The struggle to not cash in on Neo Geo AES consoles and games..

Bishamon

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It's just not the same. The Neo Geo is ultimately a digital system. It can be perfectly reproduced with emulation. Analog crap like vinyl records is far more difficult. There's also the fact that many "classic" albums were engineered by people who sucked ass at digital/CD mastering, and so the CD versions of albums are just flat out worse than the LPs. Something like the Neo Geo doesn't have this issue. Bits are bits.

I believe the majority of vinyl sales currently are not to people who are trying to get the best sound quality, but rather the novelty of playing a record on a turntable. Plus, it has been very trendy in the last few years to have record collections. That doesn't mean the same thing will happen with game consoles and original games, but it wouldn't surprise me.
 

LonelyWarbler

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It's funny you quote Stamps, as that market is actually on the decline. And so are many other aging collectibles.
Do you think people will pay a premium for Country Western toys in the next decade? Probably not. The people that grew up watching GunSmoke are aging fast, and millennials DGAF about the wild wild west. Western memorabilia is crashing hard right now. Old Train sets? same thing. Kids never played with trains, nor are they enamored with trains.

How many kids from the 16bit era collect for Atari 2600? I don't. And the market for 2600 is also on the decline. Those collectors are in their 50's and 60's now.
We are the kids who grew up with Neo Geo, SNES, Genesis, etc.... Most of us are in our late 30's to 40's and have money. I don't think people will be as rabid for this stuff in 10 years.

This is the general trend for lots of collectible toys. Another example... Matchbox and HotWheels. That market is on the downward slope.

It is a fantastic time to sell 16bit era games. There's probably still some money to squeeze out of them, but it's a terrible time to "invest".


I agree with what andsuchisdeath's idea that people will still be playing video games in the future. I think the solid connection between past and present will preserve the value of gaming related collectables. Stamps have seen a general decline but the rarer stuff still holds value because new people get into the hobby; Games will likely follow the same path. Rarer games, especially cart based, will stay in high demand while chaff tanks.

I definitely agree that prices are inflated. A single youtube video of a "hidden gem" is enough to get ebay bought out. I have also seen people turn down above market offers on Neo Geo stuff because they are hedging for a better price. Now(or ever really) isn't a good time to invest in video games. Its still an ok time to buy if you have money and want them for personal enjoyment.
 

donluca

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I believe the majority of vinyl sales currently are not to people who are trying to get the best sound quality, but rather the novelty of playing a record on a turntable. Plus, it has been very trendy in the last few years to have record collections. That doesn't mean the same thing will happen with game consoles and original games, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I'm astonished to give the guy credit for this post, but, believe it or not, lots of people are buying back into vinyl because today's CD and digital download are so compressed and loud that when played on a hi-fi system they are a terrible experience, with no dynamics and lots of small nuances lost (more on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war ).

Vinyl, on the other hand, has huge restrictions on how loud the record can be, which means that they get a different mastering which is often much more lively and dynamic compared to their digital counterpart.

Personally, I'm among those who've got back into vinyl also for this reason.

As far as digital mediums such as cartridges, yes, they can be ripped and preserved 1:1 without any loss in quality, so it's just a matter of time before we have modern hardware capable of reproducing the original hardware's behavior.
 

Bishamon

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I'm astonished to give the guy credit for this post, but, believe it or not, lots of people are buying back into vinyl because today's CD and digital download are so compressed and loud that when played on a hi-fi system they are a terrible experience, with no dynamics and lots of small nuances lost (more on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war ).

Vinyl, on the other hand, has huge restrictions on how loud the record can be, which means that they get a different mastering which is often much more lively and dynamic compared to their digital counterpart.

I don't disagree that vinyl has some advantages, but I don't believe the majority of people buying vinyl today are buying it for that reason (there was a time when this was not the case: back in the mid to late 90s, vinyl records were primarily the domain of audiophiles). It became fashionable a few years ago, hence the proliferation of inexpensive turntables with horrible sound reproduction and styli that can actually damage records. On the plus side, this has meant that we are now seeing a TON of releases on vinyl that would have only been released on CD, and re-releases of lps that have long been out of print.
 

ballzdeepx

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I don't disagree that vinyl has some advantages, but I don't believe the majority of people buying vinyl today are buying it for that reason (there was a time when this was not the case: back in the mid to late 90s, vinyl records were primarily the domain of audiophiles). It became fashionable a few years ago, hence the proliferation of inexpensive turntables with horrible sound reproduction and styli that can actually damage records. On the plus side, this has meant that we are now seeing a TON of releases on vinyl that would have only been released on CD, and re-releases of lps that have long been out of print.

Agreed, and I think a big driver of this is, people want the experience of actually using the hardware and medium. When you have thousands of compressed songs at your fingertips it diminishes the experience to a degree, the same thing with emulation - once you have all the romz on a cart you just end up jumping around to tons of different games because you can and eventually you get bored. Rarely are games beaten, rather they are sampled - this is why I could care less if my neosd takes longer to flash a game, I like to play it until i'm done.

Putting a record on, finding the right spot for the song is a process and once you get it just right, it's time to relax and enjoy the song - really what it should all be about in the first place.

Again harking back to the original question, if you're not buying games as an investment all of this is irrelevant. Buy what you want and enjoy it, sell it if you don't - life is too short.
 

Dr Shroom

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I don't disagree that vinyl has some advantages, but I don't believe the majority of people buying vinyl today are buying it for that reason (there was a time when this was not the case: back in the mid to late 90s, vinyl records were primarily the domain of audiophiles). It became fashionable a few years ago, hence the proliferation of inexpensive turntables with horrible sound reproduction and styli that can actually damage records. On the plus side, this has meant that we are now seeing a TON of releases on vinyl that would have only been released on CD, and re-releases of lps that have long been out of print.

I just like the medium, the big sleeves, the process of putting on a record, the inconvience: skipping songs requires you to get up, lift the needle, count the grooves and put it down again.

Fuck that, just let it run through. Never listened to so many complete albums before in my life.

We still had records at home in the early-mid ninties, it's nothing new to me. My player is 42 years old and doesn't scratch them. CDs sound all the same to me and a lot of them really are compressed to hell and back.

But yes, a lot of people are into it because of hipster reasons.
 
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RAZO

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I agree with letting one side playthrough but having to get up and flip sides is too much work lol.
 

xb74

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Hard to put into words - vinyl sounds deeper and more vibrant. Better sound range. Headphones (decent quality ones) make the difference between CD and vinyl seem like night and day. This will always be the appeal for me.

The re-emergence of cassette tapes bewilders me. Its a medium better left in the 80's.
 

donluca

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Yea but MD's actually sound good. Cassette tapes not really.

weeeell... I don't mean to derail this thread more than it has already, but MD is one of those very unique cases where the first version (speaking of ATRAC, the lossy format it used, similar to MP3) sounded dead awful and through the years it got miles and miles better.

Still a lossy format nonetheless.

And, personally, I find the magneto-optic discs really fascinating, contrary to audio tapes. Guess I've played way too much Resident Evil back in the days with their MO Disks which generally meant you were near the end of the game.
 

ballzdeepx

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Tapes were basically about convenience and can in some ways parallel MP3s. People could record radio, dupe tapes, make mixes etc and the medium was cheap, walkmans perpetuated the craze and they were everywhere. People had no qualms about trading quality for convenience (well dolby did get rid of some of the tape hiss), and that's still the case today - with everything, it's why people line up to buy shitty Chinese goods at wal mart. If you sell your AES you're a cuck plain and simple.
 

Bishamon

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The re-emergence of cassette tapes bewilders me. Its a medium better left in the 80's.

No kidding! I only used them because it was the only way to have music in your car (before in car CD players became a thing).

The sudden rise of cassettes is 100% nostalgia; I had friends who had massive tape collections in the 80s, and those people might feel the urge to buy a new release on cassette.

Personally, I always preferred vinyl lps or CDs. I actually preferred CDs to vinyl for a long time; they sounded a lot cleaner, and I had a decent system in the late 80s/early 90s that produced amazing sound from CDs (Sony ES player with variable output connected directly to a B&K power amp and a pair of Vandersteen speakers). Basically a budget audiophile setup. It wasn't until I listened to a $60,000 Lynn setup that I heard a vinyl record that I preferred.

Today, I tend to buy new releases on vinyl, and anything released before 1985-ish on vinyl, but a lot of stuff that was mastered in the late 80s through around 2000 was produced with CDs in mind (though the quality can vary - a lot of CDs from the mid to late 90s were mastered at ridiculously high levels. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should ;)).
 

Heinz

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All this talk of vinyl is making me want my old Hitachi turntable entertainment unit.
 

Heinz

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Please share with us your story of the struggle to not cash in on your turntable and vinyl.

Hey man I just like listening to the police or duran duran but I threw out that turntable years back and I stored my vinyl horizontally so now they're all warped. I'm out.
 

RAZO

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Hey man I just like listening to the police or duran duran but I threw out that turntable years back and I stored my vinyl horizontally so now they're all warped. I'm out.


Put those joints outside in the hot Australian sun. Warped discs can be fixed.


 

NeoSneth

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So i just checked. 2600 low print games are at a ~45% decline from their peak value over 10 years ago.
Standup arcades from that era are in the dirt as well.

There is more to squeeze from NES onward, but I would get out while it's still good if you are sitting on a stacks of plastic.
 

Bishamon

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Hey man I just like listening to the police or duran duran but I threw out that turntable years back and I stored my vinyl horizontally so now they're all warped. I'm out.

I picked up a Vinyl Flat record flattener, and it works wonders! It's amazing how many brand new records arrive with serious warps. Two hours in the flattener and they're good-to-go.
 

Yamazaki

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I have some nice LDs from Japan.

almost bougth an LD player and started a new hobby...

almost...
 

donluca

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I have some nice LDs from Japan.

almost bougth an LD player and started a new hobby...

almost...

There was an LD player with expansion ports which enabled you to play Mega Drive and PC Engine games IIRC... rare as hell, I'm pretty sure it costs like a new car today.
 

Bishamon

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I have some nice LDs from Japan.

almost bougth an LD player and started a new hobby...

almost...

I used to want a player really badly, primarily because the Criterion edition of Blade Runner had a TON of amazing extras, and there was a version of Aliens that had a bunch of extra footage. I managed to convince two friends to get players, and was still trying to decide which to get (because it seemed some discs wouldn't play in certain players), when I heard about two new formats in development: MCD and DVD, either of which would be the size of a CD and fit an entire move without having to flip or switch discs.
 

RAZO

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I tried LD's and they looked ok on a Wega but nowhere near as good compared to DVD so I got rid of them. Was using the laser active which isn't a great ld player but did the job.

The big boxes and discs are really cool though.
 

Heinz

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I picked up a Vinyl Flat record flattener, and it works wonders! It's amazing how many brand new records arrive with serious warps. Two hours in the flattener and they're good-to-go.

I really should get one of those, I probably have around 40 LP's almost exclusively late 70's / 80's and it would be a pity to leave them as they are.
 
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