The retro gaming industry could be killing video game preservation
There's arguably never been a better time to be play older games. Companies like Nintendo and Sega are reconnecting players with their heritage via products such as the SNES Classic Edition and the smartphone-based Sega Forever range, while a flood of third-party companies like Analogue, Hyperkin, Retro-Bit and AtGames are manufacturing clone systems which offer a means of playing original cartridges with creature comforts such as HD output, save states and much more besides. On top of that, we've seen vintage games appear on a myriad of digital storefronts, most notably the Nintendo Virtual Console and Switch eShop, the latter of which has been getting fresh Neo Geo games each and every month since launch thanks to Japanese company Hamster.
The fast-moving nature of the games industry and the dizzying number of different consoles, each with their own unique technical specifications and foibles, once led some experts to ominously predict that unlike music, TV and film - mediums which can be easily transferred from format to format as new storage technologies appear - video games were in danger of being locked in the past, fenced-off behind the peculiarities of their host hardware. Emulation has done an excellent job of preventing this grim future, but ironically the new-found commercial success of this burgeoning sector could end up crippling its long-term prospects.
One of the more recent emulation success stories is the freely-available RetroArch, a downloadable frontend which works in conjunction with backend application Libretro. It has become one of the most respected means of playing old games on modern hardware; it's available on Android, Windows, Mac, Linux and (unofficially, thanks to the efforts of industrious hackers) the Nintendo Switch. "Contrary to how most people perceive it, RetroArch is not an emulator in the traditional sense," explains Daniel De Matteis, software developer and current lead of both RetroArch and Libretro. "RetroArch/Libretro is a frontend/backend project that seeks to create its own ecosystem of software that runs as dynamically pluggable code."
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