Many years ago I lived alone in a small apartment, and I used to leave most of my consoles connected and kept them in a big shelving unit with my TV. But now I live in a house with my family and that’s not practical.

At the moment I’m in the process of moving the consoles I still use to wide, shallow boxes with fully removable lids. Up until recently I laboriously unpacked and repacked every console when I wanted to use it, carrying armfuls of cables and equipment to wherever in the house I wanted to set it up. But now, I’m buying these boxes and transferring each system across as I use them.

The idea is that I can leave everything attached to the console while it’s in storage, and then when I want to use it I can just take the box to whichever room I want to use, remove the lid, connect power and AV, and pull out the controller and go. When I’m done, it’s easy to disconnect the cables from the display and power socket, tuck everything back into the box, and put it away. This is almost as easy as leaving systems set up in place, plus it keeps dust and pet hair out of the equipment, which was a constant issue when I lived alone and left them all set up.

You just need to find boxes that are long and wide enough to hold the console with all its cables and peripherals attached without putting undue bending stress on the cables. For older systems you need to be careful of height as well, for joysticks and so you can leave any top-loading flash carts plugged in to save the connectors.