/vr/ - Retro Games

>>4332501
They will likely be very expensive if it happens. I don't deny the possibility that CRTs will go back into manufacture at some point, but on average the market for specialized retro game accessories is very small-- possibly in the thousands. This isn't the 90s where CRTs were a huge market that pushed millions of units every year.

New CRTs will appear on the market when the ones out in the wild now have gotten so expensive that a new CRT can undercut them in price and still be profitable. In other words, prices on CRTs are going to keep getting worse and might never get better even if new ones appear on the market.

The reason the Framemeister costs >$300 is in part because it's a niche product for a niche market, and it has a significantly broader appeal than a new CRT would. CRTs are huge, heavy, and are seen by the vast majority of potential customers as a technological dead end. Granted the same could be said of vinyl records before the comeback, but the difference is that new music can be pressed into vinyl cheaply, while there are very few games coming out that can take advantage of CRTs, let alone in a way that most people would agree looks better than an LCD screen.

Scaler boxes on the other hand are forward-looking-- something that lets you play an old game on a new, modern TV. It's something small and convenient that you can easily stash away under your TV, while with a CRT, fitting one into your home can be a nightmare.

The larger issue is that retro gaming on real hardware is getting more expensive because we are talking about a finite resource and growing demand. Most people demanding new CRTs want them because they are frustrated at the high prices of PVMs, but sadly the situation probably isn't going to get better. At some point you will have to decide which to invest in-- a high quality scaler, or a PVM. We are already at the point where a 20" PVM shipped costs significantly more than a Framemeister, so decide soon.