The Grand Emperor's Retro Video Gaming Blog

There is an old adage “ History is Written by the Victors! ”. It’s meant to imply that history, and how things are generally remembered, may be swayed by those who came out on top. That is unless, you dig a little deeper and discover what stories are really out there. This adage can also just as easily be applied to console gaming, as it can a number of other points in history. Look back at what consoles are the most remembered and you will see the Atari 2600, NES, Sega Genesis, PS1, and so on (of course the last two gens are rather muddled). For second generation systems the Atari 2600 was by far the hands down winner, and images of the late 70’s and early 80’s often conjure up that of the Atari 2600 as the one of the fondest memories of the era. Was it the first, of the second generation home consoles? No, that honor belonged to the Fairchild Channel F. Was it the best second generation console? No, that honor belonged to the Colecovision, and Atari 5200. It was the best se...

It’s Monday April 16th, it’s 8:30 at night and it’s been 27.5 hours since MGC 2018 ended. I was lucky enough to stay all the way till it’s official end at 5PM yesterday, but only thanks in part to an ice storm and blizzard trapping me in Milwaukee and unexpected third night. As 5PM approached it was interesting to see pinball and arcade machines being hauled out, and vendors shutting down and clearing off their tables. There was a sad finality to it all, with a hint of catharsis as it all came to a cold end as winter storm breezes blew into the massive spaces of convention from the open loading bays. I spent the next four hours watching the loading bays from my hotel room as truck after truck pulled up to retrieve their precious cargos of arcade and pinball machines, even the huge hauler that not doubt supported Stern Pinballs full blown display. Unlike my visit two years ago I didn’t buy any games at MGC this year, nor more importantly did I buy another pinball machine. Ga...