This is not meant as an attack in any way, anyone can obvously buy whatever makes them happy.
I’m just really curious who buys consoles that aren’t that old for such high prices.
I can see the appeal of holding childhood consoles in your hands again, and I can also see the appeal in collecting cool really old stuff. But I struggle to understand why someone would buy e.g. a New 2DS XL for €300 or more.
So just out of curiosity, if you are someone like that, what’s the appeal that makes it worth spending so much money, instead of e.g. just going with a steam deck and an emulator instead?
Edit to avoid confusion: I am not talking about new reproduction systems (like the N64 Mini) or premium emulation/FPGA systems (like the Analogue Pocket or the MISTer), but about original game consoles that aren’t supported any more but also aren’t really old. Something like the DS/3DS, PSP, Wii U, Playstation 3. Some of them are now more expensive in mediocre second-hand condition than they were when they were new.
For DS/2DS/3DS specifically, there is no emulation hardware that has resistive touchscreen, which I think is superior to capacitive for many games. For 3DS, the same thing applies to the 3D capabilities. Additionally, I’m under the impression that 3DS emulation isn’t fully reliable for the full library, but I may be out of date.
TLDR; emulation may not be as feature complete or as quality as original hardware.
The 2/3ds is probably the most easily hackable system there is…
PS Vita takes that cake, no contest. Open the browser, put in a url, you have a fully hacked Vita.
That said, 2/3DS hacking is still ridiculously simple.
good to know!
In general playing games on original hardware is going to be a better experience than running it in an emulator.
Especially in the 3DS family of systems, where so much unique hardware stuff is part of the experience. In an emulator you’re going to miss out on the dual screen, 3D effect, and stylus touch screen.
That’s not even getting into emulator issues with things like slow down, sound issues, or inaccuracies in rendering.
In general playing games on original hardware is going to be a better experience than running it in an emulator.
Tbh, I think that depends. On the 3DS it does make more sense, you are right, especially if you want the 3D effect. That one is really not replicable.
On a New 2DS XL without the 3D effect, I don’t know… Most games I played don’t really use the touch screen a lot (though that obviously depends on the games) and a phone with a portrait-mode controller can replicate the dual-screen quite well.
But yeah, everyone has their own preferences.
I second this – SNES and Gameboy/GBA games run perfectly on emulators in my experience. Those are the platforms that I play. I’d imagine that Genesis and N64 are similar.
These old consoles are 100% better on emulators with stuff like fast forward, save states, upscaling and in the case of the mobile ones, decent screens.
Expensive is relative to income. 300eur is not much money for some. Also, 300eur is cheaper than a steam deck…
Buying a complete product means you don’t have to mess around with emulators not working quite right, and if it doesn’t work, you can just return it. Those two alone are pretty good reasons to get the prebuilt machine.
When it comes to old handhelds, do you replace the batteries? At one point in time I had a PSP battery swell up like a balloon, scary.
Chinese knockoff replacement batteries are always sketchy as hell. Often lying outright about battery specs, and theres always the potential for them to go full samsung.
years ago, ifixit claimed to test their replacement batteries for quality and safety, i dont know if thats still true… but if you’re gonna get a replacement psp battery, I’d get it from there before anywhere else, even if its marginally more expensive.
Retro consoles aren’t my thing, but i have replaced batteries for all kinds of devices, and it’s usually fairly easy to do. Aliexpress et al. have all the batteries you could want, and a little fiddling with some screw drivers and you cam usually get the job done. Fairly safe with some basic common sense as well.
I really need to replace my 3DS XL battery…
…and PS3 controllers actually. Another fire hazard I’ve ignored lol.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Nintendo+3DS+XL+Battery+Replacement/25068 - Looks easy, barely needs a guide.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/DualShock+3+Battery+Replacement/3255 - Definitely doable, although I will say that you should be careful with game controllers, they are often full of springs that will escape and be a complete pain to find and reinstall.
Buying a complete product means you don’t have to mess around with emulators not working quite right, and if it doesn’t work, you can just return it.
Can you return second-hand consoles?
Expensive is relative to income. 300eur is not much money for some. Also, 300eur is cheaper than a steam deck…
True, but I mostly meant relative to other devices you could use instead. The cheapest option would probably to get a phone-attachment controller for maybe €50-100 and connect that to the phone you already have.
Okay, I see we have some confusion, when you said “new retro”, I was thinking of the N64 raspi thing that came out last year. Those did have a manufacturer warranty.
In terms of second hand consoles, yes, no warranty, but, it’s still not messing around with emulators, it should play the games largely as expected.
Phone attached controller might be cheaper, but surely you can see that its a significantly worse experience than a properly built console?
