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Emulated games are free, polished, complete
Modern games are $80+ steaming incomplete pile of shit
This mystery will never be solved.
I assume they’re referring to actual hardware. I’d imagine the percentage of gamers playing emulated games is much higher than 14%.
Edit: Found the article
It appears I am correct.
Modern games: requires $300+ game console or a $300+ GPU to get 30 FPS
Retro games: runs on your grandma’s Dell Pavilion still running Windows XP that she refuses to stop using, gets 50/60 depending on region
Given that nowhere in the article does it say that 14% of people exclusively play on pre-2000 hardware I don’t find this that surprising.
I’m more shocked by the last statistic, 11% of American households still use fax. Fax? Fuckin’ why? That’s like saying people still listen to music on Edison cylinders.
Signatures as a form of authorization I think held up the facsimile tech way past it’s best by date
Fax is commonly used at least in the US because it has regulatory recognition as a secure means of transferring information, it’s highly interoperable, and it doesn’t really have a successor that has caused the network effect to die out entirely.
11% seems slightly higher than I’d expect, but not crazy. Contracts, medical records, interactions with the government are all good reasons to need to send or receive one occasionally. That about 1 in 10 households did last year? Makes some sense.
Seems crazy to me. I can’t imagine that 1 in 10 household even have fax machines. All the stuff you mention is business and medical stuff. Nobody faxes in their medical requests from home.
Except for maybe people who have terrible health problems or those who care for them
Nah. They might do it from work or maybe by email gateway.
Hell it’s only even possible for the 27% of homes that still have a landline. There’s just no way.
There are a lot of people with old technology in their home that still gets used. Fax is still needed for lots of medical things, and not everyone has an office to go to.
Think retired people taking care of sick family members.
Nah. It’s got a big fat [citation needed] from me.
10% of people? Sure I’d believe that 10 % of people have transferred data using fax technology at least once in the past year or something. But 10% of households, and you can’t count email to-fax gateways?
No way.
The citation is in the article which is from a Consumer Reports study. In case you don’t know, they’re very trustworthy.
I’m not attempting to convince you that the figure is accurate because I don’t need to that. I’m attempting to get you to understand that a big portion of the population of the USA are just making do with what they have.
According to American Dad! widespread continued use would have gotten us the blorfer.
I hate this >:( Let me exaplain myself. What I hate is that way that people see videogames, like, if you play something old you are stuck in the past, but hey! If you read a book that is 100yo or watch a movie that is 40yo it is okay! but if you play in atari, what are you? a caveman?
That stigma seems to be getting slightly better, but it’s always bothered me.
“OMG you’ve been playing that game for hours! Why don’t you go DO something! You’re rotting your brain!!” -Someone who’s about to sit in front of the TV until they fall asleep.
What I hate is that way that people see videogames, like, if you play something old you are stuck in the past
I must not operate in those circles. I’ve never heard that before, but I’m also old and playing old games and fewer newer ones.
I’ve been playing Zombies Ate My Neighbors on original hardware today haha. On my old Apple color monitor.
I mostly game on old systems or my steam deck.
Oh man such a great game. Great couch co-op.
Yeah I tormented my poor daughter with it when she was younger. I did not have the patience to get her through it lol.
Now that she’s older we do great.
I don’t think I ever made it past the werewolf castle level without cheats.
I do. I don’t want or need top notch graphics. My ps5 collects dust.
Gameplay is always king.
Graphics can contribute a lot - some games are fucking gorgeous, and I’ll stop and appreciate good scenery in digital environment the same as IRL.
But jaw-droppingly incredible graphics can never compensate for bad or even mediocre gameplay.
And shit graphics will never kill a game with good gameplay. Done right, shit graphics can even be charming in a nostalgic kind of way.
I really need to get around to buying a SNES. I have an NES as well but it’s dead. eBay the best spot to get either of these consoles?
My brother and I have opposing views on this.
He likes to collect hardware. He loves buying old systems and cartridges.
I like to collect software. Very few games are worth much to me individually, but I love the ability to fire up any old game when it pops in my head.
I ended up buying an SNES Mini on eBay that was jacked and loaded with ROMs from EVERY system it was capable of running. I understand wanting the original hardware, but for me, getting EVERYTHING preloaded for about $200 just made more sense for me.
I have bought two of those hacked systems from the same seller. I can check if they still offer them, and share a link to the product, but only if someone asks for the info. I’m not trying to promote anyone, but I feel like this is a market that could be prone to fakes, and I personally would appreciate someone suggesting a trustworthy seller.
Do that, but get a Raspberry Pi and put ROMs on it yourself instead of buying shady, possibly backdoored stuff.
That’s a great solution as well, but the mini has no internet connection, so there’s no “backdoor.”
I’m still trying to find a place that can resurrect my Atari 7800.
I have so many games for it.
Same, but a 2600. A hand me down from one of my older cousins
I look on local classifieds. But a lot of people inflate the price.
I picked up an SNES junior for $50 at a garage sale a few years ago. Finds like that are rare but they do exist.
My wireless snes controllers just came in yesterday. Love em.
That… doesn’t sound right. 14% is a ridiculous amount of people.
Full survey data. That’s far from the only stat that’s hard to believe.
Red Alert 2 on a 4090
🫡
My 3080ti is mostly used for snes and n64 emulation.
Playing retro games from my Steam Deck
Famicom owner checking in.
The PS1, N64, Saturn, and the Dreamcast are pre 2000 systems.
I mean you OWNED the games after purchase back then, now the publishers and game studios can revoke your “purchased” license anytime…
The physical medium is a license as well. But that’s semantics. We can all agree if you own physical, it cant be (realistically) taken away. You can still own physical. You can still take that power back (unless the game requires online). When I got a PS5, I was planing on finally ending my attachment to physical discs… but I just couldn’t do it. To this day, I still buy PS5 discs, I haven’t spent anything on PSN, but had PS+ for maybe two years and Im well aware those PS+ games were transactional. I cant do that anymore on PC so if steam dies, so does my library. At least my physical discs will be OK. Now on to my next fear… disc rot. Will I actually be able to boot up the Halo 3 DVD when im 80 and play it?
