Honestly, who collects 100 year old stuff anyway? Well, they are idiots talking about collectors as normal consumers... Collectors will collect things like games, stamps, coins and whatnot, even if they have actual function or not. Collecting is not related to if NES games are interesting to masses in 100 years. And that is my opinion, not a fact either.

Will anyone care about Pat the NES punk in 10 years? Cause I know I don't now.

Um, people who collect Indian Head/early Wheatie pennies, early Buffalo Nickels, Morgan/Peace silver dollars, gold eagles, Old Judge/T206/etc baseball cards...

 

Considering the very ancient tech even much of our government still uses, I don't think we'll have to worry too much about how long our game consoles/cartridges/discs will last.

http://www.cracked.com/article_23...

My point exactly. And the point that Pat and especially Ian has lost his.

People will definitely still collect them.

The NES and other consoles from the 1980s and 1990s were from an era when console gaming was new, experimental, and at its creative prime. Kind of like motion pictures in the 1930s and 1940s, or rock music from the 1960s and 1970s. (Though not quite as much universal appeal.)

The "silent film" of console games was Atari and it predecessors. It offered a very limited range of the console gaming experience. The NES Id say was the first to offer that full experience to a wide audience.

This is of no use to me since I wont lbe alive in 100 years  

It's not just us, you know, but the legacy we leave behind to our children and descents. Culture does not exist in a vacuum. Our gaming culture will live on to be appreciated by future generations, whether in physical form or by emulation.

 

That's one thing I do sometimes regret that I won't really be able to pass my collections down to anyone, since we have no children and for various reasons we are just not destined to have any (long story; please don't ask me to go into details). Though as I've said before (at the 1:56 mark; incredibly Fresh Prince IS now Uncle Phil's age at the time!):

I'm surprised that you're the first to suggest this. Everyone is assuming that video games will last that long as an art form. The question assumed was HOW people would be playing video games and not IF people would be playing video games.

Today's driving force in games is the mainstream consumer (many of whom we wouldn't consider "real" gamers). What happens to the market when the fickle mainstream decides that video games aren't worthwhile any longer?

If everyone decides that modern games "suck", and all existiing consoles (besides mobile and PC) die off, then retrogaming will become the only way to game and becomes mainstream.

The possibility of this happening is very real. Physical media remains frozen in time, a portal if you will. Digital Rights Management and downloads only consoles will become a reality. What happens when servers get turned off? Your console becomes a brick.

Suppose all consoles 9th or 10th generation and up get "bricked" because there's no server to connect to? People will seek out games, and existing cart and disc systems will be all they have left to turn to. Many will turn to piracy and emulation. Assuming a console is no longer supported, exploits cannot be patched anymore, so once one is found, the console can be turned wide open as a piracy box.

For retro stuff, emulation isn't going anywhere, and I firmly believe that the FPGA and hardware emulation will eventually replace software emulation as the technology becomes cheap and ubiquitous. AVS and HDMI NES are a thing now. Other consoles will follow. Homebrew development will continue on both the hardware and software fronts.

Think this stuff will just fade away? In the late 90s to early 2000s, nobody believed that vinyl would make a comeback. Well it's everywhere again. MP3 was the nail in the coffin for CDs, or so it seemed. The popularity of vinyl is proof that people love physical media, and the presence of cloned hardware is proof that people love cart based gaming. Someone may even release a modern cart system, and I mean a real console with modern games, not a hoax like the RetroVGS/Chameleon. But truthfully, nobody knows where retrogaming will lead. But just like how MP3 downloads created renewed interest in vinyl records, I believe that online/downloads only gaming will result in renewed interest in cart based media.

My two cents, but this stuff will get more popular before it fades into obscurity. Tons of young gamers are playing old consoles. It isn't for everyone, but it's there out there for anyone who wants to jump on the bandwagon. I'm glad I'll live to see what happens. Not in 100 years, but 30 years maybe we'll see the direction it leads...

Am I the only person who is like "who cares we will all be dead in 100 years" ?

Nobody's arguing the fact that we'll be dead. However we as collectors are the second generation of gamers to own this stuff, and the first to give a damn about it's preservation. Is it not too forward thinking to care about what happens to things we love after we are gone? Without collectors, all of this shit would eventually be in a landfill.

Maybe we look down from heaven and peer into a game store to see some kid picking up a game cart that we once owned? I'm not suggesting that Earth is a big reality show for the deceased, and whether consciousness or soul lives on is for another topic, but if you care about preservation of media and arts, then you understand the fact that physical items get passed down and outlive the people who used or created them. Like when I visited the Naples museum of Antiquities. The stuff they uncovered from Pompei was awe inspriring. And I walked ancient city streets and toured villas that remained buried from AD 79 until it's discovery in the 18th century.

Someday 1000 years from now, assuming Armageddon doesn't come by then, people will enter a museum and see an NES cartridge and system behind glass, read it's history, and possibly even get to play the games through emulation by using some interactive holographic kiosk or whatever they use for interactive display tech in the future.

I personally feel that no one other than game historians or people growing up around that era will give a flying-f about those games. Just like how no one under the age of 35 gives a flying-f about atari 2600 games. The games may be good (not my cup of tea) but I personally find 2600 games unpleasant to play and irritating to the ears, the same with a majority of NES games (bar a select few that are just pure awesome!).

my point being, the gaming expectations of gamers 100 years in the future could be thought based VR gaming or something, why would people want to use their hands to play shitty looking games? pft.