Sometimes it's weird to think about how I develop for consoles that are really expensive and are probably going to keep getting more expensive, and I worry about what effect that'll have long-term, but I had the realization that the accessibility of getting an original console actually doesn't matter that much to the bigger picture. No one is going to buy a SNES just to play my games, and the original consoles have effectively become pricey optional items that enthusiasts can get, and a lot of enthusiasts don't even want to go for them because they prefer the experience they can get out of emulation and clone consoles. They're not required in any way, and I'm sure people are getting into the SNES all the time without ever playing a real one, just like my own experience with the Sega Master System and PC Engine (They're cool! I'm not sure I need either of those but I appreciate them and I've had fun playing stuff like Psycho Fox).

I don't think the appeal of the consoles I like is ever really going away either; I think the SNES and Genesis are when 2D gaming really got perfected and a lot of the games continue to hold up well and look great. Franchises that are still really important like Sonic, Zelda, Metroid, Mario, and Kirby all had important games on there that fans of those are probably going to be interested in looking back at, and there's people who are going to discover for the first time how cool Chrono Trigger is. I only beat Chrono Trigger last year, for instance.

I've talked about it before, but one way I really like looking at it is that old consoles have basically turned into standard platforms that exist separately from the original implementation of them, and that have their own merit aesthetically and game-wise, just like PICO-8 and other fantasy consoles. For example, if you make a Game Boy game you can play it on a Game Boy, a SNES, a GameCube, a PC (including in a browser), a phone, various emulation consoles (including some FPGA-based ones), and pretty much everything else that's powerful enough. And the Game Boy platform is probably never going away; stuff made for it will probably be playable for even longer than Windows games released right now.