I began playing video games as a child after the crash of 1983. At the time I wasn’t aware of the tumult in the culture and the technology scene that that had caused. Video games were just fun, not the it thing I suppose. Perhaps as an analogy it would be like getting online in the early 2000s, after the dot-com crash of 2000. The internet by then was a normal part of everyday life, but the excitement and cultural omnipresence abated.
In that context the original NES took center stage rather slowly and organically in the mid-1980s, eventually triggering the competition between Sega, TurboGrafx, Nintendo, and later Sony. I got off that particular train when I was about seventeen, seeing the amount of time that the hobby swallowed. But I couldn’t help but be amused by this article in The New York Times, Nintendo’s New Console May Feed Your Nostalgia, if You Can Get One:
When she heard that Nintendo was planning to reproduce its iconic Nintendo Entertainment System video game console for the holiday season, Emily Bradbury put a note on her calendar and set an alarm on her phone.
She was not interested in buying it for her children. She wanted it for her husband.
“He’s 40 years old and grew up with a Nintendo,” Ms. Bradbury said. “It’s a nostalgia thing.”
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