Gifts for Retro Gamers: A Guide for People Who Don't Collect

Buying for a retro gamer is intimidating from the outside. You do not know which games they own, which versions are rare, or what half the acronyms mean. Here is the secret: you do not need to know any of that. Every collector, no matter what they collect, has the same two problems. Their games are piled in a drawer, and their consoles leave the house unprotected. Solve either one and the gift lands.

Everything below is designed and 3D printed in our Michigan shop, ships the next business day, and carries a 1-year warranty. If you know which system they own, you can also browse by system and match it exactly.

Under $20: the safe bets

Storage trays are the gift that cannot miss. They drop into a drawer or sit on a shelf, hold a stack of games with every cartridge in its own slot, and work no matter how big the collection is. The 30-cart tray for Game Boy, GBA, and GBC covers the most-collected handheld family in one shot, the N64 tray tames the chunkiest cartridges ever made, and the 50-cart DS and 3DS tray swallows a modern handheld collection whole.

In the same range, the GPU cooling fan adapter kits are the sleeper pick for the person in your life running AI experiments on a datacenter card in their home PC. Yes, that is a real hobby. Yes, they will be shocked you knew.

Under $35: display and everyday carry

Display towers turn a drawer full of games into the best-looking shelf in the room. Each cartridge stands in its own slot with the label facing out. The 10-slot N64 tower and 10-slot SNES tower are the crowd favorites, the 20-slot Game Boy tower covers three generations of handheld carts in one piece, and card collectors get the same treatment from the 12-slot graded slab tower.

Cartridge cases are the everyday-carry version: a hard shell with a padded slot for every game. The 60-game DS and 3DS case and the 18-game Game Boy case both come in under this tier, and the 40-game Switch case is pocket-sized for travel.

The showpieces: console cases

If they own a handheld they love, a fitted hard case is the gift they have been meaning to buy themselves for years. The interior is shaped to their exact console, so it closes with zero movement inside, with slots for games and cables built in. The Rugged TPU Case for the Game Boy Advance SP and New 3DS XL sit at the top of the line with a removable TPU cushion surrounding the console. For something nobody else will give them, the N64 case with a built-in carry handle carries a dozen cartridges like a lunchbox, and the original Game Boy DMG case even has a hidden compartment under the console for link cables and spare batteries.

One warning about versions

The only way to get this wrong is the console version. Nintendo made a New 3DS and an Old 3DS, in regular and XL sizes, and cases for one do not fit the other. Same story with the PSP 1000 versus the 2000 and 3000. If you are not sure which one they own, check the listing photos against theirs, or just ask us. A message to the shop goes straight to the person who designed the case, and we would rather answer a question than ship the wrong fit.

Every order ships from Michigan the next business day, so this works even for the people who start shopping late. We will not judge. We print things for thirty-year-old consoles; late is kind of our whole business.