We had a good turnout for our first meeting with about 50 kids (out of 300) showing up. We had about 20 kids playing video games (on 8 consoles, one plug-n-play, and a mini MAME cab) while others were playing Magic the Gathering, Pokemon Card Game, and Chess.
The video games that were running were:
Maden 12 - PS3 (2 players)
Super Smash Bros Brawl - Wii (2 players GC controllers)
Mario Kart Wii - Wii (4 players)
Power Stone - DC (2 players)
Marvel vs Capcom - PS1 (2 players)
Super Mario Bros 3 - NES (2 players)
Tetris (& Dr. Mario) - SNES (2 players)
Street Fighter 2 CE - Genesis (2 players)
Frogger - MAME Cab (1 player)
Pac-Man - JAX Handheld (1 player)
These are all of my consoles from home that I had double of. I was worried that since these were the poorer quality selection of my consoles but only problem I had was the lack of good controllers. Many of these controllers are in bad condition since the good ones are at home. I bought and have more GC controllers (off-brand) on the way for 4-player Smash and new (off-brand) PS3 controllers on the way since we were using worn-out ones. I may one day get two more DC controllers to play 4 players on that too. I will be working with the PTA to reach out to the community looking for donations of not only video game-related stuff but also board games, card games, TVs etc. So we will see where this takes us.
OK, now I need some advice. I want all co-op games that are fast and allow players to move in and out quickly (winner stays) to keep the kids engaged. The following were not huge hits: SMB3 and Tetris. I may keep Tetris, but any suggestions for an NES game? The handheld Pac-Man game can be replaced (put Pac-Man on the cab) and I have an oXBOX and another Genesis I could hook up, so any ideas on other games I could rotate in that are school appropriate?
The spoiler below has some images of my cramped set-up:
