This one's actually about F-Zero...

The idea that money is speech is, inarguably, repugnant. And yet the Supreme Court ruled that it was in Citizens United v. the FCC, and basically doomed us to the dystopian nightmare we now find ourselves in now--and that was before a guy most of us voted against got to fill three seats. Three. Seats. For life.

Most of us wouldn't get a job after sobbing and going on about
how much we like beer during the interview, but here we are. Oh, also,
 isn't he like accused of sexual assault? Like, multiple instances?

What? I'm not wrong.

But that didn't stop a video game fan from buying himself forty-thousand dollars of face time with Nintendo's board. The fan, who--huh? Yeah, this is going to be about video games. Sorry for the head fake, but I can't just talk about our country tearing itself apart. I need some escape, but on the other hand, everything is kind of about this. I mean, how could it not be? We're going to be living and breathing this until 2024 and quite possibly forever unless someone gets on expanding the Court or impeaching the Justices who lied in their job interviews.

Yen well spent Momiji. Yen well spent...

Sorry, spiraling again. What were we...right: a Japanese fan calling himself Momiji bought forty thousand dollars of Nintendo stock, evidently for the sole purpose of getting to ask questions at a shareholder's meeting. See? Money equals speech, although in this case it's capitalism. Gross, but it comes with the territory. So what did Momiji ask with his pile of stock worth more than the average U.S. individual income? He asked when Nintendo was going to make a new F-Zero game. And I mean c'mon. I like F-Zero and all, but, wow.

"Graphics will never look better than this."

-dumb kids like me in the early 90's

F-Zero, for the uninitiated, was a futuristic racing game for the Super Nintendo that came out in 1991. It was, for the time, pretty impressive. It used impressive sounding Mode-7 graphics which was mostly nonsense marketing speak and just meant that the console could render a flat plane and then shift it around creating a pseudo 3-D effect, but I mean, 1991. It might as well have been a holodeck to us. The game is ok, and kind of holds up and here were a few sequels but nothing since 2004. Momiji I guess was just curious as to when we can expect a new F-Zero which, I mean, never?

"No. We have no plans for a-seriously?
Forty thousand dollars? Of money?"

-Furukawa

But what do I know? What really matters is what the people in charge at Nintendo told him. And what they told him was, I suspect, somewhat disappointing:

"It is realistically difficult to develop new titles and remakes, including sequels, for every Nintendo game that people request, but we are very grateful and appreciate the expectations our fans have for our games."

-Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa

crushing Momiji's dreams

Uh...yeah. I'm sure it is difficult to develop new titles and remakes. And sure, I imagine that they can't simply make everything the fans would like to see, but I mean, give the guy a real answer for his money, even if the answer is no. Which it is. Of course it is.

Although they could release Mother 3, Metroid Prime Trilogy,
or Windwaker HD which everyone wants and are already done.
I'm not like a business person, but I mean, c'mon. 

Coming 2023 to Netflix, the Final
Season of Stranger Things: This Hat.

It's been almost twenty years since the last F-Zero game and you know, never say never, but never. And even if they announced F-Zero 11 or whatever tomorrow, it's not necessarily going to be like F-Zero 1. Video game sequels are often nothing like their predecessors sometimes even changing genres. Zelda II was totally different from Zelda I for example. If movie sequels were like gaming sequels, it would be like following up Coda with a special-effects driven sci-fi action movie or even a completely unrelated movie with the title Coda II just slapped onto it.

The point is that Momiji dropped forty k on what amounted to be a dodge to a question we kind of already knew the answer to. And even if he'd gotten the answer he wanted, there was no guarantee that a new game would even scratch whatever nostalgia itch he has for a so-so racer from thirty years ago. I don't want to tell rich people how to waste their money, but it seems like he probably could have used the money to kickstart an indie game in the style of F-Zero and been much happier in the end.

Or he could have tried one of the several dozen F-Zero likes already out there.
Or maybe he could take up hiking? Get some fresh air? I don't know...