New to Retro consoles and collecting, what should I start out with?

[Anonymous No.5998417]

Hello, I've recently become interested in gaming again and I want to pick up a retro console and start a collection. Any tips on where to start?

[Anonymous No.5998436]

Between Wii, PS3, and XBox One you can emulate literally every previous console except the Saturn.

[Anonymous No.5998475]

>>5998417
>Any tips on where to start?
About 10 years ago.

[Anonymous No.5998572]

>>5998417
pick your favorite game company from atari, sega, nintendo, sony and NEC. then pick a single console from them. focus on that for a couple months or until you've bought and completed every game you found interesting for the system, then move on to the next one.

[Anonymous No.5998589]

Don't waste money buying games, invest in hardware, controllers, etc. and most importantly flashcarts to play roms off an SD card, that way you'll have access to most if not all of the system's library for free.

[Anonymous No.5998640]

>>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.

[Anonymous No.5998665]

>>5998640
>handhelds
Get a GBA SP AGS-101 and a flashcart. Game Gear, Lynx and TurboExpress all have capacitor issues and need caps replaced. Not worth it imo, just emulate on phone or some shit.

>6th gen
Dreamcast games can be ripped on CD-R but need to be in the compressed CDI format. PS2 and Xbox disc images can be ripped onto their internal HDDs. I got a PS2 memory card flashed with FreeMCBoot and SATA-compatible hard drive adapter for like $20 total on ebay. I don't know much about the Xbox mods tho.

[Anonymous No.5998671]

>>5998475
This. It used to be that you could go to flea markets and walk out with bundles of shit for peanuts compared to nowadays. Everyone thinks their sunbaked SNES with no games or hookups is worth $150.

[Anonymous No.5998681]

We're full faggot.

[Anonymous No.5998908]

>>5998417
Emulation and/or flashcarts are your best.

https://www.analogue.co/store/ is another consideration.

[Anonymous No.5998930]

>>5998640
>>5998665
People nowadays are so spoiled it ruins the experience completely. When you have a system's whole library at hand, you'll end up playing a game for 10 minutes then moving on to the next one in an infinite circle of noobness.
When I had the consoles back then I had to do with the handful of games I could get my hands on, so one really had to explore them to the max, as was the rule among gamers.
I'd start with the SNES since it's a sturdy console not prone to defects and you can still get your cartridges working perfect and crisp quite easily.
Shit from 32bit onwards tend to present all kinds of malfunctions.

[Anonymous No.5998931]

>>5998417
Wrong place, wrong time. Everything costs an arm and a leg now.

[Father Electronics Couture No.5999258]

To answer your actual question, Genesis/Mega Drive or Game Boy or PS1 are the consoles that aren't completely out of control to collect for.

[Anonymous No.5999265]

>>5998417
>and start a collection

Don't, just don't be a fucking collector. It's mental illness.

Try everything you want on emulators first, find one or two consoles that you really really love the games for, and then buy them and enjoy. But don't buy shit just to fill up shelving, it's childish and sick.

[Anonymous No.5999541]

>>5999258
Mega Drive is one of the most expensive consoles to collect for. Any good game outside of Sonic is $$$

[Anonymous No.5999580]

Whatever works for you, I recently got interested in shmups, so I picked up a Saturn, then noticed the small but strong pressence of indie shmups on the dreamcast, so my dreamcast collection exploded.

Just get what is fun to play for you.

[Anonymous No.5999623]

>>5999265
This. Every single one Famicom game in my, ahem, collection is something I enjoy (and can't run off a flashcart I own at the moment).

[Father Electronics Couture No.5999631]

>>5999541
Nah. If you think that, you should just emulate.

[Anonymous No.5999638]

>>5999580

[Anonymous No.5999694]

>>5999631
I have a substantial Mega Drive collection so I actually know what i'm talking about.

[Anonymous No.5999840]

>>5999258
I recommend saturn imports, english friendly and cheap due to Japanese free shipping.

Im in the PAL region and the saturn is almost entirely foreign to my country, so I just collect Japanese saturn games, really not that bad, paid 30 euros for Saturn Bomberman today brand new.

[Anonymous No.5999881]

Get a SNES and a sd2snes collection done, get a nes and a powerpak collection done, get n64 and everdrive collection done, get a PSP and jailbreak it so you can run all the ps1 games collection done.

In all seriousness pick whatever you like just expect to pay a shit ton for anything older then ps2 and og Xbox. If you bend the rules of what this board calls retro you can pick up ps2 and ps3 games dirt cheap at pawn shops these days. Good luck Anon.

[Father Electronics Couture No.5999927]

>>5999694
>I know what I got
Here I thought you were a dirt poor zoomer when you were an actual boomer who over-values his treasures. I do it too