Playing Out of Control

The Most American Games Ever Made (Were Made in Japan)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:47:01 +0000

Happy Fourth of July. For the holiday I ranked the most American video games ever made, and seven of the ten were made outside the USA. Bad Dudes, where you punch ninjas to rescue the President. The Oregon Trail, manifest destiny with a hunting minigame. Vice City, America as a fever dream, painted in Scotland. And Metal Wolf Chaos, the most American game ever made, considered too niche to sell to Americans.

The back half is the other kind of made in America: the launch of From the Zip Disks, a new series about how I lost this website for twenty years and got it back off a stack of Zip disks at my mom’s house, one of them labeled “Adam’s stuff” in my own handwriting.

Plus the news: the fallout from Sony’s disc announcement (the full rant is the emergency episode right next to this one), Nintendo staying Nintendo, Limited Run’s Forever Physical, a lost Indiana Jones demo saved by one man’s personal archive, and Acclaim’s eighty-million-dollar quarter from the week in 1999 when nothing else happened.

Playing Out of Control Gaming. Retro and classic game reviews, PC to Nintendo, every system. Since 1998. No bought scores. No filters. Just opinions.

More at pocg.net. Follow on YouTube (@Pocgnet), Bluesky (@pocgnet.bsky.social), Mastodon (@pocg@mastodon.social), Instagram (@playingoutofcontrolgaming), Facebook (Playing Out of Control Gaming), and Reddit (r/pocg).

(0:00) Cold Open · (TT:TT) The News · (TT:TT) This Week in POCG History · (TT:TT) The Most American Games Ever Made · (TT:TT) From the Zip Disks · (TT:TT) Your Question

Physical Media Dies Quietly

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:50:44 +0000

A special episode, an emergency one, because something is happening in gaming right now that I could not sit on until the schedule said it was time. Game preservation is losing, and I want to talk about why, what we actually lose, and what, if anything, we can do about it.

The short version: follow the money. The box was always cheap, the games were always the business, and going all digital lets the platform holders keep the entire cut. Sony announced this week that new-game disc production ends in January 2028, the first of the big three to say it out loud, and closed the PS3 and Vita stores in the same breath. The Verge reports the next Xbox drops the disc drive and is testing a disc-to-digital conversion. So I walk through the whole cost: no resale, no lending, nothing to hand down to your kids, and the local and boutique stores that die when the new physical sales dry up. Even physical movies get caught in it, because your console is the last Blu-ray player most people own.

Then the hard part. Games are 200-plus gigs now and there is no cheap format left to save them on. Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation put it flat this weekend: piracy is the only extant form of media preservation that exists in games right now. I know that firsthand. This whole site only exists because a box of Zip disks and floppies survived at my mom’s house. There is one bright spot, US physical spending rose last year for the first time since 2009, on the back of the Switch 2, which proves the demand these companies are walking away from is real.

Read alongside this one: The Subsidy, Part Two is live on the site, and so is The Man Who Called It Ancient, on Jim Ryan and the worldview behind the end of the PlayStation disc.

No bought scores. No filters. Just opinions.

This week’s question: what is the one game on a disc or a cartridge on your shelf that you would hate to only ever own as a download? Tell me why.

In this episode:

Sony announces the end of new-game disc production in January 2028, the first of the big three (pre-2028 discs unaffected) The companion post closes the PS3 and PS Vita stores, regional from August 2026, worldwide July 2027 The Verge reports the next Xbox (code name Project Helix) drops the disc drive and is testing a disc-to-digital conversion, not confirmed by Microsoft Why the box was always cheap and the games were the business, from the Genesis cartridge fee to the 30 percent digital cut What all-digital takes away: resale, lending, and anything to leave to your kids, plus the local and boutique stores that live on new physical sales Physical movies get caught in it too, because the console is the last mainstream Blu-ray player The format problem: 200-plus gig games and no cheap high-density disc left to save them on Frank Cifaldi (Video Game History Foundation): piracy is the only extant form of media preservation that exists in games right now How the POCG archive itself only survived on a box of Zip disks and floppies The bright spot: US physical spending rose for the first time since 2009, driven by the Switch 2 What you can do: buy physical while you can, support your local store and the boutiques (Limited Run, iam8bit) and the homebrew crews (Wallop the Wallaby on the Genesis) Read alongside:

The Subsidy, Part Two - https://pocg.net/editorial/the-subsidy-part-two/ The Man Who Called It Ancient, on Jim Ryan and the worldview behind the end of the PlayStation disc - https://pocg.net/editorial/the-man-who-called-it-ancient/ This week’s question:

What is the one game on a disc or cartridge you would hate to only ever own as a download?

Born on the 23rd: Sonic at 35, the N64 at 30, and the Week Physical Media Broke and Came Back

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 06:01:47 +0000

June 23rd gave us both Sonic the Hedgehog and the Nintendo 64, five years apart to the day. In episode two we celebrate Sonic at 35, the N64 at 30, and Quake at 30, then dig into a week where physical media took a beating and quietly came back.

GTA VI is shipping with no disc. Xbox pushed the Series X to 750 dollars. One Sega veteran wants to make all 4,500 Sega games playable before he retires. And a 1998 review pulled off an old Zip disk accidentally proves the whole point of this show: if nobody saves these games and tells their history, they just disappear.

Plus a new editorial series, The Beige Years, starting with Myst, and a new book segment, On the Shelf, opening with Console Wars.

Playing Out of Control Gaming. Retro and classic game reviews, PC to Nintendo, every system. Since 1998. No bought scores. No filters. Just opinions.

(0:00) Cold Open · (1:49) The News · (5:23) Saving Sega · (9:47) This Week in POCG History · (14:06) The Beige Years: Myst · (18:09) On the Shelf: Console Wars · (20:43) Same Day, Five Years Apart · (21:15) Sonic at 35 · (25:49) The N64 at 30 · (31:10) Quake at 30 · (33:23) Your Question

Who Put the Controller in Your Hands

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 15:44:46 +0000

Episode one. We’re back. After years away, Playing Out of Control is on again.

This week was a big one. In the news: Microsoft, the Xbox studio closures, and what the word “subsidy” really means for your library and for backward compatibility. The full editorial, The Subsidy, is up on the site. Then the lighter wins, because there were a lot of them. GoldenEye’s cancelled Xbox 360 remaster recompiled into a real native PC game. Two unreleased Atomiswave arcade football games, Premier Eleven and Miracle Stadium, preserved on the Dreamcast. A lost Sega Rally DS prototype back after twenty years. One person’s eighteen-year remake of the original Mother. Romhack.ing pulling AI-translated patches. Plus quick hits on Space Cyclone, Wolfenstein 3D on the Atari Lynx, the RPG Maker forums closing, and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance.

Then the heart of it, because it’s Father’s Day: fathers and gaming. My dad, a gold Zelda cartridge, and a pawn-shop Sega Master System that made me a Sega guy for life. My stepdad Wayne, a back-room Tandy, and the web software he handed me that built POCG in 1998. And my grandfather, a hellfire and brimstone Baptist preacher who bought a PlayStation so his grandson could review games.

No sponsors. No filters. Just opinions.

This week’s question: who put the controller in your hands? Tell me about the person who made you a gamer.

Next time: the Nintendo 64 turns 30. Send me your N64 memories.