Relative Nostalgia

Videogame preservation has been on my mind quite a bit lately after Sony announced that it would stop producing physical PlayStation discs from the start of 2028.

A couple of weeks ago I watched the film Backrooms.

Since my previous post a "new" Star Fox game was announced suddenly.

I recently delivered my annual lecture on nostalgia and hauntology to my Masters students.

Just over a week ago I watched We Are Making A Film About Mark Fisher.

AI is not the future.

In the previous post I started talking about being nostalgic for a future, because the inability to imagine a different one is contributing to the feeling of loss that is required for nostalgia to be present.

I’m finally properly starting the research and writing process for an upcoming chapter on Anemoia, specifically it’s relationship with the future.

‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’.

Increasingly it is difficult for me to properly put together a “Game of the Year” list.

Back at the end of October Microsoft announced that Halo was coming back.

This week Valve finally announced its new hardware, no, not a Steam Deck 21, instead the Steam Machine (again, after first trying a decade ago).

Anemoia, ‘nostalgia for a time you never experienced’.

Part of my PhD research was trying to understand how in the context of videogames there are players around the world who claimed to feel nostalgia for videogames they have never played (anecdotally I had also felt this).

This week Microsoft announced that not only would it be rejigging the three different variants of its Game Pass subscription service, but it would also be raising the prices; with the full and most expensive version (Ultimate) rising to $30/£23.

It’s been almost exactly a month since my previous post.

I’ve been blogging pretty consistently for the past 10 months or so now, most of which on this blog, but now also on my other “microblog” which is linked to my personal domain.

The public beta for Battlefield 6 is just wrapping up and so far things are looking promising.

For years, like many, I used Chrome for all of my web browsing needs, both on my PC’s and on my phone.

After speaking with a fellow researcher of nostalgia, I’ve had a statement that he mentioned rattling around in my head.

I have previously posted about my steps at moving away from Microsoft and this is still very much an ongoing process.

The Switch 2 has been out for almost a month now and whilst there are many who are very happy with Nintendo’s follow up hybrid system, there are some who are vocal online bemoaning a perceived lack of differences from the previous Switch.

It’s now been just over 6 months since I started writing on Pika blog, moved everything over, and set up my own domain.

I’ve now had a Switch 2 for exactly 1 week.

This week Fujifilm finally revealed its long rumoured half-frame camera.