This weekend I spent some time at one of the weirder shrines to capitalism I’ve ever attended. Held in the same halls where geeks gather for PAX Australia, Collect Fest recently brought its Ebay-backed swathes of stalls to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. With booths from hobbyists of all stripes from sneakers to film reels, the event lined MCEC with stall after stall of consumerism temptations. Well, unless you’re a PC gamer.
Amongst the floods of Pokémon cards, I rather naïvely was hoping to find a treasure trove of old PC hardware to wax nostalgic over. Instead, the event was practically devoid of the best gaming platform. There was plenty of other bits, especially for retro console fans, but PC was shockingly under represented amongst the stalls.
I visited four stalls dedicated to videogame goods and poured over their offerings of older games and revamped consoles. Each generation was represented from the early days of gaming right up to last week, but the retro appeal was clear. Collectors of all ages grouped up around me to thumb through the boxes of caseless cartridges. Some did so while exchanging gleeful conversations with these stallholders over the early days of gaming, and others were laser-focussed hunting for gold amongst the shovelware.
All of the shops had boxes of old consoles with the likes of Xbox, Nintendo, Sega PlayStation, and Atari all represented in at least some capacity. But PC hardware was almost completely skipped over. Everywhere I looked there were boxes brimming with console nostalgia, but one of the only PCs I found was a Tandy TRS-80 Computer in a glass cabinet, complete with two joysticks and a cassette drive for nearly $400 Australian Dollerydoos from Hard Copy.
I noticed each of these shops prominently featured gorgeously modded GameBoys from original to advanced SPs as well as DS of all generations. They sport enhancements like stunning OLED screens and sell for between $200 and $400 sitting at pride of place in front of the stalls. Though of course, you could always buy one of the untouched units and mod it yourself.
I asked at the first stall, Nexus Toys and Collectables what the best sellers were and these Nintendos portables were easily the winners. After talking to several other stall holders, it became clear that these modded handhelds were king for hardware collectors at this event.
All of these stalls pointed to the Nintendo handhelds as bringing in the most interest, and sales. “One girl came over not long ago and got two of each” said the stallholders at 56Bits “She spent over $1,000 just on old handhelds”.
When I asked about PC hardware, and even software it seemed it just wasn’t worth most folks’ time to stock it. A combination of lack of demand and high prices make stocking PC gear too much of a headache and not worth the space in the storeroom. When it comes to games, the consensus was that there’s just not much interest as most are still downloadable in some form, and only hugely popular items like HalfLife have the demand to sell physical copies.
As I ventured further out into the expo I found comics, tabletop gaming paraphernalia, and more Pokemon cards than I’d even thought possible, but almost nothing by way of PC gaming. If you’re after anything Nintendo, retro consoles, or trading cards then Collect Fest might be worth a look, but collectors of both PC hardware and software are going to be left wanting.