Nintendo Systems (Collection Part 3)

Zelda Manga (Collection Part 1)

Zelda Games (Collection Part 2)





Onto Hardware!

Now that my Zelda collection was basically complete, I wanted to have a Nintendo collection. No, not one of every game or anything crazy like that - just one representative from every system so that I could kinda have my own, “Museum of Nintendo” exhibit at my house similar to the one we had collectively done at the 3DS meetups.

Side note: I had the same attitude about hardware that I had about games, and a lot of it stemmed from being cheap or thrifty (your choice). Once I had a Game Boy Advance, I felt that I could play any GB, GBC, or GBA game on it so there was no need to spend the money on a slightly better unit (the GBA SP / Micro) that only backlit games instead of letting me play a new set of games (or worse, took out backwards compatibility), and I couldn’t really afford/justify the purchase of a DS when they came out due to college/employment/family financial concerns. I just wanted to get by on minimum hardware. So a GBA and a 3DS would suffice for any Nintendo handheld game, for instance. Had I known that the only Zelda games for the WiiU were going to be HD remakes, I might have skipped the console entirely (though I’m now glad that I didn’t).

I decided to not take a Game Boy with me when I moved out on my own because 1) I had the Super Game Boy to play all of my Game Boy games, and 2) because in my mind they were owned by the family and not just me, though I now wish I had taken one because I suspect my brothers wouldn’t have missed them anyway. But at the time of the original model GBA releasing, I felt even less of an urge to keep one of the original Game Boys. 


Anyway, when it came to hardware, I was mainly missing variations of systems and a couple that needed replacing. The original NES and three Game Boys my family owned had long since been scrapped, so I bought an NES from a local store and a Game Boy from eBay. The other variations of things I needed include:

• the original “fatboy” DS
  
  
  
• DSi and DSi-XL
• 2DS and 2DS XL
• 3DSXL and NN3DS (the non-XL one)
• Game Boy Light (only sold in Japan)
• Game Boy Color, Pocket, and Micro
• SNES-101 (aka SNES Jr.)
• Wii Family Edition and Wii Mini
• Switch Lite

(like I said, it's mainly variations and revisions of stuff I already had)

While having boxes for each of these would be nice, I think I’m going to only get a couple of reproduction boxes for some of the main representatives (like getting a DS Lite box to represent the entire DS line).

I have procured more than half of the list, and at the moment I’m only in need of the Game Boy Pocket and Micro, the 2DS and 2DSXL, and the 3DSXL and NN3DS. As these are a bit more expensive, getting some of these is going to take a bit longer because I’ll have to save up my self-imposed allowance to pay for them. I anticipate editing this particular part somewhat often as I get closer to my collection goals. 

Since the N64, release dates have been pretty much simultaneous between Japan and North America, and the hardware has basically been identical. But I kinda think having a Famicom / Disk System and Super Famicom / Satellaview would be a nice piece to add in the future. (Update: Got everything including a Famicom, Famicom Disk System, Super Famicom, Satellaview, and a DD by Summer 2023)

And then finally, the last thing I’ll need is proper display shelving and space to put all of it in, as well as ways to hook them all up when needed. I figure once one of the kids move out and we can reclaim their bedroom I can turn it into a bit of a museum. But all of that is several years into the future so I have time to think about it.