Topic: Sonic R Unboxing at PAX East 2010

[Penguin_Of_Thyme]

One of my favorite moments at PAX East last year was opening a sealed copy of Sonic R for Sega Saturn. 

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blog/25673

The 2nd annual PAX East will be starting tomorrow. While I am one of the few people from the site who will not be attending this year, I thought I would share with you one of my cherished memories from last year's convention. 

At PAX East, they had a classic consoles room where people could play retro games on a wide variety of systems. There was Genesis, NES, SNES, Saturn, Atari 2600, and many more systems available to play. To borrow a specific game, you would choose from a long list and then be handed a copy of the title you desired by some of the friendly staff they had there. I decided to borrow a copy of Sonic R for Sega Saturn. Amazingly, the copy they handed me was still sealed and the people there insisted I open it and play it. Here is the unboxing video that my friend Greg filmed.

The classic console room will be back this year so I highly recommend visiting it if you are attending this weekend. The copy of Sonic R that I opened was donated for use at PAX East by Digital Press, which is a cool website and video game retailer in New Jersey. And don't forget the RFN panel on Saturday because that should be a lot of fun.

[Ian Sane]

When I saw this topic I thought "Sonic R?  What the hell is he talking about?  That game is old!"

But it turns out it honestly is the old Sonic R for the Saturn.  That's cool!

I find it cool enough to land a copy of an old game that not only has the box and manual but still has the little extra forms like Nintendo Power subscriptions and such.  So to open a brand new copy with EVERYTHING in it, exactly as is, is just exciting.

Years from now will opening a sealed Wii game be exciting?  Honestly the idea of opening a sealed Gamecube game would seem lame and uninteresting to me right now but is that entirely because it's not old enough?  Or is there also a personal nostalgic connection?  The Saturn comes from a time when I was still in high school.  The 8 bit, 16 bit, and 32/64 bit generations sum up the bulk of my childhood.  I was an adult when the previous generation started (which does change the emotion a bit) and the pre-crash stuff is so old that I have no real emotional attachment to it.  But then would I be excited about opening an old Intellivision game?  I certainly would from a historical point of view but I don't think it would be the same as opening an old NES game.