Cartridge Market Crash

[Omega-TI]

Is the cartridge market about to crash?

 

With all the new Super Cartridges being built able to hold so many games on one cart and...

with some of the 'old guard' dying off...

and the new 'Smartphone Generation' not caring about the old Classic Computers...

do you think the market is close to taking a crash?

 

[Mxyzptlk]

o

Edited September 12, 2014 by Mxyzptlk

[Seob]

At some point prices will go down when intrest wanes, or the market gets saturated. Last retro fair i visited i noticed that prices had come down on some games already.

There will always be people who are willing to get the original games, even with the new generation, but it gets thinner.

[Keatah]

In order to have a crash, you have to have a market. And I had no idea there was a market to begin with outside of a few niche message forums like here.

 

The old guard is dying off, that's for sure. I already know several that keeled over, and another in the hospital with heart issues and all that. And many others have mid-life and late-life crisis on the burner. Classic gaming and computing takes 2nd stage when shit like that happens.

 

In fact I'm already seeing changes here at AA that don't bode well for the long-term future of classic gaming and retro computing.

 

It is also harder and harder to get youngsters interested in the classic systems from the 70's and 80's. They are too much into apps on their smartphone.

 

The newcomers don't really have the right perspective because they have not lived in the era. And so-called "historians" think it's alright to preserve games by just taking pictures of them, completely ignoring emulation and playability.

 

Scanned material and emulators will be the last bastille. To all, I say, make hay while the sun shines.

[Keatah]

Allow me to get on my soap box for just a moment longer.

 

Emulation is the way forward. It is the only way to have a chance to appeal to the instant-gotta-have-it-now generation of smartphoners. It is the only way to amass complete libraries including technical specifications, videos, documentation, magazine scans, and all that glitters - without spending a small fortune. Not to mention the time spent hunting for the material. And setting aside space without making everything cluttered. You really need several thousand sq. ft. to do it right. And that doesn't include dedicated stand-up arcade games either.

 

People today aren't interested in this stuff as much as they used to be. Not with the increasing maintenance and slowly degrading materials of which games are made from. Think fading papers and oozing-into-the-label glue, not to mention the electronics getting crusty and dried out.

 

The games' bit-patterns are everlasting themselves. Only the manner in which they are housed will change through the years.

[chart45]

i own a lot of those old console atari 2600.7800 colecovision intellivision tg16 nes snes n64 and more but its very too expensive to collect all those cart the multicart is the way to go when you are a player more than a collectore i play on the real machine but not with the real cart not that i dont own any of them but i cant afford multiple 400$ to 1000$ cart fore those system...... by using the multicart you preserve the original cart and the port of your system

[Mr SQL]

Carts and retro systems will always have a certain Sang-Froid

 

Beyond that emulation cannot match the VCS and cannot match the SID due to their hybrid analougue components and while cool in it's own right, feels too much like emulation and never enough, like the real thing.

 

Newer systems with pure digital playgrounds are far better targets for emulators but even then there is the difficulty in matching the physical form factor - tapping virtual buttons on a touch screen or using high latency controllers are not Farfegnugen

[godslabrat]

My games will outlive me. In 200 years, no one will give a shit about either one of us.

[bobotech]

To me the classic gaming market is age based. Right now the early stuff from the seventies and early to mid eighties has its core fans being the 35 to 55 year old group. They have the most disposable income. But as our group ages more and more, we will start dying off and our collections will either be liquidated to the world full of younger people who don't have an interest in old Atari junk. I don't see my twentysomething kids caring enough about a 2600 to want to mod it for use with modern television connections or repair them to keep them working. Sure they will play games with me but they really don't care to own them or be curious about them beyond sort of enjoying them with me. No one I know cares about old classic video games except for one of my buddies who is my age. So what does that mean? As time marches on, there will be less and less people collecting classic games and the market will get saturated with old games from dying off members. I see the market having hit its peak now and not really increasing beyond what it has. Maybe the NES and SNES era of stuff might increase as the N64 but I don't see the more modern obscure stuff being of interest to younger fans. The Saturn has a loyal following but my kids never cared about them and have never shown an interest in that system as an example.

[BydoEmpire]

At some point, sure. Eventually the number of people that care about cartridge games will dwindle to the point of no buyers. At the same time, there are serious challenges in the coming decades (food, climate, etc) that might make it impractical for anyone to really spend money on this kind of thing. I don't have a crystal ball, although the first point is certain.

[Keatah]

Our nieces and nephews and sons and daughters sure as hell don't give a rat's ass about 40 year old Atari games. That's for sure.

 

The only hope for serious preservation is an emulation collection put onto an HDD or SSD that has been gussied up to look like a futuristic family heirloom of a sort. Chrome polished and all that. Something I'd like to get underway in earnest. It wouldn't be a difficult thing to keep around the house - especially when compared against sagging shelves and rotting boxes full of plastic items that are getting plastic-gooey or fading yellow papers.

[Keatah]

I don't see my twentysomething kids caring enough about a 2600 to want to mod it for use with modern television connections or repair them to keep them working. Sure they will play games with me but they really don't care to own them or be curious about them beyond sort of enjoying them with me. No one I know cares about old classic video games except for one of my buddies who is my age.

 

Even us present-day enthusiasts had that attitude when we were youngsters. We were there to play games, not build a library. I wasn't much interested in building any sort of collection for the future, maybe a little. And it was nothing like you see in the "Show us your collection" thread. This collecting thing seems to be an aberration that grows into you just prior to mid-life.

 

The games they play with you now might be the games they care about 30 years later.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Keatah

[fiddlepaddle]

Not sure the question applies to me, since I never pay enough for any game to be disappointed about its market value.

 

My collection is mostly just a bunch of games that happened to end up all on one place because I wanted each game, one-by-one; it's not really "A Collection".

 

I've sold a few items lately, but not because of any particular return on investment. I just decided I don't want that item anymore and it so happens someone else wants it more than me.

 

Sure, it's nice if it sells for more nowadays, but I would sell it regardless. At the same time, I'm OK with keeping what I enjoy and have no regrets or second thoughts about what I paid, or worries about what it's worth, or will be worth.

 

The monetary value is not really relevant, certainly not significant in terms of net worth, and other than the cost of pure screaming-and-slobbering carnal-acquisitional desire for something "I JUST GOTTA HAVE!", it's just not very important.

Edited September 12, 2014 by fiddlepaddle

[bobotech]

 

Even us present-day enthusiasts had that attitude when we were youngsters. We were there to play games, not build a library. I wasn't much interested in building any sort of collection for the future, maybe a little. And it was nothing like you see in the "Show us your collection" thread. This collecting thing seems to be an aberration that grows into you just prior to mid-life.

 

The games they play with you now might be the games they care about 30 years later.

The big difference to me is that these kids never grew up with Atari. My oldest step-kid is 31 was born in 82. By the time she was playing video games, it was the NES for a short bit quickly followed by the SNES. She doesn't even know what a colecovision or a 2600 is other than to have played a game or two that I showed her. So even in 20 years if she were to start collecting, she would probably only care about the NES.

 

When i was actively collecting, about 10 years ago I found an original Odyssey game system in the wild complete with the box and the overlays and everything for 10 dollars. I was ecstatic because it was almost a grail item. To actually own the first home video game system ever. I also remember drooling over it in the Sears or the JC Penny catalogs of the very early seventies. Might have been an FAO Schwartz catalog? So i was happy to have it even though I never played it. After a while, I got super bored of owning it and sold it. Got well over 200 for it. Don't miss it one bit. It wasn't a system I ever had an emotional attachment to or played other than desiring one through a catalog. I still want a Telstar because that was the first game system I ever owned though. I don't see my kids caring about game systems older than what they played and had as kids so for them it might be the NES. Also remember, kids of today have easy access to emulators which we never had as kids. Heck, my kid can mod an original Xbox, put a 2 gig drive in there and have the entire discography of xbox games installed on it without even owning a single game.

[Andre81]

Didn't we just have this topic a few days ago? Are you guys in your mid life crisis or depressed? The world is so bad... we will all die... no one will care about Atari games anymore...

[Andre81]

I wonder what a guy in his midlife crisis would have posted about his Action Comics #1 in 1969...

[CatPix]

The big difference to me is that these kids never grew up with Atari.

Also remember, kids of today have easy access to emulators which we never had as kids. Heck, my kid can mod an original Xbox, put a 2 gig drive in there and have the entire discography of xbox games installed on it without even owning a single game.

Well you have to teach them about the games.

I was born in 1988. In France.

The Bally !astrocade never ever made it's way here; I started a bit on a Pong before getting an Amstrad CPC,then a NES and way later a SNES (It always amuse me to see pople saying that right in 1991 everybody was switching to SNES. It was EXPENSIVE man. The SNES, where I live, started to get big in 1993/1994. And the Playstation in 1998.) And I know nobody in my family that was in gaming. So I didn't even heard about the VCS, Intellivision, Colecovision, and the Odyssey, before the 2000's and Internet.

And I got those consoles today, and I enjoy them. True, I don't own so many carts, but it's only because they are rather expensive.

If you want your kids and grand-kids to get interested into retro video games, you have to make them interested into. And it it doesn't work when they are young, do it when they are around 25; at this age they are more likely to catch on the "historical" side of the thing.

It's mostly about education.

How can the kids be not used to apps and stuff, when they have tablets and smartphones when they are 8?

[Seob]

The other day the teacher of my 4 year old asked if my son had seen a computer before. Because he didn't know how to use the mouse. Must say that altough i'm big into gaming, my kids hardly play games. Sometimes they play with the wii or a game on the ipad, but they're more intrested in lego then gaming. And that's fine by me. When they show more intrest i will teach them about the old computers and games, but i'm happy they have a fun time with lego.

[AtariLeaf]

I don't know why this topic came up in my daughters science class but the teacher was talking about old computers and asked the kids if any of them knew what a Commodore 64 was. My daughter was the only one to raise her hand. Asked why she knew, my daughter told him that I collected old computers and video games and that I owned a C64 (which apparently impressed the teacher so I'm thinking another collector or at least an enthusiast) but the point remains that most of the current generation are either disinterested or just ignorant of the history of gaming, computers and tech.

[CatPix]

Huhuh reminds me with my association, we made our own retrogaming expo (about 300 people visited it, in Le Mans, on the day it was open. The officials were VERY impressed and asked us to do it again next year). One guy came to the old computer corner.

Amstrad CPC, MSX, Atari ST520, a laptop for PC retro games, even a Thomson TO7. I wasn't here, but apparently seeing no Commodore 64 upset the guy The Amstrad/Commodore war is still alive

[krslam]

I occasionally sell off some of my spare Atari and Commodore systems on craigslist. The last few have been bought by kids in the 12-15YO range (or, more accurately, bought by thier parents/grandparents for them) so there's at least some interest among the younger folks.

[Keatah]

Will it be possible for today's youngsters to re-experience their current mobile games 20 years from now? I mean with all the DRM and DLC and Cloud stuff, I don't see much of this being preserved long term.

Edited September 13, 2014 by Keatah

[CatPix]

Android apps can be found online outside of the markets(not all of them, but it's possible to install all the apps without using the Play store or any store), and Android itself can be emulated on a PC. If preserved, and apps not requiring an online activation (and this would eventually be cracked anyway) it will be possible. With the crapload of smartphone and tablets around, they will also be able to find vintage hardware as well.

Also, unless the hardware or OS change too much, 20 years old apps will probably still work on next-gen hardware. If Android system and phone survive that long, of course.

Edited September 13, 2014 by CatPix

[Omega-TI]

 

Not with the increasing maintenance and slowly degrading materials of which games are made from. Think fading papers and oozing-into-the-label glue, not to mention the electronics getting crusty and dried out.

 

The games' bit-patterns are everlasting themselves. Only the manner in which they are housed will change through the years.

 

I agree with a lot you said in your messages, but I'm happy to see a lot of the 'retro-mod' mentality. Yes, many of the older cards will give out, but we see the hardware hackers coming to our rescue with new goodies.

Yes, there are some maintenance costs with everything in life, but as a hobbyist, it's expected.

 

I do not know about other platforms, but in the TI-Community we are getting brand NEW mega-cartridges built that give these games a new lease on life. Guys are getting new labels printed too and life looks good. Since these games are in cartridge form, anyone who inherits a machine from a passing TI'er might figure that it's easy enough to hook up 'to give it a try'. Also since many TI'ers have upgraded their machines to VGA, any new TV or monitor is compatible.

 

Components drying out or leaking, like capacitors is one my biggest worries with machines dying and getting thrown out. I would REALLY, REALLY like to see someone in the retro-community compile a listing of all the capacitors for various machines, put them all in little 'RESTORE KITS' for resale. I personally do not have the time, nor do no I want to buy 100 of every type from China, but I'm not opposed to paying someone extra to assemble the components for me in a nice little package. Someone could make some money and help keep a lot of machines running for another generation.

[Omega-TI]

In my previous post I mentioned 'capacitor replacement kits' for our old computers. It looks like an enterprising Canadian Ham is doing that for old radios in this example << HERE >>.

 

 

 

This looks like a market ripe for someone ready for someone to exploit it!