PS2 Collection

Well it was great to have my post about my Xbox collection hit Evil Avatar, resulting in a massive amount of traffic to my sites. Probably the best part was connecting with other Xbox collectors who are in the same situation as I am trying to determine what games are really out there. I'm working with a buddy to sort out these things and we'll be presenting our findings to the world through one of my web properties.

The whole situation with the Xbox list - and the surprise in the manufacturer not even knowing what is available - leads me to realize it's true with other platforms too. My PS2 collection is at something like 1130 now but I'm not really sure how far I have to go to get them all (and more troublesome is the fact that new PS2 games continue to come out as we're knee deep in the time of shovelware). 1600? Just a guess. A scary, nasty guess. Why do I feel the need to have them all? I guess when you get so far you might as well keep going.

I constantly get asked if I actually play all the games I have. Well, having over 5,000 games makes it near impossible to play all of them. Of course I don't. But I do play games ... just not all the time. If I played one game every day (and assuming I never added anything new to my collection) I could play for around 14 years. Yep. 14.

It's great to see gaming become more mainstream. I guess I never really realized it wasn't -- when you are so immersed in something it's often difficult to see the perspective from the outside.

I also wanted to share with you a great site I've been visiting lately. Video Game Price Charts is a great tool to figure out what your games are worth, so make sure you check it out.

That's it for now - talk to you soon.

Xbox Collection Hits 713 - but how many left to go?

So I picked up a few more original Xbox titles today, bringing my grand total to 713 (but this includes some variants like the Mortal Kombat Deception variants but NOT Platinum Hits versions unless they were unique). So I'm thinking I'm getting pretty close to having them all now - something I'd love to achieve.

According to xbox.com, there are only 799 original Xbox games - yet I keep hearing there are over 800. When I look at Wikipedia, they list everything - North American, Japan and other territories. I want JUST North American titles.

So why is this so hard? There hasn't been a new game out for years, you'd think someone would have this list handy. I've looked different sources - Wikipeida, xbox.com, Video Game Collector magazine and Digital Press. Everyone has a different number.

Does anybody know? Can anyone tell me, definitely, how close I am? I've got most of the rare ones and a bunch of what I'm missing is common sports titles....but I have been a bit reluctant to kick this collection into overdrive until I can actually see the end goal.

So...if you know, please post it here. If you're curious - my Xbox collection isn't even my biggest (I have over 1,100 PS2 games right now) and I use Game Collectorz (www.collectorz.com) to keep track of everything. Here's a photo of my collection and you can also browse the parts of my collection that I've actually managed to catalog (original NES and Atari 2600 have not been tackled yet, and I'm scared--very scared).