Over the past few years Hallmark has produced a variety of its popular Keepsake ornaments for a range of video game franchises, and while we started out with just a handful of Super Mario ornaments, this year the product line as revealed early by Keepsake fan site Digital Dream Book has expanded to include a little something for everyone from Caped Mario's famous Super Mario World appearance to a pair of 8-bit pixelized Link and Princess Zelda ornaments to commemorate the thirty-fifth anniversary of The Legend of Zelda with Sonic the Hedgehog and his pals showing up for the Sega... Continue reading

Nintendo's Game Boy Advance turns twenty years old in month, so it's the perfect time to reminisce about one of the strongest handheld libraries that only use a single screen. On this week's episode we're sharing GBA stories, covering the usual suspect games like Super Mario Advance, and recommending some obscurities such as Drill Dozer, marveling at unusual accessories including motion sensors, rumble paks, TV tuners, media players, and the e-Reader. Join us for an hour of conversation about the popular handheld. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via... Continue reading

It feels like we've been talking about an upgraded Nintendo Switch Pro model for almost as many years as we've talked about the existing Switch, so when rumors about a more powerful version of the console start to circulate, I usually disregard them. When Bloomberg is the source though, I tend to pay a bit more attention. Today's report is that Nintendo is working on a new Switch model destined for release later this year that will display 4K visuals when docked to the television and sport a larger screen (but not 4K) when played in handheld mode. The new... Continue reading

Nintendo has started to come out of announcement hibernation with a recent Nintendo Direct presentation loaded with new games and remakes of favorite titles plus a separate Pokémon Direct presentation with news of its own to cover. On this week's podcast, we break down the biggest news from the shows and discuss what it all means. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past... Continue reading

I think by now most everyone in the gaming community has made peace with the knowledge that the Nintendo 3DS's best days are behind it as the Nintendo Switch (and especially Switch Lite) has taken over its market in the handheld gaming space. Now Nintendo is driving the next nail in its coffin with the announcement coming ten years to the day of the launch of the original 3DS that after March 31, the company will no longer offer repair service on the original Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL models due to a lack of replacement parts. Service for the... Continue reading

Hobbyist ROM hackers and modders have made minor changes to classic video games since the dawn of computer gaming. Well, maybe not the dawn. Perhaps the week after the dawn. When I was first dabbling with console emulation back in the 1990s I saw a glut of crudely changed games clearly altered for shock value such as nude and/or racism-inspired hacks of Super Mario Bros. where all someone did was change a few pixels here and there. Today that scene has evolved, and while I'm sure there are still young teens making trash for their own amusement, most hacks and... Continue reading

Backwards-Compatible.com entry for Ghostbusters: The Video Game Sony's PlayStation 5 is thankfully backward compatible with the PlayStation 4 and most all PS4 games can be played on PS5 and often with an improved experience. Games that ran at thirty frames per second on a PS4 run at sixty frames per second on a PS5. Resolutions can increase. Not every game is improved in the same way though and it's up to players to try their favorite games to see how they perform. Now there's a centralized database of enhancements that makes the process so much simpler. Backwards-Compatible.com organizes all of... Continue reading

Today when you talk about handheld gaming, most players think of a Nintendo Switch or a mobile device connected to a remote play or cloud gaming service. Twenty years ago, handheld gaming meant carting around a Game Boy Color. Thirty years ago? Well, there was the original Game Boy, of course, but for a cheaper and more portable experience there were the Nelsonic gaming watches featuring famous licensed franchises from Nintendo including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong. I wrote about my cherished Mario watch back in 2006, but Brian Crecente at Pad and Pixel dug... Continue reading

Another year done means a new batch of video games elevated into the vaunted Top 5 List of our Game of the Year picks. This week on the podcast we discuss our top picks for 2020 along with a few honorable mentions. Will the next-gen consoles sweep the honors or is there still juice in last generation's library? We have a supersized show in which to hash it all out. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into... Continue reading

With the portal sealed and 2020 banished back into Hell, it's time for our customary look back at the most memorable video gaming news from the year that was. Thanks to the coronavirus, 2020's news was largely "inside baseball" in nature as nobody could safely stage a large physical presence at a convention or trade show, but there was still plenty to talk about as Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary, Apple and Epic go to war over - what else? - money, Microsoft goes on a buying spree, and so much more. Download this week's episode directly... Continue reading

We're taking a break from video games this week to discuss Blake's recent source of excitement, The Mandalorian. Spoilers ahead for seasons one and two! And we also dip into Wonder Woman 1984 as a sidequest using Pedro Pascal's presence in both as a stepping stone. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can... Continue reading

While my wife and I have only been married two months, we've been together for five years now and always have fun exchanging gifts. She's the artistic one and is a master of tailoring, crafting, and painting, and she's given me several of her creations that have special romantic sentiment to us that also tie together with our love of video games. Climb our stairway and you'll find framed photos of us next to the jerkass goose from Untitled Goose Game stitched with his to-do list of tasks, one of which is a crossed off "Steal your heart". Around the... Continue reading

After spending time with the Sony PlayStation 5, we are finally ready to discuss our initial experiences with the console and playing games such as Astro's Playroom, Watch Dogs Legion, and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Plus, Blake Grundman tells the story of spycraft and heisting that went into him acquiring a console and, in a sidequest, we touch on the recent Cyberpunk 2077 issues that have been in the news lately. Join us for an hour before we go back to playing PS5. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via... Continue reading

It's been a good run for Super Mario Maker for the Nintendo Wii U, but after five years, one port to the Nintendo 3DS, and a sequel for the Switch, it's almost time to say goodbye. Nintendo announced this morning that effective March 31, 2021 that the game will no longer allow players to upload new courses to share with other players and that the game's website bookmark feature will also cease to be. The game is also scheduled for delisting from the eShop on January 12, 2021. Upload 'em while you've got 'em, folks. This is last call. As... Continue reading

We have a very special double-length podcast for you this week as my wife joins us to discuss our recent wedding that was packed full of hidden video game references. From the Borderlands vault symbol arch to the stomping of the Goomba glass to the Super Mario pixel art in my tie, we tell you all about how we slipped video games into our wedding in ways that you wouldn't notice unless you were in on the joke. All of our favorites are there including The Legend of Zelda, Untitled Goose Game, Donkey Kong, Sonic the Hedgehog, and so many... Continue reading

In celebration of my own imminent wedding day, this week's podcast is all about gaming's greatest weddings! From Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach for a wedding on the moon in Super Mario Odyssey to the shotgun weddings of Fallout 2 to the Mad Moxxi love potion scheme of Borderlands 2 to, uh, Booster kidnapping Princess Toadstool for a wedding in Marrymore in Super Mario RPG and beyond, we're talking about the good, the bad, and the matrimony. Join us for seventy minutes of discussion before I head off to say my vows. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with... Continue reading

My fiancée Corey and I love Borderlands so much that we're themeing much of our wedding decorations around it, so while we haven't had hardly any time to play over the past few months due to wedding preparations, we're happy to see this morning that 2K Games has announced a second Season Pass is coming for new downloadable expansions to Borderlands 3. Here's what's coming, although no specifics as to what these expansions are all about are available yet. Get ready to make all kinds of mayhem with Borderlands 3's new Season Pass 2, which will feature two more add-ons... Continue reading

One of our favorite books here at Power Button, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation, is now a documentary streaming on CBS All-Access, so it's the perfect time to talk to the book's author and friend of the podcast Blake J. Harris and his co-director on the film, Jonah Tulis. Join us for an hour of conversation in which we discuss topics such as how the book made the transition to the screen, the difficulty of clearing all of those archival clips for use, the visual impact of showing key moments in the story as... Continue reading

Since the first video games to feature music were created, fans have tried to take those simple composition and tap them out on a piano or strum them out on a guitar. Over the years, the fan community has continued to advance, taking increasingly complex melodies and turning them into impressive new creations. If your game includes Super Mario or Mega Man in the title, then there's no shortage of people who can perform your tunes. The familiar strains of World 1-1 or Air Man's theme are a bit overdone these days, but deeper cut games deserve to have their... Continue reading

We're big fans of Blake J. Harris's book on the Nintendo versus Sega battles of the 1990s, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation. He's joined us on the Power Button podcast several times to discuss it and now that the new documentary based on the book is available to stream on CBS All Access, he's coming back to the show next week and he's bringing his co-director Jonah Tulis with him so we can dive deep into this latest incarnation of the project. We have a lot to talk about, but we also want your... Continue reading

City-building simulators and their ilk are all the rage on this week's podcast episode. Join us as we reminisce over classic titles including SimCity, SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000... well, you get the idea there, plus SimCopter, SimFarm, Rollercoaster Tycoon, SimTower, and all the way to our current obsession, Cities: Skylines. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Play, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late.... Continue reading

The ongoing game of pricing and release date chicken between Microsoft and Sony finally reached the cliff this week as both companies lifted the curtain on their plans for the next generation of video game consoles. We're spending the hour discussing the new details about the Sony PlayStation 5 and the Microsoft Xbox Series X and Series S plus a quick dip into the world of Nintendo for some pre-release Super Mario 3D All-Stars gossip. Pull up a retailer's website and mash the refresh button with us as we try to preorder a console. Download this week's episode directly from... Continue reading

Word came this morning that Nintendo has discontinued production on the entire Nintendo 3DS family of hardware, ending the company's dedicated handheld gaming dynasty that extends back to the Game Boy era and, if you want to argue beyond that, the Game & Watch. Launched in 2011, the 3DS brought us all so many happy memories with stand-out titles such as Super Mario 3D Land, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Mario Kart 7, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, Kirby: Planet Robobot, and I could basically fill the rest of this article just naming great game... Continue reading

I have a terrible confession to make, friends, and I hope you can forgive me. You see, Nintendo announced yesterday evening that three more Super NES games will be coming to the Nintendo Switch Online's Super NES collection next week, one of which is 1995's Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. I regret to say that it's my fault that the game is only just now coming to the service instead of arriving weeks ago. Earlier in the summer when the first game in the series, Donkey Kong Country, was added to the service, I took my sweet time... Continue reading

The long-gestating documentary based on friend-of-the-podcast Blake J. Harris' Console Wars is finally ready for its premiere. Set to debut on the CBS All Access streaming service on September 23, 2020, a trailer for the film was released yesterday that looks to keep the heart and soul of the book intact thanks to interviews with key figures from the Nintendo versus Sega battles of the 1990s including Howard Phillips, Peter Main, and Howard Lincoln on the Nintendo side and and Tom Kalinske, Shinobu Toyoda, Al Nilsen, Ellen Beth Van Buskirk, Paul Rioux, and Bill White from Team Sega. I absolutely... Continue reading