Games left on dying hardware

[MegaHiro91]

Aside from being the butt of all jokes for a time, Stadia crashed hard, and one of the games it almost took with it to the grave, as many developers had dedicated themselves to the platform and been given NO notice of its imminent death, was a title called Gylt (aka baby's first Silent Hill).

I kid with the parenthasies, as Gylt is genuinely a fun experience, being a mix between Silent Hill and Alan Wake. Although tackling themes of bullying, it is a colorful "childfriendly" horror experience, seeing the middle schooler Sally searching for her lost cousin Emily, as she navigates her hometown of Bethelwood incl her school and the local arcade, while avoiding, fighting, and outsmarting nightmarish monsters.

The game's title comes from Sally being partially to blame for her cousin's bullying, and without spoiling too much, an element of the story is her reflecting on her responsibility in the matter. It is very light on puzzles, most just being pick up this battery over there and place it here to get this machine working, but they are fun enough to solve that it keeps you going and want to see the story through to the end, to see if poor Emily gets any closure.

As I opened with, the game was initially developed for Stadia, but a couple years later found a new home on other platforms, so if you are into smaller horror games like Little Nightmare then this is a high recommendation.

Do ya'll know of other games (almost) left to rot on abandoned hardware?

 

[norunove]

It's a shame seeing good games be forgotten like that, i have not heard about this Gylt game until your post and will give it a look.
And an game that has been abandoned hardware is Metal gear 4 on the PS3, it can be emulated and all but still sadly only way to play it is owning a PS3 or having the specs to emulate it

 

[DunkeyKong]

No wonder that profile looks familiar lol

My game though maybe would be Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. It is available for PSP, PS3 and Xbox 360. And sure maybe it isn't that good of a game for some people (especially the bosses)

But I don't know how it isn't available for the newer hardware. Like there's already a HD Edition, but both are kinda stuck for PS3 and Xbox 360

It's a shame seeing good games be forgotten like that, i have not heard about this Gylt game until your post and will give it a look.
And an game that has been abandoned hardware is Metal gear 4 on the PS3, it can be emulated and all but still sadly only way to play it is owning a PS3 or having the specs to emulate it

 

[MegaHiro91]

It's a shame seeing good games be forgotten like that, i have not heard about this Gylt game until your post and will give it a look.
And an game that has been abandoned hardware is Metal gear 4 on the PS3, it can be emulated and all but still sadly only way to play it is owning a PS3 or having the specs to emulate it

When I made the post I was moreso about hardware (like the Stadia) that have been discontinued, taking its library with it. But you are absolutely right about games like Metal Gear Solid 4, that even though it is readily accessible to owners of a PS3 or if you have the specs to emulate it, it still becomes less and less accessible as time goes on. I mean Rain, another PS3 game I talk about in another thread, can be streamed via PS5's Premium service... but not Metal Gear Solid 4? Why?

So many games that would be no-brainers to preserve via online streaming are being left abandoned and forgotten. I believe I read a report last year that 70% of all games are lost.

Post automatically merged: Jan 24, 2025

No wonder that profile looks familiar lol

My game though maybe would be Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. It is available for PSP, PS3 and Xbox 360. And sure maybe it isn't that good of a game for some people (especially the bosses)

But I don't know how it isn't available for the newer hardware. Like there's already a HD Edition, but both are kinda stuck for PS3 and Xbox 360



View attachment 16818

Haha, yeah my avatar is ripped straight from the game in question. Partially a coincidence though as it is also my avatar on Reddit. I just got onto this forum and needed a picture, and so of course when I chose this one I got the urge to talk about it :P

 

[Jon-Patrick-S]

In terms of some really obscure stuff, the Nokia N-Gage service had a couple of exclusive titles from big name franchises with Metal Gear Solid Mobile and Resident Evil Degeneration (Yes a tie-in to the CGI movie), and I believe for the longest time it was essentially impossible to play them legitimately unless you happened to have an old phone with them already downloaded because of DRM. Its only in recent years that an emulator has come out for N-Gage making these games playable to the masses again.

In a similar vein the Zeebo is a very obscure Brazilian console that probably only has a handful of titles that are of any interest to most people but it did have a quite sought after remake of the original Double Dragon, and again as of only the last few years an emulator has come out with that Double Dragon game being one of very few games that can currently be run on it.

Another odd one is the Leapster, an educational handheld gaming device for children that for some reason has a tie-in game to the Sonic X anime in its library. There's no emulator for that system yet and I imagine there's little demand for it, but my morbid curiosity for obscure media holds out hope to see it some day.

 

[DanVzare]

The original Saints Row comes to mind.
I mean sure, thanks to backwards compatibility, you can play it on an Xbox One and Xbox Series. But what about the next Xbox?
It's only a matter of time until the only way you'll be able to play it is via an emulator.

 

[Yousef]

Any 360, ps3 or ps4 exclusive unless those became easy to emulate. And by easy, I mean ps2-easy.

 

[MegaHiro91]

In terms of some really obscure stuff, the Nokia N-Gage service had a couple of exclusive titles from big name franchises with Metal Gear Solid Mobile and Resident Evil Degeneration (Yes a tie-in to the CGI movie), and I believe for the longest time it was essentially impossible to play them legitimately unless you happened to have an old phone with them already downloaded because of DRM. Its only in recent years that an emulator has come out for N-Gage making these games playable to the masses again.

In a similar vein the Zeebo is a very obscure Brazilian console that probably only has a handful of titles that are of any interest to most people but it did have a quite sought after remake of the original Double Dragon, and again as of only the last few years an emulator has come out with that Double Dragon game being one of very few games that can currently be run on it.

Another odd one is the Leapster, an educational handheld gaming device for children that for some reason has a tie-in game to the Sonic X anime in its library. There's no emulator for that system yet and I imagine there's little demand for it, but my morbid curiosity for obscure media holds out hope to see it some day.

I always wanted an N-Gage, mostly because I liked the oval design that I also loved about the GBA.

Speaking of Resident Evil, I went down memorylane some time ago, breathing life into one of my old Sony Ericsson phones, and one of them had a top-down version of Resident Evil 2.

And speaking of obscure consoles, there was that Kingdom Hearts V-Cast game on the... well, V-Cast.

 

[Hikari.EXE]

Obligatory Xenoblade Chronicles X DE mention

Yes, I am once again shilling the re-release of X on the Switch, fucking buy it.
In all seriousness, seeing games lost to the limitation of their hardware sucks, especially if the hardware is hard to emulate due to hardware gimmicks (i.e. Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, etc.) I can think of many great games from the Wii era like Pandora's Tower or The Last Story that should have gotten more love, lost to the halls of time due to a mix of negligence and lack of popularity.
I am glad to be a fan of a series that has gotten all their recent games ported to a modern console, lowering the barrier of entry with both acessability to the game and QoL improvements to the gameplay and what not. But I know that the reality for many is either having a old ass piece of hardware, emulation, or nothing at all...

 

[norunove]

When I made the post I was moreso about hardware (like the Stadia) that have been discontinued, taking its library with it. But you are absolutely right about games like Metal Gear Solid 4, that even though it is readily accessible to owners of a PS3 or if you have the specs to emulate it, it still becomes less and less accessible as time goes on. I mean Rain, another PS3 game I talk about in another thread, can be streamed via PS5's Premium service... but not Metal Gear Solid 4? Why?

One thing that i heard about why MGS4 is stuck on PS3 is many copyright reasons, there is a lot of product placement there, Pepsi ads, Apple ads (I don't remember if it was an Iphone or an Ipod) i wish i could emulate it, i have a pretty decent machine but still, emulation doesnt cut for me sadly its barely playable

 

[MegaHiro91]

One thing that i heard about why MGS4 is stuck on PS3 is many copyright reasons, there is a lot of product placement there, Pepsi ads, Apple ads (I don't remember if it was an Iphone or an Ipod) i wish i could emulate it, i have a pretty decent machine but still, emulation doesnt cut for me sadly its barely playable

Ahh yeah that would do it. I have personally have anything against product placements as to me it just adds realism to the game as it makes you feel it takes place in our world, and Kojima, if anyone, loves doing this. That said, these kinds of games really don't do themselves any favors, as this added touch of realism is exactly what makes them difficult to preserve in an official capacity. Same goes for games that use licensed music like Alan Wake, which got pulled down from Steam for a couple years before they managed to renew it.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I knew about the game and ALWAYS wanted to play it, because it looks super interesting to me... but Stadia was offering a Devil's bargain and I was not to thrilled to sign my rights to preservation away like that.

 

[thanonyx]

Every. Single. Mobile phone game before smart phones.

There's actually projects out there that are trying to find them all and preserve them, particularly Japanese ones, there's even a wiki for them.

Keitai Wiki [Japanese Feature Phone Game Preservation]

This wiki is dedicated to cataloging games from Japanese Feature Phones (pre-Android/iPhone mobile devices). (e.g. i-Mode game, i-Appli game, EZweb game, S!Appli game)

keitaiwiki.miraheze.org

 

[ThatPatrickGuy]

Taking any chance to mention These Beauties.
Can't buy them anymore, don't remember if they ever made disks for the PC.
Left to rot on PS3/XBox360

 

[Hikari.EXE]

I said something similar in another thread, they also pulled the plug on Devastation, you can't buy it anymore...

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Every. Single. Mobile phone game before smart phones.

There's actually projects out there that are trying to find them all and preserve them, particularly Japanese ones, there's even a wiki for them.

Keitai Wiki [Japanese Feature Phone Game Preservation]

This wiki is dedicated to cataloging games from Japanese Feature Phones (pre-Android/iPhone mobile devices). (e.g. i-Mode game, i-Appli game, EZweb game, S!Appli game)

keitaiwiki.miraheze.org

Absolutely.

I have been playing some of my favorite Gameloft goodies on an Android emulator (effectively emulating a phone within a phone). All of those games were understandably short, but were also honestly really good on all aspects.

 

[Xdqwerty]

Mother 3

 

[Hikari.EXE]

Mother 3

I'm pretty sure the GBA is not a dying hardware... Well, not by our standard I guess. It's pretty easy to emulate so I personaly wouldn't count it.

 

[Xdqwerty]

I'm pretty sure the GBA is not a dying hardware... Well, not by our standard I guess. It's pretty easy to emulate so I personaly wouldn't count it.

Then lego dimensions on xbox 360 and Wii u

 

[Hikari.EXE]

Then lego dimensions on xbox 360 and Wii u

Hoooly shit. Ok, now you got me lol.