What do you do if you find 45 of your favorite video game consoles listed for sale on the local classifieds (Kijiji)? Well, you buy them… you buy them all.
Many of the systems you see below do not work for one reason or another. For the ones that do I’m going to clean them up and sell them for a fair price. I want to get them back into the hands of retro gamers. **Yeah, I’m going to pretend that I’m righteous and all that 😛
My other motivation is to have some hardware to work on. I’d love to see if I’m able to repair some or all of the broken consoles.
Those buckets be full!
That’s a lot of Retro.
Both me and these old video game consoles have a long journey ahead of us. I have big plans and I know it will take time.
Will I make any money on this venture? I’m guessing if I do it will not be a lot but at the same time I dove in because the price was right and I don’t think I’m at risk of losing much money either. I paid $180 CAD for everything you see in the bins (I had to give the bins back). So that’s $4 per console! But the lot was sold ‘as is’ and yes many do not work. Before the purchase I estimated that I’d only need about 6 or 8 in working condition to make my original $180 back so it felt like a safe gamble.
Bucket Close-up 01
Bucket Close-up 02
What I was concerned about (which is turning out to be true) is it’s hard to sell loose systems. Most people are going to want a system with a power cable , a video cable and at least one joystick. So I’ve anticipated that this little project will take a long time to complete. But that’s OK and it’s somehow comforting have an army of (mostly) Sega consoles in the basement.
Want to get a better idea of what 45 consoles look like? 🙂 Behold!! Beautiful, isn’t it?
It’s like heaven fell from the stars.
For a loose working system (any Sega Master System, Sega Dreamcast, Sega Genesis or Sega Saturn) I decided to sell each for $30 CAD. Is that a fair price? I think it is except maybe for the Genesis consoles. They are pretty common and I personally believe $20 would be a great price so what does that say about $30? Maybe once I’ve made my money back I’ll considering selling loose Genesis consoles for less… Or Plan B; see below:
This massive heap of consoles actually did come with a bunch of joysticks. But again just like the consoles many do not work. And even if a joystick works I need to be sure it’s working well. However, since some of them are in good order I decided to throw some more money into this venture and buy some third party power and video cables and make a few of these systems whole. Yes, my costs goes up but I think I’ll be able to sell them faster this way. For an additional $160 CAD I managed to buy power and video cables for most of the systems.
I got a good price on the cables at just about $10 for a set (one power cable, one video cable). I valued any good working joystick at $10. So for a complete systems I added in my cost and I’ll sell them for $50 or possibly $60 for those that are in better cosmetic condition or if it comes with a game or something.
I’ve already had these consoles for a few months now and I have made some sales (locally on Kijiji). Slowly but surely it’s happening. So far I’ve sold five consoles and I’ve given away two complete Genesis console to two cousins who I recently found out were into retro gaming. I also gave each of them a flash cart so they’ll have lots to play. Before I bought the flash carts I tried finding cheap loose carts of a few good games and it was so expensive that I just gave up.
Here’s what I’ve sold so far (all in CAD dollars):
Sega Master System – $60 complete and with common game cart.
Dreamcast – $30 loose
Dreamcast – $20 loose and broken *It was wanted as a display model.
Genesis – $30 loose
Genesis – free complete *for family
Genesis – free complete *for family
As it stands I have five consoles left that are working right now. Selling them loose will get the rest of my money back. Selling them complete (which I think I can do) will net me about $100. And if I can fix any of the others, well, that would be just groovy.
Retro Megabit 
That’s more master systems then I’ve ever seen in the wild in my entire life, lol.
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I definitely felt a bit crazy for buying them all. Specially when I laid them all out like that 🙂
I get a lot of nibbles for the Master Systems. I think they are getting a bit more popular.
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yeah, I agree. maybe the NES is getting played out for a lot of people and the SMS would be the logical next ship to jump on. I’m actually keeping an eye out for a cheap second system. after doing the FM mod this weekend I was looking around in there and I really wanted to try a 50/60htz mod for PAL games but I was to afraid to mess something up. There are plenty of guides out there for doing the mod on a SMS II but not an NTSC model I though I wonder if any PAL games will give you problems in a NTSC system.
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I have tons of PAL SMS games and my NSTC Master System can play them all. I believe there is no issue at all regarding NTSC/PAL for Master System. No mod required! 🙂 Just start buying those EURO games!
A Genesis console needs to match the region of the games you want to play but for the Master System you’re free and clear.
How do you like your FM mod? I’m really glad I did that one. It kicks butt. And I love that you still have the option of PSG or FM at a flick of a switch.
Which games do you like most in FM?
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great! good to know. maybe I had it backwards and its PAL users that benefit from a NTSC mod since I’m guessing several games may play to slow in PAL regions. I really like the FM mod. its was simple enough to do and the switch option is rally nice. I’m glad I found your article else I wouldn’t never of known it existed and would of had to track down another rather pricy Jp console or commit settle for an adapter. unfortunately I don’t have a ton of SMS games at my location but I really prefer the FM in Miracle Warriors and double dragons. Phantasy Star is a mixed bag but that may just be that I’m so nostalgic for the PSM. now that the FM mod is done I’m going to start gathering and completing the SMS RPG library which admittedly there aren’t many of.
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Welllllll, damn. Retro Mega-Bit DOES sound like a game shop, lol. Now it IS one. Keep that Super Famicom, mister. You’ll be surprised at how awesome some of the games that were also on the Genesis and MD are on that console (plus there are a ton of SFAM-only gems to collect!)
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I already have a few very cool looking Super Famicom games like Twin Bee and those two Darius Parody shooters. It will be a lot of fun to try those out 🙂
Which are some of the Famicom games I should try out that were also on the Mega Drive?
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https://segaxtreme.net/threads/list-of-games-on-both-genesis-snes.16678/
Since you own a Neo-Geo, you may or may not want to try the SNES versions of the fighting games like King of the Monsters, KOM2, Baseball Stars, the Fatal Furys and so forth and so on. For me, it’s interesting to compare the games to see what stuff made the cut and what was cut. Takara did manage to fit a lot on those smaller carts for sure. Some of the games benefit from the bigger color palette on the SNES, but I’ll let you do some poking around online in your free time. Hey, you’ll NEED some free time from all that system cleaning and restoring, pal!
Other games didn’t turn out so hot: Thunder Force III as Thunder Spirits on the console looks a shade better in spots on the SNES and has a bunch of design changes. But it also tends to have some performance issues that hurt it somewhat.
I just realized (duh!) that there’s been an English translation ROM ou for a while for Assault Suits Valken (which was released in edited form for the SNES as Cybernator) which is the sequel to Target Earth. That’s worth a look just to see the much better visuals and level design.
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I never really considered comparing games that made it on multiple consoles. That would be interesting. I’m sure any on the Neo Geo will win every time 🙂 Not really a fair comparison.
My buddy Nintendo Joe (https://mynintendodimension.wordpress.com) told me once that Thunder Force III for the SNES was not as good as the Genesis version. I thought it had a chance to be even better. I was surprised to hear this.
I actually have Cybernator for the SNES. It is a cool game. But personally I do like Target Earth more.
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From an pure 16-bit appreciation comparison, it’s nice to see how Neo Geo games look on the MD/Gen and SNES as compared to the MEGA shocking originals because you can figure out easily (as a Geo owner) what got chopped. I know back in the day some gamer friends said the ports “couldn’t even be done” correctly. But most were pretty fun despite the visual downgrade. In fact, I’d say some of those decent ports made me want to see how the originals turned out.
Thunder Force was kind of poor overall and the canceled Arcus Odyssey for the SNES (it came out in Japan) was interesting because it looked as it was going to have some VERY minor cosmetic tweaks as far as the onscreen interface (but it plays exactly the same).
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This is awesome!!
Since you’re about repairing Genesis’, could you help me figurine out what’s wrong with my Mega Drive Model 1? There’s something wrong with the picture, you can see a video of it in my last Game Hunting post. I hope it’s something as easy as cleaning the connectors, since changing other components like the capacitors or the video chip might be a bit tricky.
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I read your description of your Mega Drive troubles on your site at https://martianoddity.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/game-hunting-big-business-in-july/
That sounds like a serious problem. You have tried both the RGB and RF video ports and both are unable to display anything and when you listen to the audio via the headphone jack you hear static instead of proper sound. I think this is more serious than just a cleaning.
Have you opened up the Mega Drive to see if anything obvious jumps out? Such as physical damage?
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Yeah, I did and with my untrained eye I couldn’t find anything wrong. And that dude stopped replying which confirms he sold it to me broken and all. I will try to clean it up though, if only to know I have done that at least. I’ve contacted a repairs shop who think there might be an issue with the wiring but they think they might take a look and help me. They can’t say what it’ll cost me beforehand, and since I don’t trust anyone anymore about their old stuff working, this might be better than buying a new system, right?
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I’m going to guess that it would be cheaper to buy a loose console. Are PAL Genesis consoles hard to come by in your area?
If you really want the one you have repaired take some good pictures of the circuit board and post them on some forums like smspower.org. I bet you’ll get some really good advice; better than I could offer. I’d also want to follow that thread and see what happens.
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I’ll do that when I’m ready moving in, it’s packed down at the moment. It’s hard coming by loose systems, you can buy them for about 55 USD with an RF cable, a controller and power cord (excluding shipping) and that’s a bit too much. I’ll try to look for a replacement system, maybe the british ebay has one for quite cheap.
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This is awesome! Congrats ^_^ Hey, can you play american NTSC Genesis games on these? Perhaps I’m interested in one ^_^ So I would be able to purchase Genesis games as well ;D
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Yes! These Sega Genesis consoles are meant for American/Canadian NTSC games. And I have lots of them so for stopxwhispering you can have one for just the cost of shipping if you like. I’ll thoroughly test one and clean it up as best I can. They are a little beat up but some have been cleaning up well.
Do you have power and video cables? And a joystick?
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Wow! That’s so kind of you ❤ I have joysticks as long as the ones for a PAL system works with it, but that should work right?
Is it the same video cables as a PAL one then I could just switch between the one I have for my Mega Drive, but power is tricky.. I bet I could figure it out though, if you could send me picture of an original Genesis power adaptor so I see what is needed (voltage-wise and stuff) then I could use a special cable I have which I can set to whatever I like.. 🙂
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