Saudi man earns world record for 444 game consoles hooked to one TV

ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net to RetroGaming@lemmy.world – 73 points –
Saudi man earns world record for 444 game consoles hooked to one TV
arstechnica.com

Lots of classic systems!

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Those of us who collect classic game consoles and computers (here's looking at you, AI reporter Benj Edwards) know the difficulty of keeping all that hardware not just working but instantly accessible with a simple press of a power button.

Meh, the answer is money. With money it's easy.

I mean with rf based consoles it's easy to just put a bunch of T's on the coax but HDMI would require a massive HDMI switcher.

You could probably chain some smaller HDMI switches together. Not sure what the practical limit would be or when lag would get noticable, though.

I can already hear the 60 cycle ground loop hum that he'll never be able to track down.

I feel bad for the person who only has 443 game consoles hooked to one TV.

I think I’d rather deal with the inconvenience of hooking them up when I need, than the anxiety that I’m living with a fire hazard like this.

I have a bunch of different old consoles and vintage computers (not "444" of course) and used to try to have them all hooked up, it was such a miserable rats nest of wires. I eventually settled on just using one at a time (I am only human, after all).

Whatever I'm playing gets the prime hookup spot in front of the TV, everything else gets stored neatly on a shelf or in a box. Cables and controllers are in individually labelled zipper storage bags, in bin drawers, out of sight until they are needed...

Of course, hooking them all up is a hobby itself... It's easy to go down a rabbit hole of scalers and SCART switches and RGB mods and then you suddenly find yourself a couple thousand dollars poorer.

I wonder when he last sat down and really played a game for an afternoon. Now that everything is plugged in and ready to go at the push of a few (spreadsheet-tracked) buttons, he has finally overcome all the difficulty of switching consoles and can now play through all the games he's been wanting to play. Right? Right?

I don't think he actually wants to play any game, I think the satisfaction comes from having all the consoles and making them all worrk together.

It's more a collectors high thand a gamer's.

Oh jebuz the signal degradation jumping through so many connectors and adaptors...

Does he have 444 controllers hooked up well? Not really that useful if not.

888 controllers, gotta be ready for multi player

Now, if you feel that the bare minimum is enough, then okay. But some people choose to play four-player Smash Bros. and we encourage that, okay? You do want to play four-player Smash, don't you?

Or 8 player, wii U is already retro 😄 (not vintage, but retro)

Well I just doubled it. I don't have the information on what each console's ports are to do the real math... I guess over 1000 would probably be close since everything from the past 20 years has had at least 4 and some NES had 4 player as well with a adapter.

1 more...

spreadsheets?

THIS IS WHAT AI WAS MADE FOR. Figuring out the path of least degradation for each console/connection, and managing it's connectivity.