I'm kind of interested in Garfield, honestly.

But it wouldn't be a Garfield Monday without a "Splut!" Or a "Gorsh!" (which is Samoan for "Splut").

There is a YouTube channel called ThisIsPete that I follow because he plays a lot of games I remember from my younger years pre-NES. He also does more modern games. One of the Super Woden Racing games unexpectedly went viral, much to his amazement and mild anxiety.

I pre-ordered this as well. It looks awesome.

I've been here for 13 years, since the closure of 1UP.com. Before that, I was at 1UP for 7 years, so a total of 20 years with many members of my circle of gaming friends from these sites.

One of my earliest formative games from the 70s was Bee Wary, a TRS-80 game from 1979. I've featured it in a couple of blogs.

To anybody who has seen how Microsoft has worked in the past, the collapse of the Xbox and the terrible damage done to so many studios was an entirely predictable outcome, and sadly an inevitable one.. We've seen it time and again. Microsoft is a veritable graveyard for its acquisitions. I'm honestly glad Nintendo laughed them all the way out of Japan in 2001, when they tried to buy their way into the industry by way of buying Nintendo.

The Saturn didn't simply decline compared to the Genesis, it crashed. Hard. N64, which represented a 33% decline from the SNES, was at least profitable, though Nintendo was not happy about being outsold 3:1 by Sony, and investors would have been displeased by that decline if Nintendo didn't have another successful product line to shore up earnings statements. Pokemon money and increased GBC sales took some of that sting away. Sadly for Sega, Sakura Taisen-themed coffee shops and Virtua Fighter 3 in Sega Game Centers didn't have the same cushioning effect.

Oh, and to the question "What is your favorite non-Nintendo N64 game," that's easy. It's Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, where Konami made the N64's sound hardware literally sing in a game that did 3-D Zelda before Ocarina of Time did it. Really, Konami's N64 games were all interesting. Even if they weren't entirely successful, I appreciate Castlevania 64 and Legacy of Darkness for what they did to try to advance Castlevania to the 3D era.

Taking a longer view, in the case of Sega and Microsoft, rather than a third console curse, I actually argue that their second consoles, the Genesis and the 360, were actually one-off lucky flukes from companies that never really made a splash on the market otherwise. The SG-1000/Master System line also sold poorly in most of the world, Brazil notwithstanding. And people forget that the original Xbox actually sold on par with the Gamecube, and Microsoft lost a lot of money on the system where the Gamecube did turn a modest profit for the generation (the GBA was Nintendo's star performer of the time, of course.) Sega's and MS's fourth consoles, the Dreamcast and the Series consoles, were absolute sales disasters. The Dreamcast exhausted the last of Sega's finances, and the Series seems to be exhausting the patience of Microsoft stockholders and executives, especially after Microsoft spent the GDP of the Dakotas on buying ABK and Bethesda. Sega was also plagued by heavy corporate infighting between Sega of America and Sega of Japan, but ultimately, Sega of Japan were the bosses, and Tom Kalinske eventually left, replaced by Bernie Stolar. It's becoming increasingly clear that Xbox has been similarly dysfunctional and plagued by corporate in-fighting, if comments from outgoing Xbox developers like former Bethesda VP Pete Hines are anything to go by.

The dynamic was different for Sony and Nintendo. Their junior-year hiccups were just that, hiccups. Sony, in particular, recovered nicely with the PS4 and PS5. The Gamecube, while not a roaring success, still sold on par with the Xbox and far more thant the Dreamcast, and was modestly profitable, and did serve the function of setting Nintendo up for huge success with the WIi. The Switch was phenomenal. Both Nintendo and Sony also had successful handheld lines (the GBC, GBA, and 3DS for Nintendo, the PSP for Sony) that helped them weather the rough times, bolstered by socially-oriented franchises (Pokemon and Monster Hunter). Nintendo is also a cultural behemoth in Japan in the way that Sega simply never was - Shinzo Abe introduced the Tokyo Olympics in Brazil dressed as Mario, and when I went to Japan this year, I was greeted by huge murals of the entire Super Mario game welcoming to Japan painted on the walls of the Narita Airport terminal.

Atari was a weird beast. The 2600 was their only success as a console maker. The 5200 is actually an underappreciated console, as it had some really great games hampered by bizarre design decisions like the non-centering analogue joysticks.

The Atari 8-bit computer line showed how good the 5200 could have been if it had been informed by better hardware design choices. The 5200 was a consolized version of the A8 line, with a stripped down version of the same architecture, and many games were officially and unofficialy ported directly from the 5200 to the A8 line. The A8 line used conventional Atari joysticks, so many of the games that were a PITA to play on the 5200 were a joy to play on the A8. The A8 also had the best home version of Donkey Kong. It was one of the first attempts to unify console and home computer software. A few years later, Atari also released the XE Games System, which was also a consolized A8, though much more on par with the computer line.

Atari was plagued by a lot of infighting and corporate politics when they were owned by Warner. A lot of Atari's game designers were not happy when Atari started licensing and marketing Japanese arcade games, like Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, and Kangaroo. After the game crash, Atari was split in two, with the console company being sold to the Tramiel family, who had ironically hamstrung the A8 line with aggressive pricing on their previous flagship product, the Commodore 64. The Tramiels tried to position Atari as a PC company with the Atari ST and the XE models of the A8 line, but pivoted back to consoles when it became clear that the Wintel format and the Macintosh were going to dominate the PC market. The Lynx (which was a rebadged version of the Epyx Handy) and the Jaguar likewise failed to bring Atari back to glory.

The toys-to-life fad flared up and burned out really quickly. At one point Skylanders had a cartoon, where the fire monster was voiced by Jonathan Banks, AKA Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad. Just a couple of years later and it was all gone except for Nintendo's Amiibos. And even Nintendo seemed to be sunsetting the Amiibo concept for awhile, though now they've started really putting a lot of them out in the wake of the Switch 2's launch.

Eh, I'm not going to fault you for liking what you like, that would be silly. For my part, I did look at the Disney Afternoon Collection, but since I wasn't that invested in that stuff even back then (I preferred to watch Batman: The Animated Series, Tiny Toons, and Animaniacs), its a bit of a hard sell for me. But it looks like a solid collection, and the Ducktales game with Scrooge bouncing on his cane liek a pogo stick is cool.

I saw Armadillo Racing, which is a goofy concept. Track-ball games don't translate the best to controllers. Centipede and Millipede play okay, but Crystal Castles is a bit rough. Arkanoid doesn't have the best paddle control, but maybe the mouse function on the Switch 2 joycons work better.

I actually prefer physical media, but the industry has been pushing this for years. One thing that always makes me raise my eyebrows in regards to the vitriol over Sony is people's complete blindness towards Steam, which really set the all-digital future in motion. PCs haven't even come with disc drives in years, and the Steam Deck doesn't have any media slots except for a SD card slot.

My overall GOTY so far is Resident Evil Requiem, which is Capcom at its best. Star Fox is my second favorite game of the year, however.

My arcade collection/remake of the year (aside from Star Fox) is Arcade Archives 2: Mr. Do!. That was my most wanted Arcade Archives game for years and I'm excited to have gotten it (my most wanted now is probably Gyruss). The Arcade Archives 2 version adds a lot of different leaderboards and challenges compared to the original Arcade Archives releases they did. They even included the original Japanese version of Mr. Do!. Hamster has become one of my favorite publishers. They also released an Arcade Archives 2 version of Konami's Mega Zone. They've even started releasing the Tekken games.

On the Game Key Card thing... Meh. PS5 and Xbox discs are de facto keys. There are some games that are technically playable without downloading day one updates on those systems, though it's genrally a gimped 1.0 release, but they all still run entirely off the HDD - a physical PS5 game still takes up the exact same amount of HDD storage as the digital version of said game. The GKC version of VF5 Revo is more than the game got on PS5 or Xbox Series.

The GKCs, at least, are transferrable and salable to used game stores, and they will work for their new owners the same way. They will be worthless when the servers go down, of course, but it's been 20 years and thus far, you can still re-download every Wii and DSi game that you bought before their storefronts shut down (Nintendo does state that eventually these servers will close, but so far, they haven't made any overtures towards closing them down.) I am glad there are more companies investing in full Switch games - Sega usually uses GKCs but did do a full physical release of Sonic Racing Crossworlds, Bethesda sold Fallout 4 at reatail as a code-in-a-box - which is an even more baffling decision than a GKC, I think EA also did this for Split Fiction on Switch 2; the purpose apparently is to give them visibility on retail shelves - but they did Indiana Jones as a full physical release. Unfortunately, AI is screwing up the market for storage, and there are M2 drives for PS5 that cost more than a PS5 Pro on the market.

Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom filled two differeny niches for me.

With BotW, I was engaged in the exploration. It follows in my love of some of the older Zelda games, as well as exploration-based games like No Man's Sky or Fallout 3/New Vegas. And I did get a sense of the original Zelda from that.

With TotK, it spoke to my enjoyment of tinkering with things and seeing what works and what doesn't. It was a lot the same as TotK, where I liked building death cars with electrified spiked bumpers. Or one time, I built a flying bomber and actually managed to bomb a Lynel to death with it. That spoke to my enjoyment of Maxis games. I also spent a lot of time in Fallout 4 building settlements and then testing their defenses by pitting hordes of raiders, Super Mutants, and even Deathclaws.

Fun fact: Star Fox 64 was the only mainline SF made in-house by Nintendo.

SF SNES: Argonaut Software

SF Assault: Namco

SF Zero: Platinum

SF NS2: Velan Studios

I'm honestly wanting to play Assault on NSO Gamecube. And I think they should have given Zero another chance as well.

I enjoyed Star Fox NS2 a lot. Looks and sounds great, and the gameplay is spot-on. I also bought the original SF64 back in 1997.

I've only really been traveling over the past few years. For a long time, I basically only traveled between Arizona and Oklahoma to see family. I did go to Mexico a few times, but that's because it's only.a four hour drive from my home to Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point).

It tastes like beef, but not quite like beef. The closest analogue I could come up with that might be understood here would be bison meat.

The dining room at the hotel we stayed at also served yak milk and yak milk yogurt. The milk didn't taste substantially different from cow milk, the yogurt definitely had a more buttery taste to it. I think yak milk has a higher milkfat content than beef milk.

It's the Microsoft way.

Buy and gut. Same old story with Nokia, Skype, and countless other companies. Microsoft has a regular corporate graveyard.

They try to solve all of their problems with their overflowing checkbook. Their first attempt to break into the games industry involved them flying to Kyoto and brandishing their overflowing checkbook at Nintendo HQ. They got laughed all the way back onto the plane at Osaka Kansai Airport over that one. They did a lot of damage in Japan during the 360 era by

They're as clueless now as they were in 2001, and now their shareholders are taking them to task for spending the GDP of North Dakota on video game studios.

Hit me up if you're in Phoenix.

I agree with most of this. However, we have been warned for 20 years that this would happen. We did get a temporary reprieve at E3 2013. But Blu-Rays are also over 20 years old now, and there has been little research into next-level disc-based storage media, which is honestly something we could use as memory prices soar. There were rumblings of holographic discs being developed at firms like Sony and Panasonic that could hold hundreds of gigabytes to terabytes, but that has gone nowhere.

Also, gamers who are upset about this really need to be more honest and critical with regards to Valve and Gabe Newell. You did touch on this when you said that Steam users relied a great deal on Valve's goodwill. But keep in mind that in the end, Gaben is just another techbro billionaire, and that class of people has long ago abandoned any pretense of the "don't be evil" mantra they all claimed to have when they were starting out. Almost all of the techbros, have, in fact, been evil for years. Valve has already shown its claws with things like Steam Machine pricing and the recent moves where they've bowed to pressure from payors. Sure, most of those games are porno junk, but next time it could be a M-rated classic that they don't like. And for all that people like to talk about how PC is not a monopoly and about DRM-free alternatives, they overwhelmingly choose the PC storefront that is a de facto monopoly and is heavily locked down with DRM. GOG barely turns a profit most years, at best, and a lot of that is because most of their library is, well, old games. But somehow Valve gets a pass, even though they are largely responsible for so many things gamers are complaining about. I have a Steam Deck. It does not have a media slot, while my Switch 2 does. The Steam Machine does not come with a BD-ROM drive.

After Skylanders and Disney Infinity went under, I thought Amiibos would follow suit, since Nintendo didn't seem to be releasing any new ones for a few years. But they've gone all in on them again with Switch 2.

I bought it myself. Like I said, the games are great, but the behind-the-scenes stuff with Nintendo and Wayforward messed things up. Nintendo backed out of releasing it earlier because its release date coincided with Russia's invasion of Ukraine (the first Advance Wars released the day after 9/11, incidentally). 

I'd love for an Advance Wars DS collection to come to Switch/2. Sadly, the first collection was a huge mess that didn't sell well (the games were good, but the marketing around it was a disaster), so I doubt that's ever happening unless Nintendo decides to fill a hole in its release schedule.

I did mention Ladybug in the Preppie! II video. The first Preppie game actually was a Frogger-style game where the main character was tasked with fetching golf balls while dodging the lawnmowers and golf carts that appeared in this game. 

They still do have alligator shirts. They are (and always have been) a trademark of Lacoste, a French company. IZOD was their U.S. licensee in the 1980s, when they were popular here, but Lacoste does continue to sell clothing with the iconic alligator. 

I looked up the Kirby cafe. You cannot just walk in. They require a reservation, often made months in advance. On our way to Mount Fuji, we did stop at the world's largest Starbucks, which is in Tokyo. They have huge coffee-bean grinding machines and all kinds of coffees and other foodstuffs that my humble Starbucks outlets in Phoenix simply don't have. All in all, it was a wonderful trip, and my friend really went out of her way to make it special. 

I feel this. I have a lot of long games, but it's hard to sink a lot of time into them. I'll find one game I like and focus on that. At some point I'll hopefully finish the Trails saga.

I have dabbled in emulation of systems I didn't have, though I am doing this on a Steam Deck. On the TG-16, the games I wanted to try the most were Dragon Slayer VI: The Legend of Heroes (the precursor to the Trails series) and Tengai Makyo (Far East of Eden.) Far East of Eden has an interesting concept and a lot of nice art, but it's still not quite on the level of the great SNES or Genesis/SCD RPGs. On the other hand, I've gotten to play quite a few Saturn classics, like the Sakura Wars games, Albert Odyssey, Magic Knight Rayearth, and the second and third chapters of Shining Force III that were never officially localized. I've also gotten emulation for the Bally Astrocade, a 1970s-1980s-era console that was a technological marvel in its time, running on Steam Deck.

Xbox was the only 6th gen console I skipped. Other than Ninja Gaiden, nothing there really appealed to me compared to PS2 and Gamecube. Only Xbox I ever owned was the 360.