The humble light gun was a big selling point for game consoles of the 80’s. With the classic Duck Hunt being packed in with most NES console bundles, the Zapper gun became an iconic part of video game history.

However, today light gun games and rail shooters are essentially a dead genre outside of VR spins on the genre. What’s worse it that light guns are not compatible with modern televisions. Without some solutions in place, light gun games will be lost forever, but what can we do about it?

To understand the problem, we have to understand what light guns are.

How do light guns work?

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Light guns like the Nintendo Zapper use an optical sensor inside the gun to sense light. The game will display various targets on the screen for you to shoot, and when you pull the trigger it sends a signal to the game that you’re firing at an on-screen target. In that moment the screen flashes black for a single frame, with the target appearing as a white rectangle.

If the optical sensor in the gun picks up the white image, it registers a hit. If it sees black, the shot misses.

Why light guns don’t work with modern televisions

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In short, they’re slower. Modern TVs have a small amount of display lag compared to an old-school cathode ray tube. Since the visuals on the new TV appear on the screen more slowly than they do on an older TV, by the time you’ve seen the target and pulled the trigger the game console has moved beyond the frame where the target was being displayed.

The console and the display aren’t in sync because the display is showing us a different frame than what the console expects, therefore light guns will always ‘miss’.

What can we do about it?

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In short, there’s not much we can do. While there are a few companies that still manufacture CRT televisions, its not like we can walk into Best Buy today and buy one. Everything has been replaced by bigger, better, lighter flatscreen TVs. Why would a consumer want a big bulky CRT in 2018?

The only suggestion I have would be saving and caring for the existing CRT TVs that are still out there. People are ditching them on the curb or in dumpsters all the time since there’s essentially no reason to keep them around anymore for the average person. However, there’s a tiny market for them with retro game enthusiasts. Certain models are highly coveted, from the Sony Trinitron for casual retro gamers up to professional CRT monitors for the truly hardcare retro fans.

Basically, its up to us to preserve these TVs while we can. They’re being discarded and recycled every day and over the next few years they’re going to be harder and harder to find.

A big part of retro gaming is preservation of games that would have otherwise been forgotten. If the CRT vanishes, games like Duck Hunt, Hogan’s Alley, House of the Dead and Time Crisis will essentially be lost. They can be booted up, but won’t be playable. Its the responsibility of retro gamers to save these televisions if we have the means to do so.

Hopefully someone discovers a method or creates a device that will make light guns compatible with modern displays. Though until then, we need CRTs, which is why I’m storing a few of these bulky ‘obsolete’ TVs in my garage. It might be inconvenient to have to keep them around, but its a necessity if we want to preserve these classic light gun games.

Do you still have a bulky CRT television in your home? When was the last time you played a light gun game? Let's discuss!

Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!

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