11mo ago

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

arstechnica.com

Lots of classic systems!

19 comments

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.
  
  If anybody is curious you can find a video of him showing what he uses
  
  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?
spreadsheets?
THIS IS WHAT AI WAS MADE FOR. Figuring out the path of least degradation for each console/connection, and managing it's connectivity.

19 comments