Topic: What is the thing you miss most about retro gaming & consoles?

it could be anything

for me, i just miss the wide variety of games available - you had almost every genre: shooters, fighting games, puzzles, platformers, RPGs, side-scrollers. that and i miss when video games had interesting plots and characters. nowadays, it's all about high-tech, state of the art graphics, little variety in games.

i also miss sega as a console developer- ok, their only success was the megadrive/genesis but the dreamcast had great games and saturn wasn't too bad. it's a shame they went away the way they did, although their business decisions was what led to them exiting the hardware market.

nintendo vs sega was quite fun actually- it may have been heavy handed, but the console wars back then was no where as competitive and dare i say it, catty and nasty as it is today.

maybe it was different for you growing up, but IMO the only thing that's making it seem worse now is the fact that we've got it playing out all across the internet as opposed to just the schoolyard and the local playground. it was just as bad when i was a kid as it is now.

Tiny disks, and many typos.

You still have all of that in games today.

true. i was lucky enough not to be subjected to such bullying and stuff like that over something like a console war.

I just miss the warm nostalgic feeling of unboxing a new Console complete with a new Mario Game ready to be played. This is something I havnt experienced since the days of the SNES and N64. I bought the Wii at launch but had to wait another 12 months for some Mario goodness.

Hopefully this is something that will be put right when the Wii U comes out

Definitely miss those good old days I was the Segarian and my old mate was the Nintendite, ha ha! we had the best of both worlds at the time. I remember when Mortal Kombat II arrived at arcades and there were huge crowds gathered round with competition at maximum overdrive you don't see that going on these days I was blessed to have a 33.6k modem and downloaded the full lists of moves, fatalities, animalities, babalities and friendships and proceeded to pump out hundreds of copies using the school xerox then sold them for $10 each after school at the local FX Zone arcade in rural city of Wagga Wagga. I made enough cash to buy my SegaCD + 32X add-ons for my Megadrive along with a backpack load of games Great memories.

I miss Sega

Instruction manuals that you had to read to know what the heck is going on

The GCN's logo animation. T.T
Wished they bring that stuff back in general.

Blowing on cartridges,yes believe it or not,i actually miss that.
Colorful instruction booklets,i can't tell you how much my disappointment has been during the Wii/3DS games,every time i read these things,i mean even Wario Ware for the Gamecube had a really colorful and original booklet.Now everything is just the same.
The Gamecube and it's GBA slot,overall the Gamecube had my favorite Nintendo console design and the controller was also really good,i use it whenever a Wii game let's me use it,i heard the Wii U doesn't have Gamecube controller support,so that is a disappointment.
More 2D games,i honestly prefer those over most 3D games.
The lack of FPS games and Online only games.

Overall even though i complained,i still like and enjoy the current generation of games(especially the 3DS).

When things were more humble back then along with trying to put as much creativity in as possible, even with limitations.

Seems like the more effort that gets put into these games the less effort gets put into the packaging. Have you guys seen the instructions for Xenoblade and Skyward Sword? They're worthless. A brief look at the controls, glossing over most of what the in game tutorials will explain to you. Poor trees died for nothing. Hope to see paper booklets go away altogether at this point.

I guess that's a start.

They should just go ahead and make them all digital. :/
I mean, doesn't the 3DS do this anyways with some digital games?

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This, Wario games almost always have fun, entertaining instruction booklets to read, whether they're from the Warioware series or one of his platformers. I also enjoyed reading the instruction booklets of both No more heroes games.

I miss games consoles being games consoles. I'm not really bothered about most of the extra stuff you get on games consoles these days, I get games consoles to play games but now console manufacturers have to add a load of unnecessary features that don't affect the games at all. I like some of them though like the AR and activity log on the 3DS.

The main thing I miss is the instantaneous gameplay and no load times/updates/DLC etc.
In the good ol days you could slap a cartridge in there and be playing the first level within a minute. Nowadays you gotta wit for the OS/Home screen, find the game, wait for it to load, once it's loaded you then gotta update the thing, then more loads screens, oh goody,can I play now? , sorry, nope. You gotta watch this 10min cut scene to explain why your killing everything that moves, oh right. Can I play now? sorry nope you need to design your character and his chums first....etc etc .....HOLY MOLY!!!. Man it drives me insane. I do wish we could go back to carts

Have to say what I miss most is the arcades

At least the MK7 manual was both digital & physical, and the digital one had a design to it, so all hope is not lost. There may be both options, plus the digital ones may be near-identical to the physical ones.

I miss sitting around the TV with my cousins, brother or even nieces and playing together.. in the same room... on N64 and even Dreamcast and early days of Xbox...

Local play is taken for granted. Which is why I'm happy Wii retained that and especially WiiU.

I miss having the mindset of an innocent child who's about to be blown away by the awesomeness of his brand new Gaming system since kids are easily blown away by almost anything... off course, that's how I saw kids before 2010.