Browsing Video Games at FAO Schwarz in 1993 

I remember thinking CD-I was cool. Best Buy kept it in a separate section away from the other game consoles. I guess it was in a special section for "home entertainment consoles" or whatever they called it. I remember the CD-I was over in that aisle, along with at least one other machine. I don't think it was the 3DO though, but could have been. Amiga CD32 is the only one I can think of, but I had an Amiga computer at home and would have remembered if I saw Amiga stuff in Best Buy. Do you remember if there was something similar to CD-I at the time, or am I just misremembering the 3DO? They played VCDs or something on it most of the time though, not always games.

I don't think so. EGM in the 90s hated the games for that system, so I'm pretty sure he hated it too. Where's that part in the video? I can't find it.

@@chrisrj9871 Well, yeah, of course the critics hated it. But for a guy who’s only playing it for probably 10 mins in a store when it’s brand new he might’ve thought of it differently. I don’t remember what part in the video it was, you’ll have to find it.

I feel the exact same way. I’m so glad I got to experience what the world was like without the social media overload. I have such a nostalgia for these times that are forever lost but still fresh in my memory

Yess exactly, I don't know if it's bias because I was born at that time but even when I try to think objectively the only thing "better" nowadays is the technology, but even then it also comes with severe drawbacks. And in a way the limitation of the tech back then makes things more interesting if you think about it, not having everything easily accessible makes a lot of things more valuable and makes you appreciate it more because it requires more effort.

​@@rafe9852 "not having everything easily accessible makes a lot of things more valuable and makes you appreciate it more because it requires more effort." - Yes, 100% that. Certain modern technology I really appreciate, such as GPS on my phone. It's so strange when I think of how I used to have to navigate in the car with awkwardly huge paper maps, esp in the dark. And before GPS, even just being able to print step by step directions off of MapQuest was a welcomed luxury. Things like Spotify make listening to music easier, since when I was younger I'd have to wait by the radio so I could record songs I wanted from "Casey's Top 40 ", but man, when the song you wanted finally came on the air and you had that tape ready to roll, you felt awesome. And maybe it's just because I was younger at the time, but I had a lot more fun on my Atari, NES and SNES back in the 80's and 90's than I do today on my PS5. Hell, just going outside was an enjoyable thing back then. I'd go to my friend's house and we'd just sit there for hours shootin' the breeze. Now I don't even have friends 😧

I love social media. We're living life more efficient than eve before. Meaning I get more time to do what I want bc I don't have to wait in line to order food, rent a movie, checkout when shopping. I do everything on my phone. Those minutes add up on the long run. Time is very expensive. I'm using it wisely (;

you could simulate it for your kids though..... don;t give them phones

What a great comment! And remember the fun shopping with dad or mom? Or your best friend? Those memories are absolutely priceless after they're long gone...or you've moved to a different city in another state. Great comment 👍

Yes indeed, today when you buy games you do it digitally through a screen and some days later it arrives at your home or you just find some guy selling it on the internet. I think we have lost a bit of humanity when we lost this experience and the arcades.

I miss being excited about video games. I remember buying Mario games from early consoles and being really amped up. No modern video game really moves me much as I’ve largely grown out of them unfortunately

@@EUROCORP2027same thing with movies. We used to go to the store to rent them - now we scroll through endless apps and just pick play.

I absolutely have the same conflicts. The one time I'm thankful for being an only child and my game time turned into sacred me time. Glad that fell off...now I read too much lol.

You sure weren't. The later half of the 90's was drenched in fear over Y2K, with everyone thinking that all of the computers would stop working and our world would come to a halt. The 90's also saw the release of Terminator 2, though we had no idea that just 30 years later, we'd be facing the actual risk of A.I. wiping out human civilization. Y2K was nothing compared to what was actually to come. 🤖

@@Kai0nTheMoon I know right???

the real 1990s kids were those born in the 1980s specifically around 1985-1986 you are more of a 1990s toddler.

It's interesting, I actually had that same feeling when the 80s were over, although the year 1990 was a good one for me. The 90s as a whole was a bit of a mixed bag, but still a better time than today, particularly when it comes to freedom. It was probably the most free we've ever been in the western world. Things got a lot worse though after 2001 with the 9/11 event.

@@Kai0nTheMoon I wouldn't want to exaggerate that. It was really only in the last 2 years or so before Y2K that the media started to ramp up the fear for the big 'millennium bug' that would supposedly bring society to a halt. Before that time the general public was hardly aware of it. Some people in the IT industry might have been worried about it for a longer time, but not the average person.

Yeah nothing like going to the game store. Seeing mortal kombat reminded me of mortal Monday. I went with my friend who had the arcade machine in his basement. the store employee didn't want to give him the blood code and mom said he has the arcade machine give him the code. She bought me a copy as well on Sega. Good memory, both of them have since passed away

Going to toys r us was great as a kid too. I remember the video game aisles

Super facts! It was Heaven to us as a kid. Lol

Same. Same age and all. Feel the same way...Nothing could top it

@@brianmeen2158 Toys R Us was the best, and there was so much competition during the console wars of the 90's there was just so much to choose from in the video game isle. Nothing can come close to it today.

Well the good news is that most of the media from back then is still available today. I really wish i kept all of my games from back then

Yeah well.. you're lucky. As happy as I am to have experienced the 90s, I would trade it in a second to have 8 years back (I was born in 93).

i agree. just get some oldschool friends they will play the classic way :P

I'm as old as you and feel the same way. But no all hope is lost real friends appreciate your hobby and try to joyn a match of streetfighter without doing tictocs

@@supermegayoshi64 for me the 90s was the good old days. im glad there are people younger than me that appreciate the classic days of gaming

I know that feeling of having a childhood friend who passed away. I'm sorry for your loss.

I know exactly what you mean. 😔 So sorry for your loss.

🤣🤣🤣

💯

Scary isn't it

Crazy stuff, it's freaking me out how fast time is going by.

yes..."we" know. (1982) 😱🥺

Not quite in my 40s! ('86) but Im on my way there!

I’m 35(1987) lol see ya in the 40’s soon! Lol

The teens are in their 40s, the kids are in their 30s. 20s and under are spoiled by free cell phones every Christmas since age 5 and now they're parents who think that's normal so their kids are getting free cell phones and it's like, _does adulthood even exist anymore??_ What's the point of adulthood if everything great about it is hand-gifted to children _right there??_ How do we define it? Beer, driving, magic lala's? All of which have a myriad of problems themselves?? I don't get this world. I think parents are just looking for an easy way out of responsibility.

1986 up until the end of 1994 > NES, Game Boy & Super GameBoy, Geneses, SNES, the Arcades and with a hint of Turbo GraFx & Game Gear. :P

16-bit saw the classic styles of arcade gaming take a back seat and saw the rise of modern story gaming.

Yeah unfortunately our Generation X is getting old now in 93 I was 19 years old but I still remember collecting these greats! 😎

The good times were 88 - 95 ;) Was never a fan of the late 90's. Either 95 and especially 96, as far as pop culture were concerned, felt like the beginning of the end imo. 1991 compared to 1999 felt like living on a completely different planet. the former being 1000x better :P

I hear ya Chris. You were lucky to grow up then. And thx for the nice words. 😃

yep. social media has completely changed the world forever. in ways i cant even describe. people just need to slow down and be happy with what they have

is it any different now?

Correct. Developers discovered it's far more profitable to sell video games as a service rather than a product.

It's still a small minority of the market. Gaming today is more fun, more options, more immersive, more realistic then ever before.

and you just got right into playing. No 19 hour tutorial on how to walk or boring never ending cut scenes.

@@mayen67as much as I love the nostalgia I get from old consoles, I couldn’t give up my modern ps5. I mean imagine showing red dead redemption to these people, they’d never leave the room !

@@mephistopheles7545 they would all faint from being so mind blown🤯

😂

lol..good eye. That is the money shot!

The maximum carnage music. That game had a sick soundtrack.

Surprisingly the NES was pretty popular all the way up until the mid 90's.

make sense since the NES was discontinued in 1995 (in the USA) anyways.

I fart to the music of Nintendo Action

But those days were when you would actually communicate with people and ask questions in person, it’s a sad thing of today but hopefully we get back to normal-I will forget about asking pacific questions about what comes packed with the game in the box especially when it was a hot upcoming release for that console!

@@Trance88 - it wasn't like modern console fans where they'd love a system until the next one arrives, then they'd throw that first console away like it was nothing. NES was like family for us at our house, they all are, but even I never knew SNES had any games in 1997... so I guess I'm a victim of that as well, but I was ending high school so I had other matters.

Thank you Tony. You made my day! 😃

I miss the NES and snes/genesis era. So many hours spent with friends n family gathered around the tv playing all sorts of games. Great times

Do they even have kiosks like this anymore where you can play new games at stores?

Now everything is falling down, we're in crisis, and no one knows who "Ice Cube" is.

@@Anarchist86ed I still know who he is or I'm generally confused how I worded it

Is that when today's was a good day was out.

Today these kids from this day are my compatriots at everyday work, great people all of them 👍

@@Anarchist86ed I'm pretty sure more people know who Ice Cube is today than back then.

🤣🤣🤣

Great comment 👍

Thanks for the sub Jake! .. 🙂

@@vampirerobot no problem,thanks for the videos.😉👍🏻

Born in 71..totally feel ya on that. Very sentimental and nostalgic.

It's tough watching these. Good memories of more innocent times

@@Jim26D exactly.

We have the internet

@@DaRealKing303 screw the internet, all the internet has done is make people less happy and angry at each other.

@@Claydood true

Oh my gosh, it could be him!

Yes it is. He was voicing Mario for Nintendo display kiosks for years. I remember it being really jarring. I didn't like the "official" voice because growing up with the Super Show, Mario always sounded like a guy from Brooklyn.

Before voicing the Real Mario in Mario Games in 1994.

I remember the same thing. But even though I have a very healthy Sony collection these days I still have a huge collection of Nintendo even though I'm middle aged. As it turns out, you don't outgrow Nintendo. I'm looking forward to what they give us next.

Sega was ass. Nintendo was always cooler in every way.

@@Skazellino Found the uncool kid lol

Yeah, Sega had more adult games like slaughterhouse and showed more gore. Mortal kombat didn't show blood on the snes

@@muffythevampirelayer_ SEGA blows and so do you.

There was a FAO Shwartz in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. I only know that bcuz i worked in Forum Shops in early 90s thru 97.

@@javiermori1710 thats interesting never knew that.

Even the stores and buildings themselves and their interiors and decor were much more colorful and pleasant to look at back then. Everything is so bland and "minimalist" looking today. I was going to say all the modern buildings remind me of prisons, but most of the prisons I've seen are better looking lol.

Neo Geo??? Score one for you Chris! Do you still have the original boxes?

You must have been rich!

I only remember one on new York but I'm sure there were others. It was a huge overpriced toy store

Wow.. it's you! Thanks, but your channel is off the charts special. I think it's probably the best channel on RU-vid.

@@vampirerobot That's very kind of you to say! Thank you! I have to ask, did you record this amazing footage or have you archived it from other sources? It's amazing.

@@MyRetroLife I would love to lie and say I did it all. But I did not unfortunately...so this is all from various sources. Just have fun doing it I guess 😃

@@vampirerobot Well it’s amazing historical American pop culture and media preservation. So thank you!

@@MyRetroLife So cool...thanks for stopping by. Very nice 😊

If I may ask, what did that decline involve or what would be an example? I was only 7 years old in 96, so unfortunately I hardly understood anything aboyt the world. I kind of remember the vibe people had though.

​​@@tonymarcuscassani9465 don't ask some dunce "talking about the good ol days" on a RU-vid video about a game store the "decline of pop culture" wtf are you doing man

@@tonymarcuscassani9465 The very very early 90's still had a bit of that amazing left over 80's pop culture injected and sprinkled in. Mostly 90-92. There was a big shift in pop culture towards 96'...Fashion, music, the cartoons, etc imo, were no where near as great nor fun compared to what came before it. In the 80's(85-90), and very early 90's, the world was full of imagination, when you stepped outside your house it felt like magic. I still had some great times in the late 90's in regards to video games and certain techno/dance pop music. PS1, N64, the release of the Sega Dreamcast, Aqua and the venga boys etc. :P

That's a good comment 👍

I liked the part around he part around 9:41 where the older teen lets the younger kid play Sonic 2. Really liked that. Gaming was such a joy and social event for many back then and was cool to share in it with others of all ages.

That's some reason they gave for the hefty price 🤔

@@vampirerobot yup in April. 1995 gex released and December 1995 ps1 got gex. Gex 1 is my favorite in whole trilogy plus very underrated gem

I still have my 3D0. Return Fire was my favorite. Amazing how when that console came out it was state of the art, for just a little while.