this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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Cartridges tend to be reliable in the long run as long as you avoid physical damage. Leaking save state batteries can be a problem there.
Optical discs do go bad just by aging in the box.
There's another angle to this. A while back, Metal Jesus Rocks had a video about a Switch game that had an incorrect cover, and it was going to be corrected after the first production run was sold through. Which means it would be a collectors item.
He bought it, but had a "wtf am I doing?" moment afterwards. He didn't care about the game beforehand. Its only value to him is that a manufacturer mistake would make it valuable to other collectors. Which is somewhat circular logic.
Edit: to clarify, I don't think it's just about rare things, either. Having a collection at all, where you have tons of games that you don't really care about and they just sit on a shelf, is kinda insane. I don't have any moral compunction about pirating old games, so why bother? In many cases, I can even play on original hardware with SD card mods, and especially on optical disc systems, the experience is better.
In the age of emulators, original games are no better then NFTs. They are just a pretty thing to look at, and a store of value for however long other people value them.
I'm mostly being sarcastic, but only mostly. I personally see no value in game collecting. Obviously some people like to hold real games and stick them into real consoles. Me, I just want to play the games.
Makes sense. But what are the odds getting such?
I added this in an edit, but I don't think it's just about rare things. Having a collection of games that just sit on your shelf is silly. Which goes for a lot of other types of collecting, too.