I don’t want to buy games digitally anymore until I can actually own the game rather than the license. But then some freak on eBay is asking for $500 for a copy of Klonoa on the PS1. Then there are even more freaks who are willing to bid higher than that! Then the smaller retro games stores around me base their prices on these prices. There needs to be a price cap on this stuff. We can’t let all of the richest nerds control the economy.
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Get an Everdrive or blank CD and flash ROMs to them to play on your original systems.
If I had a ps1 I wanted to use then I would look at FreePSXBoot and UniROM - https://github.com/brad-lin/FreePSXBoot
Everdrives and hacking systems are your friends
Emulators are your friend. Hoarders, graders, and scalpers can go suck a railroad spike.
Or if you prefer original hardware, flash carts and optical drive emulators.
MiSTer is another great option that’s like a halfway point between software emulation and real hardware. It’s still emulation, but it’s done in hardware instead of software.
That’s what I’m talking about!
On every retrogaming forum I’ve ever been on, this has been a topic and it’s been a topic for at least 15 years. A few practical bits of advice:
- The cheapest games will always be last generations games
- Anything not deemed “retro” yet is cheap
- Nintendo is always super expensive unless it’s Wii or handheld
- Anything Xbox is cheap
- PC is cheap, unless it’s big box, but even then sellers will sell big box for cheap because they often don’t know what they have
- There’s nothing wrong with buying from GOG, burning to disc, and making your own labels and box art—which is easy to do because it’s DRM-free
- Except for PS1, Sony is cheap. But even then PS1 is cheaper than N64 or Saturn.
- Nothing wrong with an Everdrive, especially since that’s the best way to play aftermarket games
Got to disagree with you on #6 unless you explicitly mention that it’s a DIY replica.
If one is buying a PC box, you expect the original from when it was released, not a DIY GOG package (which you can do yourself).
unless you explicitly mention that it’s a DIY replica.
I’m sure the OP will be careful to let himself know that he’s made a DIY replica.
I’m not suggesting that you sell your DIY GOG package to someone else. I’m suggesting you do that for yourself.
For burning to a disc from GOG, is there a way to do that with the old consoles? I have all of the PlayStations, because I have never liked playing on my PC. I wasn’t allowed to play many of the games that came out on PS1 or PS2 growing up, and now that I have some sort of disposable income, I want to check out the stuff I missed out on. The issue is that those are the games that scalpers love. If there was a way to bypass them on the games like Silent Hill or Diablo I would love that.
What’s the difference between playing on PC vs PS if it’s the same game? Locking yourself out of either emulation or playing the PC version is going to make it harder/more expensive on you to replay old games.
The difference is personal preference and values
If you have a PS2, mod it to play backups. There’s a new method called MMCE that is very promising and looks very easy to setup.
https://stoneagegamer.com/memcard-pro-2-for-playstation-and-playstation-2.html
Mod your consoles, find backups online. For PSX check out PSIO…
A lot of people have mentioned this, so I’ve been looking into it. How easy would it be to do these mods myself?
Supply and demand, since they’re all collectors items now.
And I hate to say this but also the success of vintage/retro PC and video game channels on YouTube.
On the flipside this has led to a whole slew of new businesses that cater to people who just play the ROM’s and even new mini PC’s just to play vintage/retro games on.
Yep, it’s the collectors’ market. I say that as someone inspired by those very YT channels to get into the hobby myself. But I’m just looking to get games I remember and enjoy, not looking to get whole complete collections or anything. If a game I have my eye on becomes some “holy grail” $500 thing, I can live without it. What helps me, though, is living in a bigger town for a rural area that does have one or two brick-and-mortar retro game stores, where I may be able to find games I’m looking for at below eBay prices. That’s another hint; hit up the physical shops you may have near you, be they specialized game shops or even thrift stores. Diamonds in the rough do exist sometimes.
EDIT: I mention rural areas specifically because they usually won’t have as much demand driving up prices as the big urban areas will, even if supply is lower.
The issue with our retro stores is that they look up prices on eBay to set their prices and the first result when looking up Symphony of the Night is $150, so their price is $125 to be “cheaper” than the market price.
It’s not much different than if you were to go to a business that buys and sells gold. They’ll have the current market rate on display and for video games eBay is a decent place to look for the market rate. With retro games there may at least be a bit of lag if they have prices directly on the games and not do something shady like looking up current prices at checkout.
What you said is definitely a problem though. The person selling a game should look at recent sold copies over the past 6ish months and consider the physical quality of the game in question to determine a price better; I don’t think a lot of shops put much time or thought into this aspect of it.
I don’t really know how you could do it any other way when retro games are a finite resource that isn’t being produced any more.
You can make many backup copies of your rom collection. Not so with old discs that are not reading, or carts suffering from bitrot or physical damage.
With retro gaming; emulation IS the way forward. Physical media is more of a display piece for nostalgia maniacs, or an investment for speculators.
I know that emulation is good for preservation and accessibility and I am all for it. My preference for physical media comes from wanting to support the mom and pop local stores and, while convenient, I don’t like to have everything stored on a hard drive. All of the consoles I own work perfectly fine and I think it would be a waste for them to rot away in a landfill. Or worse yet, to gather dust on a shelf, unused as some collectors item to be shown off like a taxidermied elk.
Scarcity. Those games are no longer in print so there is no new units to bring the price down.
GoG while they are still selling the license you can download it and save it for the future. All games have no DRM.
Who’s making old games so expensive?
GoG while they are still selling the license you can download it and save it for the future. All games have no DRM.
It makes it sound like you’re blaming GOG, lol
Scarcity and some artificial scarcity called grading. Take for example Pokémon vintage trading card game packs. Base set has a bunch of print differences but even buying a normal unlimited version pack is $300-400. The value of a Charizard, if you pull it out of that pack, is ~$200-400 raw. However, if you grade it and it comes back a 10, it’s suddenly “worth” $1000+.
This is not quite as prevalent in video games but it is happening. The price of popular Pokémon games that are complete in box are sky high because someone somewhere wants to buy it and submit it for the chance it’s “worth” 10x the price.
Pricecharting.com is your friend. Patience is a virtue.
Videogame publishers not caring about their backcatalogs. If they’d care about preservation and actual long term gain, they’d make old games available.
It took EA so long to make Sims 1 and 2 available. It felt like they actively hate money. And there are plenty of other games that people would love to buy and that are just not made available.
If owning the physical retro game is the only way to play the game (legally) that will help drive up prices.
This is of course but one of the reasons.
Good luck with that.
thanks
Not expensive when you live in the Indian ocean
