35 years ago, the Mega Drive had just had its first official (and very successful) Xmas. To help continue to build sales momentum ahead of the SNES launch, Sega launched this pack. It was £475 in today's money. Not far off modern hardware prices, and Moonwalker was great!

40 years ago, the game industry's marketing was becoming increasingly corporate and professional, but you still had a few very small, independent companies making games that had a certain "home made" style. Like this piece of classic naive advertising. 😄

Here's the ad for this game. Totally inspired by Ultimate's marketing style of the era - but very cool nonetheless.

40 years ago Imagine was advertising its ports of Comic Bakery. I played the C64 version, which was crummy, and there was a semi-decent MSX iteration knocking about, but I don't remember ever seeing Speccy and Amstrad versions. Don't think they ever happened. Fabulous ad, though!

40 years ago, I was enjoying Robin of the Wood. This imaginative and fun arcade adventure was published by Odin, who produced some really great games during this era thanks to its top-tier developers. Unfortunately, many of them left after the company was acquired by BT.

Books are such a fab gift. Hope you have fun reading my one, and indeed your mum enjoys hers too! 🙂

Always saving the best 'til last, this is the greatest of Oli Frey's Newsfield Xmas special covers (at least in my opinion). This image has incredible detail, cool period references, includes the mag's reviewers, feels super-cosy, and is as festive as it gets. Happy Xmas all! 🎅

By the end of 1987, newsstand competition (which meant prioritizing walls-of-text coverlines) plus a general move away from whimsical images meant that this was the final "classic" CRASH Xmas special cover. The end of an era, basically.

This classic Oil Frey CRASH cover from 1986 is its very own hidden puzzle games, with all sorts of period gaming and cultural references. Just a terrific piece, showing that Oli was just as good with pen and ink as he was with an air brush.

Love this 40-year-old Icon ad, which features an actual Xmas game, plus the somewhat dubious-looking Wongo, Warp 1, and definitely-not-about-the-Marvel-character Ultron.

Back in the olden days, the late WH Smith was one of the first major high street chains to stock computers and video games. In 1983, this is what they were offering. That 48k Spectrum is the equivalent of £445 in today's cash while the 16k version was £343!

40 years ago, CRASH featured this terrific Oli Frey Xmas cover. Just absolutely terrific. And BTW, that £8000 worth of prizes translates to £25,000 in today's money. Holy freakin' crap!

Back in 1991 you could add a bit of festive clipart to your import gaming marketing piece and hey presto! Instant Xmas ad. This was when import gaming was still trucking along, buoyed by the Super Famicom, which would be released as the SNES in Europe in April the following year.

This Dickensian-feeling computer ad is from 1982, a time when independent retailers were just beginning to appear in high streets to sell these new-fangled computers to the masses. Micro Style was basically a mini-chain, with four stores across the UK.

This lovely old festive Artic ad dates back to 1984. Just wonderfully whimsical and clearly hand-crafted from top to bottom - as indeed are the games it's advertising. A period before the games biz become more corporate and the industry still had a certain level of cute naivety.

This 1986 PCW Xmas quiz is an absolute period piece that only people of a certain age will appreciate. But if you are positively ancient and do get the references, it's pretty damn funny.

Back in 1986, ZZAP!'s Xmas special featured the staff (well, two actual staff members, a fictitious staff member, and a competition-winning reader (right)) as choirboys. Not my favorite cover TBH, but hey. It was most certainly festive!

Things don't get much more festive than a trio of hunchbacks peddling video game cassettes. Well, I think so. Either way, this fabulous 1983 ad was created by the folks at then-nascent Ocean Software, who'd go on to become a staple of 1980s European gaming.

40 years ago, Sir Clive Sinclair was close to raising £5m to produce silicon wafers while his company was falling apart. The Atari 260ST was delayed (pretty much forever) and Microsoft, still relatively unknown, was pushing educational products. Wonder what happened to them? 😁

Thanks for all the great feedback on this concept. Lots to think about. Size seems important, though I will say a full-size A4 mag would be considerably more costly to make (design, production, postage) than an A5 zine. I'll work on some biz models and see what I can do! 👍😃👍

Final mag cover concept of the day. I like the idea of doing the occasional system-specific "special" like this. It'd cover a system and its games, a bit of history, and have stories and anecdotes about the times. Would be fun to read and an enormous nostalgia trip fer sure.

The idea isn't to try to recreate something from the past, but instead take you back there. Nostalgic retrospectives about games/systems. Revisiting old reviews. Anecdotes about events and behind-the-scenes happenings. Fascinating. Entertaining. Funny. Definitely not academic!

This Xmas ZZAP! cover from 1987 features an amalgam of period properties, including He-Man, the Out Run Ferrari, and a smiling - yes that mask frown-turned-upside-down was deliberate - Darth Vader. Bit of festive fun, this one.

Here's a combo of super festiveness and strange old British gamingness from 40 years ago. Wally Week was a very popular video game series back in the day that featured recognizable and very unique characters. Love this specially-produced Xmas ad featuring the eponymous Wally.

Concept test! Thinking about making this: -20th century gaming only -Covers old games/events/systems (similar to my book) -52 pages/6 issues per year -A5 to meet a target price of <£10 an issue -Subs only -Kickstarter in March-ish Interested? More info/concepts to come!

Like this? For a completely personal journey through the gaming ages, grab Julian’s book from @bitmapbooks.com. It’s a seriously good read and tells a real story of a life that’s not a simple compendium of game anecdotes. www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/...

In the Jurassic era of Xmas 1979, gaming dinosaurs roamed free in Dixons. Well, not exactly free since that Interton VC4000 cost £400 in today's money and the top-of-the-line Prinztronic Tournament VC6000 was a mere £450. Still, you got a lot of console name for your money. 😁

Warning! Massive incoming wall of Xmas Argos catalog content. This is what the shop-with-no-stuff-in-it was offering back in Xmas 1983, and holy freakin' shit was there a mighty pile of weird and wonderful ancient technology to choose from. 1/3

The 1991 MM Xmas special didn't have the most festive cover ever, but c'mon. This full-color hologram was seriously kick ass - plus the mag itself was absolutely jam-packed with meaty goodness. Almost 200 pages of reviews, previews, features, and general madness and mayhem. Epic!

A million years ago in Xmas 1979, gaming was in its infancy. Currys had the Radofin 1292, complete with 60 game cartridge, which would guarantee to make you the coolest kid on the block for a mere £450 in today's money. At least, until the annoying rich kid got an Atari 2600.

35 years ago, Mega Man II (95%) was on MM's cover. Top reviews: SMS Mickey Mouse (93%), NES Pin Bot (90%) and Snake Rattle 'n Roll (94%), and GX4000 Switchblade (91%). A poor month for 16-bit because this was December and all the good stuff had been released the prior month!

Back in 1992, Dixons had you covered for hand-held gaming. They've got yer cheap-ass Game Boy with pack-in Tetris plus a pair of mega-battery-guzzlers in the form of the redesigned Lynx and the Master-System-for-the-pocket, the Game Gear. I'll have the Game Boy if you don't mind.

This fab early Electronic Games Xmas cover (from the same period as the CVG cover I posted yesterday) looks like something Coke would make, assuming they hired an actual artist rather than slopping it out via AI. Love its super-festive vibe, bright colors, and indeed coverlines.

Lol. Gotta love @merriam-webster.com. Big dictionary energy. Spot-on. www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/wor...

This early game compilation dates back to Xmas 1986. A quite eclectic mix of games; most of them pretty fun, it must be said, and a couple of them stupidly challenging too. You'd certainly get your money's worth out of this lot at that fairly reasonable price.

I think this was the first ever video game magazine cover, hailing all the way back from the crack of dawn of gaming: December 1982. Very well done as it's an actual painting, and not computer-generated. Systems weren't sophisticated to do this kind of thing digitally yet!

In Xmas 1997, CVG rounded up this pile of period goodies, which includes systems, peripherals, soundtracks, t-shirts, and games. Pretty festive, it must be said, and a great snapshot of what was around and about at that point in time.

Way back at the dawn of the computer age, WH Smith stocked all sorts of fun stuff. Their 1983 Xmas fare included computers, cameras, Walkmans, digital watches, ludicrously expensive movies on VHS (£68 in today's money), and also crummy tapes of Cliff Richard fer yer granny.

Hailing from Xmas 1989, this US Gold ad is a showcase of its period warez. This was when US Gold was at its peak. Few would have guessed that within just a few years market changes would have decimated this then-powerhouse company.

40 years ago the Spectrum dropped below £100 at retail (£312 in today's money). An important psychological price-point that helped fuel big sales through 1986. Meanwhile Commodore set a summer '86 Amiga launch date and offered a bollocks £50 off a C128 if you traded in your C64.

40 years ago, Domark was peddling this triumph of marketing over product quality. Friday the 13th was a festering pile of crap across all formats. I mean, an absolute s-t-e-a-m-i-n-g sack o' shite. But you can bet your bottom dollar every gamer knew about it!

41 years ago, CRASH featured the first Xmas cover painted by publisher Newsfield's co-owner and resident artist Oli Frey. This kicked off several years of what are easily the greatest Xmas-themed video game magazine covers of all time. Ain't nobody ever gonna match these.

35 years ago Activision's Xmas fare included this pair of licensed games. Ghostbusters II was one of the biggest movies of the year, and Sega's super-duper super-scaler Power Drift was one of the biggest and wildest coin-ops of the era. The sit-in version was especially crazy!

35 years ago, a wee bit of holly gave this PC Engine Supplies ad a whiff of festivity. With the Mega Drive officially out, the Sega import scene was just starting to slow down. However, the PC Engine was still seriously exotic stuff and the cheapest way to become the coolest gamer on the block.

In their 1986 Xmas Special, PCW asked games biz "celebrities" what were their eight favorite games. Respondents included David and Richard Darling of Code Masters fame, and the eponymous Andrew Hewson. Many of their answers will take you for a jog down memory lane.

40 years ago, Ocean's Xmas fare was a quartet of games based on properties which were about as much of the period as you could possibly get. You've got two TV shows, an iconic big-budget movie, and childhood-defining toys - but the games' quality varied from decent to very poor.

In Xmas 1984, Gremlin Graphics was peddling this range of video game stocking stuffers - three of which were written by Tony Crowther. Crazy to think of someone knocking out a trio of games within a few months these days!

35 years ago, ESWAT (rated 88% on CPC, C64, and Amiga) was on CVG's cover. Other top reviews: Speedball (ST 95%), NARC (C64 92%, Amiga 91%), Sky Shark (MD 90%), John Madden (MD 95%), Prince of Persia (Amiga 90%), Golden Axe (ST 91%), Gauntlet (SMS 92%), Covert Action (PC 90%).

In Xmas 1990, Commodore was wooing new users with this wall-of-text ad. I mean, I understand these were home computers and not marketed in the same way as consoles of the era, but jeez. Bit of a snooze fest TBH and not the most exciting way to present your products. 😁

By April 1992, you were able to get your hands on the official machine. I imagine this was peak excitement for numerous lucky kids that year.