TwoCredits

In college between four geeks we had every system from Atari 2600 to the original Xbox. All I can say is cable ties. Lots of cable ties! LOL

I wish I had a photo of the setup, but we used cable ties to link bundles together and switch boxes for anything we could run through A/V cables.

Good Luck!

I just emulate anything pre-PS2. I know that's not perfect for you but I play games for the games... not battling with crappy old hardware and uncomfortable controllers =)

I've got... well for the most part... the cabling system handled. I'm hoping to upgrade that in the future to a real A/V receiver to reduce the amount of work necessary to go from a modern console to the dark ages.

Oli,
A big part of this project is the authentic experience, but that hasn't actually ruled out emulation. In the process, I've converted an original NES controller to USB, picked up an SNES controller to USB adapter, and an N64 to USB adapter that even supports the rumble pack.

The hunt and work for this... you know, the journey... is a big part of it though. I was able to pick up the NES and an unbelievable collection of games for very little money, but it was completely busted ass and literally had bugs living inside of it (and a smushed roach in the bottom of the copy of Robocop, haha). Repairing it, cleaning it and the controllers up, and searching for classic games that I loved and ones I missed out on has really brought the experience to a whole new level.

The real issue I'm having isn't so much cabling or getting the consoles, but what to do with them in the damn living room. I mean, my TV stand has 2 undersized (can't even fit standard 19" equipment in them) compartments and a single larger one where the cable box lives. All the ingenuity in the world has barely squeezed 4 consoles, an Apple TV, the cable box, and the A/V switch in (and under) there.

Thanks for the responses guys.

and a smushed roach in the bottom of the copy of Robocop

Just blow on the contacts... Always worked for me =)

I guess your only real solution to keep this clean is a giant cabinet - under or next to the TV.

Yeah.

I considered shelfing too... both wall shelving and a bookshelf type setup next to the tv, but it seemed like it would be oddly disproportionate

Are you saying you want each hooked to the TV and made playable instantly or just organizing them to display?

Attached and playable. That's what makes it difficult for me to figure out.

I planned out how to physically wire it together, getting the most out of each console A/V wise from the start, but I can't figure out where to put the damn things while they're hooked up. Right now I can jump from the 360 to the NES... about as drastic a difference as it comes in terms of video and audio hookups... all but effortlessly, but the floor around the TV stand looks like a garage sale.

My recommendation to you, would be to get a Media Center of some sort, a Mac Mini or a Windows Media Center mini-pc, hook up some USB controllers to it, and run games off of emulators.

But if you really want to make many consoles attached and playable you will need a special kind of power multiplier, since most of those classic consoles have power "bricks". In your case, I recommend a PowerSquid.

As to how you can properly organize them, my recommendation would be to only have 1 or 2 consoles out and plugged in, and leave the rest of the power, and TV, cables "ready" in case you want to quickly switch.

By "ready" I mean have them in a way that you can quickly pull the right cable and attach a console very quick. This means that you'll have to tag all of the tables, and I recommend that you do so on both ends of them.

You could also try to get some kind of "switch" to change the TV cables, but I have no idea where to search for one, or how much they could cost (but it probably won't be cheap).

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of my setup, because I only have two consoles at the moment (the Wii and the PS2), all of the older consoles are packed in their boxes, and every now and then I load the ROMs and play them on my PC.

That's actually a really solid idea Griffith, especially because a number of consoles use interchangeable A/V cables, and there are a number of aftermarket cables that do multiple consoles. I'd still have to have an insane number of power bricks, but I could probably cable tie the necessary cables for each console together so that they could be swapped out easily.

I do actually play all of them, so I'd still have to find a way to store them and their accessories within easy reach, but it opens up a lot of options since they no longer have to be within cords (and by cords I mean, hidden cords at that, haha) reach of the TV at all times.

Also, I do use a PowerSquid in my setup right now. Probably going to swap out the other power strip back there for another one pretty soon. Considering the massive size of some of those bricks (running the CDX with the 32X alone is enough to make at least 4 slots on a normal strip worthless), it'll reduce the wasted bits.

You're welcome, and thanks for the points :)

I just have an NES on top of my VCR... :)

I'm old skoolz...

I use a table.