In recent years, SC3 has become perhaps better-known for its arcade games, but the home consoles have always been close to our heart. In fact, when SC3 held its first meeting in the late 1990s, there were no coin-ops to be found. We were just a bunch of classic console collectors gathering to swap cartridges and play Warlords on the trusty old Atari 2600. Even though today's meetings are more likely to have an original Warlords arcade cabinet on hand, there's still plenty of room for that 2600 – and lots of other consoles too!
The SC3 organizers take their console collecting seriously. Through the years, we've had a lot of old favorites, cutting-edge new releases, extreme rarities, and just downright weird stuff available for all attendees to enjoy. Some of the console attractions to appear at SC3 include: the debut of the Arcadia 2001 and Bally Astrocade multicarts; never-before-seen prototype games for the Intellivision and Atari 2600; crazy Japan-only games like Para Para Paradise and Strip Rock, Paper, Scissors; the 1982 vacuum-fluorescent handheld version of Tron; and Joyboard Combat – an SC3 trademark event where Atari 2600 Combat is played using the Joyboard balance board peripheral.
We have a soft spot for games from the "classic" years of the early 1980s, but consoles from all eras are welcome. It's not unusual to see the PS3 or Nintendo Wii at SC3. The classics are always well-represented with original hardware (often modified for better audiovisual performance), games, controllers and multicarts. Below is a (mostly) complete list of consoles that have appeared at SC3. Not all of these appear at every event, although many do. And don't worry... the most popular consoles – the Atari 2600/7800, NES/Famicom, Vectrex, and ColecoVision – are always on hand!