My son and I had an adventure this weekend and I’m trying to learn more about video games so I can be a smarter buyer in the future. We’ve become huge Pokémon fans and there is a desire to play every game. That is proving to be a bit difficult. While Nintendo has many old NES, SNES, and GameBoy games available through Switch Online, Pokémon games are not part of that. Thus the only way to play the classic games is to not only find a copy of the game to purchase but also buy the game system is was released for. Find an old GameBoy that somehow still works.

Thankfully there are many people who love playing old video games but don’t have the resources to buy every vintage system. Thus for Christmas I found this retro 5 in 1 system that would play NES, SNES, GameBoy, GameBoy Advance, and Genesis games. Awesome. I found some of my old games and we bought a few more classic ones. Missing most of the Pokémon ones, but we have a start for vintage games.

Then while out playing Pokémon Go this weekend we stopped into a used video game store and found reproduction Pokémon games. They had about 4-5 of them for $50 each. Granted, more than I thought they would be but not bad overall. I was all set to buy a new game for him when I see the sign that these are reproductions. Let me check on one thing before spending money. And good thing I did ask. The repro system will not play repro games. The original system can play a repro game and a repro system can play an original game but a repro can’t play a repro. I was trying to think of a good example to give my kid for why this won’t work the way he wants it to work. I wish I thought of genetics when we were talking. XX can happen, XY can happen, but YY cannot. A copy can’t play a copy.

I’m all for this tribute technology and it has come a long way, although obviously it’s not quite perfect yet. It’s a great alternative because this same store also had the original Pokémon games for sale. $150 for a used GameBoy game, no box, no instructions. I love my son and will get him anything he wants, but I need some warning and a special occasion to drop that much on a game. I hope he sees it as a lesson in budgeting and not any sort of unwillingness to give him joy. It’s tough for me to teach lessons and I’m sure it’s tougher for him to try to catch them all.