I’m certain a lot of folks reading this title (if a lot of folks even visit this website in the first place that is) will go “a ‘what’ entertainment center?” However, I am hoping that small select group of people will find their way here because, like me they love video games and they will think this idea is as cool as I do. I haven’t found many people who think that yet, mind you, but through the magic of the internet I hope to make it possible.
This project began very early in my life at a time when ‘Nintendo’ was all I thought about. I wasn’t the most sociable kid and often, I think, used video games as a proxy for actual human interaction. I still played sports and was in clubs and had some friends, but mostly I preferred to be by myself or if I was hanging out with friends I had the most fun when we were playing video games. I’ve grown up since then (I think), but video games are still a part of my life and in fact as I’ve moved across the country I’ve brought most of my childhood video game systems with me in 2-3 large Tupperware chests. My plan had always been to set them up in some way in my forever home.
After we finalized our commitment to purchase our home my wife graciously granted me permission to set up this video game entertainment center on the small bonus 3rd floor space. I furiously researched what other people had done to display and arrange their video game systems to allow them all not only to be seen but also to be easily playable. I searched Pinterest and the general internet incessantly for weeks trying to find great ideas. The best working examples I found I’ve displayed below:
For whatever reason, none of these examples excited me. Though I did like the Donkey Kong one that was a video game generation before my time (only by about 5 years). Most of the others were just backless cubbies or were so large that they took up an entire wall of a basement. I have roughly 10 ft of space with an 8 ft ceiling that isn’t quite square because of the roof line (meaning the wall is ~6.5 ft, there there is a 45 degree angle portion that angles towards the center of the room to meet the ceiling which is 8 ft from the floor).
My original designs took into account the fact that I wanted lots of storage. I wanted to be able to display and play the video game game consoles, store all of the game cartridges and CD cases and house the TV. I also didn’t want to just build a cubby cabinet with a bunch of cubes. I wanted something to celebrate the video games I love and the video game I loved the most growing up was Mega Man X on Super Nintendo.
I set about designing the entertainment center around Mega Man X so that I could display all of the consoles that I grew up playing – I was not interested in accumulating all of the video game consoles in existence, as there are dozens to hundreds. Nor was I interested in trying to collect complete sets of games for any system as each system literally has hundreds to thousands of games released for them. This also just wasn’t reasonable given my space and interest. I set about to do mainly the Nintendo systems I grew up playing as well as the PlayStation consoles and Xbox consoles. In total this ended up being ~12 consoles with each console having on the order of ~12-30 games. The only games I really had or was interested in reacquiring (if I happened to sell them or donate them foolishly) were the ones I grew up playing or the ones for major systems that I didn’t play but were too good to miss out on.
Designing the center around Mega Man X’s signature helmet made the most sense and incorporated a ton of really bright fun colors. Initially, I was just planning on having various shaped shelves to infer the Mega Man helmet and then using the yellow “crest” panels to break up the shelving divisions and add more color:
This whole design had all of the consoles on the bottom and then I planned to just set the TV on top of this cabinet. I considered adding storage above for games. However, as I got into the space and started to do the math I realized I needed to redesign. First off, some of the consoles, like Super Nintendo and the Sega CDX I had were top loaders. This meant that I needed a set height to accommodate comfortably inserting and removing game cartridges. Also If put all of the consoles underneath like I had planned the TV would be sitting on a cabinet that would be almost 4-5 ft tall. The room itself was only ~ 12 ft deep so it would not be possible to place a couch or chair very far from this thing, which meant that if the table were 4 ft in the air you would be craning your neck to see it from a sitting position on a couch. I realized I needed to expand…horizontally.
The systems I wanted to incorporate, initially, were the following:
- Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
- Sega CDX – which I had from my childhood and was a Sega Genesis and Sega CD combo system.
- PlayStation (PS1)
- Nintendo 64
- Xbox
- Xbox 360
- Wii
- Personal Computer – I considered leaving a space for a very small form factor personal computer to allow for emulation (which is where you use a computer to fake an old video game console).
- Xbox One
- PlayStation 4
- Two placeholders for potential other consoles
After I gathered together all of my consoles I measured them all and considered how much horizontal space they should have and how much clearance they needed in order to get the cartridges in and out. I also took into account how thick these cartridges were (for storage stacking) and how tall the jewel cases and DVD style cases were for the various CD based consoles. After also taking into account the space I was working with in the room my redesign came out looking a lot better:
This updated plan incorporated some storage up top for games and kept the consoles underneath. The TV would sit in the middle (where Mega Man X’s face would normally be) and would be flanked by additional shelving on the sides for storage of controllers or potential future console upgrades. Importantly, the TV was only ~ 2 ft off the ground which made the viewing angle much more amenable to a couch being only ~6-8 ft away.
The time had finally come. I had my final measurements and I starting planning materials. To make these shelving units out of solid wood would be ridiculously expensive – even pine. Plywood was a slight option in my mind, but I didn’t have the skills to incorporate particle board because I didn’t really know how to properly use veneer to hide the ugliness of particle board interiors. I knew I was going to paint the whole entertainment center and I know that MDF is often used for trim in place of wood because once it is painted you really can’t tell the difference. MDF also handles shaping with saws and routers quite well and is very cheap. In the end, MDF won out for the reasons I outlined. With the size of the design I was going for there was absolutely no way I would be able to build this thing in the garage a carry it upstairs – I had to build it in major blocks and carry them up separately and assemble and finish upstairs on the third floor.
It made the most sense to start with the bottom piece. This piece would be supporting most of the weight of the whole unit so opted for 3/4″ MDF for this portion. The total width of this portion is 8′. I cut all of the pieces in the garage using a table saw and carried them all up and assembled in the upstairs space. This portion consisted of three 8′ x 2′ shelves, each made up of two 4′ x 2′ segments of 3/4″ MDF. The bottom shelf was supported with 2″ tall 4 x 4 blocks that I rounded over with a router and counter sunk screwed into the lower MDF shelf. I started with just six 4 x 4 block feet but eventually added an additional four block feet to help with weight distribution.
Then I stacked the shelves using pieces of pine made into I-beam type support structures. These structure added support but also provided a way for me to connect everything together as I knew MDF did not hold up so well when screwed to itself (the material tends to pulverize fairly easily). Additionally, I put a piece of MDF on the side of this unit which decreased the overall width a little but made the side a single flat piece – as opposed to a bunch of seams from the wood supports butting up against the MDF shelves.
After constructing the lower portion to this point I noticed the 3/4″ MDF was sagging slightly in the middle – just under its own weight. Signs that I would have to reinforce further if I wanted to load this thing up.
I next started on the flanking shelves that would form the sides and ears of Mega Man’s helmet. These shelves would be used for storage of controllers or potential future consoles as/if I expanded.
Things really started to fly together pretty quickly for this portion. I was able to fully construct these in the garage as these portions were small enough to be able to carry upstairs without much trouble. I used a similar I-beam support on the insides of the shelves, though I made these much narrower. If I had used the same design as on the lower shelves it would have swallowed up half of the width of these shelves. The lower shelf on this particular piece was a square (12″ x 12″) the two upper shelves were 12″ deep and 18″ wide – outside dimensions. All shelves were again made from 3/4″ MDF and sanded as smooth as possible. I then made the mirror of this one pictured below.
I tried to hide seams as much as I could with this project because I knew that when I painted it all the seams would show. I had plans to fill all of the seams with Spackle before painting to help this, but I still didn’t want to give myself too much to do.
Next was the upper final portion. This portion was meant to store all of the games – cartridges and discs in cases and all of the shelf heights were planned with this in mind. I opted for 1/2″ MDF for this portion. Even though I knew it might look a little odd given this sudden change in shelf thickness I was worried about this thing getting too top heavy (the right choice in the end). I again used the same wood support design. The lower surface (of the upper portion) was the full 8′ wide to match the tops of the flanking shelves. The two planks above that were 7′ wide and centered. I used wood supports on the ends (mostly to match the other sections) and spaced wood pieces throughout the shelves to prevent the 1/2″ MDF from sagging. The blocks in the picture below are not secured (that’s why they aren’t aligned correctly – this was just a test placement to make sure everything married up perfectly).
Everything looked to be good and matching up well. I finished the construction of the upper section (still separate from the flanking shelves) and got some help to carry everything upstairs.
Once up there I carefully aligned and started securing everything together. I added supports to the center to hold up the upper shelf and prevent it from sagging down into the TV’s space. I added three support pieces in total and this seemed to do the trick. I also aligned and added wood blocks to the upper and lower portions to prevent sagging of the MDF (see image below). All of these mid-shelf extra supports were glued in place. After this I added 1/4″ MDF as my backers on the entire system. If I had to do it over again I would not have used 1/4″ MDF as the backing. It seemed like a good idea at the time and was fairly cheap but, oh man, 1/4″ MDF ends up being really really heavy when you use ~10 (2′ x 4′) sheets of it. This weight seemed to make the entire entertainment center tilt backwards. Mind you this is better than the thing tilting forward, because this thing weighed a ton at this point and if this thing fell forward it would almost certain kill everyone in the room. Instead I should have used 1/4″ plywood (comes in 2′ x 4′ sheets as well) as this would have been MUCH lighter.
Once fully assembled I needed to address one major remaining design feature – the helmet crest (the black, red, blue, and yellow portion in the middle of Mega Man’s helmet – without this it would hardly be recognizable as Mega Man). In my mind this helmet crest was going to be 3-dimensional and I experimented a ton with trying to make something out of 1/4″ MDF that would have depth to it. I could not for the life of me get this to work and instead opted for the easier route on this one: I just made a flat panel that I would paint the appropriate colors. I cut the panel out using a jig saw and angled the blade so that the edges were beveled to try to give the piece a little bit of depth at least. I decided to make the panel narrower (left to right) than originally planned because if I made it the full width of the upper shelf it would essentially cut off access to all of this storage space. If I was really ambitious I would have put this panel on a hinge so you could lift it, but I was getting worn out by this project by this time and settled for a stagnant flat panel. At this point I also cut the cord management holes out of the back of each of the sections that may eventually contain consoles. This was a huge feature for me as I didn’t want to be able to see the inevitable mess of cords that would be behind this beast.
The next step would be to start painting. First though came an important step: pre-treating the MDF. I had read on a few different websites that MDF would swell if painted with water-based paint, especially at exposed ends (the faces of the MDF are sort of capped with something that helps prevent this). I read you could Spackle the ends to essentially waterproof these raw edges and prevent too much water absorption. So, we treated every raw edge of MDF with Spackle, waited for it to dry and sanded it smooth. I also used this opportunity to fill in any gaps in the seams and make the surfaces as smooth as possible. We sanded all the surfaces smooth and I also added a little panel at the bottom of the unit that was meant to be like the chest panel on Mega Man X. This would end up being yellow and help bring in some more color and really add symmetry to the whole thing by mirroring the huge panel on the top.
After sealing up all of the surfaces the next step was to put on a base coat of white. Without this there is no way I would be able to paint red, blue, or yellow on this brown MDF and not have it look super dull. I used oil-based KILZ for this and painted the whole thing top to bottom (except for the underneath bc I will never be able to get to that again haha). I used the oil-based (instead of water-based) because I think it tends to be thicker and I wanted an additional measure to avoid any swelling of MDF.
I needed to start planning the colors and locations and we needed to go to Sherwin-Williams to get the paints. I took my old Mega Man X poster from Nintendo Power Magazine into the store with me to try to match up the paints. We ended up getting Hyper Blue, Real Red, Decisive Yellow, Tricorn Black, and Pure White. We got only a quart of each so didn’t need to break the bank.
After applying the KILZ I felt it was pretty damn white already and decided I didn’t want to paint the white portions again with the white paint over top of the KILZ – though maybe this was a further sign that this month long project was wearing me out…I tend to get a little impatient at the end of some of these projects =(.
Either way I meticulously measured and used painter’s tape to make nice crisp lines wherever I could. The upper shelf of the upper portion was all blue with the lower shelf of the upper portion being all white. The middle section was entirely white except for the sides of the portion that juts out – these were red (like Mega Man’s ear pieces). The lower portion was white on top and the upper shelf of this portion was also white, but I decided to paint the support pieces blue to make them pop a little more. The lower shelf is blue on the bottom with blue support pieces but white on the sides and top. There is a black stripe running down the sides of the lower portion, similar to Mega Man X’s suit.
The colors were awesome! So bright – I was getting really excited about this again at this point. The last part that gave me trouble was the yellow of the crest. I wanted to create a shadow effect by having the upper portion of the yellow be normal but the lower half be sort of a darker yellow to infer a shadow. I painted the upper the Decisive Yellow and then mixed some yellow with black to try to darken it – this did not work and instead made it look almost green. My wife stepped in with the great idea of adding red to the yellow to make it darker. I never would have guessed but this worked perfectly!
Lastly I also made a frame for my Nintendo Power Mega Man X poster that I’ve saved for almost 30 odd years.
At first I filled the entertainment center with the consoles I had, but eventually made some acquisitions from eBay to complete my load out. The entertainment center now includes:
- Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
- Sega CDX – Genesis + Sega CD
- PlayStation (PS1)
- Nintendo 64
- PlayStation 2
- Nintendo GameCube
- (Original) Xbox – This particular one I bought modded so it emulates every system and every game from a dozen or so older systems using a 4 TB hard drive (my personal original non-modded Xbox sits on top of the system)
- Xbox 360 – The “S” version so no red ring of death for me =)
- PlayStation 3 – Super slim
- Wii
- WiiU
All consoles are arranged chronologically by their release date and all are plugged in, functional and playable by simply changing the input on the TV between three different choices. Each option goes to a switch box. The switch boxes are RCA (red, white, yellow cables) for NES, SNES, CDX, PS1, N64, and gamecube (because gamecube component cables are ridiculously expensive); component (red, blue, green) for PS2, Xbox, and Wii; and HDMI for Xbox360, PS3, and WiiU.
This project means a lot to me and finally gave me the chance to enjoy my childhood games with friends and family that come visit. I’ve had a great time using the system especially 5-person WiiU NintendoLand games of Luigi’s Mansion. Thanks for reading this far!