Misfits

Since I didn’t grow up with video games, I didn’t get much chance to play them – just minimal amounts on rare occasion – until I was an adult. Even then, the idea of collecting them didn’t occur to me till at least 2009 when I’d purchased the SNES and Sega Genesis at the yard sale in Ohio. In addition, the idea of becoming a serious collector didn’t start till roughly 2014. The bulk of my collection was obtained within the past four years when I could afford to spend more money on games and consoles.

Due to this, nearly every system and game I own was purchased used. Even with owning the latest consoles, which were bought new, I will almost never pay full price for a game. Many of them are in new condition – particularly for the Switch – but I don’t pay the typical $60 MSRP. In fact, my PlayStation 4 and Xbox One S were bought at a steep discount, thanks to various sales. My Switch cost the full price, but I didn’t pay it all at once. The same can be said for my recently obtained Xbox Series X, which is currently being paid for via All Access Pass. In terms of my handhelds, only one was bought brand new: my cobalt Game Boy Advance SP, purchased in late 2004. All the other consoles and handhelds I own, which number rather high, were bought used.

With that said, because these systems were purchased second-hand, there are occasional… issues, so to speak, that can arise from searching for older consoles. Let me elaborate. When looking for a used console, say, a Sega Dreamcast, one can look on eBay for the arguably lowest price. However, what’s the first thing to pop up on the listings after cords, controllers and related accessories?

Broken consoles.

Whilst I’ve personally never searched for a Dreamcast on eBay – I bought mine from a used game store in Pennsylvania in 2017 as a sort of congratulations on finishing college – I have looked for different consoles and handhelds and have had to wade through page after page after page of “For Parts or Repair” listings until I find one that actually works. Even then, I’m forced to look through at least another page of “defective” systems until I come across one that doesn’t look like it’s been dropped from a second-story window or doesn’t have dead pixels on the screen.

Now, to get to the meat and potatoes of this thing, I’ll point out the systems I’ll be referring to were not purchased on sites like eBay. Only one was an online purchase but it was through a trusted seller on Instagram. I also didn’t notice the pattern right away, but it is a rather interesting one.

What do I mean?

I seem to be a bit of a buyer of “misfit” consoles.

They’re not “broken”, in the simplest form of the word, only that they… work differently, shall we say. The first misfit console I bought was an Xbox 360 S from the used game store in Pennsylvania in January 2017. The owner realised the console had a defective disc drive – it could still play disc-based games, but one would have to take the end of a paperclip, wedge it between the disc tray and console, and jimmy it around whilst pressing the eject button multiple times to get the tray to come out. The owner was dismayed at this discovery, since it meant either a repair he wouldn’t be able to do, or he’d have to pay someone else to do it and wouldn’t make the lost money back.

When he told me about this, I said, “Heck, I’ll buy it. I’ve been wanting a 360.”

He sold it to me at a discount, grateful for the easy sale. I still have to jimmy the disc drive to get the tray to open, as I haven’t looked into repairing it despite owning the console for more than four years. I know it’s not a good idea to keep doing that with the disc drive, and I’ll get it fixed someday, but it’s rather neat having a “misfit” 360 to talk about in the meantime.

The second misfit is my Wii U, purchased from the same place about a month later. The owner’s daughter, who occasionally helped run the store, accepted a trade-in on a Wii U and a few games. She didn’t bother checking over the system or testing it; she just took the customer’s word that it worked and completed the trade-in. The next day, the owner was looking over the Wii U and found a flaw. When I came into the store, he told me about the trade-in (I was there for it, by the way) and expressed frustration over the flaw. I asked him what the flaw was.

A broken HDMI socket.

One or two of the little bits of metal inside the socket – called contacts or pins – were broken, rendering the entire port useless. The AV socket worked, of course, and the console was playable, but not in HD. When the owner explained this to me, I looked him straight in the eye and said, “I don’t give a crap about graphics.” I was mostly used to seeing 16-bit Super Nintendo and Genesis graphics, so a downgrade in graphics quality on the Wii U shouldn’t be a problem, right? (I know it’s not right, please bear with me)

The owner sold the Wii U to me, along with the only game I ever wanted to play on the console: Super Mario Maker. I had the game on my 3DS and had an absolute ball building levels, but I knew the best way to experience the game was to buy the larger, and more powerful, Wii U version. After taking the console and game home, I hooked it all up and got everything set up on my TV, then immediately noticed a problem: the images on my gamepad were sharper and clearer than my television.

That struck me as odd, since my HDTV was a recent purchase. It shouldn’t have blurry graphics on it at all. I had the same problem with my PlayStation 3 slim, as it didn’t come with an HDMI cable and I’d resorted to using an AV cord. It took some time for me to put two and two together:

No HDMI cable = blurry graphics
HDMI cable = sharp, clear graphics

This wasn’t as simple as a downgrade in graphics, this was making the normal graphics blurry on my HDTV when using AV cords. I later bought some HDMI cords and used one on my PS3, noticing an immediate difference. The picture was much clearer, allowing me to see many details in the background. The only problem was the inability to use the cord on my Wii U, since the socket itself was broken. I will eventually have the socket replaced – I’ve read online it’s better to get someone knowledgeable about it to replace the socket – but in the meantime, I primarily play on my gamepad (much like the Switch Lite amirite) and try not to let the blurry graphics on the television screen bother me.

Prior to both consoles, a sort-of “misfit” console is my NES, purchased in December 2016. I also bought it from the same place as the others and was certain it was tested before it was made available for sale. I took it home, plugged it up, and had nothing but problems with getting the games to work. I understand the Nintendo Entertainment System is an old electronic device and games aren’t always going to work the first time you pop it into a console. However, I also know it shouldn’t take fifteen to twenty tries to have the same blinking red light on the system (and a flashing screen on the television) and no gameplay.

I returned the NES to the store and explained the problem. The owner told me to leave the console with him and he’d get the correct parts to have it replaced. I took him at his word and left it at the store.

For weeks.

I finally approached him about it again – he’d previously given me the run-around about how long it was taking to get new parts – and he gave up and gave me a different console. Grateful, I took it home, plugged it up… and had the exact same problem. I was quite angry about the whole affair, as it meant I’d have to return the NES to the store AGAIN, wait for weeks and weeks, get another defective system, etc.

I turned on the console again.

The title screen of the game appeared.

“Hooray!” I cheered, happily playing the game. (actually, I believe I said something more like, “It’s about ******* time” but you get the idea)

I kept the NES with me for a few years, dealing with its ornery ways. I’d tried replacing the pins myself – I’d looked up the problem online and identified it as the source of the issue – and had the same trouble. I took it to the video game store in Oklahoma in 2018 and had the pins replaced again, but still had the exact same problem. This NES was giving me nothing but trouble. I later bought a Retron HD, which played NES games on HDTVs, and it gave me a reprieve from the hassle of the “misfit” NES. I also obtained two NES consoles from yard sales – a complete rarity in this area – and finally sold the ornery NES at a yard sale in 2020. I warned the buyer about the system’s pickiness on playing games, but they still bought it anyway.

The last “misfit” isn’t a console at all – it’s a handheld. This DS Lite was bought in May 2018 from a trusted seller on Instagram. They’d mentioned wanting to sell it at a discount because the hinges were broken on it. I knew it would make for a tough sell since it’s quite difficult repairing broken hinges; there’s a different person on Instagram who takes these very same broken DS Lites and transforms them into Game Boy Advance handhelds with added speaker to enhance sound and customised buttons to make them look colourful and pleasing to the eye. That person doesn’t do them for a living, nor do they take people’s broken DS Lites and customises them to the GBA. No, they usually happen to find the defective handhelds online in lots or comes across them at boot sales – they live in England – and works on them occasionally as a hobby.

That said, I knew this red and black DS Lite wouldn’t get that sort of transformation or customisation. A lot of people don’t wish to buy a defective handheld, despite the system itself functioning normally. So I bought it. When I received it in the mail, I carefully opened it, put in a game and turned it on. It worked perfectly.

I wish I could say more about it, but all I’ve done since then is ensure it’s safely stored with all my other handhelds. Since the hinge is broken, there’s really nothing more I can do, and I honestly don’t know who would be willing to fix it at a reasonable cost. At the very least, the DS Lite has a loving home where it’s well-cared for.

A sort of honorary mention is my Magnavox Odyssey 2, which was obtained at the end of July 2020 at the used video game store in Oklahoma. I’d frequented the place as a sales rep since I was constantly in the area for work. When I was there one day, the owner was talking about previously having an Odyssey 2 for sale, but had sold it a few days before I’d come in. I was disappointed, as I’d hoped to buy it myself. I’d read about the console through several retro gaming books and magazines and wanted to try it out myself.

When I mentioned this to the owner, he told me he had a couple of Odyssey systems in the back, though one wasn’t working properly. I asked for clarification and he told me when he plugged in the console and turned it on, the red “Power” light turned on, but that was it. He didn’t have the time, money or resources to sink into repairing the console, so he’d planned to take it to the local recycling centre if no one took it off his hands.

You guessed it: I told him, “I’ll take it off your hands.”

He was incredibly grateful and put everything into a couple plastic bags for me, even throwing in a free game (I think it’s a baseball game) to use whenever I was ready to test the system. The woman who also worked there and had talked to me about the Odyssey 2 asked me to let her know if I ever got it working. I told her – and the owner – that I would, and happily left with the console and my other purchase. This would be a big project that I’d have to look up videos online to figure out what to do, and I was looking forward to tackling that project once I got the chance.

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to get that chance. In early October 2020, I got a different job working for a big-box retailer full-time and have been far too busy with it to get much of anything done on my two days off. As a sales rep, I didn’t work long hours and had plenty of free time even on workdays, but with my current job, I’m there forty hours a week (technically forty-five, as I also get an hour-long lunch break each day) and working a very physically demanding job. When I get a day off, I’m so exhausted, I usually spend most of the day sleeping and taking it easy.

Because of this, the Odyssey 2 isn’t really a “misfit” console so much as it’s a console that needs serious repair. This is why I’ve said it’s an honorary mention. I will repair it someday and will hopefully get it up and running. If I don’t, it’ll be a nice decoration until I get a working Odyssey 2 console.