It’s crazy how expensive retro physical media has gotten. I still remember purchasing OoT, SM64, MM, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 (for DC), and a whole DC and N64 console back in late/2017/early-2018 for no more than $40USD each. Haven’y looked at the prices today for these things, but I feel like they aren’t looking too pretty…

Yes, two things jump to mind:

1) Christ, I probably had lord knows how much money in old games that I got pennies for.  I sold Panzer Dragoon back in the 90s for $120...  I had all the SNES FF games, Chrono Trigger.  Had Earthbound.  Shinning Force III, Dragon Force, tons of Dreamcast stuff.

2) Prices (and convenience) is why I went emulation.  To each their own, no judgement, but I am not paying $650 for Earthbound.    

I would suggest that dev studios consider reprinting these games so as to continue to allow them to be playable in the modern age (without the need to sell a kidney), but being how obsolete most of the tech behind these cartridges and their associated hardware have become, I really don't see why somebody would simply resort to emulation at this point. Unless you really want that authentic experience... which I can understand especially for those who grew up on N64 and SNES, for instance.

I hadn't played it myself, nor Chrono Trigger or FF6 etc. I can honestly say from my perspective that the hype was real. Earthbound was a heart-warming joy, Chrono Trigger was jaw-dropping, to say the least, and FF6 was everything everyone had always said it was. I'm not the biggest fan of RPGs, but they delivered. Now, I'm just worried about their batteries. I suck at soldering, and the thought of getting the iron close to an authentic Earthbound board is... well... not at all pleasent lol

Gaming PC ofc. My old one was about 1300 euro... if I wanted to get a new one now, yikes!

Second place is about the same for PS5 and Switch 2 used (400ish euro), but even combined that's still less.

Asrock X570 Aqua.

Yeah my Switch 2 games look night and day better on this display than my old one; sharper picture, better colours, better contrast, etc.

Yeah I picked up so many old games for like $5-$20 a pop from second hand stores in the 2000s; we had no idea how good we had it at the time!

I'm one of those who prefer original hardware, just for the nostalgia and feeling of authenticity.

I've never spend much money, excluding computers (and not much on those either) and aside Master System and games I had parents buy me as kid, nearly all my games are minimum price re-releases, second hand or even junk given away.
Most I've ever paid was around 30 $/€, probably Asterix on Master System (which is one of the very platformers I've really enjoyed, played it through over dozen times along 30+ years.).
Of PC games most I've payed for Police Quest 3 (which was my first PC game) and Wing Commander 3 (being my favorite series, though not favorite game of it).

My PC in 2010, comprising of:

• AMD Athlon II X4 640
• AMD Radeon HD 5770
• A Sharkoon Big Tower with 10 external 5'25" slots (was to be used as a home server later down the road)
• An Asus AM3 880G Motherboard
• 8GB DDR3-1333 in 7-7-7-21 timings from G-skill
• A Blu-Ray combo drive (thought I bought a Blu*Ray burner, but got burnt on that one)
• A 650W PSU from B*Quiet
• A B*Quiet Dark Rock Slim CPU cooler
• 3 140mm B*Quiet casefans
• A 23-inch Samsung Full-HD Screen
• A new Canon printer/scanner
• A Logitech G15 Keyboard
• A Roccat Kone Mouse
• A Wifi Adaptor (Board with Wifi were exceedingly rare back then)
• A Sound card (can't remember which one exactly, but it was from Soundblaster)
• A Multi-card reader
• Completely forgot: a Windows 7 Ultimate license, then valued at roughly 150€

Including testing and shipping (which were at around 200€), it cost me about 1600€ all in all.

Nowadays a PC with a similar level of hardware would be quite a lot more expensive. The CPU and GPU together cost me around 300€, nowadays a Ryzen 7 7700 plus 9070XT, which would be around the same level, would cost me close to 3 times that.

Current PC was probably some $4000 considering local prices and all, half of it due to the GPU.
Yeah, I'd say it was worth it. I don't think much about the cost at all.