Video: Why Do We Buy And Collect Retro Video Games?

I collect so that whenever I get the urge to play something nostalgic I can. Rather than just sit and waste time thinking about it.

I'm hunting for retro games currently, to find hidden gems and the games that i have ever played when i was young.

Because the magic of early 90's konami/capcom/nintendo/treasure/sega games has never been replicated consistently since then.

It makes you feel like young again.

I grew up during the golden age of home gaming. As a kid I kept my manuals, boxes, and carts in pristine condition. Sadly, in the late 90s, I sold them all. Came to regret it years later and bought back most of them, but there were no pristine manuals and boxes to be had by then. Doh!

I’m speedrunning Superman 64 this weekend

"Nostalgia is a powerful thing" Oof
Tell that to the 10 year old me that didn't suffer from "nostalgia".
That legitimately liked the gameplay and aesthetic of retro games because he thought that the Gamecube/PS2 era looked fugly and ignorantly thought everything was either a janky GTA or CoD clone.

Physical Collector.
I have a full CIB Pal Australian N64 Collection (243 games plus variants) which I have just recently completed.
It has taken me over 10 years to complete and I absolutely loved collecting them.
I have made some good friends out of it and have accumulated some great relationships with fellow collectors.
Sometimes it's the journey that goes with collecting that makes it even more satisfying.

Playing an old game and hearing the familiar music is comforting and relaxing to me, like seeing an old friend... Nicer in some ways as they don't change like people do.

A lot of it is ownership, plus I love playing retro games especially the 16bit era. So I love to own as much as I can. But i also buy a lot of modern stuff, which I know will be desirable in the future.

You misspelled "hoard".

Because I love collecting physical, retro or new. Just the games that look appealing to me though, nothing nostalgic about it.

Because they are masterfully crafted pieces of art that are still fun today, and stem from an era of creativity that will never be replicated again. It's the same as asking why do people bother to look at and collect famous paintings that are clearly old.

I collected a lot different Consoles and Games. Then I sold every disc based System (except the GameCube) and after that some handheld and cartridge based systems. Sometimes I miss my Lightgun Collection, NeoGeo Collection or my Virtual Boy Collection, but for the rest: I'm absolute happy about so much space in my house and I reinvested the money in a 4 Player Cabinet, which grants me the best Buddy-nights since the 2000s. Still have more space left for other things (eg a Beamer) than ever before. I still own every Nintendo Console (except the Virtual Boy), the 360, PS3 and the Vita.

I did used to collect anything and everything retro, but I've cut back to favourites, exclusives and anything I can resell for profit. Cash Money!

Well for me at least, on those rare occasions where I indulge and buy a retro game, it’s because younger me wanted it when it was a current release but couldn’t afford it (or just utterly missed it). Now that I have a meager amount of disposable income, sometimes I’ll indulge that old want.
Building a collection can be satisfying, too. 😁

A huge shelf of games is

• An investment / retirement fund (long term scalping but most are too embarrased to admit it)
• A security blanket so your opinion matters (it's worth like a thousand achievments!)
• A generic backdrop for streaming and Youtube (yawn)
• A library (I can get behind this.)

I don't collect retro games (but I started gaming from day one and always kept the systems / games I loved.) That said, retro games are rubbish. The quicker EVERYONE realises this the quicker prices will come down O.< (ahem)

Because it's fun duh! If you're into gaming, not married or childless like me what else are you supposed to do with your time?

I guess the only drawbacks are if you got a girl/guy who just doesn't get the hobby or wants to change you or talk you into selling your stuff to suit their needs.

I suppose the real scary thing is what happens to your collection after your dead and gone? All that massive clutter that some other poor sucker will have to deal with if you live to be 90. At least that won't be your problem anymore.

Better things to do with money, I just get the odd GC or Wii game every now and then.

There's no shame in a small collection, what matters is having the games that give you joy. I think that's better than handling a wall full of games that you never play. Not necessarily because you don't want to, simply because there is no time.

I just keep the games i love and intend to play more than once and all my systems. I will not sell my consoles. You never know when you might want to play them again.

These people that gotta have a full library from whatever system though they are definitely nuts. I mean come on even the mary kate and ashley games or Dora the explorer? If you're hoarding those you do have a problem.

I don't collect anything retro however we do still have boxes of SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, and GameCube games, consoles etc. up in storage. I'm getting closer and closer to just dropping it all off at a retro game store and saying, "Congrats this junk is all yours now!". I'll probably even settle for a "30 Cents off Shake N' Bake" coupon for it all.

My brothers and I originally put it all in storage with the intention of pulling it all out here and there. We used to game on all that stuff for endless hours growing up. But now that we're all older and out and about with our lives its just junk at this point to inevitably toss/give away when people die.

Because Nintendo and others don’t see fit to actually bring older games to consoles. If Nintendo brought back VC, added every game ever released on its consoles on the service, and you never had to rebuy them between gens I’d stop most of my collecting. But no! You have to obtain the games through other means like overcharging second hand sellers.

Why else... Materialism, consumer culture, compulsive hoarding, the inclination and urge to always accumulate a little more, or a lot more. It’s probably mostly all deleterious behaviour along the lines of the false sense of satisfaction and fulfillment from wealth accumulation. Our personal oceans of plastic... achieving gross humanity...

@X68000 So true! Is also add Square to that list.

@The_New_Butler
wow! That's depressing😕

Special memories and times for me. Each one of my retro games holds a place in my life. Also, I just love kicking ass on TMNT in time..... Happy Daze

there's some kind of charm with how small the gamecube disc are compare to other media that uses disc.

@Aozz101x
Totally agree! Everybody was dogging Nintendo for the tiny discs but i thought they were adorable!

Most likely a byproduct of some evolutionary trait.

Mmmm, my precious.

The reason I play older video games then newer ones more often, because for around 5 years+- we get way less real video games then old times in my books.

We buy retro games because we remember how much fun we had playing them when they were new. Of course most of the time the novelty of replaying a favorite game from the past is short lived because we almost never get the same feeling we had when we first played it, or they're simply not as good as we remember.

The comment section is up in arms about this abuse of the term "nostalgia", so often used to dismiss retro gaming. Awesome! I thank you especially, @ImBackBB and @YANDMAN.

This notion that games are disposable products has led to some very poor decision-making over the years, especially by the publishers...

I've just kind of naturally amassed a collection of games by being a Nintendo fan since the 80s. I've sold a few of them but often regret it later when wanting to play them again, or share them with my kids, or taking a look at what they're worth now!

Honestly, the value in games has gone up quite a bit, particularly GameCube as of late. Assuming this continues to trend upward, I think hanging onto your stuff is a much smarter move than using them for five bucks trade-in credit at GameStop or whatever. One day you wake up and realize your copy of Dragon Quest V on the DS is worth 170 bucks...

Also, I don't think digital versions necessarily mess with the value all that much. One of the most pricey Nintendo games is still EarthBound (300+ for the cart alone), which has had multiple rereleases in the past few years.

Lastly, I enjoy older games quite a bit. I'm getting a bit disillusioned with the current industry and even Nintendo has had some major problems this gen despite their success, but I can return to Super Metroid or Final Fantasy III at any point and be immediately enthralled all over again.

For one, I enjoy older games a lot probably because the experience is closer to the titles that got me into games to begin with (compared to modern stuff).
Second, being a kid there was just so much stuff you couldn't afford or wasn't available. Lot of fun to be had discovering everything you missed out on.

Because you have a mental disorder.

"Sometimes I buy games just to have them." Even Alex was horrified by that comment, and tried to be the voice of reason for a bit there. But there's no reasoning with addicts. Hoarding useless items is an addiction, folks.

@TheWingedAvenger well, technically you may be right, but there are people that collect every kind of stuff since forever, like coins, banknotes, stamps, more recently comics and so on, and nobody would really say that those people have an addiction, it's just a hobby. Of course it can become an addiction in some rare cases.

I buy them and play them because they are usually better than modern games.

I do it because it’s like stepping back in time. It’s like an interactive snapshot into my past. Like visiting an old place you haven’t been to in years, and nothing has changed since... it’s all there frozen in time waiting for you. Yeah like... I consider Andross a friend now. I visit him often on my N64. Like we’re on a first name basis now. I maybe visit Andross more than I call my best friend these days :/
Now I’m just sad.
Anyway... yeah, I currently have a collection going for all original Nintendo handhelds. I won’t dare dabble in SNES/NES or SEGA. I’ll be so broke I won’t be able to afford flying out to see my buddy Andross.

EDIT: serious question: did anyone else keep those plastic bags N64 games used to come in? I did and they stayed nice and clear. It was funny how you could kinda tell what kind of person someone was if their bags were super cloudy and crinkled.

Well, yes, nostalgia is something that motivates us to play once again those games that are already left behind, but for good reasons something in them motivates us in our memories.
As mentioned here, the other fact is that, for some of us, many new games no longer attract us, whatever the reason (including that they do not make us as good as before).
The point is, playing those old games reminds us of when we first played them and the beautiful memories we carry back then, and will continue nowadays.

For example, for me, and I had already mentioned it on another occasion. As a fan of Need For Speed, recent games have not been to my total liking, I am not saying that they are bad, however, many things in them have not pleased me no matter how much I play them ..., and when I remember the NFS of The 90's, maybe graphically and in other things they look "relic" XD, but the soundtrack, the commitment that the developers had in those games, I really miss all that and I do not deny it, that from time to time I look on YouTube to see and listen to those classics, since sadly, playing those currently is too complicated if not impossible ...

Oh well, really the Nostalgia is something.

Mostly say its the nostalgia talking, Wasn't too bothered bout the nes and snes as didnt grow up with them, thats why I was happy with the mini consoles released, its almost like owning them. But still have all of my n64, gameboy, dreamcast, gc and ps1 games VIVA LA RETRO GAMES

@Mips dude, why are you torturing yourself so much?

The act of collecting has always been a hobby for me. I like to take a long walk once a week to local shops and rifle through stuff in search of a random item or curiosity I've never seen before. I think it's important for people to have some kind of passion that gets you out and builds towards something, especially with the current state on the world.

It's definitely changing and I'll be sad when physical is completely fazed out, but at least the switch will keep me busy for a good few years and I hope Nintendo will stick with a physical option for at least one more generation.

I'm in a strange place with collecting where I completed my retro collection about 5 years ago. Now I'm buying new games for switch as a pre-emptive approach to not needing to find games in the wild for extortionate prices in ten years or so.

I don't envy people trying to collect for something like the NES or SNES these days. Dodging repros online would give me such a headache and bricks and mortar stores charge crazy prices.

One of my favourite periods collecting was for Wii and GameCube 2014-2016, I was picking up so many games for 50p-£5. I don't think I'll ever get a patch like that again now everyone is wise to games and their potential value.

There are some reasons:

• The Hardware often dictated how Games Sounds and Look, giving them a special aesthetic Vibe.
• Especially 16 Bit Games but also in the early 3D Era, the Atmosphere was brought up with the Music.
• So how Games were presented has changed a lot
• Sometimes there is a Sweetspot for Genres, for Example Plattformers in the 16 Bit Era or Ego Shooter in the late 90s/Early 2000s.
• To handle physical Stuff is Fun, it hasn't to be, but for some it
• It is in our Genes, we are Hunters and Gatherers.

@Yorumi Thank you for saying this. I have a pretty big DS collection, and most of the games I play and collect I never played when they were first released. Quality is quality.

For whatever reason I tend to collect hardware rather than software. I do have a moderate collection of favourites in good condition (including games I never played back in the day but have since “discovered”) but I don’t have any urge to own a complete set of games for a system.

The medium for playing the games and their controllers holds more importance for me than owning the original cartridge/disc. Hence why I tend to get flash carts or ODEs for my consoles, which also has the benefit of not adding additional wear to old cardboard boxes for my favourite games. Of course, many games now also have quality of life patches which can’t be used with original carts. If anything, it’s having the box and the manual that is more important that owning the cartridge/disc when I do buy an old game.

I actually got into collecting physical DS/3DS games once the Switch started taking off, because I love the 3DS so much, and because I knew it was going to eventually be harder / more expensive to get games for.

Then, my interests branched out in what games I wanted to play, and over time, so did my collection.

I think there is less to do with Nostalgia and more to do with games that I really enjoy from an amazing time in gaming.

All of my current systems now collect dust, but i have no shortage of awesome games to play on older systems!!

@HollowSpectre I collect so that whenever I get the urge to play something nostalgic I can. Rather than just sit and waste time thinking about it.

...or port beg.

Some games are still worth it. Super Mario World, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Turtles in Time, Super Metroid, Link between Worlds, Wild Guns, Metal Gear Solid 3, Arkham City, .... all of those games are amazing and hold the test of time.

There are even games based of licenses that are still worth it: Tiny Toons Buster Busts Loose, The Adventures of Batman and Robin, Animaniacs, Power Rangers, ....

Putting anything Chrono Trigger related in a headline or thumbnail without it being news of a re-release, remaster, or remake is a dangerous game. Heart attacks will occur all over the world.

I’m not into retro collecting. I only have a Switch now so if I can get Paper Mario 64 on it I’ll be happy.

Because the alternative is hoping that older games get re-released on platforms you like at reasonable prices.

i spend time to find some physical version of PSP games or game from series i loved, like Pokemon, Persona or some JRPG game, and buy them, even i don't have actual console to play this or replay that on another console. Searching and collecting physical game, especially game i love and play, is so much fun, but it cost a lot money when you looking for limited version )))

What I hear more often is "Why in the world would you spend so much money on just a box!?" (I pick up boxes for old NES games almost more often than I do the games themselves).

Paying scalpers isn't worth it. Emulation is a better way to preserve games, PCBs on old carts die out and are not cheap to replace, so......

It's fun! Playing and beating Mario Galaxy was a great experience, made better by my childhood memories! Not all games are as good as you remember them, but some are even better, and I love that.

Why should I sell? I bought the game to play and enjoy it. There are no expiration dates on video games and it is sometimes fun to pull them back out and play them. If you need the space or money I can understand selling them, but on a whole I have often been disappointed looking back to when I sold my Nintendo games and that I can’t play them anymore. Recently, I went ahead and rebuilt my Nintendo libraries from SNES through Wii U and made a promise I won’t make the same mistake selling them off again. If you never want to play old games that is fine, but with the trends of buying the same games over and over becoming an ingrained trend in video games it makes a lot of sense just to buy an original copy and play it whenever you would like. In addition, I worry about the digital future of games, where old games are available only through an online service that charges monthly or yearly. We have seen that even with Nintendo with Nintendo Switch Online. While NSO is cheap now, there is no guarantee that it will continue to be in the future. I see less compelling arguments to get rid of video games I purchased than to just keep the ones I bought in great condition and enjoy them whenever I want.

For me it is a mixture of revisiting games from my childhood (many of which still hold up today, especially if you take them for what they are, not get annoyed that they don’t have modern quality of life features) and sharing them with my children. My son loves Let’s go Evee on switch and Pokemon Yellow on a Gameboy colour equally and my daughter loves sonic on the mega drive. Some games are timeless (just like some movies and songs are).

Honestly though, the indie scene is so full of tributes to games from the 8bit/16bit eras that it’s well worth playing what inspired them in the first place. This also means the gap between some older games and their modern equivalents is bridged; Sonic Mania and Streets of Rage 4 are good examples of modern games that complement their precursors excellently. Playing through the series feels like natural progression as you go through each game in turn and the modern games help to show just how well made the older games were.

I would question if nostalgia is really the driving force behind retro interest, as for someone like me who has clear memories of the 16 bit era nostalgia is a link to my past but a younger person may love games of that era despite having no experience of it directly. Can one be said to have nostalgia for a time they never encountered?

Finally, I think it’s similar to vinyl collectors, who again may not have been around when it was the main medium. I’ve heard people talking about the ‘ritual’ of taking the record off the shelf and placing it on the record player, as well as having the albums on shelves to display. Games (especially cartridges) could be seen in a similar way. Plus with the ‘stream everything, own nothing’ attitude that many seem to have, though I respect the point about not having room to store things (I own hundreds of DVDs but the cases are boxed up in the attic, the discs in folders) this could be a push back by some who feel that they actually possess something that they have spent their hard earned money on. I still buy the odd CD, as the sound quality is superior to digital downloads.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing yes. Personally i don't collect games, but music. Music from my childhood and adolescence since i've always loved music. I don't overdo it though, i only get what i really like and it's a fun little thing or hobby.

@AndyC_MK
Don't be sorry at all, it's a fair question.
Yeah I know it seems obsessive and it probably is, I was left a little bit of money by my father in his will who passed away and I already had a fair collection and he and I love the 64 so i thought why not go for a full collection.
I'm glad I did because I have played a lot of games I would never normally play and have found some great games I otherwise would have never known existed.
Yes, I definitely will be playing every single game and will be reviewing them in alphabetical order.
Crazy I know.

@The_New_Butler
Yeah I have lucked out on a lot of the more expensive ones
I picked up Snowboard Kids 2 for $90,
StarCraft 64 I got for around the same.
That was as few years ago now, things sure a re a lot more expensive now.

Love that Chrono Trigger music in the background.

Cause I want to play Plok and not a damn soul is going to give it to me in today's world.

I wanted to get into collecting, seriously, but with Sony's BS with regards to the CMOS battery, I'm not gonna bother. I have a decent collection of Nintendo stuff, I'm happy with what I have.

Whole reason I collected some carts to begin with had nothing to do with nostalgia, and all to do with how little I trust these corporations with maintaining their digital servers. I can fix a cart/console if a capacitor or a battery goes bad, I can't fix a downed server.

NINJA APPROVED

@1UP_MARIO As someone approaching their 30s, can confirm.

@AndyC_MK I'm not paying 300 dollars for a mint copy of Chrono Trigger, thank you

Partly nostalgia. Partly because I genuinely believe games were mostly better back then. Partly because owning a physical cartridge means I can play it forever whereas newer consoles are ticking time bombs. And the further we get away from physical media the more I will go back to the old stuff. Knowing that when my PS3 and PS4 console batteries die the games, both physical and digital, will become completely unplayable, just makes me not even want any new console anymore. My NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, PS1 and PS2 are all going strong and have never failed me. No hour long downloads to update. No fear that these games might not work in 10+ years. And the libraries of these old consoles are so deep end so enjoyable still to this day that I could stop buying all new games and still be a happy gamer for the rest of my life.

I actually don't buy old games for my collection. I just bought the old games in my collection when they were new.

@sleepinglion I feel you there, to some degree. As a dumb kid I sold a lot of my great games-including Silent Hill 2 with manual and all- to a game store to get some money to buy a portable emulator-I thought it's worth it because I'm getting an endless variety of games for a few real games. Here I am several years later, spending $130 on a full Silent Hill 2 box and $60 on the holographic Cave Story 3D case.

People collect because owning a tangible asset is cool. Digital assets suck. I'm old.

All the more reason to keep emulators and rom sites alive and running, despite what big corporations might say.

Heck, if it wasn't for emulation, I wouldn't ever to be able to re-play old psx/2 classics like Gundam: Federation vs Zeon or the Robotech games and whether anyone wants to publicly admit it or not,(especially on this newsite) it is a necessary part of game preservation and needs to be protected, especially in an age where corporations are becoming more overreaching and caring less and less about their old retro titles and would rather see them lost in the wind.

@AndyC_MK

Some of the best games ever released have gotten absolutely dumb in price.

Panzer Dragoon Saga is an amazing game, but who in their right mind is going to pay 1,000 bucks plus to play it once?

Box/cart art. If they were blank pieces of plastic/cases, I'm sure most wouldn't bother.

I don't. I would never play them. I think if most collectors were honest they don't either. If my experiments with emulators are anything to go by I can have unlimited access to all my childhood memories and still can't find anything I want to play for more than 5 mins.

Because the games industry has farmed a mentality of constant upgrade. So much so that people no EXPECT it before it's even been announced.
What I mean is - they desperately want to part with half a grand to continue playing, despite swearing blind their system rocked months ago...

I've found a far better option. With cloud gaming the company pays for the upgrade. You just pay for the game.
I'm done with chasing overpriced bricks. I can play my library anywhere with Stadia.

@SakuraHaruka

What i want to add to this, because many say that Nostalgia blends People with wrong Memories about Games:

• There are MANY old Games in my Libary i disliked as a Kid and still do haha
  Games like Ninja Turtles on the C64 or Hulk on the SNES, they are so bad...
• Than there are Games that are hard, but fun and somehow fair, as Contra 3 aka Super Probotector.

And what very true, i have not the Time and Nerves to get into so many new hard Games.
I could master Doom Eternal on Ultra Violance, but there was no Capacity for another hard Game last Year.
So it is sometimes easier to play an "old" hard Game were you Muscle Memories and Level Memories are still burnd into your Body

When it comes down to it, for me, I would rather own a physical copy of a game retro or not. I figure it this way if I own the physical copy I can play that game anytime I want. If I own a digital copy I can play that game, especially if it an online "only" type game, until the servers go down or the drive on which the game is held fails. Nothing in the digital realm is forever, NOTHING.

I think retro games are very much like the fit girl you went school with but then you bump into her years later and she’s not how you remembered......sometimes it’s better to have the memories, especially if, like myself, you grew up in the 8 bit / 16 bit golden age of gaming. Otherwise life can be very disappointing.

@AndyC_MK @Whitestrider
When I called cartridge-collectors hoarders, I knew it might be offensive, but I used to be a CD addict and I wish someone had called me an addict back then, because I collected over 500 CDs before I realized I was addicted to the physical media more than to the music itself, much of which I didn't even listen to.

Comic books are a bit different, because you can't get those in digital format. It's easiest to detect an addiction to physical media when it regards videogames, music, literature and movies, because all those can be had in digital format (much of it free) without taking up entire rooms in the house.

I think physical media give us a sense of immortality, because when you walk into a room and see hundreds of books, CDs, DVDs and cartridges, the implication is that it would take several lifetimes to consume all of it, and you sort of feel like a god. That's how I felt. I've stopped deluding myself.

I just keep my old games - and have since the early 80s - so I can continue playing them anytime, simply because they are fun and have never lost their appeal to me. Nostalgia is nice and all but playing games simply for that reason is like scratching an itch. A fast fix and the fun is over. The heart of gaming for me is just how enjoyable games are, and that is something that is timeless if the games are well made.

Emulation is actually illegal without the proper copyright privileges. And yes old hardware does wear down eventually, but will last longer than using digital or cloud versions of a game. Now if you want to bring up system that can legally play old software look to companies like Hyperkin who make modern retro systems that play older games. You can also replace the batteries in most cart type games. As I stated I have a problem with digital and cloud games or games that rely on any type of "server" to hold the game, and again tose servers will be turned off long before the OG systems will die. It is without a shadow of a doubt better to collect real, physical games that it is to "collect" anything digital / cloud based. Besides you can trade/sell/buy physical copies you can't with digital. Its only yours until they turn it off or your hard drive crashes. I do appreciate your input on the matter, but I am happy with my choice for collecting in the physical rather than the digital.

@Piyo
You're right about N64 emulation being bad, but you can play the top ten N64 games without emulation and without using original hardware. All you need is a Nintendo Switch and a 3DS.

Super Mario 64
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Diddy Kong Racing
Doom 64
Star Fox 64
Star Wars Pod Racer
Turok
Turok II
Shadow Man
Rayman 2
Mario Kart 64
Ridge Racer 64

All of these N64 games can be played on a 3DS or a Switch in improved versions.

In fact, if you have a Switch, a 3DS, and a PSP, you can play all the best games in the history of gaming without any need for another console. Don't tell cartridge-hoarders that, though, as they feel offended by it.

@AndyC_MK
I also love going into a store and buying a nice Bluray, book or CD. I like having stuff like that on display in the living room. I choose them carefully, and limit them to the very best. I want my living room to look like a living room, and not a storage facility. When I go to someone's house and see a room full of movies, for example, I understand that they have an addiction to physical stuff. It's about possession. They think they "own" the movie if they have it on a circular disc. If it's on a hard disk, it doesn't count. They need to see a physical representation of the movie every time they walk into the room. They need that psychological fix on a regular basis, just like a cocaine-addict needs to sniff every other day. Owning all those Hollywood productions makes them feel like they're on top of the world.

I collect retro games mostly for when I feel like playing them.

At the start of the year I realized I wanted to play N64 games, but I only had Conker's Bad Fur Day, a broken Pokémon Stadium from Japan and a controller that's broken beyond repair.

One day I saw a guy selling Banjo-Tooie, one of my favorite N64 games, so I bit and also bough a working controller, Goldeneye 007 and a Japanese Doraemon game I can't plsy because I don't understand what it says.
A few months later, a guy was selling Japanese N64 games and I got a bunch of games and he also fixed my broken Japanese Pokémon Stadium. From him I got Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart 64, Mario Tennis, Diddy Kong Racing, Kirby 64, Yoshi's Story, the Japanese Pokémon Stadium that has only 40 of the original 151, Pokémon Stadium Kin Gin, Pokémon Snap, Hey, You! Pikachu, Animal Forest, Shiren the Wanderer 2 and (the non-Japanese) Ridge Racer 64.

With those I feel my N64 collection is as complete as I'd like it, granted I'm still missing some like Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, most RARE games, the Mario Parties, the Zeldas and Super Mario 64, though.

If only I could build up my Gamecube collection now that I fixed it.

Why do people collect stamps? Or insects? Or bottlecaps? Or sports memorabilia? Or comics memorabilia? Or art? Or antiques?

And why would games be any different than any of these things?

@AndyC_MK That's a little self contradictory though. The argument of the other assets having tangible value to collect also applies to physical carts and discs, manuals, and boxes.

Remakes are a valid reason, but the majority of retro games don't have a modern remake or remaster, and even ones that do, the remake or remaster isn't necessarily the same game or possess the same charm as the original. Demon's Souls PS3 probably has almost no merit to play now that the game was meticulously remade, frame for frame with better assets. But FF VII isn't the same game as FFVIIR, and VIIR doesn't invalidate the different experience that VII offers (I realize that's an example where the game is still available in its original form on current platforms, but it's a good demonstration game of my point.)

ROMs can't really enter into the conversation when the debate stops being about if collecting retro games has value and starts becoming about if they have material value since you can steal perfect replicas of them. It throws out the tangible value of the asset but maintains that, yes, collecting those old games has value, regardless of whether purchased, copied, or stolen.

@AndyC_MK True, but then the question changes from being about collecting the old games, to specifically collecting them physically, rather than digitally. I think that's two different questions and the people answering yes here would split yet again along a line of those that prefer that tangible collection hobby vs. those that are just interested in the game in any format.

But we don't have that question here because we no longer have a true VC to collect these things digitally, and regardless of one's stance on if ROMs are "wrong" or not, from a legal standpoint, that's an illegal collection unless you happen to own the cart anyway, making it a non-starter for an argument.

Hypothetically, sure, if we had them all on a digital storefront, there's the group that collecting games is exactly like collecting stamps and antiques. It's the physical tangible collection that matters. And for the other group, it's playing great games that happen to be old that matters, the storage medium is irrelevant. But as-is it's a debate between obtaining old games legally (on carts) or outside the law (again, "right/wrong/litigable" notwithstanding.)

Now, if we're talking SMB3, SMW, etc that are on the NSO service, that changes the question again a little.

@Yorumi All true. Sadly I had /have a myriad of CRTs around, all of which are broken or mostly broken. Getting rid of one is even harder than finding one.

I had to drag myself into the LCD era. I was going to cling to my CRTs had to be pried out of my cold d-pad cramped hands. My last was a beautiful Diamondtron 20" monitor the phosphors faded on. RIP.

@Yorumi The Diamondtron was a pro monitor as well (the Mitsubishi competitor to Sony's Trinitron pro aperture grille monitors.) But Technically the electron gun and tube still work, it was a problem with the phosphor coating fading over time that turned it too dark to see, and eventually almost entirely unlit that killed it off. All the other tubes died from tube failure, magnet failure of the electron gun harness, etc.

I don't think a true CRT replacement will ever exist. The very fact that it's analogue makes that almost impossible to exist with digital video (and content control) standards. OLED and hybrid OLED was supposed to be the CRT successor back in the late 90s.....and here we still are....

@AndyC_MK Simpler is an understatement. The modern world's pace is unlivable at all IMO.

8 bit games are harder the include only because objectively many of them were simply flat out bad. We may have loved them when they were new because there wasn't anything better, but unlike the 16 bit era where there was a polish and quality to almost everything that released so that they never age, the 8 bit era was filled with games made by arcade designers that brought their "do anything to keep them pumping in quarters" design ideas with them, stiff controls originally meant for 8-way sticks and large slap buttons, and overall debatable designs. There's a few stand-out gems from the era, but there are relatively few compared to the volume of the library. The leap in quality and balance from the 8 bit to 16 bit era was even greater than the sound and graphics leap.