That slick widescreen high-definition television that’s the centerpiece of your living room is an abomination, and not just for the price. Sure, it makes a fine addition to your multimedia center, but if you’re a retro gaming fan looking to hook up your NES, Super NES, Genesis, Turbo Grafx-16, or other pre-PlayStation era video game consoles for a few hours of old school entertainment, prepare for plenty of blotchy colors, fuzzy pixels, and perhaps a bit of sobbing. Here is why HDTVs are the bane to the retrogamer and how one purchase can save you lots of money.
You don’t need an HDTV
The natural evolution of display technology has made retrogaming a no-no on HDTVs. A 720p (1,280 x 720-pixel resolution) or 1080p (1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution) television wrecks, for example, the 8-bit beauty of the NES’ visuals (256 x 240-pixel resolution) as it has to stretch those meager amount of pixels over a much greater area. I learned this digital lesson the hard way. Two years ago, I made the mistake of attempting to play the classic Tecmo Super Bowl on my mom’s 42-incher, and my New York Giants squad looked very much like blue cotton balls dashing across the massive screen.
Don’t let modern consoles tempt you with nostalgia
The Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Sony PlayStation 3 have online marketplaces (Xbox Live Arcade, Virtual Console, and PlayStation Network, respectively) where you can purchase updated, tweaked versions of classic games that have been filtered and upscaled to look as you remember, but on a HDTV. Unfortunately, these reworked games can’t be played in full screen mode (there’s typically letterboxing), and a number have yet become available for download.
The Big Three gaming companies aren’t offering these games for altruistic purposes; they’re hoping that nostalgia for long past days will encourage you to re-purchase these games, typically at $5 to $10 a pop. Dropping a Lincoln on a favorite game may seem like meager …