Could CRTs ever be a niche boutique product of the future?

[Boltorano]

With people occasionally coming out with niche products with pretty high quality (The EverDrive packages sold by Stone Age Gamer come to mind) for the retro gaming market, I got to thinking.

As CRTs become harder and harder to find, and the remaining good quality units slowly wearing out over time due to use, would it ever become profitable for a company to make a high quality CRT display with retro gamers in mind? The better displays made 10 or so years ago usually had a wide variety of the types of inputs that retro gamers would want (S-video, composite, etc.), but perhaps there are some features that could specifically cater to the retro gaming market (perhaps something that could display both NTSC and PAL)?

Will we just have to deal with the displays we currently have to work with? Will DIY repairs keep existing CRTs alive as long as we could hope our consoles to list? Is this just a pipe dream?

Discuss.

[Edmond Dantes]

I personally just hope my CRT doesn't expire before I do.

But I could imagine such products still being around, just as record players are still around.

[Boltorano]

I suppose another question is, would it be legal to sell a new model television in the USA (or anywhere else for that matter) without a tuner capable of converting over the air digital broadcasts, even if it wasn't intended for anything other than analog RF converters on old video game systems?

[Edmond Dantes]

They could advertise it as a computer monitor. A lot of computer monitors nowadays have RCA etc. ports so they can double over as TVs.

[Sanriostar]

It's already happening; some of us have been in a CRT hoarding mode for a few years. (I'm at 8; as soon as I have more space I'm gunning for more)

[maxlords]

Yes...there will be people selling CRTs at a premium in another 10-15 years.

[Leo_A]

Nope, not enough retrogamers out there to support production.

They're too complex and too expensive to manufacture. No one is going to design and setup production for something that is going to have sales measured in the hundreds, at best.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

Nope, not enough retrogamers out there to support production.

They're too complex and too expensive to manufacture. No one is going to design and setup production for something that is going to have it's sales measured in the hundreds, at best.

There are many thousands of retrogamers, so sales may be better (four figures). Wouldn't surprise me if someone began making CRT TV's for the retro market, but it would be a limited affair.

[Gameguy]

It's still easy to find CRT televisions right now, and it will get slightly easier in Canada shortly as we're just switching over to digital broadcasting signals and plenty of people will be buying new TVs to have a working tuner.

If anything they should be making replacement vector monitors for arcade machines as those have been long out of production and plenty of people need new ones now to restore old arcade machines.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Possibly. I think display technology surpassing all CRTs finest points for less cost is much more likely though.

[VACRMH]

Possibly. I think display technology surpassing all CRTs finest points for less cost is much more likely though.

Ditto. I see more people making niche products to get that old school feel if anything (Like that person who made an adaptor to show scanlines)

[Compute]

They'll be right next to Sega's new console.

[Jorpho]

They're too complex and too expensive to manufacture.

Don't forget heavy, fragile, and difficult to store.

There are many thousands of retrogamers, so sales may be better (four figures).

That's still pretty insignificant.

Possibly. I think display technology surpassing all CRTs finest points for less cost is much more likely though.

Yeah, that.

[Clownzilla]

Possibly. I think display technology surpassing all CRTs finest points for less cost is much more likely though.

With all the graphic tweeking options I can get a desired look from an emulator on my PC running through my LCD TV. If the TV itself would have some of the same adjustments then I would never consider a CRT again. So I would think an LCD TV with retro game adjustments would be much more likely. If those same LCD TV's could somehow reproduce the screen refresh of CRT TV's (for oldschool light guns) then I would easily be in for one.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

The aging technology will be cheaper to make, so it may be justified to make something that'll sell a few thousand units.

[Suikoman444]

Or more expensive to make, if the parts needed to make the new units become difficult to find cheaply.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Age doesn't make things cheaper as a rule. It can, but it's not true most cases.
Case in point: http://www.delorean.com/newbuild.asp

[Shingetter]

Really all they need to do is get light guns to work, I'd never miss CRT's. I moved one of those 36in Sony's into the house only to have it crap out 3 months later, then move it to the dump. It was fucking heavy, awkward, and not worth it.

[RP2A03]

Superior picture quality is always worth it. Personally, I'm holding my breath for FED and hoping I don't die from asphyxia.

[Leo_A]

There are many thousands of retrogamers, so sales may be better (four figures). Wouldn't surprise me if someone began making CRT TV's for the retro market, but it would be a limited affair.

Show me something aimed at the retrogaming marketplace that has ever even sold 1000 units. And retrogamers are cheap. Look at any of the amazing reprogrammable multicarts like the Cuttle Cart II that we've gotten in recent years and you'll find no shortage of dedicated retrogamers saying $100-$300 is way too much for a device that opens up the entire library to a gamer on real hardware without having to change cartridges. Production of something aimed at us is usually measured in the dozens. If you're very lucky with an extraordinarily successful product, you might manage several hundred units sold.

CRT production is big business, supplying retrogamers and such isn't. You need tens of thousands of sales just to justify producing a television that is cheap and of poor quality. A very high quality CRT with a few hundred in potential sales to retrogamers at $150 would probably cost something like $10,000 a unit just to design and do a minimum production run of, if you could even find a willing manufacturer.

Isn't happening unless some classic gamer wins big in the lottery and decides to start up a not for profit enterprise to supply high quality CRT's to classic gamers at a heavily subsidized price. Just look at CRT production for arcade units where there is still a reasonable sized market to supply hundreds of replacement units to each year. Companies still shut down their existing production lines with models that were developed long ago with the necessary tooling already in place.

No one is going to design and manufacture a television that will see its' sales measured in the dozens. It just simply isn't viable.