.

:/

[GrandAmChandler]

Complete 32X Collection: Under 2 months.

[zektor]

All that plus HardBall III. Man, you got it made ;)

You're not kidding. Hardball III is the CENTERPIECE of my collection man!

[ProgrammingAce]

I completed the Game.com collection in about 15 minutes... i bought the entire collection in one ebay auction for $15...

I completed the Virtual Boy collection in about 2 weeks...

Haven't really tried to complete anything else.

[Joker T]

You're not kidding. Hardball III is the CENTERPIECE of my collection man!

I don't even have a centerpiece to my collection :(

[goatdan]

I think it's really hard to judge the time that it took to get a complete collection because I doubt that many of us started out trying to get a complete collection until it just started happening. When I got my first Jaguar games, I didn't want them all. After I had about 2/3rds of them, I decided that I would like to get them all, and it took about four months to pick up the remainder... but that doesn't count the two or three years when I wasn't really "collecting" for it.

On the other hand, my Action Max set took two days to get all whopping five of the 'games' for it. I found the system and a game, and then bought the others in a package online for like $10.00.

So for me, it depends on when you decide to start trying to get a complete collection, and when you call your collection complete. I guess I've been working on the Dreamcast since 2000, as I won't have that "complete" until I own every PAL game, and I've temporarily got that project on hold.

[Darren870]

full US dreamcast set. 1 year 9 months. (252 games)

working on PAL exclusives now... only 25 games there, but already i'm at 1 year 2 months, and i'm only at 14/25)

Im doing that now, been seriously working on it for the past month. I'll probably be done with it in 3-4 weeks though. I've been buying like crazy, so only have 88 left!

[scooterb23]

I only have 1 complete collection... Game.com.

Overall, I think it took me around 3 years after getting the system before I got the last game for it. I was probably actively working on getting the collection for about 6 months I'd guess.

I got the first half fairly easily scouring KB closeouts, after losing the scent...I ended up buying the other half in one shot from a member here on DP :)

[retrogmr]

So let's take a sidebar for a second; what about the feeling you had when you've actually completed a collection?

I've been through that a few times (5200, 7800, Vectrex, Intellivision, Lynx, Jaguar, Master System, NGPC, US TurboGrafx), and each time that last box gets checked on the list, I felt accomplishment, but some disappointment too.

Back on topic; some of those took more than 6-10 years to complete. The 5200 didn't get completed until CGE 2K4 (which I started in 1994), when I got a box and docs for my naked Bounty Bob Strikes Back.

[PapaStu]

So let's take a sidebar for a second; what about the feeling you had when you've actually completed a collection?

I've been through that a few times (5200, 7800, Vectrex, Intellivision, Lynx, Jaguar, Master System, NGPC, US TurboGrafx), and each time that last box gets checked on the list, I felt accomplishment, but some disappointment too.

Back on topic; some of those took more than 6-10 years to complete. The 5200 didn't get completed until CGE 2K4 (which I started in 1994), when I got a box and docs for my naked Bounty Bob Strikes Back.

Yup. I know exactly what you mean. I think that I purpously prolong the hunt, by adding variants, or accessories, or something else to keep it going once it's been checked off for that last time.

With my NGPC, I found the last game for the NGPC and wasn't happy with it (the label had writing all over it). I then found another one and then all the games were done. And then I decided that I should replace the one or two 'bad' boxes. Mind you bad is just normal shelf wear and then once that was done, or put off in one boxes case I was like, I need to find the last of the US systems. I stopped before I hunted down the last 3 missing systems.

Lord knows what i'll do when I get to that point with the PlayStation library.