Regrets about switching to all digital/almost all digital?

[Xeogred]

I used to have neck problems years ago after a wreck, so I thought it was about 10x better emulating GBA stuff. DS could maybe get awkward though.

Don't have the neck issues anymore, but I'm still not a fan of dinky screens.

I think I was just bound to never enjoy handheld games, because one Christmas back when the Gameboy Pocket was new, my uncle got me one but my dad ended up keeping it because he thought I'd never do anything else. I think I finally got to use it once during some road trip. Then he finally gave it to me years later, like when the GBA was out. It was a literal rule that I wasn't allowed to have a Gameboy. This bad experience has ruined handheld gaming forever for me.

[Sarge]

I will buy digital copies of games that I otherwise wouldn't be able to afford. Shantae, Twinkle Star Sprites, and so on. The old me would have wanted actual carts for "collection purposes" but I'm moved on past that way of thinking.

I do this, too. I bought Shantae because, well, really expensive. I did the same for Ufouria (although the busted sound on that is really disappointing). If I didn't still have my copy of Suikoden II, I'd have snagged it when it finally got released. Sometimes, it's all about being pragmatic about these things. I mean, technically, I could own Panzer Dragoon Saga right now, but $350 is too rich for my blood. Hence the modded Saturn.

What I wouldn't do for even just a simple port of that game, though. More folks should experience it.

but if it's 6th gen or newer (or N64 because it doesn't always emulate reliably) I buy the physical version

That's me yeah. If it's PS1 all the way back to NES or older even, emulation is good enough for me. PS2 era and up, I go with the real thing.

Yeah we've got decent GameCube emulation, but the PS2 emulation is still glitchy, and OG Xbox emulation doesn't really exist. Funny enough there are really great DS and PSP emulators now, but I still use the real things for those for the time being.

I'm not sure why you'd want to emulate a portable game unless you're either: A. Doing it on a portable emulation machine (PSP, Dingoo, etc.) or B. It's some ungodly rare game. The concept of playing a DS game on my computer just seems so odd when the whole point of DS games is that you can bring them anywhere Xp

Actually, I find myself obsessed with wanting to play a game wherever I can. On the go or on the big screen. If it's a console game, I want to be able to play it on a handheld. If it's handheld, I want to play on the big screen. Hence the PSP component cables, the hacked PS TV, and Game Boy Player, for example. Also, Nintendo's selling DS games on the Wii U now, which is pretty cool. Plus, some portable games are very conducive to playing on the big screen. Actually, I should look into playing the portable Castlevania games on the big screen, see all the details I might have missed otherwise.

I used to have neck problems years ago after a wreck, so I thought it was about 10x better emulating GBA stuff. DS could maybe get awkward though.

Don't have the neck issues anymore, but I'm still not a fan of dinky screens.

I think I was just bound to never enjoy handheld games, because one Christmas back when the Gameboy Pocket was new, my uncle got me one but my dad ended up keeping it because he thought I'd never do anything else. I think I finally got to use it once during some road trip. Then he finally gave it to me years later, like when the GBA was out. It was a literal rule that I wasn't allowed to have a Gameboy. This bad experience has ruined handheld gaming forever for me.

Haha, sounds like how my parents strictly limited my gaming time. They thought that's all I would have done. They're probably right!

We also had a rule on car trips: no video games. We were supposed to actually look and see things. We would, however, get books and stuff and read. They'd still get us to look up occasionally, especially on vacation.

[Exhuminator]

The original Game Boy released in the USA on July 31, 1989, and my parents bought me one in October 1989. So all of three months after Nintendo gave birth to proper handheld gaming in the states, I was on that train. However, before you think "oh lucky little spoiled shit", you have to understand why my parents bought me it.

About a week before I got that Game Boy, I was involved in a horrible car accident that almost killed me. It was my mom's fault and she was barely hurt, but I damn near died. I was in traction and later a partial bodycast, had a titanium plate put in my leg, the works. So it was only out of sheer guilt that my parents got me whatever I wanted to keep me entertained in the hospital. And what I wanted was a Game Boy. I bet if you'd asked that 10 year old me if it was worth the accident to have that Game Boy, I probably would have said yes.

Been a fan of handheld gaming ever since. Dinky screens or not, they absorb me into their little worlds so lovingly cradled in my hands.

[Xeogred]

Getting or not getting a Gameboy back in the day was serious business.

[Sarge]

I got a Game Boy about the time Donkey Kong '94 came out. It was my first game for it. And it was spectacular.

[Xeogred]

Holy crap that game is amazing. My aunt had that and a Super Gameboy, so I got to play that a bit sometimes.

[Cronozilla]

My two cents on the topic would just be the fact that commercially provided options for digital content are of considerably worse quality.

Licensing issues can get in the way of having access to content. Hell, your content can even be held hostage unless you agree to brand new terms that currently don't even exist. Plus, using that digital content gives a lot of data metrics about you to companies, which is then in turn sold so that you can be targeted by ads.

There is no age old market dictating digital sales, unlike retail and second hand retail.

But, digital content has its advantages, namely physical space is not taken up and it is generally very easy to access from various places and devices.

So, what do you do? Well, I would make my own digital server. You buy the stuff you want, and the stuff that you love, you make the highest quality (as in RAW) backups onto your own server, which can be accessed anywhere over the internet.

Technically speaking, you could even do this with cartridge based console games, not that there's a practical reason.

That might be too extreme. So, maybe there's a happy medium of, stuff you're interested in is just digital, yeah, whatever, who cares? Because if it's gone, it's gone, so what? But things you truly love, buy a high quality physical version, and maybe even make your own digital version ... which I can assure you will be far higher quality than Netflix or UV. If you combine this with a Steam Link, you're in business.

Plus, Plex and other server software will probably be one of the last things targeted for ad injection by Smart TV manufacturers ...

[Betagam7]

I never wanted a Game Boy when they originally came out because I thought that the green LCD screen was ugly and stupid.

I grew up to be a man who recently bought Three Watara Supervisions, a Mega Duck and a Game King!

[Tanooki]

I agree with a couple posts about on the plus and minus as it fits and stuff like that people don't even realize until it is too late. Now Gameboy I got it Christmas of 89 a little ruined awesome surprise as I found Super Mario Land first. It has gone with me everywhere over the years and I'll still often enough pocket some type of gameboy.

[Nintendork666]

I've sold off most of my games aside from a select few that are particularly nostalgic for me, like my first 5 NES games, and all my SNES RPGs. I wasn't playing them anyway, (#PCMasterRace).

I use Google Play Music to stream tunes in my car and at home (Free Youtube Red!), and listen to records as well. I still collect blu-rays, but I think I'll go digital for 4k movies when the time comes.