Consoles in vehicles

[Pabstblueribbon]

My band just recently purchased a 15 passenger van. We will most likely be going out for a few weekends here and there. We just did our first one and there is a LOT of waiting around involved, with venues being within 3-4 hours of each other, there is a lot of time to kill and usually not much to do. I have a DS which is okay for me, but there are 5 dudes in the van and 4 of us are gamers. This would be a good source of entertainment for all of us that we wouldnt have to spend any money on at the time, which is very important because we are poor mother fuckers.

Has anyone ever kept a console in a vehicle for a long time? I would think the vibrations would be kind of rough on the console. Would it be better to go cartridge based or disk based as far as damage goes? I would like to go with the Dreamcast, tons of games, runs roms pretty well, and its 4 player. Plus it reads cd-rs without a mod chip, so if games get destroyed or anything like that it wouldnt be a huge deal.

[Frizz.Meister]

My mate has a n64 in the back of his citreon picasso. Been nearly 2 years and it still seems to work fine. Not to mention mario kart makes journeys fly by.

[lisalover1]

I once had a dream where I was playing a Sega Saturn in a Saturn car. I wish I could make something like that in real life.

Anyway, as per your question, you want to definitely choose a retro console; at least 2 generations back. Last generation is when hardware started to become very fragile. The oXbox wouldn't be a good choice, unless you had some way to stop the vibrations. If you did have a way, then it would be the ideal console for the van, because you could hack it and put XBMC on it, as well as a bigger hard drive. It would be perfect for long road trips. Actually, scratch what I said before. Try and find a way to greatly minimize vibration to the oXbox [because of the fragile hard drive], hack it, put in a huge hard drive, load it with games, videos, etc., get 4 wireless controllers, and you will be all set. Trust me, it is a blast. the best part is that you wouldn't take up extra space with the games. You could just load everything onto the hard drive, and save the rest of the room for band equipment. Maybe the best solution would be to create a harness of some sort on the ceiling of the van, so that the Xbox could hang down. You would then have to find a way to keep it from swinging, though. Maybe three padded boards on both sides and the back, so that the impact will be drastically minimized.

[CRTGAMER]

Exposure to outside temperatures, especially over night condensation is probably your biggest concern. Also risk of theft. You could make it a removable, say a rack mount type setup. Another option is mounting inconspicuously fold-up LCD and bringing unmounted console when on your road trips.

Removable LCD and whatever game console for Car shows. Inserts in the trunk lid.
Some fender washers with the left insert, instead of the button, a couple allen bolts.


AC power inverter mounted in my trunk, that red one to the right in the pic below.
Removable LCD shaded by trunk lid to cut down light glare.

[NSBAceAttorney]

The only recent console I think would work well would be the GameCube. The N64 is a good option, but my personal pick would be a PS2. While it's a bit more fragile then the other options, there are plenty of great multiplayer games at very affordable prices, or you could just pick up Tiny Tank and listen to the in game radio.

[CRTGAMER]

Couple other issues.

1. A PS2 HDAdvance/HDLoader setup keeps all the game discs conveniently at home.

2. Car battery life, could especially be an issue when using an AC inverter.
My car has spare switched out to start motor after a long gaming session.

[lisalover1]

Couple other issues.

1. A PS2 HDAdvance/HDLoader setup keeps all the discs conveniently at home.

2. Car battery life, could especially be an issue when using an AC inverter.
My car has spare switched out to start motor after a long gaming session.

Like I said, the same thing with the Xbox, except the Xbox is better at emulation and playing media.

[Pabstblueribbon]

I once had a dream where I was playing a Sega Saturn in a Saturn car. I wish I could make something like that in real life.

Anyway, as per your question, you want to definitely choose a retro console; at least 2 generations back. Last generation is when hardware started to become very fragile. The oXbox wouldn't be a good choice, unless you had some way to stop the vibrations. If you did have a way, then it would be the ideal console for the van, because you could hack it and put XBMC on it, as well as a bigger hard drive. It would be perfect for long road trips. Actually, scratch what I said before. Try and find a way to greatly minimize vibration to the oXbox [because of the fragile hard drive], hack it, put in a huge hard drive, load it with games, videos, etc., get 4 wireless controllers, and you will be all set. Trust me, it is a blast. the best part is that you wouldn't take up extra space with the games. You could just load everything onto the hard drive, and save the rest of the room for band equipment. Maybe the best solution would be to create a harness of some sort on the ceiling of the van, so that the Xbox could hang down. You would then have to find a way to keep it from swinging, though. Maybe three padded boards on both sides and the back, so that the impact will be drastically minimized.

this is a good idea. I want to make sure its removable as its not going to live in the van (it would get destroyed in the winter here sitting outside for too long) but i think this is a good idea.

[lisalover1]

It could easily be removable; if you were going for the harness route for holding the console, all you would need to do is unfasten it to remove the Xbox. Or, to make sure it isn't stolen while you are playing a show, you could put a lock on the harness, which would solve both the security and portability problems.

The great part about a hacked Xbox is that you're not limited to just games. Sure, it can do Xbox games, but since it is the most powerful hacked console available [except the Wii, which doesn't have quite as useful homebrew], you can easily run emulators for everything up to and including the N64!... except the Saturn, unfortunately. XBMC is also incredible; it is the best media center I have ever used. You could do most major functions a computer could do if you plan it right. Hell, I've even heard of people setting up a wireless adapter on the Xbox, and browsing the internet with Xbox Linux. Now that's just badass.

Also, as of right now, you can get an Xbox and bigger hard drive for dirt cheap, and I'm sure someone on these forums will let you borrow a kit for hacking it. For me, I got an Xbox, the materials to hack it, and a 500 GB hard drive, for around $80. Not too shabby.

[jfrost]

There's a problem with the Xbox: it's fucking huge.