My honest response, is repro cartridges. New cartridges, new batteries, and waaaay cheaper. There is something magical about putting cartridge into a console that cant be replaced by loading a file on a pc or otherwise. This is the way I have gotten a lot of my gameboy family, super nintendo, and even N64 games.
@@SpawnTrapped I agree flash carts are a good option too, I have one for my DS. Only problem is unless you get a cheap chinese one they can be kind of expensive so if you just have a handful of games you want to play it wouldnt be worth it imo. Why spend like 100+ bucks on an everdrive instead of just buying the few games you want to play on repros for like 30 or 40. Either way they are both very good options for building a collection that will last longer
@@kerorogunso961because games aren't worthless. So even top tier 200$ rand name ever drives still makes sense. I haven't bought them, but they are top tier work, they're stable, tested. For the price, your spending pennies on every game that exists for a console. If I could've spent 500$ to have a n64 cart that had the 100 best games, I would've done it. Or if I could've had the whole Gameboy nes or SNES library....my mind would've exploded. Now it's not a big deal but I'm sure if you showed an everdrive to an 11 year old in 2000, they would shake
Being an Australian, online services and features offered by major publishers and platforms that grant access to play older titles are extremely limited, and relying on remasters and remakes to capture the magic of an original idea can be a frustrating experience. Emulation is by far the cheapest and best option for playing retro games but until it's consistant in accuracy and legal, it's always nice to have the physical option. Sure it won't last forever but it doesn't have to because neither will I. The brightest stars burn the shortest.
I've been holding onto and building a library of digital games for over 20 years. The moment my Pokemon Crystal cartridge battery ran out, I understood immediately that while it's nice to have the physical game, it won't last forever and it's inconvenient to swap cartridges or discs, inconvenient to travel with them. Of all the purists who tell you they prefer real hardware, almost all of them couldn't show you a single difference between the game on real hardware vs the game when it's properly emulated. Their concern for the difference is unfounded, not relevant to any issue, and should be disregarded. I think the desire to have physical releases of game data is a generational thing and it will go away when we are gone. Quality games will be reverse engineered and ported to modern hardware, they will exist and be enjoyed forever.
This is part of why I collect specifically for the original Xbox. We're just now seeing decent emulation of it on PC so physical discs on an original system still makes sense and it's one of the more affordable libraries up til now. I can have the fun of collecting without breaking the bank.
I guess my counter argument to the Xbox would be how easy it is to softmod. Even if you don't want to do the work yourself, you can find these crazy 2TB OG Xbox setups all done already for sale on eBay for like $300-$500 depending when you look. So you can buy a console preloaded with every USA game release. So if you spend more than than $300 to $500 in your lifetime collecting for the OG Xbox, you paid too much. You can softmod and put together your own full set OG Xbox for $200 I'd estimate, that includes the cost of a used console. If you like the cases and manuals for the physical collection aspect, I get it. But at soft mod the Xbox and create your own game backups from your discs since the discs won't last forever.
Retro game collecting stopped making sense the minute everdrives were invented. You get to play the original games on original hardware without getting taken from behind with the outrageous prices.
So if you have a hobby of collecting games good on you. My opinion is that retro games should be collected and saved so they can become available for everyone.
The only reason I can think of as to why I would want to play something on the hardware vs the software is if it has some kind of unique peripheral to the same such as Dance Dance Revolution. I'm trying to save up for a modded region free PS2 with an HDMI adapter because I'd like to play every DDR game including ones from Japan and Europe. I tried playing DDR on an emulator and it just doesn't work and it's a known problem for emulators.
This makes perfect sense. The other hard one is DS and WiiU because it's hard to correctly replicate the dual screen features without it being on original hardware. But even then modded original hardware gets the job done all the same. If you have a PS2 and the peripherals already, you only need to buy a freemcboot memory card (~$10) and you could play burned copies/ISOs of those games. Usually on PS2 playing a an ISO from USB can be a little buggy but burned copies will work almost identical to real copies
meh, (physical) retro game collecting should never become mainstream. and I say that being a (physical) retro game collector myself. - i'm happy having a nieche hobby / gatekeeping.
I agree, the mainstream nature of it is what drove the prices on even common things up (who knew Wii Sports ever would have been worth anything?). Even if collecting isn't as popular now as it was during the pandemic, it feels like the prices are never going to come back down
Yeah pandemic scalpers ruined the fun of retro collecting.
My honest response, is repro cartridges. New cartridges, new batteries, and waaaay cheaper. There is something magical about putting cartridge into a console that cant be replaced by loading a file on a pc or otherwise. This is the way I have gotten a lot of my gameboy family, super nintendo, and even N64 games.
KERORO!!!!
or even better, flashcarts.
Have to agree here, if you're willing to buy a repo, just buy a flash cart/everdrive
@@SpawnTrapped I agree flash carts are a good option too, I have one for my DS. Only problem is unless you get a cheap chinese one they can be kind of expensive so if you just have a handful of games you want to play it wouldnt be worth it imo. Why spend like 100+ bucks on an everdrive instead of just buying the few games you want to play on repros for like 30 or 40. Either way they are both very good options for building a collection that will last longer
@@kerorogunso961because games aren't worthless. So even top tier 200$ rand name ever drives still makes sense. I haven't bought them, but they are top tier work, they're stable, tested. For the price, your spending pennies on every game that exists for a console. If I could've spent 500$ to have a n64 cart that had the 100 best games, I would've done it. Or if I could've had the whole Gameboy nes or SNES library....my mind would've exploded. Now it's not a big deal but I'm sure if you showed an everdrive to an 11 year old in 2000, they would shake
Being an Australian, online services and features offered by major publishers and platforms that grant access to play older titles are extremely limited, and relying on remasters and remakes to capture the magic of an original idea can be a frustrating experience. Emulation is by far the cheapest and best option for playing retro games but until it's consistant in accuracy and legal, it's always nice to have the physical option. Sure it won't last forever but it doesn't have to because neither will I. The brightest stars burn the shortest.
I've been holding onto and building a library of digital games for over 20 years. The moment my Pokemon Crystal cartridge battery ran out, I understood immediately that while it's nice to have the physical game, it won't last forever and it's inconvenient to swap cartridges or discs, inconvenient to travel with them. Of all the purists who tell you they prefer real hardware, almost all of them couldn't show you a single difference between the game on real hardware vs the game when it's properly emulated. Their concern for the difference is unfounded, not relevant to any issue, and should be disregarded.
I think the desire to have physical releases of game data is a generational thing and it will go away when we are gone. Quality games will be reverse engineered and ported to modern hardware, they will exist and be enjoyed forever.
This is part of why I collect specifically for the original Xbox. We're just now seeing decent emulation of it on PC so physical discs on an original system still makes sense and it's one of the more affordable libraries up til now. I can have the fun of collecting without breaking the bank.
I guess my counter argument to the Xbox would be how easy it is to softmod. Even if you don't want to do the work yourself, you can find these crazy 2TB OG Xbox setups all done already for sale on eBay for like $300-$500 depending when you look. So you can buy a console preloaded with every USA game release. So if you spend more than than $300 to $500 in your lifetime collecting for the OG Xbox, you paid too much. You can softmod and put together your own full set OG Xbox for $200 I'd estimate, that includes the cost of a used console. If you like the cases and manuals for the physical collection aspect, I get it. But at soft mod the Xbox and create your own game backups from your discs since the discs won't last forever.
Retro game collecting stopped making sense the minute everdrives were invented. You get to play the original games on original hardware without getting taken from behind with the outrageous prices.
Exactly especially since 2021 @D when 6th Gen Games went from $40 to $70
So if you have a hobby of collecting games good on you. My opinion is that retro games should be collected and saved so they can become available for everyone.
The only reason I can think of as to why I would want to play something on the hardware vs the software is if it has some kind of unique peripheral to the same such as Dance Dance Revolution. I'm trying to save up for a modded region free PS2 with an HDMI adapter because I'd like to play every DDR game including ones from Japan and Europe. I tried playing DDR on an emulator and it just doesn't work and it's a known problem for emulators.
This makes perfect sense. The other hard one is DS and WiiU because it's hard to correctly replicate the dual screen features without it being on original hardware. But even then modded original hardware gets the job done all the same.
If you have a PS2 and the peripherals already, you only need to buy a freemcboot memory card (~$10) and you could play burned copies/ISOs of those games. Usually on PS2 playing a an ISO from USB can be a little buggy but burned copies will work almost identical to real copies
Whys everyone say "pokeyyy-mon"
It sounds so gay
meh, (physical) retro game collecting should never become mainstream.
and I say that being a (physical) retro game collector myself. - i'm happy having a nieche hobby / gatekeeping.
I agree, the mainstream nature of it is what drove the prices on even common things up (who knew Wii Sports ever would have been worth anything?). Even if collecting isn't as popular now as it was during the pandemic, it feels like the prices are never going to come back down
It already is mainstream.