The Life and legacy of Kazuki Takahashi

     Kazuo (Kazuki) Takahashi was a Japanese mangaka (manga artist) and writer. Takahashi is most well-known for the manga/anime series Yu-Gi-Oh. Yu-Gi-Oh not only became a very successful manga/anime series but also spawned a number of sequels and a hugely popular trading card game. Kazuki Takahashi sadly passed away on July 4th, 2022 at the age of 60 years old. In this post, I want to talk about the life and legacy of one of the all-time manga/anime legends, Kazuki Takahashi.

Nintendo and Sony: Partners to Rivals

     Did you know that before Sega left the console market, before Microsoft released the original Xbox, and before Sony released the PS1, Nintendo and Sony actually had a somewhat complicated relationship as partners? Sony was a Japanese consumer electronics company that had little to do with video games until September 1995. Before 1995 and before the official release of the PS1, Sony was actually working with Nintendo to bring consumers the PlayStation that was going to be completely different than the one that we officially got in 1995. This is the story of how Nintendo and Sony went from a complicated partnership to complete rivals.

The life and legacy of Satoru Iwata

    Satoru Iwata was a Japanese businessman and video game programmer. Iwata was one of the founding members of HAL Laboratory and in 2002 became the 4th president and CEO of Nintendo. Satoru Iwata sadly passed away on July 11, 2015, at the age of 55 years old. In this post, I want to talk about the life and legacy of one of the all-time Nintendo legends, Satoru Iwata.

Tier Maker for the Mainline Super Mario Games (2D and 3D)

    Super Mario Bros. is one of the most iconic and longest-running video game franchises and the likelihood that you have played at least one of the games in the series is very likely. For the upcoming release of Super Mario Bros. Wonder on the Nintendo Switch in about 10 days, I wanted to do a Tier Maker of all the mainline Super Mario games (2D and 3D). For reference, I am going to talk about every game in order of their release date and the Tier Maker is going to be S-F and from Super Mario Bros. - Super Mario Odyssey.

A Sequel: How Pac-Man's Wife got her Wings

    Pac-Man, originally called Puck man was an arcade game developed and published by Namco in May of 1980. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing because of a licensing deal with Namco America. Pac-Man became hugely successful and was America's highest-grossing arcade game of 1981 and second highest-grossing arcade game of 1982. Because Pac-Man was a massive hit in the arcades, it warranted a sequel, however, a third-party company would beat Namco to the punch. Let's talk about how one of the most successful arcade games got its sequel.

The Nintendo Switch almost has a library of games from all Nintendo home Consoles... almost

    The Nintendo Switch was released in March of 2017 and single-handedly saved Nintendo from the disaster that was the Wii U. Since the release of the Switch, it has gotten a good amount of Wii U games ported to its library of games. This makes sense because the Wii U had some great games, but because the console itself wasn't that great not very many people got to experience these games. Porting these games to the Switch caused them to basically be new games to a lot of people. These Wii U games ported to the Switch were deluxe versions of the game, sometimes getting new content added to their Switch versions (like Super Mario 3D World getting Bowser's Fury). Nintendo didn't stop with Wii U games though.

How Sega lost the Console Wars

     "S-E-G-A!", Sega was a once great gaming giant sitting across from Nintendo with a huge ego. Sega used to be a video game developer/ publisher and console manufacturer. Sega is most famous for the Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog. How did Sega go from making a video game console that caused the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to just a decent video game developer/ publisher, let's find out!

The Rise and Fall of Atari

    Atari Inc. was an American video game and computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari is often credited with bringing arcade games to the home market. Bushnell and Dabney wanted to create coin-operated games, so they joined Nutting Associates to manufacture their products. Bushnell and Dabney created an arcade game called Computer Space, but this game did not do very well. After the failure of their space-themed arcade game, Bushnell and Dabney decided to create a separate venture called Syzygy Game Company. They both provide an initial $250 USD as starting funds. They made sure that Nutting would put a "Syzygy Engineering" label on each of the duo's games to reflect their work on the products.