Merry Christmas! If you'd like to spend 45 minutes celebrating video game history with me, we're about to debut The Untold Story of the Nintendo Entertainment System. I worked on his ALL YEAR, and I genuinely think it will reshape how we all think about the system. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJvp...

The CVGA will be closed from December 10 through January 6 for the intersession. We re-open on Wednesday January 7 on our Winter schedule (same as our fall schedule). Enjoy your break!

Our Panasonic 3DO stopped working (possibly bad capacitors). We will hopefully acquire a replacement…

The CVGA is closed for the remainder of the week. We re-open on Monday December 1. Enjoy your holiday!

New games arrived last week in the CVGA: PS5 NBA 2K26 Cronos: The New Dawn God of War: Ragnarok Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Silent Hill f Switch Sonic Racing: Cross Worlds Switch 2 Donkey Kong Bananza Xbox Series X Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster Hell is Us FC26

Current Leaderboard for the CVGA Game Challenge! Can you do better?

Join the Video Game Challenge in the CVGA featuring classic favorites Katamari Damacy and Bubble Bobble! Test your skills, compete for the highest score, and see your name rise on the leaderboard. Top scorers for each game win a prize! Everyone gets a sticker! Through Nov 14. (U-M students only.)

Switch 2 is now available in the CVGA. Handheld, or reserve station 1 to play on the large screen. (The only Switch 2 game we currently have is Mario Kart World; more games are on order)

Introducing the William Volk papers, a new digital collection in the VGHF Library! Explore thousands of documents, developments schedules, and memos from the early history of Activision. Read more: gamehistory.org/william-volk...

Good news: Our SEGA Saturn is working again (at least for now...) Thanks to @backofficeshow.bsky.social vid on YouTube for the inspiration: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcSS...

Alas, the optical drive on our SEGA Saturn has died. As a result, Saturn games can't be played until we repair or replace the console. (Our Japanese Saturn still works though!)

We’re hanging out at the 3rd floor of Shapiro until 4pm for Party For Your Mind @umichlibrary.bsky.social

Welcome Back! Our hours for Fall semester are: Mon - Thu: Noon - 8pm Friday: Noon - 5pm Closed on holidays and during fall break.

The CVGA will be closed from Wednesday August 13 through Sunday August 24 for the intersession. We will re-open with our Fall schedule on Monday August 25.

Heads-up: The CVGA will be closed Thursday and Friday this week (July 17 & 18). We resume regular summer hours on Monday.

Here’s something you don’t see every day - an ad for asciiPad featuring the Archie gang and in the tried and true Hostess style (1993).

Last night I got access to a digitized film reel from 1969 that shows off a computer artillery game called Potshot. And to explain why that’s a big deal, I need to talk about Dartmouth and the BASIC computer language.

One of the rarest items in our collection: an Interact Home Computer, from Ann Arbor-based Interact Electronics ca. 1978

The CVGA will close early (at 4pm) on July 3rd, and is closed on July 4.

Extra game cartridges (duplicates in our collection)

And here's a look at some of the gaming stations in the CVGA archive room.

Here's a look at one of the shelves in the CVGA storage area, with several extra game consoles ready to be called into service!

I’m so excited that the @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social talked to @umcvga.bsky.social, University of Michigan’s game archives! I’ve been able to visit a couple times and it’s a wonderful place pca.st/episode/e2b1...

We are giving a brief (remote) presentation about the CVGA at @narrascope.org this afternoon at 1:30 EDT.

A few recent ColecoVision game arrivals in the CVGA.

Tomorrow (Fri June 13) in #AnnArbor: “Comics in Conversation: Artist, Writer, Reader” panel with @tonyweaverjr.bsky.social @goraina.bsky.social & @scottmccloud.bsky.social (moderator @elephanteater.bsky.social) 1pm Hatcher Library Gallery @umichlibrary.bsky.social www.lib.umich.edu/visit-and-st...

Atari 5200 games added to the CVGA collection this week #atari #retrogames

played some Rhyme Rider Kerorican for the Wonderswan Color over at the @umcvga.bsky.social, and also got to check out the box! Very cool stuff :] (Stage 4 is still hard as heck even on original hardware)

CVGA hours for the Spring/Summer: M, T, W, F: Noon - 4pm Thurs: Noon - 6pm Sat & Sun: Closed (Through August 12; closed holidays.)

The CVGA is currently closed for the intersession. We will reopen on Tuesday May 6 with our Spring hours: M, T, W, F: Noon - 4pm Thurs: Noon - 6pm Sat & Sun: Closed

📚 Happy National Library Week! Visited @umcvga.bsky.social last month - library AND gamer paradise! 🎮 Played Phantasmagoria on a vintage PC 🤯 Have you checked out games at your local library? What's your experience been? How could this increase access for students? #LevelUpEDU #Library

8-Bit Music Exhibit @umichlibrary.bsky.social www.lib.umich.edu/visit-and-st...

We've (finally!) added a new iPad to the CVGA for mobile gaming (replacing our old iPad that was very, very old!)

Attempted surgery today on a pair of Atari VCS consoles. We had one with a bad controller port, and another with a bad power switch. So we took the switch board from the one with the bad controller port and put it in the other. Sealed it back up and it worked...

Recent additions to the CVGA's TTRPG book collection:

Tested some of our ersatz Atari 2600 consoles today. One of the original Sears units works like new; the others work but have at least one touchy switch.

We are closed this week for break week. Regular Winter hours resume March 10.

Heed the call to adventure, brave souls! The ancient tomes speak of teenage heroes gathering at the Whittaker branch, where seasoned Dungeon Masters lead one-shot adventurers through perilous dungeons and mythical realms. 🐉

Arrived today in the CVGA: An Atari 7800+ (plays 2600 & 7800 games on a modern display over HDMI) and an Evercade-compatible Super Pocket handheld.

Why won't any of these games load on the Apple II?!?! (a few minutes later...) Oh, because they are Commodore 64 games 🤦‍♂️

We now have a Logitech G920 steering wheel + pedals for all your Xbox One/S/X & Windows 11 racing game needs!

Welcome Back! Starting today, our new (slightly expanded) hours for Winter semester are: Mon - Thu: Noon - 8pm Friday: Noon - 5pm We added new shelves over the break and rearranged all the game cases, so please bear with us while we relearn where everything is...

The new shelves are in! We should have everything back on the shelves and in order by the time we re-open in January.

The games have been removed from the shelves, and the old shelves themselves are gone. The new shelving should be installed sometime in the next week.

Exciting news! The CVGA is getting new shelving installed over the winter break—this will expand our shelving capacity in the archive room by about 30%. Due to this the last day for CVGA operations will be December 10; we will be closed from Dec 11 until the start of the Winter semester in January.

After further testing, we could only get Gunslugs to work on a Series 1 Genesis without added peripherals, and on an atGames Genesis. It would not work on any Series 2, nor on a Series 1 with the 32x and Sega CD attachments. Our best guess is that this homebrew game runs afoul of Sega’s TMSS

We were testing & cleaning our Genesis games today, and one of the student assistants came across this Illegal Instruction error with the Gunslugs cartridge

New posting for Digital Preservation Production Manager (Asst. or Assoc. Librarian) at U. Michigan: careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2... This is a Union job (LEO-GLAM). As the posting states, you will sometimes get to work with us in the CVGA doing digital game preservation!

Fired up the Vectrex for testing today; unfortunately it is not working properly 🙁