Has buying retro died on Bordersdown?

[Zaki]

After years of waiting for the bubble to burst, I've now embraced the fact that pricing is high, works both ways for me as I sell on Ebay, I know I'll get top dollar, bigger market means more buyers.

Most of us here, have at one time or another owned these games and probably sold them for a pittance but that was the value of them at the time. Times have changed and it is what it is. There's plenty of way's to play old games without actually owning the game itself

Retro games prices exploding while wages stagnate. I'm voting Labour!

[Strider]

Some people buy PAL stuff because they say it's what the grew up with - so the nostalgia is there. They can't relate to import stuff - such as American SNES carts, Super Famicom boxes etc... Retro collecting should be all about what makes you happy.

See I just find this a very strange stance to take. Those same people don't choose the VHS version of Ghostbusters of the Blu-Ray outing because it's what they grew up with.
It staggers me in this enlightened age that someone would buy an inferior expensive PAL product over the typically cheaper NTSC option. Each to their own and all that but I find it amazing.

[speedlolita]

See I just find this a very strange stance to take. Those same people don't choose the VHS version of Ghostbusters of the Blu-Ray outing because it's what they grew up with.
It staggers me in this enlightened age that someone would buy an inferior expensive PAL product over the typically cheaper NTSC option. Each to their own and all that but I find it amazing.

Bingo. Still, legitimately seen people advocate composite video because it's more authentic. Nutters

[dvdx2]

Some people buy PAL stuff because they say it's what the grew up with - so the nostalgia is there. They can't relate to import stuff - such as American SNES carts, Super Famicom boxes etc... Retro collecting should be all about what makes you happy.

Totally agree - I’d bet a large amount of retro gamers (especially the younger ones who didn’t grow up with imports), run PAL consoles. I know a retro shop locally that pretty much stocks only PAL retro stuff, as do the cex’s. Gumtree is flooded with PAL stuff too. Wouldn’t be my cup of tea though as I would go for the Japanese / us version because of the better technical properties, of which everybody on this forum knows.

[dvdx2]

Bingo. Still, legitimately seen people advocate composite video because it's more authentic. Nutters

You would be surprised how many people don’t really care about video quality, even on this forum......

[dvdx2]

See I just find this a very strange stance to take. Those same people don't choose the VHS version of Ghostbusters of the Blu-Ray outing because it's what they grew up with.
It staggers me in this enlightened age that someone would buy an inferior expensive PAL product over the typically cheaper NTSC option. Each to their own and all that but I find it amazing.

People collect anything - not really a revelation.....

[Leon Retro]

See I just find this a very strange stance to take. Those same people don't choose the VHS version of Ghostbusters of the Blu-Ray outing because it's what they grew up with.
It staggers me in this enlightened age that someone would buy an inferior expensive PAL product over the typically cheaper NTSC option. Each to their own and all that but I find it amazing.

I can understand people buying PAL games if they have a modded Mega Drive or SNES, so that the games run at 60Hz. But when people choose to play games at 50Hz, I can't understand taking nostalgia to that extreme. And also playing games in RF or Composite because "it's how I played the games back then" is an attitude I can't appreciate.

Also, some people have started collecting VHS because they have nostalgia for the format. I guess it just proves that nostalgia can really have a huge influence on people.

[vanpeebles]

I prefer wave race on pal, as that I was what I played originally. The US version was too fast, and didn’t feel right to me.

As for the film comment, I was watching a black and white film the other day in pristine quality, and wondered what happened to the versions they used to show on tv with a proper flowery picture, hairs and spots, and the proper loud hiss from the audio during the silence. It added to the atmosphere, that was how it was watched.

[speedlolita]

I do sometimes miss those crappy PlayStation jewel cases. Don't miss the 50Hz though. Not that I knew any better growing up!

GC having a 60Hz option (largely) is the closest to nostalgia I get aside from portables in terms of software and packaging!

Still, so much stuff that didn't see a PAL release for the PS1, like half of the JRPGs I own.

[Brad]

Amiga stuff is PAL all the way. I don't think PAL is the issue, it's awful PAL ports sadly. I do agree with the majority on here though; for consoles NTSC is best in at least 99% of cases.

[vanpeebles]

Even handhelds?

[Brad]

NTSC is a television standard.

[Leon Retro]

Amiga stuff is PAL all the way.

It really bugs me that most Amiga games have a huge black border, so the games only take up half of the screen. It even annoyed me back in the day, so I used to stretch the image to full screen on my monitor. It had a knob that enabled you to do that.

At least some Amiga games were full screen because a few developers actually had the sense to realise their main market was Europe and therefore it made sense to make the most of the PAL resolution.

I do agree with the majority on here though; for consoles NTSC is best in at least 99% of cases.

When consoles became HD with HDMI output, I started buying PAL machines. The PS3 being multi region was also something that made it pointless for me to buy an import machine.

With consoles before the 360/PS3 generation, I prefer to have NTSC machines, even if some PAL games have a 60Hz option.

It was funny when people used to call import gamers "elitist" when they were paying the same money to play games as they were intended to be. Sonic the Hedgehog on an NTSC Mega Drive is so much nicer than the PAL version running at 50Hz. I think it's a shame that Sega and Nintendo didn't offer a solution to that problem for European gamers back in the day. Consoles should have had a switch or something to enable 60Hz for those who could use it.

[vanpeebles]

NTSC is a television standard.

So not 99% of consoles then

[Brad]

American amiga games have a border but I reckon Europe produced more amiga games than the USA. NTSC Amigas can struggle to even play a lot of games, with graphics cut off etc. Not denying 60hz is better than 50 but a lot of amiga games made use of the full 256 lines of pal.