I worry more about my disc-based systems than my cartridge-based ones, since the disc ones have moving parts.
I think my PS2's DVD drive is almost shot. The original PS2s of course has (unofficial) support for playing games from the hard drive. I think someone has developed something for the dreamcast that lets you play games from a USB stick.
I do agree emulators are great, but there's still something about playing games on the real hardware. I wish more people tried to do hardware-level emulation using FPGAs (especially for the older generations of consoles that were much simpler), but I acknowledge that's probably extremely difficult if not impossible once you get to the PS2 era.
I've pretty much resorted to hacking my old stuff for things that have a drive. Although I think PS2 and Dreamcast you both mention are the only disc based things I can't play on hardware. Those libraries overlap a lot with everything else I have though.
I've been tempted to try to get one of those Analogue pockets if they are ever available. FPGA and the form factor of a ton of different handhelds is sweet. I'm a little wary of game collecting though, trying to get old Nintendo cartridges can be a bit crazy sometimes.
OK those Analogue pockets are pretty damned cool. That's the sort of thing I had hoped would be developed back when the third-party consoles started coming out 10-15 years ago.
People in the emulation scene used to complain that the emulation chips weren't nearly as accurate as the best emulators, and seeing people like kevtris start working on FPGA designs I had hoped it would be more common nowadays.
They are pretty sweet and there's a reason they sold out really quick on a pre-order. I didn't know about them until after the fact or I'd have tried to get one. I've heard great things about their other stuff, but for some reason when it gets as old as cartridges I'm just more attracted to old handheld games.
I worry more about my disc-based systems than my cartridge-based ones, since the disc ones have moving parts.
I think my PS2's DVD drive is almost shot. The original PS2s of course has (unofficial) support for playing games from the hard drive. I think someone has developed something for the dreamcast that lets you play games from a USB stick.
I do agree emulators are great, but there's still something about playing games on the real hardware. I wish more people tried to do hardware-level emulation using FPGAs (especially for the older generations of consoles that were much simpler), but I acknowledge that's probably extremely difficult if not impossible once you get to the PS2 era.
I've pretty much resorted to hacking my old stuff for things that have a drive. Although I think PS2 and Dreamcast you both mention are the only disc based things I can't play on hardware. Those libraries overlap a lot with everything else I have though.
I've been tempted to try to get one of those Analogue pockets if they are ever available. FPGA and the form factor of a ton of different handhelds is sweet. I'm a little wary of game collecting though, trying to get old Nintendo cartridges can be a bit crazy sometimes.
OK those Analogue pockets are pretty damned cool. That's the sort of thing I had hoped would be developed back when the third-party consoles started coming out 10-15 years ago.
People in the emulation scene used to complain that the emulation chips weren't nearly as accurate as the best emulators, and seeing people like kevtris start working on FPGA designs I had hoped it would be more common nowadays.
They are pretty sweet and there's a reason they sold out really quick on a pre-order. I didn't know about them until after the fact or I'd have tried to get one. I've heard great things about their other stuff, but for some reason when it gets as old as cartridges I'm just more attracted to old handheld games.