Moving Away from Physical Collecting for Emulation?

[OutColed]

Hi guys! I'm not much of a forumite, but I figured all of you would be a much better (and nicer) group to open this discussion with than reddit.

I've been an avid game collector for several years now. There's a TV stand in the living room specifically set up to have a whole mess of consoles on display and ready to go. I'm one of those guys that sought out an old TV station video switcher to have everything hooked up at once. But lately I've been really thinking about it. I do enjoy collecting and I'll be happy to go "on the hunt" again once the world is relatively safe to do so in again, but hardware is starting to weigh on my mind. Eventually, every one of these systems will fail. At which time, replacements will cost more and repairs will either involve taking up a whole new skillset to do it myself or to turn to specialists who have that skillset. To my mind, this feels like a money pit, and not a particularly fun one to dive deeper into.

But then you've got emulation, which we naturally all love in one way or another. I've got copies of almost every game (pre-360 era anyway) I own on a hard drive, prettied up by LaunchBox and protected (I hope) by Backblaze. I was sitting around the other day and got struck by the "I should play SPECIFIC GAME X" right now. And even though what I wanted to play was available on Dreamcast and ready for me to boot, I went to LaunchBox anyway. The ease and simplicity has really sucked me into it as an ecosystem and I love it. This brings me to my central point, though, and what I'm hoping I can get some of your perspectives/insights on: what is the benefit of maintaining a robust collection of original hardware? Why not move entirely into the emulation scene and keep backing up new games as I collect them, leaving consoles and the like behind?

Now, I know people have strong opinions on this so I just want to be clear: I don't think anybody is WRONG or SILLY for doing things how they want to do it. If you want to have a wall of consoles and everything that entails, that's awesome and I wish you all the awesome retro game nights you can stand. But this is something I've been mulling on for a while and I'd really like to hear some of the community's thoughts.

Thanks a mil!

[dragon57]

Welcome!

Maintaining and collecting original console hardware, games, carts, optical media can be great fun. I used to do it myself, but as time marched on, hardware dies, plus my wife & I have downsized which made keeping all the hardware I had impossible. Now, many have the space and disposable cash so they can keep their collection for their entire lives, and that is great. Some will have to make a decision very similar to your topic, sooner, or later.

I sold nearly my entire collection (keeping only a couple of consoles which are on display only positions on my shelves). I have no regrets. I am 99.9% emulation now. I collect all the associated art for my collection like I used to do with actual boxes, flyers, etc. I also dabble in creating my own art because you will always find holes in your art collection. There are numerous loose collections of private and open 'teams' that work on art for free, and out of respect of the history of the hobby. Many users have ways of receiving donations for their work, which I fully respect and support. Many others just do it for the users for free (what I do). Consider joining in on those who do this as it can be a lot of fun. Even if you don't have any artistic experience, you can find ways of developing the skill required.

Finally, there are some modern hardware solutions which some users here also take advantage of. Mister is one example, https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki
 

[OutColed]

Thanks for your two cents, Dragon. I definitely hear you on the space considerations. The lady and I will most likely have to move into a smaller place in the future as well and the amount of "STUFF" we've got here makes that concerning. Had heard of the Mister but never really looked into it, definitely will now. Launchbox is awesome, but I do still value my physical carts and such. While the systems feel like a forgone conclusion regarding whether to keep them or not just because they're so big, the games themselves are a really difficult choice to make.

Could you PM me (or just link here, not sure of rules regarding this) one of those art projects you're talking about? I've got enough graphic design experience to chip in and would like to help with that kind of thing.

[dragon57]

There are a few here. Vikings 'Colorful' videos he is working on would be a good one to investigate. He has a number of templates and resources to read about what would be required to help. Another Viking related thread are the Silver Ring logos. Users request new additions to his original release all the time. @sundogak has picked up creating new art for this, and I'm sure he would appreciate some help. @seaview59 also is the go to person for clear logo creation requests and LaunchBox art submissions to the database. He also might appreciate some help.

Just search for those threads here on the forum for reference.