A busted Mario costume. An extremely old pinball machine—so simple you wonder how pinball ever took off. Fighting games… so many fighting games. Hundreds of old consoles, some of which were complete flops, hooked up to hundreds of cathode ray tube televisions for maximum retro fidelity. High level Tetris players playing the NES version of the game in front of an exhausted crowd, resting up before returning to the show floor. The lady who does the voice for Princess Peach AND her faithful servant Toad in the Super Mario games, who will, if asked, do a shockingly loud Toad voice.

These are the sort of things you see on the floor at the Portland Retro Game Expo, a yearly exhibition of video game culture and technology for vintage game collectors and dealers. Gamers are looking to relive thei

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