Videogame History | "DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!"

Not how I wanted to start or even end a day, but this sad news popped into my inbox a few hours back and will take time to fully sink in. Nope, I never met Mr. Iwata and neither did millions of people who enjoyed what he worked on and/or his informatively entertaining Nintendo Direct videos and Iwata Asks series of interviews with game creators. But I did play many games he was part of, from Balloon Fight, Alchahest, EarthBound, Animal Crossing and many more.

The man may be gone, but his many works and those who will continue to play them and pass them down to a new generation will last as long as the planet still spins. Hopefully we’ll see some sort of physical presence of his collected works from Nintendo at some point. While a huge convenience, this digital-mostly age has been pretty poor at making sure a pure legacy exists of many games outside the hands of the most dedicated collectors.

Anyway, you’ll be missed by many, sir.

I was already in a lousy mood yesterday, but waking up to the news that Ralph Baer died pretty much kept me inside for the bulk of the day ruminating. I was eight years old when the Magnavox Odyssey launched, but my family didn’t buy one because we had assorted hobbies that kept us occupied. In fact, although I’d been to the arcade down at Coney Island back when I was six or seven, I was more impressed with the pinball machines I played (or tried to play). However, finding out a cousin had an Odyssey in his closet AND a color TV in his living room got me curious enough to see what was in that big box (a lot of stuff!) and what happened when it was all wired up to that big TV set… Continue reading →