How come a lot getting into retro games skip Atari?

[Keatah]

I wonder what retro gaming will be like in 30-40 years. Digital distribution will mean no physical media to collect. And most of the games that come on disc now have DLC extras that won't be available in the future. Instead of looking for cartridges, will collectors be looking for consoles with hard drives full of the games they want?

 

I wonder how many properly backed up and preserved digital collections there are? And how many of those are complete? And how many of THOSE are further secured and protected against EMP and severe continent-wide disasters.

[bretthorror]

 

I wonder how many properly backed up and preserved digital collections there are? And how many of those are complete? And how many of THOSE are further secured and protected against EMP and severe continent-wide disasters.

But the collectors who want the prototypes to be digitally stored for historical purposes also don't want anyone to emulate. What I'm saying is, they're jealous of those with prototypes and want them to "preserve" them for all because they don't own them. If they did, they wouldn't want to do so. Just the trufs!

[Schizophretard]

Cinematography was in it's infancy during the silent era. Video games were in their infancy during the Pong era.

I agree but that is as far as the analogy goes which doesn't say much. The infancy of nuclear weapons were the atomic bombs dropped onto Japan. Imagine someone comparing that infancy to being just like the infancy of firearms even though the most advanced gun today can not compare to the destructive force of those primitive atomic bombs. Or look at the difference between the infancy of the telegraph and the internet. In the internet's infancy it was already a more advanced form of communication than the telegraph. Video games in their infancy were already more advanced than silent films. They could display things on a screen just like them but you could also control what was on the screen.

History of different things has a different time line.

 

Film is developing at some pace, but computer technology and video gaming is developing much faster. The first popular video game showed up just 43 years ago (1972). Film started with the Phenakistoscope (1829) or a Flip book. And it took until 1895, until it became popular. That's a history of 120 years. So 30 years in film are about 10 years in video gaming.

The rate doesn't matter because how far back people go is how far back they go in time. I don't think going back to the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is like going back to 1982 but going back to the game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is like going back to 1902. The silent film analogy would make sense to me if it was something like 100 years after the invention of video games because by then they would probably have something like virtual worlds like the Matrix as games. To them the beginning of gaming being compared to silent firms would make sense and the advancement of gaming from the beginning to now might not look as big of an advancement to them. Going from Pong to Call of Duty would probably look to them like going from silent films to just the first black and white film with audible speech. If they ever read this thread they would probably laugh at us for thinking gaming has advanced as much and the difference between Pong and Call of Duty wouldn't look like a big deal to them.

 

My father has shared this story with me multiple times about how when he was a kid everyone in the neighborhood would sit in the lawn of their richest neighbor's house to watch color TV every weekend. To them watching the same shows they could at home but in color was such a huge leap that they were willing to bust out the lawn chairs and turn their neighbor's lawn into a drive-in. But from my point of view it doesn't seem like that big of a leap at all. It seems like hanging out in a neighbor's lawn because they have a blu-ray player instead of a DVD player or a UHD TV instead of a HD TV.

 

I bet when retro gaming really does become comparable to silent films and I'm a 100 year old man telling kid gamers the story about how blown away I was the first time I saw Sonic The Hedgehog that they would laugh at me as if I'm some goofy old man. I would probably be saying something like,"But you don't understand! It was like Mario but super fast! It was like a platformer in a Pinball machine! The colors looked all sparkly and vibrant! The SEGA Genesis even had a head phone jack so that you could listen to the sounds of the rings and bouncing off of bumpers with more immersion than if the sound was just coming out of the TV! The SNES couldn't do that!" then they would probably respond with something like,"Is it called the Genesis because it was from back in the time of the Book of Genesis and did you bring this hedgehog a girlfriend to take with you on the Ark? LOL! Old man, we honestly see no significant difference between all of these consoles you have been rambling on about. With all of them you have to use your hands like a baby's toy."

 

[Schizophretard]

But the collectors who want the prototypes to be digitally stored for historical purposes also don't want anyone to emulate. What I'm saying is, they're jealous of those with prototypes and want them to "preserve" them for all because they don't own them. If they did, they wouldn't want to do so. Just the trufs!

If I owned rare prototypes or just rare games that haven't been dumped yet then I would dump them. It isn't really preserving unless you create as many copies as possible and as a collector it doesn't matter to me if releasing the ROM may lower the value of the cart because a collector keeps instead of getting rid of through reselling. I think dumping would actually make the hunt for rarities more fun because I would be the first to release something to the world. It would feel like finding a manuscript or tablet from an ancient civilization then having its contents translated for everyone.

[high voltage]

But it was called Mega Drive anyway

[Schizophretard]

But it was called Mega Drive anyway

Not the one I was talking about.

[CapitanClassic]

 

I wonder how many properly backed up and preserved digital collections there are? And how many of those are complete? And how many of THOSE are further secured and protected against EMP and severe continent-wide disasters.

Archive.org with the blessing of the Library of Congress is backing up some video games. (Atari 2600 at least)

https://archive.org/details/atari_2600_library?&sort=-downloads&page=3

 

I don't think that preserving games will be much of an issue. As long as ROM sites exist, people will backup games, and there will always be lots of ROM hoarders that will try to complete a system collection. Finding a complete collection in one place might be difficult, but i doubt we have lost many video games to bit rot.

[high voltage]

Not the one I was talking about.

Mine neither, but it's called Teradrive

[Schizophretard]

Mine neither, but it's called Teradrive

Well, shit. You win and I'm not worthy. Dammit!

[Andromeda Stardust]

Mine neither, but it's called Teradrive

Your Sega system has a floppy drive and a keyboard??? That's awesome!!! Can you "dump" games with it?

[high voltage]

Hehe I don't think so.

But unfortunately I haven't got any PC/Megadrive software which does exist.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Hehe I don't think so.

But unfortunately I haven't got any PC/Megadrive software which does exist.

I've never seen or heard of this before. Didn't know it existed. Cool find and obviously great for playing games on.

[Lynxpro]

I wonder what retro gaming will be like in 30-40 years. Digital distribution will mean no physical media to collect. And most of the games that come on disc now have DLC extras that won't be available in the future. Instead of looking for cartridges, will collectors be looking for consoles with hard drives full of the games they want?

 

Will anyone even care about current games when they are old? It seems like most of the A-list releases any more are just the latest in a series (Madden, Call of Duty, Forza, whatever). I know there are exceptions, but how many people are really going to be playing Madden 16 in 2046?

 

 

Physical media may come back if the ISPs get super greedy and institute insane data caps. Combine that with cheap SD and "cartridges" could make a comeback.

[Keatah]

Maybe. IDK.. I think that with today's high-density storage devices, both spinners & solids; individual games on individual cartridges will remain a thing of the past and a niche product. If anything is hot in the "cartridge world" it's flash/multicarts.

 

Not using the incredible cost/byte ratio of a modern-day Flash chip is just ludicrous. I remember as a kid and teen I had like 4 or 5 large walls filled with carts, not unlike those collectors you see on youtube. Just filled I tell you!! And I'd often spend more time looking for a game than actually playing it.

 

I think, somehow, using SD in cartridges is weird when its done for individual 1-game-only releases. Seems like such a waste even if an SD card is only a dollar or two in cost.

[Gentlegamer]

If I owned rare prototypes or just rare games that haven't been dumped yet then I would dump them. It isn't really preserving unless you create as many copies as possible and as a collector it doesn't matter to me if releasing the ROM may lower the value of the cart because a collector keeps instead of getting rid of through reselling. I think dumping would actually make the hunt for rarities more fun because I would be the first to release something to the world. It would feel like finding a manuscript or tablet from an ancient civilization then having its contents translated for everyone.

 

I'm going to make a bunch of alt accounts just to like this post multiple times.

[hizzy]

This is an interesting thread, and it got me thinking: Does anyone think that the retro gaming hobby is about to undergo a renaissance? Does anyone foresee prices going up for Atari consoles, NES, etc? I come from a record collecting background. There are certain things that were extremely common that are now hard to find in the field. Could this ever happen with common carts? In your opinions, is the hobby growing, shrinking, or just level?

[ledzep]

 

 

Physical media may come back if the ISPs get super greedy and institute insane data caps. Combine that with cheap SD and "cartridges" could make a comeback.

 

Well, SD cards are volatile, I wouldn't trust those things to keep their data intact and uncorrupted over time. Ya, if ISPs start with the "we own everything, we control everything" bullshit that it looks like is going to happen, only retards would trust all their data in "the cloud". That's not a cloud, that's someone else's hard drive array. SD cards, any of those rewriteable mediums, are flaky. I would much prefer to see games get back to being on chips that are on boards. They could be much smaller than old-school 2600/5200 carts, to be sure (less storage space). And hold 100x more info. Or CDs, I guess. But I would think that chips would last longer.

 

SD cards should only be used as dumps off of more stable storage (backed-up hard drives or blu-ray discs, or whatever shows up next that supposedly will last decades).

[Gentlegamer]

This is an interesting thread, and it got me thinking: Does anyone think that the retro gaming hobby is about to undergo a renaissance? Does anyone foresee prices going up for Atari consoles, NES, etc? I come from a record collecting background. There are certain things that were extremely common that are now hard to find in the field. Could this ever happen with common carts? In your opinions, is the hobby growing, shrinking, or just level?

 

[hizzy]

I am!

[Andromeda Stardust]

This is an interesting thread, and it got me thinking: Does anyone think that the retro gaming hobby is about to undergo a renaissance? Does anyone foresee prices going up for Atari consoles, NES, etc? I come from a record collecting background. There are certain things that were extremely common that are now hard to find in the field. Could this ever happen with common carts? In your opinions, is the hobby growing, shrinking, or just level?

I think Nintendo anything will remain hotter than Atari, but pretty much everything has and will continue to go up. I expect that the underdog consoles such as 5200, 7800, SMS, Coleco- and Intelli- visions may continue to rise in price since there are less of them to go around compared to the more common 2600, Genesis, NES, SNES, and N64. Collectors start with the common systems with the most games, then they start looking towards the more obscure stuff. Just look at how expensive Turbografx has gotten in recent years.

[Keatah]

Well, SD cards are volatile, I wouldn't trust those things to keep their data intact and uncorrupted over time. SD cards, any of those rewriteable mediums, are flaky. I would much prefer to see games get back to being on chips that are on boards. They could be much smaller than old-school 2600/5200 carts, to be sure (less storage space). And hold 100x more info. Or CDs, I guess. But I would think that chips would last longer.

 

SD cards should only be used as dumps off of more stable storage (backed-up hard drives or blu-ray discs, or whatever shows up next that supposedly will last decades).

 

That's right. Many SD cards and some JumpDrives have their package labels warning you to use them as temporary storage only. This is sound advice considering that TLC and QLC use as few as 10 to 100 electrons representing a data bit. And did you know that up to 45% of your data has to be error corrected before being put on the bus?

 

Having chips on boards has nothing to do with being reliable. You must be thinking of Masked ROMs or PROMs - where the data is either in the structure of the chip or diode/fuses are burned open.

 

You can make a Masked ROM or write-once PROM in SD card format. Cost effective? Probably not unless you do tens of thousands.

 

 

This is an interesting thread, and it got me thinking: Does anyone think that the retro gaming hobby is about to undergo a renaissance? Does anyone foresee prices going up for Atari consoles, NES, etc? I come from a record collecting background. There are certain things that were extremely common that are now hard to find in the field. Could this ever happen with common carts? In your opinions, is the hobby growing, shrinking, or just level?

 

I wouldn't know about prices or shrinking or growing specifically, but I can tell you that as a child of the golden era of videogames, we have the resources to rebuild or continue our collections. For those of us that are doing collecting.

 

Eventually it will happen through attrition as hardware fails or things get lost & tossed with changing of the guard. Nothing lasts forever and new repro hardware and parts will have to be manufactured at some point. Otherwise there's emulation - which is not for everyone.

 

 

Ya, if ISPs start with the "we own everything, we control everything" bullshit that it looks like is going to happen, only retards would trust all their data in "the cloud". That's not a cloud, that's someone else's hard drive array.

 

Many websites do that as a matter of policy, its all in the fine print. ISPs ?? I'm sure it will happen sooner or later if some don't do it already.

 

I can speak with authority & experience for local personal storage. I've never never never lost anything since the 1970's, beginning with punch cards, printouts, and cassette tapes and transitioning through floppies, then Zip Disks, then CD or CD-R/W, and finally External HDD - which is where I'm at now.

 

Best of all it's essentially free once you've purchased the hardware. And you get to learn a little bit how it all works. Can't beat that!

 

Local storage is king!

Don't ever forget that. Don't let anything change your mind or convince you otherwise. Local "non-cloud" data stays 100% under your control and is never at risk from corporate policy or boardroom decisions which result in servers being shut down or merged or sold. It's not prone to other's mistakes. And seeing as how marketing is constantly forcing "new and improved" interfaces and service plans on you, this adds the element of surprise and can cause you to make mistakes out of confusion.

[high voltage]

There's a lot of high priced classic video games on ebay, but many's been there for years.

[Spanner]

I like Atari but some of there games are not that good,like on the Atari 800XL,Beach Head is no way as good as the c64 version,but some games are better than the c64 version it just depends.I hate Nintendo,they are crap,they make baby games,Atari is way better.I do have a Snes and a N64 but only got them for Street Fighter 2 (it wasn't avalible on the Mega Drive at the time) and Goldeneye but don't use them anymore,I have a NDS but got that for the Game 'N' Watch games.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Spanner

[totallyterrificpants]

orgot I made this. Interesting Read

[Video]

Probably because atari isn't purdy. Most people think of themselves as evolved creatures but the vast majority wont look at a game without the sparkley graphics and bowl rattling sound track.

 

Also ignorance. Because the 2600 was the well known one people don't realise there are some out there with purdy graphics and sound that can blow the nes out of the water.