Retro gaming in the future?

[Key-Glyph]

Interesting! Can you link to any you'd recommend? I'm a library guy but I haven't read anything like this about games.

It's a little difficult because a lot of the articles require a subscription or student enrollment to get access to, but here are a few I've enjoyed that I found up on the internet (I hope these sites had permission):

--Anderson, David, Janet Delve, and Dan Pinchbeck. "Toward A Workable Emulation-Based Preservation Strategy: Rationale And Technical Metadata." New Review Of Information Networking 15.2 (2010): 110-131. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. direct PDF

--Takhteyev, Yuri, and Quinn DuPont. "Retrocomputing As Preservation And Remix." Library Hi Tech 31.2 (2013): 355-370. Library & Information Science Source. 8 Nov. 2013. PDF link on this page

--Winget, Megan A. "Videogame Preservation And Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games: A Review Of The Literature." Journal Of The American Society For Information Science & Technology 62.10 (2011): 1869-1883. Business Source Complete. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. direct PDF

Here's the citation information of some others to search for in your local library databases, too:

--McDonough, Jerome P. "Packaging Videogames For Long-Term Preservation: Integrating FRBR And The OAIS Reference Model." Journal Of The American Society For Information Science & Technology 62.1 (2011): 171-184. Business Source Complete. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.

--Castagné, Michel. "Consider The Source: The Value Of Source Code To Digital Preservation Strategies." SLIS Student Research Journal 2.2 (2013): 48-58. Library & Information Science Source. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.

[jvalentine98]

Thought I read once that the government used Cd based media to store important files, after studies revealed the discs were safe due to disc rot not being a serious problem anymore. If it's good enough to store government files long term, it should be good enough for a game.

[nickherc]

What will happen to retro consoles, collectors and gamers in the future?

they will die

I agree, they will fade away. They will be interesting for collector or two, but that's about it.

[Shogun]

This is an interesting topic. I feel like retro gaming will just keep getting more and more expensive. I already feel prices on games and consoles is at rape-me-levels on ebay now. 10 years from now it will be crazy. Not to say that collecting video games should be used to pad your retirement fund. Far from it. Either one of two things will happen - prices will continue to increase as time goes on or retro gaming will prove to be a fad. Once the generation that just missed the 90's gets over their lusting nostalgia and settles into boring adult lives they will all start pawning and selling their stuff causing prices to plummet.

From a different perspective I feel like the hardware won't last forever. A continued concerted effort needs to go into figuring out how we will replicate the playing experience on real hardware in the future. Emulation is getting there but isn't quite there yet. I've been saying that for about 10 years now but the movement that byuu started really woke a lot of people up in the community into realizing how much more room for improvement there was. I feel like a great solution would be a clone system with something like the framemeister built in. Maybe in 10-15 years we will have a system which can handle most retro systems via physical media or roms/images and have the upscaling built in to output to modern displays.

[BRIK]

Maybe in 10-15 years we will have a system which can handle most retro systems via physical media or roms/images and have the upscaling built in to output to modern displays.

That's the Retron 5. I've never used one myself, but reviews of it have generally being favourable. I would like to have one to keep plugged into my bedrooms Bravia, just in case I don't feel like venturing to my games room (lazy, I know). It would also be easier to bring that to someone's house opposed to five different consoles.
The only minor drawback is that it doesn't play everything, anything that requires a disk is not supported. No doubt a future version will though.

[Shogun]

I haven't seen the Retron 5 yet in person either. I've done some gameplay comparisons on youtube vs the real hardware and I was hard pressed to notice many differences. Usually the audio is off which drives me nuts but even in Sonic the sound was almost identical. I can't imagine the upscaling being that good though. It basically just feeds a 720p signal to your tv which will do the upscaling. I'd like to see the scanlines in person because nobody can capture them right on youtube. I can't pay $160 for it though. I'm waiting until the prices fall a bit. Myabe they'll sort out some of the build quality issues by then.

[J T]

One day the Playstation 7 will be retro.

[Violent By Design]

One day video games will be retro, because we'll all be in da internet babay!!

[TSTR]

I already live in the internet.

[TheSegaSaturnGuy]

Well, I can tell ya one thing.. Its gonna be super expensive to enjoy playing the NES, SNES, and Sega Saturn in the future because the game prices are gonna be through the roof even more in the next few years!