MediaShelving + Kickstarter = NES Cases?

[UncleBob]

6 years ago, when I planted the seeds that started the NES Cover Project, I contacted MediaShelving to see about having custom cases made, based on their Universal Media design, for NES games.

This was the reply I got...

Well...

This is the reply I got from MediaShelving:
"Those are the only cases we have. They could probably do custom made. But it you would have to order in the 1000's."

Hmmm....

We joked about how we could get that many ordered and such... but nothing has ever came from it and we ended up using the self-modded MediaShelving cases.

I stumbled across this old thread today and got to wondering - would this be something that we could tie in with MediaShelving and Kickstarter to get actual NES cases made?  Would they be interested?  Would our community be interested?

I know that this is something SeymorOnion was/is looking at, and I don't want to step on his toes either.  The advantages of having MediaShelving create the cases would be that they virtually already have the mold (I don't know how hard it would be to "fix" it for NES cases) and it would allow Seymor to focus his attention on the smaller-scale cases that MediaShelving would NEVER touch due to lack of wide-scale demand.

Anywhoo, thought I'd throw this idea out to the general population and see if it sticks.

[tbonesteak4dinner]

Could be cool, but I think the Onion cases will turn out better for a couple reasons. The main one being full manual support.

The only reason I don't have any UGC's is that the manuals don't it all that well, and there's no clips. If they used the same mold (and thus same dimensions), it would be the same story: no manual clips and weird dimensions for fitting a manual. I for one don't want to have the manual fall out on the floor every time I open then case...

[Azarkhel]

NES manuals would fit just fine?

I think it's a good idea if for no other reason that Mediashelving have proved they can get these done. That said, i'd wait for Seymours big October update to see where he's at with his cases and plan your idea around that.

[wiggy]

I would require all new tooling. Modifying the existing tools would make them useless for the existing product.

The tooling for that sort of thing would likely be in the 20K+ range on top of a minimum order requirement.   The way to make it at all profitable would be to do what has already been done; make it so it is universal.

As mentioned before, nobody here wants to step on seymore's toes, but I could get a quote for such tooling if it's something that you guys feel really strongly about.  Just be prepared for about 30K worth of expenses not even including design/engineering, shipping (which is NOT cheap), and whatnot.

[Azarkhel]

This would have to be advertised as well, no way your going to reap 30k from this site's community to fund this, need to tap that new audience of kids that have started collecting as well. So you'd need to get kotaku, joystiq, destructoid etc to do a little article.

Ultimately I think it could work, they're all youth oriented blogs with a large audience and kickstarter is very fashionable right now.

[Heilman11085]

Well how about we get a quote from Media Shelving, maybe they only need a few thousand to mod the mold. If so then you can create a kickstarter for the amount needed.

[Azarkhel]

I'm 99% sure you can't just "mod" the mold, it would have to be recut entirely.

[wiggy]

Yeah, get over the mod thing, it's not gonna happen.  It can be done, for sure.  But like I already said, they aren't going to modify a mold for a product that (seemingly) sells quite well as it would render the tooling incapable of making the UGCs. 

I'm pretty sure that this isn't a product that media shelving commissioned.  It's far more likely that it's a product that anyone could distribute should they be able to establish communications with the manufacturer.  This means that you wouldn't really need any help from media shelving, unless they would be willing to invest in the project themselves.  That doesn't seem like the case though.

[madrocsz]

Personally, while it would have been a neat idea years back (assuming your talking about simply making UGCs designed to fit nes, meaning they keep same dimensions etc) I feel many of us are too vested and already did the ghetto modding to UGC's for our NES games.

I wouldnt want to re-buy and do that all over again just because it would fit slightly better. That said, if this would have been done years ago a ton of people would have bought in, missed opportunity

Just my 2 cents

[wiggy]

It's a tough call.  I really think NOW would be the best time.  The retro market is booming like crazy right now.

[madrocsz]

It's a tough call.  I really think NOW would be the best time.  The retro market is booming like crazy right now.

To refer to an earlier post of yours... I blame all those who's ages start with a 1 

[UncleBob]

I wouldnt want to re-buy and do that all over again just because it would fit slightly better. That said, if this would have been done years ago a ton of people would have bought in, missed opportunity

A few years ago, we didn't have Kickstarter.

To clarify my earlier post, as you seem to be questioning what I'm suggesting, I'm suggesting a case that would virtually be exactly the same as if you purchased a UGC and modded it to hold NES carts.  This would be the same dimensions that all the covers are for on this site, so for those who have already cased their collection, this wouldn't be a change at all and there would be no reason to switch everything out.

[Azarkhel]

It's definitely a "sooner rather than later" thing, I don't see this popularity explosion sustaining itself indefinitely.

I'd bypass mediashelving entirely, as Wig says they're just a distributor and there's a tonne of Chinese factories that do this sort of work. Hell Wig could probably do the CAD models for ya.

[wiggy]

I sure as hell could.  Prolly take all of 25 minutes too LOL!

Still, I think Seymore has some awesome ideas in the works.  We may just want to wait and see what he's been cooking first

[madrocsz]

I wouldnt want to re-buy and do that all over again just because it would fit slightly better. That said, if this would have been done years ago a ton of people would have bought in, missed opportunity

A few years ago, we didn't have Kickstarter.

To clarify my earlier post, as you seem to be questioning what I'm suggesting, I'm suggesting a case that would virtually be exactly the same as if you purchased a UGC and modded it to hold NES carts.  This would be the same dimensions that all the covers are for on this site, so for those who have already cased their collection, this wouldn't be a change at all and there would be no reason to switch everything out.

True about kickstarter. I guess the way I look at it is like you said, those who have cased their collection it wouldn't make much sense to switch out is why , at least to me, most of us already have.  Therefore there might not be as much demand now, but you never know cuz Wiggy is right, the video game collecting market is pretty retarded at the moment.