Game Gear Micro: Tiny System, Massive Piece of Shit

I have very limited experience with actual Game Gear hardware but quite fond memories of the system.  I remember when I was very young, my auntie had this huge house in the Lake District that I would visit with my family from time to time.  There was some sort of gathering going on at the house one time and all the adults were standing around talking and drinking, the usual fare for that kind of thing.  I however, unable to drink at that young and age, got talking to these two slightly older kids and to pass the time we sat in a hallway, on top of my aunties large refrigerator unit playing some kind of Sonic game on the Game Gear.  I was a big fan of the Sonic games on the Mega Drive at the time so when I saw these guys that had a version of it that could be played on the go, it blew my damn mind.  Thinking back, these first experience with the Game Gear might have been my first experience with a portable console.

Anyway, childhood stories aside, Sega have recently announced a Game Gear Micro, yet another mini version of an old system that has a collection of games for you to enjoy.  I've never been a big fan of these mini systems really but I do see the appeal.  The collection of games is usually pretty good (unless its the western PS1 mini) and they sort of look nice on a shelf as a collectors piece.  Being able to play these games with the actual controllers that come packaged is cool as well.

The first problem with the Game Gear Micro is that it's, as the name would suggest, tiny.  I always hated the Game Boy Micro for being just a tad too small and I'm fairly sure that this thing is even smaller than that.  I get that it's kind of a novelty but even Sega realized that the size of this thing is fucking stupid because if you pre-order the system then you can also get a magnifying glass which may make the thing slightly playable.

The games are the other problem with this thing but not the actual titles themselves.  The selection of games is actually pretty good, a bunch of Sonic games, some RPGs, some puzzle games, the standard array of popular titles and genres you'd expect to see on a system like this.  In total there are 16 games but this is where the bullshit starts to creep in.  There are 4 color variants of the Game Gear Micro; black, blue, red and yellow.  Each one of these systems has 4 DIFFERENT games on them which means if you want to play all 16 micro versions of these Game Gear classics, you have to buy ALL of them.

Which leads us into the third problem of the price.  They are announced to be roughly 5000 yen (About $45) each, which means if you want all of the games available you have to drop a whopping 20,000 yen, which is just fucking extortionate.  If I remember correctly the SNES mini, which had about 20 games packaged in, was 8000 yen at launch.  The PlayStation mini, for all the controversy over its game list in the west at the very least was $60 for 20 games.  For what you get bundled in a single unit the asking price is INSANE.

If they were asking for $20 per system then I'd be down.  Not only would I be down but I'd probably be OK with buying all 4 of them at once but for that much it feels a bit steep.  If you're a huge fan of the Game Gear and you like the idea of having one or all of these things on a shelf to look nice in your collection, go crazy.   But if you're just looking to experience games from a system you might have not played much or maybe even at all, I'd say its probably just better to look for.....alternative methods.

Retro Game Prices

One of the great things about living in Japan is just how easy it is to find retro gaming stores.  Within about 15 minutes from my house there are 5 shops that stock retro games and 4 of those 5 stores are specialist shops that have insane collections available for sale that one could browse for days.

However, I like most people do not have access to unlimited money so after a while you become very sensitive to pricing.  The good thing about having so many stores close by is that I'm able to shop around and get insane deals on certain titles.  For example, Megman 2 usually sells in one of the specialist stores for about 2000 yen but I managed to luck out and pick it up for 250 at my local Book Off.  At lot of the time it feels like patience is key when it comes to retro game collecting.  Sure, you COULD splash out for a certain title but it never seems not worth it to wait a little longer and have it pop up somewhere weird with a slashed price.

So while I'm browsing the internet a few days ago I came across a page on E-Bay for a game system collection that was being sold for £69,000.  Here's the link if you care http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272037894133

Now granted almost everything in that particular link was boxed and there was a few arcade cabinets in there but £69k? Really?  To be fair to this particular guy, everything is boxed and looks like it's in great condition but even then the price seems WAYYYY too high.   Typically, a boxed retro system in Japan will set you back around 20,000 yen (£106 at time of writing) and he's selling 163 systems.  That's £17,278 and give or take a bit because there might be some collectors shit but it still wouldn't go much north of 50k.  Peripherals generally don't cost all that much either so unless those arcade cabinets are INSANELY valuable I have no idea where £69,000 came from for all that, it seems like a rip off.

But I'm being overly critical of that one guy, that collection is huge, boxed and generally pretty cool and there is some shit in the photos on that link I'm not quite sure that value of so maybe he does have a case.  But what REALLY pisses me off with retro game prices is when some fuck jacks up the price of a Super Nintendo console or some shit, labels it with "RARE" on E-Bay and is just flat out trying to rip some poor sod off.  Here's a great example

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Super-Nintendo-SNES-Games-Bundle-X11-/301797947865?hash=item46448f39d9:g:cbkAAOSwEgVWRZT9

This guy wants £55 for these 11 games but just look at these titles.  6 out of the 11 games are sports games and where I'm from those things sell for about 60p.  I even remember when I used to live in the UK and I'd occasionally find some SNES or Mega Drive games and sports games for those systems were worth fuck all even in a country where finding old shit is hard as fuck.  One thing I love about that link in particular is the Kid Clown game.  I managed to find that shit in one of the specialist shops BOXED, pristine condition for like 500 yen.  That whole stack is worth about £20 if you're being generous and it's this kind of insane pricing that upsets me.

Still though, I don't want to believe the person is an asshole trying to scam people who aren't as familiar with retro game collecting as I am. I want to believe that he or she is just as ignorant as the person who may pay that much for that stack and their just under the misguided impression that those games are worth more than they actually are.  However there are A LOT of people out there who are just out to rip you off and this is doubly so if you're buying online.

It's a shame that one has to tread so carefully but if you are looking to start building a retro gaming collection then what I said before I feel is pretty important.  It's a game of patience, no need to drop a large sum of money on that rare thing that popped up somewhere straight away because it probably will pop up again cheaper somewhere else.

Be careful and happy collecting.

The Future of Retro Gaming?

Gaming isn't as simple as it used to be.  Back in the days of my youth we didn't have to deal with online connections and constant game updates, you just plugged that shit in and went.  Some PC games required patches to be downloaded or expansion packs to be bought but that was about as complex as it got and for your average youth, we were rockin' the consoles anyway.

Today is vastly different, you cant even start a game up anymore without the system prompting you to update something or sign up/log into some other 3rd party service.  Hell, this is an age where some games, even single player ones, require an internet connection to be played at all.  So while I was shopping for old games today I started thinking about something.

I wonder what retro gaming will be like in the far future?  When I'm long dead and the Playstation is up to its 8 or 9th iteration and the idea of 16 bit being "cutting edge" is laughable.  Kind of like how we view shit like that Atari now.

Right now, retro gaming is easy since it was a much simpler time.  If you can get your hands on a system and a few cartridges/discs then all you have to do is hook that shit up, flick the switch and BOOM you're playing your old favorites.  But will things be that simple in the future? Will retro gaming even exist in the same way that we know it today?

Think about it, plenty of games have mandatory updates that require internet connections or servers that they need to check with before you can start playing.  What happens in the future when these servers don't exist and there is no update server for your game to connect to?  Will some punter in a used game shop be able to buy used games and just pop them in and have a grand old time?  I don't think so.  Things right now are OK I guess, I can totally see PS3 or 4 games still working in the far flung future but with internet connections and digital distribution maybe the joy of picking up a dusty old game in a used book store will be long gone.

What I fear is that in the future the idea of buying retro games will be dead and companies will charge stupid amounts of money for the back catalogs of games.  Half the reason I don't use things like the Wii virtual console or the classics collection on PSN is because I can go round the corner and pick up the original disc versions of the games for about half the money.  When you think about that, in a way it's already happening.

Still, I'm just rambling and I'll be long dead before anything like this happens so it's whatever