Video Games Archive

Released in 1994, the PC-FX was a 32-bit home video game console developed by NEC and Hudson Soft. The PC-FX was preceded by the TurboDuo (PC Engine Duo in Japan) and the PC Engine SuperGrafx (never released outside of Japan), and both were 16-bit fourth generation systems. The PC-FX’s computer tower-esque aesthetic of its console and its liberal use of full motion video in its games made it stand out among the fifth-generation video game consoles. Ultimately, however, its high […]

Continue Reading about Japanese Games at the Strong, Part III (PC-FX) Published on:
November 8, 2024

I came to The Strong Museum to study Carmen Sandiego, the shadowy villain who stars in one of the most successful educational game series in video game history, but I left knowing a lot more about the early days of the educational game industry.
I am a Latinx literature scholar and lifelong gamer, whose research has been focused primarily on AfroLatinx literature and culture (my first book came out in June 2024). My research on Miles Morales and the Latino legacy of […]

Continue Reading about Driven by Play: A Reflection on Carmen Sandiego, Freedom!, and Games between 1980 and 2000 Published on:
October 4, 2024

Those of us with large data storage needs today are spoiled, with hard drives totaling over 20 terabytes, and options like remote cloud storage offer virtually unlimited storage, if you are willing to pay. Step back to 1998, and things were quite different. According to one source, a 12-gigabyte hard drive cost $349 (the equivalent of more than $650 in 2024).
While 12 gigabytes of storage was large for the time, hard drives were not the only solution for data storage. […]

Continue Reading about What’s in a (Data) Tape? Published on:
August 15, 2024

On a snowy winter day in January 2024 at The Strong National Museum of Play, I read about the far-off land of Hyrule, inhabited by fiery dragons, rock-monster-people, and evil twin-sister witches. I pored over issues of Weekly Famitsu, the most popular Japanese gaming magazine, looking at their coverage of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. On page 89 of issue no. 507, I see the heading 謎の少年の正体が明らかにされる? (roughly: “Will the identity of the mysterious boy be revealed?”), with […]

Continue Reading about Contact Moments with Japanese Game Magazines at The Strong Museum Published on:
August 1, 2024

Game developer Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption (2010) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) introduced millions of people to an immersive digital world populated by Western gunfighters and outlaws. But these extraordinarily popular games are part of a longer history of video game Westerns that emerged in the 1970s, and drew on the mythic West portrayed in stories, films, television shows, and playthings. The evolution of the video game genre follows closely the development of the game industry itself from the […]

Continue Reading about Gunfighter Gaming: A History of the Video Game Western Part I (1971 to 1979) Published on:
July 3, 2024

What does it mean to preserve the history of video games? This is something I thought about a lot when I started this work at The Strong National Museum of Play in 2006. My training in fields such as the history of the book and history of science convinced me that among the materials that needed to be preserved were not just the games themselves but also the work of the creators who made them. To that end we began […]

Continue Reading about Bruce Shelley Papers at The Strong Published on:
June 7, 2024

While SEGA fans are likely familiar with the company’s arcade hit Galaxy Force, developer Tengen once had a game in development with a very similar name: Galactic Force. Despite being nearly complete, it would ultimately be cancelled. This episode of Game Saves looks at the game’s development timeline, from a very early test build to a version that is nearly finished, complete with a new name.

Continue Reading about Game Saves: Galactic Force Published on:
March 27, 2024

A proverb in the Bible states, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” 
There’s sound wisdom in this, as anyone knows who has felt better after laughing uproariously at a silly pet video. Play is not necessarily a panacea, but it is good medicine, a way of introducing fun into life and making it a little more bearable along the way. Because of these beneficial qualities of play, it is not surprising that over […]

Continue Reading about Play is the Best Medicine Published on:
February 23, 2024

Nature always strives for balance. While at times it may be fragile, there are ecosystems all around us that are evidence of this fact. Even in our own lives, we naturally strive for a state of equilibrium. We’re tired, so we sleep. We’re hungry, so we eat. We’re stressed . . . so we play.
The past few years have certainly had their share of stresses, from civil unrest to economic woes and, oh yeah, a global pandemic. It’s more important […]

Continue Reading about The More Things Change. . . Published on:
February 8, 2024