So that's what they're going with, huh?

"It's just our way of saying
'fuck you' to gamers in rural states."

-Google

In unsurprising news, that Google thing that was announced today turned out to be a streaming platform, just like everyone thought it would. And it's-huh? We talked about it last week. It's ok if you don't remember, half these posts are basically filler. Here, I'll sum up: it's a service where you stream video games to your device, instead of downloading them or buying discs. All the heavy lifting is done on the server's end so how fancy your device is doesn't matter as much as how solid your connection is.

It's the future I guess. Anyway, they're calling it Stadia. Stadia. Yeah, I don't know what it means either, but Google spent a lot of money making it up and then focus testing it, so here it is. I mean, it's not like there's some way to find out what a stadia is so why even-

Oh, right. Goddamnit...

Above: The bleeding edge
of technology...I guess.

Ok when I search it I get:

"A method of surveying in which distances are read by noting the interval on a graduated rod intercepted by two parallel crosshairs...mounted in the telescope of a surveying instrument, the rod being placed at one end of the distance to be measured and the surveying instrument at the other."

-Dictionary.com, 

clearing that up for us

So cool...say, do you suppose someone at Google is overestimating the public's familiarity with nineteenth century surveying technology?

WonderSwan meant someone at SNK
was picking random words out of
their Japanese to English dictionary.

I know this thing isn't a game console per se, but it is supposed to compete with them and you'd think they'd go with something a little more evocative. Playstation 4 is the fourth Playstation console. Switch switches between console and handheld. Xbox One is, confusingly the third Xbox, ok, bad example. But traditionally console manufacturers wanted something that spoke to their platforms' strengths. The name Sega Genesis suggested the start of a new thing. Super Nintendo meant better than Nintendo.

You're going to have to click, it's
like white on white. Because future.

Stadia kind of just means hey, why don't you Google what a Stadia is? Anyway, maybe it'll be a huge flop or maybe it'll be the next thing for video games and then Google will own that industry too. But whatever it is, I want to talk about the controller. Yeah, left turn. So the controller has the Konami code on it. For some reason. The code, sometimes called the Contra Code, or sometimes the Gradius Code, is up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start. Or select start if you're playing Contra with a friend. Which, I mean, c'mon.

Get it? Because the eighties? 

Even if you were never into games (thanks for hanging in there!), you've probably seen it referenced somewhere. It has the power to grant thirty lives in Contra, add all the power-ups in Gradius and weirdly to blow up your ship in Gradius III. But perhaps its most frequently summoned ability is its way of adding a sheen of hipster credibility to anyone trying to sell shit to people in a certain generational range. That is the last five minutes, tail end of Gen X up to the Millennials with nostalgia for games they were probably too young to enjoy first hand. I don't think Think Geek, Hottopic or the boys section at Target would still be in business today if it didn't have the code to slap on its merchandise.

Its inclusion on Google's attempt to consume the video game industry and bring it too into its Shadowrun-esque vision of a desolate, ultra-capitalist, Megacorp-dominated future feels a little, I don't know, insulting? Or at least it would if I weren't of the Contra generation who lack the ability to care hard enough to be insulted.

"Cool. Whatever. Fine."

-Characters from the 1999 film Go,

unofficial spokespeople for that

generation I'm talking about