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Connecting the dots: Anyone that’s owned a light-colored game console like the Super Nintendo or Sega Dreamcast since their heyday (or picked one up recently) is likely familiar with discoloration. Originally, it was thought that prolonged exposure to direct sunlight or even sitting in an environment where people smoked would cause the plastics on these systems to yellow. Nowadays, the leading theory is that fire-retardant chemicals laced with bromine – applied during manufacturing – are responsible for the eventual color change.
Retro gamers have experimented with various methods over the years to try and reverse the damage with mixed resu…
Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust.
Connecting the dots: Anyone that’s owned a light-colored game console like the Super Nintendo or Sega Dreamcast since their heyday (or picked one up recently) is likely familiar with discoloration. Originally, it was thought that prolonged exposure to direct sunlight or even sitting in an environment where people smoked would cause the plastics on these systems to yellow. Nowadays, the leading theory is that fire-retardant chemicals laced with bromine – applied during manufacturing – are responsible for the eventual color change.
Retro gamers have experimented with various methods over the years to try and reverse the damage with mixed results. One popular process, retrobrighting, was the focus of an informal test carried out by YouTuber Tech Tangents over the past decade.
In 2015, the enthusiast used a hydrogen peroxide cream solution to try and reverse the yellowing on an old Dreamcast console. Once complete, he set the shell aside and more or less forgot about it for 10 years. So, what happened? Well, in the modder’s own words, the results were so bad that he would recommend no one ever retrobright anything.
As you can see in the video, the peroxide cream method can produce inconsistent results, especially if the coating is applied unevenly. Streaking was evident in several sections, and even areas that had been "properly" treated were still yellowing after all these years. Worse yet, sections that had been masked off and not treated actually look better today than the treated regions.
In summary, retrobrighting – at least, with regard to the decade-old method highlighted here – actually made things worse in the long run. We also don’t know what sort of impact the technique had on the chemical makeup of the plastic – for example, is it more brittle than before?
Keep in mind, of course, that we are dealing with very small sample size and an experiment that was more by accident than for actual scientific purposes. Modern methods could very well yield better results.
Image credit: Mateusz Dach