The bulk of any Electronic Entertainment Expo is spent paying attention to the new—the upcoming games, all-new or redesigned consoles, and new services (or policies) that will soon change the way you play.
Tucked away in a corner of the south convention hall, though, is the antithesis of E3. It's an assemblage of old arcade cabinets, classic consoles hooked to standard-definition TVs, and gaming curios that you may never have heard of let alone seen. It's an exhibition of hardware, software, and collectibles put together by the Videogame History Museum. Even if the next big high-definition shooter games hold no appeal for you, you'll get a kick out of all the great stuff they've gathered together here. Take a look at just a small subsection of what they had at the show.
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Large portions of the Videogame History Museum's sprawling booth were dedicated to playable old-school console games. The authenticity of that horrible 70s couch is impressive.Andrew Cunningham
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A wide variety of arcade cabinets were also set up—the light gun cabinets (not pictured) were some of the most popular.Andrew Cunningham
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Games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Star Fox 64 were also playable on the floor.Andrew Cunningham
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The rarities the VGH museum had on display were some of the most interesting stuff in the booth—here, an attendee plays Wario Land on a retail display unit for Nintendo's Game Boy.Andrew Cunningham
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It wasn't all about the games and the hardware, though—there were many tables packed with old, rare, and weird gaming merchandise.Andrew Cunningham
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Quench your thirst with an ancient can of Super Mario Lemonado!Andrew Cunningham
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We're all used to game achievements now, but Activision was a real pioneer here. Each of these patches could be won by achieving certain goals in Activision games, photographing your TV screen, and mailing the photo in. Atari Age has an excellent roundup of the patches and the actions needed to get them.Andrew Cunningham
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Magnavox's Odyssey was one of the very first home video game consoles. Unlike later consoles, all of the games the Odyssey could play were built into the hardware. Switchable "cards" didn't contain any game code, but rather switched between the console's built-in titles.Andrew Cunningham
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The Atari 2600 (originally sold as the Atari Video Computer System, or VCS) was by far the most popular console of its era. It did much to popularize switchable cartridge-based games. Despite many efforts, Atari would never again replicate its success.
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Everyone wanted a piece of the lucrative home console market in the late 70s and early 80s. Under its "Tele-games" brand, Sears released a number of cartridge-less consoles (pictured) as well as a full-blown Atari 2600 clone.Andrew Cunningham
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Mattel's Intellivision was one of the more prominent Atari 2600 competitors. Mattel also manufactured a number of peripherals for the system, including a voice synthesis module and an add-on that changed it into a basic computer.Andrew Cunningham
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1982's Coleco Vision was hailed at the time for its accurate ports of arcade hits (including a licensed pack-in of Donkey Kong).Andrew Cunningham
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The Commodore 64, introduced in 1982, was fairly popular both as a computer and as a game console, but aggressive pricing helped to accelerate the 1983 video game market crash in the US.Andrew Cunningham
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Americans are used to the gray, boxy version of the Nintendo Entertainment system, but the Japanese NES (called the Family Computer, or Famicom) looked more like a cross between a spaceship and a Transformer. It also featured cradles for its two, built-in controllers.Andrew Cunningham
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Giving a third-party a license to clone your console would be unheard of now, but that's just what Nintendo did for Sharp's Twin Famicom. The Japan-only system combined the Famicom and the Famicom Disk System (a Japan-only expansion) into a single unit.Andrew Cunningham
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Not all of Nintendo's efforts were destined for the Famicom's success. The eye-straining VirtualBoy was discontinued with little fanfare less than a year after its 1995 release.Andrew Cunningham
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Things like Sony's Move and Nintendo's Circle Pad Pro are odd accessories, but they're not without precedent. The Sega Sports Pad, made for the original Sega Master System, trades out the D-pad for a trackball.Andrew Cunningham
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After some success with the Master System and Genesis consoles, Sega began to get itself into trouble by releasing expansion hardware (like the Sega CD and 32X) and then dropping support for them shortly after. This unreleased "Neptune" prototype would have combined the Genesis and 32X into one piece of hardware.Andrew Cunningham
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By the turn of the millennium, Sega's fortunes had fallen to the point where it couldn't compete with Nintendo and console newcomers like Sony and Microsoft. The Dreamcast, while well-remembered by some, was Sega's last console hardware.Andrew Cunningham
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Speaking of Microsoft, here's a special edition Mountain Dew-branded version of the first Xbox. It's just as gigantic as you remember.Andrew Cunningham
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Sony's contemporaneous PlayStation 2 also saw some special-edition releases—this "European Automobile Collection" edition of the console was announced to celebrate the sale of 20 million PS2s.Andrew Cunningham
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The Game Boy Advance SP, here shown in a number of special editions, was Nintendo's first widely popular backlit Game Boy, but it wasn't the first.Andrew Cunningham
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That honor goes to the Game Boy Light, a modified (and Japan-only) version of the Game Boy Pocket with a frontlit screen. This particular model is a special edition made for Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu.Andrew Cunningham
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Nintendo's unreleased Star Fox 2 was never actually finished, but it was so near completion that the fan community has patched its bugs and created authentic-looking cartridges and packaging for it. Many elements from this game later made it into Star Fox 64.Andrew Cunningham
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This rare cartridge, of which only 116 were produced, was given out to competitors in a 1990 game championship held by Nintendo. In the rare events when these cartridges have been sold, they commonly fetch more than $10,000.Andrew Cunningham
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This immense multi-cartridge Famicom Box was sold to stores and hotels looking to offer playable NES games to their clientele.Andrew Cunningham
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Our last stop at the booth was an in-store demo kiosk for the Atari 800, a computer and game system that originally shipped with 8KB of RAM.Andrew Cunningham
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The Atari 800 featured a full keyboard and two cartridge slots. The cheaper (and thus more popular) Atari 400 had the same 8KB of RAM but used a membrane keyboard and had only one cartridge slot.Andrew Cunningham
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Gaming Editor Kyle Orland gives the Atari 800 version of Pitfall 2 a spin.Andrew Cunningham
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If you appreciate what the VGH Museum is doing, you can donate to them via their website to support their efforts.Andrew Cunningham
Listing image by Andrew Cunningham
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