Is it worth the cost for real over emulation?

[prfsnl_gmr]

I have a huge collection of games, and I enjoy collecting them (often as much, if not more, than playing them). I started collecting nearly 20 years ago, however, and I would not take up the hobby now. IMO, you are better off emulating most older games, and if you want to collect, you should stick to modern systems that cannot be emulated well (e.g., PS3, PS4, Xbox One, etc.) or try for complete collections of obscure games or sub-sets of games (e.g., Arcadia 2001, Atari 7800, Sega Game Gear, PS1 long boxes, etc.).

[isiolia]

Switch will be interesting from an emulation perspective. Being Android, it should be easy to crack open, and it is both a portable and home solution.

It's not necessarily Android, or vanilla Android if so. I wouldn't bank on it being easily cracked.


For the topic in general, at this point I'd say largely no. On top of the cost of games, there's the additional consideration of "proper" hardware to see them as intended. Newer TVs have been dropping all but the most rudimentary ports that old systems could connect to, wired controllers may not fit in well, memory cards or backup batteries could be failing, and so on.

To me, emulating is - at the very least - the logical place to start at. By far. Whether that's a compilation disc for a newer console, a plug and play, or a more grey-area solution...it'd make sense to ensure that you have an enduring interest in actually playing those old games regularly enough to warrant owning legit copies. For whatever benefits doing so would offer.

If you want something hooked up to a TV, I'd just set up RetroPi or similar.

[Forlorn Drifter]

I have a huge collection of games, and I enjoy collecting them (often as much, if not more, than playing them). I started collecting nearly 20 years ago, however, and I would not take up the hobby now. IMO, you are better off emulating most older games, and if you want to collect, you should stick to modern systems that cannot be emulated well (e.g., PS3, PS4, Xbox One, etc.) or try for complete collections of obscure games or sub-sets of games (e.g., Arcadia 2001, Atari 7800, Sega Game Gear, PS1 long boxes, etc.).

You have a point here. I'm thinking that, for example, getting a 'Cube collection going would be good, as we're at the point that prices are somewhat high, but haven't hit their peak, and I'm already ahead a bit in owning Cubivore. OXbox and PS2 are also options, though PS2 will be a lot of digging. I feel like I've got PS3 covered, and by the time PS4 is collectible I'll probably be old enough that it'd sell for enough to recoop my money.

Switch will be interesting from an emulation perspective. Being Android, it should be easy to crack open, and it is both a portable and home solution.

It's not necessarily Android, or vanilla Android if so. I wouldn't bank on it being easily cracked.


For the topic in general, at this point I'd say largely no. On top of the cost of games, there's the additional consideration of "proper" hardware to see them as intended. Newer TVs have been dropping all but the most rudimentary ports that old systems could connect to, wired controllers may not fit in well, memory cards or backup batteries could be failing, and so on.

To me, emulating is - at the very least - the logical place to start at. By far. Whether that's a compilation disc for a newer console, a plug and play, or a more grey-area solution...it'd make sense to ensure that you have an enduring interest in actually playing those old games regularly enough to warrant owning legit copies. For whatever benefits doing so would offer.

If you want something hooked up to a TV, I'd just set up RetroPi or similar.

Retropi is interesting, and supposedly easy to use. I'm leaning more towards a soft modded Wii U or an OXbox, as that would allow me to play the current crop of games on those systems also. Though, I've been told OXbox is tough to play with if you are new to things.

[Jagosaurus]

I'm not personally worried about disc-based games (excluding possibly Sega CD and Saturn, but I'm not sure if there's much there for me). I'm mostly focused on cart based games currently, because things are getting high with no end in sight. The question at this point boils down to- am I willing to spend enough for the real deal (at least the real carts), and if not, what console or box would be my best option?

Google Saturn RHEA. It's an ODE (Optical Drive Emulator) for the Saturn. Reads .isos off a SD card. Think of these as the flashcarts for disc based systems although not as popular due to soldering required. They're out or in the works for most optical systems.

There's another mod on the way exploiting the Saturn Video CD port. Look up PSIO if interested in PS1 games off SD.

NeoGenesis on the oXbox will emu Sega CD just fine. You can even put a retail Sega CD in the xbox disc drive & it will run it. Now that's cool.

You might really want to look into the original xbox mod scene. It's easy to set up. You can get an amazing emu box & HDD upgrade for under $100. It runs MAME, all the major cart systems you're debating, obscures PCS (Spectrum, MSX, etc).

...

I'm realizing I'm in a weird middle ground where I love the original hardware but I'm ok with flashcarts and am really into the idea of getting disc based games to run off other forms of media. Makimg old tech work with new storage is fun I guess and helps preserve our hobby... until all the consoles die.

[Forlorn Drifter]

I put the question up to my parents, and they seem to think Retron or VC shop are the way to go... Shouldn't have expected anything different.

If I am to go legit, where are the best places to look for games? I want to dive in to SNES especially, but besides Amazon/Ebay/Estarland I have no idea as to where to look. I would assume buying lots is the better option?

[Raz]

I prefer to stick with the real deal. For collecting I have my creed of never paying more than what a game was worth at its release. The only games I emulate are a handful of Neo Geo games I bought from Humble Bundle which I run on Kawaks (the emulator the games came with is horrible), and a few Japan-only games (like Clock Tower). I'm thinking about getting my feet wet with flash carts, though.

[Sarge]

Honestly, I love that I can go completely legit, but so much of my library has been put together from 26 years of collecting that I'm pretty sure I'd never be able to amass what I have now if I had to start over today. Personally, if I were to get into retro collecting, I'd keep my eye open in pawn shops, flea markets, and the occasional retro gaming store that might not stay up to date on the latest prices. To fill the gaps, I'd emulate or go flash cart. It's just too darn expensive otherwise.

Well, and there's nothing wrong with the Virtual Console route, as it's more legit than a flash cart, too.

[Tanooki]

I have a huge collection of games, and I enjoy collecting them (often as much, if not more, than playing them). I started collecting nearly 20 years ago, however, and I would not take up the hobby now. IMO, you are better off emulating most older games, and if you want to collect, you should stick to modern systems that cannot be emulated well (e.g., PS3, PS4, Xbox One, etc.) or try for complete collections of obscure games or sub-sets of games (e.g., Arcadia 2001, Atari 7800, Sega Game Gear, PS1 long boxes, etc.).

Hate to admit it but 100% agree. If someone didn't start at least over 5 years ago now depending on the area you're just asking to have your wallet raped by your collectarding stupidity. Why? There are far better options depending on your particular needs and desires. Real hardware + Kit(everdrive), some Android based device or Raspberry Pi + USB dongle to use a real controller and ROMs on a SD card, or you go with your standard computer+emulator+ROMs (and again attach a real pad with USB port dongle.) Sure you have a few undoable things on a kit like some chipped SNES games, but it is few and far between.

Even if you are into the art of the time, most old manuals and guides are being made into PDFs to again enjoy free, same with many magazines too. It's the wall of wanting total reality of the period that will get you. Is it a legit need, or are you someone into being one of the cool kids who has to have it.

I personally show people their options if something comes up with the opportunity and point out how much they'd be ripped off letting online scum and local stores pricing off them will get them. If they insist on something 'real' I will push them towards Gameboy any, DS any, Genesis, Game Gear as most of the library is very cheap if you're not a shelf queen needing a CIB setup and cart only will do.

[Anapan]

"If you want something hooked up to a TV, I'd just set up RetroPi or similar."
Retropi is interesting, and supposedly easy to use.

I can't vouch for that; So far i've spent most of four days messing around on a new-old-stock Raspberry Pi - it's not that easy to use if you're not really proficient in Linux - at least if you want anything customized from bare-bones default setup. It's running full on GUIs of some different custom linux builds. I'm constantly jumping into terminal and running text-based config editors to trial-and-error make things run smoothly "sudo get repo package x" "sudo mc" browse to and edit many .cfg text files. Swapping out bios files to please various outdated versions of emulators optimized for ARM cpus through secure FTP and for big transfers I have to mount the SD card into a Virtual Linux 64 to deal with the ext4 partition in Windows unless I want to wait for several hours while a few gigs of files copy over on it's slow as an old pentium cpu.

It's fun and interesting, but IMO not so easy... Maybe it's just because I'm running an old model 1 - supposedly the Libretro emus run smoother on the Pi2 and pi3 so the slightly-more user friendly LR emus can be used for most everything. At this point I'm sure I would've been far better to buy a broken-screen samsung galaxy phone off craigslist and plugged it into a TV with an HDMI Mhl connector so I could install the emulators from the google play store. So much less hackey dos-like crap on Android than underpowered cut-down linux builds.

[isiolia]

For most, I would tend to assume they'd just grab the SD card image for the latest version and go. At that point, it's pretty much configuring controllers and getting ROMs in it.

Using an old model probably isn't as representative of the current experience. You don't need to use FTP to bring ROMs in on newer versions, for example.

To me, it's something that isn't necessarily much different from modding a console. It's just using something that's readily available, and doesn't need to be hacked to work, has HDMI, wireless (Pi3), more general controller support, and so on. I'm just not sure why people would mod something like an X-Box at this point in lieu of that.

Actual ease of use probably goes more to using a computer, which isn't necessarily that big of an investment (I'd say $150-200), but not as cheap.