Quote Originally Posted by shopkins View Post
Does anyone have an explanation for why they've lasted four times that?
Because it's just fear-mongering. When it comes from game companies, they just want to cover their asses and also to encourage people to buy the exact same game over and over every time it gets ported to a new system. When it comes from gamers, it's because they're only passing along whatever myths they hear without having enough actual experience with classic games to know that the vast majority of game batteries still work fine. I mean, every gamer big on collecting should prepare for the day in which they'll have to change a battery because it will come sooner or later, but it's not something to be worrying about whatsoever.

As for my own personal experience, I couldn't say how many games I have that have batteries, but with a collection of 1100+ games and over half those being carts (and most being post-crash), I'm sure I have tons. And out of those, I've encountered only ONE dead battery, that's it. It was also dead when I bought it, so who knows what it went through.