To be honest, in today’s era of well-developed e-commerce platforms, collecting retro gaming consoles is no longer a challenge.
The real difficulty lies elsewhere — in learning how to use them.
Finding original game cartridges or discs has become increasingly difficult.
Even if you manage to find the title you want, there’s no guarantee it will work.
Most of these games are in Japanese or English, which poses an additional challenge for players from other regions. As a result, many enthusiasts resort to flash cartridges or burnable discs just to experience them.
Lost Instructions in a Connected Age
While many communities and organizations have archived classic game ROMs, most of these dumps are designed for emulators, not for use on the original hardware.
The real problem lies in the knowledge gap:
finding the necessary guides, tools, and software for pre-internet-era devices is getting harder every year.
Some of the once-popular websites are now gone;
tutorials are fragmented or outdated;
and the key utilities they reference have changed beyond recognition.
Even when everything seems to be available, hardware from that era was rarely standardized or user-friendly — meaning that, even with all the information in hand, achieving your goal can still be surprisingly difficult.
The Skill That’s Disappearing
I’ve archived ROMs for most mainstream consoles, and most of them still run fine on emulators.
But that doesn’t solve the core problem — how to play them on the original machines.
In fact, figuring out how to make old consoles work has quietly become a specialized skill, one that fewer and fewer people still practice.
Emulators have enjoyed a huge and growing audience, but the number of people who actually play on physical hardware continues to shrink.
Part of that is due to aging components and failing drives, but there’s also a social factor: older players move on, and newer ones often give up quickly, leaving behind an entire generation of hardware whose operating knowledge fades into obscurity.
When “Just Use an Emulator” Isn’t Enough
Take the PlayStation 1, for instance.
Everyone knows it can be modded, but there are few comprehensive resources comparing the different mod methods — their pros, cons, and compatibility issues.
Systematic, updated tutorials are even rarer.
And this isn’t just a problem for consoles from the 1990s.
Consider the Nintendo 3DS, a handheld from the previous generation.
During its lifetime, there were two major hacking approaches:
- Hardware modification using flashcards like Gateway or Sky3DS
- Software modification through the Boot9Strap (b9s) exploit
As b9s became mainstream, flashcard-based methods fell into obscurity.
Today, many players dismiss them as “unnecessary.”
When I try to research how to softmod a console, burn discs for PS1, or revive old flashcards for 3DS, the most common responses I get are:
“Just solder a chip, it’s cheaper.”
“Why go through all that trouble?”
“Just use an emulator — it’s the same thing.”
But is it really the same?
The Difference Between Playing and Understanding
For systems before the PS2 era, emulators can indeed replicate 90% or more of the original experience.
They’re accessible, reliable, and in many ways superior to the real thing.
But that’s not my goal.
What I’m after is not just the ability to play these games — it’s the opportunity to study the history of console engineering through firsthand experience.
To feel the quirks of the original hardware, to understand the design logic that shaped an entire generation.
That’s what’s being lost.
And as tools disappear, communities fade, and collective memory erodes, that loss feels deeper than simple nostalgia.
Sometimes, I can’t help but feel powerless.
Maybe compromise is inevitable.
But I still hope that somewhere, someone will keep the knowledge alive —
so that “how to play” never becomes a forgotten language.