Mine was when Sony quit supporting the Original PlayStation’s System Link cable in its First Party and most Third Party games.
My best friend and I used to play the shit out of Test Drive 4 and Coolboarders 2.
I want to say it was the 427 Cobra “RASPUTINX” (me) vs. ’67 Stingray “FOEHAMMER” (him) in San Fransisco was the track we played the most.
But I can’t emphasize enough how special it was in those days to be able to play head to head on separate monitors/televisions. Outside of finicky and expensive computers on smallish monitors, the only other option would be an arcade game.
So we were both hyped to find out that Coolboarders 3 and Test Drive 5 were coming out. All we needed was 2 copies of each game.
Wait…why isn’t…there’s no System Link option? FUUUUUUUUUU.
No effing way did we just buy 2 copies of a game we would have otherwise rented…and they wouldn’t take them back once opened…and OF COURSE we’d opened all 4 copies.
Maybe a year or so later…OK, PlayStation 2 is coming out… We have to be sure, we’ve heard System Link is coming back. What will we need to make that work? Call SCEA, chick tells me I will need: 2 FireWire Cables and a FireWire Hub.
OK, so…that’s BIG MONEY. (It’s also totally wrong, but it’s what I was told when I called Sony of America and asked.) I forget, but the hub alone I think was 80 bucks, and the cables were probably every bit of 30-40 EACH. So like a cheap console worth of gear and cables just to use System Link? Sony is the WORST! (Once again, not true, but Sony’s fault, 100%)
Needless to say, that’s why me and my friend decided to wait for the MS Xbox. I already had a FastEthernet hub (not a switch), and we could get Network cables made next door to his house at the local phone company’s warehouse/service shop. Also fueled a miniLAN Party scene in my small town that lasted through the early 360 days.
My [best friend](https://preview.redd.it/zoc7tmq04ybc1.jpeg?width=764&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=031e692f84659a1435d91aac00d496dcefb62aff) died in ’05, he never did get Internet or LIVE!. He would have loved Ark…he liked anything coop, and loved dinosaurs.
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Selling certain games back then that are now worth lots of cash today ;_;
I gave away my psp had vice city on it. That console is still valuable this day.To this day. Ps vita couldn’t touch it and the switch jus has saints row 3. Switch isn’t as discrete as the psp. Switch lite now that’s up there but you can’t compare anything everything’s good in their own way. But psp if I could, I would deadass RKO myself rn before giving it away.
Feel sorry for your friend man….it sucks, especially seeing that he missed out on a lot of cool gaming stuff.
Coming to the topic, I feel the worst is Microsoft’s fall from grace with the Xbox One’s release.
I’m a PC gamer, but I’ve spent quite the amount of time on consoles. While I do love Sony, I’m always a guy who cheers the underdog in everything, so it wasn’t a surprise that I was rooting for Microsoft.
When the Xbox 360 came out, Microsoft really cooked there. They were smart enough to hit the nail on the head, and Sony didn’t have a chance until a few years down the line.
However, ever since Kinect was announced, I believe that was when Microsoft really started going down the gutter.
The forceful inclusion of Kinect + the additional cost and also motion-based games were already perfected by Nintendo. It made no sense for Microsoft to recreate that. That was what led to the lack of demand to the 360 in its final years.
If that wasn’t enough, the Xbox One’s launch just put me in the verge of tears. Sony was smart enough to learn from their mistakes, but seriously, what the fuck was Microsoft thinking with the Xbox One?
And for those who want offline play? Get the 360 E.
That was such a douche move by MS. And I think the taste of it still hasn’t vanished.
Even though MS did a great job with the Xbox Series consoles, they’re still falling far behind the PS5, and I really feel the Series consoles have potential to beat the PS5 (tech specs are more impressive than the PS5).
Another one was the downfall of the Saints Row franchise. Don’t even get me started on that one…
i’m sorry for your loss ;w; your post feels like a lovely tribute though, and like a snapshot of that era of gaming, so thank you for posting
my personal “tragedy” was one time back when i was like 14, i got to the final mission of mass effect 3, saved, went to school the next day… came back home, turns out my flat got broken into and they stole my laptop 🙁
cops being useless, never found the laptop… and back then i didn’t even think about backing up those saves, or any of my other characters from dragon age and previous mass effect runs so it’s all gone. rip my teenage memories </3
overall i also feel kinda sad that i never experienced console gaming, i live in a post-ussr country so a lot of it just wasn’t available when i was young, and while it’s more popular + easily available in stores now (to my surprise, even switches are finally being sold here!), it’s just so expensive that i cannot justify it to myself over my pc. with steam deck being an option too, it seems more attractive to me… but that’s such a huge swath of gaming history that i never got to see. i can and do emulate ps2, ds, psp games, but it’s not the same yk
My electricity running out half way through saving my final fantasy 7 game, corrupting it, a good 70 hours in. A harsh lesson in why multiple saves are a good idea.
RuneScape with their Evolution Of Combat.
Buying stock in Acclaim when it was announced they got the Mortal Kombat license rights for home consoles, watching their stock price double when the games debuted, but waiting too long to sell and only breaking even. At least I didn’t lose money. I was young and stupid.
I let my friend borrow my Gameboy SP, knowing it’d be a while until I saw him again.
He did something bad that led to his dad confiscating stuff as punishment. Including my SP.
It got lost in some shuffle, and I never got it back.
I was about 12 or 13 playing Ultima IV on my Apple IIc. I was closing in on the endgame and had to drop a bell in the ocean at a certain coordinate. I dropped it in the wrong place and my save file corrupted. I was never able to bring myself to start it over.
Mine is EA ruining Sim City series. It was my absolutely favourite genre. And no, Cities Skylines doesn’t even come close.
I played Red Fall on launch day.
Abby’s golf swing.
Not sure I have one, but shout out to the link cable. My cousin and I were both big F1 and racing game fans. We’d do full length F1 races with that setup (with also had 24 ai cars) and it was so much fun. Toca 2, and C&C Red Alert was super fun with that setup too. Sorry for your loss btw.
sS
Lost my Gameboy SP in a cab in NY with an amazing Pokemon Ruby save in it.
Spent like several hours one Friday afternoon after school playing Pokémon Red way back in the day, from the entrance of Mt. Moon until Fuchsia City I think, caught so many new Pokémon, got 3 gym badges (Cerulean, Vermillion, Celadon), cleaned out the entire S.S. Ann, got the HMs Flash, Cut, Fly and Surf, got the good fishing rod, evolved my Charizard, game froze, had to reload, right back to Pewter City – was too into it that I forgot to save
Have never felt gaming despair like that since, also since then I save every game religiously after any event or always at the next usable save point
The Doom Franchise being bought by Xbox. This means the next game will be a PC, Xbox exclusive most likely, the same as Bethesda’s Starfield.
I play Playstation.
Quakecon 2003… winners bracket finals… teammate’s tournament computer crashes at a key moment in a money tourney.
Finish 3rd place… huge what if.
XIII – Remake release
When I was a kid, my mom got me Pokémon Sapphire and I immediately fell in love with the game. Spent so long playing and absolutely adored my team. About halfway through the elite four, I go to open my game and it says my save file was corrupted and has been deleted. After that it couldn’t save properly again.
Yeah…turns out it was a shitty bootleg from EBay.
When my horse died in RDR2
Titanfall 3 will never exist.
Never being able to find Gavin despite how hard I looked