What's your retro hardware strategy going forward?

Heh… can’t wait to quote you on this someday.

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I can’t believe I won’t be playing games at that age… :slight_smile:

I’ve got more hardware than I know what to do with. At some point I’ll probably downsize. But right now I’ll play what I feel like and what I don’t play I’ll put in storage until I feel like playing it. I have a dedicated pc hooked up to my TV for emulation. Hoping to get a dedicated game room one of these days.

I’m going to host LAN parties in the old folks home when I’m 90.

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I might get a Mega SG and Everdrive going forward. Maybe look into a Mister… I’ll also be buying select Mega Drive games for my collection… Not sure if I will pick up anything else, perhaps 3DS games I still would like to play.

Handhelds: Original hardware in the foreseeable future, but I’d definitely be interested in some sort of FPGA-driven hardware as well. But a big part of the appeal from the old handhelds comes from the input buttons and displays being very much from their era, with their quirks being quite difficult to replicate today with filters or modern construction techniques.

Consoles: I’d happily go the FPGA route for the machines where it’s a great alternative, or if it’s a machine I don’t have yet (such as the PC Engine, which also is a bit of a pain to get working with a good picture in Europe). I think the bigger issue here is a lack of space. I’m happy to play N64 games using Parallel N64 + angrylion because it produces a picture virtually indistinguishable from the real hardware. But if I had space I’d pick up a Japanese model but I wouldn’t want to get rid of my PAL unit and the dozens of games I have for it.

Virtual Boy: This seems like it needs its own category. I was tempted to sell my unit and the eleven games I picked up for it solely because of the adhesive eventually breaking the displays in the future. But I’ve decided to keep hold of it. I love the games I did pick up for it, and there’s nothing else like it. If it eventually fails then so be it, but I would definitely miss being able to play quick sessions of Galactic Pinball, Red Alarm, Jack Bros. or Mario Clash on it. Emulation won’t be able to accurately reproduce its ideosyncracies either.

[quote=“DaveLong, post:8, topic:1520”]
My biggest issue atm is time… and the lack of it.[/quote]

I think it’s worth keeping the machines around in case there’s that one game you want to play in the future, but if some of your hardware/software library are worth enough to open up new travel opportunities and you’re confident you won’t miss them go for it and stick some of it up for sale.

Soldering can provide a permanent fix if you know how to do it. I had a modder take care of mine so that there’s no issues going forward.

Ha! I’m three years from 50. While I may not play as often then, I suspect I’ll still be playing. :slight_smile:

My kids are all out of high school in about a month so I will potentially have MORE time. Not less.

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Living the dream. My kids are 4 and 3… FML haha

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My strategy seems to change regularly but today it’s this:

Keep my physical footprint relatively limited while being able to play full libraries of non-polygonal games via original hardware or FPGA-based emulation. Seek the best video and audio quality possible.

I recently bought an OSSC and gave away my CRT TV in order to reduce my footprint. I have the most influential retro consoles in physical form (RGB modded NES, SNES 1-Chip, Genesis Model 1, and PS1 w/modchip) plus a GameCube with GameBoy player and flash carts for all of them (expect PS1). I also have a MiSTer for the more obscure systems. I don’t plan on doing much more expansion at present.