BOSTON — This year’s Retrogame Roadshow panel from the PAX East gaming convention played host to a parade of amazing one-of-a-kind treasures from the history of videogames.
Hosted by Wired editor Chris Kohler, Retrogame Roadshow takes place at each Penny Arcade Expo convention in Boston and Seattle. Audience members can bring in games and memorabilia to show a panel of experts, who describe the items, explain why they are rare (or not), evaluate their authenticity and wager a guess on the price these items might sell for on the open market.
While many attendees brought games that were sold to the public, including a sealed copy of the sought-after European Super Nintendo game Terranigma and the hard-to-find Star Trek Phaser Battle electronic toy, others brought in priceless items that very few people have ever gotten the chance to see. An original prototype of the unreleased 8-bit Earthbound game from Nintendo was on stage, and so was a truly unique piece of history: A pre-production box for the unreleased Lord of the Rings Atari 2600 game.
Panelists included Joe Santulli of the Videogame History Museum, Steve Lin of GREE and Frank Cifaldi of Gamasutra.
The video of Retrogame Roadshow was streamed live by Penny Arcade Expo and TwitchTV, and is now available to be viewed at any time (above). You can watch Wired’s video of last year’s Retrogame Roadshow at PAX in Seattle below.