GRcade Retro Gaming Chat

[Green Gecko]

Yeah there's actually quite a lot of stuff going on converting analogue RGB to digital HDMI (including unnecessary upscaling to 1080p) and if that's handled by a cheap circuit it could end up looking worse. Thus making your investment in the SCART cable pointless. Just think you'll be able to get a good SCART switch and then get RGB scart cables for all your retro consoles and then you're sorted. That's the goal for me but I put SNES and MD into mini crt, I'd use this method for GameCube or Xbox as the component cables are expensive. It's also one of the best things about backwards compatible PS3 as it does look really good and old PS1 games look great and the controller is identical. Great system if you can find one that doesn't die.

By the way if you're on a budget, even the composite (yellow plug) cables from Retro Game Cables are better than standard, I have the megadrive one. But I'd only use them for CRT really, as composite signal was designed for most of the nastiness to be hidden by interpolation in the CRT image. There are even some deliberate transparency effects of this, best example is the bushes and waterfalls in sonic 2. I played that straight into my HDTV and it was unbearable. Flickering and artifacts everywhere. See my PVM thread.

[Lotus]

Shall we look at doing this then? Doesn't have to be a Friday of course, but something vaguely structured that keeps a regular flow of posts and gives some talking points about particular games or peripherals, etc... Is everyone interested, and if so, which day would we prefer?

Yeah, this sounds great, Lotus - maybe the weekend would be best i.e. when most folk may have the time and it gives us a two-day window?

Yeah I'd be good with that. If anybody doesn't object we can kick it off this coming weekend.

[Preezy]

Just think you'll be able to get a good SCART switch and then get RGB scart cables for all your retro consoles and then you're sorted.

That would be so beautiful

[AndyXL]

Just think you'll be able to get a good SCART switch and then get RGB scart cables for all your retro consoles and then you're sorted.

That would be so beautiful

It's crucial you get an RGB scart switch - most cheap ones on eBay aren't RGB...

[jawafour]

Yeah I'd be good with that. If anybody doesn't object we can kick it off this coming weekend.

Hey, Lotus and retro GRcadians... we've gone live with this idea and it all starts on Friday .

[Corazon de Leon]

In one of my final purchases for the foreseeable future(got my eye on Luigi's Mansion and Majora's Mask 64), I've managed to pick up a boxed copy of Mario Party 2 for £38. Quite excited by that!

[Green Gecko]

Just think you'll be able to get a good SCART switch and then get RGB scart cables for all your retro consoles and then you're sorted.

That would be so beautiful

It's crucial you get an RGB scart switch - most cheap ones on eBay aren't RGB...

I knew I'd left out at least one reference to "RGB". I wish it was just standard and then everyone would have far, far better images.

[Drumstick]

In one of my final purchases for the foreseeable future(got my eye on Luigi's Mansion and Majora's Mask 64), I've managed to pick up a boxed copy of Mario Party 2 for £38. Quite excited by that!

As well you should be - it's the best Mario Party game. My friends and I still get together once every couple of months and play a couple of boards during our gaming nights. I currently lead the way with 11 wins.

[Corazon de Leon]

Last auction for a few months - keeping an eye on a Twilight Princess GC that's sitting at £31. After that I've exhausted my annual bonus.

[Preezy]

For those of you perhaps looking for some retro youtube channels to gorge on, I've recently subscribed to the following 3 channels:

Adam Koralik
https://www.youtube.com/user/AdamKoralik/featured
Ignore the low-budget approach and watch his retrospectives on all of the previous 7 console generations. Really knows his stuff and seemingly owns every console ever released (more or less).

Metal Jesus Rocks
https://www.youtube.com/user/MetalJesusRocks
Popular game collector who does regular retro videos about all sorts of stuff, also has videos about the world of collecting, which are quite interesting.

Classic Gaming Quarterly
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2i64jLboyVFZwwO6UCKZ6g
He's got a cool voice and has done a series of videos about the launch of each retro console, including the games that came out on launch.

Enjoy

[AndyXL]

Last auction for a few months - keeping an eye on a Twilight Princess GC that's sitting at £31. After that I've exhausted my annual bonus.

If it's in mint condition, don't pay more than £40 to £50 maximum. Hopefully you can get it for around £40.

My retro buying is on hold for a bit due to a lack of funds

Before the year is out, I do want to add another 4 games to my N64 collection.

I'm in no rush...if it takes me another 20 years to collect, then so be it!!

[Corazon de Leon]

Last auction for a few months - keeping an eye on a Twilight Princess GC that's sitting at £31. After that I've exhausted my annual bonus.

If it's in mint condition, don't pay more than £40 to £50 maximum. Hopefully you can get it for around £40.

My retro buying is on hold for a bit due to a lack of funds

Before the year is out, I do want to add another 4 games to my N64 collection.

I'm in no rush...if it takes me another 20 years to collect, then so be it!!

Morons - absolute morons - bidding on eBay auctions before the last few seconds ruins the whole thing. I can't tell if it's people who fundamentally misunderstand the process of eBay bidding or if it's the seller trying to bump the price up a bit in some cases. Went for £46 in the end - more than I was willing to pay at this stage.

[AndyXL]

Morons - absolute morons - bidding on eBay auctions before the last few seconds ruins the whole thing. I can't tell if it's people who fundamentally misunderstand the process of eBay bidding or if it's the seller trying to bump the price up a bit in some cases. Went for £46 in the end - more than I was willing to pay at this stage.

But this is always what's happened on eBay. All you need to do is put in the maximum you're prepared to pay in the last few seconds...And if you win the auction, then you got the game what you were prepared to pay for. And if you didn't, no big deal as you didn't want to pay more!

95% of the time, the auction value will change in the last few seconds, and the only way to 100% ensure you win an item is to put in a ridiculously high bid - this will however backfire, if someone else has used the same strategy, and you'll be stuck with over-paying for a game. It's for this reason that many of the auctions prices on eBay don't reflect the true value of the game, as at least 2 people have put in silly bids.

[Corazon de Leon]

Yeah, that's kinda my point. I had my maximum and didn't go beyond it - the point is that it's frustrating to see people getting carried away with the bidding process or bidding unrealistic figures on games - the only person who benefits is the seller and the end result is artificially enhanced prices for games like Conker's Bad Fur Day, which is not a rare game(well it is a Rare game but you know what I mean )

[Drumstick]

Morons - absolute morons - bidding on eBay auctions before the last few seconds ruins the whole thing. I can't tell if it's people who fundamentally misunderstand the process of eBay bidding or if it's the seller trying to bump the price up a bit in some cases. Went for £46 in the end - more than I was willing to pay at this stage.

But this is always what's happened on eBay. All you need to do is put in the maximum you're prepared to pay in the last few seconds...And if you win the auction, then you got the game what you were prepared to pay for. And if you didn't, no big deal as you didn't want to pay more!

95% of the time, the auction value will change in the last few seconds, and the only way to 100% ensure you win an item is to put in a ridiculously high bid - this will however backfire, if someone else has used the same strategy, and you'll be stuck with over-paying for a game. It's for this reason that many of the auctions prices on eBay don't reflect the true value of the game, as at least 2 people have put in silly bids.

The way around this is to target auction that end at times when eBay is (relatively) quiet (i.e. before 3pm).

[Green Gecko]

I still don't think you guys understand how eBay works and this is part of the problem. eBay automatically puts in those maximum bids for you including the last few seconds, so doing it in the last few seconds, or doing it a month before the auction ends, will make no difference whatsoever. It's not humanly possible to enter higher bids faster than the eBay algorithm can and will (if there is a higher bid than yours) even in the last fraction of a second. That is why you lose so much. If you win, it's because someone else, whether they bid 2 weeks before it ended or in the last minute, didn't enter a higher maximum bid. Literally, the entire "bidding" process on eBay is staged and fake. It's a psychological game established to make people compete with each other and drive up the final amount.

Bid what you want and just walk away. It's pointless bidding in the last seconds that just pisses everyone off. If you find that all ridiculous (as I often do), just use Buy It Now. Because people are thick, it's often cheaper anyway. Good prices go up all the time, they just don't last very long because they're good prices. You're extremely unlikely to get a "bargain" with the bidding process, unless only a few people actually want the game, or it isn't worth very much to begin with - and then you might consider it a "bargain" when, really, it isn't. It's just a normal going rate for that item that at the time happens to be cheap, from your perspective.

Of course people do this anyway because of the trill/adrenaline of bidding but really it's just a way to make eBay and collectors/hoarders more money for whatever niche their in. If more people bid what they actually wanted and didn't get stuck in bidding wars, things wouldn't have such an inflated price. But that's life. Thank strawberry float we have this place to sell some things at reasonable prices without all that shite.

[AndyXL]

Literally, the entire "bidding" process on eBay is staged and fake. It's a psychological game established to make people compete with each other and drive up the final amount.

But that's how auctions work...People bid against each other and drive up the price. It's not staged and fake at all (unless the Seller is a fraudster who bids on his own auctions).

It's not eBay's fault if people get into a bidding war and are prepared to pay silly amounts. Auctions have worked like that for 100s of years.

Of course it's annoying if you wanted the game and didn't get it - and there is only one solution to that - bid higher next time!

[Green Gecko]

It's staged in the sense that real auctions don't automatically bid for you. And so because people don't understand that part, they needlessly inflate the value at the very end of the auction. I.e. they're literally creating value in the last moments for no reason at all - because if they had entered their maximum bid to begin with, everyone's would be lower and eBay would take care of everyone paying the lowest possible price. In comparison, in a real auction, you have to figure out for yourself what your "minimum bid" is (whether that's pennies or pounds etc. extra) for each successive bid. On eBay it's not actually possible to "psyche" people by massively increasing the amount of the bid. The thing is eBay know this and that's fine because they get a bigger commission that way. It's a weird and conflicted set of interests. In some ways it emulates an auction, misses most of the subtleties, and creates it's own set of problems that include this insane last minute rush of massive inflation. I can't be arsed with it most of the time. That doesn't happen in real auctions that sometimes last days.

It's a bit similar to gambling because there is artificially created stress that detaches you from the reality of the situation and generates adrenaline response that feels good. It's why eBay is so successful. Believe me, they know what they're doing. I find it very strange that the idea of eBAy handling bids for you and bidding the lowest possible amount is a "nice" idea, but this last minute bidding gooseberry fool they allow just ruins the whole platform for buying.

[Corazon de Leon]

Err, getting off the subject of eBay - I didn't realise that only 17 N64 games gained a PAL release between December 16th 2000 and the release of the GameCube in early 2002. Of those 17, five were children's games or utter turd - anyone moaning that a console has no games should be directed back to the N64's 2001 and told to have a word with themselves.

It's a miracle that N64 Magazine managed to keep the enthusiasm going!

[Cumberdanes]

Err, getting off the subject of eBay - I didn't realise that only 17 N64 games gained a PAL release between December 16th 2000 and the release of the GameCube in early 2002. Of those 17, five were children's games or utter turd - anyone moaning that a console has no games should be directed back to the N64's 2001 and told to have a word with themselves.

It's a miracle that N64 Magazine managed to keep the enthusiasm going!

They must have been holding out for Paper Mario... what exactly did they print each month since there can't have been much review content?