A friend of mine who has tons of games and storage of them touched on this the other day.
The biggest detractor long term is the lack of people to work on the original equipment, both monitors and pcbs. even now that is becoming a lost art around a place like this. Dokert's of the world aren't that common now.
There will always be a place for pop-culture for simple pixel graphic games, the primary colors will ensure that ie Pacman, Frogger, DK, etc.
From education perspective, especially related to the early 80s arcade games there will be long term interest because they represent the most rudimentary programming and hardware skills, rather than modern gaming development that uses automation tools. ie how did they make the berzerk maze generation so elegantly with minimal memory.
Where you'll see the transition is the comfort in alternate emulation experiences like the collections on consoles, or the retro things like the flashback series. kids are comfortable with that, they will be the parents soon enough. even I fall into it...I'd never pay 300 bucks for a frogger or eyes cabinet because I can order a $35 Pi online and have it in 2days along with a $5 NES style controller.