Over the weekend the amazing Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2015 took place in Portland, Oregon, and was a mecca for arcade games, pinball, classic consoles, and all things retro technology. There was also great cosplay and plenty of interesting merchandise to browse too. Check out the photos and videos of the event below.
This Atari 2600 was displayed in its natural habitat with shag carpeting, an awful couch, console television, and plenty of wood grain:
There was an immense amount of arcade games available free to play. The whole range of classic to modern games was represented well:
https://youtu.be/51sP1cKKG60
This Pong machine was signed by its original creator Al Alcorn! Many other Atari engineers were at the expo too:
In addition to arcade games there was a great collection of pinball machines to play too:
https://youtu.be/5rmOzl-iGRo
This Joust pinball cabinet was fantastic–two people could play against each other at the same time:
https://youtu.be/dSZfLoK_gic
This virtual pinball cabinet houses a computer and LCD screens that emulate the look of classic pinball tables:
The cosplay at the event was absolutely fantastic! This suit of Halo armor was entirely 3D printed and took over 600 hours of work to design and build–amazing job!
This family had a great idea to dress as Back to the Future characters–just in time for October 21, 2015!
The Pip-Boy on this great Fallout cosplay was 3D printed and held a cell phone with a replica interface program:
The stick was made from balsawood and foam, despite its looks it was super lightweight and harmless:
One of the most creative cosplays was an entire Pac Man arcade cabinet!
https://youtu.be/zvnmOEt6aIM
The winner of the cosplay contest was this fantastic Talim from Soulcalibur. It was her first cosplay costume and was entirely handmade–nice job!
A classic Tetris world championship tournament took place and showed some amazing Tetris skills:
https://youtu.be/4od3JyAsSqE
A retro gaming expo wouldn’t be complete without loads of classic games available to buy:
I haven’t seen so many new in box SNES games since the system was brand new:
Homebrew and reproduction game carts were also quite prevalent. It’s awesome to see brand new games for old systems like the Atari 2600 & 5200 still coming out today:
Someone ported Flappybird to the TI-99–impressive!
There was a great showing of indie games too:
The expo was a chance to meet interesting people like these YouTube gaming superstars, PeanutButterGamer, Projared, and more:
There was even a bit of live game streaming straight from the expo floor:
Arduino spotted! This donation machine for the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo let you play a NES game after donating money:
It just so happened that the last day of the expo, Sunday October 18th, was the 30th anniversary of the NES being introduced in America! To celebrate there was a NES cake of course:
The expo was also full of great retro hardware, like this Apple IIGS Woz edition playing the best IIGS game of all, Zany Golf:
A working Atari Jaguar CD system–this is quite a rarity. 🙂
A Playstation 2 developer kit for sale-bring your checkbook, it’s not cheap!
Awesome and hilarious vintage wireless Atari 2600 controllers. Check out those huge antennas!
Jerri Elsworth’s awesome Commodore 64 DTV system, brand new in box:
This air traffic controller tabletop electronic game from the late 70’s/early 80’s was bizarrely awesome:
There were some great modded console cases on the expo floor:
The January 1995 Nintendo Power issue is the best one in my opinion–check out the vacation photos section inside it for someone you might recognize:
Overall the Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2015 was a fantastic event–it’s worth checking out in the future if you’re at all interested in classic gaming!