My friend and I collect old video games. But all my physical media just sits on my shelves and collects dust. Why do I even collect them? I literally just emulate everything. Is there a purpose to what I do? People ask me why I collect and I never have a real answer because I don’t even know. If I never play my stuff, is it worth just selling?
Two questions to ask yourself:
Does it make you happy?
Does it hurt anybody (yourself included) in any way (including financially)?
Collecting physical media is very valuable if you are a passionate gamer. Time has proven that the older a game gets, the harder it will be to legally obtain it. Yes, emulation is a thing but doesn’t quite beat the experience on the original hardware IMO. And of course emulation is under constant legal scrutiny to the point where it’s only a matter of time before enough money passes hands and emulation itself could be outlawed or heavily restricted.
Unless you have extraordinarily rare games, likely you will not see any financial benefit. If you do not want to play any of your games ever again, and you will never have kids or anyone you want to pass history onto, then likely the collection holds no value.
This is why I think the best solution is original hardware with flash carts. The correct experience but no clutter.
Depends on which hardware. I have had more fun with emulators than I had when I was a child with a real NES, because I could play more games with an emulator, and was easy af.