[cool_scatter]

As someone who does often play retro games on a CRT TV, this monitor wouldn't cut it either. Same reason I never understood those "retro consoles", even the official ones made by Nintendo/Sony. At the end of the day it's just a plastic shell made to look like the old thing around something new.

[wharvle]

The Nintendo ones are plug-in-and-start-playing, come with controllers as good as the originals (I can side-by-side them—the new ones are excellent reproductions) and that feel exactly the same, and have a UI that a kid can figure out and that you don't have to set up or configure yourself, at all.

The SNES Classic in particular was one of the best deals in gaming I've ever seen. So much zero-hassle entertainment in one package, all ready to attach to a TV and go. No downloading, no updates, no horse-shit, it just plays like 30 amazing games providing hundreds of hours of entertainment for around $100, and you didn't have to do anything to make that happen (that you can do nerd-shit and add dozens more games to it is simply a bonus)

Other retro consoles I've seen have kinda been shit, but the Nintendo ones are great. Not everybody wants to or knows how to screw around with computers in their spare time so they can play Mario.

"But the Switch et c. can play many of those games, and more" True, however, 1) The original controllers are really nice to have for the games, especially on the NES where they're far easier to learn than even the SNES controller for very-young new gamers, and you can get them for the Switch, but that's an add-on and getting two of them costs about as much as a whole NES Classic did, 2) Maybe you have two TVs and you don't want to buy a second switch for price reasons, or perhaps because you'd rather one of the TVs be more chill so you don't have to police it as much for the kids, or whatever, and 3) Playing those games on the Switch costs a subscription—with the Classic consoles, you pay once and it's yours until it breaks.

[cool_scatter]

That's all fair, I definitely see the appeal (especially regarding the controllers, which is something third-party companies have struggled to get right for decades). They're a good way to play the games. But for me at least (and I've heard similar sentiments from others), a big part of the "retro experience" comes from playing on a real console and a CRT TV. Something about the built-in firmware and knowing it's basically just a raspberry pi under the hood puts me off the whole thing and I would rather just emulate on a PC because it's less hassle. But ultimately of course if you enjoy it then keep doing so!