Stuff that, back when you were in the economic clutches of your parents, you could but dream of having.
For me, there were several. The Dreamcast was the first, then the PS2, back in the early 2000s
More recently, I’ve been completely enthralled by the Amiga and what it offered back in the late 80s. That’s a system that was never available around my parts (Brazil), even as a clone product or contraband
Only rich kids had a Neo Geo or Turbo Grfx-16.
We were far from rich.
Ah I coveted the Neo Geo. I would gaze longingly at screenshots in CVG magazine and dream of having one.
Now I have a multicart for my Jamma cab and I can play pretty much any Neo Geo game I want. Turns out, apart from Viewpoint, metal slug and a few others I tend to prefer other systems.
A friend of mine had the Turbo Grfx-16 and I was extremely envious. At the time it was probably the only one in our tiny town and I would go over to his house and play it. Years later he was extremely jealous when I snatched up a Neo Geo Pocket. Everyone was playing Gameboy but Neo Geo Pocket had some amazing games but no marketing. Luckily I managed to snag a bunch of game sfor cheap at a used game store so I ended up playing it well into 2010 when it was finally destroyed by accident.
That’s odd, I thought the TurboGrafx was cheaper than the snes and Genesis.
I guess it was around the same price although it released in a different year. I guess I equated rarity to price. I think they were late to the game and had a small game catalog.
I had a Commodore 64 and really really wanted an Amiga. Saw all the games for the Amiga and Atari ST in magazines and wept. It wasn’t really available in my country so I didn’t know anyone with one but even if it was available we wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
I was in the UK last month and went to the computer history museum in Cambridge. They have working versions of every single computer and console ever and you can play with them.
It was great nostalgia to use a ZX Spectrum, my trusty VIC-20 and C64 again. But there it was… An Amiga 500. I played a bit and the graphics and sounds still blew me away now in 2023 as a late 40s middle aged man. It was everything I dreamed it would be.
100% recommend.
I had an Amiga 500. It was great and I felt very fortunate to have one when I was a teenager. At some point, you could either buy the Amiga 500 mini or get a refurbished one. There is a nice community of Amiga enthusiasts who buy and sell hardware and also share software online, along with sharing emulators. This year for my birthday I might buy myself an Amiga 500 mini. I miss my old one, which is long dead and never coming back.
The Sega CDX. I had a Genesis, I had a Sega CD, but the thought of having both of those systems combined into one compact unit that also could be used as a discman (a really bad one, even I knew that at the time) was so appealing to me. There was one at the local game store for some absurd price ($350 I think) for literally years, and I would salivate over it every time I went in the store.
Ultimately I never got one, but at least I didn’t miss out on any games or anything.
The Steel Battalion sim controller setup for the original Xbox.
As laughable as it sounds, the Sega 32X. I was a Genesis kid and one birthday my parents bought me Star Wars Arcade not understanding that it required the 32X to play. I kept telling them that the game wouldn’t work without it (even showing them that it wouldn’t fit in the regular Genesis slot) and they kept insisting that I must be doing something wrong or that I could just cut the corners off the cartridge to make it fit. So I wanted the 32X to play Star Wars, as well as this strange Knuckles game I kept hearing about (which I know is Knuckles’ Chaotix). Never ended up getting one. Got an N64 soon after, much better decision.
