1) No long load times. 2) No mandatory installs. 3) Cartridges don't get disc rot. 4) No DLC, loot boxes, etc. 5) No mandatory Internet connection. 6) No content locked on disc. 7) No lengthy unskippable cutscenes. 8) No Game of the Year edition. 9) No need to charge controllers. 10) No day one patches.
Nihilistic Psychopath Disc rott is not always the end users fault, just go back, and look at early example of Laser Disc which used a bad form of glue between the layers. same has happened with early music CD's, and a lot of these have been in proper storage most if not all their existant. In fact I have a Babylon 5 DVD I bought new in the late 90's that looks new on both sides(double feature DVD that used both sides with no disc labels) with no scratches, even the cardboard case that WB used for their DVD's at the time is in good shape, but due to the way they made the disc, and the sub layer starting to degrade it no longer plays in 2 DVD players I own, and only my Philips Blu-Ray player will play it back with some some odd errors on the menus of both sides of the disc, also yes even since the 90's all my optical media have been stored in a climate controlled home in their original cases on book shevles, CD racks, and disc boxes that hold CD Jewels case. So again Optical Media Disc rott is not always the fault of the end user.
So, I have a PSX disc that won't read anymore. One. Out of ~50 games, that were all stored right next to each other, in their cases, in the same conditions. I haven't even ever played that one game before, I just ripped it to an ISO about 5 years ago, and it worked, then recently again (because I forgot I had already done it) and now it's unreadable. Uh, my bad? Rot is mostly from oxidation of the metallic layers, or failure of dyes and adhesives, and generally correlate to specific manufacturing plants. So, what... people are not taking care of their discs by having too much oxygen in their environment? Yeah, I don't think so.
You're totally right! The 8-Bit guy had some video about old computers ( th-cam.com/video/0wDtxYeJdzg/w-d-xo.html ) which has a similar point: You could plug your cables in and start! And publishers really had to put a lot of effort into testing and thought instead of delaying all their QS into some later point in time after 'some patches'...
It would be, except it's endemic. The game in question was Lunar, which is a Working Designs release. There are many noted examples online of their discs failing. So, my experience shifts from "anecdote" to "data point". One failure is a fluke. Several failures is a trend. If you're aware of oxidation and failing adhesives, then how do you reconcile that with your opinion that it's all from how users treat their discs? If you know and understand the mechanism for failure, then it shouldn't even be in question that it has nothing (or at least, very little) to do with storage conditions. Barring excessive abuse, anyway.
Of course nostalgia plays a huge role in retro gaming. The other is simply that the games are fun and perfect for causal gamers who want to pick something up and just play. No accounts, subscriptions, log-ins or any of that. Just sit down and play.
Ryan Smith It's only nonsense if you are younger than 20 years of age. It's a valid question if you are older. It is nostalgia for older people. People who were enjoying these games as they were younger will always seek to relive those moments. But so what? Games are meant to be played and enjoyed, regardless of age.
We run our own retro museum in Poland and I can say that we are mainly visited by parents who use this old hardware as children. They come to us with their children who have great fun. There are, however, young retro fans who have loved this hardware and games themselves.
I’m really enjoying your TH-cam videos. As a person who is around your age, it’s interesting to hear your view points on various tech related topics. I also ike your content because it’s really well thought out in terms of taking the topic to its logical conclusion and compresses a lot of information into a short period of time.
For me, the biggest thing driving me into retro gaming is the way certain pokemon attacks and some actual pokemon themselves are only available if you trade them from the old games into the new 3ds games and eventually the switch game coming out soon. Then I originally lived during the time when the gameboy advance was out, but not ds. The pokemon games were changing and there was the gamcube ones that I never had the chance to play. Now that I got them it was interesting to see them and play them and trade those pokemon into the newer games. Then since I would have to get the hardware, I would try other titles like mario along the way. At this point I got hardware to play all nintendo except wii, wiiu, and switch. Getting a wiiu and switch will allow me to have all the nintendo hardware and try any titles from the past and of course newer and current titles. Sega doesn't have anything like pokemon and cables that connect the portable console to the home console, mainly the portable in sega plays a generation of the home console and the newer sega consoles are only recently being looked at thanks to the growing popularity of retro gaming. Then there is emulation that exposed people to all the old games and now they want the physical hardware and since some hardware is rare with ebay auctions reaching crazy prices, people will want to fund just one unit and reverse engineer it so that modern technology can be used to make a portable and then be able to manufacture the portable at reasonable price. Then there are other systems beside sega and nintendo that are right now also in retro gaming territory such as the older playstation (I think that can be done by inserting original cd in pc and playing in an emulator), and the other systems such as nec-turbographx and neogeo that were less known this also includes that phillips cdi thing. Last, for retro computing, not interested except if I put in virtual machine where I can run anything on my modern laptop with vm or emulation in case of non intel compatible operating systems like apple and mobile phones will have to do with emulation.
Colin: “I don’t want to call myself old because I don’t feel old yet.” Also Colin: “Alright, I’m not gonna lie to ya. I feel old.” I feel this very sentiment every single day at 35.. :-/
There is a reason they invented the word middle aged ... so young pups like you can worry if they are middle aged and old farts like me can pretend we aren't "old" yet, we are just middle aged.
One of the most wonderful thing experiences I had when I went to NYCC last was watching a young boy of about 3 or 4 years old mashing away at an Arcade cabinet of Galaga with his dad at the gaming space that was set up. This kid was busy playing the hell out of a game that had been released 35 years before he was born (and 4 years before both I and his father), without a care in the world and enjoying himself. Retro games is a timeless medium that anyone can enjoy. However, for us older folk who grew up with it, there is a bit of nostalgia that touches upon us, especially when you compare it to contemporary systems of today -- systems where the leap in technology wasn't as great every 5-6 years. Every new system from 15 to 30 years was almost an advancement upon itself and the culture changed with each and every new one. From the Magnavox Odyssey & Pong, to the Atari 2600, Colecovision, Vectrex & the Intellivision, to the Nintendo NES & Sega Master System, to the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis & TurboGrafx-16, the first Playstation, N64, Sega Saturn and on. Each generation brought newer and more exciting tech along with a newer culture. So of course adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s will be having those twinges of nostalgia over this stuff. Even now it's still pretty exciting to play retro games, now in new and various ways due to modding, romhacks and upscaler solutions.
Awesome video. I've never said "that's right!" so many times in a row. You put into words what a lot of us know, but can't express nearly as well. Techmoan shirt was a bonus.
I completely agree with you. I love retro for all the reasons you talk about. I thankfully lived through when this stuff was new and have fond memories, also is nice to experience the stuff I couldn't afford 20-30 years ago. And if a piece of tech was good, it still ages well. Despite how rampant consumerism forces you to think like you're a terrible person for having older things, I'm glad there's people like us that keep this stuff alive. I'm glad you brought up the audio scene cause we hold on to everything lol like my open reel recorders that were considered worthless, but now cost an arm and a leg to collect now
For me, it's because BS that's going on today. DRM, EA, loot boxes, always online, or just dishing out crappy games. It makes me sick and tired of just trying to get my game to even run. I want to sit down and escape the day, not be painfully reminded how greedy or insecure companies just eating away my time and money and not giving back much in return.
Also, a good game is a good game regardless of timing. Super Metroid constantly makes Best Games lists even though it’s from the 16 bit era. That thing is a masterpiece of gaming. I think that is why remasters are so popular. Resident Evil is THE survival horror game that is still good today (well, REmake anyway). Starcraft is THE real time strategy game. Sure it doesn’t play as easily as SC2, but if you are trying to introduce someone to the (now struggling) genre, it’s an excellent place to start.
Speedruns keep me going back to retro games with a new perspective. Playing casually is a drastically different than speedrunning it. I’ve also been playing randomized A Link To The Past hacks over and over again for the past while. It has given me a new experience in a game I’ve beaten over two dozen times.
I love retro-gaming. I'm a full believer in the Bushnellesque premise of "Easy to learn; had to master." But I also think the retro [style] gaming boom is born, in part, from a subconcious pushback against the uncanny valley.
This made my week when I saw my question, I thought Colin had ignored it in the Q&A! From my POV I think retro gaming is both nostalgia, a way of learning the history of the form/medium, and a general hobby. Like listening to old music there's a special thrill to learning about a period in time after the fact. Colin has talked about survivorship bias before but it's not often flagged up. Here in the UK for example the NES was a very low selling console and had very little impact on gaming culture, instead Sega and micro computers were the success story in the early days of the medium. Nintendo was always there but in my mind as a 90s kid it was the GameBoy and N64 era when Nintendo first really established itself in the UK. Of course by then the micro computer market had faded and transitioned into PC gaming, although even as a 90s kid I grew up playing Amiga 500 games until I got a Mega Drive 2 at the very end of that console's life. The consoles I would like to go back to are the SegaCD, Saturn and the Dreamcast, because they are the most similar consoles to the ones I had in that period of time when I was learning about the medium (PC, Xbox and PS1 being the comparisons). What puts me off is the prices, and I think reproduction hardware and discs/everdrive tech would go a long way to preserving those 3 consoles. I wonder if FPGA technology will really be the key to the long term survivorship of the medium, as good as emulation is there are some issues between software/hardware that Colin deconstructs here, and often flags up whenever this type of subject is discussed. Away from console wars we could start to view the different hardware forms as being specialised platforms with particular configurations. It's that kind of analytical thinking that nostalgia, as a fairly emotional way of looking at things, does not really address.
I play 8 and 16-bit stuff exclusively at this point in my life and have no plans to ever invest in any hardware more recent than my PS3. That being said, I rarely revisit games I played as a child, and 80%-90% of the games I play through (typically at the rate of 1-2 per week) are the ones I missed when they came out. I was a Nintendo kid, for example, but have really been enjoying digging into the Genesis library and just imported a PC Engine. For me, the games are more straightforward and accessible, more challenging, and lack the many minor annoyances that really add up to ruin modern games for me: NPCs that never shut up, tutorials, menus everywhere, load times, online assholes, padding to make every game into a "lifestyle," DLC and other post-purchase money grubbing, patches, the works. Aesthetics are another factor. I prefer chiptunes and the savoring the individual sound palette of each console over generic film score type soundtracks and find that hand-drawn pixel art has a human warmth to it that polygons can't capture. So I'll cop to maybe 10% - 20% nostalgia for me, no more.
The thing about retrogaming is that it made me interested not just in playing old Mega Drive games (my childhood system) but mostly in the challenge of learning about building the perfect retrogaming setup using the raspberry pi, hacking the nes and snes mini, modding chinese clones such the RS-97 or configuring retroarch on the GPD XD with the legacy rom. I guess it's more about tweaking than gaming...
Is it just nostalgia? Nope. Most of the 'Retro' games that I play, I didn't have a chance to play at all growing up, or I had simply never heard of them before. On the subject of what a lot of people consider nostalgia, I don't really enjoy that feeling very much. Its short lived and sometimes takes me back to when I was an awkward kid which is no fun at all. If there's a game that I'm nostalgic about, I tend to play it only if it has some kind of redeeming quality in its own right. I don't play garbage.
Technology being an iterative thing (one thing builds on another), retro computing/gaming also helps people deconstruct how we got to where we are today. Some of the same concepts still apply, just buried under layers of convenience features (like PnP) that most are unaware of it. for instance, the idea of IRQ's and DMA's still exist in modern PC's (and often used on older computers)... just it's all auto-configured on PnP OS's. For instance, you used to have to manually set sound cards with IRQ and DMA channels so DOS knew how to send data to the card... with windows 9x, that became an automatic process. Old video cards used to just pump pixels at the screen based on what the CPU can calculate in time, but windows demanded so much cpu power to draw the screen every frame at ever higher resolutions (640x480x256 colors used to bring an unaccelerated 486 system to a crawl!) they came out with accelerator cards that developers co-opted those graphical functions for games (blitters anyone?). When that became too much for the humble ISA bus to handle all the draw commands, they had to invent the VL-Bus and PCI just to give all the other components in the system bandwidth to operate... rinse and repeat. It's like doing a bit of digging for history peeling back layers of technology to see what still remains under all of it. Retro computing gives some enthusiasts the chance to expose the foundations of modern computer... and that's kind of exciting.
Just noticed the Techmoan T Shirt. I am also a guilty party when it comes to wanting to trying new and different systems that I never had when I was younger. The N64 was a journey of discovery for me in my adult life and trying different types early 3D games.
Great video and I agree. I also believe preservation is important as well. I’ve always believed that great art is timeless. A great band in the 60’s, for example, holds up and is great today. I apply this to video games, and would like to think there are many folks, young and old, who feel that way as well.
I am looking forward to getting my IBM 5160 up and running. Even though I am old enough to have used one in elementary school (rarely), never owned or used one regularly so for me it is pretty much for the fun of it.
I've been into retro gaming since I was small, I'm 22 so I have the most nostalgia for the N64 and PS1 but have always loved looking back at the 8 and 16-bit era. Since there were so many really well made games done in the limitations of those systems which I find really fascinating! My biggest issue with retro systems is that they're being so collectable and scarce that many games I want to get are beyond what I can afford. Not to mention failing components which put me off collecting as much as I'd like.
I have created a retro system on a tablet and computer. The reason is for nostalgic purpose and also what he said about trying stuff that people could not afford back in the day. My next purchase is going to be a mini disc because it was my favorite music system.
I really like that I can open up a Game Boy cart, clean it, and see what chip is what. If I look at a Switch cart, that feeling of interactive control is totally gone.
Loving your thoughts on this. I completely agree. I'm one of the people who is trying to experience things I missed out on growing up. I wonder how many youngin's are buying into the retro market--I had presumed it was mostly people in their 30's. (Maybe aside from some curious buyers of Nintendo's NES & SNES minis.)
I'd say it's a combination of nostalgia and simplicity. Well, mostly those two things. Sometimes I don't want to play a super ultra mega hyper realistic 4k game that costs $60 plus $100 more for DLC and a monthly subscription
I like 8 bit retro games, but not for nostalgia only, because there are some that I never played back then. I like the fact that game developers had a lot of limitations on those systems and its amazing how they managed to make great games.
I'm twelve, and I'm quite new to retro gaming. While this video is rather old, I hope some people will see my comment. For me, Retro Gaming is a better option than Modern Games. There's no Lootboxes, DLC, or massive updates. Nothing today, as he stated in the video, is cutting edge. Virtual Reality can be considered new and exciting, but it's far to expensive to appeal to a large audience like the N64. Another nice aspect is the community, being able to talk to people who were there and experienced the release of those systems is interesting, and can offer a unique point of view. Then there's the collecting aspect, which has always fascinated me. I've been a collector all my life, from bottle caps to Pokemon cards, and now video games. Lastly, it's a nice bonding experience with my father. He's forty now, and played the NES and SNES as a kid. My recent interest in retro games has rekindled the child in him, and it's cool to see him enjoying the games he played as a kid that have been collecting dust in our garage for decades.
The reason I picked up an N64 is because I never had one to experience those games back then. I also got mine at a time when there were stacks on the shelves of the retro game store and could be had for $20 each. Things have certainly changed since then. I play NES because of nostalgia since my parents used to have one and I played it all the time.
This is much better presentation about this subject than other TH-camrs; that say retro is going to die. Also, I just purchased a Sony Walkman cassette player for 3.99 at a flee market and even though I will have to buy a new rubber band that runs the thing, I love it and my kids are jelous.
Our family experienced the N64 in it's day and got a NES around the time of the SNES, so the N64 was crazy just amazing. It's still my favorite console for library, looks, peripherals and local multiplayer. It's fantastic how we can go back and play old games now. I'm thankful some people don't throw them out like gamestop. This was quite the in depth reply to his question, one of my favorite episodes thus far. I don't think personally that new technologies are going to grab me my AMD FX6300 + G1 4gig GTX 770 is still over kill. I'm more interested in collecting and playing games I missed out on like Wii, DS, PS2, GC, Dreamcast and more. Another favorite retro system of mine is an over powered 6800 ultra Win98se + CPUKiller + 4:3 LCD and running things like Resident Evil, Shadows of the Empire, Pod Racer and other 3d games compatible with win98 that don't have a true widescreen version.
Good points. Remember that the games aren't just older, but designed differently and containing entire genres that are no longer en vogue in current markets. If you are into shmups and platforming games, you'd be hard-pressed to find contemporary equivalents to the Thunder Force series or Super Mario World these days. For some reason audiences seem to often link gaming to the evolution of technology as a whole and not to its artistic merit or style choices. That appears to be why its slapped with the 'retro' moniker. You don't see this as much with aficionados of other media. Sure, if you listen to all your music on vinyl, someone might say you're being 'retro' or 'nostalgic.' However, they don't pin that term to Jimi Hendrix's music itself. His music is equally timeless and of its time. If you love Noir films, you're going to be watching movies from the late 30s and early 40s as that was the height of the genre...yet the retro label isn't applied to those films either. They're just 'classics' in a subjective sense. So, I think the core reason this expression (ie 'retro) is used in gaming is due to its inherent link to the technology its played on. We see technology as objectively evolving for the better. Why listen to a record when you could play a FLAC file? Why watch a movie on VHS when UHD is out? Why play a NES game when PS4 is so much more powerful. That separation between the art the programmers created and the platform it was made for isn't being isolated. This may be about a lack of compartmentalization. Or...I could just be overthinking this stuff again. :-)
I am 33. I don't know if it's nostalgia or what, but I find so beautiful the pixel art when I play older games. The ability to express so much with so little information. Currently I own a Wii and a Gameboy Advances Sp and I feel no need at all to buy a newer console. Through virtual console and emulation I can play all generation Nintendo consoles (and a few others) up until the wii ON my Wii.
what do you think of pixel art vs sprite art in a game. I really dislike the early 3d that was done, but now days I find 'pixel' art pointlessly restricted. I look at Vanillaware games and I think 2d art can bee the most beautiful, I am just not sure most pixel art being done is for more then to have a small art budget.
I find Vanillaware games very beautiful, great art direction. But what I was trying to express is that old pixel art (not all) had the ability to turn a few pixels into something. For example the original Megaman sprite was 24x24 pixels, and it managed to create a very iconic and expressive character. It is almost what you would have to do in icon or logo design: express a lot in very little. Another great example would be all the pixel art in Chrono Trigger. But you are right, there is no point now days to restrict pixel art since we do not have the technical limitations. As for modern vector 3d art, I believe you really have to have an original art style to stand out. For example: Zelda The Wind Waker.
One of the interesting things I've read about is the idea a of preserving games for historical purposes. I can't remember if it is Harvard or MIT but there is a university that is looking into storing everything they can about video games and the culture that surrounds it. How could a person, say in 100 years from now, sit down and play the original NES version of Tetris? They also look at it as much more than just storing source code. If 100 years from now someone wanted to drop into Azeroth for World of Warcraft, they would not see the same world as it is today with thousands of players. It would be a fairly lifeless world with a few NPCs. So they are also looking at storing videos of guilds who post their boss kills online and parody videos and things of that nature - to really try and capture what it was like playing those games.
I was born in 81, and I'm into both retro computing, and retro console gaming, and too some degree yes nostalgia does play a small part, but overall I just find it intresting to see what was done, and can be done with with such limited hardware, plus with everythig going all digital in some ways I'm for it when done right like STEAM, but against it when done wrong like Nintendo E-Shop(tie my purchases to an account I can redownload, and instal, not to a single system), so when I can I like when I can for a resonable price I like to have physcial copies of my games for my older computers, and game consoles.
I never used a lot of the old computers or game consoles I have come to enjoy as part of retro-computing and retro-gaming hobby. It's not just about nostalgia because I have no nostalgia for these things. I like them because I like to program for them (assembly language programming for old computers and consoles is a good way to learn more about how computers do things) and I like the history and I like the simplicity.
retro games have a much more satisfying learning curve where the skills are actually interchangeable. modern games don't offer an incentive to want to get good at the game more than to just power through it's progress system with the payoff being stats or stronger weapons that make the game easier. there's no real strategy anymore, you just search on youtube for the optimal loadout or whatever. nostalgia merely makes it easier to go back.
Well Collin, its a hard thing to to say its mostly nostalgia. Im a 17 year old from UT, and ive been collecting and modding for over a year now, if i was going for nostalgia id keep playing old xbox 360 titles. I personally love older games. I prefer them to some of the new stuff available today. I love the idea of optimization and core game mechanics being designed to death.
For example: I don't think a younger person would be as fascinated with the raw non-CPU capability of Amigas as I am, having not been used to DOS machines with PC speaker or maybe an NES at the time it was around.
Another great thought provoking video. I got into home computers right at the start (TRS-80 in 1979) and have had lots of different systems and consoles since. In the last 10 years I started collecting and playing old computer games again. For me part of it is nostalgia and part of it is those games were great games. Recently I setup retropicases.com and started making mini recreations of those old computers. One of my friends is 25 years younger than me and has started buying old systems and games. For him he missed out on the entire era so all of this is new to him. Final thought. A lot of modern games have pixel art now making that style of game popular again. Retro consoles massively expand the number of pixel art games available to new audiences.
I am currently 20 almost 21, I been into retro gaming for about 12 years. The consoles that have, a lot of them were handed down to me from older siblings. I grew up with the N64, PS2 and Gamecube and I still have them. When I was eight I started collecting Gameboys( Original Gameboys, Gameboy Colors, Gameboy Pockets, you name it) I have got quite few of them over years. I have played ps2 for at least 15 years, but I have had 4 PS2s have broken over that time. I love JRPGs, I have been playing since I first got Tales of Symphonia on Gamecube when I was six. I feel in love with Tales Of series and along with many other J-RPGs. For being retro gamer, I do not do it for the sake nostalgia, I play older games because they fun, I can careless about graphics, to be honest. I enjoy JRPGs like Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star, because of their great immersive stories and the mechanics of their battle systems. I have made my own 2d 16-bit RPGs with my older sister with RPG Maker 2003, we no longer use that RPG Maker because of it limitations of its software but I have imported 16-bit RTP graphics into RPG Maker MV. I have been retro gaming a lot longer than most people my age and the point that I am trying to make is that for people like myself who have retro gaming before it went mainstream, for us retro gaming is not a fad. As long I and the others like me are still standing, retro gaming will continue even after its spotlight dims.
I've been collecting retro systems and games for over 25 years and I still go back and play those systems in my game room like the turbo Graphics 16 the Atari Jaguar the 3DO own all the Genesis systems and the Sega CDs both and the Master System the point is is that Nostalgia is a hell of a drug and I love it and I'll never stop playing the systems that I have even in Atari and ColecoVision I have those also great video 🕹️🎮
It’s not just nostalgia. I got a Super NT because I still have over 15 snes cartridges. And a lot of them are games I never completed. So I figured I would get a well built console made for modern TVs and complete the games I already own. Right now there’re no modern games I’m interested in getting for the PS4 or Xbox One yet. So I’m the meantime, i’ll be playing my classic throwbacks.
I think a lot of people are alienated by modern gaming, simple as. The most popular games covered frequently are Online shooters most of us don't care about, where genuinely good games are often swept under the rug, fade into obscurity or just don't get the sales they need to make a sequel. There's loot boxes, there's DLC, there's microtransactions, and patches and like in some games (Azura's wrath is a good example), actual canon content is locked off until you pay for it ala the 'true ending'. I've recently gotten into homebrewing and retro communities like the Dreamcast where you can still find that Phantasy Star Online is pretty active still. People are still playing Halo2 on the OG Xbox, where it's free and people won't badmouth your mother. I think it's more than just Nostalgia. I don't go and play a load of old tactical RPGs for the PSP just for that hit of nostalgia, those games are good and full of content for a decent price, unlike modern games where there's as little content as they can get away selling before trying to sell you the rest of it.
Before the pandemic happened I went to a Mario Kart 64 tournament and I was BY FAR the oldest person there and I am not all that old. I was playing against 12 years olds lol. It felt weird, because I was drink beer and playing and they had their mommy with them while we were competing. I lost in the final round to someone that was probably about 16 who was so good you could tell they played a lot.
I'd say "yes" in a lot of cases. There are a lot of collectors, but a lot less players of old video games. I still like to play a select amount of SNES, Playstation, N64 and Saturn games, though.
Nope. I am proof of this. I wasn’t born in the retro era, being born right at the end of the N64’s lifespan, just before the GameCube released. However, I went out of my way to acquire a CRT, a SNES, A Mega-Drive several games, just to experience the technology that came before me. My first console was a Nintendo Wii, so I never got to experience anything coming before it. So I collect old hardware and software just so that I can experience for the first time.
Colin needs to try the PSVR because it's a similar jump from the 2d to 3d gaming he mentioned. Yeah, it's that mindblowing and I'm 36 years old so I have something to compare it to
I'm one of the younger people doing retro gaming (occasionally) because it fascinates me. I've got an NES, N64 and a C64 for playing games and experimenting, in the case of the C64. Yes, I can play all those games on an emulator. But that's no fun, there's nothing authentic to it. Just another game on my phone or PC. But on the original systems, they are time capsules waiting to be explored. Heck, Super Mario Bros was released 9 years before I was born.
Hey Colin, I haven't watched the video yet, but I am going to say I think most that "play retro" are just doing it for cool points nowadays. I've been playing older games for the better part of 35+ years and I see alot of guys coming up and they just aren't very good at these games but have shelves full of games they, "love".
Interesting talk, the kind of subject I regularly (if not daily) think about, as a game developer. One of my goal is to capture that sense of “ modern take on retro” like you said, here is my last video-teaser so you can check if I’m on the right path: th-cam.com/video/HC2h4bm7w30/w-d-xo.html (Square Enix selected the project for its indie-game curation program, and the full pitch is readable there. Link in my video description.)
Short answer: No. That's like saying that classic awesome cars are just nostalgia, like saying old King or Hitchcock movies are just nostalgia, and there are many other examples!
I think for me personally (27 years old) there's two big things I think of with retro gaming. I think the first is just that the (console) gaming industry from the mid 80s until about the Xbox 360 gen (obviously starting with the original Xbox...) was very Japanese centric, with Japanese console makers and Japanese games of all types coming out with a lot fewer American games. I kinda personally think Japanese games have a certain charm or feel to them American games don't tend to have, though obviously there's complaints about linear plots, etc. But overall Japanese games often were/are just different experiences compared to American games. A drastic comparison would be Shenmue vs GTA, for instance. I think another thing with retro gaming is that there were I think simply more games made due to the economic conditions. Now there's not really enough money/incentive to fund anything other than the AAA games, the next Call of Duty, etc. Never mind that a good deal of game companies are defunct now. The biggest problem now in creating any game, isn't creating the graphics/etc, but that hiring people to create a detailed story, design characters, etc, takes a lot of work. It's why in indie games games like Piers Solar took so long to make, despite 2D 16 bit graphics. We see all the amazing graphics, sound, etc, but at the end of the day the concepts, design, etc, is what takes most of the money and work of any game. So now I feel like the only games around are just the few AAA games, whereas in the PSX/etc days, I feel games were basically more evenly developed, and there were AAA games, but now it feels like there's a few AAA games every year, then just a bunch of 'indie' games that usually aren't too good because they simply don't have the manpower to make a substantial game.
i just bought an xbox 360 because i never had one (not that it is a super retro console) but i have to say that i enjoy it more than the modern over the top games that i have in my pc, i also adquired a 3ds console, but i really miss the feeling of a Game Boy advance, im guesing that im just getting old because i miss the original xbox as well lol, love this kind of videos.
I much prefer the 16 bit generation onwards.8-bit due to its restraints is normally extremely hard just to give the game length.My favourite era is xbox and ps2 nothing to do with the fact I was in my late teens at the time.Good times.
I bought a PlayStation 2 about a year ago mainly because my parents wouldn't get me one as a kid, guess you could call it reliving the childhood I wish I've had. Now I've soft modded it so I can play games off a hard disk
Sgt Snazzy in 1990 my brother got his first summer job. He came home and said to me, "We're getting a Nintendo!" This is because our mother wouldn't get us one. She was livid but dad said as long as he paid his bills it's his money. We rented a bunch of games at Blockbuster and one of them was Final Fantasy. Oddly enough, I had a Nintendo Power subscription and we got the strategy guide for it that day in the mail. He bought an SNES for FF2(4) and a PlayStation for FF7. I still have that Nintendo and the final fantasy cartridge. To me, it's nostalgia to a point. I don't want to relive my childhood but I would like to play some games I loved and many we couldn't afford at the time.
I've just beat resident evil 2 on my psone the other day and started playing final fantasy 8. I have the slim ps1 and I love just hooking it up and playing all of my games. I have plenty of retro consoles and they get more love than the PS4 and Xbox one.
I find older games more immersive. Obviously there’s a sense of nostalgia but I noticed it was more than that when I started playing older JRPG’s before playing many newer ones. You really see the difference in the design and how “clinical” newer games feel. You just don’t feel like you have much input because everything is spelled out and handed to you in the most infantile way.
For me, some of it is nostalgia. Some of it is a lack of new games that appeal to me. A good portion of newer games require too much time investment and or have mechanics incorporating loot boxes, online focused gameplay and such that I don’t have an interest in. I’d much rather play Contra than COD. Most of the new games I play are indie titles, with 1 or 2 “AAA” titles per year.
I was born in 80, and I enjoy playing both retro and modern games, yes nostalgia plays a role, but a lot of the time I just like the simplicity of older games. New games are great as well, yes loot boxes are BS but not all games have these, for example Horizon Zero Dawn or The Last of us on PS4 and Mario Odyssey on the Switch, if I think a games micro transactions will get in the way of my enjoyment I simply will not purchase it, and if in the future all modern games are designed like casino slot machines then I will only play older titles. But simply saying modern games are garbage makes no sense to me, no matter what type of game you like I guarantee you will find something on either Steam or PSN that will blow you away.
I play older games and older consoles (in addition to newer games and consoles) in no small part because my interest in any particular game isn't dictated very heavily by when it came out, and I honestly find the supposed default of limiting yourself to games within the past few years to be extremely silly and pointlessly restrictive. On top of that, series' are a much bigger thing in gaming than they tend to be in any other medium, and I don't want to just jump into the middle of a series without knowing what's going on (barring any break in continuity, i.e. numbered Final Fantasies taking place in different universes, or 2013's Tomb Raider being a reboot, for example).
Although i enjoyed your take on this topic I think you missed the boat entirely. I believe it simply comes down to gameplay. A lot of games from the past were simply fun to play. You do not really see that anymore. Now a days producers tend to use the graphics power as the main selling point without focusing on gameplay. There is a reason we still play cards, checkers, chess and games like monopoly. They are fun to play over and over again.Back in the day when you didnt have unlimited storage for music and voice and non realistic graphics the game had to be good to sell. Not to mention they seemed to be far more creative in the types of games that were produced. The only way to get a unique game today is to scour the indie producers for a hidden gem. Keep up the good work.
Hell no! Genres like jrpg were at their apex in the 16 and 32 bit era (especially 16), 2d sprites and an overhead view made things look their best and be at their most functional. Games were incredibly memorable due to the story, visuals and soundtracks. A genre fully matured already by that point, and a golden age. This era has never been topped. Same thing with 2D (mostly sidescrolling)action games. This is a genre that is exhilarating, action packed, with a dense enemy placement that has a nice rythm to it, and it is now completely gone. Another matured, accomplished, super-polished and fun genre that is sorely missed. I could name you 50 action games on the Genesis/Mega Drive alone that are awesome gaming experiences. Same with the NES (even more). So you see, we don't just go back to these consoles because of warm, fuzzie memories. We go back because these incredibly polished, masterful, enthralling game genres don't exist anymore in modern gaming. So if we want to experience those game genres again(why would we deprive ourself of such masterful and tight gameplay?), we've gotta go back :) These games are just as good in their own right, as modern games are in their own right. EVERY. BIT. AS. GOOD. (see what I did there?) There is 0 doubt in mind that retro games are just as worthy as modern games.
I'll play any generation of games as long as it's fun but I go more towards the retro stuff simply because I don't have the time or patience for 90% of modern games. Got the Witcher 3 which is amazing but.. well, again I don't have the patience or time to invest in it. And I have so many hobbies which makes the 'time' part even more of an issue. I like that I can just jump right into a retro game. Yes there's nostalgia but for me thats only like ...20% of the reason why I go retro.
Wrath Oskvro That's why we have memory cards, checkpoints, save states and hard drives. So you can play for 20 minutes, or 8 hours and come back when you want. Lol.
Im 27 and i feel that games from back then knew what they were...games. Today games like fortnite, overwatch aren't games...there games but its like...fortnite is a game where you want to get on to try and become the 1 survivor against OTHER people from real life with the help of online to do that in a Multiplayer type. Overwatch is just a game to fight other people in a match. Same as every other game today with online. Its not a game that has levels or places to go. Story. But even for online gaming. Therea not enuf PVE. If there is. Its like survival and crafting. What about story? Ot Co-op platforming? Or skating around town on skate boarding games? Games Don't have to have those features. But then again. Thats what games were before were if you just wanted to play alone....you really can't. I mean you can but there is only a handful of games today to do it. Sometimes when i get bored of a new game. I just go play an emulator and try a game i never played before abd experience games that have alot going in them by themselves. I wish there was away to somehow play some type of game with a co-op For example How about a co-op play of Max Payne? Co-op of F.E.A.R. Even if its not those games But more like a new game with such features for online play. Online is the norm. But its not as fun when every online game is a shooter. Even if its 1st or 3rd. Its still a shooter. What about survival horror? Puzzle solving? Crime solving? Adventuring like Temples or journeys? Space exploration? There are some of these type of games. But theres not enuf push for that type of genres
My major problem with the bleeding edge of today's technology is that it is has advanced so far that it provides the opportunity to do things most of which simply seem totally useless on their face (who needs much of anything with being able to assign a unique color for each of 14 million pixels and still having colors to spare?). In fact, the fifth generation of home consoles was really the beginning of this problem and I am young enough that I was only 5 when they were still more or less the newest thing there was. To this day, I can't help thinking that if I could have been 5 years older when hardware like that was still more or less the newest thing there was, maybe I'd have come to have less of a problem with how its full capabilities didn't really provide opportunities that seemed horribly useful on their face.
I think retro is popular cause of the high prices . There are A LOT of shelf collectors . Then you add resellers in the mix and popularity sky rocketed . I've talk to a lot of resellers who I thought were collectors , until you ask a few questions . They usually say shit like "I loved Mario growing up" or " I want Contra so bad " . I think once the 1980's kids reach 45-50 years old , consoles like NES , Sega Masters & Gen and the games will nose dive in price . Atari 2600's popularity is declining . There are SO many shit games that you'd rather have a wall of stuff you like than a wall of stuff you don't . Plus health plays a part in it . You pay for all the shit you did in your 20's when you turn 50 and your patience declines . You realize that the stuff isn't worth a lot and it's a chore to haul around if you have to move and it needs maintenance as it ages . This is where I see systems like NES , SNES classics staying popular . I also think retro popularity is going to shift . The N64 , Gamecube , Xbox, PS1 , PS2 generation are close to 30 years old . The resellers will also be right there with them fucking up the prices lol
I'm 20, and I play the shit out of Genesis, NES, SNES, and others -- I never owned or played any of these consoles until adulthood. So no, I don't think it is just nostalgia.
1) No long load times.
2) No mandatory installs.
3) Cartridges don't get disc rot.
4) No DLC, loot boxes, etc.
5) No mandatory Internet connection.
6) No content locked on disc.
7) No lengthy unskippable cutscenes.
8) No Game of the Year edition.
9) No need to charge controllers.
10) No day one patches.
You took the words right out of my mouth!!!
Amen to that list!!
Nihilistic Psychopath Disc rott is not always the end users fault, just go back, and look at early example of Laser Disc which used a bad form of glue between the layers. same has happened with early music CD's, and a lot of these have been in proper storage most if not all their existant. In fact I have a Babylon 5 DVD I bought new in the late 90's that looks new on both sides(double feature DVD that used both sides with no disc labels) with no scratches, even the cardboard case that WB used for their DVD's at the time is in good shape, but due to the way they made the disc, and the sub layer starting to degrade it no longer plays in 2 DVD players I own, and only my Philips Blu-Ray player will play it back with some some odd errors on the menus of both sides of the disc, also yes even since the 90's all my optical media have been stored in a climate controlled home in their original cases on book shevles, CD racks, and disc boxes that hold CD Jewels case. So again Optical Media Disc rott is not always the fault of the end user.
So, I have a PSX disc that won't read anymore. One. Out of ~50 games, that were all stored right next to each other, in their cases, in the same conditions. I haven't even ever played that one game before, I just ripped it to an ISO about 5 years ago, and it worked, then recently again (because I forgot I had already done it) and now it's unreadable. Uh, my bad?
Rot is mostly from oxidation of the metallic layers, or failure of dyes and adhesives, and generally correlate to specific manufacturing plants. So, what... people are not taking care of their discs by having too much oxygen in their environment? Yeah, I don't think so.
You're totally right! The 8-Bit guy had some video about old computers ( th-cam.com/video/0wDtxYeJdzg/w-d-xo.html ) which has a similar point: You could plug your cables in and start! And publishers really had to put a lot of effort into testing and thought instead of delaying all their QS into some later point in time after 'some patches'...
It would be, except it's endemic. The game in question was Lunar, which is a Working Designs release. There are many noted examples online of their discs failing. So, my experience shifts from "anecdote" to "data point". One failure is a fluke. Several failures is a trend.
If you're aware of oxidation and failing adhesives, then how do you reconcile that with your opinion that it's all from how users treat their discs? If you know and understand the mechanism for failure, then it shouldn't even be in question that it has nothing (or at least, very little) to do with storage conditions. Barring excessive abuse, anyway.
Of course nostalgia plays a huge role in retro gaming. The other is simply that the games are fun and perfect for causal gamers who want to pick something up and just play. No accounts, subscriptions, log-ins or any of that. Just sit down and play.
Well it can't only be nostalgia, I'm 15 and I love the NES/Atari ect. and obviously I wasn't alive when these consoles went on the market.
GoodAtBeingNoob exactly. The very question presented in this video is nonsense.
Ryan Smith It's only nonsense if you are younger than 20 years of age. It's a valid question if you are older.
It is nostalgia for older people. People who were enjoying these games as they were younger will always seek to relive those moments. But so what? Games are meant to be played and enjoyed, regardless of age.
GoodAtBeingNoob
That is literally, word-for-word, what I was going to post. xD
Lol I just commented this, I'm 16 and I'd pick Snes over ps4 anyday
Great Techmoan shirt, haha!
Yet another reason to watch (?) his podcasts. The dude has good taste xD
We run our own retro museum in Poland and I can say that we are mainly visited by parents who use this old hardware as children. They come to us with their children who have great fun. There are, however, young retro fans who have loved this hardware and games themselves.
I’m really enjoying your TH-cam videos. As a person who is around your age, it’s interesting to hear your view points on various tech related topics. I also ike your content because it’s really well thought out in terms of taking the topic to its logical conclusion and compresses a lot of information into a short period of time.
For me, the biggest thing driving me into retro gaming is the way certain pokemon attacks and some actual pokemon themselves are only available if you trade them from the old games into the new 3ds games and eventually the switch game coming out soon. Then I originally lived during the time when the gameboy advance was out, but not ds. The pokemon games were changing and there was the gamcube ones that I never had the chance to play. Now that I got them it was interesting to see them and play them and trade those pokemon into the newer games. Then since I would have to get the hardware, I would try other titles like mario along the way. At this point I got hardware to play all nintendo except wii, wiiu, and switch. Getting a wiiu and switch will allow me to have all the nintendo hardware and try any titles from the past and of course newer and current titles. Sega doesn't have anything like pokemon and cables that connect the portable console to the home console, mainly the portable in sega plays a generation of the home console and the newer sega consoles are only recently being looked at thanks to the growing popularity of retro gaming. Then there is emulation that exposed people to all the old games and now they want the physical hardware and since some hardware is rare with ebay auctions reaching crazy prices, people will want to fund just one unit and reverse engineer it so that modern technology can be used to make a portable and then be able to manufacture the portable at reasonable price. Then there are other systems beside sega and nintendo that are right now also in retro gaming territory such as the older playstation (I think that can be done by inserting original cd in pc and playing in an emulator), and the other systems such as nec-turbographx and neogeo that were less known this also includes that phillips cdi thing.
Last, for retro computing, not interested except if I put in virtual machine where I can run anything on my modern laptop with vm or emulation in case of non intel compatible operating systems like apple and mobile phones will have to do with emulation.
Colin: “I don’t want to call myself old because I don’t feel old yet.”
Also Colin: “Alright, I’m not gonna lie to ya. I feel old.”
I feel this very sentiment every single day at 35.. :-/
Andrew Cousins wait until you turn 40. It makes 35 feel like a lifetime ago. Good luck! Ha
There is a reason they invented the word middle aged ... so young pups like you can worry if they are middle aged and old farts like me can pretend we aren't "old" yet, we are just middle aged.
One of the most wonderful thing experiences I had when I went to NYCC last was watching a young boy of about 3 or 4 years old mashing away at an Arcade cabinet of Galaga with his dad at the gaming space that was set up. This kid was busy playing the hell out of a game that had been released 35 years before he was born (and 4 years before both I and his father), without a care in the world and enjoying himself.
Retro games is a timeless medium that anyone can enjoy. However, for us older folk who grew up with it, there is a bit of nostalgia that touches upon us, especially when you compare it to contemporary systems of today -- systems where the leap in technology wasn't as great every 5-6 years. Every new system from 15 to 30 years was almost an advancement upon itself and the culture changed with each and every new one.
From the Magnavox Odyssey & Pong, to the Atari 2600, Colecovision, Vectrex & the Intellivision, to the Nintendo NES & Sega Master System, to the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis & TurboGrafx-16, the first Playstation, N64, Sega Saturn and on. Each generation brought newer and more exciting tech along with a newer culture. So of course adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s will be having those twinges of nostalgia over this stuff. Even now it's still pretty exciting to play retro games, now in new and various ways due to modding, romhacks and upscaler solutions.
Awesome video. I've never said "that's right!" so many times in a row. You put into words what a lot of us know, but can't express nearly as well. Techmoan shirt was a bonus.
Also, microtransactions, DLC, installs and updates drove a lot of people to retro gaming
I completely agree with you. I love retro for all the reasons you talk about. I thankfully lived through when this stuff was new and have fond memories, also is nice to experience the stuff I couldn't afford 20-30 years ago. And if a piece of tech was good, it still ages well. Despite how rampant consumerism forces you to think like you're a terrible person for having older things, I'm glad there's people like us that keep this stuff alive. I'm glad you brought up the audio scene cause we hold on to everything lol like my open reel recorders that were considered worthless, but now cost an arm and a leg to collect now
For me, it's because BS that's going on today. DRM, EA, loot boxes, always online, or just dishing out crappy games. It makes me sick and tired of just trying to get my game to even run. I want to sit down and escape the day, not be painfully reminded how greedy or insecure companies just eating away my time and money and not giving back much in return.
Also, a good game is a good game regardless of timing. Super Metroid constantly makes Best Games lists even though it’s from the 16 bit era. That thing is a masterpiece of gaming. I think that is why remasters are so popular. Resident Evil is THE survival horror game that is still good today (well, REmake anyway). Starcraft is THE real time strategy game. Sure it doesn’t play as easily as SC2, but if you are trying to introduce someone to the (now struggling) genre, it’s an excellent place to start.
Thank you so much for this video ! Finally someone understands how gaming works, not just dudes talking about flipping and making money off of games!!
Speedruns keep me going back to retro games with a new perspective. Playing casually is a drastically different than speedrunning it. I’ve also been playing randomized A Link To The Past hacks over and over again for the past while. It has given me a new experience in a game I’ve beaten over two dozen times.
I love retro-gaming. I'm a full believer in the Bushnellesque premise of "Easy to learn; had to master." But I also think the retro [style] gaming boom is born, in part, from a subconcious pushback against the uncanny valley.
This made my week when I saw my question, I thought Colin had ignored it in the Q&A!
From my POV I think retro gaming is both nostalgia, a way of learning the history of the form/medium, and a general hobby. Like listening to old music there's a special thrill to learning about a period in time after the fact. Colin has talked about survivorship bias before but it's not often flagged up. Here in the UK for example the NES was a very low selling console and had very little impact on gaming culture, instead Sega and micro computers were the success story in the early days of the medium. Nintendo was always there but in my mind as a 90s kid it was the GameBoy and N64 era when Nintendo first really established itself in the UK. Of course by then the micro computer market had faded and transitioned into PC gaming, although even as a 90s kid I grew up playing Amiga 500 games until I got a Mega Drive 2 at the very end of that console's life.
The consoles I would like to go back to are the SegaCD, Saturn and the Dreamcast, because they are the most similar consoles to the ones I had in that period of time when I was learning about the medium (PC, Xbox and PS1 being the comparisons). What puts me off is the prices, and I think reproduction hardware and discs/everdrive tech would go a long way to preserving those 3 consoles.
I wonder if FPGA technology will really be the key to the long term survivorship of the medium, as good as emulation is there are some issues between software/hardware that Colin deconstructs here, and often flags up whenever this type of subject is discussed.
Away from console wars we could start to view the different hardware forms as being specialised platforms with particular configurations. It's that kind of analytical thinking that nostalgia, as a fairly emotional way of looking at things, does not really address.
I play 8 and 16-bit stuff exclusively at this point in my life and have no plans to ever invest in any hardware more recent than my PS3. That being said, I rarely revisit games I played as a child, and 80%-90% of the games I play through (typically at the rate of 1-2 per week) are the ones I missed when they came out. I was a Nintendo kid, for example, but have really been enjoying digging into the Genesis library and just imported a PC Engine. For me, the games are more straightforward and accessible, more challenging, and lack the many minor annoyances that really add up to ruin modern games for me: NPCs that never shut up, tutorials, menus everywhere, load times, online assholes, padding to make every game into a "lifestyle," DLC and other post-purchase money grubbing, patches, the works. Aesthetics are another factor. I prefer chiptunes and the savoring the individual sound palette of each console over generic film score type soundtracks and find that hand-drawn pixel art has a human warmth to it that polygons can't capture. So I'll cop to maybe 10% - 20% nostalgia for me, no more.
The thing about retrogaming is that it made me interested not just in playing old Mega Drive games (my childhood system) but mostly in the challenge of learning about building the perfect retrogaming setup using the raspberry pi, hacking the nes and snes mini, modding chinese clones such the RS-97 or configuring retroarch on the GPD XD with the legacy rom. I guess it's more about tweaking than gaming...
Is it just nostalgia?
Nope.
Most of the 'Retro' games that I play, I didn't have a chance to play at all growing up, or I had simply never heard of them before.
On the subject of what a lot of people consider nostalgia, I don't really enjoy that feeling very much. Its short lived and sometimes takes me back to when I was an awkward kid which is no fun at all.
If there's a game that I'm nostalgic about, I tend to play it only if it has some kind of redeeming quality in its own right. I don't play garbage.
Technology being an iterative thing (one thing builds on another), retro computing/gaming also helps people deconstruct how we got to where we are today. Some of the same concepts still apply, just buried under layers of convenience features (like PnP) that most are unaware of it. for instance, the idea of IRQ's and DMA's still exist in modern PC's (and often used on older computers)... just it's all auto-configured on PnP OS's.
For instance, you used to have to manually set sound cards with IRQ and DMA channels so DOS knew how to send data to the card... with windows 9x, that became an automatic process.
Old video cards used to just pump pixels at the screen based on what the CPU can calculate in time, but windows demanded so much cpu power to draw the screen every frame at ever higher resolutions (640x480x256 colors used to bring an unaccelerated 486 system to a crawl!) they came out with accelerator cards that developers co-opted those graphical functions for games (blitters anyone?). When that became too much for the humble ISA bus to handle all the draw commands, they had to invent the VL-Bus and PCI just to give all the other components in the system bandwidth to operate... rinse and repeat.
It's like doing a bit of digging for history peeling back layers of technology to see what still remains under all of it. Retro computing gives some enthusiasts the chance to expose the foundations of modern computer... and that's kind of exciting.
Just noticed the Techmoan T Shirt. I am also a guilty party when it comes to wanting to trying new and different systems that I never had when I was younger. The N64 was a journey of discovery for me in my adult life and trying different types early 3D games.
Great video and I agree. I also believe preservation is important as well. I’ve always believed that great art is timeless. A great band in the 60’s, for example, holds up and is great today. I apply this to video games, and would like to think there are many folks, young and old, who feel that way as well.
I am looking forward to getting my IBM 5160 up and running. Even though I am old enough to have used one in elementary school (rarely), never owned or used one regularly so for me it is pretty much for the fun of it.
I've been into retro gaming since I was small, I'm 22 so I have the most nostalgia for the N64 and PS1 but have always loved looking back at the 8 and 16-bit era. Since there were so many really well made games done in the limitations of those systems which I find really fascinating! My biggest issue with retro systems is that they're being so collectable and scarce that many games I want to get are beyond what I can afford. Not to mention failing components which put me off collecting as much as I'd like.
Always look forward to your Friday videos. Great topic.
I have created a retro system on a tablet and computer. The reason is for nostalgic purpose and also what he said about trying stuff that people could not afford back in the day.
My next purchase is going to be a mini disc because it was my favorite music system.
I really like that I can open up a Game Boy cart, clean it, and see what chip is what. If I look at a Switch cart, that feeling of interactive control is totally gone.
Loving your thoughts on this. I completely agree. I'm one of the people who is trying to experience things I missed out on growing up. I wonder how many youngin's are buying into the retro market--I had presumed it was mostly people in their 30's. (Maybe aside from some curious buyers of Nintendo's NES & SNES minis.)
I lived when we jumped from 2d Mario on the Snes to 3D Mario on the N64. It was such a leap and an impact that I think will never be felt again.
Exactly why VR is the next realm. It offers a really different experience.
I'd say it's a combination of nostalgia and simplicity. Well, mostly those two things. Sometimes I don't want to play a super ultra mega hyper realistic 4k game that costs $60 plus $100 more for DLC and a monthly subscription
I like 8 bit retro games, but not for nostalgia only, because there are some that I never played back then. I like the fact that game developers had a lot of limitations on those systems and its amazing how they managed to make great games.
I'm twelve, and I'm quite new to retro gaming. While this video is rather old, I hope some people will see my comment. For me, Retro Gaming is a better option than Modern Games. There's no Lootboxes, DLC, or massive updates. Nothing today, as he stated in the video, is cutting edge. Virtual Reality can be considered new and exciting, but it's far to expensive to appeal to a large audience like the N64. Another nice aspect is the community, being able to talk to people who were there and experienced the release of those systems is interesting, and can offer a unique point of view. Then there's the collecting aspect, which has always fascinated me. I've been a collector all my life, from bottle caps to Pokemon cards, and now video games. Lastly, it's a nice bonding experience with my father. He's forty now, and played the NES and SNES as a kid. My recent interest in retro games has rekindled the child in him, and it's cool to see him enjoying the games he played as a kid that have been collecting dust in our garage for decades.
Who else is watching this while they should be working?
OOOHBILLY Isn’t that what TH-cam is for?
I'm listening to this WHILE I'm working...
I took work off to watch this
OOOHBILLY yup "while" working. 👍 ☺ 👍
TH-cam is a good work distraction, and for making a lunch break less boring.
The reason I picked up an N64 is because I never had one to experience those games back then. I also got mine at a time when there were stacks on the shelves of the retro game store and could be had for $20 each. Things have certainly changed since then. I play NES because of nostalgia since my parents used to have one and I played it all the time.
This is much better presentation about this subject than other TH-camrs; that say retro is going to die. Also, I just purchased a Sony Walkman cassette player for 3.99 at a flee market and even though I will have to buy a new rubber band that runs the thing, I love it and my kids are jelous.
At least with retrocomputing some of it has to do with "with what we have learned, what can we do with the older stuff?"
Our family experienced the N64 in it's day and got a NES around the time of the SNES, so the N64 was crazy just amazing. It's still my favorite console for library, looks, peripherals and local multiplayer. It's fantastic how we can go back and play old games now. I'm thankful some people don't throw them out like gamestop. This was quite the in depth reply to his question, one of my favorite episodes thus far. I don't think personally that new technologies are going to grab me my AMD FX6300 + G1 4gig GTX 770 is still over kill. I'm more interested in collecting and playing games I missed out on like Wii, DS, PS2, GC, Dreamcast and more. Another favorite retro system of mine is an over powered 6800 ultra Win98se + CPUKiller + 4:3 LCD and running things like Resident Evil, Shadows of the Empire, Pod Racer and other 3d games compatible with win98 that don't have a true widescreen version.
Good points. Remember that the games aren't just older, but designed differently and containing entire genres that are no longer en vogue in current markets. If you are into shmups and platforming games, you'd be hard-pressed to find contemporary equivalents to the Thunder Force series or Super Mario World these days. For some reason audiences seem to often link gaming to the evolution of technology as a whole and not to its artistic merit or style choices. That appears to be why its slapped with the 'retro' moniker. You don't see this as much with aficionados of other media. Sure, if you listen to all your music on vinyl, someone might say you're being 'retro' or 'nostalgic.' However, they don't pin that term to Jimi Hendrix's music itself. His music is equally timeless and of its time. If you love Noir films, you're going to be watching movies from the late 30s and early 40s as that was the height of the genre...yet the retro label isn't applied to those films either. They're just 'classics' in a subjective sense. So, I think the core reason this expression (ie 'retro) is used in gaming is due to its inherent link to the technology its played on. We see technology as objectively evolving for the better. Why listen to a record when you could play a FLAC file? Why watch a movie on VHS when UHD is out? Why play a NES game when PS4 is so much more powerful. That separation between the art the programmers created and the platform it was made for isn't being isolated. This may be about a lack of compartmentalization. Or...I could just be overthinking this stuff again. :-)
I am 33. I don't know if it's nostalgia or what, but I find so beautiful the pixel art when I play older games. The ability to express so much with so little information. Currently I own a Wii and a Gameboy Advances Sp and I feel no need at all to buy a newer console. Through virtual console and emulation I can play all generation Nintendo consoles (and a few others) up until the wii ON my Wii.
what do you think of pixel art vs sprite art in a game. I really dislike the early 3d that was done, but now days I find 'pixel' art pointlessly restricted. I look at Vanillaware games and I think 2d art can bee the most beautiful, I am just not sure most pixel art being done is for more then to have a small art budget.
I find Vanillaware games very beautiful, great art direction. But what I was trying to express is that old pixel art (not all) had the ability to turn a few pixels into something. For example the original Megaman sprite was 24x24 pixels, and it managed to create a very iconic and expressive character. It is almost what you would have to do in icon or logo design: express a lot in very little. Another great example would be all the pixel art in Chrono Trigger. But you are right, there is no point now days to restrict pixel art since we do not have the technical limitations. As for modern vector 3d art, I believe you really have to have an original art style to stand out. For example: Zelda The Wind Waker.
One of the interesting things I've read about is the idea a of preserving games for historical purposes. I can't remember if it is Harvard or MIT but there is a university that is looking into storing everything they can about video games and the culture that surrounds it. How could a person, say in 100 years from now, sit down and play the original NES version of Tetris? They also look at it as much more than just storing source code. If 100 years from now someone wanted to drop into Azeroth for World of Warcraft, they would not see the same world as it is today with thousands of players. It would be a fairly lifeless world with a few NPCs. So they are also looking at storing videos of guilds who post their boss kills online and parody videos and things of that nature - to really try and capture what it was like playing those games.
I was born in 81, and I'm into both retro computing, and retro console gaming, and too some degree yes nostalgia does play a small part, but overall I just find it intresting to see what was done, and can be done with with such limited hardware, plus with everythig going all digital in some ways I'm for it when done right like STEAM, but against it when done wrong like Nintendo E-Shop(tie my purchases to an account I can redownload, and instal, not to a single system), so when I can I like when I can for a resonable price I like to have physcial copies of my games for my older computers, and game consoles.
I never used a lot of the old computers or game consoles I have come to enjoy as part of retro-computing and retro-gaming hobby. It's not just about nostalgia because I have no nostalgia for these things.
I like them because I like to program for them (assembly language programming for old computers and consoles is a good way to learn more about how computers do things) and I like the history and I like the simplicity.
Excellent podcast Colin!Love your job man!
@9:00 thats the sweet spot (edit: and many sweet spots before the end)
retro games have a much more satisfying learning curve where the skills are actually interchangeable. modern games don't offer an incentive to want to get good at the game more than to just power through it's progress system with the payoff being stats or stronger weapons that make the game easier. there's no real strategy anymore, you just search on youtube for the optimal loadout or whatever. nostalgia merely makes it easier to go back.
Well Collin, its a hard thing to to say its mostly nostalgia. Im a 17 year old from UT, and ive been collecting and modding for over a year now, if i was going for nostalgia id keep playing old xbox 360 titles. I personally love older games. I prefer them to some of the new stuff available today. I love the idea of optimization and core game mechanics being designed to death.
For example: I don't think a younger person would be as fascinated with the raw non-CPU capability of Amigas as I am, having not been used to DOS machines with PC speaker or maybe an NES at the time it was around.
Another great thought provoking video. I got into home computers right at the start (TRS-80 in 1979) and have had lots of different systems and consoles since. In the last 10 years I started collecting and playing old computer games again. For me part of it is nostalgia and part of it is those games were great games. Recently I setup retropicases.com and started making mini recreations of those old computers.
One of my friends is 25 years younger than me and has started buying old systems and games. For him he missed out on the entire era so all of this is new to him.
Final thought. A lot of modern games have pixel art now making that style of game popular again. Retro consoles massively expand the number of pixel art games available to new audiences.
I'd say speedrunning's growing popularity also keeps retro gaming relevant.
I am currently 20 almost 21, I been into retro gaming for about 12 years. The consoles that have, a lot of them were handed down to me from older siblings. I grew up with the N64, PS2 and Gamecube and I still have them. When I was eight I started collecting Gameboys( Original Gameboys, Gameboy Colors, Gameboy Pockets, you name it) I have got quite few of them over years. I have played ps2 for at least 15 years, but I have had 4 PS2s have broken over that time. I love JRPGs, I have been playing since I first got Tales of Symphonia on Gamecube when I was six. I feel in love with Tales Of series and along with many other J-RPGs. For being retro gamer, I do not do it for the sake nostalgia, I play older games because they fun, I can careless about graphics, to be honest. I enjoy JRPGs like Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star, because of their great immersive stories and the mechanics of their battle systems. I have made my own 2d 16-bit RPGs with my older sister with RPG Maker 2003, we no longer use that RPG Maker because of it limitations of its software but I have imported 16-bit RTP graphics into RPG Maker MV. I have been retro gaming a lot longer than most people my age and the point that I am trying to make is that for people like myself who have retro gaming before it went mainstream, for us retro gaming is not a fad. As long I and the others like me are still standing, retro gaming will continue even after its spotlight dims.
I just did a homebrew game for the 2600. on the old systems you could program a game from begin to end all by yourself. that what attracted me.
I've been collecting retro systems and games for over 25 years and I still go back and play those systems in my game room like the turbo Graphics 16 the Atari Jaguar the 3DO own all the Genesis systems and the Sega CDs both and the Master System the point is is that Nostalgia is a hell of a drug and I love it and I'll never stop playing the systems that I have even in Atari and ColecoVision I have those also great video 🕹️🎮
It’s not just nostalgia. I got a Super NT because I still have over 15 snes cartridges. And a lot of them are games I never completed. So I figured I would get a well built console made for modern TVs and complete the games I already own. Right now there’re no modern games I’m interested in getting for the PS4 or Xbox One yet. So I’m the meantime, i’ll be playing my classic throwbacks.
I think a lot of people are alienated by modern gaming, simple as. The most popular games covered frequently are Online shooters most of us don't care about, where genuinely good games are often swept under the rug, fade into obscurity or just don't get the sales they need to make a sequel.
There's loot boxes, there's DLC, there's microtransactions, and patches and like in some games (Azura's wrath is a good example), actual canon content is locked off until you pay for it ala the 'true ending'.
I've recently gotten into homebrewing and retro communities like the Dreamcast where you can still find that Phantasy Star Online is pretty active still. People are still playing Halo2 on the OG Xbox, where it's free and people won't badmouth your mother.
I think it's more than just Nostalgia. I don't go and play a load of old tactical RPGs for the PSP just for that hit of nostalgia, those games are good and full of content for a decent price, unlike modern games where there's as little content as they can get away selling before trying to sell you the rest of it.
Before the pandemic happened I went to a Mario Kart 64 tournament and I was BY FAR the oldest person there and I am not all that old. I was playing against 12 years olds lol. It felt weird, because I was drink beer and playing and they had their mommy with them while we were competing. I lost in the final round to someone that was probably about 16 who was so good you could tell they played a lot.
I'd say "yes" in a lot of cases. There are a lot of collectors, but a lot less players of old video games. I still like to play a select amount of SNES, Playstation, N64 and Saturn games, though.
Im definitely not from the 90s or 80s, but I love playing and collecting retro games(more so playing though).
Nope. I am proof of this. I wasn’t born in the retro era, being born right at the end of the N64’s lifespan, just before the GameCube released. However, I went out of my way to acquire a CRT, a SNES, A Mega-Drive several games, just to experience the technology that came before me. My first console was a Nintendo Wii, so I never got to experience anything coming before it. So I collect old hardware and software just so that I can experience for the first time.
Colin needs to try the PSVR because it's a similar jump from the 2d to 3d gaming he mentioned. Yeah, it's that mindblowing and I'm 36 years old so I have something to compare it to
alot of older games were actually finished when you purchased them!! All upgrades to your character had to be earned in game! Pretty cool huh kids?
I'm one of the younger people doing retro gaming (occasionally) because it fascinates me. I've got an NES, N64 and a C64 for playing games and experimenting, in the case of the C64. Yes, I can play all those games on an emulator. But that's no fun, there's nothing authentic to it. Just another game on my phone or PC. But on the original systems, they are time capsules waiting to be explored. Heck, Super Mario Bros was released 9 years before I was born.
Hey Colin, I haven't watched the video yet, but I am going to say I think most that "play retro" are just doing it for cool points nowadays. I've been playing older games for the better part of 35+ years and I see alot of guys coming up and they just aren't very good at these games but have shelves full of games they, "love".
Interesting talk, the kind of subject I regularly (if not daily) think about, as a game developer.
One of my goal is to capture that sense of “ modern take on retro” like you said, here is my last video-teaser so you can check if I’m on the right path:
th-cam.com/video/HC2h4bm7w30/w-d-xo.html
(Square Enix selected the project for its indie-game curation program, and the full pitch is readable there. Link in my video description.)
Koruldia is a very awe-inspiring project, I sincerely hope it will get the success it deserves my friend!
Short answer: No. That's like saying that classic awesome cars are just nostalgia, like saying old King or Hitchcock movies are just nostalgia, and there are many other examples!
Gustavo Lara exactly. Great things are timeless.
I'm glad I had a great party youth.
The games were harder and you got everything with one cartridge/disc. That's what I like about retro games.
Also no updates, and you can cheat for the fun of it.
I think for me personally (27 years old) there's two big things I think of with retro gaming. I think the first is just that the (console) gaming industry from the mid 80s until about the Xbox 360 gen (obviously starting with the original Xbox...) was very Japanese centric, with Japanese console makers and Japanese games of all types coming out with a lot fewer American games. I kinda personally think Japanese games have a certain charm or feel to them American games don't tend to have, though obviously there's complaints about linear plots, etc. But overall Japanese games often were/are just different experiences compared to American games. A drastic comparison would be Shenmue vs GTA, for instance.
I think another thing with retro gaming is that there were I think simply more games made due to the economic conditions. Now there's not really enough money/incentive to fund anything other than the AAA games, the next Call of Duty, etc. Never mind that a good deal of game companies are defunct now. The biggest problem now in creating any game, isn't creating the graphics/etc, but that hiring people to create a detailed story, design characters, etc, takes a lot of work. It's why in indie games games like Piers Solar took so long to make, despite 2D 16 bit graphics. We see all the amazing graphics, sound, etc, but at the end of the day the concepts, design, etc, is what takes most of the money and work of any game. So now I feel like the only games around are just the few AAA games, whereas in the PSX/etc days, I feel games were basically more evenly developed, and there were AAA games, but now it feels like there's a few AAA games every year, then just a bunch of 'indie' games that usually aren't too good because they simply don't have the manpower to make a substantial game.
i just bought an xbox 360 because i never had one (not that it is a super retro console) but i have to say that i enjoy it more than the modern over the top games that i have in my pc, i also adquired a 3ds console, but i really miss the feeling of a Game Boy advance, im guesing that im just getting old because i miss the original xbox as well lol, love this kind of videos.
My favorite think on retro gaming is: The games where launched only after they were done.
Allan Leon not necessarily. They were solid but there also were bugs.
I was born in 2002 but i still wanted to know what i missed during the year during i grew up, and before i grew up.
Well I'm 16 and I love retro gaming!
Hi Colin not see a video for a couple of months, hope you are ok mate love your stuff
Nostalgia is part of it, yes, but A LOT of these games have great gameplay and replay value still to this day.
I much prefer the 16 bit generation onwards.8-bit due to its restraints is normally extremely hard just to give the game length.My favourite era is xbox and ps2 nothing to do with the fact I was in my late teens at the time.Good times.
I love old TV shows and I play Dreamcast and Genesis every day #revivesega
I'm only 26 but I've kept like almost all my old tech
I bought a PlayStation 2 about a year ago mainly because my parents wouldn't get me one as a kid, guess you could call it reliving the childhood I wish I've had. Now I've soft modded it so I can play games off a hard disk
Sgt Snazzy in 1990 my brother got his first summer job. He came home and said to me, "We're getting a Nintendo!" This is because our mother wouldn't get us one. She was livid but dad said as long as he paid his bills it's his money.
We rented a bunch of games at Blockbuster and one of them was Final Fantasy. Oddly enough, I had a Nintendo Power subscription and we got the strategy guide for it that day in the mail. He bought an SNES for FF2(4) and a PlayStation for FF7.
I still have that Nintendo and the final fantasy cartridge. To me, it's nostalgia to a point. I don't want to relive my childhood but I would like to play some games I loved and many we couldn't afford at the time.
I've just beat resident evil 2 on my psone the other day and started playing final fantasy 8. I have the slim ps1 and I love just hooking it up and playing all of my games. I have plenty of retro consoles and they get more love than the PS4 and Xbox one.
Flippin eck!! what a t-shirt, gotta love techmoan.
I love this channel :D best content around and cero hate
I would love to play more Neo Geo and Dreamcast. The price of Neo Geo is still expensive even today.
I find older games more immersive. Obviously there’s a sense of nostalgia but I noticed it was more than that when I started playing older JRPG’s before playing many newer ones. You really see the difference in the design and how “clinical” newer games feel. You just don’t feel like you have much input because everything is spelled out and handed to you in the most infantile way.
For me, some of it is nostalgia. Some of it is a lack of new games that appeal to me. A good portion of newer games require too much time investment and or have mechanics incorporating loot boxes, online focused gameplay and such that I don’t have an interest in. I’d much rather play Contra than COD.
Most of the new games I play are indie titles, with 1 or 2 “AAA” titles per year.
I was born in 80, and I enjoy playing both retro and modern games, yes nostalgia plays a role, but a lot of the time I just like the simplicity of older games.
New games are great as well, yes loot boxes are BS but not all games have these, for example Horizon Zero Dawn or The Last of us on PS4 and Mario Odyssey on the Switch, if I think a games micro transactions will get in the way of my enjoyment I simply will not purchase it, and if in the future all modern games are designed like casino slot machines then I will only play older titles.
But simply saying modern games are garbage makes no sense to me, no matter what type of game you like I guarantee you will find something on either Steam or PSN that will blow you away.
I play older games and older consoles (in addition to newer games and consoles) in no small part because my interest in any particular game isn't dictated very heavily by when it came out, and I honestly find the supposed default of limiting yourself to games within the past few years to be extremely silly and pointlessly restrictive. On top of that, series' are a much bigger thing in gaming than they tend to be in any other medium, and I don't want to just jump into the middle of a series without knowing what's going on (barring any break in continuity, i.e. numbered Final Fantasies taking place in different universes, or 2013's Tomb Raider being a reboot, for example).
What isn't rooted in nostalgia? Everything anyone loves is like 95% nostalgia.
Although i enjoyed your take on this topic I think you missed the boat entirely. I believe it simply comes down to gameplay. A lot of games from the past were simply fun to play. You do not really see that anymore. Now a days producers tend to use the graphics power as the main selling point without focusing on gameplay.
There is a reason we still play cards, checkers, chess and games like monopoly. They are fun to play over and over again.Back in the day when you didnt have unlimited storage for music and voice and non realistic graphics the game had to be good to sell. Not to mention they seemed to be far more creative in the types of games that were produced. The only way to get a unique game today is to scour the indie producers for a hidden gem.
Keep up the good work.
Hell no! Genres like jrpg were at their apex in the 16 and 32 bit era (especially 16), 2d sprites and an overhead view made things look their best and be at their most functional. Games were incredibly memorable due to the story, visuals and soundtracks. A genre fully matured already by that point, and a golden age. This era has never been topped.
Same thing with 2D (mostly sidescrolling)action games. This is a genre that is exhilarating, action packed, with a dense enemy placement that has a nice rythm to it, and it is now completely gone. Another matured, accomplished, super-polished and fun genre that is sorely missed. I could name you 50 action games on the Genesis/Mega Drive alone that are awesome gaming experiences. Same with the NES (even more).
So you see, we don't just go back to these consoles because of warm, fuzzie memories. We go back because these incredibly polished, masterful, enthralling game genres don't exist anymore in modern gaming. So if we want to experience those game genres again(why would we deprive ourself of such masterful and tight gameplay?), we've gotta go back :) These games are just as good in their own right, as modern games are in their own right. EVERY. BIT. AS. GOOD. (see what I did there?) There is 0 doubt in mind that retro games are just as worthy as modern games.
I'll play any generation of games as long as it's fun but I go more towards the retro stuff simply because I don't have the time or patience for 90% of modern games. Got the Witcher 3 which is amazing but.. well, again I don't have the patience or time to invest in it. And I have so many hobbies which makes the 'time' part even more of an issue. I like that I can just jump right into a retro game. Yes there's nostalgia but for me thats only like ...20% of the reason why I go retro.
Wrath Oskvro That's why we have memory cards, checkpoints, save states and hard drives. So you can play for 20 minutes, or 8 hours and come back when you want. Lol.
Can you make a video about if retro collecting are a addiction and what your thought about it?
I remember when Mario 64 came out. I said "nope Mario is meant to be be 2d not buying that crap" I couldn't get my head around a 3d Mario game.
Im 27 and i feel that games from back then knew what they were...games.
Today games like fortnite, overwatch aren't games...there games but its like...fortnite is a game where you want to get on to try and become the 1 survivor against OTHER people from real life with the help of online to do that in a Multiplayer type.
Overwatch is just a game to fight other people in a match. Same as every other game today with online.
Its not a game that has levels or places to go. Story.
But even for online gaming. Therea not enuf PVE. If there is. Its like survival and crafting.
What about story? Ot Co-op platforming?
Or skating around town on skate boarding games?
Games Don't have to have those features. But then again. Thats what games were before were if you just wanted to play alone....you really can't.
I mean you can but there is only a handful of games today to do it.
Sometimes when i get bored of a new game. I just go play an emulator and try a game i never played before abd experience games that have alot going in them by themselves.
I wish there was away to somehow play some type of game with a co-op
For example
How about a co-op play of Max Payne?
Co-op of F.E.A.R.
Even if its not those games
But more like a new game with such features for online play.
Online is the norm. But its not as fun when every online game is a shooter. Even if its 1st or 3rd. Its still a shooter.
What about survival horror? Puzzle solving? Crime solving? Adventuring like Temples or journeys? Space exploration?
There are some of these type of games. But theres not enuf push for that type of genres
My major problem with the bleeding edge of today's technology is that it is has advanced so far that it provides the opportunity to do things most of which simply seem totally useless on their face (who needs much of anything with being able to assign a unique color for each of 14 million pixels and still having colors to spare?). In fact, the fifth generation of home consoles was really the beginning of this problem and I am young enough that I was only 5 when they were still more or less the newest thing there was. To this day, I can't help thinking that if I could have been 5 years older when hardware like that was still more or less the newest thing there was, maybe I'd have come to have less of a problem with how its full capabilities didn't really provide opportunities that seemed horribly useful on their face.
awesome shirt!
I think retro is popular cause of the high prices . There are A LOT of shelf collectors . Then you add resellers in the mix and popularity sky rocketed . I've talk to a lot of resellers who I thought were collectors , until you ask a few questions . They usually say shit like "I loved Mario growing up" or " I want Contra so bad " . I think once the 1980's kids reach 45-50 years old , consoles like NES , Sega Masters & Gen and the games will nose dive in price . Atari 2600's popularity is declining . There are SO many shit games that you'd rather have a wall of stuff you like than a wall of stuff you don't . Plus health plays a part in it . You pay for all the shit you did in your 20's when you turn 50 and your patience declines . You realize that the stuff isn't worth a lot and it's a chore to haul around if you have to move and it needs maintenance as it ages . This is where I see systems like NES , SNES classics staying popular . I also think retro popularity is going to shift . The N64 , Gamecube , Xbox, PS1 , PS2 generation are close to 30 years old . The resellers will also be right there with them fucking up the prices lol
I'm 20, and I play the shit out of Genesis, NES, SNES, and others -- I never owned or played any of these consoles until adulthood. So no, I don't think it is just nostalgia.
Euh, you do know that we had the 3DO, Jaguar, Saturn and PS1 with 3D graphics before the N64, right?