I worked at Toys R Us when Wii U was new, and I had a customer accuse me of trying to upsell her when I explained how Wii U games don't work on Wii.

>>729192834
overpriced garbage that eventually scratches and can't properly load certain sections of the game or the game proper at all

had this problem even into the 7th generation, it was made worse with blu-ray.

it was a toss-up if my kino der toten would load at all or get stuck in richtofen's speech, and when the map loaded it would have fucked up textures, missing dialogue and audio cues

fuck physical media.

i trust steam. nowadays i can get a 90% sale and buy 20 games with the click of a mouse and not worry about anything

>>729193030
Being the only generations to parent children who grew up with this stuff while not growing up with anything resembling this stuff themselves seemed a rough lot. I feel for my parents doing the best they can.

>>729193164
I never understood this misplaced sympathy. I learn and adapt to anything new that comes my way. Don't understand some new zoomer thing? I look into it, see it's stupid, and then remember it for future relevant contexts. The parents you're describing are just lazy and lazy people don't deserve sympathy.

File: 35419_pxh-king-kross-9170(...).jpg (121 KB, 1024x768)

121 KB JPG

>There was some guy locally that was installing modchips
>We finally got our PS1 chipped
>Time to play some burned games
>They are all in black and white on the tv in my bedroom
>Brother phones his friend tells him he needs a special cable
>My brother the lazy fuck writes me a note,gives me the cash and sends me off to the store mentioned in OP to buy a RGB cable
>Go to the register show the guy my note
>The guy almost goes ape shit
>HUH YOU AREN'T THINKING OF PLAYING COPIED GAMES?????
>Just randomly blurt something out of my ass
>The image is better with this cable
>Uh ok, he goes into the back and sells me the cable

>>729193290
It's not misplaced just cuz you've got a bee in your bonnet about it and handle the hypothetical parallel situation perfectly in your head by dismissing it as stupid at a glance. My sympathy is for my parents who made an actual effort to understand what I was into.

>>729193290
shut up retard

>>729193397
>dismissing
Didn't dismiss anything, you just projected that into the statement. It can be stupid and I can still want to remember it for whatever reason.
Sympathy for what, really? Taking the effort to have a relationship with their child? That is the absolute bare minimum.
And since you jumped straight into projection.
>b-but other parents
Doesn't matter if other parents were worse, the bare minimum doesn't change.
>>729193435
Not an argument.

>>729193089
There were PS1 games back in the 90s that could not progress for me at certain points. I remember renting, I think Parasite Eve, and if you had light scratches on the outer part of the disc (where Square puts the FMVs), you would freeze. I recall returning it and the store let us rent another game instead for free.

>>729192834
I remember when I walked in to the local game shop and the guy was just playing dkc3 instead of serving customers

>>729193089
Your fault for buying GayStation. N64 chads never had this problem.

I posted this a few times.
>rent Pacman Fever from Blockbuster
>week passes and I return it
>rent Mario Party 5
>few days later
>parents barge into my room and they're pissed
>they're on the phone with a Blockbuster employee who said the game case was empty
>parents think I stole the game and I wasn't allowed to rent games ever again
>my logic was that the game was really bad so why would I keep it

>>729194260
Blockbuster did this to me with some shitty bug racing game I wouldn't have kept in a million years. Every employee was probably just stealing from returns.

>be me at 6 years old, 1999
>playing with little girl from my class that lives across the street
>go in her basement see her dad playing ps1
>hallway right before psycho mantis
>get absolutely mindblown by the cutscene and boss fight
>watch for over an hour and forget the girl exists
>go home and beg my mom on my hands and knees to please take me to the store right this instant to buy MGS
>go to toys r us
>moms looking at something nearby while i go straight to the game section and find it
>wagie comes up to me and asks if i need help or anything since i'm an unattended little kid
>point at MGS, he says "yeah you're not old enough for that one, little guy"
>in the most smug manner possible tell the guy "well my MOM is on her way to buy it for me right now so you might as well just get it out"
>mom comes and asks for it, he asks if she's aware of what the game is and what it's about and how it's particularly violent
>mom shuts him down immediately and gets the game for me
>i just smugly watch this faggot ring the game up for us
imagine being a wagie and getting buckbroken by a 1st grader

>>729195530
based mom

Majority of nu /v/ probably never set a foot in one

>>729192834
Had Gamestop bros laugh at me on two separate times because I wanted to pick up Meteos and Aria of Sorrow instead of COD4 and Madden, respectively.
Both of those games have appreciated more as a percentage than gme shares lolwhich I know because I'm a baggie.

>>729192834
Grandpa took me to Toys R Us and bought me an N64 and Star Fox 64 and my parents took it away, only to give it back for Christmas as if it were a gift from them.
Older cousin took me to Target and bought me DDRMAX2 and my parents took it away, only to give it back for Christmas as if it were a gift from them.
It's just weird that it happened twice.

>>729193089
>I'm brown and I can't take care of myself or my things
good to know

File: cat2.jpg (48 KB, 960x911)

48 KB JPG

My childhood looking a bit too vintage these days.

>>729192834
Is that colored? It looks ancient.

File: file.png (437 KB, 569x431)

437 KB PNG

>>729192834
>Late fall of 1995
>7 years old
>Dad wants to get Donkey Kong Country 2 for us
>We get in the car and drive to different game stores around the south King County area but all of them were sold out
>Finally found one at Sears at the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila
We talk about that one every now and then, great times. I wish I had more times like that one, my dad got quiet and distant shortly after that.

>>729195530
Entitled brat and his Karen mom give a wagie the what for

>>729192834
they had color photos back then???

>>729194260
>>729194569
ah good ole blockbuster, I'm sure I've told this greentext story before but oh well
>At blockbuster with friend browsing random stuff
>Headhunter just came out, fuck yeah wanna rent it
>I'm with friend though, so renting it right now would be a waste of a rental day.
>Didn't want it to be rented out when I would come back another time
>Take the rental box and hide behind the display box for Secret Agent Barbie
>Come back the next day and my plan was a success, the rental box was still there
>Claim my prize
My friend also had his dad set it up where we could rent R rated movies without needing a parent around, so that was cool

File: 1758680950874712.jpg (234 KB, 1015x1523)

234 KB JPG

>small city in leaf prairies
>early 90s
>no blockbuster yet, only independent video stores
>they all had a porn section behind some divider like a swinging bar door
>game section right now to the entrance to the pornography room
>if i stood at just the right angle i could see nipples on some of those vhs box covers

>>729199796
Why?

>90s
>vintage

File: life of a tendie.webm (1.36 MB, 576x1024)

1.36 MB WEBM

>>729193089
>Nigger cant keep his things in good condition
nigger we had places that removed the scratches for 2 bucks even back then. It wasnt hard nor expensive 20 years ago to have working disks.
>>729192834
tendie consoles gave your kids hard autism, while the snoy1/2 only gave you mild if any autism.

>>729194260
I'm surprised you were called, if you started way back in the day you didn't need a credit card to have a blockbuster account and they were so inept they didn't have a centralized system. If you were ever on vacation you could rent stuff and literally not have to worry about returning it, ever. How do I know this? Forgot I rented Pokemon XD and never returned to that specific blockbuster, while continuing to rent at other locations.

>>729193089
>All these snoygoys gettings mad at this post

The PS1 was a fucking awful console. I remember playing Spyro on my friend's PS1 and thinking "wow this looks so much worse than Conker and Golden Eye"

>funcoland
>PS9 commercial is out
>Customer walks in and asks about it
>"Yeah bro, you can put a preorder on it with us! $10! Just sign here!"
>they pay $10, sign, and leave
>pocket the $10

The list reached about 30 names, last I saw it.

>>729200575
the 1890s were considered vintage to those in the in the late 1920s

>>729201162
I had Golden Eye and Spyro was NOT worse. Playstation games were badass in general and I regret asking my parents for a Nintendo 64 instead of one. Also my only other friend with a N64 was a histrionic literal fag

>>729200523
He had 4 children, a fifth one on the way, it was a girl and not another son like he wanted, a son that would have come had it not miscarried the year prior. He drove almost 2 hours every day to his low paying job that he had to go to university to learn how to do, and come home to a filthy trailer, kept by my terminally depressed and increasingly erratic mother.
He had no time, no love, no money, and rather than beating us all, he shut down.
In some ways I'm grateful, in other ways it would have been better if he did beat us all.
Other than my dad not being active in my life, my childhood was awesome.

>>729195530
Reminds me of a GameStop story
>Be like 15
>Hyped AF for CoD4
>Pre order at GameStop
>Wagie goes "wait a minute how old are you?"
>Tell him 15
>He says I can't pre order it
>I say I can since I'm not actually walking out of the store with it right now
>Soon it was me arguing with the entire staff
>One eventually says I am technically correct
>Pick it up with mom day if release and the initial wagie was seething
That location was weird, the main wagie in this story was your typical skeletor nerd. One time I went in with my mom and we noticed it was all new staff, they said corporate fired the entire store due to complaints, Mom said "Good"

>>729193290
They didn't know about videogames but know enough about the world to spot a jew when they see one.

>>729200345
Jesus Christ I seriously thought until reading this that the makeshift door of those heavy plastic car wash strips next to the N64 games just had violent action movies behind it.

>>729201046
>XD

>>729192834
>toy stores that also carried video games
Reminds me of going to Toys R Us to get video games. At least at my local one, they didn't have the actual video game boxes out on display but slips of paper that you took to the cashier. As a young kid I thought they turned the slip of paper into the game.

>>729192834
What is up with these assholes convincing us to buy shit we don't want instead of what we want?

>Be me when I was like 12
>Get that battlefield game where you switch to different guys on your side
>Asshole at the counter tells my mom it's a bad game
>End up buying that piece of shit 50 cent game
>Get that battlefield game another time
>Most fun I had in a long time playing multiplayer

>>729201442
;)

>>729201601
Its just overly opinionated nerds. It'd be like somebody from here working at gamestop.

>>729201321
Sounds like he did his best. Thank him.

>>729192834
The idea that there are enough people alive that don't have these memories that this caption is necessary makes me really upset.

You fuckers born after the year 2000 will never understand how good it was. Game stores let you pick any game off the shelf and play it right there in the store, they'd stand there and talk to you about it, about other games, and that's all the store sold: Games. Games and nothing else.

And once you bought (or played) your game, you could walk out of the game store into a mall and look at infinite specialty shops that could also make a living selling one kind of thing. RC cars? They have a race track you can play with for free. Science gifts? They have interactive displays and demo items just sitting on the table that you can touch and interact with. Trading cards? You better believe they have rare import shit that was cool to look at. Comic books? Yes, back then they even sold at a level they were profitable. They even had toy stores, things people bought and played with and celebrated, bright aisles full of creative, original products not associated with some greater IP, only there for kids to play with. The food court had good food, served hot by polite people, and the movie theater had shit you actually wanted to see. When you got home, there were actual shows on TV - A wealth of them, one after the other, none of this "block" programming where the same fucking show ran for six hours.
And it got better. Every single year, it got better. Every single year, technology took another astronomical leap. It felt like the good times would never end. It was so, so fucking good and it will never come back.

>>729192834
for whatever reason, blast corps is on EVERY shelf i've ever looked at with 64 games on it and it was the assiest game i ever played even if it was vaguely neat

This thread reminds me of this 30 year old website
https://www.actsofgord.com/Annoy/
>>729194260
>>729194569
Oh hey, I used to steal from the drop slot at my local rental place. They just dropped a box under the doors mailslot. I took a rather long oil dipstick, cut a couple barbs onto its tip, and I had a fishing stick. My goal was to get porno DVDs I was too young to rent, never had any at the top of the pile... Just got some shitty movies I didn't even want

>>729201374
>>729199117
my only notable gamestop employee "strange" interaction was when I walked into one and B-lined for Delta Force:Land Warrior and the guy behind the counter went
>I knew it
Iduno, I felt strangely insulted

Unrelated story
>Mom worked at Toys R' Us
>Couldn't get a babysitter one day so had to go with Mom, Dad's work was out of the question
>This happened occasionally, and it was awesome every single time
>spent those days just wandering around gazing at the cool stuff, and going into places I technically wasn't supposed to
>stop by the N64 Demo setup numerous times throughout day, it was Mario Kart 64 this time
>The system would auto-reset after 5 minutes or so and if other kids were waiting it was common courtesy to step aside, even us bratty kids back then respected this unspoken rule
>would be playing and the reset would hit, look around and no other kid was around so I went again
>few moments later another slightly older kid comes up and asks to play. I tell him once it resets it's all his
>this clearly wasn't good enough for him, he calls me a faggot and stares me down
>I didn't exactly know what it meant at the time but I did know it wasn't a nice thing to say, but I just ghosted his staredown and kept playing
>he walked away. the reset hits and I look around and no other kid is around. keep playing.
Sure I had been playing on and off all day, I probably could have just let him take my place.. but at the same time.. we all know the code

>>729201943
The reason why so many people traded it in was because it was almost impossible to 100% it

I prefer ordering games online. Fuck human interaction

>>729201924
The loss of the mall is something I'll never forgive brown people for. Every time white folk have something good, it's natural brown people want it too, I get that. But why do they have to destroy it every single time?

>>729192834
Can I flip this around?
>Get toys r us seasonal job at 18
>First ever job
>Was alright most of the time
>Rarely worked in the vidya section due to being seasonal, but sometimes thrown there since I knew about them
>See some wayward father looking lost
>Ask him if he needs help
>Says he really knows nothing about vidya but his son loves it
>Says he plays a lot of mario
>Point him towards rayman origins and sonic generations
To this day I'm hoping that kid had a good Christmas and thought his dad knew what good games to get him

>>729193313
I don't understand the issue. I had a modded psx and played burned games with no issues with the default cables that came with it. You never needed special cables just to play burned games. Is this a hallucination from ChatGPT?

>>729201924
thats how I picked out Amagon on NES, just something about that game I enjoyed in that shop and we took it home.
>>729201594
that was probably all of them for a time. the one my mom worked at had a room for just the actual video games and some other higher value stuff. there was always 1 guy in there all the time and as a kid I thought he had the best job in the world. probably not, but who knows

>>729201924
All of the money that supported that has been eaten up by no not welfare, interest on the debt taken out to pay for our ridiculous defense budget and inflated real estate prices and infrastructure costs for spread-out cities with poor land use and just a cavalcade of bad decisions so that Boomers could be more comfortable.

>>729199117
>GME baggie
same but I've turned it around. I bought a very small amount at the top and when it dropped to about 200, I sold. I then fucked around with that money since I didn't feel like accepting my loss, and now I'm at like 1.5x of my initial buy in.

The only game retailer story I remember was getting raped in the wallet by trade-ins. I brought in yoshi's story and got like $2 or something absolutely retarded. Fuck you, mom.

>>729192834
Calling my childhood vintage causes psychic damage to my brain

>>729202643
i'm sure those who were born in the 40s felt the same way when articles in the 70s were written about them

on thread topic, it's funny as all fuck that gamestop has never not been ass to go to, even back when video games were consistently good

>>729202089
Yeah, that was more like what happened, actually. Not straight-up laughing at me, just a weird comment somehow indicating that I was making the wrong choice - not as an upsell, but like, "Who wants to play Meteos?". The dude who read the reviews and knew Sakurai was involved and who had many fun hours of playing with friends on the bus to look forward to, that's who.

>this clearly wasn't good enough for him, he calls me a faggot and stares me down
I wouldn't be surprised if he was waiting for you out of eyeshot, and it really would have been right to let him have a go, but calling you a name forfeited his turn.

File: passing through.jpg (65 KB, 614x348)

65 KB JPG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uWzjlSUaYg

File: ps1_heartofdarkness.jpg (2.08 MB, 3670x1560)

2.08 MB JPG

>>729192834
>rent Kingdom Hearts a bunch because I liked Disney
>can almost never get past the part where the Heartless attack the island because my CRT tv was so fucking dark I couldn't see anything during it
>I also didn't have a memory card, so I just played Destiny Islands over and over again
>loved it even though the only Disney characters I ever saw were in the Dive to the Heart
>get the game and a memory card for Christmas, have the time of my life
>but what game am I gonna rent now?
>see pic related
>think it having 'Heart' in the title must mean it's like Kingdom Hearts
>play it
>get my fucking ass kicked over and over again, never got past the first couple of screens before I had to return it
>next time I just rent Jak and Daxter instead

I was too poor to buy many video games. I remember once though I wanted to get the bionicles GBA game and they didn't have it but he told mumberg that it was a bad game and I shouldn't get it anyway. Instead dadberg took me a few days later and convinced me to get the Robot Wars GBA game. His logic was because it was a BBC product it had to be good.

>>729199262
It's weird that it even happened once. Were they poor, or just cheap as fuck?

>>729202829
mm maybe, though I usually turned around and looked to see if there was even another kid remotely close by that was interested. he was nowhere nearby when that reset happened so idk

also the gamestop guy perhaps said it because it was a new popular release and I was just another person that went straight to it. still, I think about it sometimes even all these years later because it just seemed weird

>>729202441
Pretty sure it's a pal thing

>>729203392
you are such a nigger

>>729193290
>I look into it, see it's stupid, and then remember it for future relevant contexts.
You're clearly a zoomer yourself because it doesn't occur to you that the internet wasn't always ubiquitous. You couldn't exactly "look up" vidya console differences in Encyclopædia Britannica

>>729192834
what do you mean "reveals"? it's not some kind of secret

>>729193089
bull fucking shit, blu rays are damned near unscratched. Youd have to make an effort to scratch them. Shits gotten easier

>>729203421
My parents did this to us multiple times and openly told us it was because you didn’t get gifts close to Christmas or your birthday and that as our parents we owned nothing and everything we got was a gift passed through them.
In all honesty it worked out: none of us is a greedy cunt, we all appreciate giving and receiving gifts because they’re always special, and the whole “I own you and you own nothing I don’t give you” actually set some good boundaries. My parents weren’t abusive though, literally everyone else I’ve heard similar stories from sounds like they grew up in hell.

my dad used to wake up at 7am on a sat/sun to take me to pokemon league at toys r us

i remember my 13 yo self playing against some high schooler neckbeard and would whoop him 4/5 times

>>729203813
Forgotten knowledge from ancient history

File: 482353833_101632335651299(...).jpg (119 KB, 1057x540)

119 KB JPG

>>729194260
I don't know why Blockbuster is glazed so much by millennials, real OGs rented their movies and games from supermarkets.

>>729193089
>>729193290
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGzzgt0K4hY

>>729203665
this started talking about the difference between the wii u and the wii. the internet existed back then retard

>>729199796
The Southcenter Sears store only closed last year. Must've been a real disaster by the end.

>>729204203
I have like, the faintest memory of Albertsons having a shitty rental section. t. 1992fag

>>729204203
hollywood video and game crazy were far better

I just want to say that also marketing the PS2 as a DVD player was a genius idea.

>Reveals
You're not digging up Pompeii here dude

>>729204203
None of the supermarkets rented games in my experience, I think you’re remembering wrong.

File: soyy.webm (3 MB, 540x960)

3 MB WEBM

>>729192834
HOLY HECKIN' KINOOOOOO SOULFUL I LOVE PHISICAL MEDIA SO MUCH, 90S GOOD NOWADAYS BAD

>>729204345
Oh, so that's why they marketed the PS3 as a blu ray player...

>>729192834
I rented Wario World and it would load in my GameCube. I took out the disc and saw a giant fucking wad of purple gum on the back of it
Fuck you whoever you were

>>729204245
Yes nigger and do you remember how despite that most people still weren’t sure what the difference between the two consoles was?

>>729192834
>2003
>spend weekends with my old man
>let me play his PS2 on the second TV in the den
>playing all kinds of games, loving Jak & Daxter
>go to Sears one weekend because they still sold Craftsman tools and Sears honored the lifetime warranty.
>old man broke a lot of tools working on planes.
>walk past the electronics, see Jak 2 on the self
>ask the old man if we can get it
>he asks if I've beaten the first one
>tell him I beat the main story but didn't collect all 100 power cells
>buys it on the condition that I have to do that first
>he also picks up the latest Marilyn Manson album, Golden Age of Grotesque
>we go home and he lets me play Jak 2 anyways because he's a hardass but a softie inside
>I play Jak 2 while my old man blasts the new album on the surround sound system

To this day, my memory has always associated that album with running around the slums of Haven City and blasting Krimson Guard.

Also jumpstarted my puberty with the model viewer unlocks in Jak 3. The whale tail on Ashelin, high riding panties on Keira, and exposed buttcrack on Maia were formative memories. God bless low-rise jeans.

>Sometime in the late 90s
>EB Games in the local mall
>Was with sister, parents elsewhere, just browsing the selection, minding my own business
>Hear a whisper from behind me
>"The fat ones die alone"
>Confused, look around
>See some goth-looking girl and her friends pointing and giggling at me
>Sigh frustrated and leave soon after

I don't know why this memory sticks out to me, it feels so inconsequential in the long run. But honestly, looking back at it now, maybe she was right? Still, who the fuck says that to someone unprompted when they're not bothering anyone?

HAVING AN EPIC NOSTALGIAGASM RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!

File: 0121f5a4d6a8705c4d6d3a8a7(...).png (582 KB, 471x467)

582 KB PNG

>>729204420

>>729204642
I get it, dude. You're born in a time where things have always been shitty and nothing has changed for you so it's natural to assume things have always been shitty. No, you just got robbed. I'm sorry.

>>729204620
girls were mean to us fatties, for sure, but some nice ones exist
>something like junior year of high school
>depressed me
>have group of friends but quiet without them(so 3/4s of my classes)
>always arrive to first period somewhat early for whatever reason
>me, a chick, some other dude were usually the first ones
>walking in she just goes up to me and gives me a big hug, says it looks like I needed it
to this day one of the kindest gestures anyone has ever done for me

>>729204620
I have a few memories like that. They're useful to keep around sometimes. Occasionally, I'll feel lonely and desire some kind of romantic companionship, but then I can recall memories like that and remember, "Oh right, I'm alone because I don't deserve anyone" and can go on with my day.

>>729204420
>>729200863
really dude

>>729204429
They tried to, but there was no real benefit to Blu-Ray over DVD if you were using a SDTV, which the vast majority of people still were in 2006.

>>729204459
That ain't bad. I saw bandaids, used bandaids

>>729192834
>christmas 1998
>10yo
>christmas break
>poorfag family
>neglectful parents
>disinterested older siblings
>left alone at home all day
>would wonder into town to be amongst the christmas shoppers
>no money to buy anything but would look at all the cool stuff and listen to the christmas music and feel a part of all the holiday excitement
>main hangout was the videogame shop
>play on the n64 display with wcw/nwo revenge for hours
>playing against strangers and talking about wrestling
>would hand over the controls and leave for a bit so as not to hog it
>staff felt sorry for me and never told me to leave
>starting to get dark out and one of the wagies brought me some mcdonalds fries
>closing time and the manager asked me if i was homeless and did i need them to call social services
>too embarrassed to ever go back to that store
>still my favorite and most vivid happy christmas memory

>>729205254
hivemind

>>729205420
Braindead more like

>>729200215
I've got a fun story from a little non corporate rental place.
>Looking at random SNES RPGs after getting into them as a teen with FF3 and SoM
>See box for BoF2, it's not there to rent
>Come back day after day after day to rent BoF2, it's not there. Rent other fun games instead
>Eventually ask the guy behind the counter what's up with it always being gone
>He gives me a sheepish grin and says he has it but he'll be bringing it back once he's done
>Rent it a few days later and love it. Come back and talk to the dude about games and RPGs for hours nearly every day I can
>Get calls from him whenever cool new games we'd like would be coming in

The place only had two employees. The owner, who came in to open the place up and order new stuff, and the guy I was friends with. When they eventually went out of business during the early 2000s, my friend pulled all of the RPGs and other great games out of the giant pile the owner set all the games in to be sold and we divided them up amongst the two of us.

>>729205506
I'm not the one being proud of growing up with nintendo

>>729205680
It's sad if you have nothing to be proud of

>>729204420
hope all the ww2 vets are happy with their handiwork

>>729205727
>BOOHOO if you didn't play bing bing wahooooo you didn't have nothing!!!

>>729205513
>my friend pulled all of the RPGs and other great games out of the giant pile the owner set all the games in to be sold and we divided them up amongst the two of us.
mega based, holy shit

>>729204090
i used to go to pokemon league at my local books a million (which was coincidentally beside the local toys r us). i played with a kid named elliot who would make decks to counter the gym leaders then loan it to me so i could beat the gym leader and get the badge. then he moved away because his dad was in the military. this was in the early 2000s.

>>729205513
Sorta similar to that, me and a few other kids were the only ones who really played RPGs when I was in middle school. We only had one little local rental place in town and we had a kind of code of honor among ourselves not to fuck with each other's save files if we rented the same games. If the game allowed it, we'd always try to name the lead character or save file with our names so we'd know who it belonged to.

File: 1249834908914.webm (3.61 MB, 576x1024)

3.61 MB WEBM

>>729192834
>The store owner

>>729203421
Grandpa/cousin weren't supposed to buy us those things for whatever reason and maybe not even communicated to them beforehand. Both of my parents are spoiled babies of WWII vet families so lots of dumb unresolved trauma stuff happened. Like (core memory recently unlocked) when they got me one of those Playskool cars when I was 3 or 4, and my brother fought and cried about it so much that they went out and got another one... But it was, like, a way bigger and better version, and they gave it to him instead of letting me hand-me-down the first. I would have chalked it up to inexperience except they did the exact same thing 10 years later with those TI graphing calculators, and even more egregious because I'd just tested into advanced math courses and he was still putzing around in remedial. Wanna know what happens when you're academically overachieving son sees that nothing he does can counteract favoritism for his brother? Wanna know what happens when fuck-up son always gets what he needs and then some, and knows his parents always have his back? Guess which one of us still lives at home and which one is a six-fig engineer?

https://www.amazon.com/Adult-Children-Emotionally-Immature-Parents/dp/1626251703

Do not have kids without reading and understanding this book. Save your kids the headache.

>>729204203
Yeah, and one odd thing I've never really seen brought up anywhere is the weird 3rd party manuals they'd have in their games. I read Nintendo won some kind of lawsuit that prohibited rental places from photocopying manuals, so this little cottage industry sprang up for independent manuals that could be freely replaced when they got lost or damaged. I remember renting the same game from different grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, or whatever and the manuals would be completely different. One that really sticks out to me was renting Resident Evil from Walgreens (I think) and it had this whole little prologue someone wrote about campers and hikers being attacked by the mutant dogs and zombies.

>>729205970
We're proud of something, something is better than nothing, pride is better than nothing

>>729204203
>>729204280
I'm also just remembering that this was sort of kind of a thing. It is literally the absolute faintest memory. The last I can remember is seeing copies of Private Parts at the PX on base when I was like... 10 or 11.

>>729205680
>>729205970
why do you keep blabbering about Nintendo unprompted?

>>729205365
Acknowledging this wholesome greentext.

File: 2BDVofva9-.jpg (145 KB, 420x434)

145 KB JPG

>>729206536
So many places around here had these

>>729195530
Being proud of being a spoiled child anon? For shame

File: 1682397038952093.jpg (7 KB, 184x173)

7 KB JPG

>>729200523
>Why?

anyone got the green of anon with the stuffed charmander? where his dads like thats my boy while watchim him fuck it?

>>729206902
>OPs pic literally says Nintendo
>they're easy to bait
why not?

>>729192834
>1997
>me, 8
>literally talk non-stop about n64 goldeneye after seeing my cousin get it for his birthday in Sept, and after watching the movie
>my brothers and I would play it as much as we could at my cousins house whenever we had to visit my aunt and uncle
>my dad drove me to k-mart on christmas eve that year to show me that he was getting us goldeneye and not santa
>he had to go last minute because he got paid the friday before and didn't have time to go until the next week
>my brothers didn't know that we were getting it but I did, had to act surprised on christmas
My dad did a lot of annoying shit but I'll always respect him for doing that after being forced to last minute shop nowadays as an adult

>Zoomers have never seen a video game store aisle
this is even more grim than the millenials who never saw anything besides a fucking Gamestop's Used Games aisle.

File: arcade game.jpg (2.46 MB, 3024x4032)

2.46 MB JPG

What games on the cabinet /v/?

>>729206972
I remember that lil nigga. I thought he was called Captain Instruction or something like that. Guess that's why I never could find a picture of him.

>>729207297
Polybius, duh.

>>729207278
they can just go to walmart

>>729207201
So you admit to just trolling without even reading the thread
Ok

>>729192834
>>729192834
>It's 2000
>Old ho computer broke
>Dad used it to play wc2, StarCraft and c&c with buddies. I only played single player
>I had straight As that year
>Comes home with a custom built
>Shogun total war
>Deus ex
>Diablo
>Red alert 2
>Baldur's Gate II
>Mechwarrior
Shit was so fucking cash guys

>>729207304
I think my brother has a box full of those rental cases. I should harass him to take some pictures, I couldn't find shit for the instructions side on Google

>>729203257
I know you were a kid, but I loved this game. Granted, I was an oddworld fan as well so I was all for the challenge

File: 1766531829442.png (22 KB, 1200x425)

22 KB PNG

I was a poverty child and had to rent games lmao

the new released games were on 2 day loans. You dont know the feeling of getting into a game partially, then having to return it.

>>729207095
what emotion does this image convey
are we not allowed to show curiosity toward strange changes in one's life

>>729207636
That'd be cool to see. I thought it was just for NES games but that other anon said he saw one for Resident Evil so I'm even more curious now. I genuinely can't remember ever seeing the superhero guy with instructions for any SNES or Genesis games.

>>729205365
kino

>>729208057
I think the same company did some stuff for the SNES/Genesis, but it was a lot rarer and dropped that art. After that, I saw nothing, and these cases were mostly thrown away as worthless on the resale market back in the day

File: flame off.jpg (37 KB, 408x596)

37 KB JPG

>reveals

>>729204090
Based dad

Can YOU remember the first thing you ever rented?
I do, it was the TMNT movie and Ernest goes to Jail on VHS.

I miss when I could go to the store a pick out a game that looks cool. Now I know all about almost everything on the shelf and figure I would have heard about it if something unfamiliar is any good

>>729206025
Yeah, I got some good fucking shit out of that. BoF 1 and 2, FF6, and Earthbound (with the giant box and guide) for SNES, Landstalker and Shining Force 2 for Genesis, BoF 3, FFT, and PE 1 and 2 for PS were the really notable ones. We'd constantly borrow games from one another anyways, so it really didn't matter too much to us who owned what, we just wanted to grab the games that we really liked. I remember snatching up FF6 the moment he told me what the pile was for, kek.

>>729206136
Him and I would do that shit as well. I had one other friend who was into RPGs, but his parents went to a different tiny video store so we didn't run into that problem, though we did throw the idea out there in case my parents ever decided to rent anything from that place.

File: 06d8ccd5e5a272bdc17ef8065(...).jpg (94 KB, 1000x985)

94 KB JPG

>>729192834
>Try to find Gamestop games on sale
>AYO YALL GOT ANY OF DAT THAT GHOST OF YO-TAY FOR MAH KID?

File: 1709234164387.png (687 KB, 960x674)

687 KB PNG

>unearthed vintage photographs reveal first ever knowledge of early 21st century TEHNOLOGY

I don't really have much of a story. I do remember renting Kirby 64 from a Wegmans of all places.

>>729208664
First thing my family ever rented was Home Alone, my Mom bought a VCR in order to rent it. First thing I ever rented was DuckTales on the NES.

>>729206536
I bought out an NES collection in the 2000s that was definitely leftovers from an independent game store and they had a lot of plastic cases like that. Had to sell them for quick cash a couple years back so I can't get pictures anymore.

>>729208850
Pic needs to be in back & white. Also add a phonograph.

>>729208850
>imagine the smell

File: 2226996800.gif (1.61 MB, 268x268)

1.61 MB GIF

>>729192834
Anyone have a pic of Walmart's game aisle in the early 90s? I seem to recall it just being a regular aisle in the middle of the store, back before they put in the dedicated electronics section.

>>729192834
>and to wrap it in
???
What the fuck does this mean, do we have an ESL translator in the house tonight?

>>729208664
Once upon a time, you could even rent game consoles, not to mention VCRs and other video players. Our local place doubled as a camera shop and photo developing service so they'd also rent out expensive camcorders and I'm pretty sure you could even rent SLR cameras and lenses.

>>729209680
your confusion is the same bullshit us oldfags get trying to decipher your faggot shit.

>>729209931
Uhhh ackshually I've been here since 2020 so lower your tone when speaking to me Chud

>>729195530
Lmao I loved when the rental store or toys r us guy would try and fuck things up for me with my mom. She’d always say something like “it’s a Nintendo game how bad can it be?” Even though it was for PlayStation. Made the nerd seethe even more

>>729192834
I was there, I remember the feeling of awe and the smell of plastic that had an association to new, and wonder.

>>729209871
We rented a dreamcast before we bought one because they were sold out everywhere. We had every kid in the neighborhood at our house for a week straight playing soul caliber and power stone

>got busted again for sneaking behind the porn curtain

>>729192834
I hate the niggers who try to tell you what to buy. I wanted a PS2 and the guy at the store convinced my mom to get an Xbox. I was crushed, I had to go to my friend's house to play anything good.

File: steam grids fighting game(...).png (3.64 MB, 2000x1150)

3.64 MB PNG

>>729193089
>fuck physical media. I trust steam.

You are the unc who is capable of learning. I know exactly how you feel. Seeing people hoard discs and cartridges is fucking gay. My wife would probably think I was a faggot if I did that. I find other men who do this shit to be incredibly gay. Instead I just buy every fighting game on steam and customize my grids with sexy pictures of all the girls from these games. I can walk out of my house with 80 Switch games at the same time, with no cartridges. Physicucks will never, ever understand.

File: 1756380864904020.jpg (50 KB, 371x475)

50 KB JPG

>"One copy of Final Fantasy X-2 please"
>"Do you want the strategy guide with pinup pictures of all the hot girls?"
>"Does my sexual preference confuse you? Of course I want the strategy guide!"

>>729201945
>Customer walks into the store to speak to the Gord.

>"I have been looking for Megaman X4 forever1 I've looked everywhere! I really, really want it. Do you have it?"

>"Yes."

>"New, used, or rental?"

>"Yes. All of the above."

>"Ah good." And then he leaves.

>"Err… Ok…."

>Some people when faced with the end of a journey simply decide to begin anew I guess.
kek

>>729210978
no joke i had to have jerked it to this thing at least 500 times
the game came out when i was 12 so the timing was exquisite. i've never busted more nuts to any single other item/video/whatever than this strategy guide

Excuse me, do you have any game consoles for my son?

He hates those Pokémon game and he doesn't like Zelda at all.

>>729210978
>A "girls game" because they sing a pop song in the TV commercial
Utter buffoons at school didn't see the vision of what could be, it was fap central.

>>729210383
I heard some places rented out Neo Geos but never saw one in person. That would have been badass for birthday parties of just weekend get togethers.

>>729210027
So he’s still right then

>>729210978
>hey, did you know that the girls have nude models for their costume transformation
>no shit, are you for real?
>it's even ripped and you can download it for viewing on your PC dude
I think it was around 2006, fapping to the sticc girls with barbie bodies was an experience. I think it was my first exposure to ripping 3D models from console vidya.

>>729204394
My grocery store did. I bought sim city from it in 1992 when the sold some of their rental games

>>729211967
The Dead or Alive fighting games were all about this. You didn't need to rip models. There were gameshark codes to do this and I'm pretty sure any game.

>>729210451
Lmao this still happens, I bought stellar blade at launch and wanted a physical copy because I was already at the mall,the faggot at the GameStop counter was trying to tell me it sucks.

>”Have you played it?”
>”N-no, but I’ve talked to a lot of people who have.”
>”Oh, well then guess I’ll just find out for myself.”

Why offer an opinion if you literally don’t know shit? Know it all GameStop workers seem timeless, I thought it was just because the had more gate keeping power back in the day but I think it just attracts a certain socially inept retard.

>>729192834
>and tells he wants to buy a PS1 for his son and to wrap it in
what

>>729212209
I wonder how many "a lot" supposedly is. Cos it's a good game that most people who play it seem to like a lot.

>>729212015
The grocery store by my house rented stuff all the way up until the end of the original Xbox era. I rented Morrowind so many times with my allowance that the clerk lady eventually just said I could keep it

File: images.jpg (8 KB, 259x194)

8 KB JPG

>>729212234
>plastic

>>729212252
I assume he just read “a lot” of reddit comments from people who didn’t play the game. I thought it was a solid 7.5/10 game and enjoyed the eye candy

>>729193089
You’re a retarded jew nigger and should never reproduce

File: 1765835060047500.jpg (27 KB, 516x387)

27 KB JPG

>>729193089

>>729201321
>He had no time, no love, no money
Sounds like the average zoomer fate. Minus tje kids ofc.

>>729209871
I don't know a soul that bought a Virtual Boy, but literally everyone knew it was garbage, because we rented it

>>729204203
Blockbuster was extremely ubiquitous in my city. I only knew of a single supermarket that rented movies and games. It's where I got to play FF2 (FFIV) from. My local Blockbuster had a solid guy picking new games. Lufia 1 and 2, FF3 (FFVI), Earthbound, Ogre Battle, Illusion of Gaia, and Secret of Evermore to name a few. Whomever was responsible for that store was a king.

>>729192834
>>Some dad walks in and tells he wants to buy a PS1 for his son and to wrap it in
>and to wrap it

I would have stabbed that faggot in the neck.

>10-11 years old. Want to buy Dragon Warrior 3 for the NES.
>Mom drops me off at Toys R Us to buy the game and will come pick me up when I call her from the payphone out front.
>I check out the video game aisle.
>No Dragon Warrior 3. They are either sold out or just don't have it.
>They do have Dragon Warrior 2.
>I decide to get that instead.
>Go to the counter to pay for it and I'm short like $7 or something small.
>Me being 10 or 11 panic and don't know what to do.
>Older guy (he could have been 30, I was 10 what did I know?) asked how much I was short and offered to pay the difference.
>Me being stupid put up the change I was supposed to use for the payphone to pay as much as I was able. The guy helped me buy the game.
>I get outside and realize I have no way to call my mom to pick me up so I just wait.
>Eventually I think she figured I either just was hanging out playing in the store or something happened and came on her own.

I do not remember what that guy looked like but he helped little me live a dream.
>

>>729216514
this is why store clerks get paid like shit now.
why pay a nigger or a wigger to do something when all theyre gonna do is smoke crack in the break room and complain about it.

File: Screenshot 2025-12-24 034208.jpg (198 KB, 981x932)

198 KB JPG

Our mall had a Babbages. Bought most of my SNES and PS1 games there. Then they rebranded to EB Games.

>>729201945
nice, gonna have fun looking into this

File: Spoiler Image (8 KB, 430x465)

8 KB PNG

>be me
>age 10
>see this game called metroid prime
>looks epic i want it
>rated t for teen
>gulp.pdf
>take it counter
>greasy skinnyfat male with ponytail
>"uhm exkyuse me, madam? I would like to purchase this game"
>he swiftly twirls around with the grace of a butterfly
>"ah a young supple boyyy wants to buy a game for teeeeenss?"
>"that cant be right... you dont look a day over 9, cutie pie" he says winking at me
>"w-well im 10! thats old enough right?"
>"hmmm i suppose you could do something for me that would make me turn an eye to this transaction"
>"uhhh ok i guess"
>"goooodmmm now can you please put this hat on?"
>he hands me a hat that says daddys little girl
>call him gay and beg him just to let me buy the game
>says he can but knly if he can take a photo of me in the back
>i scream yes, please im a big boy now!
>he takes me by the hand and pulls me throught the door
>"wow, youre hands are really soft, baby. and youre so pretty for a little mmm girl"
>immediatly pull off my rubber mask revealing im actually a midget with a mustache in the cia
>"hands on the ground, freak"
>he frantically drops to the floor
>but before he walks the dinosaur i rape him
>afer i cum i pull off the other mask revealing my true identity
>If you dont reply to this post your mother will die in her sleep.

File: 1742874087571444.png (28 KB, 504x242)

28 KB PNG

based Gord

>>729204280
>>729206736
95fag, I also have the slightest memory of albertsons movie rentals. I remember my local store had their movies behind a door behind the customer service desk so it felt like a place you weren't supposed to be. Only went there once and I think I rented a TMNT movie. I swear it must have only existed for a matter of months because I never went in the rental area again.

I remember my friend being convinced by a pushy EB Games employee to buy Largo Winch: Empire Under Threat on Xbox, who tried very hard to make it seem so cool and interesting. My friend took the bait and bought it, and I only ever saw him play it once despite always being at his house. I felt bad for him.

In hindsight I'm pretty sure the EB employee was trying to clear dead stock. What a faggot to do that to a 12 year old with limited budget.

i still remember when i went into the store and grabbed a copy of micromachines v3 for the ps1.
good times

when my mom bought Assassin's creed 1 for me, the checkout guy went on a whole spiel about how the game might be offensive to religious people. obviously my parents didn't give a shit, but you could tell he probably got sperged out at enough that he felt the need to warn people buying M-rated games for children.

>>729193089
i have ps1 disks in my dresser right now that have no scratch at all
i never understood how people got fucked up disks unless there was some sort of accident

>>729202441
I presume the other anon is from Europe. Sometimes you'd get b&w even with PS2 unless you used the right cables.

>>729201164
>PS9
How's life in 21XX?

My most memorable time in a game store was when my BPD mom took me with when she sold all my video games because they were taking my attention away from her. Around this time my dad was working out of state for very long periods of time and I was turned into her surrogate spouse. At least I got love bombed later with all the games she sold and some new ones.

>>729221886
People with ADHD often don't take proper care of their things and they fall into a state of disrepair. Not saying it's everyone's experience, but it is very common.

>>729201924
Man I used to love the science toy store. I used to get those rocks that let you chisel them to practice 'excavating" real bones

>>729193089
I'm starting to get disk rot on some of my 90's and 2000's games.
My Age of Empires 1 disk looks like I fished it out of a swamp it's so fucked up, same with Marathon 2.

>>729221832
>felt the need to warn
I worked at Blockbuster so I had to do this a lot
>sir, just checking but you know this is Pirates, an edited version of a adult movie, and not the one with Johnny Depp?
>sir, do you know that this movie Brokeback Mountain has a lot of gay stuff in it and isn't about shootouts and stuff?
Imagine the asspain that would happen today if you warned someone that a movie was gay as fuck. The problem back then was all these small studios released a lot of movies before the big releases came on on video to trick them. You'd have like PASSION OF JESUS instead of Passion of the Christ and then they'd come back 30 minutes later mad. It also didn't help Blockbuster stocked a shit load of soft core porn garbage like all the Emmanuel movies.
I remember some guy rented a movie about Cholos with some gangsters on the front and he came back in soon after saying
>yo man this is some FAGGOT shit
so I let him swap it out with something else. It was a gentler time where we could all collectively be disgusted by faggots.

>>729194260
Notice how anon never said he didn’t steal it

>>729225057
I don't know about other stories, but mine had cameras, and one of them was pointed at the manager pit with the safe and drop box. I would just show the customer of the tape of the employee putting the game back, because the case went back on the shelf but the game went into a cabinet

>rent something from blockbuster (i genuinely do not remember what it was at this point because i never got to play it)
>game doesn't work because it's scratched to fuck
>tell parents
>we go back to swap it
>employee blames me for scratching it and we'd have to pay the whatever fee
>shouting match kicks off with my mother and the employee and we leave
>never go back to blockbuster

Don't click if you want to keep your sanity
https://www.youtube.com/@vampirerobot/videos

>go to local GAME shop
>they have a bunch of adds and standees for the 3DS release
>absolutely love my DS and DSi, so I go try the 3DS they have on display
>Kingdom Hearts BBS demo
>No idea what a Kingdom Hearts is, but the game looks really cool and the graphics seem amazing
>mom wants to leave to another shop
>beg her to at least talk to the counter guy
>"This 3DS is really cool, can you still play normal DS games with it?"
>"No, it's impossible"
>Counter guy tells me that I'll have to buy all of my old games as 3DS games on top of the console if I want to play anything on it
>Don't have a lot of money so I know it would be a lost cause to my parents
>Leave the shop and never buy a 3DS
I only found out that the games were in fact compatible years after the fact. The shop went under a few years later when the owner stopped selling the MtG boosters that were keeping him afloat.
Why that cocksucker didn't want to sell 3DS consoles, I'll never know

>>729228390
>Why that cocksucker didn't want to sell 3DS consoles, I'll never know
Probably console war faggotry. Idiots let that stuff influence their real life financial decisions, it's very sad

>>729207792
multiple tabs open?

>>729204420
Jaded jealous zoomer.

>>729232460
I'm so glad I am not a zoomer. Imagine growing up with facebook, instagram, ect social media being all in your entire life.

>>729193313
This reminds me of how hyped I was to buy an HDMI cable for my PS3.

File: 56b.gif (565 KB, 550x555)

565 KB GIF

>>729192834
A "vintage" photo is from the fucking 1890s or w/e

This is like saying the original and ultimate porn device, the PSP, is "retro"

Also, gaming aisles were always empty and depressing--which is why Toys R Us or w/e went out of business

Waiting in line for the PS2 launch back in highschool was PEAK. Remember getting home and playing Tekken Tag and Fantavision

>>729192834
>reveal
>like its something nobody ever knew or wasn't around for it
am i really this old? I bought both my ps1, snes and n64 games in plastic case shells at circuit city and best buy, or rather my grandparents did. Walmart didn't have a discount membership which is why my grandfather bought them for me there. Also it always smelt like bread in Circuit City

>>729235612
>it always smelt like bread
They making so much cash

File: pokemoncrystal.gif (420 KB, 320x288)

420 KB GIF

>>729204420
completely unironically true and based

>>729192834
reminds me of christmas 2001 when i badly, badly badly wanted nothing more than Pokemon Crystal
>i'd been a massive pokemon geek for a couple years already, was like the only person in my area who knew about it and started hyping it up before gen 1 even came out in america, brought Pokemon nintendo power mini-insert mags to school, when it came out and got huge i was as a God during the gen 1 years
>then gen 2 happens, best weekend of my entire life, got Silver just before a whole weekend hanging out with the bros at like age 12, everyone was so into it and the hype was at an all time high, waking up Saturday morning and watching Johto Journeys together, 11/10 peak nostalgia
>but then, people just kinda fell off
>puberty hit hard and everyone but me seemed to become boring turbo-normies overnight
>but at least i had this awesome new Pokemon gen to sink my teeth into and keep myself happy, and a small handful of core friends who still shared it with me
>dozens of hours just slowly raising one of every single new species of mon, playing around with breeding, babysitting every ingame cellphone buddy, getting every berry every day, doing all the weekly events etc. but only advancing the actual storyline super slowly
>le gen 2 first wave USA scuffed battery died as did my save file before i finished the game
>happened to friends too and their interest was obviously waning
>Crystal already being advertised just a few months later, begged and begged for it, it'd solve everything, bring back the hype, i was all ready to get more social again, get more into the tcg and anime, not let the personal nirvana of pokemania die yet, not when it's still so fresh and so good
>the day finally arrives
>the game I get is... Wario Land 4
>not even a bad game, far from it, but...
>dude at the register convinced mom that pokemon was already an old fad

>>729237997
>finally just emulated crystal a bit later but it wasn't the same, couldn't bring myself to finish it
>have never stopped liking pokemon but can't get myself to ever finish most gens, still wanting to go back some day and do it in order, still wishing so bad i hadn't missed that ultimate opportunity to 'bring it back' locally
>actually became reserved in highschool and things never felt the same, still feels like if i'd gotten that one damn game at that time things would've been different, but maybe not
>but still an optimistfag chasing hope and happiness even while unc status

also fuck it, i'm emulating some Crystal RIGHT THE FUCK NOW

>>729193089
Based. Can't wait to see mentally ill tendies seethe as their 3DS library rots while my luma sd card is future proof

>>729209871
>We used to live in a world where you could rent electronics and people would return them

>>729237997
>>729238050
damn anon i was 8 on Christmas 2001 and already gave 0 fucks about Pokemon and just wanted FFX and MGS2. got those plus DMC1, played Crystal a few months later and it's still the last Pokemon game i ever played

I always remember buying games at Toys R US when I finally saved up enough allowance. The dude would take the yellow ticket and disappear into the white hut for what seemed like a fucking eternity before coming back with your game. What took him so damn long?

>>729238050
You should try a ROM hack if you haven't
Pyrite and Perfect Crystal are both good addons to the vanilla experience but Pyrite is hard as balls

>>729238159
he rubbed his cock and balls on the edges of your disc

>>729238050
>also fuck it, i'm emulating
You're an adult now, you know emulating just doesn't feel right
You what feels great? Buying a modded fat GBA with a backlit screen and a cart (even an AliExpress clone will do)

>>729237997
Fuck that dude. Hope you got crystal later. It's worth a lot now.