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A computer gamer has revealed that he was so keen to preserve a game he's been playing that he's kept his console turned on for 20 YEARS.

Nowadays, with consoles like PS4s and Xbox One, gaming fans are used to saving not just one game, but many stages in lots of different games.

But back in the 1990s, the Super Nintendo didn't offer such technological advancements, as the batteries keeping saved progress eventually died and the game was lost.

So when Twitter user Wanikun wanted to keep on playing Japanese game Umihara Kawase, he decided just to leave it on.

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He shared an image of his Super Famicom - the Japanese name for the Super Nintendo, also known as SNES - which has been on for more than two decades to keep his progress.

He tweeted that the machine had been constantly on for 180,000 hours - or 20 years, six months, two weeks, three days, eight hours and 39 minutes.

"Incidentally, I’m pretty sure my first generation Umihara Kawase, which has been on in the SNES for over 20 years, has been in operation for over 180,000 hours. If the power is tuned off, I’ll lose all my replay data. Probably."

According to Rocket News 24 , Umihara Kawase - which stars a 19-year-old Japanese school girl, Kawase Umihara who is lost in a world of mutated creatures - was released in December, 1994.

Wanikun reveals that he did unplug the machine once only - to move house - but the battery stayed alive long enough to keep his progress saved.

Nintendo celebrates 30 years of Super Mario Bros. with a dedicated video tribute: