The Syd Bolton Collection is comprised of almost 14,000 video games and hundreds of consoles and systems, along with over 5,000 issues of game magazines, hundreds of books and literature, peripherals, and related technology, materials, and documents. It is one of the largest collections of its kind in the world and the largest known in Canada. Bolton was an avid collector for over twenty years and made his materials accessible to the wider public through a collection space in his house and the Personal Computer Museum.

The Collection is comprehensive as it contains hundreds of games from dozens of video game home entertainment systems over the past 50 years, including a handful of arcade machines. The collection is also complete in several sections where Bolton purchased every copy of a game released in North America (including special editions) on several game consoles, such as the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. The Collection also includes several niche or forgotten systems that were financially unsuccessful at the time they were released like the Panosonic 3DO and the Philips CD-I, which highlights the range of games at several points in recent history. Importantly, most of the game titles include the packaging, manuals, and other documentation that were released when the games originally shipped commercially.

The Collection is currently being processed by our Library staff. Please consult the finding aid below to view a list of the video game consoles we hold in the Collection and our current status in processing the game titles for access. Please contact us with console and title inquiries.