Who is Retrohead?

History of Retrohead.

Where is Retrohead going?

What is Retrohead?
Retrohead is a site dedicated to consoles (Current Gen as well as Retro). However it also includes various handhelds, some key home computers and also some games and accessories. Retrohead has three main aims.
1. Its primary aim is to help new-comers to the world of retro consoles decide what to buy if they are thinking of collecting.
2. Its secondary aim is to list every first party console known.
3. Finally our third aim is to become a buzzing community of retro lovers, where anyone can find any piece of retro information in one place without having to go to multiple sites. If your new to collecting where do you start finding out about consoles and what there is out there?

Wikipedia?

The problem with that is....you won't know what to search for. What about going to a console specific dedicated site, like Neo Geo for life? Again, if you don't know about Neo Geo, how can you search for it?
Some sites list consoles but don't have a community aspect like discussion forums or being able to participate in anything to do with the site. Retrohead does. You can contribute to its main pages, add to the members area and take part in the discussions which in turn allows newcomers to speak to people who are already in the know. Our site aims to bridge these issues and provide retro lovers with one place to visit. However our site does not aim to exclude other sites, in fact we link to many other useful retro sites including the small hard to find ones as well as the large well established sites which in turn also helps seasoned console collectors. It has something for everyone and will hopefully become the Wiki for consoles that everyone turns to when they need information or help.

Who is Retrohead?
The founder and creator of Retrohead.co.uk is Rob Ellison born in Wiltshire, UK. Rob always had a love of gaming starting out with the Amiga A500. Rob does not profess to be a fountain of knowledge on consoles or an expert and has not had experience in the industry. But what he has got is a passion for consoles that has led him to create this site. Rob says;
"I first started collecting consoles thanks to a section in a magazine called 'Retrogamer' that listed many different consoles, some I had never heard of before and it really got me thinking and interested in consoles on a level that I had not explored until that moment. Thanks to that section I now have a collection of over 28 consoles and handhelds and I am hoping to expand on that in years to come. I got interested in creating this site because I could not find a similar site out there, most sites were console specific or did not go in depth enough. I thought, how on earth can people collect these if they don't know about them..that's where I came in and decided to do something about it, I am not an expert but I hope that people will see what I am trying to do and become a part of it"

The 2nd in command on Retrohead is co-creator Paul Courtney.
Paul has been gaming since he was 10, so that's 26 years of gaming. He started on a Sinclair ZX81 and fondly remembers busting his fingers on the rigid keyboard. He claims that console collecting has become an obsession and that Retrohead is a great place for him to vent.
Paul says " I love the current gen of machines and have really enjoyed playing some of this gens classics. However I am finding myself more and more returning to retro gaming for my gaming thrills.I stopped playing Devil May Cry 4 the other night to play Burger Time on the Intellivision. I believe that there is not enough mock wood being used in console design these days"

Both Rob and Paul still work on the site to date and continue to improve it. Paul has compiled the information on most of the consoles on the site and has an excellent knowledge of games machines both Home and Arcade, whilst Rob concentrates mainly on maintaining, improving and promoting the site

History of Retrohead. Retrohead was created on February 07th 2008. The site was created on a website called 'Wetpaint' a site where Wikki's can be started up on any subject. (http://retrohead.wetpaint.com). The sites first homepage was no more than a large picture of multiple consoles and some brief words. In a week some links had been added to make it easier to find other sections of the site. By the beginning of March 2008 Retrohead had a more professional feel with a white and green theme, the main picture had gone and the layout had improved sufficiently for the site to be promoted on the web. By 20th March 2008 Retrohead was given a Domain of its own, www.retrohead.co.uk. Within the first week Retrohead had its first outside member known as 'AriesNova'. In February 2009 exactly a year after it started Retrohead had its second overhaul, it become much easier to navigate and contained a lot more for people to do, it became more streamlined and the biggest change was its theme, now becoming black and green in the main. It also was given a new site banner. The banner changes can be seen at the bottom of the page:

Where is Retrohead going? Retrohead will remain regardless how successful or not it becomes. But how big it gets will be determined by how many members it gets. It will rely a lot on the input of other Retro console lovers.
It aims to be known across the web as a one stop shop for all console information.


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