In Stoke-on-Trent (center of England), Luke Malpass receives packages from around the world containing consoles to be repaired. Six years ago, this 38 -year -old player made his passion his job, by opening at home Retrosix, a repair workshop for old consoles. Game Boy, Nintendo Super Nes, Sega Megadrive … He now has permanently between 50 and 150 pending consoles.
Along the walls of his workshop, shelves contain electronic components and accessories for almost all the models put on the market since the 1980s. For between 60 and several hundred euros, the owners of former consoles can see them refurbished.
“I think there is essentially a nostalgic element” but “I think it is also the tactile experience. Take a box of a shelf, insert the game into the console (…) it increases the pleasure of the game, “said Luke to explain his success.
He also sees it as a need for disconnection compared to current games, most of which are played online against other participants, which involves practicing a lot to be at the level.
“A retro game, you take it, turn it on for ten minutes or an hour, whatever. It’s instantaneous and it’s nice. You are not in competition with anyone, and it does not make you unhappy or angry, ”says Luke, a fan notably of games like Resident Evil or Jurassic Park.
He even goes so far as to buy old televisions with cathodic tube for an experience even more faithful to that of his childhood. The videos of his repairs which he publishes on YouTube or Tiktok are seen by tens of thousands of people. And according to him, the phenomenon is not ready to fall back.
Even Gen Z
“People will always have a natural passion for the things with which they grew up being children, so I think we will always have work. It will evolve and it will probably no longer be game boys “, but” there will always be a game that becomes retro, “says Luke.
This year, the British Bafta, who organize their annual ceremony for video games on Tuesday, launched a survey to designate “the most influential game of all time”. “Shenmue”, an adventure and action game from 1999 came first, ahead of “Doom” (1993) and Super Mario Bros (1985).
The London Gaming Market, dedicated to vintage video games, whose 10th edition was held in the British capital in mid-March, has also seen its number of visitors increase in recent years. Between the stalls where disks, CDs and old consoles are exposed, amateurs or collectors crowded to try to get their hands on a rare pearl.
Counterfeits
“I am a big fan of Sonic the hedgehog. I have the watch and other objects (…) I am still looking for “new things, says Adrian, dressed in a t-shirt in the image of the famous hedgehog developed by Sega.
Andy Brown, director of Replay Events, organizer of the event, has seen a real change from the COVVID. “People were confined to their homes, looking for activities that remind them of memories of a better time, because the atmosphere was very pessimistic,” he explains.
According to a study carried out in early 2025 by the American consumer association Consumer Reports, 14% of Americans play on consoles released before 2000.
And in the United Kingdom, 24% of young people from generation Z (between 13 and 28 years old) have an old console, according to a survey carried out with 2,000 British on the sidelines of a recent event in London linked to retrogaming, organized by the Pringles brand.
Last September, Italian customs dismantled traffic by counterfeit vintage video consoles, and entered around 12,000 aircraft containing among the most popular games of the 1980s and 90s.
