For more than 20 years, video game fans have campaigned to protect and preserve the material heritage of video games. This is how the MO5 association was born in 2003, named after an old French microcomputer, the Thomson MO5. But you even have to go back to the mid-1990s to see its founder, Philippe Dubois, then already the owner of an important collection of machines, create a website called the Computer History Museum that will progressively bring together numerous fans of video games and consoles.
At Paris Games Week, as in every edition, the association has one of the most visited stands. It must be said that young and old go there to discover or rediscover the consoles of the 80s or 90s, but not only that… In fact, the association presents the first arcade machine.
“We choose the consoles that we show to the public,” says David Soumet, vice president of the MO5 association. “We want to have this Proust madeleine for everyone. We have the Super Nintendo, the Mega Drive, but also a Vectrex and slightly more obscure consoles.”
In total, about forty consoles and terminals – of the more than 70,000 pieces in the association’s collection – are present and mostly accessible to the delight of the players who can play them. Flashback, at first Rayman or even to crazy taxi 2 and many other titles that nourished the childhood of many visiting parents.
“We mix a little of everything, the known, the less known. And we introduce people to it. The titles we present, we also choose so that all visitors can play on the site and can also discover little-known licenses,” he adds.
A museum of consoles to play in “the conditions of the time”
For several years now, the association has been achieving its challenge of bringing back to mind the idea of physical media, at a time when dematerialization is taking over sales and there is increasing talk of cloud gaming. And to make this love for hardware a reality, the MO5 association will have its own physical video game museum.
In December 2025, a place dedicated to video games will open in Arcueil (Val-de-Marne – RER B Laplace), south of Paris, with 1,200 to 1,300 m² to see the consoles up close, play with them, but also come to repair yours. For this, workshops will be organized and the association has been perfecting its MO5 video game museum project for more than 15 years. “It was essential to have a physical location for us,” explains David Soumet. “Video games among others, digital ones in general, are a means of mass communication. Our objective is to show the general public what it was like, under the conditions of the time.”
As at Paris Games Week, we will find vintage consoles, with vintage televisions. “About 140 consoles in their original state,” he insists. “You have to realize what the loading time was like on a Playstation or a Saturn. And also know that the first Rayman was released on Jaguar, a console that completely failed.”
Before the arrival of the Odyssée museum, planned in Bussy-Saint-Georges (Seine-et-Marne), which will focus mainly on pop culture, the Video Game Museum of the MO5 association wants to complement it. A first preview was offered at a temporary location in Versailles with some of the machines presented. This time, it is a place that is destined to last and evolve over time. MO5 will rotate the pieces on display drawing from his large personal collection, but also with the help of project partners.
With the gradual arrival of the latest generation consoles, as long as there are manufacturers left. “In recent generations, it is indeed a bit complicated,” admits David Soumet. “It’s a softening, there are fewer manufacturers. We’ll see. What we regret most is the disappearance of the physique. We feel that it is the end and it will be difficult to return to that.”
Source: BFM TV
