About Retro Video Gaming

Nintendo's Virtual Boy, deemed a failure, but a step in the direction of 3D gaming.

There are many types of game players: and ever since the introduction of the Nintendo Wii, new people have gotten into video games as a hobby. Some people exclusively play RPGs, first person shooters, or casual games only. One type of gamer, the retro gamer, is concerned with the odd and the old.

Retro Video Gaming is all about the play, maintenance, and restoration of classic video games from the past. It is a unique hobby that allows you to play games you missed as a child, and preserve the experiences for a future (and willing) generation.

Sony's first gaming console: the Playstation 1.

I clean, repair, and play old video games from systems that go back to approximately 1983. I really have not gone farther back than that because of a limited selection and extreme technical obsolescence. Many people will argue over what exactly constitutes "retro". Some agree that anything retro is a game or console that is not of the current generation. In my personal opinion, games can be considered retro if they are TWO generations behind the current generation. At the time of this writing, this includes systems such as the Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1.

Retro video games don't have to be expensive. You can get a working, semi-functional (or fully functional) NES Nintendo Entertainment System for about 30 USD, (or about 21 EUR). Games, depending on their popularity will cost 99 cents or 50 USD. Rarer titles, no matter how bad they are, can also fetch a hefty price.

My collection is small, but I have about 150 games across over a half dozen platforms. They include:

NES
SNES
ATARI 2600
SEGA GENESIS
SEGA DREAMCAST
NINTENDO 64
PLAYSTATION 1
PLAYSTATION 2
PLAYSTATION 3
GAMECUBE
WII
GAMEBOY
GAMEBOY ADVANCE
NINTENDO DS



Further posts will describe how to maintain these video games, and prospects for the future. It is my DREAM to one day open a video game museum that acts as a store to support the propagation of the business- and of course, to allow people to play all kinds of video games!

Nintendo's Super Nintendo, which rivaled the Sega Genesis in the early 1990s.