So I bought an early bird ticket online and got there for 9:45am. When I joined the queue I saw a face in front of me and thought hmm he looks familiar. Got a bit closer and found it was Matt aka SoulFunkRetro (try some of his videos) great guy talked to him while I waited the 10 minutes in the queue. One thing they finally got right this year which really surprised me was they had people outside before the doors opened handing out the wrist bands for people who had bought tickets in advance (paying on the door didn't start til 11am). So when the doors opened at 10am almost everyone who was there just walked straight in the door without delay.
Once in the door things went down hill fast. First stop was the sellers and omg the prices were mostly insane making ebay look reasonable for rare stuff. There didn't seem to be as many sellers as usual this time either, I went with a couple of hundred determined to buy some of the more pricey games for my collection but balked when I saw what was being asked for the few good titles I actually came across. PS1/2 RPG's, Zelda's stuff like that were all 20-40% over priced compared to ebays recently sold prices, the only seller with more exotic formats was Console Passion but even their glass case barely had anything rare in it. They did have Bonk's Adventure which I bought for a nice price, but then realised it was an American HuCard and I have a Japanese Turbo Duo (ph#?!) so I took it back and they gave me a refund. There was one other guy who seemed to be an independent seller who did have a lot of good stuff but I was not remotely entertaining his prices. He had Zelda Oracle of Ages and Seasons loose carts for sale, while I was at Play an auction ended for both of them in one sale on ebay and he wanted that price for each of them.
Merchandise sellers seemed to have taken over most of the sellers floor space especially cos play stuff like large swords from games and other thing like that. A huge area for board games was there as well which I hadn't seen in the past with large groups of people playing D&D and other such variations. There was a cos play stage which attracted a huge crowd at one point and i'm talking all the way around it (about 100ft) 5-6 people deep, i'm 6'2" and could barely see over the crowd to see what was going on!
The arcade section was quite good as usual but didn't seem like there was as much there as normal with some of the notable larger cabs missing such as Ridge Racer. I did see Rave Racer there though which was the first time i'd seen that one. Pinball section was large and always packed, seems there is a lot of real pinball fans like to attend these events (I prefer my pinball on the Amiga!). The console section was a bit bare too, the common machines were all present but there was some glaring gaps where rarer machines should have been. No sign of a Sharp X68000 for example (I was really wanting to play with one as well to convince me to buy one), don't think I saw the Apple Pippin or even a Neo Geo CD either. I did see an Amiga 4000D though which was a first at one of these shows that i've seen.
Walking around though there was large areas of floor space totally bare, it was as if companies were booked but didn't show up and i'm talking large chunks of space like 40x60-70 feet in some places. There was no sign of companies like Nintendo, Konami or EA which had massive stands in previous years, there was quite a few PS4's set up and there was one new game with a decent stand (name escapes me right now). There was a few talks on Saturday but none interested me, I only recognised the name of Biffo the old Digitiser guy from teletext who did a talk in the afternoon. It seemed like there was far less people there than in previous years too - when I went to the toilet and there was no queue!. I think interest in this event has started to fade quickly. It didn't help the Amibay crew weren't there either, I always look forward to seeing Merlin fix something while i'm there but nothing this show
I managed to last 6 hours before I had had enough this year, last year I thought I would give it a miss this time and now after today I will not being going back next year. I'll just be sticking to NERG as it's on my doorstep in Gateshead. Play was brilliant in 2013 with loads happening (the pro gamers were funny to watch with their groupies cheering them on lol) and it has steadily got worse every year since. I couldn't recommend traveling any distance to this event unless it picks up again or you don't have a very big collection and want to play some machines you don't own.
I intend to spend the money I took to Play on ebay (probably buy it now items from Japan) as the prices are cheaper than at the expo's these days. It's just total madness with pound signs in the eyes of all the vendors, the problem is joe public are paying it (I saw a certain PS1 shooter I want sell for £48 in front of me which I could go and get for £30 BIN on the other bay right now). Most of the games I want these days are more expensive so I think I will just pick them off as BIN's as and when instead of looking for deals at these events.
I've went on long enough now, well done if you made it to the end lol
Once in the door things went down hill fast. First stop was the sellers and omg the prices were mostly insane making ebay look reasonable for rare stuff. There didn't seem to be as many sellers as usual this time either, I went with a couple of hundred determined to buy some of the more pricey games for my collection but balked when I saw what was being asked for the few good titles I actually came across. PS1/2 RPG's, Zelda's stuff like that were all 20-40% over priced compared to ebays recently sold prices, the only seller with more exotic formats was Console Passion but even their glass case barely had anything rare in it. They did have Bonk's Adventure which I bought for a nice price, but then realised it was an American HuCard and I have a Japanese Turbo Duo (ph#?!) so I took it back and they gave me a refund. There was one other guy who seemed to be an independent seller who did have a lot of good stuff but I was not remotely entertaining his prices. He had Zelda Oracle of Ages and Seasons loose carts for sale, while I was at Play an auction ended for both of them in one sale on ebay and he wanted that price for each of them.
Merchandise sellers seemed to have taken over most of the sellers floor space especially cos play stuff like large swords from games and other thing like that. A huge area for board games was there as well which I hadn't seen in the past with large groups of people playing D&D and other such variations. There was a cos play stage which attracted a huge crowd at one point and i'm talking all the way around it (about 100ft) 5-6 people deep, i'm 6'2" and could barely see over the crowd to see what was going on!
The arcade section was quite good as usual but didn't seem like there was as much there as normal with some of the notable larger cabs missing such as Ridge Racer. I did see Rave Racer there though which was the first time i'd seen that one. Pinball section was large and always packed, seems there is a lot of real pinball fans like to attend these events (I prefer my pinball on the Amiga!). The console section was a bit bare too, the common machines were all present but there was some glaring gaps where rarer machines should have been. No sign of a Sharp X68000 for example (I was really wanting to play with one as well to convince me to buy one), don't think I saw the Apple Pippin or even a Neo Geo CD either. I did see an Amiga 4000D though which was a first at one of these shows that i've seen.
Walking around though there was large areas of floor space totally bare, it was as if companies were booked but didn't show up and i'm talking large chunks of space like 40x60-70 feet in some places. There was no sign of companies like Nintendo, Konami or EA which had massive stands in previous years, there was quite a few PS4's set up and there was one new game with a decent stand (name escapes me right now). There was a few talks on Saturday but none interested me, I only recognised the name of Biffo the old Digitiser guy from teletext who did a talk in the afternoon. It seemed like there was far less people there than in previous years too - when I went to the toilet and there was no queue!. I think interest in this event has started to fade quickly. It didn't help the Amibay crew weren't there either, I always look forward to seeing Merlin fix something while i'm there but nothing this show
I managed to last 6 hours before I had had enough this year, last year I thought I would give it a miss this time and now after today I will not being going back next year. I'll just be sticking to NERG as it's on my doorstep in Gateshead. Play was brilliant in 2013 with loads happening (the pro gamers were funny to watch with their groupies cheering them on lol) and it has steadily got worse every year since. I couldn't recommend traveling any distance to this event unless it picks up again or you don't have a very big collection and want to play some machines you don't own.
I intend to spend the money I took to Play on ebay (probably buy it now items from Japan) as the prices are cheaper than at the expo's these days. It's just total madness with pound signs in the eyes of all the vendors, the problem is joe public are paying it (I saw a certain PS1 shooter I want sell for £48 in front of me which I could go and get for £30 BIN on the other bay right now). Most of the games I want these days are more expensive so I think I will just pick them off as BIN's as and when instead of looking for deals at these events.
I've went on long enough now, well done if you made it to the end lol
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