Gadgetory

welcome to extreme economy where we break down the biggest news across movies TV shows and games this week Sony announced the PS classic this is a funny little PlayStation that has 20 pre-loaded ps1 games on it it'll set you back 99 bucks and it drops in December it joins the NES and Ness classics which are also little versions of original consoles many of us grew up with but if you think this is an episode where I sell you or don't on a PS classic think again this is an episode about backwards compatibility and why I think it's fundamentally broken at least mostly now before you get out your pitchforks and torches come at me in the comments let's talk about the pros and cons and some possible solutions and then you can yell at me all you want ok here are the pros number one you have the ability to play old games on new devices I love that number two you get to introduce those old games that you loved so much as a kid to a new generation of gamers also awesome and finally you're able to play games you may have missed out on if you didn't have the console or couldn't afford it when you were younger with all those good things though come some not-so-great things which brings me to my number one gripe about backwards compatibility and playing old games on new devices and that is you've got to rebuy it every single time there's a new generation of consoles you got to shell out for the old games that you might want to replay again oh so frustrating on top of that a lot of people treat these tiny cute little devices as a gimmick and they might play it for a few weekends and then get bored of it throw it up on a shelf and then years later re-gift it to a cousin who doesn't know that it's not new now that might not be you but you're an outlier I guarantee you most people play it for a couple hours and put it away part of that stems from these compilations only having two or three games you're actually going to play all the way through which drops the value of those devices or discs significantly not to mention you have all kinds of legal gray areas with abandonware licensing issues and all sorts of other junk I mean I will probably never see maniac mansion on anything like the NES classic because of all of the legal issues surrounding it I think Disney still owns it because they bought Lucasfilm and they owned Lukis games and it's just a real mess and I don't think it will ever be untangled so you're always gonna be disappointed at these compilations because some of your favorites will be missing and lastly some of these games just plain don't hold up have you actually played Super Mario Kart on the senesce classic it's a nightmare and don't even get me started on the original PlayStation n64 era where 3d cameras were awful look for me I love these games I grew up playing them they shaped me they changed me they are part of who I am today I get it sometimes I want to go back and relive the nostalgia and remember what it was like to be a kid again but I also have no desire to breed chocobos for 20 hours so that I can get knights of the round and watch that summon animation one more GD time I am interested in the Final Fantasy 7 remake but who knows what's happening there some of you might make the argument that we like to go back and relive things like books or movies and I get that every time I see the fugitive on television I stop and rewatch it I love that movie I killed the VHS tape of it when I was 10 but I also have a stack of shame of lots of new games that I haven't yet gotten through so to ask me to go back and play games like Super Mario RPG legend of the seven stars that's a huge time commitment that I'm wagering not a lot of gamers want to do so what's the solution here I think I have it most video game manufacturers all three console ones as a matter of fact have solutions here but I don't think they go quite far enough Sony Nintendo and Microsoft all now have services that offer access to older games for a monthly fee and that's great they should absolutely do that I think a Netflix like subscription model for old-school games is absolutely the way to go cost-wise Nintendo switch online is less than 2 bucks a month and unfortunately Xbox game paths and PlayStation now are a little more expensive at about 10 bucks a month ish but I think there's a way for them to fix that if they made their subscriptions around say five dollars a month but didn't give you access to current gen games so PlayStation 3 and prior and Xbox 360 in Prior it feels like it would be worth it both to customers who want backwards-compatibility but not necessarily need current gen games on those consoles now there's also a perfect storm in that we have these huge libraries of old-school games and we also carry around little pocket computers console manufacturers give us apps for our phones and tablets and then sell us cute little Bluetooth controllers for them let us stream old-school games from our phones and tablets to our televisions even if we don't own a current gen console that sucks that you have to buy a current gen console to be able to enjoy these old-school games and I can bet dollars to donuts that there are a lot of people out there who can't afford to do that but would love to relive the magic of all of the 8-bit and 16-bit games that they played when they were kids come on guys it's not that hard all these classic devices are so cute and adorable but they take up an HDMI slot on my TV and they also can't add more games unless you hack them which I legally must say I don't recommend that you do so stop hedging your bets manufacturers get out there and make backwards-compatibility the wonderful thing that it's meant to be let it recognize its full potential okay so now you are allowed to go fight me in the comments Sara 'ls you're gonna fight me too their kids a bit bite which Campobello a man even when I killed and I thought I killed actually that Nick here you got are these massive fancy new games and all these cool games and then you're like now I'm going to play that really crap mine that was playing five you don't know all the things that's happening rate lures or moneyness Ness classics Ness classic PlayStation 1 classic Sega Megadrive CK Giga Drive so you got whatever how many used in my poster you've got I'm gonna go for a Martelli be truthful look inside your heart when is the last time you bought a brand new console hook top tier brand new sexy ass daily a name was like I'm gonna play that's all crappy game never you know it's through your nose to your buyer you plug it and you play for five minutes you're chucking the banner you'll just like get on dust in your garage you know I mean the wife with your ones Marty's price thanks for watching this week's episode I want to hear your thoughts down in the comments love hate and different whatever I am here to read it and listen to you if you want to check out last week's episode click right over here and there is some bonus stream economy content read over this way till next Saturday biggest dreamers