[AiboPet]

I love my old "original" SNES....and the fact it HAS to be played on an old analog CRT or the little "zapper" gun for duck hunt won't work. It has it's faults...I have extra of those damn cart connectors NOS in box for when THAT problem shows up, but so far it's run flawless. Only have like four games for it, but do play the original Duck Hunt and Mario thing every few weeks just for fun :-)

I never really thought of it being WORTH anything.....fifty bucks?...a hundred maybe in a real stretch. It sits at home, and gets PLAYED. I've never been real big on the "glass case" idea. I did that with some of my AIBO robots, and believe me....it's a REALLY SAD day when something has been sitting in a glass case for five years, you go to run it, and it won't boot up.

five of my seven AIBO robots now have completely dead batteries, and these are big fancy lithium-ion packs like for laptops. They die when they sit no matter how you treat 'em. They have a shelf life no matter if you have been using them or not. I'll now have to find a service that specializes in "reloading" that very specific battery.

Don't just let your stuff sit, and not enjoy them.

I know NES doesn't....but maybe SNES or maybe some of those carts themselves likely have batteries in them for saving settings, hi-scores or whatever. Those would almost certainly be dead and even causing harm to the machine if let sit for years on end without attention.

Any of the newer systems almost certainly have a little button cell keeping memory and BIOS settings. it's good for maybe four years tops, and then just like an old laptop or PC, you'll start getting "CMOS errors" or the like. Then later....battery will start harming the board. Just ask anyone who has decided to keep their old 386 they built in '89 running.