Metal Jesus guy sees the light: there is absolutely no substitute for a CRT; it's tough to even describe how much better games look on one to people who haven't used one in a while. Hopefully some day a niche company will start manufacturing them again.

And I never thought I'd say this, but I'm one hundred percent switched over to emulation these days. There were four developments which drove me that way:

1. Cost. Old games are a fortune: even crappy games for systems like the Genesis are ramping up to the fifty dollar-plus range-- it's absurd. Good games will run you at least eighty bucks, all the way to a thousand-plus!


2. 8bitdo. Their controllers are so insanely authentic, yet have nice modern touches like menu buttons. And for systems they don't mimic, such as the 3DO, there are USB adapters.


3. Retroarch via S-video. Hipster name, great product-- and running 480i out of my video card to my CRT gives every system that 3DO or DVD-esque crispness. I love the way they look. And with Retroarch, you get unified screenshots, recording, the ability to create custom cheat codes, and even streaming to Twitch, right from the menus.


4. Reliability. My old systems are breaking one-by-one, and it's tough to find dependable people online who can fix them without charging an arm and a leg. With emulation, everything is running off my Manjaro Linux setup, on my PC, which is one hundred percent reliable.

In short, with my Retroarch-CRT tandem, using authentic controllers across-the-board, it feels absolutely genuine, while also bringing with it the incredible array of benefits which running from a PC brings-- including having the entire library of games ever made, gratis.