Image is rarely cited outright, but seems to be relevant in terms of wanting to be involved in a "scene".
Yeah I know this is off on a tangent but when Nullsleep was comparing the chip scene to the punk scene of the 90s in RTP, it kinda bothered me, because I kept thinking to myself, "oh great, people are gonna get into this just because it's 'alt' and 'underground,' not because they have much of an appreciation for the music." Not that I disagree with his point, but yeah... there's an "image" aspect underlying it all; an opportunity to be part of something underground, to get some street cred, to be able to point two middle fingers at all the douchebags playing guitars and drums and say "I'M COOLER THAN YOU BECAUSE I MADE ALL THIS ON 1 GAMEBOY." Stuff like that.
Also, on the subject of nostalgia, there are quite a few users on 8bc/cm.org that when asked, "why do you make chipmusic," cited nostalgia as one reason. I'll say that it's one of the reasons I started listening to chipmusic, but not one of the reasons I started trying to make it myself. As for the outsider that listens to this stuff but is not a musician by any means, the nostalgia is definitely a factor in their interest. I saw one of those stick-figure-meme-images from Reddit a while back in reference to Anamanaguchi that said something like:
1. Hmm, what should I listen to today?
2. Oh look, Anamanaguchi. Never heard of 'em. *play*
3. !! They combined rock music with videogame nostalgia !!
4. IT WAS VERY EFFECTIVE
So yeah, even if it's not why we make the music, it can certainly be a big selling point. As I said before, I want people to like the music for other reasons, and I want to make music that *doesn't* sound like it should be in a videogame, but you get what I mean.