20th Century Gamer

Since I was in the area, I figured why not stop by one of our local Play ‘n Trade franchises. This store is particularly well run, both clean and organized. I try not to visit too often because of the temptation to overspend. I told myself that a few Genesis games shouldn’t cost much, so with limitations in place my financial conscience was silenced and justification for the visit was complete.

The Play ‘n Trade was surprisingly busy for a Monday morning. I wondered why all of these people weren’t at work, then remembered that I wasn’t at work, either. For many their summer vacations would soon be over, so people were trying to squeeze in as much as they could. Vacation and gaming are a natural team.

I’m not sure if it was my attention deficit or the jostling customers, but perusing the merchandise was more difficult than usual. Even staking territory by kneeling in front of the Genesis case for several minutes had not been as effective as I had hoped. With legs asleep and no decisions made, I decided to walk around and get my circulation restarted.

My eye wandered between many games and systems. Then, as though guided by the powers that be, a throng of customers parted and revealed a PlayStation controller I didn’t recognize. I walked over to take a closer look.

The PlayStation Analog Joystick was shown on the box as a larger-than-average tabletop controller, with two flight-style joysticks and large buttons on the base. I moved to a less busy part of the store for inspection. What was this PlayStation beastie and why had I never seen one before?

The photo on the box didn’t do this controller justice. The 4 face buttons, 4 shoulder buttons, start, select, and analog/digital switch were on the base. Each joystick had triggers and buttons duplicating those on the base. The right joystick had an additional thumbstick. This controller was a sleek-yet-freakish exercise in redundancy, as though it was plucked from a Dr. Seuss story about buttons on top of buttons and joysticks on top of joysticks. What convinced me to buy it was the silky smooth joystick movement that felt well above average for console controls. I could forgo buying any Genesis games, instead spending the $20 on the boxed PlayStation Analog Joystick, and not feel guilty about the purchase.

It wasn’t until I got home and did some research that I realized how lucky I was to find this controller, especially for that price. The PlayStation Analog Joystick was popular in Japan, but it wasn’t available for as long in the US and comparatively few were sold. The original $70 retail price certainly didn’t help sales.

Instead of switches, potentiometers were used to detect joystick position. This created smooth and precise analog control, but more extreme movements were necessary when used in digital mode. Unfortunately, few PlayStation games at the time read analog input, so the clunky digital mode was necessary to play most games. A brief review of the Analog Joystick appears on page 20 of the September 1996 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly. Aside from the price, the biggest complaint was the limited selection of analog games. Dan Hsu’s conclusion was, “Wait for Sony to (hopefully) build a hand-sized analog controller like Nintendo and Sega.” Sony must have agreed, because the Analog Joystick was replaced by the Dual Analog Controller less than a year after its US release.

It may be only a minor footnote in gaming history, but playing the Analog Joystick is a great experience. The mid-1990s was when consoles were finally able to reproduce even the most sophisticated arcade titles. Home versions of the 3D arcade hits Ridge Racer and Virtua Fighter sold millions of PlayStation and Saturn consoles. Likewise, the PlayStation Analog Joystick brought the solid quality of arcade controls to the home in a crossover device that is unique to its time. Discovering comparatively unsuccessful oddities like this controller is part of what makes collecting fun.

Within a 10 mile radius of our home, there are 12 corporate game stores and 3 franchises — but not a single independent. It appears that for now, the mega corporation has won the hearts, minds, and dollars of the masses. We’re interested in more than the last few years of gaming, so the corporate stores don’t meet many of our needs. Whenever possible, we check out independent stores to fill in the gaps. We recently visited Video Game Heaven in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Merchandise was grouped by game system. We loved the well-lit organized glass display cases that showed off the wide selection and made rare titles easy to spot. Aisles were wide enough to make everything easy to see and accessible. It was especially nice not to have to dive through grimy and disheveled bins.

Used systems were clean, tested, and paired with cables and controllers. Those that weren’t in original boxes were shrinkwrapped into bundles. These were merchandised neatly and efficiently, again making it easy to select the items for purchase. The packaging inspired confidence in their used systems and lead us to believe that our purchase would work when we got home — a feeling we don’t get from dingy stores, pawn shops, flea markets, or yard sales.

Employees, and not just the owners, knew their inventory. The generation-Nintendo staff were willing to discuss other systems, even systems that were released before they were born. If they did not know the answer to a question, they went off to find an answer instead of making things up.

At checkout the guy behind the counter noticed that the jewel case for one of the PlayStation games we were buying was cracked. He offered to replace the case for free before even ringing the item up.

Overall, our shopping experience was excellent. They not only had a wide selection of new and old video games, but they knew how to run a store well. We appreciated the prices, cleanliness, merchandising, customer service, and the efficiency at checkout. It was great to visit a video game store that respected their merchandise enough that we didn’t have to spend hours cleaning our purchases once we got home. It’s a few miles out of the way, but we recommend Video Game Heaven as an addition to your Virginia Beach vacation plans.

O’Shea Limited started in 1975 as a retailer for product closeouts. In 1991, O’Shea purchased 3 million of Atari’s unsold games at auction. Over the years there have been a number of other items in their inventory, but they are best known for their Atari stock. O’Shea’s inventory takes up 22,000 square feet of a limestone mine in Kansas City, Missouri that was converted to warehouse space. Limestone mines are great for storage because their geology makes them naturally climate controlled, so those decades old electronics and packaging remain in better shape than when stored in attics or basements.

Atari interest and collecting has cycled over the years, evident by the extensive magazine coverage O’Shea received in 2000. According to the July 2000 issue of Wired Magazine, back then the cartridges sold for 80¢ each. Examination of the Wired photos shows boxed Atari Jaguar CD consoles, which must have been a later addition to O’Shea’s inventory because the Jaguar CD wasn’t publicly available until 1995.

Over the years the prices have gone up to compensate for storage costs. A few years ago the games were $2 apiece, now they are $5. With more than half the original inventory sold, the selection in 2009 isn’t as robust as it once was. The Jaguar hardware and games are gone, although there are still a few dozen 2600 and 7800 titles to choose from.

We only started collecting Atari games and hardware in the last few years, so we missed that first big wave of Atari interest and O’Shea’s 80¢ prices. Even so, it is exciting to experience brand new, factory sealed games from so many years ago. Ordering from O’Shea was easy, the shipping was reasonable, and the games arrived in a week.

If you’re looking for Atari games, be sure to stop by O’Shea to see if they have anything you want. We found the same titles selling on auction sites for the same price or more, so you might as well get them factory sealed from a reliable source.