The return to Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2022
Portland Retro Gaming Expo (PRGE) finally came back to Portland in October 2022. The show hadn't happened in over 2 years mostly due to the pandemic. Join Erik from The Gamers Lounge as he ventured into the large convention searching for the goods. Will the prices be high? Will there be a mad rush to get Mario 3 CIB?
Things haven’t changed much since I was last here in 2019, the convention center is the same and the layout feels familiar. Many of the classics from previous PRGEs were there, Tetris World Championship,the large console free play area and the nice selection of arcade and pinball. I did manage to squeeze in some time playing Mortal Kombat 2 and NFL BLitz 2000 in the Arcade. New to the show this year was a room called The Last Blockbuster which was setup just like Blockbuster was in its heyday. There was also a Sega exhibit that covered Saturn, which featured several stations for people to play Saturn games as well as rare pieces on display.
There were plenty of guest speakers and well known people in the industry. Warren Davis was there to talk about Q*Bert. Pat “The Nes Punk” had a panel. Howard Scott Warshaw had a panel. The Gaming Historian, as were the guys from Retronauts. Plenty of interesting guest speakers, the full list is here and here are several of the panels that were uploaded to Youtube
As always there was a section for atari homebrew, always popular in the Pacific Northwest. I saw vendors with artwork, posters, fan made translations, wood art, gaming themed candles and the list goes on and on. Now onto the games, what were the prices like and the selection?
Let’s start with the selection, pretty much reflects what’s in demand these days. Last time I went in 2019, there was a good balance of NES, SNES, Gamecube, Genesis and Master system, along with PC games, hard to find PS1/PS2, PS3 games, Neo-Geo stuff, Turbografx, and some Saturn and Dreamcast. Plenty of consoles and cheaper games for people to buy at very reasonable prices.
Not so much in 2022, the selection was different, there were almost no PC or Turbo games. There was Saturn, but like all the PS1 stuff I saw most of the games were the hard to find stuff. Here is a good example pic.
I saw Gamecubes, Genesis model 2s, N64s, and lots of handheld stuff. The consoles ranged from $60-$120 and may have included 1 controller and 1 game. The handheld stuff, especially the 3DS, was crazy. New 3DS’s were $250+, boxed were $400+ and it just got worse. I did see a fair amount of fan translation and homebrew carts. I also saw some modded consoles, Gameboy Colors, loaded Dreamcasts and Gamecubes with SD mods.
I came with my list and didn't buy much this year. Found a few boxed Genesis games I needed, and tried to trade my Dreamcast extras for a few things. That's another thing I suggest when you go to these conventions: take trade fodder, and cash. People were happy to take cash and knock 20-30% off the asking prices especially if you can bundle.
We’ll go back next year and see what we can find