The owner of the world's largest video game collection is auctioning off the assortment.
According to Pulse2, Michael Thomasson purchased the interactive entertainment over the last 25 years. Bidding has reach $50,000 for the archive of 10,607 games. The collector will only sell the products if bidders meet the reserve price, or lowest amount he is willing to accept for the inventory.
Thomasson told Pulse 2 that his close gaming ties allowed him to grow the collection.
"I operated seven independent gaming stores during the nineties and have worked for another chain for the last decade," Thomasson said in a statement. "I also operated Good Deal Games online since 1998, having thousands of games cross my path. Whenever I purchased a game that did not directly come from the distributor I was able to look through all our inventory and pick out the nicest copy of a game, including grabbing the nicest box and manual." The games work on the Atari 2600, 3DO, X-System and Sega Dreamcast consoles.
Thomasson has collected 400 games since putting the novelties on the auction block. Guinness' figure only includes one-of-a-kind titles, not duplicates of games.
According to ArsTechnia, Thomasson is not new to the gaming industry's business side.
"I've sold my collection many times in the past and still managed to capture Guinness' attention, and it is entirely possible that I may again," Thomasson told the website. He paid for his wedding by selling components of his TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Master System in 1998.
Thomasson told RETRO, he is able to avoid game hoarding's large expenditures.
"I rarely pay more than $10 to $15 for anything," Thomasson said. "So, most of my items were bought inexpensively. I look for the deal and am patient. To get to the number of items I have with a limited budget, I had to be disciplined and extremely efficient."
