DUBAI: Policeman who lives in the United Arab Emirates emerges as the biggest lover of Nintendo and wins a Guinness World Record for his 8,000 piece collection.
Ahmed bin Fahad’s Nintendo obsession has cost him Dhs1.5 million, the equivalent of over £250,000. But it’s netted him a place in the record books and the unending envy of fellow fans.
The rarest item in the 33-year-old policeman’s collection is a Nintendo M8 demo unit, an original in-shop kiosk from the 1980s. But he has other rare coin-ops and games from Nintendo’s early years, as well as more modern releases.
Most of his haul has come from Japan, Germany, and Singapore and he keeps them all in a 13 metre by 6 metre extension to his house that he calls ‘the tent’.
‘It is a very expensive hobby, but I wanted to set this record to give a message to the world that Arabs are not only interested in speeding cars and flashy things,’ he told the 7DAYS Dubai.
He started playing when he was five, and was given his first console a year later. ‘I first saw a game at my uncle’s house and I kept asking my parents to buy one’.
According to Guinness World Records the biggest collection of general gaming memorabilia belongs to one Brett Martin from Colorado. But despite comprising over 8,000 individual items he also seems to have a predilection for Nintendo.
