You're points are valid.  I did not expect my games to decay so soon.  I buy digital copies of some games, but that has it's problems as well (company goes out of business, etc.).

Oh wow, I'll check my Dreamcast library out, but I've never seen a small pinhole in any of my games before.

Either way, my advice is get a USB - Controller Adaptor for the Sega CD and PS1, and play your favorite games off ROMs. In Canada it's legal to own a ROM so long as it's a backup, and so long as you don't distribute it (Can't download using P2P since they upload a bit, you need to direct download).

So yea. Anyway, working or not, your old games are still worth a ton, and nice to have. It's like an old car, even if you can't drive it, having a mint condition shell is still worth a lot. It's also pretty to look at, imagine just having a 1969 Corvette C3 Stingray in your driveway. That's one heck of a lawn ornament. A good, nicely displayed collection is just as nice too, even if no one else you know appreciates it like you do.

However as more break, a working original is worth even more. There was an unrestored 1952 Mercedez Benz SL 300 Gullwing at the autoshow this year. Its sticker price was $750,000, but I've seen restored ones sell for half the price.

Those are good point's.  My games still look brand new and have many memories associated with them.  I still have most of the receipts for much of my collection.  In the grand scheme of things it's not that important, but I thought people might want to check the condition of their games if they are planning on selling them one day.

In the grand scheme of things, yes it's important!

I'm currently playing Lunar: Silver Star Harmony for PSP, and it's amazing! I was considering buying Lunar 2 for Sega CD, but it's cheaper and plays better on PS1, so I'll likely get that. If my new PS1 game didn't work, that would suck!

I think most people would test a rare game to see if it works before selling it.

I have some CD's from the early/mid 1980's and they will work.

I find scratches worse than rot.  But when I lived by the shore, even you stainless steel seems to rust.

I did go into a used video store and they resurfaces some Wii games that were scratched for less than a dollar.  It fixed them right up!

Well this is what happens when people praise Sega/Sony for advancing gaming my further developing disc media. We should have further developed game cartridges with new tech instead.

Sega/Sony alone are not to blame as the movie industry has done the same. Some of my old dvd movies suffer from this. Then on the other side of the coin I got video tapes from the 60s that have MINT picture.



Or at least HOPE BluRay media is more resilient.

One solution would be that at the end of the gen, the companies should open up the hardware so you can backup your games to digital and discs lol.

Burnt disks? Plenty.
Disks of legally bought games? Thankfully none.

Me too. I've got a bunch of music CDs from the 80s and they all played perfectly fine the last time I listened to them.

Throwing this out there: Does this change anyone's opinion (who was opposed previously) on digitally downloading their games/collection?

Thankfully I don't live on the Sun and my old discs still work.