Merry Christmas everyone! We've got presents for the game preservation community this year: under the tree are 11 professional Betacam tapes from Activision, Tecmo, and Vivendi! We'll be opening one per day starting tomorrow, so join our discord if you want to vote on which one to open first!

Merry Christmas! If you'd like to spend 45 minutes celebrating video game history with me, we're about to debut The Untold Story of the Nintendo Entertainment System. I worked on his ALL YEAR, and I genuinely think it will reshape how we all think about the system. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJvp...

Happy holidays, everyone! We've got something special for the game preservation community this year, and just couldn't wait till tomorrow to share a little preview! Keep an eye out for another announcement tomorrow, and join our discord if you want to participate!🎄https://discord.gg/JQbGjPwE

Merry Ripmas to all, and to all a good write? Wait no don’t overwrite DON’T OVERWRITE

Calling all 6502/NES programmers! We recently preserved and shared a source code snapshot of the lost Police Academy game! Which is great, except it's in a pretty bad state. I'm hoping there's enough to "revert" back to its trade show demo. Any interest in helping? www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pgm4m...

How often should one plug their Patreon? I still don't know the answer. I know times are tough, and I've lost a lot of patrons b/c of it. So supporting my research would really help me out if you are in a position to do so. www.patreon.com/acriticalhit

Who coined "Metroidvania"? It wasn't @jparish.bsky.social, and he'll be the first to tell you. Besides, there are far more interesting questions, like: How did it spread? Evolve? And what's it got to do with rickrolling? Watch til the end for a post-credits sting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8set...

Finally did a silly little digital preservation bucket list item: scanned the actual CMYK plates used to print a video game box using an oversized film scanner, and combined them in Photoshop to make a "perfect" digital version.

Yearning for the 8-bit days of old? The #GameTank is a brand new, #opensource 8-bit game console that you can build and program for right now! Check our interview with @gametank.zone and listen as Clyde shows what it takes to make a retro console in the modern era! www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qtP...

I say this with zero irony: if you are even tangentially a part of a retro video game community, it is your civic duty to push back against this company and shun anyone who doesn't. This is fascism tapping gently at the door and as soon as you let it in, it's going to invite its friends.

I had some time today to sit down and edit and clean more of Junichiro Saito's / 斎藤純一郎 Link to the Past #zelda art from the 1992 Shogaku Ichinensei short story chapters. I love this epic piece of Link fighting the Armos Knights.

Happy 18th birthday to Nights: Journey of Dreams! Legendary Sega game designer Takashi Iizuka's sequel to the 1996 Sega Saturn hit has a cult following today, but at launch in 2007 it faced some serious holiday competition in the form of Super Mario Galaxy! Which do you prefer, and why?

In May, Twitch deleted 100K speedruns among millions of other videos. With the help of ArchiveTeam and @archive.org we saved these speedruns and 500K+ other popular Twitch videos. My search tool for viewing these archives is now live! archive.speedrun.club

The winter FUNraiser continues at 12pm Pacific: We're dumping a new set of mystery ROMs, live on stream! And we need your help to assemble the data! Based on the labels on these ROMs, there *will* be at least one new unpreserved game in here.

Origin Systems' Wing Commander III turns 31 years old today! The third game in the series took advantage of CD storage space by going all-in on full motion video, and featured a blockbuster cast including @markhamillofficial.bsky.social himself!

Please join us Monday for a special presentation.

We are SO EXCITED to finally show you Xcavator 2025! This is an unreleased (and unannounced!) NES game from 1991 that we recovered from its source code. The rights to it were 100% donated to us, and it's being published as a fundraiser cartridge to support our work!

Join us tonight at 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern for a YouTube Premiere of @frankcifaldi.bsky.social's impassioned, energetic talk about the state of video game preservation. This was previously for GDC attendees only, but has been unlocked for all. We'll be in chat! youtu.be/_00AjQNjgDk?...

Joey has been a tremendous help in sorting through our ridiculous amount of video game press material and getting it up on our archive for the world to see! Game preservation can be thankless at times, and the personal satisfaction waxes and wanes, but know that you make a difference in our eyes!

Happy Giving Tuesday! If you're looking to be generous to a scrappy little nonprofit working to help preserve video game history, we'd appreciate the support! 🥰 hitsave.org/support-us/

Happy 37th birthday to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link! We don't have much related to Zelda II in our archive (yet) but here's a cool fact: Did you know that there's a 16-bit version of the Zelda II title theme on certain versions of the SNES Burn-in Test Cartridge? We'd love to know who made it!

I got this rare Japanese envelope art of Link for #zelda 1 cleaned and uploaded to the gallery. 3 were physically gifted & sent to me by @linksliltri4ce.bsky.social (who is always beyond amazing!) & the flute one was scanned for me by Ikhana www.ikhanakingdom.com (who is also always beyond amazing!)

Happy 15th birthday to Epic Mickey! Industry legend Warren Spector and his team at Junction Point Studios were acquired by Disney Interactive Studios in 2007 and tasked with giving Mickey Mouse a fresh coat of paint. In doing so, they also reintroduced Oswald The Lucky Rabbit to the world at large!

Has anyone ever made a list of trans video game protags? If not, suggest them below, let’s get a list happening. What’s the earliest one?

Today we'd like to express our gratitude to the game preservation community! Whether you're scanning, dumping, researching, maintaining, programming, interviewing, donating, or any of the other innumerable tasks involved, it's because of your passion that game preservation persists. Thank you! ❤️

Happy 26th birthday to Donkey Kong 64! Rare's enormous Kong collectathon was one of the few Nintendo 64 games to require the expansion pak, and came bundled with the device as a result! Imagine the power you could wield with EIGHT MEGABYTES of RAM!

Happy 27th birthday to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time! After the success of Link to the Past, Zelda fans had to wait about 7 years for Link's 3D debut...about as long as Link spent sealed in the Temple of Light! Fortunately, the Hero of Time did not disappoint...and that's putting it mildly!

Two decades ago today, Microsoft redefined the video game console space with the release of the Xbox 360. HD visuals, achievements and Gamerscore, expanded media features, and of course the revamped Xbox Live service were among the many advancements the system brought to the table.

35 years ago today, Nintendo released the Super Famicom in Japan, alongside F-Zero, PilotWings, and most notably: Super Mario World! The impact of Nintendo's 16-bit system cannot be overstated, and its enormous software lineup contains some of the greatest games ever made. Which is your favorite?

We are back. Our provider found and repaired a fiber issue last night and traffic has returned. We are sorry for the disruption.

Happy 25th birthday to Banjo-Tooie! The ambitious sequel to Banjo-Kazooie continued Rare's trend of pushing the limits of N64 hardware, including in ways that Nintendo had to veto! Anyone else wonder what life might have been like in a "Stop 'n' Swop" timeline? Would our N64s have paid the price?

Incredible article with some brand new information on one of my all time favorite creators’ career!!

Happy 23rd birthday to 007: Nightfire! EA's third entry in the #JamesBond video game franchise made excellent use of Pierce Brosnan's likeness, but it wouldn't be until Everything or Nothing that they got his voice to go along with it!

With the passing of Rebecca Heineman today, I wanted to share some images from her last, now forever unfinished project. She was working on amazing stuff right up until the end. It was Dragon Wars remastered. Jennell Jaquays was art directing.

Happy 24th birthday to the Nintendo Gamecube! We love getting excuses to share clips from one of the rarest items in our archive: watch as Nintendo NTD Software Engineer John Cho debuts the system to NOA employees for the first time! What was your first impression of the funky purple console?

The game industry lost a legend today. Thanks for everything, Rebecca. You will be missed.

EA's Star Wars: Battlefront turns 10 years old, today! Even a decade later, the game stands out as one of the most authentic-looking #StarWars experiences in any video game, with a level of fidelity and screen-accuracy that few other studios have been able to match! Maybe DICE was using the Force?

Up in the @hitsave.org archives today: Ridge Racer (no, the other one), Ridge Racer (no, the OTHER other one), Ridge Racer 2 (also the other one), R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, Ridge Racer V, Ridge Racer 6, Ridge Racer 7, and Ridge Racer 3D. Oh and Noby Noby Boy. Enjoy! archive.hitsave.org/press-material

Happy 20th birthday to True Crime: New York City! The 2nd game in the series featured an open-world Manhattan, Hollywood talent, and even NYPD consulting, but still fell short of sales expectations. The planned Hong Kong sequel was cancelled, but eventually was reborn as Square Enix's Sleeping Dogs!

Happy birthday to Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which came out 21 years ago today! While light and dark world mechanics are staples in many Nintendo games, this was Samus's first foray into the tried and true gaming trope, and Retro Studios made sure the legendary bounty hunter looked awesome doing it!

In our latest Video Game History Hour podcast, let’s learn what made our Library Director, Phil Salvador, into Phil Salvador! Producer Robin Kunimune sat down with Phil to discuss his path to video game library greatness: https://gamehistory.org/episode-144-phil-salvador-a-rule-following-hooligan/

Happy birthday to Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, which came out on this day in 2001! As technology progressed, studios like Red Storm challenged themselves to find the best mix of realism and fun when developing games, all while pushing the limits of what computer graphics could do!

We've added 100 new CDs to our collection of press CDs from GamePro magazine, with thousands of pieces of game art, screenshots, and more So, what's the GamePro press CD collection? We put together an explainer

One of my favorite pickups for the office

Happy #N7Day, Mass Effect fans! We've got more ME1 content incoming later this month, but we'll kick things off with the Microsoft X05 reveal trailer from '05! @bioware.bsky.social had just released Jade Empire earlier that year, but was already working on something special for the upcoming Xbox 360

Happy birthday to EA's video game adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which came out 22 years ago today! Developed by the now-defunct Visceral Games, Return of the King flexed EA's budget by hiring many of the movie's cast and crew to make the game as authentic as possible!

Last month at PRGE, we held a reunion panel with Nintendo employees who launched the NES. Hear from Bruce Lowry, Gail Tilden, and Lance Barr about how the scrappy staff at NOA defied all odds and released one of the most iconic game systems ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2WDfsiLiRA

Happy birthday to @infinityward.com's #CallOfDuty 4, which shed its WWII roots and thrust players into the modern era in more ways than one! In addition to a powerful single player campaign, the game debuted its new perks system that set the standard for the series going forward. Did you prestige?

Didn't want to jinx it before it was in my hands but I managed to find a beautiful copy of this 1987 #Nintendo calendar with a piece of #Zelda art we had only seen in Art & Artifacts miscredited as for the 1994 re-release of Z1 AFAIK this is the earliest official illustrated face we have for Ganon!

Happy birthday to @insomniac.games' Resistance 2, which turns 17 years old today!