Your Grandma's Tube TV Is the Hottest Gaming Tech
If you visit my house, you won't even notice my 50-inch 4K TV. It's sleek and black, bevel-less, and designed to emphasize TV shows, movies, and video games. When it's turned off, nestled above my fireplace, it blends into the background.
What you will notice, however, is the bulky CRT TV taking up precious space in my townhouse. It's heavy, with a thick silver-gray bezel and chunky buttons. I literally got it from someone's grandpa when he upgraded to a flatscreen.
But why do I own a TV that most people moved on from 15 years ago? And why have I spent a ton of money designing a family room around it and another vintage display? Whether it's going back to enjoy Chrono Trigger's time traveling goodness or digging into the amazing fan translation scene, it's all about retro gaming.
While gaming through the 1990s and into the aughts, I focused on the newest games and hardware. Sure, I replayed old favorites, but for the most part my retro collection was relegated to a dusty closet. It wasn't until Nintendo released the SNES Classic Edition in 2017 that I started taking retro gaming seriously. Though I loved playing through a bunch of my favorite SNES games on my flatscreen, I knew something was missing from the emulated experience. So I went hunting for a solution and fell down a rabbit hole so deep it'd make Alice's skin crawl.
