Your favourite new console memory

[Leon Retro]

Fixed.

Regaining freedom/sovereignty was never going to be plain sailing. If we end up with a government that has more faith in Britain, we might once again have a strong pound.

[Nu-Eclipse]

*snip*

[randombs]

Ladies and gentlemen, the lamest new console memory post in this thread...

PlayStation 4

Yeah, yeah, boo hiss that's not cool like an imported Super PC Engine Duo 2 HuCard and I didn't save up my paper round money to buy it, but it's the most significant in my eyes.

But seriously, I think getting a PS4 has pipped getting all my previous consoles(MD, Saturn, DC, PS2, Xbox, 360, PS3) because of the situation surrounding it. Also, it's the only console after my MD and Saturn that was a present.

Prior to this, I bought a super slim PS3 in 2013 when I arrived in Japan and made do with its crappier versions of multiplatform games and general clunkiness. I'd convinced myself that I just wasn't interested in modern gaming because I was growing older. I'd spend hours configuring RetroArch, ROMrenamer-something-or-other, and countless HTPC-targeted front ends and then about five minutes playing the actual games.

Anyway, this year was our first anniversary. I'd bought my wife some earrings in NYC(or rather, I offered to pay for a pair she wanted, which surprisingly still counts) and when we got home she asked what I wanted for my present. I'd been wanting a PS4 but felt like I didn't deserve one. I kept dodging the question until finally I said I wanted a PS4.

If you could've seen my face, your heart would've melted. You would've packed up your own PS4 and sent it to me. Puppy dog eyes, slightly cracking voice, the works.

This was mid-week so I decided to wait until the weekend to really enjoy it.

Saturday came and we got busy doing some other stuff like cleaning. I'd been playing it cool all day but my mind was all about the sweet, sweet PS4. Suddenly it was 9pm. Shucks! She 'reminded' me about the PS4 and I fired up the puppy dog eyes again:

"I know it's late but can we go now?"

"Sure!"



"Let me just get ready!"

Cue wife doing her make up and me fidgeting around watching the minutes tick by while doing mental arithmetic:

[9:00] Bic Camera Shinjuku has stock!

But it closes at 10pm. It would take us around 30 minutes door-to-door. Games are on the 5th floor. Lift is usually slow so will have to take the escalator. Walk up? She probably won't want to. I also have a bunch of Yodobashi points so I can buy a DS4 from them if there's time.

[9:10] I can definitely make it but wife is 5' and takes longer to walk. Rats!

[9:15] Almost out the door. Should still be on time. I hope?

"Actually, I want to look at pressure cookers at another store but there won't be much time to do both tonight. Why don't we go tomorrow?"



"Why don't we split up? You can check pressure cookers and I'll go get the PS4, then I'll come to you and we can discuss pressure cookers together"

"Sure, let's do that."



We arrived at Shinjuku Station and I played it cool, walking with my wife until she said I should go on ahead. POWW! I was off. Kicking my own arse to propel myself further forward with each stride, I created a sonic boom. Or a fart. Either way, I was off!

I reached Bic Camera, headed to the fifth floor and was greeted by the PS4 console section. But as I approached the display boxes, I noticed a small, red sign:

売切

As I got closer, the sign naturally became larger and more legible:

売切

It looked like they were sold out.

売切

They WERE sold out!

売切



売切

I was in front of the display boxes by this point, cursing my bad luck, when I realised the sign was for the white PS4s! Screw those! I wanted a black PS4, just like God intended.

I grabbed a slip for the 500GB model and headed to the counter. Only one person in front! Then it was me! I gave the man the slip and waited for my new toy. After he'd run it through the register and handed me my receipt, my euphoric state was interrupted long enough for my logical brain to remind me I hadn't asked for the 5-year extended warranty. Whoops! I asked, and he said the warranty has to be bought at the same time, so he called his supervisor over to refund the PS4 and ran it through again with the warranty.

By this point, the queue behind me had lengthened considerably and people could see what was going on. Many were visibly annoyed, but they looked like tourists. I considered the times their kind had held up the queue while they rummaged around for their passports and counted it as a small win.

Wife was texting asking what was taking me so long so I replied "queue is huge bloody tourists miss youuuu XXXXX" which bought me some time.

Sale was done, and I was leaving Bic Camera Shinjuku with my shiny new PS4, ready to join the current generation four years late.

I remembered the DS4. Far be it from me to deny the woman who bought me this wonderful gift a taste of this new gaming era. But she was waiting to discuss pressure cookers and time was running out. It was just past 10pm. I made an executive decision and ran to Yodobashi Camera. Sprinted up the stairs to the gaming floor, found the laminated DS4 card, handed it to the guy at the counter and paid with my Yodobashi points. Sweat dripping, I ran downstairs and toward the shop my wife was at. Found her at the pressure cookers and discussed them at length before thanking the retail gods that the shop was closing and we left.

We got home and I dropped the stuff off before heading back out to the used game shop to grab something to play. Bought Fifa 17 for a few quid, got back home, fired up my new present and rekindled the gaming love...

[Team Andromeda]

As much as the value of the pound varies -- I will always remember how great it was when you got around $2 for £1. The pound was always strong against the dollar until this decade. We can be glad that HD came along to make importing quite pointless.

For games, sure. But I've imported the Nomad and OG XBox, USA N64 on their launches back inthe day and it wasn't cheap. And if one were to add current levels of inflation to the Xbox then the Hardware even in the USA would cost nearly $400 the Genesis comes in at nearly $400 too and the 3DO at over $1,000 WTF !!!

Yeah, most of the big name hyped import games had inflated prices. Importers liked to put a 'hype tax' on new games that people couldn't resist

Yeah used to see it all the time. I paid £80 for Slipheed on the Mega CD in Livewire (my local Import shop) simply because I couldn't wait a couple of days it would have for Dream Machines 2 to send me their copy, via post lol. I miss those days, getting a import game from Japan or even the USA months before anyone in Pal land would get them (if at all) just made you feel so special, not in a show-off arrogant sort of way.

I used to love the Artwork to the Japanese games and remember so looking forward to the post in the morning, with my latest Import game. Like when Batsugun game in and Lee said over the phone, 'you're going to love it, its an awesome shooter'. The wait for the post the next day, was painful lol

[randombs]

These days I import UK games.

Crazy!

[Gradius]

There’s not many consoles I haven’t owned over the years, these are some of the standout memories.

Going to Comet to get a Commodore 64. My parents paid for it on finance which in the mid eighties meant filling in paperwork at the shop and then waiting a week for it to be approved! That was a long week to wait but definitely worth it.

Getting my first PC Engine from Mr Disk in Birmingham in 1989. After seeing features in C+VG about a console that had loads of near perfect arcade conversions, I knew I had to have one. I think it cost £230 with a pal booster plus another £30 for Chan and Chan. R type might have seemed like the obvious choice for a first game but it was only 1st four levels and I had it on the Amiga too. Getting this console was pretty much the point when I stopped caring about home computers and only wanting consoles with all their arcade games.

My Japanese PlayStation I got a few days after launch in Japan. A local guy who sold Wildcards for the snes went to Japan and literally went round all the shops he could buying them and shipping them back. It cost me over £600 just for the console! Then to add to the financial pain I had to get an av converter as there was no scart leads available and a step down converter. It was all worth it to be able to play Ridge Racer just months after first seeing it in an arcade. The greatest technical Ieap in gaming history.

I similarly imported my Japanese N64 a few years later for an equally crazy amount of money, but Mario 64!

I went to New York for the US launch of the GameCube. I got a friend who lived there to put a deposit down so I could just pick it up on the day. The Xbox launched the same weekend but the GameCube was more suitcase friendly.

I still have most of these systems today too.

[Asura]

Games were cheaper but any CD based system cost a fortune to import back in the early 90's, the prices for a Import Mega CD, PC Eng CD-Rom2, FM Towns were a lot back then, never mind we you factor-in inflation. I also remember most Import shops asking for £100 for the import version of SF II on the Snes and it wasn't much cheaper on Pal (it cost £60) and I saw the USA version of Turok going for £100 in some import shops and I paid over £70 for my copy. One needs to factor in that todays systems come with a BluRay Drive and a Hard Drive adding to the cost and when one adds in Inflation, console Hardware doesn't really cost that much more.

I remember when the N64 came out, CVG ran an article saying they found a few import shops in London selling the console, Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 for £999. As an exercise, they sent one of their staff to Tokyo to buy the same items and bring them back... For less than £999.

[Leon Retro]

and the 3DO at over $1,000 WTF !!!

It's strange that the 3DO launched at such a high price -- $700 was way too much back then. But when I bought mine in April 1994 the US price had come down -- so with the importer profit margin I paid £400. I thought that was expensive, but at least I got Crash 'N Burn and an S-Video to Scart converter with it. I really did love Crash 'N Burn -- it showed me the huge leap in power over older machines.

Yeah used to see it all the time. I paid £80 for Slipheed on the Mega CD in Livewire (my local Import shop) simply because I couldn't wait a couple of days it would have for Dream Machines 2 to send me their copy, via post lol.

My mate couldn't wait for Final Fight 2 and paid £90 for it. And sadly, it turned out to quite mediocre, lacking the gritty vibe of the first game. At least Silpheed was actually a really good MCD game.

I miss the expectations I had for games -- and feeling impatient. I haven't felt like that since the 360. After that, I began to feel that tech and games were very samey. I just can't get overly excited about modern gaming, but I know that's just my personal point of view. For some reason, I get a bigger kick out of retro gaming, which is why I'm always talking about old stuff.

[randombs]

I know it's not a 'new' game as such, but I was counting down the days until Shenmue hit. Heck, even my PS4 was counting down days, hours, minutes, seconds until I could play it

[Team Andromeda]

It
I miss the expectations I had for games -- and feeling impatient. I haven't felt like that since the 360

I haven't had it since the OG Xbox and PS2 era. Mainly becasue MS did wonders for the Pal gamers and started to bring out games and systems as soon as they hit the USA in Pal land (so never felt the need to import on the 360) and also because the internet streaming was getting so advanced one knew how good a game looked, moved and sounded long before it shipped.

When I was imported Mega Drive, Mega CD and Saturn stuff, you had to wait to play it, before you knew if it looked, moved and sounded good. No amount of screenshots or low res crappy quick time vid's was ever going to prepare one for how good VF II actually looked running on the Saturn in Christmas 1995.

I so miss the days of waiting for the post to deliver the next big import game .

But when I bought mine in April 1994 the US price had come down -- so with the importer profit margin I paid £400.

Yeah I had to wait and Crush N Burn did look amazing at the time and really showed off the 3DO.

[Colin]

It's a bit unrelated, but I'll tell you another reason why gaming isn't as special any more. Packaging.

During the import 16-bit era I'd spend a ridiculous amount of time just poring over game boxes and manuals just taking in all the details and admiring the fantastic artwork. Of course I couldn't read a word of it, but that just made it all the more special. But that was the beauty of those games (barring RPG's etc) in that you didn't need to be able to read it due to their pure gameplay simplicity. And the fact you'd get those little illustrations showing what the buttons did. They just looked amazing though, and still do. A box could sell you the game, and it did, even crap ones to be fair.

I don't look at game packaging now and think "whah, that looks awesome!" because it's just another blu ray case with some artwork that's probably no different from a thousand other games. Meh.

Oh, and to add, you can say the same about the actual console boxes as well!!!

[QualityChimp]

Getting my first PC Engine from Mr Disk in Birmingham in 1989.

Hot damn! Mr. Disk!

There's a blast from the past!
No trip to Brum would be complete without a trip to Mr. Disk and Nostalgia & Comics.
I'd also visit CEX and Virgin above it, HMV in the Pallasades and possibly Oasis.

[Leon Retro]

INo amount of screenshots or low res crappy quick time vid's was ever going to prepare one for how good VF II actually looked running on the Saturn in Christmas 1995.

Yeah, you had to see it running in hi-res glory to appreciate how magical it was. Sega really sent a clear message that the Saturn was actually really powerful. The same message they sent with the brilliant Sega Rally.

Yeah I had to wait and Crush N Burn did look amazing at the time and really showed off the 3DO.

I saw it on a massive TV at a computer show in November 1993 -- and decided that I definitely needed a 3DO in my life. So I waited until my birthday in April -- and fortunately the price had come down to a point where I could just about afford it with help from my family. Crash 'N Burn really was a stunning, fun game back then. I still enjoy playing through it, even though I wish a more refined sequel had been made.

you didn't need to be able to read it due to their pure gameplay simplicity.

Simple, fun, and with enough room for people to master them. Seeing how skilled people could be at games was a big part of old school gaming. The 'pick-up-and-play' style of retro games is partly why so many people are into retro gaming.

[Zen Monkey]

The Nintendo 64 for me. Imported one with Mario 64 and Pilotwings from Japan on release in the summer of '96. The day it arrived, a friend and I dropped some acid and played Mario 64 for about 5 hours straight. Great experience. But I think it would have been a great day Nintendo 64 or not.

[DeathAdder]

It's a bit unrelated, but I'll tell you another reason why gaming isn't as special any more. Packaging.

During the import 16-bit era I'd spend a ridiculous amount of time just poring over game boxes and manuals just taking in all the details and admiring the fantastic artwork. Of course I couldn't read a word of it, but that just made it all the more special. But that was the beauty of those games (barring RPG's etc) in that you didn't need to be able to read it due to their pure gameplay simplicity. And the fact you'd get those little illustrations showing what the buttons did. They just looked amazing though, and still do. A box could sell you the game, and it did, even crap ones to be fair.

I don't look at game packaging now and think "whah, that looks awesome!" because it's just another blu ray case with some artwork that's probably no different from a thousand other games. Meh.

Oh, and to add, you can say the same about the actual console boxes as well!!!

Couldn't agree more. In particular I miss manuals - used to love picking up a game in my lunch break and although I couldn't play it at work, I'd would avidly read the manual until I went home.