Several members of the Nintendo Life team would consider ourselves to be collectors, but none of us have ever managed to achieve anything quite like this.
Twitter user Shouta, who lives in Japan, has managed to get his hands on every single Game Boy game ever released, completing the set in just two years. The collection contains a whopping 1,244 games in total, and gazing upon the full set is quite the sight to behold.
As detailed in the tweet below, Shouta began truly working towards the collection in September 2019 – we're not sure how anyone could manage to pick up more than 1,000 games in that time, but we applaud the effort.
Simply beautiful.
Speaking to Kotaku, Shouta explains, "I’ve always liked the Game Boy, and I had a number of games I bought to play, and along the way, that turned into deciding to complete the full set... I haven’t added up how much I spent, so I don’t know."
His Twitter followers helped him to track down games missing from the collection – without them, Shouta says the process "would’ve taken five years" – and it sounds like he already has ideas on what to do next. "I also have a desire to collect GBA, but I think I’ll start with making my own storage shelves like I did for the Game Boy."
[source kotaku.com]
Comments (45)
Amazing……until the penny drops and they realise all the money they’ve wasted as so many of them are complete garbage.
Wow, that's a dedication. 👍
Meanwhile, i only have 2 GBA games until today. (K-1 Pocket Grandprix 1 & 2) 😅
And here comes nintendo with a gameboy switch online service with ALL gameboy games (one can dream, right?) which causes the gameboy games to drop in value.
Nice accomplishment though! I didn’t collect any physical gameboy games (sold mine around 15 years ago) only gameboy advance games.
The first game I recognized from the collection is Home Alone lol.
A lot is how much he spent.
It's not hard if you're willing to pay premium.
@HamatoYoshi when your collecting a complete collection crap games don't matter. Completing the collection matters
@HamatoYoshi If his experience is the same as mine when I got some retro cartridges a few years ago, most of them won't work. So whether they are good or not is a moot point!
with collectors like this devouring the market, hoarding supply, it's no wonder I can't find reasonably priced copies of games I actually want to play 😠
Meanwhile I couldn't even afford the shelves he keeps the collection on
-but if you have the money then fair enough!
I would say he spend $10069
Presumably gave himself carte blanche and had dozens of packages a week arriving from Ebay/Yahoo Auction purchases.
Didn't exactly drag himself around the thrift stores and swap meets discovering treasures.
@Yas all just an exercise in futility then really!
The big question is, does this include every variant of every game? For example, Trip World has 2 variants—Japanese and European. That would be impressive!
It's a cool story, but it does lose some gloss in terms of achievement when the person involved is clearly just very wealthy!
We must be talking somewhere in the region of £10,000?
I'm not sure how valuable the rarer games are... but somewhere around a £7 average seems about right considering we're only dealing with cartridges and a LOT of the collection would have been cheap!
What do you think? Anyone else care to estimate?
Also, the way videogame collections are going in general... could this not be worth double in 10 years time? I think so...
@HamatoYoshi You had me wondering, aside from the AVGN, is there anyone who collects LJN games?
@Don Link's Awakening for me!
Struck by this comment thread and how it encapsulates the typical problems with social networks. Hot takes diminish the endeavor of this individual to some sort of easy or foolish activity of folly, even though there is plenty in the article to suggest otherwise.
Likely the person is someone who found a pleasant and rewarding past-time that grew out of a fondness for video games. I find that relatable. On the plus side of social networks, unlike most here, this person's Twitter followers enjoyed taking on a role of support and assistance to feel some shared community.
Cheers!
@HammerGalladeBro loads probably. I just find collecting stuff crazy and such a waste of money.
@jrt87 In my experience, the vast majority of retro game sellers went online, hardly anything shows up at thrift stores, swap meets and such anymore... (Unless you're counting countless copies of soccer-games for PS2/3 or Match-3 games for (3)DS)
I collect Gameboy games too. I just collect the ones I want to play though. I have a nice little collection right now and I’m very happy with it.
Considering he most definitely has Trip World on here means he at least spent a few thousand dollars on this
Ooooo I like the letter card inserts, great idea!
Next up: collect them all CIB.
The USA received only 507 titles, not 1000 like the author infers (http://game-boy-database.com/fullset-USA.html). Also, Japan didn't have 1200+ games released, only around 800, so was the collector including USA titles in this? If GBC games included in the collection, then the article needs to be updated to make this clearer and not so misleading.
The irony being that Nintendo made as much profit from the sale of these 2nd hand carts as it did from me downloading a bundle of ROM files.
I of course didn't spend any money in the first place whereas the collector is maybe $25-50k out of pocket.
@Yas Got to clean them, sometimes multiple passes. I have gotten around 200 games, and nearly all of them work great. Some have dead save batteries, which is expected.
The only boot issue I had is a Japanese Link's Awakening DX cart refused to boot on my OG brick, but still worked on my other hardware.
@Meteoroid Nintendo likely earned money on the original hard copy of the ROM as well. All a repeated copy of data does is deny inflated profits for collectors.
My point is that the gaming preservation market is ridiculous. Companies should either make all their non-licenced ROMs available for current platforms at a low sub cost (which I would pay) or change their licencing to freeware after 20 years.
Its all very well having clever consoles like the Polymega when a lot of the games you want to play are only available at over-inflated collectors prices rendering the device largely moot.
Every collected 1st party GB, NES, SNES, GBA and N64 ROM comes it at maybe 2gb combined. Either provide a cheap legal way to play them on Switch or legally let us exchange ROMs of them.
All many of us want to do is play the games, not horde them from the world.
But does he have the newest releases from 2021? Barely 4 hours after this article, another release was announced…
Oddly enough, been getting decent cases for my older games, GB included.
Now trying to replicate manuals for that nostalgic feel.
@bobtheboffin the photos include GBC carts, so that’s probably it
❗UNBOXED?
Not worth a penny...
Congrats on the endeavor.
@damien33ad He's single. Only a single guy would be able to do something like this! Hahahahaha!
@Meteoroid Your first point is why copyright law needs to change from 100 years to 20 years unless the holder continues to publish new material within that franchise. Then it wouldn’t matter who the rights holders are to forgotten games. We could continue to preserve older titles and Nintendo can co to use to fleece customers for rereleases of older games.
@Meteoroid I can't speak for other countries, but in the US, playing emulated games isn't illegal. Emulation itself is legal, but the issue is distribution of said games which is illegal.
“Under section 117, you or someone you authorize may make a copy of an original computer program if the new copy is being made for archival (i.e., backup) purposes only; you are the legal owner of the copy; and any copy made for archival purposes is either destroyed, or transferred with the original copy, once the original copy is sold, given away, or otherwise transferred.”
Congrats. Looks great together.
By throwing Money, everything is possible faster haha
Now that he's collected them all what does he do? I'm not a collector so I don't think I understand the mentality but I imagine collecting is about the journey not the destination and actually completing the collection is a hollow feeling. Maybe it's like wanderlust. That itch will still need to be scratched.
@aaronsullivan Agreed! Sure would money help him get some of these games easier? In a sense yes as he would not need to wait for deals, but that does not make this any less of an accomplishment. I just don't understand people sometimes as what another person does with their money is up to them as long as they are not breaking any laws or hurting anyone. The last time I checked collecting Gameboy games was not hurting anyone and he is doing what he loves. It's not like he is flipping these games at a disgusting profit... like certain other rich folks I know... **wink** **wink**
@RadioHedgeFund Not this nonsense again... copyright law requiring you to publish new media in order to maintain the rights will just flood the market with subpar garbage. That is why we got so many bad Spider-Man movies after Spider-Man 3 as Sony had to release a new Spider-Man film or lose the rights. Sure that ended up working out in the end, but that was due to heavy and I MEAN HEAVY fan pressure and despite there being Spider-Man MCU films Sony still holds the rights and not Marvel/Disney and as long as Spider-Man keeps making money Sony will keep making Spider-Man movies and the rights will never revert back to Marve/Disney. Notice how this can create a problem if applied to ALL intellectual properties?
As for 100 years to 20 years, how will that work? Does that mean the publisher just needs to publish a game within 20 years to hold the rights? Then publishers will just dump cheap mobile games every so often (i.e. look at what Konami does with Castlevania, Metal Gear and Contra already). If anything that will keep a lot of media from ever entering the public domain and promote companies to not release quality titles and will just flood the market and devalue the properties as it is better to hold the rights forever than letting someone else make money off it by letting go of said rights.
As for re-releases will that count as holding the rights? If so then they can just re-release collections every 20 years and hold the rights forever. See how your "solution" is not actually a solution at all. And if you mean they just hold the rights of an IP for JUST 20 years then congrats the market will just be flooded with garbage by people wanting to make a buck off the name brand like we already get with knock-off games on mobile. That solution is not good for anyone especially the consumer as there is now even less incentive by the publisher to release games of merit than there already is. They will just churn out games for 20 years and milk that franchise till it is dry by all means necessary and never revive all IPs as there is no incentive for them to do so and so the vultures of cheap mobile knock-offs will do it instead and if you've played a cheap knock-off Mario games those games SUCK!!!!
As a collector it is the.people you meet and friends you make along the way while collecting that is part of the journey
I am a collector, I have a huge collection and I met a few fellow collectors who were passionate about the consoles I collect for.
It is a great feeling coming across rare titles.
I have also played games I would never even looked at if I wasn't collecting complete sets.
There truly are some wonderful games that others might not enjoy but you might.
I don't throw stupid amounts of money around and I enjoy going to second hand shops as much as going online and finding a title you've been searching for.
You can spend crazy amounts of money but if you're patient you can also nab some bargains.
Another cheaper way of buying games is buying everything individually, like the box, manual and cart and making your own full game.
I buy games that might have a mint box but the manual is tatty or the cart has a ripped label etc and then make my own mint copy.
Then sell the now complete average copy to redeem some of your money back,
It takes a lot of the cost out of the equation and in some instances I have made all my money back and a profit
You just have to set a limit.
It has worked for me and I now own a full CIB set of Australian N64 games in mint condition.
@MysticX I agree on that sometimes you find more stuff online than in local places, but I'd say it also depends on the area where you are.
Here in my city, it's a lost cause to find N64 and Gamecube games in good conditions for a good price. But in another city, if I go to the shopping district that has the plaza for geeky stuff I can find good retro games for a rather decent price.
A few years ago from there I got Zelda Skyward Sword Wii with the soundtrack (which is always missing in copies in my area), Zelda Collectors Edition and Zelda Ocarina of Time GC (both of them complete, when I see them in my area it's mostly just the disc very expensive), Super Princess Peach, Mario & Sonic London 2012 3DS, a shovelware European DS game (I got this for its clear and bigger box), a sealed GoldenEye 007 Wii, a second hand Mii Gunner amiibo and a boxed Japanese Zero Suit Samus amiibo.
For all that I paid about 3000 Mexican pesos (about $150), if I got those things in my city I'd probably had paid more, those Zeldas aren't cheap here.
If I had more money with me back then, I'd also have bought a boxed Villager amiibo, a Japanese Kirby Cafe soundtrack and Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse for the Gamecube (that's a game I hadn't seen on sale since its original launch in 2002).
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 I haven't been able to go there. In fact, I don't even know it's open or not.
@Nin10dood I agree on that part of the people you meet during the journey. Thanks to an online purchase, I got a contact in the city with the geeky plaza. So it's only a matter of asking what he has.
@HammerGalladeBro You're really lucky, here in the Netherlands it's pretty bad (Aside from Covid shutting down almost all swap meets and such), my last big find was "Ducktales 2" for NES a few years ago, but 99% of games at swap meets are bulk PSX/2/3 games, those are common as muck, but beyond that, very few cartridge-games, and usually expensive.
Since he's in Japan, this was probably a lot cheaper than you think.
There's tons of old games and systems, because they love phones now.
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