I realized I might have a problem last Saturday at 6:42 AM. I was standing in a stranger’s garage in suburban Detroit, having driven forty minutes in pre-dawn darkness to answer a Craigslist ad for an “old Nintendo with some games.” The homeowner, still in pajama pants and clutching coffee like it contained the elixir of life itself, watched with visible confusion as I meticulously inspected the underside of his childhood NES for signs of yellowing plastic and checked each pin on the RF adapter. I handed over $80 for a console, five games (including a copy of Battletoads with the label half torn off), and a controller with a suspicious sticky residue on the D-pad that I’m still working to identify. As I carefully placed my treasure in my car’s passenger seat – actually buckling it in, I’m not even kidding – I had to acknowledge that my obsession with original gaming hardware had reached a point that might benefit from professional intervention.
This wasn’t always the case. For years, I was perfectly content with emulation. Why wouldn’t I be? I could play practically any game from my childhood with better resolution, instant save states, and no need to blow questionable breath into cartridges or perform the precise ritual of cartridge insertion that all 80s kids mastered. I had every NES, SNES, Genesis, and even arcade game at my fingertips through MAME and various emulators. It was gaming utopia – the entire history of video games accessible through a few clicks, without the hassle of storage, maintenance, or explaining to my girlfriend why I needed a dedicated room for my “collection.”
But something was missing. I first noticed it playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on an emulator around 2015. The game was exactly as I remembered it… except it wasn’t. The colors seemed too sharp, too perfect. The controller in my hands was a decent USB replica of the NES original, but the plastic felt different – lighter, cheaper somehow. The sound came through my TV’s speakers with perfect clarity, which ironically felt wrong. Where was the slightly muffled, warm sound of the original hardware? Where was the subtle give of an authentic NES controller’s D-pad that had been worn in through thousands of hours of play? Most importantly, where was the anticipation – that magical moment when you press the power button and wait those few seconds to see if the game actually loads or if you’ll need to perform increasingly desperate cartridge wiggling?
That’s when my descent into original hardware collecting began in earnest. It started innocently enough – just my childhood NES retrieved from my parents’ attic. Then a garage sale SNES in surprisingly good condition for $30. Then a Japanese Super Famicom because “the design is better than the North American version” (it is, fight me). Before I knew it, I had two different Sega Genesis models, a TurboGrafx-16 I’ve used exactly twice, and was justifying to myself why I absolutely needed both a standard PlayStation and a PSone slim. My living room slowly transformed into a museum of gaming history, complete with tangled cords, power bricks, and RF adapters that my cat found irresistible for chewing.
The authentic experience of original hardware goes far beyond mere nostalgia. Take the controllers, for instance. Playing Street Fighter II on anything other than an original six-button Genesis controller feels like sacrilege to me now. There’s a specific resistance to those buttons, a particular click when you execute a perfect dragon punch that no modern controller can replicate. My thumbs have muscle memory that extends back three decades – they know exactly how far to push that Super Nintendo controller’s D-pad to make Mario walk instead of run. When I hold an N64 controller, my hands automatically contort into that bizarre three-pronged grip that somehow made perfect sense in 1996 but looks like an anatomical impossibility now.
Then there’s the display situation. I held onto my Sony Trinitron CRT television long after flat screens became the norm, much to the confusion of everyone who visited my apartment. “Why do you have that old TV?” they’d ask, completely failing to understand that Sonic the Hedgehog simply doesn’t look right without scanlines. Those slight imperfections – the gentle curve of the screen, the barely perceptible scan lines, even the slight magnetic distortion in the corners – they’re all part of how these games were designed to be experienced. Modern displays with their pixel-perfect clarity strip away the technical limitations that developers actually designed around and incorporated into their art.
I finally gave up my precious CRT when I moved in 2018 (the movers wanted to charge me extra for “ancient technology transportation”), but almost immediately regretted it. I spent the next three months hunting for a replacement, eventually finding one being given away by a local community college that was upgrading their AV equipment. I still remember the maintenance guy’s face when I acted like he was handing me the Holy Grail rather than an outdated 27″ Sony that weighed approximately as much as a small rhinoceros. “You know they make better TVs now, right?” he asked as I lovingly secured it in my car. You just can’t explain these things to non-believers.
The rituals associated with original hardware are themselves part of the experience. The specific way you had to insert a cartridge into an NES – down and to the right, never just straight down. The delicate dance of adjusting tracking on a Sega CD. The whispered prayers as a PlayStation’s disc drive made those concerning whirring sounds. These weren’t just technical quirks; they were relationship-building exercises between you and your console. Every successful game load felt like an achievement, a collaboration between human and machine.
Of course, original hardware comes with significant challenges. Maintenance becomes a part-time job in itself. I’ve replaced capacitors on two Genesis consoles, performed emergency surgery on countless cartridge connection pins, and developed a precise technique for cleaning game contacts involving Q-tips and a specific concentration of isopropyl alcohol (91%, never 70% – another hill I will die on). I’ve learned more about electrical engineering through console repair than I ever did in actual engineering classes. The inside of my toolbox looks like a bizarre medical kit for plastic patients – specialized screwdrivers, tweezers, cleaning solutions, and even a soldering iron for particularly desperate cases.
Then there’s the space issue. Original games take up room – a lot of room. What started as a single shelf of NES cartridges has expanded to dominate an entire wall of my home office. My girlfriend has established firm territorial boundaries – gaming stuff cannot migrate beyond designated areas, a rule I’ve tested several times with mixed results. When I brought home a Neo Geo AES (a moment of weakness after an unexpected tax refund), it triggered a serious relationship discussion about “priorities” and “adult decision making.” In my defense, it was an incredible deal that included three games. How could I pass that up?
Emulation offers undeniable advantages that even a hardware purist like me has to acknowledge. The convenience factor alone is staggering – every game immediately accessible without cartridge swapping or disc changing. Save states let you experience games in ways that weren’t possible originally, eliminating the frustration of lost progress or the need to keep a console running overnight because Chrono Trigger didn’t have a save point when mom called you to dinner. Modern emulators offer enhancements like resolution upscaling, texture filtering, and even widescreen hacks that can make classic games look better than they ever did on original hardware.
The accessibility of emulation can’t be overstated either. Not everyone has the space, money, or technical inclination to maintain original hardware. For many, emulation is the only practical way to experience gaming history. When my nephew became interested in “old games” like the ones “from when you were a kid” (thanks for that existential crisis, buddy), I set him up with a Raspberry Pi running RetroPie rather than subjecting him to the quirks of original hardware. His generation is accustomed to instant gratification and pixel-perfect performance – the authentic experience of waiting for a cartridge to load or dealing with sprite flicker might have turned him off entirely.
The legal gray area of ROM distribution remains the elephant in the room. While I own physical copies of most games I emulate, I can’t pretend my entire digital collection meets that standard. The preservation argument is compelling – many games would be lost to time without the emulation community’s efforts. Companies like Nintendo are notoriously aggressive about shutting down ROM sites while offering very limited legitimate access to their back catalog. When the only way to play obscure SNES RPGs like Live A Live was through unofficial means for decades before the recent remake, it’s hard not to see emulation as a necessary cultural preservation tool.
The FPGA revolution represents an interesting middle ground. Devices like the Analogue Super Nt and Mega Sg offer hardware-level recreation of original consoles rather than software emulation, providing authentic gameplay with modern conveniences like HDMI output and perfect compatibility. I bought a Super Nt in 2018, and it’s become my go-to for SNES gaming despite owning two original consoles. It outputs a gorgeous signal to modern TVs while maintaining the exact timing and quirks of original hardware. These devices aren’t cheap, but they bridge the gap between authenticity and convenience in a way that’s incredibly compelling.
Flash cartridges offer another compromise. My EverDrive for the N64 lets me load the entire library onto a single cartridge while still using the original console. It eliminates the hassle of swapping games and protects my original cartridges from wear and tear. For practical weekly gaming, it’s become my primary method for playing on original hardware. There’s something vaguely illicit about it though – the physical act of owning individual games was part of the original experience, and loading everything from an SD card feels like a shortcut, even if it’s perfectly legitimate.
RGB modifications represent the deep end of the authenticity pool. I spent a genuinely embarrassing amount of money having my Genesis, SNES, and even my NES modded for RGB output, then buying expensive SCART cables and a professional-grade converter to connect them to modern displays. The first time I saw Sonic the Hedgehog running in pure RGB was a religious experience – colors I never knew existed in that game suddenly popped off the screen. These modifications push original hardware beyond what was commonly available when the consoles were current, creating a hybrid experience that’s both authentic and enhanced.
Emulation shaders have come a long way in recreating the CRT experience. Modern emulators can simulate scanlines, phosphor glow, and even the slight curvature of CRT displays with remarkable accuracy. I’ve spent hours fine-tuning RetroArch shader settings, trying to recreate exactly how Super Metroid looked on my childhood television. It’s never perfect – something about the way light emitted from a CRT versus being filtered through software on an LCD creates a fundamentally different visual experience – but it’s getting closer every year.
The greatest argument for original hardware isn’t technical – it’s emotional. When I hold that same NES controller I gripped as a child, when I hear the distinctive click of a cartridge locking into place, when I smell the slightly dusty scent of warming electronics as a console powers on, I’m transported across decades. These sensory experiences can’t be emulated. They connect me directly to earlier versions of myself, creating a continuous thread through my life that few other objects can manage.
I’ve settled into a hybrid approach that tries to capture the best of both worlds. Original hardware for cherished favorites and special gaming sessions, emulation for convenience and obscure titles, and FPGA solutions for daily drivers. There’s no wrong way to experience gaming history – whether you’re a hardware purist with a basement full of CRTs or someone who plays exclusively through emulation, what matters is that these games continue to be played, studied, and loved.
That said, if you see a listing for a reasonably priced PC Engine SuperGrafx, please let me know. I promise I can stop collecting any time I want. Really.
