Retro Game On in Melbourne: Collingwood Cash Converters

While not the classiest place that I could possibly be buying games in Melbourne, I came across a Cashies in my travels within Collingwood and Fitzroy. This was no ordinary Cashies though, this one was special. It was special because it's the first one I've been to in Australia that has had two items; Super Famicom and Dreamcast games.

The last time I saw Dreamcast games in the wild was in France and I've never seen Super Famicom games anywhere except Ebay. While these items weren't the cheapest around, they weren't exactly destroying my wallet either. They were roughly what you would expect to pay online (all were under $20 each).

Melbourne has been great so far, but sadly besides from this the retro scene has been lacking. There was a retro store that I was going to visit, but since I've been here I've been unable to locate their webpage. Even if I don't grab anything else before I leave on Monday, I won't be bothered. There has been lots of interesting vintage and vinyl store to visit instead, and my record collection has grown quite a bit while my wallet has at the same time shrunk. No worries though, maybe I'll cover those and my record setup back in Perth when I get back in a Retro Unrelated.

Retro Game On is Going to Melbourne

Hopefully something worthwhile happens, or I'll have made that header image for nothing. 

As the title so subtly indicates, tomorrow I'll be jet-setting off to Melbourne.
As well as being my first holiday that involves me getting on a plane that isn't with my family, it will be the first time this lone correspondent will be retro-hunting in an Australian city that isn't Perth. It's really about time, since I've been searching for gold overseas several times since starting this blog.
I have one (maybe) retro game shop lined up for a visit when I'm there, but over-wise I'll pretty much be winging it as far op and thrift store stalking goes. I really don't know what to expect, but there is no way the scene could be worse than Perth.

Video: Street Skater for PSone Review

From a few posts ago, you may remember that I bought this skateboarding game for the PSone from a Salvos. In that blogpost I said that I would hopefully film a review for it eventually. I know when I usually write that, nothing ever gets done, but for the first time ever I've bucked my own self made trend.
Enjoy, and all that.

Updates to the Game Room

In the past couple of weeks there have been some devastating developments to my game room.

First off, my ye old faithful AV selector died. I have had that selector for a couple years now, and I was sad to see it go. Since it only cost me $2 from a garage sale originally though, the tears I shredded weren't so wet; not even damp.
Turns out, it's quite hard to find brand new AV selectors in shops these days. I had to look in five different places until I found a decently priced one. In the end I bought a 4-way from Jaycar for $25 (while JB Hi-Fi had pretty much the exact same thing for $50). You can always count on Jaycar when it comes to things like that.

The worst of it though, is that my television also died not long after.
It was a sad day in my household when that happened, very much like a family pet dying. My parents bought that Philips in the early 90's after moving into our current house (a 15" 1980's Sanyo just wasn't going to cut it anymore) and it's been around ever since.
It actually lasted in the lounge room as the main family TV until about 2010, which is quite an accomplishment considering how old it was then. It wasn't long after it had been replaced with an LED that I started up the games room and gave the TV new life. Sadly it will no longer turn on anymore, and while I have basic knowledge when it comes to electronics, I doubt I can fix that when I can't even fix a Game Gear.

The show must go on though, and the TV has been replaced. Luckily for me, analogue television was recently turned off in my area making non-digital TV's redundant for watching actual TV. I managed to scab up this which was no longer wanted or needed:



Fitting brand really, since Magnavox released one of the first ever home consoles, the Odyssey.
You also never really see Magnavox branded anything in Australia either, so I guess me coming across this to put in my games room was meant to be.