Intensive Gaming Diary

Blog about different aspects of retro and new video games.

Category: Gaming Technology

All Original Xbox Games I Own That Are Playable On Series X

Posted on by Viljami

I have exactly only nine original Xbox games that are backwards compatible with my Xbox Series X. There are only 63 games in total out of every almost 1000 Xbox games that are backwards compatible. These games that I own are Black, Manhunt, Dead or Alive 3, Dead to Rights, Max Payne 1 and 2, Oddworld Munch’s Oddysee, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Full Spectrum Warrior.

The fact that you can play these games with a modern hardware seems amazing to me. Owning a working original Xbox would be another way to get to play these games. The controller of modern Xbox just feels much better than the original Xbox’s controller. You don’t have to concern yourself with poor video output quality or a need to use an adapter to get an HDMI out of your gaming console. The poor quality of original Xbox’s can lead you to buy many Xbox consoles if you aren’t able to repair them by yourself. But what kind of a gaming console would last over twenty years and still work? After all the device would need some maintenance.

Now I have tens, maybe even over a hundred, original Xbox games. I have had to move some of them to storage as I have had issues with consoles getting to malfunction. I have a broken original Xbox and also a Xbox 360. The issue with my Xbox might have had something to do with a broken condenser. These things can start to leak and cause some internal damage. The symptoms were that the console wouldn’t turn off. I had to unplug the power cord just to shut down the console. Otherwise it worked fine. The problem I had with my Xbox 360 was that it didn’t read any game discs no more. This was caused by some dust that had gotten into the console. I tried to solve the issue with compressed air but didn’t eventually succeed.

Over twenty years old gaming console can have many different issues. These devices aren’t actually today made to last tens of years. I don’t think that software developers and manufacturers of electronics were really thinking in the future for such a long period. This is somewhat understandable. Today there is this scene of old games that can inspire you in many ways if you just find yourself spending some time with them. After all there are so many games and so many systems to explore. This richness should be truly acknowledged.

Xbox Series X supports many Xbox 360 games also. There are 632 games out of a total of 2155 games that are playable. What happens when we move always to more modern consoles? Are we forgetting our past? Although the original Xbox can be emulated it seems today to be a difficult task while we are already seeing emulators that you can play Xbox 360 games with on our PCs. My current PC system just isn’t powerful enough to operate an emulator of this kind. The emulators name is Xenia.

What Makes You a Good Video Game Player?

Posted on by Viljami

What it takes to be a good video game player? You can be a professional level player or a casually playing person. Anyways we are going to go through some matters that can make you a better video game player. There has been a lot of talk about the limits of aged people and how you cannot be an eSports star if you are over 27 years old. This does have an impact but the matter is more complicated than this at least in my opinion.

You can be a single player gamer or you can be playing multiplayer games. Many of these points that we are dealing in this blog post have an impact on both of these ways of playing video games. Lets start to go through these facts right now.

You can have a long history in video games. This makes you familiar with all the games you have played in your whole lifetime. You might not have such good reflexes but you might just have developed very deep skills in some game or genre of games. When you are good at say FPS games you can be successful just by concentrating well.

Sometimes games do require a proper controller. Yuo might need a racing wheel and pedals or maybe you need a mouse and a keyboard to play some video game. Having skills in using this special controller can give you an edge. I have noticed that some people can have difficulties using a game-pad if they are used to using keyboard and a mouse. I have actually the opposite problem – I am not so good as a video game player when I don’t use a game-pad.

Concentration and tiredness have an impact on how you perform as a video game player. At least for your health you should make sure that you sleep enough and have some exercise at times. Also you can keep in mind that your concentration doesn’t last for unlmited time so you have to take breaks so you can have a better concentration level.

Being young has a positive impact on your performance as a video game player. You have better reflexes. You learn quicker. When you start playing young you are probably a master in many ways when you become a bit older. I also learned a lot of English when I was playing some PlayStation and PC games when I was a teenager. I am actually from Finland.

Being a quick learner gives your performance a boost. Also knowledge of technology can give you an advantage. You can know some programming or some other sort of computer science knowledge. I have noticed that even when the game is not totally an open source game I do notice some things here and there that can give me an advantage.

Cheating is of course something that you can use if nothing else works. This gives you same kind of an advantage like if some sport competitionist would use doping. It kind of takes the point out of competing. Creating cheats for a game can be also technically intereting as is also making any mods out of a video game that already exists.

You can also understand a lot about games and the platform, or the console, that you are playing with. Remember also that there is an element of luck also. Many things in video games are totally random. This makes you sometimes have to try to play your run in a game over again. This can be annoying and can make the experience just a bit repetetive.

Building Your Own Steam Based PC Setup

Posted on by Viljami

This article is here to introduce to you an idea and also an alternative to something I have achieved here with my Raspberry Pi 5. I am talking about an alternative to Recalbox. This means a PC system, maybe a mini PC one, that is running also Steam. With this kind of setup it would be possible to run any game that you own through Steam. Lets begin!

What I did earlier was that I setup a Raspberry Pi 5 as a retro gaming device. I connected it to my 4K television. This system is good. Its biggest flaw in my mind is that it is not a legit device to play your retro games on. What would be a nice solution is a sort of personal computer that you have a Linux OS running in it and you could also play Steam games on it this way.

Raspberry Pi 5 is a powerful computer. However if you really want something powerful you could get yourself a mini PC that might have something like 32 GB of RAM, a proper CPU and maybe a GPU and also some disk space like for example 2 TB of SSD. As system like this can cost above 1000 or even 1500 euros. This would however be noticed as a totally legit device. It would enable you to play any PC game that you have bought through Steam.

One solution to which operating system you could use for a project like this would be Bazzite. It is a Fedora based Linux distro that can run Steam. Just search for Bazzite through your favorite search engine. I also watched a video on YouTube about this. The video was TechDweebs “This is a fun project!”. You can watch it for some more inspiration. Of course you can find it from YouTube.

If you have a Raspberry Pi 5 or some earlier one you can also try to install some other Linux distro and also play games through Steam. There are many distros available. Just remember that even Raspberry Pi 5 has limited power and doesn’t run the latest games. However it is possible to play many games that don’t have such demanding system requirements. You can also consider getting a real Steam Deck handheld console that is priced somewhere between 600 € to 840 euros. There are ways to hook up Steam Deck to your televsiion.

I wrote this blog post just to remind you of some ways that you can achieve a nice experience while playing your favorite video games. There are many alternatives to Recalbox. I think you will find the right way just for you. You might even want to buy some older game collections for your latest console or maybe you want the original retro hardware. The choice is always yours and there are lots of choices available!

What Are Some Reasons to Play Older Games?

Posted on by Viljami

First it has to be said that there are many reasons to play also older, or to use the right term, retro games. In this blog post I am going to explain and give some reasons that I and many others still play so to say old games. While there are many reasons to still play these games there are also reasons to play the newest games instead.

There are many things that have advanced in gaming technology. Happenings are processed more quickly since there is more memory to be used. Also, we have seen larger games. They contain more details. They have more complex scenery. These worlds offer even larger areas to be explored. The artificial intelligence of other characters than the main character has been improving.

This of course has a huge effect on what is actually happening while a player plays a video game. The game processes more data. The input of the player is analyzed more thoroughly. Some old games offer some nice game design solutions and today many game developers can make use of what was already designed in a game maybe even thirty or forty years ago. While technology has advanced also we have to remember some of these good solutions that old games had and still have.

One reason to go back to older games is of course the nostalgic feel that you get while playing a game that you have some memories with. You clearly remember the first time you started playing a game. You get the first reaction that you had and it reminds you of the feel that you had back then. The game hasn’t changed but your situation does have. The last time I had this kind of feeling was while I was playing Sonic Origins Plus. I got caught into nostalgic feel when I started playing the first Sonic The Hedgehog game. It was a huge game and also a huge character for Sega, The year that I first played this game was, I think, 1993. It brings back so many memories.

What about the way that we get to play retro games? It is a huge advantage to older game if it is easy to play it. I am talking of course about the importance of backwards compatibility. I have this way that I organize all my games. I keep these games in these two shelves that I am actually able to play with any console I have. I keep my other games in a storage. I do this because I think it is not so reasonable to keep games visible that I am not even able to play. Sometimes I like to demonstrate a game for someone visiting our home and sometimes a visitor picks up some game that he or she would like to play. And of course I myself can pick any game that I would like to play.

If you want to play retro games you have two different ways to do it. These ways are using original hardware or using an emulator. There has been a lot of conversation about emulation. I am not going to talk about so much of is emulating even legal or anything else like that. Lets just say that it is an option. Some think it is totally illegal and in a way it is. On the other hand preserving older games can be very valuable. After all we have to some way keep in touch with our video game history.

I have many gaming consoles in my setup. One part of my gaming setup has been already for some years these cool mini consoles. There have been mini consoles available for devices like PlayStation 1, NES, SNES and Mega Drive along with systems like C-64. You could of course just download an emulator for your PC and play these games but… Is it legit or legal? After all you are paying for something very interesting and valuable right here. The problem is that there just isn’t a mini console available made from all gaming systems. For example we are currently missing original Xbox and Sega Dreamcast mini console.

We talk on and on about what is the right way to play our retro games. I think the most important issue is that there has to be a connection between the old world of video games and the new world of video games. We have to somehow document our past. There are just so many games that game designers can take influences from. I think that it is a value for a game designer to know a lot about games. Of course if you know good games you can also design good games, right? You know the logic and what appeals to gamers.

Think about John Romero, one of makers of the classic FPS game, Doom. I mean, he started with playing old games in arcades. He played hundreds of hours of Pacman. He also had influences from Dungeons and Dragons, NES, SNES and Mega Drive games. And look what id Software did with Doom. It definitely revolutionized the way that we consume video games even today. Some games of this same era are Diablo and NHL 94.

So, it might not be possible to play every retro game. Do we have what it takes to document our video game history? Who has the power and responsibility to pass on these important lessons to our younger generation that doesn’t recognize all these older games? There can definitely be something to learn form them. While modern systems have the most power they also need the design. That’s where older games come into play.

The Relationship of Technology and Games

Posted on by Viljami

In this blog post I am trying to answer the question: what is the relationship of technology and games? There are several successful game companies based here in Finland. How did they get to that position? We are going to have to go back to the beginnings of the history of home computers. Commodore 64 was the computer back in the 80s. That was the tool for many programmers.

Commodore 64 provided means so that you could program games and other applications. You could start with Basic and keep going to some graphics and music to turning the whole device to parts and figure out how it ultimately worked. This was something that many persons drawn into technology and games did. This computer opened a path for them into the depths of technology and games.

There was a sort of a scene that formed around capable programmers in Finland. It was called “demo skene” which is a Finnish term meaning “demo scene”. This know-how made among these young individuals was something that positively impacted in the rise of know-how also in a more professional way. Things were looking good as Nokia also needed persons that were able to program applications to cellphones. There were many game companies here. Some of them are still functioning. You might know companies like Remedy, Rovio and Supercell. These companies were driven by some of the people that started their progressing from the era of Commodore 64.

I was thinking about this subject and how would I approach it. Programming is one thing. If you are hoping to make a game you have to know also very much of the functioning of the graphical system and also how the computer uses long term and temporary memory and also how you react and with which device (keyboard or maybe controller) to actions of the player. How does the experience of a video game take its final form. There’s lots of things going on while the game is running. Part of it is purely technical. The technology forms the experience.

It is somewhat true that games give you a similar reaction as does any modern form of art. Technology enables you to use techniques like programming and 3D modeling along with the design of the whole aural experience. There are these skills and if you are capable of using them in a strong way you can be successful in creating digital art that can be called a game. The player can enjoy this game even without a deep knowledge of the technology that lies under the hood of the device that the game is running on. There is something very magical in all of this. Games can be enjoyed and even studied by anyone that feels even a slight interest in them.

This is one of my dreams that I have had for now maybe tens of years. This was the reason I chose to study programming. I dreamed that I would be able to create some kind of a game. It might not be as powerful as a game like EA WRC is but there is this motivation inside my mind that I still have. I would like to some day be able to create games. This is a powerful dream that drives me forward and motivates me. Sometimes you don’t learn so fast and sometimes you have to learn details instead of the most fundamental concepts.

So, my path to learning more about computers does continue. I am not so sure if I am ever going to be able to be a part of some unit that would create something very beautiful in the form of a computer or video game. I do hope that these thoughts of mine were inspiring this time. Basically, I got tired since I already had played EA WRC for many hours today and this topic formed this time this kind of an output that formed this blog post. I hope you enjoyed it and see you next time, soon!

The Role of Technology Has Changed

Posted on by Viljami

I really think that the role of technology has changed. I am talking about the last, maybe, thirty years. We can go back to the 1990s to see how things were back then. I am old enough to remember these matters today. All this time has passed. What has changed and how things were.

I had some experience already with a personal computer. During 90s I was first introduced to Sega Mega Drive and later to Sony PlayStation. I had a moment in my personal history in which, can you imagine, I didn’t really play video games. This was when I started high school in the beginning of 2000s. I got back to gaming again during the 2000s. So I do have a relevant personal history to write about this.

I can also clearly remember how things were with smart phones and how they started to conquer our free time. One important technology is internet. It has brought us connectivity and ability to play multiplayer games on-line. Also memory cards aren’t used anymore. The games evolved from lasting maybe three to five hours. Suddenly you couldn’t complete the game in a day. Games became longer and a possibility to save was becoming more and more important. This has everything to do with hard drives and the advancement that made more and more space available to use.

Video game consoles technology advanced very quickly. We can go from the beginning of the 1990s to 2000s and have a comparison. Mega Drive might have been the most popular gaming console along with NES and later SNES. Basically you couldn’t save a game. There were batteries included in the game cartridges that enabled this. Game had to be fit in a space of only some megabytes. This changed when CD drives came available. Also at some point disk drives became a norm in gaming consoles.

So, the technology advanced fast. We went from getting a benefit from technology to today when we are being somewhat even controlled by technology. Do you get what I am saying? The role of technology is what I wanted to talk about in the first place. How is it with this matter, today?

While I was growing up we didn’t have internet. We didn’t have smart phones. There was no GPS. If you wanted to search for information you probably went to a library or tried to find a book about the subject. Things have changed a lot.

When I was young there was this kind of positive thinking that was common that technology would improve our lives if we just kept studying it and building and developing it. So, many young people were introduced to mathematics, physics and computers. I was among those that were very interested in technolgy and wanted to study it and also have it as a hobby.

Technology has made huge leaps. We are today in a society that uses internet and smart phones to several functions. We handle paying and buying with these tools. We use them daily. How has this made our lives easier? It seems to me that today everyone can use a smart phone to perform any functionality that is needed. These huge technology companies have formed a business about us and our normal lives. This is basically how the role of technology has changed.

I could go on and on about these changes. This is still just a one blog post. I didn’t even go to how big data affects and has already affected on the situation. We are here right now. We understand where we are. Technology has become part of our lives. And everything can be changed tomorrow. Our choices are what matters. Companies like Facebook and Google have made the technology avaialble to us. How can we make it so that it gives even some benefit to our functioning?

The Use of Memory in Game Consoles

Posted on by Viljami

Today’s topic for this blog is the use of memory. I decided to write about the use of memory in game consoles. We are dealing with things like memory cards, hard disks and random access memory. I also tell you a bit about processors and how computers deal with the actual ways in which the player interacts with the game.

This is not a science writing but more like something that I wanted to briefly write to you since I happen to have some experience in playing these video games and I also have this background in studying and working with computers. I have been playing games a lot. I have read a book or two about the use of memory and also studied a lot about this subject.

What really made a difference in the use of memory for video game consoles was the introduction of the optical drive. You did have a space for couple, maybe four, megabytes for your game. Well, like you might know, a CD-ROM disc has somewhat a space of 650 MB. So the amount of space was more than 100 times larger.

What about saved games? A supported disk drive was introduced with the release of the original Xbox. It might be the first game console to have a hard drive. Before this we had to use memory cards for storing and also organizing our saved games. Hard disks also allowed many other things. It also made installing games to the hard drive a norm.

I am trying to explain the difference between temporary memory (like RAM in the world of computers) and staying memory (HDD and/or SSD drives). So basically RAM, or Random Access Memory is something that the system uses while it is powered. After the power is cut off the memory disappears. In programming you use different variables to store the data temporarily.

Hard drives can save data that is included in these variables so that it can be accessed also later on. Earlier there were typically HDD drives used which offer a lot of space but they are much slower in processing the data than newer and more expensive SSD hard disks. The data in a SSD or HDD can be saved in different forms. Sometimes the programmers can use text files and sometimes forms like JSON. Data can also be serialized in a way. There are many possibilities. Basically you are saving something to some file or files. Sometimes there is also some sort of database used.

The data moves between the components of your gaming device through different kinds of busses. You can probably read more about electronics from your favorite search engine or maybe you can create a prompt for AI. I am not going to try to expain this so thoroughly at the moment. But if you are interested you can find more about this.

How does the gaming console work basically? There is a loop in the program code that keeps refreshing the screen. The frequency is blondly called FPS. It stands for Frames Per Second. This can be for example 60. The system reads all values of variables that are in the code and updates everything regarding to the values that the variables hold.

The game system detects any interactions using the code. The game detecs what controllers buttons are pressed and for how long. Then the screen keeps updating. There’s a lot of things happening. The main source for the things that are happenig is the actual source code of the game. You might think that it is easy to read a source code but it actually is pretty. It is way harder than reading something that a blogger has written to a blog post. And only the person that has written the code might fully understand it. Sometimes even this is not possible. The code can and is actually preferred to have comments in it also.

So to summarize this blog post we can conclude that memory is used in many ways in game consoles. Data is saved and handled. We have come a long way from game consoles like Sega Mega Drive in which you aren’t able to save at all (you do if you have a battery inside the game cartridge) to modern consoles in which you have huge SSD drives of several tera bytes of space for lot more content than just your saved game data. I encourage you to find more information if you are deeply motivated in learning more about this very interesting topic.

Beginning to Play Signalis

Posted on by Viljami

Last time I wrote to this blog I was playing Super Mario Wonder. I actually completed that and decided to dig into my pile of Nintendo Switch games that I just haven’t had time to play. At least that was the case. Since I now had some time I decided to start playing Signalis.

Signalis is described as a horror game. I would also call it an adventure game. It has been a long time since I played a game that would remind me of this game. I think Signalis is like something pure that has been missing from my latest gaming experiences. There are actual puzzles and problems for you to solve. Saving is not allowed at every moment. There are these certain parts and places in this game that you are allowed to save your game.

Signalis has been developed by rose-engine and published by Humble Games. It was released in 2022 for Windows, PS4, Switch and Xbox One. I have to admit that I have already been used to these extra sharp 3D oriented graphics that look very realistic. The way that Signalis opens up with its graphics feels amazing. Graphics designers have really done their job. I find the look of this game to be satisfying even if a slight retro feel seems to be present all the time. You can actually tune up the settings so that your screen looks a lot more like it was presented from an old television.

I just checked how many hours approximately it takes to beat Signalis. The web page (HowLongToBeat) informs me that it takes nine hours to finish it. So if I put same amount of effort as I put into playing Super Mario Bros Wonder I should be close to completing this game, say, maybe next week or something like that. It can take several days since I have work to do also. But it is nice to know that this game doesn’t take so long to beat as I find myself sometimes stuck on some games that take a bit longer to finish. Just to inform you I can tell that it takes about 50 hours to beat Red Dead Redemption 2.

I have only gone through the first level. Right now I just woke up and started exploring the first level. It isn’t possible to save your game right in the beginning of the game and that seems logical to me. In the first level there are some areas or rooms to explore. You have to collect some items and solve some puzzles. The problems seem to have a logical way for them to be solved. So you won’t find any humorous puzzles like those from retro type of adventure games like Monkey Island or Leisure Suit Larry. At least I haven’t stumbled on any since I just started to play Signalis.

The game reminds me a lot of Resident Evil. The camera angles are more reasonable although. The horror and anxiety are created mainly through graphics. I don’t even recall hearing any background music while playing. If there is some music it is very soft and in the form of some genre like ambient or something very close to that.

Switch is a nice console to have. The library of games that are available is already huge and it keeps growing all the time. It is also a nice console to collect games for. It was first released in 2017 followed by the release of Switch Lite in 2019. I currently have some tens of games for Switch. As there have been rumors about a new Nintendo console to be released soon we are still waiting for more information about this. A big question is if the new console would have any kind of a backwards compatibility.

It was nice spend some time today starting to play Signalis and as I also finished Super Mario Bros Wonder I think I had a nice day all in all. Today it was very Nintendo Switch related. I am hoping to get to spend some more time with my Switch. I’ll write a new post some day soon. It was nice to see you here and you will get to read something from this blog very soon!

Some Notes About Game Boy Color

Posted on by Viljami

In this blog post I write to you about Game Boy Color. Playing video games with a handheld device seems to be interesting. At least that’s what it is to me. Nowadays you can load an emulator to your smart phone and play games like this. You can even get a game controller that uses Bluetooth. Why would you bother to buy a real hand held console? Should you buy one or not? In this blog post I am trying to answer these questions.

I have right here, in that featured image, Game Boy Color. It was first released back in 1998. I think I bought it last years summer. So, the console has been with me for a while now. I bought it for 80 euros. You might be thinking of getting yourself a Game Boy Color. So, let me tell you some facts about this model of a handheld gaming system.

Let’s start with the bad facts. The screen is very poorly lit. You really have to focus your eye for it. The lighting has to be almost perfect for you to enjoy playing with this device. That must be the biggest bad fact about it. Actually I think we can move on to describe what is good in this device.

You can adjust the sound volume very nicely. It has this sort of a wheel that you can roll. You can also plug your headphones in. This makes playing in a bus or a train much more private and you don’t also annoy other passengers. The sound quality is adequate. I mean it’s way nicer than for example PC speaker. The device is powered with two AA batteries. There is also an option for an external power supply unit. The connection type is 3V and the plug is of size 2.5mm x 0.7mm. You can probably get this kind of a power supply unit for maybe 20 euros. I recommend buying one that you can adjust the output and the size of the connector. Let me make this clear – the power unit doesn’t have to be precisely designed for Game Boy Color so you can use this kind of an adjustable unit.

You can play Game Boy games on Game Boy Color. Of course there are some newer games that are only supported for Game boy Color. Game Boy Color reminds a lot of Game Boy that was released about ten years earlier. If you are thinking of playing Game Boy games I also recommend an adapter that enables you to play Game Boy games on a SNES. This adapter can cost something like 35 euros. This way you don’t have to suffer from the bad screen. Let’s tell you also that there are several other ways to play Game Boy games and this includes emulators also.

What are some good games? From Game Boy I definitely recommend Super Mario Land, Link’s Awakening and Pokemon games. As is with these old retro type games usually there are a lot of poor quality games available also. Some of these are trying to act as some sort of ports of these really famous and popular games. I can just mention games like Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto. So as you can probably imagine the power of this system is not so great. But there definitely are some good games made for you to play on a Game Boy Color.

My Game Boy Color is a bit broken. What I mean is that the power switch doesn’t seem to function at all. So I power up the device by inserting two batteries and that’s when the device turns on. Another way would be to use a power supply unit. The thing that the power switch was broken probably made the device’s price lower. I don’t know if some talented electrician could fix it. And when it comes to fixing I can tell you that there are many professionals that do repair and even mod old electronic video game consoles including Game Boy Color. It is a popular mod to replace the display. I don’t have information about how much would it cost. I know that there isn’t a service like this available in my home country (Finland).

Let’s summarize. Should you get yourself a Game Boy Color? I think you should consider this decision wisely and deeply. The price is a bit high. Playing with this bad type of screen makes it a bit awkward. Although the device provides a good entertainment for for example a long road trip. The design is very strong and I can figure that it can take some hits and not being broken easily. In today’s era of sensitive electronic devices these features are a welcome exception. Or, if you don’t have any money left in your pocket, you can just buy a Super Game Boy or use an emulator. Think wisely.

Does Emulation Really Hurt Someone?

Posted on by Viljami

You can spend hundreds of euros to retro video games. Where do these games come from? Some games are sold for a low price to shops that sell games that sell them forward at a more realistic price. This is how this field functions. You really cannot blame them for running a business like this. You have to get your living from somewhere. And game shops are very valuable for us game hobbyists in that they deliver us many games, consoles and all this other stuff, also, that we need to keep our hobby in a big role in our lives.

How about individuals that are selling their old video games? Once again there is this issue of money involved. You have something valuable and someone wants add just that game to his or her collection. Why not sell your game? Of course you cannot sell it at such a high price that the game shop is selling it. This makes sense, right?

Well, some people try to find a game at a low price and then sell it to someone with a higher price. This is familiar to many of us. It’s called scalping. I did notice this rice in prices. I bought Silent Hill 3 for PS2 in 2017 from a game shop. It cost me 15 euros back then. Recently I saw this same game. Its price was 75 euros. Actually, I don’t want to get rid of this game so I am not going to sell it. But if I was after an economical win situation I would probably sell this game.

So the money goes right here to the individual that is selling the game. Alternatively this amount of money goes to a game shop. This doesn’t make a lot of sense when you consider that big game companies are telling us that it is harmful to their business that consumers are installing emulators and running rom files on them instead of buying a physical copy of that game.

It might be the case that these huge companies would like to make more remakes out of old games. Why not bring more of those mini consoles to the markets? There would certainly be a demand for original Xbox mini console or a GameCube one. This isn’t however anything close to the reality. This is only a dream. While we have seen many classic mini consoles there isn’t going to be one made out of every legendary retro game console.

What if you bought a really powerful computer that would have enough disk space for a huge collection of game roms that could run these games on different emulators? I certainly find this option appealing. I do like buying and collecting old hardware and games. Just that I have faced issues with old hardware. They don’t seem to last for a long time. Dust might be the enemy. And I don’t have the skill necessary to fix these consoles. Currently I have several broken consoles in my storage in my apartment. It might be nice to get them repaired but I am currently also considering of getting a computer with some retro emulation so I wouldn’t have to worry about games not functioning.

Where should you start with this new idea? There are complete operating systems dedicated to retro game emulation. These are open source so they don’t actually cost you anything. You just have to have a powerful enough computer if you want to run games of PS2 or GameCube. If there is enough power in your PC you can even run PS4 games on an emulator, today. You can install, of course, emulators on your laptop or desktop. I myself am interested in this idea of having a PC that I would only use for console emulation. So, I don’t want to run Windows 10 or even any regular Linux operating system. There is something better for retro gaming.

I am talking about a retro gaming operating system. It works like this. You just install the OS and then upload the rom files, that are the actual games, to it. Then you plug your game pad and start up a game. You only turn the PC off or on and you have this simple but effective user interface that you can operate with your game pad. This is what I am talking about.

I am going to mention Lakka OS and Recalbox at this point. I have some experience with Lakka OS as I had it on a PC for maybe some months some time ago. I really liked this system. Although I found out that I wasn’t able to play anything that would require some serious power. I could run PS1 games but I would have liked to run PS2 and GameCube on this system. I just lacked the power. I am hoping that I would be able to get a more powerful PC for this purpose.

You can definitely find out more about Lakka OS and/or Recalbox. You will find them through your favorite search engine. These kind of setups can also run earlier games, like SNES or NES or something else, smoothly. Recalbox is supporting several tens of different video game consoles. Always also be critical about these thoughts I have provided here. Please use your own caution and thought when trying to accomplish your game library. Remember who put these games together and have an appreciation towards them. That might be another topic for another blog post. So, I think that’s it for this time. Thanks for reading!

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