So, I've basically put together as modest of a gaming living room as I could. I have a ton of more stuff out in my garage, probably 6 original PlayStation consoles, 3 or 4 Dreamcasts, 3 or 4 OG XBoxs, a Virtual Boy, Extra SNES and Genesis systems and games for everything. What I've got here is what I've decided could come in and fit comfortably and still look decent. If I had a bigger place with one, absolutely, gigantic room, I'd have everything set up like a museum or something, but I had to concede a little.
Here, we've obviously got current consoles as well as my monster PC. The PC isn't that bright and obnoxious either. I had the exposure set a little too long on my camera which is also why that picture is a little blurry. My bad. I also have the red OG Xbox hooked up over here, because it, unfortunately wouldn't fit in my 8 cube shelving stand, which I will address below. It still looks pretty slick, going into my receiver via component and then sent out, via HDMI. I would like having it hooked up to the tube TV with the other consoles, though. The Onkyo 809 has fantastic upscalers and video converters, though, so that helps. This receiver was back when they were still putting beefy components in mid-range receivers. Now days, you have to shell out a bit more money for the real decent stuff as mid-level equipment has been stripped down quite a bit to make prices cheaper.
Over in this corner, I have the old systems. I picked up this 8 cube stand on clearance at Menards for an incredible price. I know Better Homes makes a similar one and you can get some that look similar and are actually a little bigger. I'd have liked a bigger one, just because my OG Xbox doesn't fit in these cubes. But, the smaller cubes make the other consoles look really snug and clean in there, in my opinion, so I can handle the trade off. With some of the bigger cube stands, there's lots of extra room around the consoles, which I don't think looks as tight and clean. The LEDs can do about ten different colors, but I'm usually boring and just leave it on blue or red. You also have to sport the tube TV, because that's just how you have to rock the older consoles. These are all hooked up via S-Video, except the NES which is composite, which surprisingly looks really amazing if you're running it on a non-HDTV. There, we have a 27" flat glass Panasonic TAU, which looks fantastic. I got it at Savers for $4.99. I also have a 24" Toshiba flat glass tube out in my garage as backup. I picked that one up at Savers for 99 cents. No joke. The stand has been reinforced with 2x4s, inside the two sets of outer cubbies, just for my own peace of mind when having a heavy-azz tube TV up there.
Wire management, what a nightmare. Really, what do you do with wires for 8 consoles... They're grouped behind the stand and pinned to the back, not much else you can do, just don't ever move the stand. EVER!
Here's pretty much everything that I could fit on my shelf, which is pretty big, since it almost goes to the ceiling. Down the road, I may put up shelves on a wall and add games to them.
And on the way into the living room. Just be careful when you're throwing the dog's toy down the hallway. There's been a few... accidents...
And that's that. Hopefully, I can get some more shelves up soon, since my floor space is pretty much all gone.
LOL!
