http://gamelust.com/news/gamescom-2016-trailers/

This is just a notice for my followers. If you're interested in seeing all of the trailers from Gamescom from the official channels check out the page above. I'm going through and adding the video from official channels only. There will also be live streams on Twitch for Rise of Iron and from the show floor @ EA Games.

A TRULY UNIQUE EXPERIENCED THAT WILL BE SHARED BY TOO FEW.

Note: You can find part 1 and part 2 of this story on gamelust.com. I will also be writing a review of the Apple Pippin console based on my time with the 5 or 6 games I can play which will only be on that site. I will not be posting the review here.

The best part about collecting video games is that every collection is unique. Whether you have a small collection around 500 games, close to 4000 like I do, or a huge collection of 10,000 games or more. Every collection has at least one item that would sit rather high on another collectors wish list. Whether it’s a copy of ChronoTrigger or a highly sought after Pokemon game, there will always be another gamer out there looking at your collection thinking “I need that, and that, and OH, that’s nice!” For the serious collector, if you spend enough time and effort searching for your next great gaming experience, you will stumble upon a gaming ‘Holy Grail’ sooner or later.

The Apple Pippin @World is one of those Holy Grail gaming consoles that eludes many serious game collectors. Produced in low numbers by Bandai and Apple in 1996, less than 5000 are suspected to exist, even fewer complete and boxed. I believe I found my @World somewhere around 2006 while browsing Ebay, dreaming of all the items I would buy when I got rich. I happened to stumble upon a listing for an iMac for roughly $115 plus $20 for shipping. I couldn’t believe it! Some fool had listed an Apple Pippin @World, one of the most rare gaming consoles in existence, as an iMac. I envied the gamer who stumbled upon this piece of history knowing I could not afford the item, but this thought wouldn’t last long. I ended up buying the system anyway. When the Pippin arrived in the mail, I checked that the console powered up, ran a few cds on it to verify the laser was good, and packed everything away. I wouldn’t touch this console again for another 10 years.

Fast forward to the beginning of August, 2016. For the past 2 years I have been on a mission to find a black label copy of every original Xbox game released in the United States. A mission which has introduced me to many gamers throughout the region, as well as some of the really big time collectors near by. One of these collectors was intrigued to find out that I had an Apple Pippin in my collection. Though I’ve known him for a while now, our schedules never seemed to line up in a way that would allow us to participate in each others game nights. Until this past weekend.

Although I didn’t have any official software for the system I was able to burn quite a few iso’s from several popular Japanese titles, as well as a copy of the most sought after title, Super Marathon. I expected more gamers to show up, especially if they were aware I was bringing a console as rare as the @World. Unfortunately it was just me, the host, and his two cats & two dogs. We started the game night outside in his garage where the host and a mutual friend were closing up a garage sale they had during the day. I brought out the console before our mutual friend had to leave so that he could at least say he had seen one in person, but the mosquitoes started to get bothersome so we moved everything inside and went down to the game room.

Before we hooked up the Pippin, I had to check out his collection. I was now that guy looking at everything on the shelf pointing out the items I needed. He has me beat by about 30 consoles and 1000 games. It’s not just greater quantity, but quality titles as well. He owns at least 20-30 games of greater value than my most prized possession, my sealed copy of Conkers Bad Fur Day on N64. The rarest that I saw that night, a copy of Super Air Zonk for the Turbo Grafx Super CD system, valued well over $1000 for a single disc. But this is why I love seeing other peoples collections. He has some of the games that many consider a Holy Grail, games that are too expensive for my taste, where I have a few of the game consoles that are considered a Holy Grail.

So we finally got around to unboxing the console and hooking it up to his TV. Since the console is ultra rare, I decided that I would only pull out the main unit and controller, leaving the keyboard accessory packed snugly in it’s box. As I hooked the system up, we spent a few minutes talking about the design of the console itself. The machine is fairly heavy and was aesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately this did not translate to the controller. At this point I wasn’t sure what kind of games he liked, but I was sure I wanted to save Super Marathon for last. I offered the choice between several Mobile Suit Gundam games or Shockwave. Since Shockwave was also released on the 3DO, we decided to check that out since it would allow us to compare the two versions and give us a solid idea of how this console stacked up against the rest.

It took a little while to get used to the controller, there is only a d-pad to control movement and it is incredibly sensitive. Slight taps can turn your ship rather quickly and often made it hard to target enemies. This wasn’t much of a problem with the stationary enemies, but some of the flying enemies later on were nearly impossible to hit without flying in circles for a minute or two. We both spent about 15-30 minutes playing Shockwave, neither of us making it past the 3rd level. We both agreed that the controller wasn’t as terrible as we had thought, but wasn’t good either. Since the game was in Japanese neither of us really knew what we were supposed to do, and there weren’t any clear instructions on how to play the game, or which button performed what action. After some discussion about the potential of the system despite the limitations of the controller, it was time to check out the systems only Killer App. Super Marathon.

Whether you are a retro gamer or a modern gamer, chances are high you know of Bungie. Bungie have created several great franchises over the years, including Myth, Marathon, Halo, and most recently, Destiny. What you probably don’t know is that Bungies first console game was this rare gem released only for the Apple Pippin. Super Marathon is a bundle that contains the original Marathon plus its sequel, Marathon 2: Durandal. For the most part, these games are pure ports of the original Mac versions with some additional networking options added in. We tried to play this game using the controller, but the experience was frustrating and felt like it was being constrained by the controller itself. Too many typical FPS commands simply were not mapped to the controller, and those that were did not feel like they were placed correctly. But we weren’t ready to give up just yet, there had to be more to this game.

Then it dawned on us. What if you could use the keyboard to control the game? After all, it is a computer game, surely it allowed you to use the WASD keys to control something in the game. It turns out we were right. This game was meant to be played with the keyboard accessory instead of the controller. Once we got used to using a more traditional keyboard control scheme(minus the mouse), the game became much easier. Though it was still a challenge, it was not because we were having trouble with the controls. After the change, we were finally able to complete the first level of the game. Marathon was as good as advertised, but left us both feeling a bit sad. It took a while but we were now able to see the potential of the @World. Apple had created a monster of a gaming console. But a lackluster controller, poor games lineup, high cost and abysmal marketing doomed the console from the start. What could have been one of the great consoles of our time ended a complete disaster.

We ended the night the same way it began, talking about some of the great finds we have had over the years. Both of us having had similar stories, sometimes walking away with stacks of rare Playstation 1 games for $50 total. Both of us had a stack of Turbo Grafx 16 games that we picked up at the same store around the same time, maybe even donated by the same person. He would tell a story about finding a $500 game for under $10 at a thrift store, I’d follow it with a similar story of my own. Like two old friends reliving the years since they’d last hung out. As the event wrapped up, we both had the same feeling. We had just taken part in a gaming session that few will ever get to have, and wonder what the system would have been capable of with proper support.

While it makes us sad that the console did not get a chance to live up to it’s potential. We both came away excited to share our story of the time we played Super Marathon on a Pippin. A feat we estimate only a couple hundred have ever experienced. A rare club to be a part of for sure.

Welcome to one of the most rare gaming consoles you will ever set sight on. The picture below is of a extremely rare Apple Bandai PiPPiN @World playing a copy of Bungies Super Marathon.

Back in 1995, Apple made an attempt to break into the video game industry by licensing the PiPPiN technology to Bandai, attempting to use the same model employed by the popular 3do company. Due to poor marketing and a ridiculous $599 price tag, only about 5000 of these ever sold, most through Katz Media, who turned them into media players for corporations and distributed them in Europe.

I obtained this gaming console about 10 years ago from a man who was selling what he thought was iMac for somewhere in the vicinity of $135. He had no idea what he was sitting on was a very rare piece of gaming history, nor that it was worth far more than what he sold it for.

When you buy a gaming system like this one you are faced with some problems almost immediately. The main problem is software, where the hell do you find software for a console that was DOA? Needless to say there wasn't any, literally. The console I received was complete in box, had all of the manuals and pack-in discs, plus a modem, controller, and a keyboard with a touch screen and stylus. Seems as though Apple made some similar mistakes to modern day Microsoft. They built a gaming machine that was geared towards non-gaming applications. The pack-in cd's did not contain a game. Only a web browser, an introduction cd, and a tool called TV Works. Well, at least the bundle I got came this way.

Since I had no games, I really never tested the device. I plugged everything in, checked out the bundled non-gaming tools to verify it read discs, and put everything back in the box. But when you own a piece of gaming history, it can be a very interesting conversation starter(or ender) when talking with other collectors. We all love games with a greater than normal passion, but I have ran into other collectors who have seemed to be somewhat jealous that I own one.

So, why test this thing out now? Well, I tend to run into a lot of other game collectors while out hunting for games, and one of these guys wants me to bring the PiPPiN over for a game night with a bunch of other collectors. But I have no games! Well, sort of. I've been sitting on a folder full of iso's for about 20 or so PiPPiN games/apps since 2008, but I never once tried to burn any of them. Those who know me are aware that I refuse to use my launch PS3 to reduce the risk of breaking the early model console with full backwards compatibility. And many of us are well aware of how cdr's can drastically shorten the lifespan of a Dreamcast. So I never tried to burn any of these iso's. Well, it's been 10 years or more since I bought the console, and to this day, even with daily emails coming in from ebay with the newest listings, I have not yet been able to obtain a single US game disc for this console.

If I'm going to show up to this game night, I need to know this thing plays games. So I break out the old external hdd that holds my PiPPiN isos, dust off a few cd-rs, burn a copy of Super Marathon(Marathon 1 & 2), and pop it in the cd-tray of the PiPPiN. Much to my surprise, it worked on the first attempt. It's been a long journey to this point, and I'd love to find a legit copy of some of these games, but simply playing Marathon on a console has me excited to see how this console is received by the other collectors next weekend. More important to me, it may be an entry point into this group of gamers, some of whom might be interested in helping me grow gamelust. If anything it'll be a boost to my own gaming nights which could use some new blood as well. What used to be a monthly event has dropped to 3 or 4 times a year.

But for now, it's time to go play some Marathon. This aught to be fun.

I'll post an update next week after the event.

Everyone who knows me is quite aware that I am a passionate retro game collector. I love all of the gaming systems I own(over 70 now) and the majority of the 3100 games in my collection, but the Xbox was the first game console I bought myself, which guaranteed it a special place in my heart. When you have a collection as large as mine you tend to start setting goals to challenge yourself, for me it also helps to distract from the overwhelming task of maintaining this beast. So my current goal is to find and add 1 playable copy of every US released retail game on the original Xbox console, 884 in total(I am currently just under 500 so far). This leads me to spend probably way too many hours browsing Ebay for decent pickups to add to my collection. Lately though, my efforts to build my collection have been thwarted by a single ebay user using a sniping program to basically steal every decent ‘lot’ that I have been trying to buy so that they can take the games I need for my collection and sell them at twice their current value.

As a retro game collector I follow a few of the other big game collectors on YouTube, one of these is MetalJesusRocks(a big time PC game and vinyl collector). Metal Jesus is from the Seattle area which seems to be a hotbed for retro gaming, and as such has a ton of awesome guests on his show to help keep content fresh. One of the features of his show is that he answers questions from his subscribers on YouTube and patreon, and one of those recent questions was about where you could buy retro games online. One of the places they suggested was Lukie Games, which has outrageous prices on some of the hard to find Xbox games, $80 for a game that I have been watching on ebay go for $20-30. But they had some decent prices on some of the more common games I needed so I kept them in the back of my mind while I was hunting.

Fast forward to last week. I was quite upset to lose out on a bid to a bidder who clearly was not buying games to play them, but rather resell them at a higher cost. All I knew is that their name had a ‘g’ and an ‘a’ in it, and they had 421,541 feedback(no one buys that much on ebay). These resellers seek to profit from the hobby I enjoy so much. They scoop up all of the deals they can find in the name of the almighty dollar, at the expense of genuine game fans who might actually enjoy those games. They don’t care about the customer they just lost who might have spent hundreds of dollars in their store over the next couple of years, they only care that they just bought $450 worth of games that they can ‘markup’ to well over $1200.

In my frustration I decided to head over to Lukie Games ebay store to put a bunch of games in my cart so that I could say I at least got SOME games towards my current goal. Being so close to my goal I have started buying some of the games in alphabetical order, so I immediately jumped on Aeon Flux and went to add it to my cart. Except when I got to the listing I noticed something, this game store I was about to buy 10 or 20 games from had the exact same amount of feedback, 421,541. I go back to verify the number tied to the auction I just lost on, and it’s 421,542, I refresh the Aeon Flux listing and Lukie Games now has 421,542 feedback. So I close out their store page and vow not to buy from them again, hoping that is the end of it. Except it happens again, I try to go bigger, put in a $500 bid on a lot that had 16 games I needed with intent to increase my bid to $600 if necessary, yet once again a bidder with an ‘l’ and an ‘i’ in their name and 421,688 feedback swoops in with a two bids less than 1 second from auction end to take the games right out of my hands. I head over to their store page and sure enough, 421,688 feedback. The games I wanted would cost me $432.88 if I bought all 16 separately, and the other 10 games I didn’t need had a total value of about $200. These same games will now get listed on Lukies site for about $2000, or roughly $1270 profit for them, which is probably less than the amount of money they would have been getting from me.

Honestly I had no real intention to find this reseller who was trying to profit off of my love for gaming, and I figure that I will eventually get the games I want at a fair price, just not a Lukie Games prices. What Lukie Games is doing though is price gouging. They are buying up the hard to find retro games and driving the price to 200-300% of their current value. I understand that they are a business and need to make a profit, but if you buy a game for $20 I don’t expect to pay $89.99 to buy that same item. Most honest game stores will tell you straight up they’re paying 50% for what they can sell it for, if you bring them a $30 game, they will pay you $15 and sell it for $30, not $90.

I’m sure they’ll sell those games to someone, and I feel sorry for that person, because they’re being ripped off in the name of pure greed. But it won’t be me, and I hope it won’t be any of you. If you want to collect retro games, do your research so you don’t get screwed over by greedy resellers like Lukie Games.

/endrant