I’ve always wanted my very own game room. Honestly, who wouldn’t? That particular dream very may become a reality for me soon, so I’ve decided to start chronicling my plans, progress, and so on. Official game room planning begins now.

My wife and I are in the process of buying a house. It’s essentially a done deal, but until it’s officially a done deal, it’s not a done deal. We’re first-time home buyers, but we’v e heard and seen from many folks we know that things can go sideways at a moment’s notice during this whole crazy-stressful house buying thing, but so long as no unforeseen speed bumps present themselves, we will be moving into our new house this July. One of the reasons we liked this particular house so much is that it has a finished basement, which is fantastic. It’s here where my wife and I decided I should set up a “game room” so to speak. It’s not really a closed off room so much as a portioned area in said basement where I can put my stuff. We’re going to be taking a bunch of pictures and measurements tomorrow, so what I’m doing now is some preliminary planning.

This was my collection about 6 years ago, back when I had a small basement. Stuff is packed TIGHT!

The first thing I need to do is assess my collection. I’ve been collecting games for most of my life, and I’ve amassed a rather sizable chunk of stuff. As nice as this basement is, there’s no way I’ll be able to properly display all of it, and since it’s a finished basement and not a typical storage basement, the goal will be to keep it very clean and nice-looking. So I’m still going to need to keep a portion of my stuff in storage, but at least that storage will be in my own house instead of my parents’ garage. As it stands right now, I have 1749 games, 131 systems, and boxes upon boxes of accessories, swag, and other assorted game-related effluvia. I think my first focus should be on systems. Specifically, what systems I want to have regular access to as opposed to ones I can keep boxed away. If I take out color variants, style revisions, Commodore stuff, and dedicated Pong machines, that still puts me at a pretty hefty number. I’ll also take out handhelds because while I still want them accessible, they won’t need any sort of shelf space to be connected to a TV.

That puts me here.

• Atari 7800
• Atari XE
• Atari 5200
• Atari Jaguar with Jaguar CD
• ColecoVision
• Fairchild Channel F
• Intellivision (Maybe the II for space considerations)
• Magnavox Odyssey 2
• NES
• SNES
• Nintendo 64
• Nintendo GameCube
• Nintendo Wii U
• Panasonic 3DO
• Philips CD-i
• PlayStation
• PlayStation 2
• PlayStation 3
• Sega Master System
• Sega Genesis/Sega CD/32X
• Sega Saturn
• Sega Dreamcast
• Turbo Duo (Needs repair though, so I may just stick with my TG16 for now)
• Xbox
• Xbox 360

That’s 25 slots. That’s a lot. That’s not an easy thing to set up, and I don’t think I’d want to do it all on the same TV. My current vision is to have 3 different primary screens in the house. I have an older humongous plasma that I currently have in my living room. It’s nice, but my house was struck by lightning a year or so back and all my HDMI ports got fried. What I’d like to do is buy a newer HDTV to keep in the living room upstairs which will have the Switch connected to it (and maybe a PS4 if I can fit one in the ol’ budget), put the existing plasma downstairs and connect the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii U to that, and connect the rest of the systems to my gorgeous (and EXTREMELY heavy) Sony Trinitron CRT. So really, it’s the space around the CRT that’s going to be the issue.

The Atari 7800 is a must. Mine is AV modded, and it’s backward compatible with almost all 2600 games and controllers, so that’s basically 2 consoles in one. I could probably nix the 5200 because it’s enormous, and the games are largely similar to Atari’s PC stuff, which the XE will do just fine, meaning that I can keep my Atari 5200, 400, 800, and 600XL boxed away. Then we have the other oldies. As far as space constraints are concerned, this is probably where I can save the most. If I’m being honest, how much do I really expect to play my Channel F, Odyssey 2, Intellivision, and ColecoVision? Then again, I’m more likely to play the darn things if I have a spot for them to be constantly hooked up. Those guys are going into the maybe pile. At the very least I could use my Intellivision II to save some space. That thing’s tiny!

The 3DO and CD-i are other beasts I could theoretically scratch off the list of readily available machines. Then again, they’re stackable, so that could be a benefit for them. They’ll go in the maybe pile too. The Jaguar has to stay though. It’s ridiculous. The Nintendo hardware is pretty straightforward, but it starts to get hairy around the GameCube era. The Wii U is fully backward compatible with the Wii, but the Wii was backward compatible with the GameCube. If I really think about it, I will probably keep the GameCube boxed up and go with the Wii on the CRT. Wii games aren’t in HD anyway, so they will play just fine on the Trinitron. Plus, my plasma has some considerable button lag issues, even in game mode. What can I say? I didn’t buy my first HDTV at a very good time. Games like Punch-Out!! Wii and New Super Mario Bros will likely be far more playable there anyway. Regardless, I think that’s the best way to go about covering my bases on available gameplay with the disc-based Nintendo stuff.

Then we come to Sega. Specifically the Genesis monstrosity. I prefer the Genesis 2 design, especially when it comes to the Sega CD. The Sega CD 1 has a drive door, whereas the model 2 has a lid you pop open. Not that I’m planning on playing a ton of Sega CD games, but those things aren’t exactly new, so I’d like to avoid the drive if at all possible. The problem though comes with space. The Sega CD 2 situation is VERY wide. But then again, so is the Master System. Of course, I could also potentially save space by sticking with the Genesis 1 and use the Power Base converter, but then I’d miss that awesome Master System startup screen, so no, that’s not an option. The Sega 1 model is taller, especially with the 32X on top, but that’s probably the most bang for my buck as far as space is concerned. Then again, I could eschew the 32X altogether and just use my CDX. I’m not sure what condition that’s in, but that may be my best option. I wouldn’t be able to play Knuckles Chaotix, but I think I’ll live. Any other 32X games I can probably play comparable ports on other consoles.

What’s more valuable, vertical or horizontal space?

I have a Turbo Duo, but it might need repair. Either way, it’s about the same footprint as my TG-16, so that’s kind of its own thing. The Xbox is a beast, but the 360 isn’t completely backward compatible, so I’l hook up one of those original mammoths for my Xboxing good times. That just leaves the PlayStation situation. I think I’m going to go with an original PlayStation and PS2 on the CRT. My PS3 is one of the original backward compatible ones, but if I use that exclusively, I’ll lose those awesome PlayStation startup screens, and honestly that’s half the fun. So the PS3 can stay over on the big screen and the 1 and 2 can join me over on the Trinitron.

It seems like it’s going to be pretty full, but if I go with all my space-saving ideas here, it’s doable. I’m going to need some serious AV switch boxes for the Trinitron, but it’ll be worth it. And as for the rest of the consoles, it’s not like they’ll be miles away. I’ll be sure to have them contained somewhere nearby with all their necessary cables so if I do feel the need to play some hot Videocart 1 action on my Channel F, it won’t be too hard to get rolling.

Man, that was a lot. And I haven’t even started thinking about what to do with the games themselves yet. I guess that will be in my next entry.

What do you think? What systems should I leave off? What absolutely needs to be hooked up at all times? How did you set up your game room/space?