Reply 20 of 31, by Tetrium
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jakethompson1 wrote on 2023-05-21, 18:08:paradigital wrote on 2023-05-21, 10:56:Is a great curiosity, but most retro enthusiasts want to feel the physical hardware, so PCemu can only marginally reduce the tar […]
The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-05-21, 10:46:PCemu.
Is a great curiosity, but most retro enthusiasts want to feel the physical hardware, so PCemu can only marginally reduce the target market, nothing more.
I’d imagine that the biggest driver to currently reduced prices is the cost of living crisis being faced by most western nations due to the war on Ukraine affecting global food prices and disrupting the supply chain for a lot of new products, which has a knock-on effect of an economic downturn.
Legacy hardware is a finite resource that is reducing in usable quantities relatively consistently (thanks entropy!), as such prices will in general only increase with time.
I bet this applies to others, but I've been interested in this stuff since it was current, and then COVID came and I was bored at home... Some of that could be wearing off too.
COVID definitely played a role there, on multiple fronts. Many people were stuck at home, so more people started buying more content online causing shortages. These shortages (if applicable) were already present for retro hardware (prices of certain hardware was already going up quite steeply before COVID was even a thing), but the pandemic along with crypto mining (which may also have been at least partially caused by the pandemic) caused shortages of certain parts which also 'normalized' the higher prices for hardware somewhat, making people more willing to pay up for the increased prices.
Some of the people stuck at home may have also made retro pc computing their new hobby and in turn create more videos about retro computing with more people to watch because they were also stuck at home.
I can imagine some of these people were basically not even that much into retro pc computing to begin with, but were just basically riding the wave of increased retro pc computing popularity. Prices just went ballistic!
Now that the pandemic is over (and hopefully it will stay that way), it's reasonable to assume prices overall will likely sag for a bit. But for how long? That's the question 😋
I also agree that the war in Ukraine and the post-covid hangover will cause a (temporary?) dip in economies worldwide, but this retro pc stuff is finite. The number of retro pc hobbyists is in a way also finite, but way more flexible. And as long as scalping remains a thing, they will help to artificially jack up prices for as much as they can.