Blast From the Past: How to Play Classic Consoles on Modern Televisions

This may be the year of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, but there is still a lot of love for retro gaming. You can mostly blame Nintendo for this: between the popularity of the NES and SNES Classic consoles and classic games on Switch, a whole new generation is discovering the power of pixels.

A few players take it to the next level by grabbing an old school gaming console. Only then do they discover the bad news: it won’t play on their TV. Or it plays, but it looks much worse than they remember.

Fortunately, there are easy solutions to these problems. If you’re ready for a “blast from the past,” here is a guide to playing classic consoles on modern TVs.

Why play on classic consoles?

Before I go any further, it’s worth addressing a very honest question. Why, exactly, should you play on classic consoles in the first place?

There are plenty of easier ways to play classic games. These range from gaming compilations to “Classic” retro-style console systems all the way to making your own RetroPie system. Why, then, would you want to use classic tech?

It all comes down to authenticity and versatility. Game compilations and systems like the NES Classic share the same issue: they only come with so many games. You could always hack the Classic or build a RetroPie to play whatever games you want. But at the end of the day, you’re just playing with emulated ROMs instead of real cartridges.

With real hardware, you can play any cartridge you want, all while enjoying its different controllers and accessories. You can even enjoy the best of both worlds by getting an Everdrive, which is a cart that lets you load up as many ROMs as you want.

After a bit of work, you can hook up an old system and play every game authentically from a single cartridge. But first, you need to get it working on your television.

The connection problem

So, why is it so hard to play classic consoles on modern TVs? It all starts with the connections your TV supports.

Many modern TVs only accept HDMI. So if you have an old console system that relies on composite cables (the red, white, and yellow cables), you won’t be able to hook it up at all.

Some modern TVs may accept both HDMI and component cables (the red, green, and blue cables). While that gives you more options, it still won’t let you connect really old game systems because they didn’t come with component support.

There is more bad news as well. Even if you can connect the console, it’s probably going to look really bad.