How To Narrow Down The Number Of Systems You Collect For?

[Keatah]

I'm now in the process of offloading Apple /// material, emulators pick up the slack and will allow me to still see and experience what an Apple III is all about. Without the pick it up and drop it back on the desk "procedure" you had to do to the early models. The chips would need reseating from time to time and that was Apple's solution.

 

Most emulators have 5-30 ms. of lag from controller actuation to the time the onscreen action responds. The sources usually being USB polling and framebuffer buildup. Some of this can be tweaked out.

But really, now that the benefits of emulation have been bought to light we should get back to discussing the original topic. It all comes down to simply keeping what you play and either storing (out of sight) or disposing of the remainder of the material. Sentimental and practicality should be considered. Got a keepsake? Well keep it. I believe the most important systems are the ones you had when you were a kid.

 

I don't know how important aesthetics are to gamers, but they are paramount here and rise above all else. We fight a full-on battle against clutter every moment of every day, and if I had 20 consoles to deal with they'd all have to be somehow always be hooked up and ready to play. None of this pull it out from under the bed and hook it up stuff. Even as a kid I fought with that.

[bretthorror]

 

I can't speak for everyone who only plays their games on original hardware, but personally I usually spend around 17 to 20 hours a week playing games. And yes, I do have way too much free time. I'm also finding it pretty amusing, as someone who has a pretty strong dislike for emulation, that a thread I started has pretty much turned into a "Emulators! F***k yeah!" thread.

 

It's alright though. I'm certainly not opposed to other people using emulators if that's the way they enjoy playing their games the most. The whole purpose of playing video games is to have fun, so as long as you're having fun then there's no right or wrong way to play your games. Personally I'm just kind of incompetent when it comes to trying to setup and configure things on computers so I appreciate the simplicity of "Just stick the cartridge in the system, flip the power switch on, and away you go." My consoles may require a little maintenance here and there (the Atari 2600 and NES mainly, I've never had problems with the other systems I play often) but I feel like it's a worthwhile tradeoff to not have to deal with the headache of trying to play games on a computer. I'm also one of those weirdos who loves the visuals from a good CRT TV set and analog video connections. There's just something about the pure digital signal from emulators and modern HDMI connected multi-consoles like the Retron 5 that just looks off to me. Yeah, the pixels are all sharper and cleaner, but there's always something in the back of my head going "That's not how that game is supposed to look!" And yes, I do know that there are artificial scan line filters and all that jazz for emulators to make the games look like they would on a CRT setup, but again, I'm kinda inept when it comes to computers so for me the path of least resistance and frustration is just using original hardware.

 

Plus labels! There are few video game related things that bring me more joy than finding (or just pulling out of my cabinet and admiring) a game I enjoy with a beautifully clean label on it. I love holding the real physical cartridge in my hand, admiring the label artwork, reading the paper manual, and just… oh man, it's just this intangible kind of happiness that I can't put into words. I've got a lot of love for physical media in general, and that combined with the fact that the original physical releases of games will always play perfectly with no lag, graphical or audio errors, or anything like that. You always get the real authentic game experience every time, with no setup or technical knowhow required.

 

But again, that's just me. And as I said earlier, everyone should play their games however they enjoy playing them the most. It doesn't really matter whether your playing them on original hardware or using an emulator, the only thing that matters is that you're having fun and enjoying your hobby to the fullest.

 

You definitely have the right attitude, mine is the same, just have fun playing games. I don't like mucking around on PC emulation either, I use android based units because it's so much easier. I genuinely feel things emulators do like save states and the higher video quality help these old games out. I don't think whoever ported Xevious to NES didn't want your high scores to be saved. It's nice to be able to add modern touches that makes old games better. The only thing about retro games that didn't age well for me was the lack of save options and artificial padding of length, emulators can fix that.

 

I like physical media as well, but when physical media starts biting into my wallet when I could just see the box art or manual online, then I make do without. The unfortunate thing about CIB games is they inevitably go on to a shelf and all you see is the spine - the least interesting part, same thing with carts. Video stores were cool as shit because of the vibes all the cover art gave off facing outward. Same thing with a store display. Games on a shelf or hidden in a drawer lacks appeal to me compared to the video store style layout. On my Ouya, it has an emulator frontend that actually shows pictures of the cover art of all games in your rom collection that you select to open the game. So having cover art from the entire 2600 library up in my grill and using that to pick a game makes more sense than deciding to play a game, then going to the shelf to look at the cover art and then put it in.

 

So I guess the physical vs. digital confusion with me starts when collectors say they like to look at the box art, read the manual, etc is the fact that I can still read, see and play everything they can, so I don't see how our experiences are at all different. The thrill of collecting and the hunt is addictive, but that has no effect on the actual game itself. One can not overlap the collecting side into the gaming side because collecting is irrelevant to it in a valid argument. If you're not buying the game for the game, you may as well be collecting empty boxes. The only thing that matters is when the gameplay begins. It's like VHS horror collectors who pay $800 for a video tape of a movie that's currently in print on DVD and then they say "well it's not the same as", but actually it is. I often wonder if collectors dis emulation because they want some sort of validation to give worth to their giant, expensive collections when everyone else is playing the same games for free. I see no other reason why any grown man would even bring up that emulation is inferior as an experience when the topic at hand is video games, especially cartoony video games aimed at little kids in the 80s. We're talking Rescue Rangers and Duck Hunt, not Hamlet or The Great Gatsby.

[CatPix]

The trap in retrogaming is that games existed on different forms, re releases and video formats.

If die-hard gamers were honest, any of their experience on a Japanese-originated game and system is wrong, because the original NES wasn't like the US one, and many games were altered when released in the US for censor and difficulty.

And so, this mean that European people never experiemented ANY right video gaming experience because of the 60/50Htz thing and so all Europeans should be banned from retrogaming, because they obviously never had the right experience with video games.

What, those Euros with their SCART enabled consoles and their slower games allowing for a slightly easier games? No way!

 

For the box and manual, I kinda disagree.

Sure, 99,99% of pre-NES games are playable without the manual. But some need it.

Plus, we're thinking console, but for computer games, gosh, lots of adventure games are plain impossible to play today without instructions... and the anti copy system, if you have an original game.

Lots of early RPG games have lenghty explanation, clues and other things that aren't in the game.

 

And personally, I don't like loose carts. It feels like you've been out of a garage sale. Plus because how I store the games, mean I just see sad grey plastic sides (as far as I recall, I always stored games like that. So the whole "end label or no end label" get over me. Get boxes.)

[Keatah]

The only thing about retro games that didn't age well for me was the lack of save options and artificial padding of length, emulators can fix that.

 

I like physical media as well, but when physical media starts biting into my wallet when I could just see the box art or manual online, then I make do without. The unfortunate thing about CIB games is they inevitably go on to a shelf and all you see is the spine - the least interesting part, same thing with carts.

 

On my Ouya, it has an emulator frontend that actually shows pictures of the cover art of all games in your rom collection that you select to open the game. So having cover art from the entire 2600 library up in my grill and using that to pick a game makes more sense than deciding to play a game, then going to the shelf to look at the cover art and then put it in.

 

I often wonder if collectors dis emulation because they want some sort of validation to give worth to their giant, expensive collections when everyone else is playing the same games for free. I see no other reason why any grown man would even bring up that emulation is inferior as an experience when the topic at hand is video games, especially cartoony video games aimed at little kids in the 80s. We're talking Rescue Rangers and Duck Hunt, not Hamlet or The Great Gatsby.

 

To address those points briefly..

 

There are times I have no desire to work through the beginner/tutorial levels of a game for 1/2 hour just to get to the challenging parts - only to make a stupid mistake and have to tediously do it again. Savestates literally add a new Variation to the classic VCS Game Program - starting on a higher difficulty level.

 

Every emulation collection by default must exist physically too. Ha! A digital collection is just so different it's shocking. Incongruent to someone that hasn't worked with it. On the surface it goes against the very definition of "classic gaming" - all this high-tech hardware and 64GB EEPROMS

 

Regarding the shelf space requirements. I can literally pack all my emulation stuff into a laptop bag and gym bag. All except for a full-size TV. The gym bag holds physical controllers, 3 small barcade control panels, a reference notebook, miscellaneous wires, connectors, and adaptors, and backup disks. All of it can be carried with one hand. If I eliminate the bulky controller stuff, I'm down to the laptop bag only.

 

Realistically you can do a dual-monitor setup. Display game information, scans, dox and box on one monitor; the game itself on another.

 

I feel the same way about collectors. Some of the ones I met are indeed looking for validation. Stroke their ego and move along. Everyone is happy.

 

 

TLDNR:

Android emulation, pc emulation, xbox emulation. It's all good. It enables one to transcend the problems associated with physical media.

 

Setups can range from a single screen on a portable device to a full-blown home theater with multiple auxiliary screens for showing the manual, box art, and various other scanned materials like magazines, reviews & interviews, developer notes, cheats. Even one for iTunes and your 80's playlists.

 

When not in use, you can set the main screen to cycle through themes, Space, Sports, Shoot-em-ups, Atari, Intellivision, Arcade.. Things like that. When not actually gaming this acts as those "still preview & PSA" they run in the real theaters prior to the show. On gaming nights I often set it up so when we enter the room these are the first things you see. All my favorite arcade games are individually tweaked and tuned. Every aspect has been customized to deliver a tedium-free experience. Every system comes with a custom-made reference card highlighting the main functions. Bliss box and other custom interfaces like from ArcadeControls and the ipac is icing on the cake.

 

It's something that's grown and evolved over 20 years. And this off-cloud digital collection has become as valuable to me as a physical collection would be to any die-hard collector. Since I started getting into emulation pre-mame in the 1990's on a 486, I've had the pleasure to enjoy the hunt like any physical collector would. It started out with Microsoft Arcade, Activision Action Packs, DASArcade, Sparcade, Digital Eclipse' single per-game emulator for Williams' Classics. I set aside some folders and eventually got a dedicated disk. And there are many unique tidbits in my collection that are no longer available anywhere on the internet anymore. Not saying that makes it valuable moneywise.

 

For me part of the emulation odyssey is about stopping time and having instant access to all the games I enjoyed when I was a kid. Some cocksuckers took them away I'm reasonable sure they're no longer enjoying their spoils or the money obtained from selling the stuff. But that isn't the case here. I'm quite thoroughly enjoying a theft-proof digital collection. I allocate maybe 10% of my gaming time to the hunt, maintenance, enrichment, and curation of the perfect digital collection with all its ensuing pluses. A great example of turning tragedy into triumph.

 

Along the way I discovered many advantages. I don't have to worry about degrading plastics, fading and stained manuals or console wear and tear. With modern hardware you can replace any part of it and not miss a beat. But if your console develops a problem you have to go to ebay and get another one. One that has its own set of issues. Or spend time troubleshooting your original one, then tracking down parts. By going emulation only I've eliminated tons of carts and consoles and arcade cabinets and saved loads of time maintaining and cleaning all that paraphernalia - even when taking into account the time spent on mucking with configuration files.

 

I suppose it's 50cm of this and half a meter of that.. It take some effort whether physical or digital.

 

Delving into the insurance aspect we see there are more advantages of emulation. Fire damage, theft, acts of god.. It's all irrelevant. A physical collection can be stolen, taken-away, much of mine was way back in the day. And several people here posted about their losses too. In a fire or burglary, sure, you'll lose your hardware. Even your emulation hardware is at risk. But you will not lose the essence of the collection. You will not lose the time spent in perfecting your setup. All you do is backup your system and data files. Store a copy off-site. When insurance cuts you a check, buy the hardware, and restore from backup. Couple of days work at most. Maybe a week. And you'll get back to where you were before the disaster struck. Maybe even better as you might upgrade something. I guarantee it!

 

..As opposed to experiencing the deep loss of a physical collection. Some of which will be irreplaceable. And even with a fat-check in hand, you're either going to spend a lot of time clawing through crap on ebay, or spend even more hiring someone to do it for you. Believe me, you don't want that.

 

And it isn't quite the same. One physical collection has a certain flavor about it. Your replacement collection will be different no matter what you do. With emulation you have little or no attachment to the hardware, that's been transcended. You have attachment to the pattern of data bits instead. You can take them with you wherever you go.

[Keatah]

Much of the "hunt" and fun of finding something in the wild applies to a digital collection equally as it does a physical collection. You just have to get going!

[bretthorror]

That's quite the interesting set up you have there Keetah in regards to manuals and scans being on display. I'm not sure I'd go that far because I frankly don't care enough to, but you're proving my point exactly. This isn't rag tag emulation, these frontends can be really in depth with info and scans. My first emulation station was the Dreamcast running NES. All the games had cart scans, box scans and a screenshot from the game. What more do you really need? The fact of the matter is emulation has advanced beyond what the old guard believes it to be. It's become efficient and with the front ends, still very nostalgic. WiiFlow actually has front and back covers. The shit is all right there in front of you just like it used to be. Not that selecting any game imaginable from a simple text list of roms isn't awesome enough. And it's even more relevant to today's world because so many of us use Steam which has a very similar interface. Physical collectors can fight the good fight all they want, but that method is dying. I may have preferred physical copies before, but it's also not beneficial for me to sit back hunkered down in the 1990s. It's cool to move on somewhat with the times. When I was a kid, I know damn well I'd have ditched my systems for an Ouya loaded with everything on it. The option just wasn't there at the time. Just because the option wasn't there shouldn't mean you have to stay stuck in that time frame,

 

Not that it's hard, but after you've loaded your roms and have a frontend, as elaborate or minute as you choose, you do get a feeling of gratification as to what you've accomplished with your emulation station. And nothing prevents you from still owning a ton of gaming related crap, I am pro emulation and I still have tons of it. It's not even physical vs. emulation to me, it's how the two possibly don't co-exist for nearly everyone. If you're hardcore into games, I don't understand your mentality if you don't own flashcarts or some device to run roms off of. I couldn't handle my gaming habits being dictated to like that. If I see a 2600 game I'd like to try from a Youtube video, I wanna be able to try it now. Not wait for it to come on Ebay, wait out the auction, wait for it to arrive in the mail. Why not try out every game on the system you love? Why be a diehard NES fan and not play Little Samson because it's too expensive? Just doesn't make sense to me. I do think the anti-emulation people are becoming fewer and fewer and collectors are getting on board for imports, hacks, translations and whatnot. I remember when I was a kid having to get a MRI and my mom agreed to buy me a game (ultra rare for me to get a game on non-birthdays/Christmas) and the store didn't have what I wanted, it might have been Streets of Rage 3, so I got NBA Jam instead. Now, NBA Jam fuckin' rules, but I am using this as an example of how I was held back by what I could find in stores to play. I certainly don't wanna relive those scenarios now when I don't have to.

 

Let's say you have money to burn and Ebay is a viable option to just buy everything you want, that's cool. But surely you have to research games to find out if you'd like them, likely watching gameplay videos. Or you could, you know, just try 'em on an emulator before buying instead of being burned on a shitty game. And I don't wanna even get started with how everyone back in the day either tossed their box and manuals in the garbage or threw them aside like they were dog shit but suddenly somehow they've become as important as the game in the eyes of many collectors. Video games aren't figures or coins. They're meant to be played, their visual appearance on their box was just an ad campaign to get you to pick their title over another in a store. Other collecting hobbies bled into video games and it doesn't make sense here. I think that's why there's such a divide between collectors and gamers. A sealed video game is essentially an oxymoron. There is no reason to own a game, loose or boxed, if you don't want to play it. I understand people looking at their figures or comic collections or whatever, I don't understand looking at game cartridges or boxes because the only reason to own it is to play it. My LCD/VFD tabletop/handheld collection at least looks cool and everything is generally different and unique in addition to containing a game. 500 gray NES carts in a row... not at all interesting.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Alright guys, I think we get the point. You really like emulation and are puzzled by why some people might not. I'd appreciate if this whole conversation got taken to a different thread dedicated to the subject of emulation vs physical media, since that's not really what this thread is about, but to clarify some confusion I will address—from my personal individual point of view—why I like to stick with physical media.

 

 

If you're hardcore into games, I don't understand your mentality if you don't own flashcarts or some device to run roms off of.

 

For me this one is pretty simple. It's the same reason that back in the day I went out and bought a cassette tape or CD of an album I liked rather than have a friend make a copy of theirs with a dual deck cassette player and blank cassettes or a CD burner and CDRs. If there's something I like then I want to own the real version of it, not a bootleg copy. To me that's just what ROMs are: bootlegs of real games. Someone takes a real game, uses some software to rip the game data off the cartridge or disk, and uploads a bootleg to the internet. For my personal enjoyment as a gamer and collector there's just no satisfaction in owning bootlegs. Sure, the game might play the same as the real physical copy, but it's still a bootleg and because of that I don't get any sense of gratification from owning it.

 

 

 

If I see a 2600 game I'd like to try from a Youtube video, I wanna be able to try it now. Not wait for it to come on Ebay, wait out the auction, wait for it to arrive in the mail. Why not try out every game on the system you love? Why be a diehard NES fan and not play Little Samson because it's too expensive? Just doesn't make sense to me.

 

I think it's a matter of perspective. I learned long ago through other hobbies that as soon as I had everything I wanted for that hobby I quickly lost interest in it. For me at least half the fun of being a collector is always having something to hunt for, to keep an eye out for good deals on, and to always have new games to strive to add to my collection. If I could instantly have every single game I've ever wanted in my collection I wouldn't want to, because there wouldn't be any point to my hobby anymore. I've had other hobbies wherein I managed to collect everything I could ever want for them, and before long I found myself getting depressed and losing interest hobby because there weren't any goals to pursue anymore. I think part of what it means to be a collector is to always have something more that you want, some holy grail that you've yet to get your hands on, because once you've collected everything you could ever want and there's nothing more to collect… well, you can't really be a collector anymore at that point.

 

On a somewhat related note, I've always loved waiting for packages to arrive in the mail from eBay. When you're a game collector waiting to get something in the mail it's like Christmas every time a new game arrives. It's something that breaks up the monotony of the day to day routines of our lives as adults, and rekindles that spark of childlike exuberance and excitement that we all used to feel around the holidays or our birthdays as a kids. The same goes for hunting around for physical copies of games you want at retro game stores. It's a fun and exciting way to take a break from the routine of daily life. Instant gratification isn't always a good thing, in my eyes at least.

 

 

 

Let's say you have money to burn and Ebay is a viable option to just buy everything you want, that's cool. But surely you have to research games to find out if you'd like them, likely watching gameplay videos. Or you could, you know, just try 'em on an emulator before buying instead of being burned on a shitty game. And I don't wanna even get started with how everyone back in the day either tossed their box and manuals in the garbage or threw them aside like they were dog shit but suddenly somehow they've become as important as the game in the eyes of many collectors. Video games aren't figures or coins. They're meant to be played, their visual appearance on their box was just an ad campaign to get you to pick their title over another in a store. Other collecting hobbies bled into video games and it doesn't make sense here. I think that's why there's such a divide between collectors and gamers. A sealed video game is essentially an oxymoron. There is no reason to own a game, loose or boxed, if you don't want to play it. I understand people looking at their figures or comic collections or whatever, I don't understand looking at game cartridges or boxes because the only reason to own it is to play it. My LCD/VFD tabletop/handheld collection at least looks cool and everything is generally different and unique in addition to containing a game. 500 gray NES carts in a row... not at all interesting.

 

I'm not usually one to use YouTube clips or captioned meme images my feelings about something, but in this case I don't think there's any better way to put it than:

 

Edited November 28, 2015 by Jin

[Andromeda Stardust]

Thanks Jin. I prefer real hardware as well, except in cases where real hardware is impractical, ie MAME cabinet. The best of both worlds in the emulation versus physical hardware debate is flash carts. I currently own eight flash carts spanning most of my retro systems:

 

Powerpak (NES)

Harmony (Atari 2600)

 

Krikzz Everdrives:

Famicom

SNES

Genesis

Turbografx/PCe

N64

Game Boy

 

Wishlist:

Advance Everdrive (GBA, TBA)

Harmony Concerto (7800, coming soon)

 

That said, when I do find a game I enjoy, I make the effort to track it down if it's not too pricey. But definitely it is good to cut back on clutter of 1000s of carts taking up space. If I don't like a game, I sell it. I also support homebrew releases whenever I can.

[Keatah]

Of those systems the only one I can safely say that I'll never sell a single game or accessory for is the Atari 2600, and I wouldn't dare touch the PS1 library since at least 80% of it is my wife's, but I'd really like to find a way to whittle down the rest so I can focus my collecting efforts on the Atari 2600 and one or two other systems. Any suggestions for how choose? Every system I'm currently collecting for has played a significant role in my life at one point or another, and they all feel special to me in their own way, so I could really use some insight on how to let go of some of them without feeling bad about it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

You said it yourself, you'd like to collect for one or two systems. Why not do exactly that? Focus! Just stop collecting for the other systems and pick a favorite, like the VCS. Go on sentimental value. Go with the system you had the most fun with. Pack the others away. You don't need to collect for them. But you can keep them! That's kinda what I had to do. And ultimately far happier having done so.

 

Throughout time I had an extraordinary amount of stuff. And the fun got scattered around. Diluted. None of it made me happy, none of it was fully complete. There were thefts and damage along the way, too. And eventually it came to be an emotional burden - managing all the physical stuff. Worrying about it. Highly depressing in that there was so much of it to acquire. So much time involved. Painful to try and make it all aesthetically pleasing and keeping it operational in convenient way.

 

I don't even know where or how the idea of collecting videogames started. Or how I got the notion. It's such an uncommon activity to begin with; people often think I'm nuts. My parents called them "baby games"..

 

Currently my physical stuff stands at Apple II, Ti-59, TRS-80 Pocket Computer 1, 2, and 4, and my first 486 PC. It nearly fills one closet. This is my original highly sentimental stuff and is eminently manageable. Mainly because it's packed away nicely and doesn't see much use. It all totals maybe 5-10% of everything videogame related I ever had since the 70's. I don't actively seek out material to add anymore. Of course I may get a book or an expansion card or spare parts from time to time, but I don't run around making special trips looking for it.

 

As kids we had too many good times and dreams of the future with the classic platforms to harbor the thought of never experiencing them again. Yet I can't possibly imagine curating and maintaining all of that anymore. A digital collection via emulation seemed to be the only solution for me. It squashes the collecting bug. The games are made timeless and reliable. And they're here to play today and tomorrow. They are the unlikely unspoken-of friends we all knew and loved on those off-from-school-with-no-homework winter snow days. Cozying up with blankets and beanbags..

 

I consider my emulation box my own custom built console. As valid as any store-bought console. As valid and real as any console you own. Unique in its own way. Assembled by me. Configured by me. Custom interface made by me. Curated by me. Me! Me! ME! Complete with built-in maintenance tools and 20 years of refinement behind it. It has sentimental value just like a real VCS or Intellivision would. But it comes with a twist - the value lies not in the hardware itself, that's just a shell, but instead in the Game Programs I once owned so long ago. Gameplay is the same. Their essence and code is the same. They are actually really there. Bit for bit, byte for byte. Captured and frozen in solid-state memory. Just like when my parents or grandparents would bring them home from the store(1). Safe and sound. They live on. A warm fuzzy feeling encompasses me when I think about Surround, Air Sea Battle, Combat, Flag Capture, Slot Racers, Video Chess, and so many countless others and all the incredibly great times we had with those.

 

Sure it's been a long and slow-going uphill road. The top of the hill is in sight! And I would never ever want to go back down. The vista up here is sweeping and expansive! Ravishing! That! That's what it should be like when you have the right mix and balance.

 

1- Stores of the era:

Toys'R'Us

Venture

K-Mart

Sears

Precision Video

Minnesota Fats

CompuShop

DataDomain

Computerland

TurnStyle

KayBee's

Polk Bros.

RadioShack

Video King

Various computer expos in the city

Edited November 28, 2015 by Keatah

[HoshiChiri]

Everyone here has largely expressed my opinions on emulation- it feels like bootlegging, there's no satisfaction from pictures on a screen that don't correlate to a real-world object I can go touch, I want to be able to hunt around for new carts, not just download them, etc. In my case, I'm quickly learning I'm a console nut... as in, the physical units are what I enjoy most. I go to retro stores and gush over variant machines the way most women gush over shoes. (My fiancé reacts similarly... "You don't need another console." "But it's a Colecovision!")

 

Which means that, of all the statements on emulation made thus far, three words has been more enticing to me than anything else said:

 

 

On my Ouya...

 

I could have an excuse to buy an Ouya, you say??? Now that's worth looking into!

[bretthorror]

Everyone here has largely expressed my opinions on emulation- it feels like bootlegging, there's no satisfaction from pictures on a screen that don't correlate to a real-world object I can go touch, I want to be able to hunt around for new carts, not just download them, etc. In my case, I'm quickly learning I'm a console nut... as in, the physical units are what I enjoy most. I go to retro stores and gush over variant machines the way most women gush over shoes. (My fiancé reacts similarly... "You don't need another console." "But it's a Colecovision!")

 

Which means that, of all the statements on emulation made thus far, three words has been more enticing to me than anything else said:

 

 

I could have an excuse to buy an Ouya, you say??? Now that's worth looking into!

 

Why would you want an Ouya, it only has digital games. And not the best ones at that. I bought it for emulation, so I got what I wanted out of it.

 

The problem with these arguments is they're just old hat and outdated. Don't get me wrong, I like physical stuff too, I never said I didn't, I just said it's overrated. But there's this thing called Steam and everything they sell is digital. And they're a pretty big company. Like the 200th biggest internet site in the world. And you can hunt games down on there too at deals - significant ones. So the thing is you have people who are thinking like 2015 and people thinking like it's 1985 and that's where to gap here lies. Because even if you aren't insinuating it (I have no belief you have any ill intentions, and neither do I towards you), you're saying you can't have fun with digital games, and that makes zero sense. A 7 year old would look you in the face these days like you were borderline insane - seriously. So I'll give you guys the out, my roms are evil and bootlegged and just dirty and nasty, but my paid for Steam collection is digital too, so find a way to argue against paid for games and saying these games are no fun, soulless, etc. because they're not on a cartridge. Even though I've played them and they're fun as shit.

 

Collecting and buying shit are a big reason people are in this hobby and I never, ever confused my collecting with my gaming. Because when I was a collector, I barely gamed.

[HoshiChiri]

 

Why would you want an Ouya, it only has digital games.

 

*facepalms a bit* I was trying to be a bit silly with that one.

 

I don't have any issues with emulation or digital gaming, I really don't. I've never been interested because I love having stuff to touch (I will seriously just sit around rearranging my games from time to time, just so I can touch them all). I've also never really gamed on my computer, even with non-emulated modern stuff. Even with a disc to put in the computer. So any sort of gaming that involves my laptop doesn't really appeal to me... I make no real association between the computer box and playing games.

 

That doesn't mean I'm not open-minded about it, though. Of course emulation & digital oozes appeal for many people. Have a massive collection without using up valuable storage space! Buy games at 3 am when stores are closed, and get them instantly! Backups and cloud saves mean your whole collection is always available, even if your access device changes! Seriously, unless you're a oddball like me who genuinely gets joy just out of holding a cart/disc (or console especially!), there really is no contest.

 

I was poking fun at myself that, for all those positives, the one thing said that really appealed to me was 'you can get a new thing to touch.' It is a ridiculous thing to be the most compelling- but there it is.

Edited November 28, 2015 by HoshiChiri

[bretthorror]

It's all good, I actually only recently got a bit into PC games because that is where all the neat retro stuff is. I was exactly like you, the computer plus game did not compute.

 

There's nothing wrong with being an oddball, I don't know why buy it just annoys me that somehow people out there can't enjoy digital games because those people are in for the collecting then and games come second. That just baffles me. It's cool if that's your gimmick, but some of the hatred towards digital and emulation is sheer ignorance. You fellas here are generally good peoples, but there are some morons out there especially in YouTube comments I'd like to strangle.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

It's been about 4 months since I last posted in this thread, so for those who took an interest in my dilemma and offered so much helpful advice I thought I'd post an update.

 

After a great deal of careful consideration and pondering over the value of my collections for various systems versus how often I used them and how much enjoyment I got out of owning a collection of physical games for them, I made some pretty major decisions and followed through with them.

 

The first thing I did was sell off my entire Atari 2600 collection, with the exception of my Flashback 2 and the joysticks/paddles needed to play the games on it. I had roughly $1,400 invested in my Atari 2600 library and was able to recoup my entire investment. The money from those sales went towards treating my family to a nice Christmas and starting up a new collection for the DS Lite; since I eventually came to realize that Nintendo handhelds have always been my real passion when it comes to both playing and collecting games.

 

Next up was a more recent decision that came out of some lengthy debates with the misses over how to expand our gaming options while still being able to save up money for events coming up this summer and stick to our budget (in other words, I needed to stop spending so damn much money on old video games lol). The result of these debates is that my better half ended up finally selling me on the value of flash carts, and the only video game related purchases that I'll be making over the next 5 months or so will be flash carts for the various cartridge based consoles we own. The longterm buying plan is as follows:

 

April: 2x R4i Gold 3DS & an EZ Flash V 3-in-1 Expansion cart for my DS Lite and the misses' DSi XL.

May: Everdrive N8 for our NES.

June: Everdrive MD for our Sega Genesis.

July: Everdrive GB for my Game Boy / Game Boy Color.

August: A reconditioned Vader model Atari 2600 from Best Electronics and a Harmony Encore for it.

 

Though I was really opposed to flash carts when the subject first came up, over time I did realize that they will probably be a really good thing for both my game playing and collecting hobbies. With a flash cart for all of the cartridge based systems that my wife and I own we'll be able to play almost the entire game libraries for all of those systems exactly the same way we would if we owned all of the original cartridges (but for about 1/20th the cost of owning all the good games on the systems), plus all the new homebrews and rare games that were either never released on cartridges or are too rare and expensive for me to ever dream of affording. The other benefit of flash carts is that with a full library of all the games I could ever want to play on our cartridge based systems already at my disposal, I can focus my physical game collecting to just the systems that I'm really passionate about. The systems in question being the Game Boy / Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS.

 

Of course the misses will continue collecting for the original PlayStation, since that is her system of choice and one that I'm pretty fond of too, but we're going to wait on collecting any more physical games until after we get all our cartridge based systems set up with flash carts. At this point the only question still on my mind is whether or not to start selling off some of my more valuable Genesis carts (and maybe some Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games as well, though I do have the feeling I'd regret selling those down the line) to expedite the acquisition of flash carts. There will be plenty of time to ponder that in the future though, and for now I'm just happy to have a solid collecting plan for 2016.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Jin

[Keatah]

Cool! It would be nice to see what others' plans are for the 2016 year regarding selling and collecting.

 

I've finalized my plan for my stuff. It all revolves around the Apple II as usual. I'll be adding a few bits and pieces as they become available. A few odds and ends. No rush on anything. Apple stuff (like most ebay stuff) is prone to overpricing, but "because Apple" makes it worse.

[+GoldenWheels]

Cool! It would be nice to see what others' plans are for the 2016 year regarding selling and collecting.

 

I've finalized my plan for my stuff. It all revolves around the Apple II as usual. I'll be adding a few bits and pieces as they become available. A few odds and ends. No rush on anything. Apple stuff (like most ebay stuff) is prone to overpricing, but "because Apple" makes it worse.

I like that I am not the only one who plans this kind of thing ahead of time.

 

I'm gonna fill out my NES collection and be maybe be "done" (I made a list years ago of about 150 games, those games being the only ones I'll ever need or even want. I think I have about 20 to go and frankly they're some of the biggest holes in my NES collection...I refused to pay 25$ for Contra and now it's $30 regularly. I see how this is going, gotta bite the bullet sooner or later).

 

I'm going to try to find a decently priced copy of Tank Command, and then for the 7800, I'm set, it's just adding any cool new homebrews that get released. (think this was a goal LAST year too though!)

 

I'd like to get a stick for my PC Engine Duo.

 

(I guess I have to sell all my SMS and Genesis stuff too actually, I don't get rid of stuff often...but the flash cart made them even less important than they already were to me--I am a casual Sega fan at best)

[HoshiChiri]

April: 2x R4i Gold 3DS & an EZ Flash V 3-in-1 Expansion cart for my DS Lite and the misses' DSi XL.

May: Everdrive N8 for our NES.

June: Everdrive MD for our Sega Genesis.

July: Everdrive GB for my Game Boy / Game Boy Color.

August: A reconditioned Vader model Atari 2600 from Best Electronics and a Harmony Encore for it.

 

 

I am giggling to myself that the Atari was sold off, but is on the 'buy' list for later. I mean, I get why, but it still sound silly to say out loud.

 

I'm also very jealous at your solid collecting plan... mine got torpedoed over the holidays, and I'm still sorting it out.

 

 

(I guess I have to sell all my SMS and Genesis stuff too actually, I don't get rid of stuff often...but the flash cart made them even less important than they already were to me--I am a casual Sega fan at best)

 

I'm listening...

 

I don't particularly need anything, but as the Genesis was when I really got into gaming, I tend to be a bit attached to it. I feel like the seagulls from Nemo when it gets mentioned. "Sega? Sega! Sega!"

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I am giggling to myself that the Atari was sold off, but is on the 'buy' list for later. I mean, I get why, but it still sound silly to say out loud.

 

I'm also very jealous at your solid collecting plan... mine got torpedoed over the holidays, and I'm still sorting it out.

 

Lol Yeah, I'm sure that must look pretty funny. The two big reasons I liquidated my Atari collection towards the end of last year were that I had been through 5 different Atari 2600 consoles purchased in like-new condition off eBay over the past couple years that kept breaking down on me, and I just didn't feel like the enjoyment I got out of playing the 2600 was worth the $1,400 I had invested in my collection. So between the frustration over reliability issues and high collection cost it just wasn't really worth it for me to hold onto.

 

However, a reconditioned system from Best Electronics and a Harmony cart should both be really reliable, and I definitely feel like it'll be worth the total investment of $200'ish to have all the Atari 2600 games I could want to play at my disposal. I also found myself missing a lot of the Atari 2600 games that aren't on the Flashback 2, and I still get excited about all the new 2600 homebrews that come out every year, so I think a reconditioned system and a Harmony cart will be a nice reliable way to get my Atari 2600 fix without having to make an enormous financial investment.

 

I'm pretty pleased with my plan for this year, though I will admit that having it all planned out on advance like this does take away some of the spontaneity I always liked about collecting. Buy hey, with a new flash cart coming every month I will be basically getting 100 to 200 great new games to play every month, and I sure can't complain about that! Lastly, to round out the year, I do plan on putting in orders for a front lit Game Boy Color from 8 Bit Aesthetics and an olive green backlit original Game Boy from GameBoyMods.Co.UK at some point before December rolls around. Those were near the top of my list for 2016 collecting priorities when I made my list back in January, so I'll be really looking forward to adding them to my handheld collection!

Edited March 23, 2016 by Jin

[+GoldenWheels]

 

 

I'm listening...

 

I don't particularly need anything, but as the Genesis was when I really got into gaming, I tend to be a bit attached to it. I feel like the seagulls from Nemo when it gets mentioned. "Sega? Sega! Sega!"

Ha...my genesis "collection" is the most common of commons (I did at least avoid some of the sports) so unless you're up for a starter pack, all with bad labels, you'd probably be pretty disappointed!

 

I somehow picked up a few decent SMS games though in case....Ys and Phantasy Star for instance, I must have gotten them in a trade with my buddy, I'd have never paid the cash for what those go for.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Great to hear Jin that you are sticking it out with hardware. I too have cart clutter that I rarely play anymore.

 

Lately over the past two years, I have taken up interest in physical homebrew moreso than commercial releases.

 

So if I do decide to sell off in the future, I'll continue to collect and hold onto homebrew to support the community, while selling off many of the "filler" game titles.

 

Currently I own the following flash carts:

 

NES PowerPak

Atari Harmony (original)

 

Everdrives:

Famicom N8

Super ED v2 w/ DSP1 soldered in

Everdrive MD v3

Turbo ED v1.x

GB ED

ED64 v3

 

Waiting for release:

Harmony 2 Concerto (7800)

GBA Everdrive

 

Firstly, I don't buy flashcarts for modern systems. Piracy on modern consoles is showing non-support for the companies we love. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

 

I was thinking in terms of numbers, a well rounded collection/setup may include...

 

~2 displays (CRT for retro systems, flat panel for modern)

 

~10 consoles (minimum one per generation)

 

~10 controllers per console (includes periherals)

~100 games per console (includes must haves + cheap fillers)

 

Displays take up more space than consoles.

Consoles take up more space than controllers.

Controllers take up more space than games.

 

You have nearly an order of magnitude more consoles than displays.

You have roughly an order of magnitude more controllers than consoles.

You have roughly an order of magnitude more games than controllers.

 

All in all, 2 TVs, 10 consoles, 100 controllers, 1000 games.

 

Ten flash carts will eliminate 1000, up to potentially 10000 games if your hardcore enough.

 

An emulatin rig eliminates everything else and has it's own flavor of hassles, but what's the fun in that?

 

Get a MAME bartop if you want to play arcade games, unless you have unlimited funds and garage space. The less it resembles a desktop PC, the better. You wanna do arcade games; it needs to resemble one and have authentic controls!

 

By and large, the games are what consumes the bulk of any collection, and are the first to get pruned. Flash carts are the path of least resistance. The next clutter reduction step, console emulation, just doesn't feel right to me.

 

My two cents, but you're certainly on the right path...

[Keatah]

Emulation is currently the only way to achieve an all-in-one experience, if that's what you're looking for. As early as the late 1970's I wanted one box, one machine, to do it all.⁽¹⁾

 

My collecting philosophy has been steady and unchanging for the past 10 or 15 years now. Focus on one major platform, that's Apple II in my case. And also TRS-80 Pocket Computer 1, 2, 4, and Ti-59. Pick the rest up through emulation.

 

I also emulate Apple II for convenience, utility, and speed. Here the PC provides many added benefits for archiving, de-protection, documentation preparation & scanning, debugging, and more. So emulation + PC is a real enhancement to classic computing platforms. And consoles, too, if you're a developer.

 

The configuration hassles when setting up new emulators are equivalent and about the same level of annoyance you'd get with managing a physical collection. Its just of a different nature. I don't think any method (real or emu) is significantly worse than the other regarding that. But you do need a good understanding of Over time the emulation's problems become less whereas a physical collection tends to need more TLC.

 

1- You should have seen some of my early attempts at making all-in-one rigs. First it was the Ultravision clone that overheated and blew components. Next it was a deluxe-sized carboard laptop fabricated by cutting up a VCS box. Then it was a nexus of AC adapters and RF switches all wired together in one box - soon I realized how the hell was I going to move all this. 7 consoles semi-permanently "tied" together by one RF and POWER distribution box. Fuck.. And then it was a floor tower case with mainboards from various consoles mounted in it. And even a TV set with the insides of a VCS built-in to it! Crazy man!

 

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

*snipped to save thread space*

 

My two cents, but you're certainly on the right path...

Thanks Kosmic! It looks like you've got a really solid collecting plan too!

 

I'm definitely going to be sticking it out with original consoles, since I've never been able to get a perfect lag-free emulation setup going on anything I've tried emulating other systems' games on; and I just like the feel of using the original controllers for whatever system I'm playing. I have been using my Wii to emulate a lot of rare and expensive games while I save up for Everdrives, but it's just not quite the same experience as playing the games on the original hardware with original controllers.

 

As far as flash carts go, I completely agree with you on not buying flash carts for current gen systems. I'm totally fine with running an R4 card to play original DS games on my DS Lite, since those games are now out of production and Nintendo isn't selling them at retail any longer, but I wouldn't play 3DS games with a flash cart since those are games that Nintendo is still selling and trying to make some money from.

 

I like your formula for collecting as well, and it looks like a great way to ensure that you'll have plenty of diversity in your game library and never get bored. I've narrowed mine down a bit further, to the point that I'm only collecting physical games for three systems that have really special significance to me (Game Boy/Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS), but I have to admit that it is nice to have other systems to play too now and then; and my bartop arcade setup is great fun when I get that arcade gaming itch.

 

 

My collection trimming hasn't been without it's moments of doubt though. Yesterday I plugged in the Atari Flashback 2 to play some Atari 2600 games for the first time since I unloaded my enormous Atari 2600 collection last year, and about 5 minutes into a game of Super Breakout the "seller's remorse" hit me like a ton of bricks. I spent a good couple hours with my heart feeling like there was a ton of lead strapped to it, and even after spending a good long while contemplating all the great things that selling my Atari 2600 collection has brought me I still missed it.

 

The whole experience really made me question whether or not having all the games I want to play on flash carts will make me happy or whether I'm just too attached to the idea of owning the original cartridges for the games I like, but it didn't dissuade me from seeing my plan through. I'm still going to get Everdrives for some of my consoles ASAP, then spend some time playing games on them to evaluate how I feel about it. Making big changes in life is never easy, but I do feel like I have to give it a try. And hey, the worst case scenario is that if I don't find the Everdrives satisfying to play games on I can always resell them for a small loss. No biggie.

Edited March 25, 2016 by Jin

[Keatah]

I currently allow my collection's scope and breadth be determined by what was most sentimental to me. What I had the most fun with. What I learned the most with. That would come to be the Apple II material.

 

There was fun and games, learning DOS, Applesoft, 6502 Assembly, Pascal and Fortran, Pilot and Logo, CP/M, modems, data communications, graphics, sound, warez. And many scientific concepts too, like orbital mechanics, model rockets, artificial intelligence, data processing, astronomy, photography, and storage and backups. Let's not forget motor control and data acquisition and my home-made radio telescope! And I won't get into my TV and radio transmission experiments and speaker thumpers. Suffice it to say, it's kinda-sorta like keeping all my "second-school" experiences.

 

But today it's a fantastic conversation piece for many topics and subjects. And everybody can relate to it, "because apple". They often ask how many floppies it would take to hold a modern-day DSLR photo. I tell them somewhere between 1 and 3 boxes of disks depending on the camera and settings. It would also take a couple of days to send it cross country in a time before e-mail existed.

 

But make no mistake, the VCS was my first "programmable" console with cartridges and had they not been destroyed by the cult-of-the-crazies I might still have it today - provided I didn't get stuck into a "gotta catch'em all" completest mindset. But yes, there are many ineffable qualities exhibited by the VCS. And the good times I had with it not only involved gaming, but learning the ins and outs of collecting. There was fun in how my parents and grandparents would take me out cartridge shopping, go to the arcade, and Barnaby's, anything to get my face out of the computer. I was alright with that!!

 

All the emotional flavors and stuff. They're anchored in reality by my emulation rig and Apple II collection. And the unbelievable thing is I'm still discovering things with that hardware..

 

Next project. Stealth a modern-day emulation rig inside one of my spare Apple //e consoles, all the while keeping the Apple 100% stock and original. No removing of original parts, no cutting or drilling. That means fitting things into the spare cubbyholes and whatever free space is available. Yes. My dream of having an Apple II that could play everything is well within reach. All I need is to set aside time.

 

[Keatah]

I've found it helpful to ask yourself when do you stop collecting for a system? At what point does it become burdensome? At what point does dilution and accumulation of filler material make excess clutter?

 

With emulation, clutter and accumulation isn't a problem. But it is real for physical collections, and that's why I only plan on a few items for my Apple II this year. I'm in maintenance mode, or cruise phase right now.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Once a very long time ago (2005 to be exact) I decided video games were too much of an obsession for me. Rather than get rid of everything, I boxed them up in a big storage bin and duct taped the lid. The idea being that I was creating a time capsule for myself, and at a later date with a clear head, I decide if i was willing to prune things back. Two months later, I busted the seal and decided I couldn't live without them. Of course it helped that I was away at college for the better part of those two months.

 

One would be wise to sit and contemplate the decision for a bit before unloading everything on eBay or a used game shop. Obviously now my entire collection definitely would not fit in a single bin; for that I would need several. Stowing things away to see if you miss it would be wise. If you don't miss the things you stowed off, then you can sell with piece of mind.

 

And yes, I have laid awake at night thinking about games I've sold off, especially immediately after I've dropped them at the post office. Tis life though. There are things more important than games such as friends, family and health. Also like any physical possession, regardless of what your belief system, you can't take them with you when you leave this world...