Collector's perspective: Taking care of your collection

Overtime, we collect more and more video games, controllers, and consoles, thus, they pile up in our cabinets and containers. Taking care of them properly is one our responsibility to ensure preservation.

Cleaning BEMANI controllers during summer

Here are my basic helpful tips on how I take care of my collections;

1. Store your collection in a dry, and dust free place. Moisture absorbing desiccants can be used.

2. Avoid contact your collection with wet hands or any kind of liquid. In case of unexpected contact, immediately wipe and inspect for liquid intrusion. Liquids cause corrosion especially in consoles and may cause short-circuit. For games, it may cause box art discoloration and water stains in discs.

3. Avoid direct contact with sunlight. Prolonged exposure may cause console and box art yellowish discoloration especially in white console and controllers. Also, storing your game discs in dark places prevents data rotting.

4. After gameplay, always clean your controllers with damped cloth. Alcohol with cloth can be used to sanitize and remove grease. Keep it mind to apply in minimal amounts.

5. Avoid reaching it by children.

6. When cleaning discs, use microfiber cloth (used in cleaning eyeglasses). Make sure to wipe it vertically, not in circular direction. Check if there are signs of scratches especially in the reading side of the disc.

7. Wrap your large controllers in large plastics or bubble wraps if your controller doesn't have a box.

8. Avoid hitting your game cartridges. When we are young, when a console can't read game carts (i.e. Family Computer) we usually blow the connector thru our mouth or hitting the cart with great force. Frequent trauma to the cartridge can cause severe damage and malfunction. Cleaning the cartridge connector with microfiber will suffice.

Konami's KEY and APPEND DISC for PlayStation 1 and Dreamcast

During the 90's era, when Konami released their very first BEMANI game for the PlayStation 1, the beatmania in October 1998. The game consist of two disc, the Arcade disc and Yebisu Mix disc. The arcade disc is the direct version of beatmania in the arcade, while the Yebisu Mix act as APPEND disc. In order to play the Yebisu Mix, they must first load the arcade disc, select the DISC CHANGE option and swap disc. 

A Note in the cover art that the game requires a KEY DISC to play (cover art from pop'n music 4 APPEND)

The kind of concept was used up to APPEND ClubMIX, succeeding beatmania games were standalone game. If someone tries to load the APPEND DISC directly, a warning will appear in the screen and the game will not boot. pop'n music used this to their APPEND 3 and 4 (pop'n music 2, 5, and 6 as KEY DISC, GUITARFREAKS to their APPEND 2ndMIX (GUITARFREAKS 1st as KEY DISC). As for DanceDanceRevolution (DDR), they used this kind of setup to their CLUB VERSION's VOL. 1 and 2 (using the DDR 2ndReMIX and DDR 3rdMIX (CS) games). I previously blogged about CLUB VERSION DISC. They also implement the DISC CHANGE in its Dreamcast version of pop'n music.

DISC CHANGE schematics for beatmania 6thMIX + CORE REMIX (CS)

Interestingly, beatmania APPEND DISC can play the Bonus edit, more like an alter ego of the direct arcade port. They can play the Bonus edit if they DISC CHANGE in a certain order, for Example, in order to play the beatmania 5thMIX Bonus edit, they must load the beatmania Arcade disc, swapped disc to APPEND 3rdMIX, then, swap disc from APPEND 3rdMIX to APPEND 5thMIX. Another interesting feature by using the DDR 3rdMIX (CS) as KEY DISC for DDR 1st and 2ndReMIX the graphic interface of the latter will be used and not the original interface, although, background animations are disabled during gameplay.