I have an old Sega Genesis and 20+ games for it. A few of the games seem to be wearing out, because I need to mess with them quite a bit to get them to work. It's not because of the Genesis itself-most of my other games work fine. I also remember having a Sega CD as well, and by the time the sega CD crapped out, several of my games weren't working very well (yes, I was one of the few people who actually liked the SCD)
Now, I probably could have found parts to fix the Sega CD itself, but I didn't see any point in doing so (or finding another used, but working, machine) for several reasons- 1. Most of my games were dying, and 2. I don't know a whole lot about fixing electronic devices, unless it's an obviously broken or loose wire or component.
If you google "Repair parts for (insert "old" console here)" you'll probably get a lot of hits. But, the same can't be said for the games themselves, or the controllers for that matter. Cartridges are generally more robust, but even they eventually stop working.
Emulation is one solution to this problem, but it comes with many legal issues and is basically stealing. That is, unless, you still own an original copy (working or not) of the game. Frankly I don't see why emulation of games no longer sold, shouldn't be legal. I can understand, however, lawsuits reguarding emulation of games that are still available as a NEW purchase-the company that made the game doesn't benefit at all from garage sales, ebay or pawn shops. Unless the game is available as part of some "classic collection" disk in it's original form.
I propose the "Retro-Rescue Console" as a solution to this. The machine is about the size of, say, an original Xbox, with several cartridge slots for different consoles on the top, and 2 CD drives, one of which can burn CD's. It comes with pairs of re-makes of the controllers from all the consoles it supports, including a "game gun" that can work with non-tube TVs, which plug into one of the USB ports on the front.
The console can play the games from the cartridges/CDs themselves, and use a controller designed to duplicate the original controller from that console, but it doesn't end there. If you have games that you play a lot and are worried about wearing them out, you can put it into the appropriate cartridge port or the first CD-ROM drive, and press the "rescue" button on the console. It prompts you to place a CD-R in the drive, or plug in a USB drive. It then proceeds to copy the game code into the CD-R (or RW) or the USB storage device.
To play a CD-R backup of the game, you simply put it in the drive and start it up. It's that simple. The backups can be played in any "Retro-rescue" console, but you can't copy the backups with the console.-- Dickcheney6, Aug 17 2010 Retrode http://www.retrode.org/Cartridge adapter for USB [Spacecoyote, Aug 17 2010] Gens http://www.gens.me/Genesis/Sega CD emulator (can use real discs) [Spacecoyote, Aug 17 2010] Seems like a lot of expensive hardware for some elderly gamer who is already too cheap to upgrade. Maybe just download the emulations from a site where you can buy replicas of retro game controllers?-- bungston, Aug 18 2010 How about just not having the hard drive then? And, the controllers are purchased either seperately, or the console could come in "bundles" that include 2 replica controllers for one console.-- Dickcheney6, Aug 19 2010 This is about "preserving" the games and keeping them in working order. Under copyright law, it is legal to copy things under "fair use"-that is, for your own personal reasons, like recording a song from a CD to MP3, or whatever kind of other thing, as long as you don't sell the copies and keep your original one.
Also, remember that since the older consoles originally used technology that WAS cutting edge back then, but now is not, building something that has the same functionality, today, would be cheaper than it was originally to make.-- Dickcheney6, Aug 19 2010 random, halfbakery