/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9448546
There was a lot more bleed between generations than a lot of people will generally let on, especially if you were poor or lived in a small town far away from the latest and greatest. I grew up in a town of about 10,000 people and got my Super Nintendo for Christmas 1997. Judging from pic related, my parents must have gotten it for around $99 syrupbux, and that was with a pack-in game. There were catalogues advertising Super Nintendo games well into 1998 and 1999. I remember one specifically that had the Super Nintendo Jr control deck advertised for $50. I was the first person in my class to have a SNES, most kids had an NES or a Gameboy (rarely both), and games for NES were being sold new in 1997. I got an N64 for my birthday in April 2001. My friend didn't get his N64 for another year. All of this shit was bought new. It's true that new games were not really coming out, but by the same token, being one generation behind you had the full library of each console available, and the games were always much cheaper than current gen stuff.

>>7955787
>>7955789
Essentially, less popular consoles that have fewer games tend to concentrate players into a select few titles, creating more shared experiences. Interesting observation.

>>7956410
>Protip: all Nintendo 64s didn't explode in 2001 and the games didn't disappear either

Yeah I find this line of thinking really weird, and it strikes me as coming from someone who wasn't really there, and did not really experience it first-hand. Almost like simulacrum nostalgia.

My parents tended to buy consoles near the very end of their production run, so I basically had the experiences of someone who's 5 or 6 years older than me. Except, you know, shit was way cheaper for me to buy. I got my SNES for Christmas of 1997, at which point they would sell you a console and a game for under $100. Pic related. Same story for my N64- I got that for my 10th birthday in 2002, by which point the console was well on its way out. But for me, 2002-2005 was peak N64, rather than 1997-2000.

>Not to mention poor people are usually one-half or one-whole generation behind

People on /vr/ and elsewhere don't realize that things work differently outside the middle-class green lawn suburbs where they grew up. I grew up in a small town, and while I wasn't poor (my parents were veterinarians), most of my friends were poor. A lot of them had GameBoys, but for many that was their ONLY console. One of my friends played Super Mario Kart with me and was blown away by the graphics... in 1998. I never felt pressured to get "the latest and greatest" because in my friends circle, I already had the latest and greatest.

>>7956432
>Nothing like taking $50 into a store and walking out with 3 new games

Yeah this was fucking great. I made about $60 a month from my paper route plus $20 allowance, and I could easily afford to buy 2 Player's Choice game for $39.99 per month. By 2004, when my local EB Games was clearing out the last of its N64 inventory, I was buying brand new games for $19.99 each.