The olden days......

[Ginsu Victim]

I might have an extra one of those as well. I play all of my 2600 games on the 7800 anyway. (We're both in Oklahoma?)

Claremore,  so not exactly neighbors,  but I've considered going down to Lawton area a couple of times for machine pickups.

Yeah, definitely not neighbors. I've never even been up your way (Sallisaw and Drumwright are about as close as I've ever gotten).

Lawton machines have dried up lately.

[vwalbridge]

But I'd trade them all & probably my brother's soul too to bring the arcades back

How nice of you. 

[dkersten]

Soon as a new system comes out, I very rarely have any interest in playing the old ones ever again.  If the PS4 read DVDRs better, the 360 would have been in the trash a year ago.  Wii and PS3 haven't been touched in almost 2 years.  I've gotten rid of anything older than that.  No ragrets.

This statement would make this entire hobby ironic (or driven purely by nostalgia). 

But it is true for most people.  I didn't stop playing arcade games, Atari, NES, SNES, etc. because the games were bad, I just stopped because something newer, "funner", shinier, better, or just fresher feeling came out.  Plus we grew up as the first generation to get saturated with entertainment.  It got old.  So the newer games were a glimmer of hope that we could get interested again in playing games, but it turned out that we were just sick of playing.  Now after a few years (or decades) of being in the "real world" and not having time to while away our lives playing games, going back to what we remember best is what drives us there.

Granted, it doesn't fit universally.  Some people prefer the older games to the newer games.  I go back because of nostalgia but when it comes down to it, I would rather spend my time playing some Fallout 4 than playing DK.  Doesn't mean I won't fire up a game of DK once in a while (or play through Fallout 2 for a hundredth time), just that the majority of my time is spent on the newer stuff, which I find is often just as good but in a cooler package.  I too go back and watch the same movies sometimes, but more often I watch new ones.  Same with books.  YMMV.

[Howard_Casto]

I never got into the hobby for nostalgic reasons.  I started getting into emulation in the mid 90's, which was the height of the street fighter boom in the arcades.

There are two types of people that collect old junk...... the guy that spends 4k in his 70's for a pedal car he wanted as a child that he obviously can't use or get any enjoyment out of, or the guy that is willing to hunt down an pay a couple of hundred for a metal oscillating fan because the 15 dollar one they sell at Walmart is an ugly, cheap, piece of junk. 

I fall into the second category..... the "they don't build them like they used to" one.  I can't get a lot of enjoyment out of most of the 70's consoles because the games, objectively speaking, weren't all that great, but I can enjoy stuff on the NES, SNES and ect because those games still hold up and the technology advanced enough to where a game designer could actually make the game they wanted to make.  You look at a lot of the genres and just games in general from the 8 and 16 bit era and they are good games that they just don't make anymore. 

That being said, around the 64 bit era is where things get redundant.  Why play Mario 64 when Mario Galaxy 2 plays and looks much better?  I have very little reason to re-visit those newer consoles.  I think the wii is going to be an exception though because of all those zapper games and motion controls.  The old stuff still holds up though..... Mario Maker is really just a mash-up of the old Mario games and Mario Paint and everybody loves it.  But yeah, I'm usually having more fun on the Wii U and Xbox One then on the older stuff. 

[dkersten]

"They don't make them like they used to" is very subjective based completely on your desires. 

I usually see that statement exactly the opposite of how you do: 
They don't make them like they used to.. a new muscle car will have 500+ hp, better gas mileage, better emissions, can go faster, can race better, can drive across the country and back without needing repair, and is safer by an order of magnitude, so now they make them so much better.
They don't make computers like they used to.. now they are faster, smaller, and take less energy to run (by several orders of magnitude).
They don't make games like they used to.. now they have great graphics, real time physics, better interfaces, and are far more in depth than they ever were.

I can keep going on over and over, but the problem is it is all subjective.  Some of the things I find "better" you might see as worse.  Or the things I might find "better" are things you might think are inconsequential.  And we are both right. 

[Howard_Casto]

Not really.  Many things are objectively better.  That metal fan is a prime example.  They used a really good bearing on those things and they were nearly indestructible.  You can run one of those things for 30 years non-stop and they are fine.  Meanwhile if I wake up in the middle of the night an knock my pos fan off the night stand it's probably broke. 

It's the same way with games, but often even more clear-cut.  If you want to play a side-scrolling beat-em-up, for example, you pretty much have to look at the classic consoles and emulation because, aside from a rare exception once in a blue moon, they just don't make them at all period....  forget about making them "better". 

[Token]

I still regularly use some of my great-grandfather's tools. Nothing made in the 2010s will be used by our children.

We live in the age of planned obsolescence.

[BadMouth]

Well if we're bitching about newer games.....
The way most modern games play just doesn't do anything for me.
Most of them feel like a movie playing and I just have to press some buttons to keep the movie going.
Sometimes I mess up and have to repeat a scene.
Whether I've gotten better with practice or have critical thinking skills is irrelevant.
Everything including your ability to hit an enemy is based on mindlessly acquired experience points.
I played through the newer Tomb Raider and enjoyed it from a story and cinematic perspective. 
I played maybe the first half hour of Alan Wake, but it just seemed like more of the same. 
I sank 10 or 20 hours into skyrim before it seemed pointless.  It was just a bunch of "go here do this", again and again.
I accept that other people enjoy this, but it's just not for me.

I played Limbo obsessively until I beat it because the puzzles were enjoyable.
There's a weird game called 140 that I also enjoy because I improve with practice and it also has some puzzle elements.
The other night I stayed up an extra hour trying to beat the level boss on a modern streets of rage knock off because it was challenging.
I will spend an hour or two racing the same damn track (intermediate or advanced) with the same damn car on Ridge Racer 2 because it is challenging.

[dkersten]

Not really.  Many things are objectively better.  That metal fan is a prime example.  They used a really good bearing on those things and they were nearly indestructible.  You can run one of those things for 30 years non-stop and they are fine.  Meanwhile if I wake up in the middle of the night an knock my pos fan off the night stand it's probably broke. 

It's the same way with games, but often even more clear-cut.  If you want to play a side-scrolling beat-em-up, for example, you pretty much have to look at the classic consoles and emulation because, aside from a rare exception once in a blue moon, they just don't make them at all period....  forget about making them "better".

And I could say that a metal blade is dangerous if you have kids, so plastic is far superior if safety is the more important criteria, and the price is higher than ten desk fans that would each last me a few years before breaking and probably be UL listed by todays standards where that old fan probably isn't.  You can certainly say the bearings are going to last longer or that the fan could take more abuse without breaking down.  But you can't claim that those factors are always the most important to all people.  That would be a subjective statement. 

I don't disagree that stuff made several decades ago was built to last, and if you looked in my shop you would find many examples of older tools that I prefer over something newer.  I just can't say that everyone shares my opinion.  A good example would be the Delta Unisaw.  Any experienced woodworker that has used an old one and a new one would tell you that the old one was built better.  I am actually looking at buying a Unisaw right now, and while I am sure I could spend a little more and find one of the old ones that were built stronger, the features of the new versions weigh in just as strong for me so I don't see a reason not to buy a new one.  As a whole, in my opinion they are equal, so the better value for me is the newer one.