have your purchasing habits changed due to emulation / flash cards?

[Obfuscate]

Never even tried an emulation or a flash card. Thought about buying the everdrive just to play US Magical Chase and try the few expensive Hueys I'd never actually buy but still unsure, might fork the cash to get JPN version someday.

[Black Tiger]

I play on an emulator only if I need good screenshots for something, and I mostly use the flashcart for translated roms or out of convenience (no f*ckin' around with the region converter).  I still buy games, even the pricier ones.

This sums up most of it for me. I buy more now and favor CDs over HuCards all the more than before, because aside from the usual boost in game quality, cdrs don't play or sound exactly the same all the time, but HuCards roms off of a flash card do. I'll still buy everything until I run out of games worth purchasing, but I expect to run out of CDs to buy before HuCards.

[Gogan]

Re: my stance, see my sig

[_joshuaTurbo]

I emulate just about everything pre-N64 on various computers, Xbox, PSP, and cell phones and tablets. 

SkummVM is amazing on Tablets or Cell phones.  I had a few of my friends' jaws drop when I showed them Loom running on a smart phone.  Pretty great stuff.  For those older PC games I really enjoy the 'emulation' of them on various systems.   For on the road or right before bed, in bed, at night I like the PSP to play a few moments of Blazing Lazers or some other nonsense that is easy to just pick up and play.  The Xbox is in our main living room and does a pretty good job of displaying games (Turbo, Genesis, SNES, NES,) in 1080i on an LCD TV (with Options) without many of the issues I've ran into with my actual un-modded hardware.

But, like most others, I prefer to just play the originals.   It's the best way to experience Retro gaming.  Some of it that I don't play as often as I'd like, I have packed up, and some I have on display for everyone to see and play.  I like to pull out a traditional CRT monitor to play games on as well.  I just need more space currently to have retro stuff available at all times. 

[pc_kwajalein]

MAME; yeah, I'll go that route for my arcade needs.

But for console titles, I'm strictly goin' for the real McCoys.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Roms, Iso's.....I still buy the real thing regardless if I emulate or not.

[BigusSchmuck]

If purchasing habits changed at all due to emulation I would say more people are buying the real thing vs running it on a emulator hence the price spike we have seen in recent years. I rarely play my emulators anymore, but in the days of old I used to run almost everything pre n64 on my dreamcast without many issues.

[Sparky]

I am open to either route but prefer the real thing, but for games like dynastic hero and super air Zonk which I am not going to pay the so called going rate, the rom is perfect and will be until I get it for a price I like

[rsa2000]

I have tried and tried to enjoy emulation but I just can't get into a game.  I don't know why I guess I am too much of a purist.  It is great for trying out games but that's as far as I even get with it.  On the flashcard debate I am afraid it would change my habits and won't buy one for now.  I really enjoy having physical copies of games.

[roflmao]

For Turbo/PC Engine, I try to stick with original carts.  I really prefer the artwork on the PCE versions over most US titles, and many of them are dirt cheap. It's worth owning for the artwork alone.  And if you get the case/manual, even better!  More awesome art!  I have one of the GOY Flash Carts which I picked up to support the community (I'll likely get an EverDrive one of these days for the same reason) and to play games I know I'll never want to purchase for what they're selling for and for homebrew/translations.  It doesn't get an awful lot of use, though I feel it was a worthy purchase.

I don't emulate any other consoles, though I used to play ISOs for Dreamcast and PS1 games.  A long time ago.  Now I rarely ever want to play either of those systems and when I do, it's a game I thought was worth purchasing.

Arcade emulation is a little different for me, though.  It takes a certain amount of time, knowledge, money and space to have an arcade collection.  Someday I hope to be able to maintain one, but in the meantime I've set up MAME on an old P4 3.4Ghz machine and picked up one of these: http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-joysticks-and-game-controllers/product/x-arcade-dual-joystick/

It's currently connected to my 47" living room TV and looks and plays pretty badass.  

[Gentlegamer]

The neckbeards on ebay are about to drive me to give up collecting real games and go all emulation.

[TR0N]

Don't have a turbo everdrive still but if i did id still keep my TG16/PCE collection.Still i  like to buy one later on for convenience sake.Beside the other reason,any time i find a expensive title that i know will never be able to buy because of it's price.I also like the fact that flashcarts can play games that have a fan translation.Now i do have a everdrive flashcart for the genesis&snes but i still buy games for those.

[Keith Courage]

At one point I sold my entire US collection of games along with a boxed Turbo DUO. I then used my computer hooked up to my TV for years to play my TG16 games. Unfortunately it just wasn't as fun. Yes, the emulation was good but being able to just scroll to any game I wanted somehow took away the fun of it. Something about buying a game and actually placing that said game in your real console is part of the allure. So I had to start my collection all over again.

[ElSeven]

Also worth noting is the ease of burning ISOs for turbo.

With some systems (PS1, Saturn, etc) it can be a little more involved with mod chips & swap tricks, but with turbo it could not be any more convenient.  We never got the luxury of being able to rent turbo cds from Blockbuster, so I treat burning turbo games as a rental/"try before you buy".  No matter what game I burn a cd of, I usually only play them for a half hour to make a quick verdict on if it is worth purchasing.

I knew within 20 minutes of burning/playing dracula x, nexzr and rainbow islands that I needed them in my collection.  The opposite was true for Renny Blaster what a piece of shit that game is.

...inb4 cdr damage wank.

[chany60126]

All I play are original games. Nothing quite like playing a game with its original gamepad. Besides, most emulation is not 100% accurate. Lots of them are incompatible with certain games and many times the sound is off. I think roms are cool when people make fan translations of games and such. Other than that, owning the physical media is the way to go for me. I haven't touched roms or said devices since my days in high school when I couldn't afford to buy the games I wanted.