/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5998417
>cartridge based systems
Look into flashcarts, reproductions, or multicarts. If there's just a few games you want for a basic experience, get the Chinese multicarts. They're low quality, have doubles, even triples, and romhacks of games on a list of "151-in-1". Repros if you want a separate cartridge for each game and don't mind spending anywhere from $20 to $60 on each game. If you want the most bang for your buck, pick up the higher-tier flashcarts. N64 you might as well buy a flashcart.

>early CD systems (Sega CD, PCEngine CD, etc.)
No copy protection so you can burn the CD images onto CD-Rs and play them like that. Capacitors and CD drives are notorious for failure. I just bought a PC Engine Super CD Rom add-on that needs new capacitors. There are optical drive emulators for both the SCD and PCECD, but they're pricey, each going for over $400 including shipping where I live. If you opt to get a genuine CD attachment, be prepared to pay top dollar for a serviced unit, or buy capacitor kits and CD drive parts to fix them yourself.

>later CD based systems (PS1, Saturn, etc.)
PS1 games are still relatively cheap since it was so popular. You could find a modchipped PS1 in the wild for relatively cheap. This way you can just burn CD images on CD-R. Saturn doesn't need a modchip to run CD-R backups, but you'll need a RAM cart flashed with Pseudosaturn. I bought a pre-flashed one on ebay for like $50 that allows me to save games and use it as a 1Mb or 4Mb RAM expansion for some games. If you really don't want to fuck with CDs, the PSIO is the PS1's ODE, fairly cheap but requires you to either pay for someone to solder in the modchip that lets the system boot games from the serial port, or do it yourself if you have the knowledge and the tools. Saturn ODEs are prohibitively expensive. The Chinese knock-offs go for around $500 and a Saturn modded with the ODEs on ebay go for up to a $1000.

>>5098051
I remember when I was ten my Dad came home with a Saturn and a shitton of games he bought from someone for $50. It was probably hot and sold quick for drug/booze money but whatever.

I still have that system and Mega Man 8 complete-in-box, but the disc is pretty scratched.