What do you think will be rare in 50-100 years?

[Rick Dangerous]

What video game items do you think will be rare in 50-100 years?

 

Here is my take:

 

Any CD games: I have really questioned my choice lately to invest in expensive Saturn/Sega CD games. They are just SO fragile. I'm on my third copy of road rash for the 3DO. I think CD games will mostly be trash/dust 100 years from now and thus will be super rare in original form. Cartridges on the other hand seem to last forever. Weird to think that it may be easier to find super mario brothers in 2100 than a working copy of crash bandicoot.

 

CD Based Consoles: I think many will still exist, but will have been re-purposed to utilize roms via SD storage or whatever the storage of the future is. CD/drives, loading trays, lasers are fragile and have a definite shelf life. People will repair and replace these but I think a lot of people without the time/motivation/resources will just trash them, making them rarer than say a Sega Genesis, which just works and will forever.

 

Certain controllers: Right now Nuons are relatively cheap, but good luck finding a controller. Some classic systems have durable controllers, but I've noticed a lot of joysticks aren't overly hearty (5200, 7800) and who will actually make the parts to repair these? There are a number of systems that I can see controllers getting quite rare for.

 

OEM PSU's: Once these fry, they are gone. I see many consoles in 2100 being powered by replacement PSU's (not that that matters to most people.)

 

Handhelds: I think many of these will get trashed because the factory screens suck so bad compared to modern LCD screens. There are great replacement options out there (have done my GBA, Lynx, Nomad, and GG) but these are niche solutions for people with the time and money who care about these gems of gaming. Most don't have the patience/resources and I can see many of these biting the dust.

 

Anything in a tan/beige box: Most people aren't going to want to get involved in the alchemy necessary to get these systems looking new again. People at my local play n' trade avoid yellowed systems like the plague and I admittedly think they look ugly as hell. How many SNES's will still be nice and grey in 2100? I definitely think systems prone to yellowing will be rarer (than black systems like the genesis) and rarer still in good "like new" condition.

 

What else do you think time, durability or collecting trends will make rare in the coming decades?

Edited December 22, 2016 by travistouchdown

[godslabrat]

Agreed on CD based consoles, also consoles with hard drives and built-in PSUs. Those are all components that will fail faster than ROM chips and basic ICs. The more of those components you put in the same box, the shorter the survival rate for the console will be. I don't have much hope for the Xbox 360 and PS3, on a very long timeline.

 

Honestly, though, in 50-100 years, what will also be rare will be anyone who gives a crap. A lot of this current generation's games are made to be disposable, and disposable they shall be. I don't think there will be the same desire to preserve Madden 2017 as there is Tecmo Super Bowl.

[BydoEmpire]

Food, peace, free time. I doubt there will be many working optical-drive based systems from the current era. There will be a lot of rare stuff, but whether anyone wants to spend time or money on it is an open question. 50 years is questionable, but in 100 years I doubt anyone will care much about video games.

Edited December 22, 2016 by BydoEmpire

[spacecadet]

50 years is questionable, but in 100 years I doubt anyone will care much about video games.

 

That'd be like saying "In 100 years I doubt anyone will care much about tin toys" in 1916. No, average kids or adults in 2116 aren't going to be playing with our video games, but there will definitely be a large collector market for games of this and previous eras. Someday you will see an Atari VCS on Antiques Roadshow.

 

But a lot of stuff will be rare; that doesn't mean anybody will want it. Nuon controllers, for example - who cares? As with anything else, there's going to be certain stuff that bubbles up and other stuff that just gets forgotten about completely. Just like not all tin toys are collectible today, but some are if they're made by the right company and come from the right series or years. I guess my point here is that "rarity" doesn't really matter much, because there's just so much junk that's been produced in small quantities over the years. I personally have a giant bucket of this stuff. None of it's worth any money or ever will be (though a few things are useful, like my MadCatz Microcon controllers.)

 

What's actually worth seeking out and collecting really probably depends on how the industry progresses over the next 50 or 100 years. Usually one-offs like the Game.com, Nuon or Ouya don't really end up being collectible because they had no industry impact. But things from either once-great and influential companies that have a tragic end, or alternatively things that reflect a lineage up to the modern era seem to be more likely to become collectible.

 

I do think certain disc-based systems might end up being pretty collectible because that era's going to end up being an oddity, but one that had a lasting impact in that it started MS and Sony in the console business (and forced Sega out of it). Also, I agree that those systems will be unreliable long term so it will be harder and harder to find working ones over time. I've personally already gone through a few of these that I bought new but then died on me. I would just guess that if you were to have a complete collection of working disc-based systems in the year 2116 (and yes that includes the Nuon), you would be the envy of anyone who collects video games at that time.

 

This all assumes somebody's still here at that time, of course...

 

Would be kind of funny if there was an alien invasion sometime in the next 100 years, and *they* end up collecting our video games after wiping us out. If you went to an alien planet, wouldn't you think you'd find something cool enough to collect?

Edited December 22, 2016 by spacecadet

[0078265317]

100 years from now video games will be planted directly into the brain.

[Flojomojo]

The concept of "owning" media with self-contained games and other software, without relying on networked systems or subscription services.

[fiddlepaddle]

In 100 years, the only video game stuff will be in the Forbidden Zone. Either that, or we'll all be part of the Borg Collective.

[BassGuitari]

Don't care. With any luck, I'll be dead.

[Blazing Lazers]

I'll check back with ya in 100 years...

[Pixelboy]

I expect there will be a major economic implosion in North America within the next 100 years (heck, it's probably going to happen within the next 50 years) and the upcoming generations are going to live much more poorly than we do in the aftermath of this implosion. Their relationship with electronics in general is going to be altered as a result: They will prefer cheap tech over state-of-the-art to keep their kids entertained, and parents will probably be too busy working their asses off to pay their debts to put much time into video gaming themselves. This is already the situation of many families today, but we can expect this to become the general norm after the implosion.

 

So I don't expect the future of home video gaming to be 3D imagers/projectors or holodecks, not for the next 100 years anyhow. We may see such super-techno things in amusement parks or gaming expos, but gaming on flat screens (TVs and handhelds) will be around for quite a while still, and in this setting, I see a persistent niche for retro-gaming. But the retro-gamers of the future won't be using the carts/discs/whatever-based consoles we use today. Even today's PS4s and XBoxes will be a huge pile of non-functional junk within the next 50 years. Functional ColecoVisions (for example) are already a rarity today, and they're just 30+ years old.

 

Say what you will, but games like Zelda and Punch Out! will always be fun to play (they just need to give such games a fresh coat of paint to make them palatable to the masses) and companies looking to cash in on recycling "classic" games from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras will likely offer devices similar to the NES Mini that Nintendo is offering today. Otherwise, such games will be downloadable content directly to your TV (no need for consoles, the TV itself will contain all the required hardware for gaming) so gamers will just need to purchase compatible wireless controllers.

 

And today's hardware? Forget it, they're not built to be functional 100 years from now. Carts and discs will decay and become useless junk. Some rich guys are going to keep the few remaining functional consoles locked away in their vaults, or people will see them in video game museums, and play them on-site via emulation machines, the real things will remain locked behind glass. You don't put a 100-year-old still-functional Atari 2600 controller in the hands of a little kid, it's much too valuable. Only museum curators and other historian-types will be allowed to try them... briefly.

[leods]

In 50 years from now probably everything that exists so far will be rare to find in working state. In 100 years even more. But I guess in 50 years the older the easier it will be to find the systems working. I doubt in 50 years from now it's going to be easier to make a PS4 work that it will be to find a working Atari 2600.

 

As for interest? I bet there is still going to be people who want old videogames, and since availability can only decrease prices will be very high for actual working stuff. At that point even the CRT tvs are going to be a problem. Not sure wether there will be anything compatible except for retro specific scalers like the ones we have today. On the bright side scalers and screens will probably have very small input lag, and the ability to show very good image, so the filters we have today will probably be way better in the future.

 

Which takes us to the fact that in 50 years from now emulation will most likely be the way to go. You'll get a raspberry pie 50, a nano SFHDIS card and install all games from first generation all the way to ps5 and have it all playable. Will cost you 300 dollars, the equivalent of today's 20.

[jhd]

And today's hardware? Forget it, they're not built to be functional 100 years from now. Carts and discs will decay and become useless junk. Some rich guys are going to keep the few remaining functional consoles locked away in their vaults, or people will see them in video game museums, and play them on-site via emulation machines, the real things will remain locked behind glass. You don't put a 100-year-old still-functional Atari 2600 controller in the hands of a little kid, it's much too valuable. Only museum curators and other historian-types will be allowed to try them... briefly.

 

One of my favourite artifacts at the Royal Alberta Museum is a coin-op 1920s mechanical football(?) game; the distant ancestor of the arcade game.

 

I have seen it displayed on exhibit, but certainly nobody is allowed to actually play with it.

 

The Royal BC Museum has an original NES on permanent display (as part of its 1980s exhibit). There are probably more examples that I am unaware of.

[Rick Dangerous]

A few more thoughts based on your observations:

 

-Carts will be around and going strong in 100 years. The NOS Atari 2600 carts I open work like new, and some of them are close to 40 years old. My 20 and 30 year old N64 and NES games that I bought at retail still look brand new and will play great for decades or more.

 

-If society is still intact (and lets hope that it is) then people will still be playing video games, so some people are going to be interested in older ones. Not a lot but some. People still drive 100 year old Stanley steamers and Ford Model T's around, not as daily drivers but they put the work and time in and enjoy it as a hobby. I think the more durable stuff will be around and played for a long time. Why wouldn't an NES top loader work in 100 years with new caps and a bit of maintenance and cleaning here and there?