Video Game Manual Repository

[Jerkface Killah]

Hey all,

It's been a long time since I've posted. I hope everyone is doing well. I've been kicking an idea around for a long time. I want to make a single repository for scans of video game instruction manuals. If you're playing a ROM of a game (or even a loose original cart) you often need the manual for integral information. Right now, there are a bunch of sites that have a small-medium collection of video game manual scans. It's really frustrating that there isn't one single place to find them. I just want to know what other people do now when they need a manual. Do you just Google them individually as needed? Do other people think this would be helpful? Also, feel free to share which sites you go to now for manuals.

Thanks!
JFK

[MrPopo]

ReplacementDocs is a pretty major collection.

[Exhuminator]

feel free to share which sites you go to now for manuals

I agree with MrPopo, replacementdocs.com is hard to beat.

[Jerkface Killah]

ReplacementDocs is a pretty major collection.

Thanks for chiming in. I should have called out Replacement Docs and vimm.net specifically in my post. RD has a great collection. However, my goal would be to have a site that adapts to mobile devices. Browsing manuals on RD or Vimm is not a great experience. However, if I don't get this project off the ground, I'll probably just upload everything I have/get to RD.

[Jerkface Killah]

After digging a little deeper, I think that http://www.gamesdatabase.org/ has the best selection of manuals. However, they seem to have some bandwidth issues. Some of the high res PDF scans take several minutes to open (like Dino Crisis for Dreamcast). Definitely a better selection than replacementdocs. RD also apparently applied a watermark to a lot (but not all) of the manuals. But Gamesdatabase still isn't complete. There are sites like segaretro.org that cater to specific consoles that have some missing manuals. I wonder how the sites feel about pooling resources. Maybe I'll reach out.

[nullPointer]

EmuMovies is another place that has a fairly deep repository of game manuals for many, many retro systems. It is a paid membership however (which grants FTP access and file syncing capabilities), so do with that what you will. They also host box art scans, title screen snaps, game play snaps, game play video clips, and that sort of thing. It's a really nice resource (I'd even go so far as to say the 'go to' resource), for those interested in 'jazzing up' their emulation rigs to provide a more integrated and modern frontend experience.