Update #2: Shelving consoles sucks butt.

[Cornelius]

*See my latest post w.r.t. the updated title in the first post of page 2*


So my basement is finally ready! Praise be to Gorf! This started about 8 years ago when we added on to the house, including a finishable basement. I had plenty else to do, so I've been working on the basement for about a year now. Anyway, I'm putting in Ikea Bily shelves and as I set them up and start the process of unboxing my games I've run into a couple logistical considerations. So I've come to the experts.

My main question at this point is what you'd do with a collection of boxed and loose games (NES atm), and why. Options I'm considering are 1) shelve them all together alphabetically, putting the boxes on their side. 2) Boxes separate on their side. 3) Boxes separate upright (obviously better, but more space). Another consideration is do I leave the games out of the boxes or not. Space could be saved by putting the games in the boxes, but I've already encountered it being annoying for a game not to be in the main part of the collection, though that's mostly because of cumbersome boxes to shift around.

I'm also plagued by PC game boxes that don't all have their text facing the same way. I mean, c'mon people, isn't this something that should have been settled in the 1800s (with books).

That's all I'm thinking of for now. If you know of other threads that address these kinds of thing, please point me there, as I'm sure they exist. Hopefully you all don't mind that I didn't yet search extensively for them. I have read a LOT about which shelving to use/build, so I'm aware of many of those types of threads.

Work in progress, but here's where I'm at as I ponder (and wait for good weather to modify more shelves outside).

[celerystalker]

Looking great! For my stuff, I just do all of the loose games in alphabetical order, then boxed in alphabetical order. I try to group them for uniformity to minimize space between shelves. Your basement is looking great!

[bb_hood]

I like to keep my boxed/complete nes stuff seperate from my loose carts. I always keep carts in the boxes.. no reason to keep them out unless you play them.

I have my nes carts sorted alphabeticaly, but with the boxed stuff I just arrange that however looks nicest. Like the rare stuff at the top of the shelf.
Your setup looks pretty nice the way it is tho.

[Emperor Megas]

I only have about 10 or so boxed NES games, and I keep them on a separate shelf, and alphabetized. They have their games inside, but not really because I decided they should be stored that way. I just have limited space and I don't think I would have had room for them on the shelf with the loose carts since it's pretty much to capacity.

It looks great down there so far, BTW. Having an organized area with easy access to most of your stuff, and room to display gaming swag, is great.

[Aussie2B]

It's looking good. Alphabetized is a definite for me, but when games or cases look or are shaped particularly different, I keep them separate. I can't think of any system where I have boxed copies stored among loose carts. Same deal with, say, how I have my longbox PS1 games separate from my standard jewel case PS1 games. I even go so far as to separate out Dreamcast games with black spines and white spines, just because they look messy to me when sort alphabetically together. I do, however, mix my Greatest Hits PS1 games with my regular PS1 games. The little bit of green on the spine doesn't bother me, and it's not like I have many GH games anyway.

I do sometimes take games out of their packaging to shelve the game with the rest. I do that with NES games, yeah, if only because I have maybe 5 boxed NES games tops. I especially do this with limited editions, because they come in all sorts of sizes. The boxes usually end up stored away in my closets, while the game itself is on display on my shelves for easy access.

[Cornelius]

Thanks for the thoughts and comments. I was thinking along similar lines as many of you. Starting to implement, but as I dig out the boxes I've now found several items that I missed, so that meant some reshuffling. Plus, I decided to flip all the NES games to match the more common spine direction, probably a dumb choice, but I was shuffling them anyway, so figured that's as good a time as any. I know I'm missing a few NES games that I was playing at some point, but just can't locate them, man is that irritating. SMS is up next.

Progress...