Video game collectors come in all shapes and sizes. Some people want all the games from their childhood or they want to have all games in a series. Going for a full set on a console is not something unique, there are “plenty” collectors out there with a complete collection for the NES, Super Nintendo or any of the other old school systems. For the Playstation 1 however, full sets are very rare because of the enormous amount of games that got released for the system. Jason Dvorak is the only known collector to have a complete NTSC (USA) set for the Playstation 1.
And when we say complete, we mean every game and every variant known to man!

First things first, why did you start collecting for the Playstation 1?
You know, usually there’s what I call a ‘trigger game’ – a game that, for no exact reason, you must now collect something in relation to that one game. For some, it means all the games in a series, for another, maybe all the games by one company, or whatever it is that drives them. That one game ‘triggers’ the collecting gene.

At the time I started, I was actually instead going for a complete NES set – but upon researching, I realized too many others were doing it; that meant competition for finds, a lack of originality, and random other dumb reasons I rationalized inside my head. I wanted to do something unique; at the time it was unheard of to go for everything PlayStation. I loved the system that much, and figured, why the hell not. Besides, sometimes the quest is more important than the destination.

Jason with a part of his collection

Did you immediately go for a full set with all variants, or what was your intentional collection goal?
In all reality, it was SUPPOSED to be just one of every game, boom, done. When I was within about 200 titles of the end, I met my now amazing friend and fellow collector Steve. It was he who showed me that there were Working Designs variations, and said I should go for that mini-set within the full set. I became so enamored with the researching and hunting that it basically snapped me into a collecting frenzy. I now had to track everything variant..

So thanks to your friend you were now a variant hunter. Most collectors are happy to have one copy of a game, why do you want to have all different case variants, art versions etc?
As I mentioned earlier, a lot of it is the quest; the hunt. I live for the hunt. While I love and live for the hunt, my graphic designer side can also be blamed. It’s interesting to see the changes made to a game’s packaging to accommodate new marketing features. Many games don’t just have a Greatest Hits label slapped on them; screenshots could have been removed, descriptors changed, fonts adjusted, typos corrected and then re-corrected, etc. Many variants jump around; the 4th variant may be more like the original release, or if you’re an art lover the work Working Designs put into their releases is second to none. More importantly, I’m building an archive for future collectors, alongside current collectors and gamers alike. I’ve been very, very blessed with Game-Rave.com and all of it’s readers and fans. If it were not for them and you guys, what I do for fun would be a lot more work. Also, I’m a completist freak, so that’s to blame, too.

The Working Designs variants of Alundra

The problem with your style of collecting is of course, that your collection may be complete today and missing an ultra rare variant tomorrow. Do you think you’ll ever be 100% complete with the Playstation 1 set?
Trick question with a trick answer; one day I’ll have every *known* item, but there are always new items being found; I think one week I had gotten 5 reader emails that totaled 7 new variants. Since there’s no actual “here’s what’s out there” list, it’s up to us to get it all set. I just happened to happily volunteer tracking…and buying…it all. I think one day, maybe a year or 2 from now, I may have everything ‘known’, but who knows.

I think this is also a huge hole in the industry – no real company has ever really taken hold of their legacy. Sega and Nintendo were the only companies to ever offer complete lists of their releases (though missing variants, etc) to the public. Even then, the lists were slightly wrong or didn’t follow a proper unified format.

While the frustration will always be there with the unknown, the end result will be and is worth it; the absolutely complete historical documenting of the greatest game system that was and ever will be. I am up to the challenge. I just need to be more active in updating.

In a way that must be both satisfying and annoying, still no completion but reason for another hunt. Have you ever had a moment of “what the hell am i doing” because of this?
All the time. Twice on Sunday. But truth be told, this is one of the few things that keep me sane. I have to give a huge shout out to the community and my fellow collectors. Without those to share your passion with, it becomes meaningless. Or in other words, it’s nice to know there are others out there as crazy as you (laughs).

Do you see your collecting as a hobby or an addiction?
Both. Game-rave is the hobby that justifies the collecting addiction. Truth be told, it was a lot worse years ago, when I was trying to collect everything, for everything. Now that I have sold off the collections and libraries that were either redundant or would never be played, there’s a much better focus and purpose for the PlayStation and my other “fan boy” systems. What was once a huge (but enjoyable) burden, has become a refined, focused, and re-energized hunt for the things I truly want. PlayStation One may be my first love, but the Neo Geo, Turbo Grafx-16 and several Sega Systems will always have a home in my game room.

The Jewel Case Playstation 1 Games

What is your most recent “finished hunt” ?
The Parappa the Rapper US demo disc. 4 years for one level of a short game. I think NBA 2 Ball has longer game play in a shorter amount of hunting.

I know this is probably too outrageous to even ask, but have you ever considered selling your collection?
No question is ever outrageous, and I’ve been asked this a lot, actually. My PlayStation stuff would never, ever, ever be for sale. It’ll either be buried with me or willed away. I’ve sold off a LOT of my other collections though. I’ve sold off more libraries and decks then most people would own their entire life. With the PlayStation though, so much of my life (both privately and publicly) has been affected by it that it would be soul crushing to sell it all off.

For someone with such an immense collection it must be hard to pick your favorite item, but we’re still going to ask you!
The whole collection, in it’s entirety. Not for the games themselves; but for the journey they have provided. There are stories in every game case; either how I acquired it, where it was in the path to completion, or the memory of playing it and more. When you stand among it, you really never focus on one aspect. You just kind of take it all in, and smile.

The Playstation 1 games in long boxes or special box sets

Ok you got away easy there, two other aspects that are always important in the collecting business, what are your rarest and most valuable items?
Rare is a loose term. If we’re judging based on actual how hard it is to find something, it would most likely be a variant. The Mortal Kombat 3 jewel case variant has only been seen 3 times in my hunting over the years; on the flip side, we now know of at least 7 NBA 2 Balls and plenty of Assassins’ Cases. If we’re discussing a cash value – that’s all arbitrary. Something is only worth what someone wants to pay for it.

As for most valuable, it’s the same as with rarity. If you base it off eBay, the NBA 2 Ball and the Assassin’s Case are the most likely winners. Both are crucial lessons in the grounding of one’s self. I more or less set the bar for the NBA 2 Ball pricing, as I was desperate to get one when it was first being tracked down. Now, thanks to overzealous sellers, the price for it has sky rocketed for no reason. Someone paid $700 for an NBA 2 Ball – that’s $11 for every 1 second of game play on the disc! I don’t even think they played it. With the Assassin’s Case, it averaged about $500 when I got mine. However, after posting my Game-Rave article, people started taking my enthusiasm out of context, or just copied my whole page over to their auction. This resulted in the Case blowing up to $1200+. That’s insane; ludicrous even. It’s a painted gun with a custom brief case – there’s no reason for that price amount. Because of this, I now tend to keep my fan boy admissions in check, and downplay any type of hype; I refuse to let those hungry only for money ruin the hobby and the hunt for everyone else.

The infamous Assassins Case, the NBA 2-Ball demo, Syphon Filter 3 9-11 version and a rare Spider Man 2 variant

Most of the times you get stuff in as a collector, you’re happy with them because they are an addition to your collection. However we’ve all had our bad experiences with incomplete, damaged or missing items. What has been your worst experience as a collector?
The first NBA 2 Ball I received as a gift was cracked – at the time it was the only known copy of the game outside of the programmer’s. While the disc was cracked, the crack was relatively small; if I could access the disc content and just snag the files (not even an ISO) there might have been a chance to rescue the info and finally play the game. I placed it in my tower’s CD tray, and as I opened the settings to set the tray speed to the slowest possible, the tray auto-ran, and spun the disc so fast it snapped an insanely huge sized chunk of the disc off. When you hear an ‘only known copy’ CD snap and feel the pieces bouncing around your drive…no amount of alcohol can fix that. I still own the Disc, and have it framed as a reminder.

I also unintentionally ruined two PlayStation debugging units; in the process of restoring one, I accidentally ripped the CD Laser plug port off with the ribbon. The other, it was so fragile that upon picking the mother board up, one of the chips literally fell off the board. Neither could be repaired.

You’ve been a collector for over a decade now, do you have any tips for the collectors who’ve only just picked up this hobby?
A warning, if not a very passionate plea. Gaming, specifically the collecting side, is beginning to boil in all the wrong pots. We are beginning to see the rise of hobby-breaking trends like game grading, get-rich-quick price gouging, the slapping of the word “Rare” on anything that didn’t come out that week, and worse. I’ve watched whole forums crumble beneath this bizarre and twisted belief that games themselves are some form of currency; that they are something to be looked at from afar and not actually enjoyed. I say this not in a ‘Chicken Little‘ voice either; this comes from personal experience. Twice, I have been the target of a 5-figure extortion attempt – both I laughed off and acquired said objects for the original asking price I offered. Worse, this need to remove each other from the picture or steal from each other is childish and immature. In the last 5 years, I have been hit with a Trojan virus through e-mail (with the e-mail being written by someone who obviously knew me), and lost everything. Game-Rave itself has been hacked into twice, and stolen from hundreds of times. I’ve had to send a cease and desist letter to stop the theft of over 100 pages of images; I’ve had various auctions and random bloggers steal whole pages of content with no acknowledgment of my source material.

Gaming, from the very beginning, has been about friendly competition and a hobby that requires passion in play, acquirement, and every other facet of it. If we are to survive as a species, especially where a future is looking completely digital, we must remember where we came from. Collecting is not a financial institution, and should never become one. Collect for the love; for the thrill of the hunt, and most importantly, play your games.   I spent 3 years tracking down NBA 2 Ball – and it ended up being a factory sealed copy. The first thing I did was open it and play it. It was the best feeling in the world.

You’ve mentioned your site Game-Rave.com a few times now, can you tell us a little more about it?
Game-Rave started out as a fanzine during the 16-Bit era, transformed various times over the years, and is now one of the leading sites for PlayStation fans and collectors. Over the years I have done a lot of soul searching in regards to how to handle the site. Overall, I want it to be the place for people to come to for all their questions and needs, but never lose that ‘fan’ vibe. There were some dark periods in where I didn’t know what to do, how I wanted to progress, and felt myself trying to ‘sell out’, so to speak. There are also the thefts, hacks, and attacks on me and my site, but I keep moving. I want to be the guy anyone can turn to for questions and discoveries. Our FaceBook community has really kept me grounded in that regard. I love you guys!

The other issue, one that I’ve been wrestling with and still do to a degree, is content addition. Other sites will throw up everything they have at once; all this standard info, a couple quickie screenshots, and call it a day. That leads to stagnation; I don’t ever want game playing and collecting to feel stagnant. I instead add games as I go, I mean, I have all of them so no rush, right? It also provides a nice buffer between updates to actually play the games. Just because you post a game’s information, doesn’t mean anything. You need to play it, to feel it, to lose yourself in it, and to come out with your own view on what the developers intended. It’s why I try and have discussions about the game rather than a review. My Final Fantasy VIII rant brought out the readers, both for and against it, and it got more discussion going. I love that banter between gamers – not the chest thumping, or size comparing, but that honest-to-god good old conversations about games.

A cabinet full of demo's and variants

As a final question, we’d love to know what a collector such as yourself thinks about PlaystationCollecting.com?
It’s a good little community. It’s obviously more PAL focused, which is great since every region needs their collectors. It’s also a fairly heavy PSP group, which you rarely see. It’s fun to peek in on other collectors’ ambitions and gaming ideals, especially the newer generation collectors. Some of the PlayStation 3 people have my complete and absolute respect with the variant and Limited Editions they need to track down.

One of my own faults with Game-Rave’s web-site was not setting up a true community vibe (mostly links to other sites and the like), which I’ll be fixing this year once I finish some behind-the-scenes adjustments and rebuilding. If we all stick together and help each other out, regardless of what drives us in gaming and collecting, there’s nothing all of us can’t do!

If you want to know more about collecting for the Playstation consoles, be sure to become a member of our community!
Forum: http://www.playstationcollecting.com/forum/
The topic to discuss this interview: http://www.playstationcollecting.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=3791
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/psxcollecting
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ps_collecting  
Interview with the only collector to have a full sealed NTSC (USA) Playstation 2 set: http://www.playstationcollecting.com/the-king-of-collectors-full-playstation-2-ntsc-library-sealed/

The following guide was written by Kennyrh on our forums.

It occurs to me that a few people might be interested in collecting Limited Editions etc but are daunted by the sheer volume and availability . . .well, help is at hand in this quick guide to what I term “non-regular editions.”

The most important decision you need to make when contemplating a collection of this nature concerns condition. There are only two ways to go . . .new/sealed games and nothing else will do or used/new with a bit more flexibilty toward condition.

If new/sealed is your thing then the only advice I can give you is this. Check ALL online stockists for the best deal or, if you have the time, visit your local games shops on a regular basis. Online isn’t ALWAYS the cheapest.

Secondly and more importantly . . .be patient. Very often new CE/LEs are discounted by some outlets a couple of months after release. A good example would be the Final Fantasy XIII CE which dropped by £20 a couple of months after it went on sale. The more patience you have the more money you may save.

The bulk of this guide is therefore dedicated to the less-discerning collector who is willing to embrace the used market. The pitfalls here can be many and I’ll try to pass on my experience in this area by way of a guide to do’s and dont’s.

1) It may seem obvious but worth mentioning anyway that you need to check that the game is complete and in acceptable condition. Use online resources to check what should be inside the box or use my database here . . .viewtopic.php?f=16&t=279 . . .This has pictures of the contents of every Playstation 3 non-regular edition of which I am aware.

2) Research your prices online or at your local gamestore before deciding on your purchase. Many online outlets such as play.com and Amazon.co.uk have a used section and are an alternative to ebay.

3) Write it down. If you fancy one or more Collectors Editions get a notebook and write the contents down. Sometimes it’s not obvious that a game is incomplete. For instance, many steelbooks have an outer plastic sleeve and may be cheap because it is missing. But remember that the plastic sleeve is one of the reasons why it’s a CE so don’t be fooled.

4) If you go the used route then Downloadable Content or DLC for short can be a thorny problem. With most second-hand CEs the DLC is either missing or already redeemed at PSN. If you love the game and can’t live without the DLC then there are two ways around it. A lot of the stuff you can buy from Playstation Network. If it’s pre-order incentive DLC then you will need to visit ebay where people sell vouchers for various games.

5) A scratched disc is not necessarily a deal-breaker if you find a good price. Most local games shops offer a cheap disc-cleaning service which, in many cases, erases all but the deepest of scratches.

6) If you are considering a purchase from ebay, don’t be afraid to contact the seller to find out exactly what’s in the auction and it’s condition. Many sellers don’t give adequate details of their items in the listing.

7) When shopping locally, don’t be slow to haggle. If you see an item you fancy at one shop for £20 and GAME have one in better condition for £25 then ask them to price match. If you have a loyalty card with whoever then get them to match a cheaper price that you may have seen.
Also when shopping locally get the shop assistant to show you the game contents and disk condition BEFORE he puts that daft seal on . . . AND . . .if the item happens to be new then don’t accept shoddy goods. If the box is bashed or dented then ask them for another copy. New means new and that is your right.

9) If there’s a used item that you MUST have then ask your local shop assistant to set one aside if somebody trades it in. Most shops will keep an item by for a couple of days. If you use ebay then utilise the “favourite search” option and you wil be notified if one becomes available.

10) Of course, price is a major determining factor when making a purchase. Unfortunately used game prices for CE/LEs are wildly variable. My database includes a market watch and value for money section but these are purely subjective and not as thoroughly researched as they would need to be for infallibility. Use them as a guide but use your own instincts and try not to pay silly prices.

Okay, if I think of anything else I’ll let y’all know. Meanwhile . . .HAPPY HUNTING

As I enter my thirties, I find myself having yet another disconcerting notion, pondering the meaning of life and my place in the world etc. I look around me and I see other people – my friends – advancing through life in the expected social fashion, at a rate I can’t quite conceive. Many are doing university courses, starting families, or buying their first home of their own. Then I turn and look at myself and I wonder: “What have I achieved in life?”

Lifestyle

I have a job. It’s not very glamourous, but at least it’s something, but it’s going nowhere and was initially intended to be a stop-gap whilst I decided what I wanted out of life. That was eight years ago, and I never did know what I wanted. I can do better, I know that, but I’m stuck in my ways. I have many friends and an active social life, although I will admit that collecting games is my main interest and hobby of choice. My friends and family are tolerant of my collecting, although some don’t quite understand why I bother with such materialistic hoarding. I don’t know the answer to this myself either. I suppose I just haven’t finished growing up yet, and am probably desperately trying to hold onto my youth – But then, isn’t everyone? Trying to justify it to others is significantly harder than justifying it to yourself!

In a way I envy those who have settled down with someone else in order to start a family, or push to better themselves academically, but I don’t see what all the rush is. Everybody seems to be in such a hurry to do what society expects them to do. I prefer to do things at my own pace, although sometimes I feel as if I have missed the boat and lost my chance to do certain things. I’m generally a very distrusting person at heart, and have learnt a few of life’s lessons the hard way, hence my reluctance to rush into such things, whereas most other people take the risk without a second thought. Maybe it’ll work out for them, or maybe they’ll crash and burn – They’ve made their choices and I’ve made mine. Somewhere down the line I made a conscious (or maybe subconscious?) decision to avoid society’s expectations and make my own way through life doing what I enjoyed, rather than what others expected of me – Although it’s impossible to pinpont when that actually was, and it almost feels as if I have fallen down this road by accident

Sometimes I feel as if I am trapped in limbo, never actually making any progress. Othertimes it just feels as if I am going through the daily motions, but never actually going anywhere…

Collecting

I have been a game collector for the best part of a decade and a half now. Where has it gotten me? I will agree that it’s something I enjoy doing, and it has the benefit of potentially making me money down the road (and has already done so), but there are some days when I wake up and wonder what’s the point? Aren’t there more important things I could have spent my time and money on more wisely? It only takes one comment from a close friend to make you consider your place in life at that current moment. The feeling usually passes within a few hours or days, but it sometimes has an overwhelming power which really hits you hard and makes you think about such things.

It has now come to the point where I feel that I’m in too deep. Collecting has a hold of me, and won’t let me go. It’s like a drug in a way, and I will openly admit that I am addicted! I have amassed a collecion so large that it occupies an entire room, and I feel compelled to buy each overpriced Collector’s Edition and SteelBook I can, if only for that sense of “completion”. This is my purgatory, and there seems to be no way of escaping it. If anything, I am a victim of consumerism…

But it’s come to the point where I don’t feel I can let go anymore. There’s no turning back the clocks, and no second chance. This is my life, and has been for as long as I can remember. I don’t want to stop, but I don’t think that’s a choice I could make even if I wanted to. It has also gotten to the point where the vast majority of the items I own in my collection are extremely valuable or irreplaceable, so getting rid of my collection (for a sensible price) would actually prove much harder than you would imagine!

In too deep… No regrets

If I did decide to quit collecting, I wonder what the consequences would be?

For starters, I would have to avoid the internet entirely in order to abstain from temptation – In the same way a heroin addict or alcoholic would abstain. I would most likely suffer from severe depression, remorse, and also regret. My mental state would most certainly be compromised! Yes, I would have a pocket full of cash, but money doesn’t buy happiness, nor does it buy back time misspent. I can’t see that I would be any better off if I did stop collecting to be honest, and all that I had previously accomplished would have been for nowt. It’s actually quite difficult to try and explain to others how it feels unless you’re actually experiencing the same “addiction”

And what of my wealth of knowledge that I’ve collected over the last ten to fifteen years? That’s not something one can forget overnight. I have chosen this path of collector, and have contributed knowledge generously to various collecting communities over the years, and that’s also something I don’t think I could give up. I enjoy the social aspect of collecting as much as the collecting itself, and sometimes it’s nice to chat to other like-minded people about a hobby they are equally as passionate about

What would I do if I weren’t collecting games? Well, I like gaming in general, so I don’t think I could ever give that up. But there’s a very fine distinction between a gamer and a collector, as you can’t really have one without being the other. Even if I only owned just one console to play on, I would still be buying games to play, and there comes a point where a library of software becomes a collection – Although where that line is exactly is disputable

The future

I do intend to continue collecting though. Like I say, I really enjoy doing it and enjoy every aspect of the hobby, be it the “thrill of the chase” or contributing knowledge to various collector’s communities. Provided my lifestyle can support it, I will continue to do so. For how long, who knows? If I am still collecting when I am 40, then expect another similar post from me pondering how I could have spent the previous twenty years of my life!

However, don’t assume that this post is an admission of defeat – I merely wanted to share my thoughts, and wanted to see whether anyone else ever feels the same way? I know several of you who have recently had to re-address your life priorities, but you seem to have balanced everything out perfectly. I also know that some of you are considering giving it all up, in which case I would urge you to think carefully about what you have achieved, and whether the compromise is worth it…

written by Gemini-Phoenix, original topic : http://www.playstationcollecting.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2655

The 4th of july 2011 was a memorable day for PlaystationCollecting.com!
On that day we published the interview with Ahans76, the collector with a full sealed American Playstation 2 set, which to date has had over 150 thousand page views.

The success of the interview showed how a remarkable story can spread like wildfire around the internet, over 800 sites featured a link to our site!

The down side of all this succes was that a major media outlet, Yahoo, saw it fit to STEAL the interview and pretend it was their own work!
As you can see in this blog post on the UK/IR Yahoo, they rewrote the interview with NO quotation, NO link to the original article and worst of all they cut off the copyright from the image.

With this post I hope the internet will name and shame Yahoo and their author Andy McV for copyright infringement and stealing our interview!

As a last remark I wanna thank every reader and every website/blog that featured our article, thanks for all the kind words and reactions

Most kids of the 80’s and after played video games in their youth and some of these kids kept the games of yesteryear for nostalgic reasons. What happens if this kid continues to buy old video games for the sake of having them, for the sake of completion? A video game collector is born!
Now, odds are that you’re a video game collector yourself since you’re reading this intro. Our kind has different types of collectors: people with certain criteria (RPG, sealed, unofficial etc) and completionists. These completionists want every game in the library of a console, which can be a fairly easy feat for some consoles and a near impossible task for others.
Our community member Ahans76 is someone that went for the impossible… and pulled it off!

In this interview we talk with Ahans76, who to our knowledge, is the only collector in the world to have a full NTSC Playstation 2 library!
Read on to find out why he started collecting and how he pulled off this amazing feat.

Oh.. did I mention the entire PS2 library is sealed? Minor detail right? ^^

Playstation 2 overview photo 1 (clicking will show high res version)

So Ahans76, first of all let me thank you for participating in this interview. It’s great that you’re willing to talk to us about how you started your collection and how you got to having a full Playstation 2 set.

No one is born a video game collector, everyone starts out as a gamer! What were your first steps in the gaming world?
My first experience with gaming is probably a lot of people’s. I remember playing the NES at a friend or aunt’s house when I was about 4 years old. Super Mario Bros was of course the game we played most.

What was the first console that you (or your family) owned?
The first console that my family owned was a Sega Genesis. My mom had won some money and she spent it on us kids by buying a Genesis with a couple of games. I remember playing it in Kindergarten so I must have been at least 5 years old.

What games did you originally get with that Sega Genesis and what game did you love most on it?
I know that we had Sonic when we got the Genesis. It came packaged with the system so that had to have been the first one. The game I like most on the Genesis was Shining Force, the game was so good at what it did. I would spend hours going into a battle and then retreating just to get more exp. points. To this day I can still get lost in it.

So the Nintendo NES was the first console you played and the Sega Genesis was the first console you had at your home, but what is your favorite console after all these years?
My favorite console would have to be the reason why I’m doing this interview. I was one of the lucky few to get an early Playstation 2 and my love for collecting video games grew from then on.

Playstation 2 overview photo 2

So the Playstation 2 is your favorite console, but was of course the successor to the immensely popular Playstation 1. When did you first hear about Sony’s first gaming console?
When I was in 2nd grade after Christmas break, we returned to school and one of the kids had gotten a Playstation for Christmas. I had no idea what it actually was and thought that it was an arcade machine. It wasn’t until later in the year that I got to see one and I thought that it was amazing. I don’t remember what the first game was that I saw on the Playstation 1, but I do remember the first one I played which was 2xtrem. It was a game about biking, rollerblading and I think snowboarding/racing. It was fun because we didn’t know any better about games back then when you got a game you played the hell out of it good or bad. But now a days if you don’t like a game after 5 minutes of playing it we trade it in and get something different. It’s sad really so much time goes in to making a game and yes some sucked, but take a look back at some of the earliest games you played and had a blast with and look at what a gaming magazine said about it. I bet a lot of people would be surprised that some of the most loved games aren’t critically that good.

Your introduction to the Playstation 1 had you wanting for more then, when did you get your own Playstation 1?
The first Playstation that I have ever gotten was an original Playstation (the grey square model) that my brother had traded for. The games that it came with were Resident Evil 2 and a Playstation demo which had the game Sled Storm on it that I would play nonstop.

Playstation 1 Collection

After the big success of the Playstation 1, Sony brought us the Playstation 2. How were you introduced to this model and what was your response to it?
I first saw/played the PS2 was when I got my first one on launch day; my mom ordered it out of a catalog. When it got to my house I was so surprised I had never had a console on the first day it came out; I didn’t know what to think about it. When I turned it on for the first time I was blown away. The first game I played was the one that I had gotten with it, Ridge Racer 5. I still own that copy today and it holds a special place in my heart.

Currently we’re at six Playstation models (not counting the PSP), which one is your favorite?
My favorite Playstation model would have to be the original PS2 (the non slim version).To be more specific it would have to be the limited edition red one that I have brand new.

Three Playstation home consoles have had a big impact on the video gaming world, how do feel the Playstation changed gaming?
I would say that it brought disc games to the public. Others tried but didn’t get the commercial success that Sony did with the original Playstation. For the future of Playstation, the console exclusive titles are most important to stay ahead of the competition. It would be great if they could hold onto their important and strong licenses for years to come.

Playstation 2 overview photo 3

It has been aprox 19 years since your first contact with video games and even though it’s torture to ask, we must know! What are your three favorite video games?
My three favorite games in no particular order are:
-          Final Fantasy IX, I know a lot of people really like VII but IX in my personal opinion was an all around better game
-          Dragon Quest 8, when I finally gave the game time to play it I was hooked
-          Uncharted Series, I can’t pick between the two they’re both great games

Like stated in the intro, it’s not something special that a kid growing up in the eighties and nineties played video games. But collecting games from these long gone days is something special, how did you get into that?
When I was 16 while going Christmas shopping for my mom, my little brother had told me about this new game store that was in a city we lived nearby called Game Crazy. (those that live in the states may remember them)
We stopped there and I saw a game gear, which I always wanted as a kid but could never afford.  That was the first old school system that I had ever bought and that is when I started considering collecting video games and systems for the first time. I still own that exact same game gear 7 1/2 years later.

So you started your collection with buying the games and consoles that you wanted as a kid, but never got. This is probably how 99% of us started our collection. After a while though you have all the stuff you wanted as a kid, what did you focus on next?
My focus for about 4 years was collecting brand new Playstation 2 games to get the complete library. After I got them all it literally stopped over night. Currently my main focus is collecting English Neo Geo AES games. People that know what the Neo Geo is and how rare it is will know the difficulty in it. I am currently only missing two games, Metal Slug and Ninja Master.

When you have a collection as vast as yours, there are probably dozens of items in your collection that would qualify high in anyone’s “favorite items” list. So now I wonder which ones you pick out of all those amazing items.
Well actually picking a top 5 is not that hard for me:
1. Uncharted Fortune Hunter Editions [Playstation 3] (of which I have two copies)
2. Elemental Gearbolt Assassin’s case [Playstation 1]
3. Last Hope [Neo Geo AES]
4. Magical Chase [Turbo Grafix]
5. Minestorm 2 Cart [Vectrex]

Top 5 favorite items

Even though you have so many great items, most collectors also have their “why in the world did I let that game pass” regrets. Do you have any of those?
I don’t really know, I try to not have regrets in my life. If I lost out on a game it’s just the way things go. I’m not saying that I buy every game I see but sometimes you miss out and that’s just the way the cards fall.

We already know that Neo Geo AES is the current focus of your collection, what is next on the list?
I would like to one day acquire the letter that came with my assassin’s case. I would also like to finish my PSP collection. I have about 430 titles on it but I’m not too sure about how many there are. I hope I’m at least half way there ^^

We at PlaystationCollecting.com are nuts for Playstation games, but even in our community it’s a rarity to find someone going for a full set. Not just because it’s a time consuming and expensive feat, but also because the enormous amounts of titles that got released for the system. How come you’re the exception and did go for the full set?
I didn’t try to go for a full collection at first, I kind of fell into it. I started acquiring more Playstation 2 games, more then I could play, so I decided to just leave them sealed. At first I had about 300 or 400 sealed and then I decided to look up on the internet how many games there were. At the time a website said that there were 800. Being halfway there I decided, why not go for a full collection? Later I found out that I wasn’t even a quarter of the way there. By that time I had already acquired so many games from stores going out of business (like game crazy) that I continued collecting and went for the full set. Since there are still games being released for the Playstation 2 the set is not final yet, but to the best of my knowledge it’s about 1850+ different titles, not counting variants.

Playstation 2 box sets

We now know that all games in your collection are sealed, were there any other special criteria for games to be in your collection?
My entire collection consists of first editions. What first edition means is when a game came with a white Sony seal on the top of it. This is the version of games that I have. Some older games got a second release and the white Sony seal is not there. I did not collect those types of games. I made sure that all the games that own have the white Sony seal. Also no greatest hits versions, unless they made a game greatest hits with “extra” content. I think there are only 3 games like that and I do have them in my library. Those games are Devil May Cry 3, Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition and Namco 50th Anniversary. I also have the original version of these games in my library as well.

When you’re on such a huge mission, there is always “that last game” that you just can’t find or can’t get for a decent price. What was the last game you needed for the full set?
The first Moto GP. It was an early release title and I had never seen one sealed. I literally looked through thousands and thousands of games every day on EBay to find one. The first post I ever put up on the PlaystationCollecting.com forum was a want post for Moto Gp. I was willing to pay 100′s of dollars for a copy of my dreams. Late one night a friend called me to tell me there was one on EBay from a seller in the UK. I won it shipped for $9.00. Isn’t that how it goes?

Moto GP was the hardest game to find sealed in your experience, what other games were tough?
Finding the original black label versions sealed of games that had a red label or greatest hits rerelease was sometimes incredibly hard. My collection consists of all black label games not the easier to find red label or greatest hits versions.

What Playstation 2 sealed game had the biggest impact on your budget?
Well that would most likely be Wizardry: Tale Of The Forsaken Land. I have had at least 4 copies of this game sealed, however they all had the barcode with a hole in it. Many games that have that use it as a security measure for games given to employees, so they can’t resell them. I found one in Germany that was $300 USD and I bought it without thinking twice about it. I bought 95% of my games at deals or the price they were when they were released. There are not many games that I had to pay more than retail for. None of the games in my library have the barcode hole in them.

How did you find out about our community at PlaystationCollecting.com?
I stumbled upon the website while looking for my last game Moto GP. It came up on Google and I joined up right away. The rest is history

Playstation Portable PSP

How do you like the community at PlaystationCollecting.com and what do you think about the newly added database and collection tool?
I like this website a lot, it’s real nice to be on a forum that is so in love with one brand. Most of my time collecting PS stuff has been revolved around USA released stuff. It’s nice to see other stuff from around the world. I am filled with envy for some of the things that have not been released on these shores.
The main reason why people should visit the site is because it’s the ideal spot for a Playstation fan. You’ll find the people there are nice and love to help out with any question and you don’t get that from a lot of forums! Last but not least, you’ll find the most complete NTSC Playstation 2 list on the internet in the database!

I think it would be an understatement to say you’re a veteran collector, as a final question I’d like to ask if you have any tips for the collectors out there that are just starting?
My tip would be to collect what you want.  Don’t be forced to collect anything that you don’t have any love for. My entire video game collection is post-NES. I wasn’t old enough for the Atari and don’t care about the Atari so I don’t collect any of them. I do have some rare older games in my collection like Minestorm 2 but that is just for the rarity.

Is there anything you would like to share with the reader as a final comment?
I would like you to add some special thanks.  First and for most to my wife Ashley who has done nothing but support me with this whole thing. I can’t even begin to count how many checklists she has made for me, how many miles she rode with me going to all the stores all over the country and how many hours she spent waiting in the car because she doesn’t share the same love for buying games as I do. And I love her for that! Also, my great friend and brother from another mother Marlon, a fellow collector, he has done everything in his power to make my collection so great. If it wasn’t for him I still to this day still might not have moto GP.  Thanks and to all the eBay/half.com/Amazon sellers that unknowingly helped me complete this (in my opinion) huge task.  Last but certainly not least to all of my forum people because if it wasn’t for you this story may never have gotten out and if there is no one to listen, then why talk!

Thanks for reading this interview, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did making it
If you’re allready a Playstation collector / enthousiast, or decided to become one after reading this, don’t forget to sign up at our forums and join the community!

Forum: http://www.playstationcollecting.com/forum/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ps_collecting

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/playstationcollecting

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/psxcollecting?feature=autoshare

Our community member Guyra has made a great write up on how he got into collecting King’s Collection games!

http://www.playstationcollecting.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2401&p=23255

With great pride and joy I present to you a guide to all PAL Playstation 1 Platinum releases!
This guide has been created with great dedication and hard work by Matt Keller from www.retrogamingaus.com

The entire guide can be found here:
http://www.playstationcollecting.com/psx_platinum_guide.txt

The data from the guide will be implemented in the database

I think I’m not the only collector out there who has a lot of games in his collection which were only bought for the sake of having them and have never been played.
To bring those collectors back in touch with their collection, we came up with the Collectors Experiment.

In this experiment we challenge you to choose three games in your collection that you have no previous experience with.
After playing these games you can report back in this topic or, even better, make a video about it!
Let everyone here know how you enjoyed, or disliked the games you tried out and join in on the discussion about the games others tried out.

Through this experiment we hope to get you back in touch with your collection and maybe discover a hidden gem or two!

The rules are also explained in this video by Xed (me): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azp5gaftxr4
The original topic where it all started can be found here: http://bit.ly/fhGZpn

Are you gamer enough to join this experiment? I hope you are!

I hope you like the idea and I’m looking forward to your participation!

As everyone knows Japan, the birthplace of our favorite console, has been struck by a horrible earthquake and tsunami.

Our friends over at Game Rave have set up a charity action of which 100% of the profit goes to a fund for the victims, and we at PlaystationCollecting.com offcourse fully support that initiative!

If you want to be a part of this charitable action, see www.game-rave.com for more information.

Having grown up with a plethora of classic consoles, I have seen the evolution of the control pad – From paddles to joysticks, to digital control pads, and then to dual-analog thumbsticks (And now to motion control, but that doesn’t count).

Over the years we have had to adapt to the way we play our favourite games. My hands have held many controllers, of all shape, size, and style, some being more comfortable than others. Looking back, it’s hard to understand how we ever put up with some dreadful controller design. The Atari Jaguar controller springs to mind, as does the Dreamcast, as well as several others. Controllers have evolved to the point where the two main current generation controllers (The PS3 DualShock3 and X360 Wireless) are supposed to be the result of years of research and perfection, blending aesthetics with ergonomic design and functionality.

Every generation the controllers get more complex, and we have to train ourselves into learning how to use the tools in our hands to control what we see on the screen. Today’s controllers typically have around a dozen buttons each, as well as two separate methods of directional input – One digital, and one dual-analog – Whereas back-in-the-day we would be used to significantly less. That didn’t necessarily mean we would have less fun with older games though!

I’ve personally progressed from an Atari 2600 joystick, through the 8bit and 16bit era’s, and then to the modern day post-PlayStation era. I was fine up until around 1997 when Sony decided to release the Dual Analog Controller, which is what I consider the turning point for gaming, and a controller which shaped the way we would play games for the next decade…

Now I had already trained myself to use the one-buttoned Atari joystick in such a way that it was comfortable to use, cradled in your left hand, left thumb on the big red button, joystick in the other. The NES and Master System controllers were something different, and took a little getting used to, but it was the 8bit controllers which would have an everlasting effect on what we would generally accept as a “normal” layout, with directional control on the left and action buttons on the right. Everything which followed would adopt this basic form factor, up until the time Sony introduced dual-analog controls (Have you ever seen a controller with the D-Pad and buttons switched sides?)

The problem I seem to have is that I spent so many years training my brain into thinking that LEFT = movement and RIGHT = action, but no longer was that true with Sony’s new controller. Now we had to train our brains into controlling two different axis of movement simutaneously. However, whilst many people have found the transition easy, I have never been able to fully get used to dual-analog controls – Most probably because I am a retro gamer at heart, and still play all the classic 8bit and 16bit games

I have to admit, I sometimes struggle in regards to controlling with my right digit. This is mostly evident in console FPS games where I generally tend to be let down by my “lazy right thumb“, simply because it’s not accustomed to delicate aiming. It’s almost as if my right thumb been reduced to a secondary function, numbed over the years through brute force button mashing, where the other digits on my right hand play a more active role in performing those actions these days

I’m not saying that dual-analog controls aren’t a good innovation, because they are. I enjoy playing console FPS games now more than I ever did before dual-analog came along (Even though I prefer mouse & keyboard controls), and I couldn’t imagine what FPS games would be like without them (Although GoldenEye’s controls would probably have become the standard control method I guess?). I suppose a new gamer would find the controls very natural to use, as would anybody who has learnt to adapt, but it’s just one of those things that i’ve never really been able to do…