The Video Game Years

For those of you keeping track, yes, I meant to have this up last night. Sorry.

I'd like to talk to you today about a very cool show over at Retroware TV. There are plenty of great shows on Retroware, from Pat the NES Punk to 16-Bit Gems, The Game Chasers, and more. Now imagine all of those guys getting together to talk about the history of the games industry, year by year. Picture VH1's I Love the '70s/'80s, but for video games. The guys from Retroware, plus special guests from other major classic gaming sites, tell not only the history of what happened each year, but also their own stories on how it impacted them. They started in 1977, the year the Atari 2600 came out and started gen 2. Each year gets a number of 10-or-so minute episodes dedicated to it. They are currently up to 1981. Personally, I can't wait until they get to 1985 and start talking about the very early days of the NES.

A month or so ago they had an Indiegogo page set up asking for donations for the show. Up until that point they had been putting them together in their spare time for no money. But considering the amount of editing and technical work that had to be done for each episode, they didn't want to keep asking people to work on them for free. The Indiegogo goal was met very easily, and Retroware has promised to keep producing the show as long as they can. They've said they'd like to get as far as the Dreamcast, which came out in 1999. That's a lot of episodes!

So please, if you like learning about the history of the video game industry and want to be entertained while you do it, get over to Retroware TV and check out The Video Game Years! The show is very well made and the guys at Retroware are clearly having a great time making it. And watch their other stuff while you're at it, it's all quality.

Before I'm done, I want to quickly touch on the new head of Microsoft's Xbox division. Don Mattrick's replacement has been named, and it's Julie Larson-Green. Julie's been at Microsoft for almost 20 years and was one of the people who made Windows 7 happen. Now she's in charge of Xbox. I know a lot of people are upset that a woman with no video game experience has been put in this position. Stop that. She's clearly an intelligent person. Give her a chance to show what she can do. It's not like she won't be surrounded by people that do have video game experience that can help her learn the industry. And honestly, could she be any worse than Mattrick?

As always, thanks for reading! Please tell your friends about the blog, and be sure to follow me on Twitter @RevLink_GI!