What Was "Retro Gaming" Like before It Was Considered Cool? - Retro Bird 

Games Played: Strider (0:01), Power Stone (0:11), Thunder Force III (0:18), Mega Man 2 (0:55), Shining Force II (1:50)

I feel like your videos are so polished, even when your channels only small. I hope you get more popular soon so I can tell stories of before retro bird was popular

"get on my lawn" is my new favorite phrase. Thank you for bringing this joy in to my life. The quality of content your putting out deserves more subscribers.

you're right about how short console generations were back then, things were changing so fast, who would want that old stuff? but I noticed a change in 2002, I was an undergrad and I had my SNES with Super Mario All Stars, it charmed and impressed others because just about everybody had played a mario game at that point.

In our region, companies are transitioning to papee bread bag clips, which while better for the environment, dont survive long enough. As such, i have begun collecting plastic bread bag clips. You were indeed a trailblazer, Retro Bird!

For me personally for a very long time I used to collect just Gamecube games as it was my first console and only console even after the launched of the 360, PS3 & Wii to the point nowadays I have over 80% of the entire North American library. However one day I got an N64 because it was a system that always fascinated me. Had fun with it for a while then a couole years after I got an N64 I later found a model 1 Sega Saturn with one controller and the necessary hookups for & 50 CAD bundled with a North American long copy of Night Warriors Darkstalkers Revenge cib or the game separately for $30.00. At the time I didn't even know what a Sega Saturn was as I never heard of it up to that point. Took it home and after dinner and finished my college homework plugged in that console and had a blast. Would quickly find out however the games were on the console. By the time I started collecting Retro games I think it was already considered cool but for a very long time I was the only person who collected these retro games. Grateful I kept all my GC games from my childhood. Now I'm the cool one in my group because I have most of the best games in the console that are extremely unaffordable to the average person who just wants a few games for the console. :P

My parents were always very big into yard sales when I was younger. I specifically remember people always having Atari, SNES, and NES items that no one wanted. It seemed like you could find them everywhere and they were considered worthless to most people. Crazy

YES! Killer cameo from the fabled bread bag clip collection! And bananas too! This video has everything haha.

In regards to the whole "being too old for something" here's one of my favorite quotes: "I think that inside every adult is the heart of a child. We just gradually convince ourselves that we have to act more like adults." ーShigeru Miyamoto

For me the term 'retro gaming' started being a thing at the end of the PS2 era. Up until then what are considered retro games were still being sold and played. The n64 would even connect to the gameboy games. They were still relevant in some way.

I'll be honest I didn't really think about what it meant to play older games until fairly recently like within the past few years. If a game was older but fun then I enjoyed playing it, I didn't really get too sentimental about it. I sort of took for granted the notion of preservation and having the ability to play these games. Now I see it as something that needs to be maintained so that everyone can as you say "get on our lawn."

Personally I was always kindof a generation behind all my friends. Being in a poor family we always got the games and consoles at the end of their respective generations as stores would clear them out, but that also means that I was jealous when I went over to my buddies and they were playing DKC or Starfox and all I had was Mega Man 4 and RC Pro Am. I think that's what made me appreciate them more, just not having access to the latest and greatest made me enjoy what I had, instead of the latest trend.

I got into retro gaming circa 2008-2009. What triggered it was my realization that I obsessed over the GBA during it's lifespan, yet being a kid, only managed to sucker my parents into buying me about 7 titles. I was about 3 years removed from high school in 08, and now able to buy my own toys. RU-vid gave me plenty of recommendations on just how many awesome titles I missed out on. Great content as always, Retro Bird!

Excellent video. 42 years old here. Never stopped playing older games. Wore it as a badge of honor actually. Although, I did get into newer consoles as generations progressed, did get laughed by friends and family at many times for dusting off my older consoles when they came by. Began collecting in the mid '90s when i was in high school. I would have been one of those kids who traded away his wares had my dad (RIP) not stopped me at the door the first time that I tried to take a box of my old games to trade for pennies on the dollar at Funcoland. I credit him with getting me to start keeping my games and then I became a game hoarder and the rest is history. My collection even outlived my marriage; although, we used to throw game parties and would have our friends from college come by. By then, the Retro craze had taken hold. Used to hate the word "retro" when it was first being used in association with gaming as it sounded too trendy but, i'm happy that younger folks are playing older games now. Keeping them alive! I do want one of those "Get Off My Lawn" hats though. Lol.

Freshmen year of college (2004), my neighbor in the dorm room would invite his friends over to play Goldeneye. They would play only wearing there whitey tighties and called it “bonding with Bond.” I thought it was awesome but everyone else on my floor thought they were weird.

Random: "Why do you play old games?" RetroBird: "Why do you hate life? 🤣🤣🤣 I lost it.

I get so excited when I see your new vidz, keep up the awesome work yeeee

I know its a small part but I love the continuity with the banana and bread clip jokes. classic.

I am profoundly delighted to report that there was never any stigma around playing old video games among my friends and I. We would go to each other's houses and get a chance to play retro games on systems we never owned. We would trot out our Super Nintendos and Sega Genesisiseses and PSones with pride and geek right out. I'm so grateful for that.

I got into Retro Gaming in the early 2010s. I was a late kid/early teen, so I'm glad I was able to get some favorite games before they got expensive 😅. RU-vidrs who were into older games actually got me interested it in back then.

It was cool

Im 39 years old, i never sold anything, kept all my childhood friends and now have a son of my own. Atari, coleco nes genesis and snes have always been major parts of my life, and my social interaction. Saturn, playstation, jaguar, 3do all seemed half cooked and not that great, so a lot of trust in the industry was broken as i simply continued what i always loved, n64 had a few killer titles but it was quickly clear it was just good at like 3 different things, and that the software couldnt match the hardwares ability, after that everything just continues to try to be overly immersive, and way too long... ive continued to stay with what worked and continued to play it side by side, on a couch with the same people i was doing it with four decades ago. Needless to say, i still get the most guests, and nobody has ever thought it was weird. Then again, we also still think throwing frisbees and playing with action figures is perfectly normal adult activity, so maybe we just got lucky. Online only friends arent real friends, hell they might not even be real people. Also, if they win, how will you be able to confirm if they are or arent cheating???

I can remember going to stores that sold used games back between 2004-2008 and you could find just about anything for dirt cheap. I mean entire shelves and isles of retro games for less than 10 bucks each. You could buy a handful of Super Mario World cartridges for the price one cartridge goes for today. Stores back then had so many retro games and consoles in stock that they didn't know what to do with them. People weren't buying them and were instead tossing them out of their closet. Nothing was behind glass cases either. Even stacks of copies of Mega Man X2 and X3 sat on a normal shelf with everything else. Good times. lol

I honestly think that AVGN (of course back then he was known as angry Nintendo nerd) had a lot to do with the resurgence in popularity of older games, at least with the general population. But my brother and I were way ahead of the curve, still playing and collecting for the NES and N64 mostly well into the 2000’s. We had one of those big Tupperware bins full of carts that we never payed more than a couple of bucks for. But alas, after I had moved out for a couple years he sold most of the games only hanging on to a selection of our favorites. My heart broke at this revelation so he gave me everything he hung onto because he felt bad about not discussing the decision with me. So it’s become somewhat of an obsession getting most of that stuff back (with some additional games of course). Most of it has been replaceable for not too much money, still WAY more than we payed back then, except we had a copy of Zombie Nation that will probably never be replaced… not at its current value. WOW that was a rant, sorry. In short, it’s always been cool IMO 😎

Sadly, I was born in 2007 and by the time I was capable to buy retro games the prices are crazy! I have been collecting for awhile now and it’s just kinda been stagnating for months.

It was high school, 2004-'08 and I was still bringing the 64 and SSB to school on late start days with a portable DVD player for a screen. Back in the day, it wasn't seen as retro, it was more that everybody knew that SSB was awesome. Sometimes toward the end of high school, I'd bring the Wii and Brawl but people definitely respected the game for what it was back then. Plus, most of us had nostalgia for it.

I was born in 1996 and I was always into video games one my earliest memories with was playing Streets of Rage 2 on the Sega Genesis new or old didn't matter as long it was a video I was interested

Was Retro Bird like before it was considered cool to sub to him? Just kidding. He's always been awesome and great to see such explosive growth in those sub numbers! Keep it up!

Happy about the banana content

My most memorable story is my aunt telling my mom did my brother and I want their old Nintendo collection. Mind you this was right on the heels of the PS2 being two or three years old at this point, I jumped at the chance since we only had 4 games. They had like 22 or 23. So I literally spent 5 to 10 mins with just about every game to figure out which ones I really wanted to dig into. And then I fell in love with a game called Rescue. We also played athletic world since we used to play that with my older cousins when I was little at their get togethers.

This Channel is golden, very underrated.

We call it retro because we don't want to call it classic yet. Anyone who's at least in their thirties knows the horror they felt when Nirvana was on the classic rock station.

In 2003 me and a buddy printed an complete list of all the snes games released and went through it and circled all the games we wanted (about 20 each)and went pawn shopping and found them all locally. We still have them and play them. Probably $3-$8 each

An orange picker is a deadly weapon, no lie detected.

I left high school in 94 and by the end of 95 I was talking my driving test and looking to getting a car - so out went my snes, megadrive, megadrive cd and 32x as I was now growing up and not playing kids games anymore! Fast forward to 97 and I thought the n64 looked awesome, but consoles were for kids? In 99/2000 I picked up a brand new N64 with mario 64 for £50 at a catalogue clearance shop and loved it - as people moved on to ps2/game cube, N64 titles were cheap as chips only costing a few pounds for a used game. I then bought a super nintendo again (and later a megadrive), but for a few years it seamed like everyone was only interested in the new and latest consoles and I was enjoying these older systems and older games for a few pounds each. This time in the early 2000's was the best to me - it felt like my own little secret hobby, that now everyone knows about!

I think the reason why older games were considered old was because of the graphics. I think people just assumed better graphics meant it was a better game. Meaning old 8bit NES games were seen as outdated and you were seen as weird to still be playing them. 4:29-4:35 yeah, those are called RU-vid thumbnail faces now. LOL Screw graded games, it's time to invest in bread bag clips.

Over the last few years, I have started collecting vintage picture books with quality art from my childhood, but also from the 60s to early 2000s. Some people think it is a bit weird, but I love these amazing stories and pictures! I have bought 95% of them for very little

Haha I have two 35 year old cars that were considered shit back in the 90s and now I can't drive them anywhere without compliments and tons of questions (some of which are just amazement as to how a Hyundai from 1987 hasn't a trace of rust on it). Fun times! Uncle Ted from Bobby's World said it the best - "keep something around long enough and it won't go out of style". I guess? I just like driving them ;)

I was definitely a retro gamer before the label materialized. I remember during my first year of university (in 2001) moving to a new city, and bringing all my video game systems with me to the room-in-a-house I was renting: the NES, the SNES, and the PlayStation 1. Even though I had one of the newer systems with some great games, all my roommates wanted to play was Blades of Steel for the NES. At least one night a week on a Friday or Saturday, we would grab a case of beer and just play Blades of Steel all night. Sometimes when I hang out with those guys again, we’ll fire up the ol NES and marvel at the the fact the Nintendo’s red “on” light hasn’t burnt out after 35 years.

Ah the only good thing about growing up poor in poor schools Most of the time when I played NES and other old consoles when I was in high school in the early 2000s people thought it was cool. But I think that has to do with the fact that most of the kids I knew could never afford the newest consoles. I mean sure one kid would get a PS2 or and Xbox but most of the time we were still rocking original game boys at the time. I didn't even get a PS1 till the PS2 was out lol and I didn't even get an original gameboy till like 2000 or so,and I was stoked to be able to play it. Great video as always keep up the interesting videos man.

Retro gaming stigma almost makes less sense than regular gaming stigma! Entertainment can still be enjoyable, new and old!

I’m 25 and I grew up playing PS1, PS2, OG Xbox, PS3, PSP, DS, Gameboy, and the Wii most people in my generation considered those console to be retro.

Found your channel yesterday, top notch love it!

I definitely prefer to call it retro gaming as opposed to vintage gaming. Cause the word vintage in the world of gaming is mostly used as a buzzword on online listings to justify asking for too much for your copy of Sonic 2.

There was a retro scene such as atari age in 2008 but normal gamers certainly thought it was weird to play old games. I told someone I liked shmups in 2008 and their reaction was why would you even play something like that.

Back in 2003 I was about 27 years old. I was working in a factory and some 18 year old kid worked in the cad department. I had never seen an emulator before. The kid was playing Zelda for the NES. I thought to myself why the hell would anyone want to play that? I was showing the kid where everything was hidden in the game. It sparked my interest in old games so I hunted down a SNES. I didn't know it at the time but that was the start of me retro collecting. I have close to 1000 games now.

I don't imediatelly discard older music (in fact, I do enjoy some older pieces), but I prefer what can be done with modern technology. Digital synths and drums especially. And vocals being cristal-clear (the older a track is, the more eco it tends to have). The best way to ilustrate this? Someone puts on an old favorite: "Ain't no Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrel. Me: Puts on the cover by Freischwimmer and Dionne Bromfield. Take an older song that was pretty good to begin with and make it sound 100x better. One of favorite pieces of music, and DEFINITELY my number 1 pick for "Best Covers Ever Made". The best of older music and modern music combined into a near-perfect 3 minute track.

40 Years old. Over 25 years of Collecting Remember how cheap the 8 bit/16 bit stuff was Back in the late 90s early 2000. Especially Mega Drive here in Europe. Nobody wanted them! I bought everything i could with my first Money. Because i love Videogames Collecting and it was Cheap. Back then i allways got that weird Looks because i collected that "Old" stuff nobody wanted. Collecting Videogames in generall was a totaly strange thing to do.

Big factor of stigma of old games through the 90s at least was video game companies themselves. They pushed so hard for the latest and greatest hardware and only losers play old stuff was in so much adventising. The opening of Donkey Kong Country is almost a microcosm of this mentality.

for me retro became visible and affordable in 2017 when I bought my first megadrive :D I really thought I am weird buying such old stuff, what did I know about it being COOL by then.... (but in a year I somewhat realized that it's gonna blow ... and here we are, I can't afford most games I would buy and play :D )

Eh, I don't know it was ever considered cool. I had an NES and loved it. Then I got a Genesis. Then a Playstation, which broke and since I was low on money and my AC wasn't working I started trawling local stores and bought my second NES. I fell in love all over again. My friends thought I was crazy. But they always found a reason to come over and sit on the couch and grab a controller. In the sweltering heat. Retro games, in my opinion, are simply more inviting, pick up and play sort of thing. Co OP is awesome, but you could pass the controller around for say Mega Man 2. It just works. I take out Wood Man, you beat Crash Man, we have a few drinks and rip on each other. It was fun. I do think it shifted somehow when GTA got big. Everything old was dumb all the sudden. Tonally it shifted. I like horror movies, but I think the Jerk is hilarious. Best of both worlds.

And thus, my new twitch channel, Rumchunder Gaming, was born...

Great content as always :D

Retro gaming in the late 90s was just buying old crap. I bought Earthworm Jim 2 for the PS1 when we were in the flow of quality 3D games. I got laughed at for buying it! This was the same time when I started buying SNES stuff that I previously sold. I bought a brand new Mega Drive very cheap. It was only the previous console generation but times had changed and people only wanted new stuff. Fast forward a few years when I was at uni. People were warming to playing 16bit games again. I remember two pubs at that time that had a SNES and Mario Kart. It was students enjoying their childhood stuff as young adults and my 16bit games were considered cool again... although not cool enough to hike up the prices yet. It was a niche novelty thing at that point that young adults understood.

I got into this when it was cheap, actually I got into this BECAUSE it was cheap. Since the begining and to this day I only get games on deals or trades. Even non functioning stuff since it tends to cost a lot less this way. I just got a couple of broken Sega Genesis with 3 malfunctioning controllers and 2 games that just needed some cleaning and soldering for 20 bucks. It took 4 hours of my time and 7ish dollars on materials to got it all back to life, just ready for trades. It has been dry lately tho, now everybody knows old videogames can worth something.

Happy Console Gamer, Happy Video Game Nerd, Alpha Omega Sin, Classic Game Room and CGR Undertow, The Spoony Experiment, Angry Video Game Nerd, You Can Play This, Game Sack, old uploads of G4tv. If you wanted to learn about older consoles and games, RU-vid had you covered.

Great vid man and it looks you have at least one banana nut muffin grade banana there. As for playing old games buying current gens, it's never been an issue. I'm guessing b/c it was mainly arcade kind of stuff like fighters like X-Men vs SF or run and guns like Metal Slug whenever I games w/friends and even so they were like minded if you will. As for other retro stuff, I know a few people wonder why I play classic games but most of them get it

My dad got me a ZX Spectrum for Christmas 1990 when I was 6. My older brother had left home and had a Sega Mega Drive which made me really want to play games too. I hated that Spectrum for being so old. I don't know what happened to it, but I wish I still owned it.

You're a real treasure Retro Bird. Keep the family friendly format. I love it ❤

Can you do a video of you just dancing with the Genesis games? I remember buying an NES in the year 2000 because I never had one as a kid and the systems and games were so cheap! But sadly only kept them around for a few years when I needed money for some other hobby. I think the wii shop channel may have helped people remember games they used to love. Keep up the great videos!

I was born in 1995, me and my family just some older systems so i play them. I don't really remember how i got into gaming back then. So i can't really think of any stories.

Probably there just were people who didn't want to sell their games and continued playing those for years.

As someone who got into collecting just moments before the prices went through the roof, I can confirm that folks like AVGN almost single-handedly established the modern conception of a “retro-gamer” and kicked off the collecting boom. As far as just playing old games, discovering emulators around 2009 may still be the single most revelatory moment in my gaming life. I’d always been invested in the historicity of games, but as a kid the the odds of ever owning more than one console was exactly 0%. Every stray PS1 game I came across, I treasured like a precious relic of a bygone era. To suddenly be exposed to so many masterpieces in such a short window through emulation was just unreal. Incidentally, this was a really well put together video!

Oh man, if only I could go back to the days where all the old games cost a few bucks. ... You know, this video made me think back to being a huge Earthbound fan and in the earlier days of the internet, feeling like there was only a very small group of people who loved the game and that it was almost forgotten. The world felt smaller and eventually I realized oh wow no, I'm absolutely not the only one that loved that game.

Another great video, also can I point out at 222 upvotes and ZERO downvotes is so rare to see, that's awesome !

Dude you only have 16,400 subs? That is going to EXPLODE over the next year I bet. This channel is on fire. Like your hair. And bananas flambé.

I got into this hobby back in 2009 and although it was kinda cool then, it wasn't nearly as cool as it is now. Thanks for making it even cooler!

Before retro gaming was considered "cool", there were no romhacking communities 😕

For me it feels like the shift was somewhere around 2010, but that might be because that's when I was an adult, much more confident and I didn't give a crap anymore about bullies who looked down on those who play any video games, let alone old ones. Also by that time we got the Virtual Console and youtube shows such as AVGN and their popularity alongside the forums really made it feel like I was not alone anymore.

Retro bird and Happy Console Gamer confirmed 👍👌

This channel needs more subscribers!! Best gaming channel ever!!

I love how you call these retro games an artefact. And that's what they are. Programmers busted a gut to put these out there, and they are a snapshot of the time when they were created. It's fascinating to look at it from that angle. Especially when you get to know the background to some of these franchises.

Born in '88, I grew up on the Commodore64 and Atari2600. I got a model 2 Genesis at about 6-7 yrs old and the cool kids were all talking about the SNES and how they already had a Model 1 Genesis and it was old news. I would still play C64 and Atari games into my early teens and I was considered a loser for it. With the short console life spans, I would trade in and trade up. Owned a PS1, PS2, PS3, Gameboy Color, GBA, Nintendo DS, Game Gear, Dreamcast, N64, Gamecube, Xbox360, and Wii all at one point or another. The one thing I did right was to keep my Atari2600 collection all these years.

I played my Dad's Intellivision in the late 80s. And it was brutal - basketball was hard to tell which basket your player was supposed to go to, Kool-Aid man was creepy but the controller was fun - the buttons were fun to press and it was shiny. I still have it all these years later. Games were the same for me back then too - Super NES came out and I just packed away the NES and moved on. No point in playing the older stuff when new stuff was coming out. I feel Video games in their early years are the same as movies were in their infancy - people literally threw away film after a movie was done - mainly because of the volatile nitrocellulose used in early films - it could combust and burn entire studios down.

So when I was playing Wonder Boy in Monster land back in the day it was totally different than when I play it now. When I was a kid, video games seemed like a huge World you can immerse yourself into. I wasn't good at this game when I was a kid because I lacked knowledge, I found the game really hard. The games themselves because you had nothing to compare it to. You thought these were the absolute best and the graphics were amazing. Games felt like they were really long. Like hours upon hours. When the Sega Genesis came out. I remember not owning one at first. My friends had bought one at the time. Again as a kid you are really more immersed with these video games. I remember they had Golden Axe, NHL hockey & Sonic. When they showed me these games for the 1st time. I was really impressed, I didn't want to play my Sega Master System anymore because these newer games left such a huge impression on me. Nhl the first time they had instant replay in a game, fights looking realistic. Sonic Big leap from Super Mario Bros. Then Golden Axe where I was impressed with all the fighters and the Dragon magic. So it was around 1992. I had gone back to play Wonder Boy in Monster land. It felt old and we are only talking like 4 years gone by. I felt like man this game looks like crap it's not like the Sega Genesis games I have experienced. Of course now I don't think that way. I think all the retro games are special and really good.

Imagine if you will, the scent of 30 smoked cigarrettes, cheap beer, cheaper whiskey, and a half-eaten pizza in a dorm room in north-eastern NJ on a Friday or Saturday night, circa 1999. Boredom, loneliness, and pre-mature balding have driven a young man to a buggy Windows 98 computer prone to crashing. The software of choice tonight is the Nesticle NES emulator - the mere vessel for the young man's primary drug of choice for this night - The Adventures of Lolo (and many other NES puzzle games)

For what it’s worth to newer (younger?) retro gamers. Back when these systems were on the market, they weren’t called “NES”, “SNES”, and “PS1”. I hear some some RU-vidrs use those terms and while I get that those are NOW commonly understood by gamers and collectors, it flags them as talking “before my time” kinda. Not implying Bird is a noob. I was actually thinking of 2 other channels that I shall not name. Back then, the NES was called “Nintendo”, the SNES was called “Super Nintendo”, the Sega Genesis was just “Genesis”, and the PS1 was called “the PlayStation”. It wasn’t until the PlayStation 2 came out that I started hearing the term “PS2” and “PS1”. When you went to play your console you were playing the “Nintendo” or the “Super Nintendo” or the “Genesis”. Nobody specified the Sega part because it was understood. Just thought as a genX’er I’d share that in case some collectors find that trivia interesting.

I don't know if this is just because I'm fairly young but retro gaming never seemed (un-cool) Yes there was the occasional person making fun of me for my newest PlayStation being the PS2 In 2021 But I don't care. If Retro gaming actually became un-cool I would still be playing them.

What it was was CHEAP. I recall getting Zelda and Zelda II with original neon Nintendo plastic cases at Cash Converters for like $8. And boy, did I buy every copy. Thrift stores had them too, so did flea markets. I'd play it with my girlfriends into the mid 2000s, and the prices started to go up then already.

As a kid I never got a gaming console. My parents always thought it would turn my brains into mush. Every year I would ask for one but never got it. What I do have was my own old pc. When the first pentium computers got the newest games, I played Wolfenstein, Doom and Commander Keen on my old 486. So when I was a kid, I always played older games. This changed when I got to the age I supposed to be an adult. I got my own appartment, so looked online on Craigslist for some cheaper furniture. And all i saw, was free old games. In some ads they dared to say they would take them to the trash if no one showed up a week later. So I began to adopt these puppies, before they would be demolished. After a year I got a NES, Snes, Master System and multiple Genesis. My innerchild was just glowing. But beside videogames, I found a lot of cds and dvds. They were just throwing them away. I once got a 900 piece cd collection from someone for just 50 bucks. When I asked why, the only response was Spotify. When I loaded the car, I laughed and said "You will be sorry". Few months later, he rang me up. If he could buy his old collection back. Spotify deleted his favourite album. No can do sir. Just remember, some day everything will be retro.

Back in 2009, I had a friend in a punk rock band. I went to his and his bandmates' house once and noticed an N64 with 4 controllers hooked up and the MK64 cartridge inserted. He told me he and his bandmates would often have Mario Kart parties and order pizza and play for hours. I didn't say anything disparaging but thought to myself, why in the world would they still be playing MK64? The DS version is the definition of perfection! I guess the takeaway from that story is, within the casual audience, retro gaming was cool, but if you were a real gamer then you would know better. At least in this anecdotal scenario. xD My friends and I always played current-gen, and left the old behind. I didn't start getting interested in the older systems until post-college post-kid etc. and life started settling down.

Today's esports / games are overcomplicates , require to adquire knowledge on characters features , weapons, etc. Etc. , average game 30+ characters that you can to chose , so , maybe want to contract a trainer , include games of easy mechanics like FPS CSGO, there is too many little secrets , overspread of maps etc. You need the ability to recognize real life photographic like scenes, in real time to recognize the enemy camouflage and react within 0.1sec. Etc etc.

you were weird for playing mariokart 64 in 2006. you should have been playing double dash :P in fairness, battle mode in double dash wasnt as good as in 64

Love your channel dude. It can sometime makes me feel less old.

I mainly just stopped selling my games after 1994. Then I was working at a used game store and started buying systems that I had sold long ago. Man, I had smaller paychecks because of that.

I've never held a belief that newer is better and have always played games I consider good regardless of their age. To put this in perspective in the last 3 months I've played Balders Gate 3(PC), Mortal Kombat 1(PS5), Live a Live(Switch), Super Mario Bros 1/2/3(NES),Super Mario World(SNES), Super Mario 64(N64), Castlevania(NES). Earlier this year leading up to Final Fantasy 16 I ran through the other 13 non MMO games mostly on their original systems. I have been that way since the mid 90s when I started gaming.

Yea bro, your bread bag clip collection you keep flaunting ain't got nothing on my twisty tie collection! Twistie tie = Cool. Bread bag clips = not cool!!!!!!

Maaaan playin obsolete games was the story of my life growing up. Born in 1988 to a pair of video game Luddites who for no particular reason already owned but did not very much play an NES with super Mario bros 1 and 3, and jeopardy. At least while the SNES and GENESIS were in their heyday it was cheap to rent NES games so that’s what we did. My bro snagged a used Genesis in 1998 with a handful of games including perhaps the best 16 bit game of all time, ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES! Played the crap out of it. Then in 2000 while most kids pestered their rich parents to replace their Sony playstation with the new PS2 I took my leaf-raking money and bought a used SNES with Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island and a game I had been coveting for years, Megaman X. Long story short I didn’t own an ‘up-to-date console’ till the last dying days of the PS2 and I was in grade 12. Old games were never cool, I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about it, it was super embarrassing but I loved every second playing those games!

I used to wait until consoles hit the bottom of their popularity. A system usually cost $50, and games would be $5-20. I could usually play the best titles on any given system for less than $200 altogether. It's weird seeing games I spent a few bucks on going for hundreds today.

It was fun......oh and cheaper!

Ive been playing games when it was just a boy thing to do isolated in my bedroom. Thankfully things have changed for the better. Video games should be enjoyed by everyone regardless of gender.

I'm a throwback gamer, and have a picture of me and my cousins playing SNES in 2001.

For me it was a combination of a few things: 1) One of my best friends who I played regularly with never moved on from the N64; he would play more up to date games but never bought a new console afterwards. As such we would still play Goldeneye etc during the PS2/GameCube generation so that kept me playing older games into my mid to late 20s. 2) Compilations of older games on more modern systems. Things like Sonic Mega Collection allowed me to revisit older games that I’d loved as a kid but in a more convenient way on later systems. This lead me to realise that if a game is good it is always good regardless of how it might now look. 3) Wii Virtual Console. When I got a Wii back in 2009 it was the VC that got me on board. Here I had a cheap way of revisiting games that I’d either once owned but had traded away, played but never owned, always wanted but never got around to buying or still owned but didn’t have access to at the time. When I look back on that first rush of games I downloaded nearly all of them fit into one of those groups. I think it was at that point that ‘retro gaming’ because ‘acceptable’ as it was accessing older games through the convenience of a modern system. It also made me eventually dig out my older systems that were at my parents’ house and they are still set up and played regularly today.

The Original Game Boy will always be considered old & not cool. To this day people who see me play the Green Screen of Death walk over to me & ask, "What is that?" It's a Nintendo Game Boy, I would reply. "Are you sure? It's not even in color!" You know who loves my Game Boy? My little grand daughter who is not even one yet! I just lay on the bed & prop her up, so she can watch me play. Now I get to play my Game Boy way over my 20 minutes! It's a win win!! Possible Future Retro Player?

I was using emulators in the 90's long before it was cool and very underground. There was even an N64 Emulator released that played Mario64 at decent framerates on modern computers with VoodooFX cards at the time. When the N64 was at the height of it's popularity. UltraHLE was the name I believe.

Dancing Genesis Retro Bird. :-) soo good. 10-15 years ago almost nobody cared about old 90s Pinball Machines and Video Games and Arcades. No touchscreen-no interest. Prices were low and collecting was fun. Now that EVERYBODY thinks its cool, niceeeeee...(Get on my lawn) ,but... Prices are no longer affordable for a lot of people today...AND takes away a little of the Nerd factor also. Glad i have almost all Games i had or wanted as a Kid. Whatever. Happy Gaming everybody!!!

Retro gaming before it was cool was just not being able to afford the modern consoles. I had my Genesis until 2000

If you have/haven’t already and or have the means to do so by all means make a “get on my lawn” line of hats and I’m sure not only myself but many others would be interested. Give variety too snapbacks and flex fits, please and thank you

Today, as we have information so easily, it's clear that older games almost always found their ways to then current gen consoles. I remember even back then, compilations like Super Mario All-Stars, Ninja Gaiden Trilogy, I found those older games so charming and amazing to be able to play them on another console. Playing SMS games on the Mega Drive with the Power Base Adaptor was amazing, even as a kid, it never bothered me that it was "older", strangely, I had this "it shouldn't be happening, which makes it much more interesting" feeling. Atari games found their way to SNES/MD and later PS1, etc, a lot of NES games were brought to the PS1, Namco classics, all 6 Mega Man games, there was even a Japanese only compilation for Sunsoft games. One day, there was this CD-R that I tried and it had an obscure NES emulator for the PS1, a few games had graphical glitches, but others played OK, there was even a SMB hack in which you played as Link.

Growing up in the 90s my father used to take me to the arcades and had me playing the classics. Now that I'm in my 30s I collect and restore them. I have come to learn that I enjoy fixing them and watching people play them more than playing them myself. Gaming is a gift that is much appreciated.