Video Game History Hour

This year’s first update starts off with the huge announcement of our newest team member, Meera Swanson, as Development Director. Meera shares some of her background as well as her vision for the rest of this year as she establishes this new department. Phil overviews all the new collections we launched this year including additions to the GamePro CD collection, speaker audio cassettes from the 2n...

In this episode of the Video Game History Hour, host Phil Salvador interviews Willem Hilhorst, Media Manager for Games and Online at the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision regarding their video game preservation efforts within the context of an audiovisual media archive. Established in 1997, the institute manages a growing collection of over 500 digital and physical Dutch-connected games...

Library director Phil Salvador and producer Robin Kunimune take you through the process of preserving a collection of over 10,000 digital files from our GamePro CD collection. Phil discusses how he tackles physical and philosophical dilemmas such as balancing users’ needs to access original files of hi-res game art while also viewing quick, easy thumbnails researchers can actually open; dealing wi...

Host Frank Cifaldi is joined this week by Wes Fenlon, author of the bi-weekly newsletter Read Only Memo , which focuses on emulation, ROM hacks, translations, and decompilations. The two discuss the niche nature of Wes’ content while he emphasizes the importance of emulation and fan translations, highlighting their role in making old games accessible. Wes and Frank get way into the weeds as they c...

In this episode, Phil Salvador sits down with Lindsey Kurano, the Curator of Electronic Games at The Strong Museum of Play, to explore the intricate world of video game preservation. Lindsay shares her unconventional journey from a high school exchange student in Japan to a specialist in film preservation, and ultimately, a lead steward of gaming history. We delve into the behind-the-scenes of mus...

Historian Alex Smith (author and host of They Create Worlds ) joins us to challenge the prevailing "Genesis does what Nintendon't" narrative. While Sega’s bravado captured the American imagination, the reality behind the ledger was far more precarious. We dissect how aggressive price wars and a strengthening Japanese yen turned market-share victories into hollow financial gains, crea...

Well before Xbox Game Pass or Steam, we had Sega Channel: a visionary service that delivered video games directly into homes via cable TV lines. This week, host Phil Salvador is joined by some of the team that made the "impossible" happen: Michael Shorrock, Ray McFadden, and Willard Stanback. In this mini Sega Channel reunion, the team discusses the technical hurdles of digital data dist...

In this episode, host Phil Salvador is joined by two digital preservationists, Ellen Cooper and Max Solensky, to explore the world of Japanese mobile game preservation. Before app stores existed, Japan was living in the future thanks to i-mode: a 1999 revolution that put the internet (and Capcom and Sega) right in your pocket. Today, these games are disappearing, and quickly. From brutal encryptio...

From vacuum tubes to virtual worlds, Dr. Flori Pierri, Associate Curator of Science and Technology at the MIT Museum, joins us to explore their unexpected journey into the world of video game preservation. Dr. Pierri oversees diverse collections from science photography to physics  homework, and, of course, video games. MIT Museum has had a recent focus on computer games and a focus on play, start...

It’s our 9th birthday and our 150th episode all at once; let’s party! Host and VGHF Director Frank Cifaldi is joined by two founding board members Simon Carless and Steve Lin. This casual retrospective meanders through the foundation's origins, its mission to preserve and interpret video game history, and its growth over the years. Our three hosts highlight the foundation's journey from a...

Frank is joined by Guest Host Kate Willaert, author, historian, and YouTuber, to interview Jeremy Parish, media curator at Limited Run Games, author, YouTuber, and podcaster. Jeremy has a series of “Works” books and videos as part of a massive project to chronologize the 8-bit era. Jeremy’s work covers various consoles, including Game Boy, NES, SG-1000, and Famicom, highlighting the significance o...

Our podcast Producer Robin Kunimune sits down with Director Frank Cifaldi and Library Director Phil Salvador to wrap up the final quarter of 2025. Listen to some of our behind-the-scenes thoughts on the NES panel we put together for the Portland Retro Gaming Expo; the many facets of this year’s Winter Fundraiser, including a new old game release, updated VHS recovery technology, and our $30k goal...

Atari game developer John Van Ryzin and Digital Eclipse Technical Director Kevin Wilson both join host Frank Cifaldi to reminisce about the Atari 2600 title, and Frank’s favorite game, H.E.R.O. . We also explore John’s early career, his entry into game development, programming limitations of the 2600 (RAM, timing issues, etc.), the spiritual sequel to H.E.R.O. and John’s most recent title Alien Ab...

Phil Salvador hosts a discussion with Dr. Wendi Sierra, author of Todd Howard: World Building in Tamriel and Beyond , and Emily Higgs Kopin. Dr. Sierra’s, associate professor of games studies at Texas Christian University, book follows the career history of the Bethesda Game Studios executive producer and his influence on game design throughout the years. Emily Kopin, head of digital collections s...

At this year’s Portland Retro Gaming Expo, VGHF director Frank Cifaldi had the pleasure of hosting a panel celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System launch. Frank moderated 3 guests who were at Nintendo of America during this time: Gail Tilden, Marketing; Bruce Lowery, Sales; and Lance Barr, Product Design. This event was particularly special as two of these three guest...

Let’s all learn what makes our Library Director, Phil Salvador, Phil Salvador! Producer Robin Kunimune sat down with Phil to learn all about his life as a youth, an early path to his passions, creating chaos inside the lines, the mental health struggles many face in early adulthood, finding his community, and making his way to VGHF. And, don’t forget the birds! Phil candidly shares his failures, s...

Phil Salvador introduces the new Andrew Nelson papers collection with guest, you guessed it, Andrew Nelson, himself. Guest-host Alex Greenberg joins to chat with Nelson, co-founder and creative director of CyberFlix, known for its 1996 title Titanic: Adventure Out of Time. Andrew discusses his transition from magazine journalism to game development, the creation of CyberFlix, and the development o...

It’s another quarterly update! Host Robin Kunimune talks with Frank Cifaldi and Phil Salvador about our recent work. From Chicago travel to launching Computer Entertainer, from our new Booth-in-a-Box to 4,000 magazines archived, from NES’s 40th to building Lego; come find out just how many new collections we've added in the last few months.   You can listen to the Video Game History Hour every...

Phil Salvador interviews Dr. Stephanie Harkin, lecturer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) School of Design Games Program in Australia, about her research on femininity in gaming, particularly in girls' lifestyle magazines. Dr. Harkin discusses her journey from media studies to focusing on feminine games. She highlights her findings on the lack of representation of feminine...

Host Frank Cifaldi is joined by documentarian, historian, hacker, and all around cool guy SynaMax to talk about their documentary Resurrecting Sinistar: A Cyber-Archaeology Documentary . The 1983 top-down space shooter arcade game’s unique 49-way joystick allowed players to pilot their spaceship to prevent a giant skull, Sinistar, from forming. SynaMax interviewed developers, restored cut content,...

We’re joined by pioneer video game historian Leonard Herman, author and publisher of several video game history books including the first comprehensive book chronicling the history of the videogame industry, Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Home Videogames , and its subsequent series. We touch on Leonard’s early career, the challenges of self-publishing, and the evolution of his Phoenix series thro...

Host Phil Salvador is joined by Derek Alexander, of the YouTube channel Stop Skeletons From Fighting, and Zarithya, of the YouTube channel Zarithya, to talk about the fan-restored 16-player mode for the 1991 Game Boy game Faceball 2000 as laid out in My 2 Year Journey to Solve the 30-Year Myth of Faceball 2000 | SSFF . In this bit of video game archeology, Derek and Zari take us through the collab...

Frank Cifaldi and guest-host Kate Willaert (of A Critical Hit) are joined by Marylou Badeaux to discuss the history of the vitally important Computer Entertainer , also known as The Video Game Update : a monthly newsletter which covered video game availability information and reviews in the 1980’s. Co-created with Marylou’s sister Celeste Dolan, this publication has helped provide historians with...

It’s time for a little review of what we’ve been up to, so far, this year. With the official launch of our digital library archive, livestreams of game magazine unboxing and EPROM dumping, the newest collections of Craig Stitt and Kirk Henderson, a Trade Magazine Week special event, and teasing some special new acquisitions we have SO much to catch you up on! You can listen to the Video Game Histo...

Veteran game designer and author Lawrence Schick shares stories from his early 80's work with the ColecoVision, Atari 2600, and Intellivision. With over four decades of experience in the industry, Schick details how he helped pioneer a multi-discipline, team-based approach to game development designing games like Smurf: Rescue and Tarzan while pulling from a wealth of experience in pen-and-pap...