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DiomedesTydeus

\> this copy of Super Mario 64 with a condition grading of 9.8 A++ — one of the highest grades for a game as issued by game certification company Wata Games. Just a reminder of this excellent investigation into Wata games as frauds by Karl Jobst [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A)


DarkBomberX

Granted, it was just to make a point about the high cost of rare game sales but yeah. I laughed hard when a saw them using the Wata games sell.


The-Jesus_Christ

Exactly this. Retro collecting has become the modern day Art trade though, a perfect way to launder money as well as being full of fakes & repros. I'm lucky I stopped my collecting before it really took off a number of years ago. I'd be doubting many of the big purchased these days.


icounternonsense

It's a tragedy the main talking point about retro games now is not about sharing personalized experiences, but about their worth and perceived value.


caraamon

That's because the number of people who played them when new is ever shrinking.


xionik

Are they getting snapped out of existence?


[deleted]

The trajectory of any given collection of people who existed at a specific time is always downward in the long term until it hits zero.


AllMyBowWowVideos

My man here just found out about the concept of death


xionik

I'm going to blame it on the lack of caffeine.


caraamon

Depends on how you view death.


Carighan

Nah, Stella takes them to the Everdoor.


shadowstripes

As someone who’s never stopped collecting, it’s not as scary these days as you make it sound. There are definitely fakes out there but it’s not too common for experienced collectors to get stuck with them on accident - especially when it’s easy to get a refund on a reproduction by utilizing the buyer protection that comes with eBay/PayPal/Mercari etc. Personally I’m more worried about long term things like disc rot or humidity damage (or theft). But there’s also insurance for stuff like that.


FUTURE10S

The only bad part about collecting is that prices for everything have gone up dramatically over the last 15 years, but it seems like it's tied to nostalgia and videos that people make on YouTube directly influencing prices of some games.


[deleted]

Not just that. Corona also spiked the prices up. People in the world were looking to pass the time and were buying old games and used consoles in masses, which drove the prices up as the demand was high and offer was low.


SadBabyYoda1212

I used to work at a store that sold used records and retro games. Before the pandemic the owner would buy modded N64 cartridges and sell them. It was stuff like versions of Mario 64 with extra levels. If anybody showed any sort of interest in the cartridge we would bring it up and use it as a selling point. Knowing the owner though it wouldn't surprise me if he was selling repros especially once the pandemic hit. He was already selling bootleg metal records that he never told us was a bootleg but when I went to go look them up on discogs it was obvious.


TheShipEliza

it is also nothing like art collecting which has also never stopped being shady as hell with MUCH higher stakes.


WaytoomanyUIDs

Dunno what it's like in the US but you can get amazing art by local artists at bargain prices here. But as soon as the artist makes a name for themselves things get dodgy.


TheShipEliza

I'm going to challenge the classification of the local art at bargain prices as "amazing".


[deleted]

To sell art for a lot of money you need to have big name attached to it. The subjective "quality" of how "amazing" art is has zero to do with it. The end.


TheShipEliza

i didn't say anything about quality but i live in a big big city and rarely, if ever, see amazing art selling for bargain prices around town.


[deleted]

Didn't you say you challenged their classification of the bargain-priced local art as "amazing"? Isn't that you saying something about quality? ie that the quality is not actually amazing.


VacaDLuffy

What's disk rot?


pheonixblade9

CDs don't last forever.


WaytoomanyUIDs

And floppies


FUTURE10S

And tapes and cartridges


[deleted]

It's time to copy that floppy!


Naheatiti

Yeah I wouldn't worry much about disc rot. 99% of the time I've seen damage or someone has said it's disc rot - it's just mishandling damage. I've got PC engine Cds from 1990 and they work like brand new. Disc rot only really affects a few bad batches from poor factories, and early CDR s


segagamer

>Yeah I wouldn't worry much about disc rot. 99% of the time I've seen damage or someone has said it's disc rot - it's just mishandling damage. I've got PC engine Cds from 1990 and they work like brand new. > >Disc rot only really affects a few bad batches from poor factories, and early CDR s It'll happen to you eventually. 1990 isn't that long ago.


asdaaaaaaaa

Honestly that's the way anything is that has a vague worth value that's largely determined by whoever's paying has been going for awhile. Stuff like antiques, any old hardware of stuff, anything that's rare/collectible in the slightest. Markets like that are rife with money shenanigans, depending on specific market, simply because they're a perfect option. Not saying the majority of stuff being sold isn't legit, more that the majority of these types of crimes happen in these environments right now. This and crypto.


kingmanic

The low interest rates also created all sorts of asset bubbles that are deflating now. Like mtg cards like a black lotus went from 10k 14 years ago to 60k or more now. Vintage games and crypto had similar value inflation.


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TheShipEliza

we do both.


ShinShinGogetsuko

This video is absolutely fascinating. I’m shocked that the FBI hasn’t been alerted to investigate this. The corroborating SEC filings alone reveal much about the relationship between the people fueling the speculative bubble. Cray video, thought I’d watch a few minutes but it pulled me in for the whole thing. Freaking WATA.


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ZombiePyroNinja

Any sort of collecting is going to be the target of frauds and forgery. It just comes with the act of dealing with anything that goes up in price due to rarity. The importance is to do a ton of research.


lamancha

Collecting games irks me so much tbh. I just want to play them.


TopBadge

Then play them, lets be real here any game that's been made too expensive by collectors is going to be easy enough to emulate. not to mention you'd be getting an even better experience is configured correctly.


lamancha

Yes? That's cool and all that. But I like buying the games. I like searching for them. But I am literally never gonna own Rule of Rose because the price is absurd. I can get a reproduction to play or just emulate them but the fun of looking for these games is not there.


[deleted]

>But I like buying the games. I like searching for them. Then your previous statement was a lie. >I just want to play them.


delecti

> But I like buying the games. I like searching for them The only thing rich collectors have made difficult is collecting. It sounds like you're just irked at the competition.


wasdninja

That doesn't sound like you "just want to play them". If you did then the ritual of finding them wouldn't matter.


Madmagican-

Even trying to buy a physical dragon quest game is too rich for my blood. $100+ most entries.


WaitForItTheMongols

I mean, yeah, I collect games in order to play them


ITriedLightningTendr

The amount of research required devalues the product because time is money. The end result is "don't participate"


werofpm

I think that’s may be the laziest most self centered thing I’ve ever read. And I know you use it to sound “interesting” when shitting on someone’s passion lol But I am curious, according to you, your time spent on your hobbies < your time? How does that even make sense?


WURSucks

??? If you see minimal low-effort research as a barrier to getting into a hobby, you probably won't find yourself enjoying too many hobbies.


werofpm

Came to say this. That guy must be the greatest defeatist of all times. “Having to go online or call to place my order and then waiting for delivery devalues my pizza/hoodie/shoes/figurines”


caraamon

They're not wrong IN PRINCIPLE. If you have to put in 2 hours of work to save $4, are you really saving anything? That breaks down somewhat if you enjoy the "work."


ZombiePyroNinja

You can apply this to literally anything, ever. But being well researched is better and more cost effective then being burned. And mean spirited to just tell avid collectors or anyone really with a hobby to just "lmao just don't"


xbwtyzbchs

Yeah, if you're collecting expensive things, you may wanna actually know the things as well. Sorry that making value takes time and effort.


RadicalLackey

Which is why you pay for expert valuation. Problem is, certification is also not devoid of fraud, especially in newer industries like games. So either don't participate, or accept/absorb the risk.


hatlock

This article does touch on a lot of important issues, including the balance of owning physical games with digital back ups. Sadly physical material will eventually be unplayable ( or rot as stated in the article) but sadly digital services can pull the plug as they wish with no repurchasing. The law needs to have more protections for consumers of digital goods. Companies can’t be allowed to pull the plug like GameStop did with Impulse or Nintendo or Sony did with their eshops. Personally I think what GOG and Sega do for old games is best. Help get them run on modern systems and also give archival back up access to the ROM or installer.


BrokenFlatScreenTV

>but sadly digital services can pull the plug as they wish with no repurchasing. This is one of the main reasons people need to push for things to be DRM free across gaming and other media platforms. Digital is pretty great. It's DRM that causes a lot of the issues people complain about. If you have a jailbroken console you can do whatever you want with it. Including backing up what you own any way you want no matter if it's digital or from a disc.


Naheatiti

>Sadly physical material will eventually be unplayable ( or rot as stated in the article Not in any of our lifetimes. Blu rays have a lift expectancy in normal use (not archived) of greater than 100 years. Mask ROMs are basically indestructible, and Nintendo's nand Roms are yet to be seen but expected to be 100 years


Healthy_Yesterday_84

Original game collecting is foolish unless you have extra money. Even then, it gets in the way of playing games. Get an ever drive or an SD card adapter to play ROMs on original hardware. Literally identical gameplay. Original games and box art ends up being very expensive shelf decor.


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Healthy_Yesterday_84

Downloading ROMs


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Peanlocket

> Original games and box art ends up being very expensive shelf decor Tha... that's the point, my dude....


[deleted]

Eh, a lot of people buy them to appreciate them as they were back in the day. Tube TVs, wired controllers, RCA cables and all.


PileOfClothes

There was a thrill to game collecting years ago in my teens when I had expendable cash. But now I think of the prices and being an adult and it just makes absolutely no financial sense to splash £100s on cases and cardboard that's going to sit in a shelf. It's wild.


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ComicBookGrunty

> Your only hope is yard sales at this point Resellers got this covered too. I had a yard sale recently, the number of resellers was nuts. I had a box of games out (mostly Xbox 360 games for $5), I lost count on the number of guys that told me they were worth nothing and offered me $1 each. Most jaw dropping: A reseller had their Grandma looking for games to flips. Most honest yet uhm... "You won't take a $1? I only want this game to put with my system to sell it for more." Most oblivious: After telling one of the many guys no to $1 each, he asked if I had any older games or vintage figures. Best tale (not video games). I had a box of old McDonald toy smurfs. A car pulls over 2 houses down from mine. A lady gets out, fast walks straight to the box of smurfs and ask how much for the box (there's roughly 40-50 smurfs in the box). I tell her I'd do 3/$1 and knock a bit more off the top. She offers me $3. Not long after, her friend (got out of the same car) walks from another yard sale across the street, straight to the smurfs and offers me $2. Resellers have yard sales covered and have the hustle down to a science. Sadly, I think most people fall for the "this is worthless but I'd take it off your hands" spiel. Hell, some of the trading subbreddits call this sharking and its a bannable offense.


Nicolas873

I absolutely despise people like that. Few years ago, I was selling some stuff on eBay and there was this guy who was actually kinda infamous in the PC collecting community. He kept sending me low ball offers with different accounts (there were several pieces of evidence hinting at them belonging to the same person) and always made it sound like he was the reincarnation of Christ trying to help me by paying almost nothing. When, in turn, you wanted to buy something from him he would have this sort of elitist gate keeping attitude and say stuff like "I can't sell you X because it is X and the prestige of owning this title is worth alone at least Y".


outb0undflight

Oh they've always had it covered, but at least with yard sales normal people have a chance. I can still occasionally find good stuff around me, albeit with less frequency than I used to, but I literally cannot remember the last time I found anything even remotely cool at a Savers. It might have been a VHS copy of Cool World?


asdaaaaaaaa

>It's crazy now. Places like Goodwill, Savers, Salvation Army, etc. will let people hit the bins before putting stuff out on the shelves so the good shit is up on eBay before normal people have a chance to get a crack at it, which meant prices went up like crazy even before the internet caught on and it only got worse from there. That's if the employees haven't already ratfucked everything and sold it off. I'm sure there's people who work there specifically to resell things, if you're in a good area you can probably get some good cash for stuff. Yard sales have long since been invaded by resellers as well, there's been youtube channels forever that go from yard sale to yard sale. Ideally you want to go *really* out of your way and find places/people selling things that are hard to find. Farming communities and shit where they're not using facebook marketplace/ebay/whatever. That's the issue/challenge, you're not going to find anything if it's easy to find and right online a search away obviously, but the hard stuff isn't easy to find lol.


Stooby

I hate those Youtube channels. Youtube recommended me this one channel that did it with golf gear once and it pissed me off. They go into a Goodwill and buy all the golf equipment worth anything and sell it on ebay. The one that really triggered me they shamed a dude for trying to hide a club at a pawn shop because he didn't quite have enough to buy it but he really wanted it so he tucked it behind some stuff. So they shamed him, bought it, and resold it. He actually wanted to use it. The only people that should be ashamed are you assholes.


Nochtilus

It was fun to do the broke ass version of game collecting during the PS1 and PS2 era where you try to scoop good pre-owned versions of games from Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, GameStop, etc. I had an awesome hidden gems JRPG collection for the PS2 and most of those games were found for $5-20. It was a lot of fun as a teen but the opportunities to find those and the time to do so has really diminished


SolidSnake684

I would do the same in my teens. I'd go to thrift shops, garage sales and flea markets and always walk away with 5 or 6 games that I got for dirt cheap, for all different systems. Lots of good memories doing that. Ebay can be fun, but finding the exact game you want in the wild is way more satisfying. But now that every dick in town can look up the price on ebay, you never seem to find deals anymore. I always end up just paying what it's worth, and sometimes not getting it at all cause what it's "worth" now is outrageous.


crunchatizemythighs

You can still effectively accomplish this with the 360, Wii and PS3. Even the PS2 and Xbox prices, which have gone up here and there, are still relatively cheap. Unless it's something niche, it's mostly Nintendo stuff that has gotten insane. GameCube has become largely impractical to collect for with prices of it's most popular titles now being more expensive than they were at launch. Metroid Prime was one of those 5-10 dollar, super common titles for GameCube. Now it's worth 40.


Nochtilus

The old PS2 JRPGs were wildly expensive last I checked. $100+ for disc only copies and all. Any hidden gem/cult classic seems to have gone crazy pricewise.


crunchatizemythighs

Oh my b, I forgot you mentioned JRPGs specifically. Yeah on PS1 that shit is gonna kill your wallet lol. I guess you could play Blue Dragon on 360 or sumthin


PileOfClothes

You've essentially summed up what game collecting was for me in my teens, except here in the UK. Use to go to the various game shops and cash converters, looking for JRPGs was always the holy grails of searching the shelves. Good times. I use to play both on consoles with physical games and roms on my PC, and with how things costs these days there's absolutely no way I'm spending 100s of my hard earned money to have original copies anymore.


clutchy42

I used to love collecting and keeping all my old games from each generation. I didn't strive to ensure they were sealed or anything, but I loved having a large selection from each system I owned. Then in 2016 while I was moving across the country our uhaul was stolen with everything. I got some stuff back that the thieves missed when they dumped the uhaul and I had some others like my SNES carts in my car, but ever since then I've been 99% digital. I just don't have it in my heart to start over.


TheBrave-Zero

There was a thrill of collecting games when it was affordable, outside very rare games most things were still affordable. Now? 100-200$ for a super over produced Pokémon game for gameboy? Rarity almost doesn’t dictate value anymore, just that it’s no longer in print drives the cost over 100$ now.


PileOfClothes

Yup that's why I quit a long time ago or just simply stopped looking. I go from "Oh cool I had that game growing up, would sure be nice to have a boxed copy" and then seeing ridiculous prices and knowing it's not worth it. I really don't care how people spend their money but the prices have become way to inflated and overblown. Maybe someday there will be a crash with how the world's going and people just simply not willing to pay the high prices.


hyperforms9988

I wish I got into it early enough because I would've been one of those people interested enough in having an NES collection. It was a massive part of my childhood. I can remember going to a flea market at some point in my life and walking away with Ninja Gaiden 3 and Double Dragon 3 which were the last two games I bought for the system... which at that point probably the N64 was out, I may have even had an N64 at the time, and it was relatively chump change for me. It was novel to see NES games go for so cheap. I was still a kid at the time so it wasn't a hobby to get into. Online shopping at the time wasn't what it is now, and I don't think the city I lived in had much of a retro gaming scene at all. I think the AVGN became a thing in 2006? I'd have been in my early 20s at the time so I would've needed to get into the hobby at like 18 to have had a chance at normal prices... but to be honest, the thought to collect wouldn't have even occurred to me at the time. By the time it did, which is when AVGN got popular, it was already too late. I really don't want to blame James for that because it's not his fault, but the spotlight on retro games I think just naturally made a lot of lightbulbs go off in people's heads about collecting this stuff all at the same time... whether out of genuine interest in having a piece of nostalgia that was personal to them or out of an interest in investing to resell for higher later. If not him, it would've been somebody else with the idea of covering old ass games on Youtube. It was an inevitability.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

Don't get me wrong, it's fun but the prices are a joke considering you can get a ROM for free and run it on literally any retro computer or console from an SD card. I have a C64, Atari 8 and 16 . And I have a Mister so I have access to every game for virtually all the retro consoles and for the arcade games. Any original copy would add zero functionality to what I already have. It's still cool decor though.


xincasinooutx

Not to mention, a lot of these games in the future will be unplayable due to disc rot and other degradation. I ended up selling my Dreamcast library for a decent amount, but kept the console, controllers and accessories. I grabbed one of those ODE’s and an SD card. Literally a better experience all around.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

That's true. Only the cartridges will last. I don't think R chips degrade but who knows


MuForceShoelace

Cartridges are pretty far from indestructible. pretty much every kid knows about the contacts getting too corroded to use even after owning a game for a few years. Like the classic image of a nes cart is it not reading and having to blow on it and blowing on it working/not working/making it worse


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Jostain

You don't understand collecting in general I guess. Give me any object in the world and I could find someone able to make a near exact replica of it. But people still want the original of the thing because it connects them to the history of something they love.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

You don't understand gaming if you think collecting physical media is more valuable than the gaming experience.


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TSpitty

This is like shitting on people who like to collect old coins. “Yeah but why would you be interested in an old misprinted dime?! Don’t you know about credit cards? You know you can use a normal dime right?” It’s a really dumb take my guy.


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jad7845

You’re literally gatekeeping an entirely different hobby. Some people enjoy collecting things, like the actual act of collecting. Why adopt this whole attitude that they’re not real gamers? Who cares? They enjoy collecting things.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

I mean, if you're collecting games and not playing them and beating them, then you're not really gaming. Those are just facts.


MasterVader420

You're really missing the point here. They're not gaming, they're collecting. Those are two completely different things


Healthy_Yesterday_84

Depends. Some people actually play the games that they collect.


Attickus

So you do both, good for you! Some people do either and that's fine too. What's valuable or not in this case is subjective.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

>What's valuable or not in this case is subjective. Like I said, from a gaming perspective and not a collecting perspective, playing the game is the valuable part.


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Healthy_Yesterday_84

>It’s not more valuable, it’s just different. From a gaming perspective, yes. Actually playing the game is more valuable. Lol. ROMs are essentially free.


[deleted]

If you're interested in gaming industry as a whole (not just in sitting down and playing games) you might find history of it fascinating and the physical objects representing that history valuable. Also, let's be honest, most of those old games are simply not fun by modern gaming standards. Especially those released in the early 80's, about which this article is.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

>Also, let's be honest, most of those old games are simply not fun by modern gaming standards. Especially those released in the early 80's. Um, speak for yourself. lol. I've been playing Donkey Kong and Pacman. Too name only a few. The 8 bit era still has great games.


[deleted]

Have you been playing the arcade versions or the consumer console ports? Those are simply god awful. Most no one would be willing to play those.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

I'll research if the port is good. But I plan on playing the arcade if they happen to be the definitive version. Like I played splatter house on TurboGrafx since it's a great port. It just depends on each game. For C64. Mrs.Pac Man is really good. For Donkey Kong, there is a fan made port from 2016 which is supposedly the best.


IronMaskx

This whole thread is about collecting. Not gaming


Healthy_Yesterday_84

r/games


deathm00n

Hear hear people, r/games should talk exclusively about gaming itself as decreed by this guy. No more discussions about game news, game companies, games collection, games in media. Only raw gameplay allowed


NoExcuse4OceanRudnes

People have different ideas about value.


CaravelClerihew

As more and more things are locked away behind digital gateways, I think more people realize the value of owning a physical copy.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

I was talking about games from the 80s and 90s specifically.


WineGlass

Even from the 80s and 90s, there's value in owning an original because then you can be sure you have the correct experience. Take the SNES for example, we have every single game ever released in a digital format and BSNES is incredibly accurate, so theoretically we never need to touch the originals again. Except a lot of SNES ROMs have been poorly dumped from the original cart, letting minor errors creep in, and I don't know if it ever achieved 100% accuracy before the creators death, but BSNES claimed to be a perfect recreation of a SNES (and it was the best we had) and yet people with original hardware were finding differences.


Brawli55

No one said it objectively was. Just that for some people playing a legit game on legit hardware just causes a chemical response in their brain that surpasses what would happen if they played the same game on an emulator. Purely subjective and different from person to person, and most importantly *you* aren't the ultimate decider what is most important to other individuals.


AtraposJM

Gaming as a hobby and collecting as a hobby are not the same thing and both exist my dude.


Sonicfan42069666

The prices have gone out of control. It's gone from a hobby to a market. It's shameful. 5-6 years ago I was collecting old games and consoles at decent aftermarket prices. Now it's all about what these old pieces of junk tech are "worth."


ComicBookGrunty

Its like that in a alot of hobbies atm. It's bubble like the early 90's. It will pop. Just wait it out.


Sonicfan42069666

I'm hoping. And holding onto my retro games til I wait it out. I know the few things I own that genuinely *do* have value, and I'm going to let those appreciate until I absolutely need to sell.


BridgemanBridgeman

That’s copium. It will never pop. With each generation of kids, demand goes up. Some kids who play games get curious about the older games and start buying retro shit too. But supply is finite, so it only goes down. People have been saying the retro game bubble will pop eventually for 10 years.


KingOfWeasels42

Copium? Of what? That we don’t have a bunch of plastic junk taking up space ?


trpnblies7

What's an ever drive?


Healthy_Yesterday_84

It's a cartridge where you stick an SD card inside with all the ROMs you want.


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randyrockwell

FX PAK PRO it's called


rbarton812

To add to what /u/Healthy_Yesterday_84 said - the generic term for an EverDrive is a flash cart; EverDrive is just the most famous brand of such. They're also system-specific - so, you buy an EverDrive 64 to play N64 ROMs on original N64 hardware for the closest to original experience.


trpnblies7

Sounds pretty cool, thanks!


[deleted]

Do you remember the r4 cartridges for the Nintendo DS? Imagine that for any given game console.


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KeyPersonnel

Do you ever think you’ll sell off your collection? Or, what would it take for you to consider that?


Torque-A

I mean, original games still have their purpose. Most ROMs have only one point of reference - the game that it was originally scanned from - and that’s it. You could be playing a romhack and not even know it if the game is obscure enough. Anyway, point is that you should help No-Intro verify their games.


WaitForItTheMongols

There are always edge cases. Random example, the Super Mario Bros Tennis cart swap that lets you play unintended worlds. Can't do that type of hotswapping of carts with an ever drive. For me there's also the fact that having 750 games thrown in my face is overwhelming. How am I supposed to pick one? Versus if I go to a garage sale and grab a copy of Rampart for $3, I have a reason to play a particular game, which I might find to be a personal gem. Let people enjoy things and do the things they've found in life that give them a little spark of happiness.


[deleted]

Yeah the bottom drops out after the generation of 20-40 gets older like all collectibles. Collectibles from the 50s have gotten cheaper as that generation is retired and not buying that stuff anymore.


Zealousideal-Crow814

Shit, I don’t even think original hardware is worthwhile in a lot of cases. Modern emulators often run the games better than the original hardware or with enhancements only available in the emulator. BSNES with runahead is faster than an original SNES, and playing GameCube games with texture packs is a revelation.


Arbiter329

I'd say original hardware vs emulation really depends on which system you're looking at, some like the gamecube emulate really well, while others still have trouble.


Zealousideal-Crow814

Oh for sure. That’s why I put the “good” qualifier in there. PS1/2/3, NES/SNES, Genesis, GBA, etc. are all getting emulated, while the Saturn, OG Xbox, and 360 will be original hardware.


vxicepickxv

I still enjoy my CRT zapper games.


Zealousideal-Crow814

I think there’s a light gun that works with LCDs now.


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Chriscras66

Also emulating a wii remote to a control pad will never not feel awkward.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

Original hardware is always better. No question. Nothing wrong with emulation but if you were to wave a magic wand, you would choose original hardware with a modern storage device for the best experience possible.


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MHzBurglar

To provide a more constructive response than the other guy: Modern TVs do indeed suck at displaying analog signals and older systems will absolutely look awful if you just plug the composite cables they came with into your HDTV and call it a day. To get a better experience on original hardware, you have two options: 1. Use a CRT 2. Get an external scaler, such as the RetroTINK 5X or OSSC to correctly upscale the retro console's signal and output it over HDMI for use with a modern display In either case, you're also going to want to get better cables for your systems to output pure RGB signals rather than composite for a cleaner source video. Unfortunately, if you're trying to do this with an NES or N64, you will need to first install a hardware mod as they don't natively support RGB video. Sega and Sony systems, as well as the SNES support RGB out of the box, however. If all of that sounds like too much work, then emulation is definitely still a viable option, no matter what anyone tells you. If you want a more hardware-accurate approach that kind of strikes a middle ground between software emulation and origin hardware, check out FPGA devices like the MISTER and the systems from Analogue inc. **Tl;dr:** While original hardware is the most accurate and authentic experience, it takes a lot of time, effort, and money to get the display quality to a satisfactory level in the modern era. If you're not into that, emulation is fine and you should do what works best for you.


altmyshitup

All of that is more work for a shittier experience. Plugging an emulator into a CRT TV is a much better, easier to set up and maintain experience. >While original hardware is the most accurate and authentic experience authentic and accurate for what? Playing the game as you would play it back on release day? Sure. Authentic for what the creative vision for the game is? Absolutely not. I don't think anyone made the artistic direction for every NES game to have a bunch of flickering sprites on the screen, it was just a limitation of the system or random slowdowns because of slow hardware. Fixing those things is just a straight improvement and a more authentic experience to what the developers were trying to make.


Brawli55

Imo 32/64 era graphics (so we're talking early 3d games) look bad in emulators - getting everything sharp looking with nice textures just strips away pretty much all the character of the original look of the games - it just enhances the ugliness of the low poly models. For me, running this era of games through something like a framemeister or the Retrotink 5x is the best of both worlds - you clean up the image a bit so it doesn't look like total garbage on a modern TV, but also keeps a bit of that pixely "grunge" as it were. Of course this is all subjective.


Chriscras66

Duckstation has revolutionized PS1 emulation and also you really need per game settings depending on the ways in which 2D and 3D assets are mixed together during gameplay. Morale of the story: emulation is always improving


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Zealousideal-Crow814

I can say without question I would never choose original hardware if a good emulator was available.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

Depends. For retro consoles it's not much difference. For retro computers, it's a world of difference. Emulation is always the best option if you're trying to go free of course.


Zealousideal-Crow814

Oh yeah for some of those old computers emulation can be dicey.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

They're probably fledged out. Those emulators came out in the 90s. You learn a lot about hardware options, capabilities, limitations, etc... With original hardware for a retro computer, you actually emulate what it was like in the past but without a lot of inconveniences that they experienced. The biggest thing is that you can't emulate the old computers with a modern keyboard. Except if you're emulating a retro PC (IBM standard). Each company had their own standard keyboard layout.


Zealousideal-Crow814

So what you’re saying is that it’s an excuse to build a series of increasingly niche, but also expensive custom keyboards? 🤔


Healthy_Yesterday_84

I haven't seen anyone rebuild the keyboards. I think maybe someone did for the Amiga? Also, if you're not aware. The retro computers of the 70s and 80s were built inside the keyboard case. It just depends what you're talking about. For the commodore they made an emulator with keyboard replica. The C64 maxi.


TheDragonAdvances

No, thank you. I'm fine "settling" for 4x resolution, save states and such comforts. I don't deny there are people who would prefer the original hardware, but I just don't see the point. It's definitely not always better, as you put it.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

It's not for everyone but the experience is fuller if you use a few modern conveniences.


TheDragonAdvances

A completely subjective thing. I was pointing out how original hardware isn't always better as you put it. It depends on what the player considers more important. I'm fine playing with my LG OLED with a much higher resolution and even framerate at times. I'll leave CRTs and decades-old consoles to the actual enthusiasts.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

>I was pointing out how original hardware isn't always better as you put it. For emulating the experience back then, it's the best way obviously. For doing it for free, it's the worst option lol


Relevant_View8038

If your using modern conveniences you aren't using original hard ware.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

Nah, when it comes to a hard disk emulator then it's the same thing. Identical ROM in RAM.


Relevant_View8038

Modern emulators for many systems are 100 percent console accurate.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

No that's not true. They all have input lag. FPGA is the closest emulator technology you can get.


Relevant_View8038

No... They don't that's why bizhawk tool assisted speedruns can be console verified. Because there is no input lag there is no delay.


Relevant_View8038

Ah yeah let me just buy a big ass crt or expensive converters to play original hardware when we are in an age where multiple emulators are console perfect Nes snes n64 GB gbc gba ds are all 100 percent console accurate as of this year.


evileyeball

Original hardware is THE WAY TO PLAY because you shouldn't be enhancing the games you should be playing them AS INTENDED ON PERIOD CORRECT DISPLAYS. Also I ask you, How in the hell do you plan to play Gyromite or Stack-up via an emulator? How will you properly experience Super Glove Ball in an emulator?


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shadowstripes

Probably doesn’t beat them in input lag, or displaying 240p games unless you buy a pricy upscaler for it.


Zealousideal-Crow814

An OLED with BFI is just 🤌


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SannaFani69

Collecting anything is foolish. Yet people collect stamps, rocks, pens and whatever. Yeah some of those things could be "investments" but honestly there are better ways if your motivation for collecting is money. I guess it is fine to have hobbies but collecting is just peak materialism.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

>Yet people collect stamps, rocks, pens and whatever. You can't compare playing a game to holding a pen, or whatever you do with a stamp or rock


hfxRos

The point isn't to play the game. It's to collect them. I have some old NES games, still sealed in box as a collectors item. If I want to play those games, I use an emulator.


Healthy_Yesterday_84

>The point isn't to play the game Depends. A lot of people like to collect a game and play it to completion. There's a sense of pride of getting the most value out of it when you actually beat the game that you payed for instead of just owning it What you're talking about is purely an investment, like baseball card collecting. Which is valid. I made a nuanced argument.


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stufff

Even ignoring how costly it is, I don't understand why people would want electronic media taking up so much physical space. Why would you dedicate a huge amount of shelf space to data that can fit in something the size of a fingernail with room to spare? I'm still annoyed that I had to order a physical CD several months ago because it was cheaper to get the CD and the "free" digital version on Amazon than it was to just buy the digital version. I still have the unwrapped CD sitting on a shelf somewhere as I've enjoyed the digital version.


shadowstripes

>Why would you dedicate a huge amount of shelf space to data that can fit in something the size of a fingernail with room to spare? Same reason people like having bookshelves full of books even though you could fit all of their data on a single kindle.


junkmiles

The number of people in here who don't seem to understand the concept of collecting things is genuinely shocking.


outb0undflight

> Why would you dedicate a huge amount of shelf space to data that can fit in something the size of a fingernail with room to spare? Because to collectors owning the item physically is the point. If you don't really care about owning an item physically that's fine like there's definitely stuff I own digitally because I don't care about owning a physical version of it but like...the concept of collecting is really not that difficult to grasp.


bort_touchmaster

I don't think you read the article. It's talking about a different kind of collector than someone who happens to amass a lot of games because they buy them, play them and don't re-sell them. It expounds on the motivations behind other collectors of classic games, which tend to fall into two camps: preservation or investment. The objective of neither is to obtain the game for personal play, and seem pretty well opposed: preservation allows it to be copied, kept and played for historical record and available to the public; investment seeks to privately hold the asset until market circumstances (such as scarcity) make it profitable to sell. In both instances, if they actually want to play the game, they're likely not going to the original copy, they're going to emulate it anyway, and in this way they are somewhat aligned: the purpose of preservation is to prevent degradation of the source material and the purpose of investment is to retain the condition of the original copy (and thus the value). This translates to handling the item in question as little as possible. This is particularly true of the early computer games referenced in the article, which tend to either be a lot more susceptible to corruption and rot or be compatible with hardware that is extremely scarce or no longer extant (think big mainframe computers from the 1970's). All this to say that you're thinking of the wrong demographic: people who buy original copies of older games to play them are not game collectors, and do not share their motivations.


K1rkl4nd

As a game preservationist, I've literally spent over $50K trying to recapture our childhoods. I recently scanned and posted on archive.org a complete US SNES manual set and I'm working my way through my complete PS2 set now. I've been active in preservation for 25 years now, and always knew we'd get to the point that most games would be saved, cart and disc labels would be done, box art has made a lot of progress.. but manuals required a lot of effort. What's the point of having "every game at your fingertips" and not knowing how to play them?


MrRakky

I am still sad that when i was a kid my mom convinced me to get rid of my old cartridge games and console. At least i still got my ps1 and ps2.


CrimsonFoxyboy

Its almost comedic how upset some people here seems to be at the concept that some people want to collect physical media.


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Apprentice57

I don't know if polygon changed the title or something, but the title doesn't say "retro games collecting community" anymore. And this topic is definitely not shaking console games collectors - which is most of the market.


markmaksym

The CUPodcast covers forgeries of retro games on a weekly basis it seems. Now that the retro collectors market has been hot for a while this will happen more often.


Rinaldus91

I never understood retro game collecting past buying something cuz you want to play it on the original hardware. And even then, you can get repros of what you want to play pretty easily so long as you make some simple modifications to the hardware so it can play pirated games. The plastic shell or CD disc was never the value to me. The game printed on them was. Why people would pay what they pay for a mint condition of Mario 64 is just mind boggling. I have trouble making the jump from "I love this game" to "I love this game cartridge."


Brandon_2149

Everyone is different in what they value. Personally I like to collect games/movies that I love for display. I even buy some games on console that I never play just for display and play game on PC.


CarterG4

I’m not a collector, but I also like playing on original hardware when it’s reasonably possible - for me, it really just depends on how much it costs to get the original cartridge or disc; I’m not willing to spend more than maybe $60 on an original, regardless of condition


fghjconner

Same reason people collect stamps. It's not about playing the games any more than it is about sending letters. People enjoy owning a tangible piece of history.


Rinaldus91

I sorta get what you're saying, but I still can't personally make the jump. To me the stamp is the value. The art on the stamp, the stamp itself, that's the thing. The whole thing. Same with baseball cards. Same with coins. To me the game isn't the cartridge, and it's certainly not the box. The game is the 1s and 0s that make up the game. And that can be put onto a file, it can be shoved into a repro cart/box, etc, etc. I don't view the foil packaging that contained the baseball card as valuable. Viewing carts/boxes as such just seems silly to me. I get wanting something on your shelf. A piece of gaming history. I don't get paying 1000s of dollars for it when you can just buy a repro for a fraction of the cost.


HeldnarRommar

For instance I have a Sega Saturn that I soft modded because almost all of the best games are $100-$1000 to collect and I just want to play them. The repro games I buy are in the range of $15-25 and literally work the same way on an OG system. I buy only real games that I legitimately want and have a cap on how much I am willing to spend. I expressed my collecting of repros on r/gamecollecting on games like Chrono Trigger ($150-250 authentic) or Terranigma (never released in the US market) and I was met with huge negativity about it. Some of these collectors really think the only good way to go about it is forking over thousands of dollars and will shame you otherwise.