Our Video Game Heritage Is Rotting Away

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 28, 2010 @06:44AM from the thermodynamics-at-work dept.

eldavojohn writes "There's been a movement to preserve virtual worlds but MIT's Tech Review paints a dire picture of our video game memories rotting away in the attic of history. From the article: 'Entire libraries face extinction the moment the last remaining working console of its kind — a Neo Geo, Atari 2600 or something more obscure, like the Fairchild Channel F — bites the dust.' Published in The International Journal of Digital Curation, a new paper highlights this problem and explains how emulators fall short to truly preserve our video game heritage. The paper also breaks down popular SNES emulators to illustrate the growing problem with emulators and their varying quality. Do you remember any video consoles like the Magnavox Odyssey that are forever lost to the ages?"

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New isn't always better by unixguy43 · 2010-07-28 06:56 · Score: 0, Redundant

There's lots of cool games and game systems out there now, but in my mind nothing beats the old ones.
Compared to today's multi-player, multimedia extravaganza's, the old games and consoles may be low-tech, but they still have a lot of fun and enjoyment for all ages. There's a lot of nostalgia around the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision and Nintendo NES, and I'd love to have a few of them to play around on again.
Choppy graphics and cheesy music may seem pretty awkward in today's gaming arena of digital audio and photo-realistic video, but I'd take the old games anyday.