Coming just after the hype of the PS3 and Wii launches, the Washington Post has a nice write-up about not forgetting your past loves. The article centers on a Tarik Smith, who, instead of shelling out massive amounts of cash to pick up the latest and greatest, kicks back and lives it up with his NES:

It sits front and center in Smith’s living room in Silver Spring, hooked up to a giant pull-down projection screen, right next to about 25 game cartridges. That’s right, C-A-R-T-R-I-D-G-E-S. All weekend, the brawny 30-year-old in a Redskins jersey and duck slippers threw passes and scored touchdowns on “Tecmo Super Bowl.” On Friday he played for four hours. Saturday, five. He took yesterday off, with hours of “Tecmo” to go in the season he’s playing.

It’s refreshing to see the retro gaming community start to gain media attention. The article goes on to talk about various conventions, the general mind-set of the community, and so on.

Their motto: If it ain’t broke, play it. “I spent Thanksgiving playing with my Sega Genesis,” says 44-year-old Evan McAnney of Chevy Chase, who’s kept quite a collection of Sega titles. And now, while other gamers are hysterically pursuing the new thing, gamers such as McAnney are carefree.

…
Part of it, too, is the simplicity of the machine. Smith picks up the NES controller and compares it with the Xbox 360′s. On the NES, it’s up, down, left, right, push A, push B. On the Xbox 360, it’s a left trigger, a right trigger, A and B and X and Y, left thumb, right thumb . . .

“Sometimes you just want to sit down and play a game,” Smith says.

Nintendo has learned this. Hopefully the other vendors will soon. In the mean time, dust off your old carts, tapes, cards and CDs. Play some old games!