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Playing Out of Control Gaming

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Playing Out of Control · Episode 4

Independence Day

I ranked the most American games ever made. Seven of ten were made in Japan.

Hosted by Adam Richardson ·35:30
Episode details
NumberEpisode 4
AiredJuly 8, 2026
Run time35:30
Listen / SubscribeWatch on YouTube
Show notes

In this episode:

The News

  • Sony’s official disc announcement: physical production for all new PlayStation games ends January 2028, and the PS3 and Vita stores close region by region starting August 2026
  • The full story is in the emergency episode (Episode 3) right next to this one
  • Mat Piscatella (Circana) on Nintendo: “Nintendo is going to be Nintendo, for better and/or worse”
  • Limited Run Games’ “Forever Physical” statement and the boutique publishers’ response
  • Sony’s own 2013 used-game ad, the one where they handed each other a disc, is now a funeral
  • The Video Game History Foundation recovered a lost 1990 Indiana Jones demo from one man’s personal archive
  • Game Informer’s complete back catalog, every issue since 1991, now free online
  • M2’s Goemon collection hides Crisis Force, a 1991 Famicom exclusive getting its first release in 35 years
  • The Sega Genesis recompilation project gets its first playable game: Sonic 1
  • The 3DO comeback collapsed in about a week
  • Jerk Gustafsson (MachineGames co-founder) takes over Arkane Studios; Leonard Bendel resigned
  • Quick hits: Oblivion Remastered on Switch 2 with a real cartridge, Ecco the Dolphin remaster reportedly getting a physical edition, Cruis’n Blast delisted, Til Morning’s Light coming back, Epilogue building an N64 cartridge reader, the open-source EZBuff disc resurfacer

This Week in POCG History (1998 and 1999)

  • July 4, 1998: posting about VGA drivers for the Diamond Stealth II S220 on Independence Day
  • July 7, 1999: EA shipped Skydive!, the nineties “make a game about anything” era
  • July 9, 1999: Acclaim reported $80 million in quarterly revenue, five years before the company was gone

The Most American Games Ever Made (Top Loader #02)

  • The full ranked top ten is on the site: The Most American Games Ever Made
  • Metal Wolf Chaos: you play the President in a mech, FromSoftware made it in Japan, and it took 15 years to reach America
  • #1 Bad Dudes, #2 The Oregon Trail, #3 Vice City, #4 Duke Nukem 3D, #5 Contra, #6 Fallout, #7 1943: The Battle of Midway, #8 RoboCop, #9 TMNT, #10 Crazy Taxi
  • Seven of the ten were made outside the USA

From the Zip Disks (new series)

  • The new series about losing and recovering this website
  • The Zip disk labeled “Adam’s stuff” that held 200+ reviews, Sega Post material, and thousands of news articles from the original site
  • Parts one and two are live under Editorials

This week’s question:

  • What is the most American game in YOUR collection? Not where it was made, the game that makes you feel like a Fourth of July cookout.

Coming up: July is Nintendo month. Next week, the top SNES games that play like summer. Then N64, then Game Boy for its birthday.

Chapters
  • 00:00 Cold open: two episodes in one week
  • 01:16 What is Playing Out of Control?
  • 02:17 The news: the week physical media got a date of death
  • 04:16 Nintendo is going to be Nintendo
  • 06:19 Limited Run's Forever Physical
  • 07:26 RIP PlayStation, 1994 to 2026
  • 08:30 A lost Indiana Jones game, recovered
  • 09:50 Game Informer's archive goes free
  • 10:20 Crisis Force escapes the Famicom
  • 10:50 Sonic 1 recompiled, and the 3DO dies twice
  • 12:00 Arkane gets a new boss
  • 13:35 Quick hits: Oblivion, Ecco, delistings, Epilogue N64
  • 15:13 No sponsor this week
  • 16:04 This Week in POCG History: 1998 and 1999
  • 17:30 Acclaim's $80 million quarter
  • 18:30 The Most American Games Ever Made
  • 19:27 Metal Wolf Chaos: too American to sell to Americans
  • 20:30 #1: Bad Dudes
  • 21:30 #2: The Oregon Trail
  • 21:55 Duke Nukem 3D, Fallout, and 1943
  • 22:39 Vice City: America, painted in Scotland
  • 23:44 Contra, TMNT, RoboCop, and Crazy Taxi
  • 25:51 From the Zip Disks: how I got this site back
  • 29:12 The disk labeled Adam's stuff
  • 29:57 What was on the disks
  • 32:28 The preservation connection
  • 33:33 Your question, Nintendo month, and goodbye
Games in This Episode12
Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja
Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja is a side-scrolling beat 'em up developed and published by Data East, first released in arcades in 1988 and known simply as DragonNinja outside North America. Players take the roles of Blade and Striker, two street-tough…
The Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail is an educational simulation developed by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC). It was first written in 1971 by student teachers Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger, and reached its most widely remembered form with the…
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is an open-world action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It launched for the PlayStation 2 in October 2002 and reached Windows and the Xbox in 2003. A follow-up to Grand…
Duke Nukem 3D
Duke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter developed by 3D Realms and published by GT Interactive, released for MS-DOS in 1996. Built on Ken Silverman's Build engine, it followed the two side-scrolling platformers that introduced the character and reinvented him…
Contra
Contra is a run-and-gun action game developed and published by Konami, released in arcades in 1987 and ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. Players control the commandos Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, two soldiers clearly modelled on the…
Fallout
Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game is a role-playing game developed and published by Interplay Productions, released for MS-DOS and Windows in 1997 and later for the Macintosh. Set in a post-apocalyptic version of Southern California in the year…
1943: The Battle of Midway
1943: The Battle of Midway is a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up developed and published by Capcom, released in arcades in 1987 as the successor to the studio's 1942. The player pilots an American fighter, styled after a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, against…
RoboCop
RoboCop is an arcade action game developed and published by Data East in 1988, based on Paul Verhoeven's 1987 science-fiction film. The player controls RoboCop, the cyborg law-enforcement officer created when a fatally wounded Detroit policeman is rebuilt by the…
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a side-scrolling beat 'em up developed and published by Konami, released in arcades in 1989 and based on the hugely popular animated series and toy line. Up to four players at once take the roles…
Crazy Taxi
Crazy Taxi is an arcade driving game developed by Sega's Hitmaker division and released in arcades in 1999, then ported to the Dreamcast in 2000 and later to other platforms. The player takes the wheel of a taxi in a…
Metal Wolf Chaos
Metal Wolf Chaos is a third-person mech action game developed and published by FromSoftware, released for the Xbox in Japan in 2004 and, notably, never given an official release in the West at the time. The player takes the role…
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog is a platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. Released in North America on June 23, 1991, it was created to give Sega a flagship mascot and…
Features in This Episode2
The Most American Games Ever Made
A Fourth of July Top Loader: the most gloriously, ridiculously American games ever made, ranked by the vibe, and a look at how many of them were dreamed up somewhere else entirely.
The Subsidy, Part Two: The Bill Comes Due
The Xbox cuts landed on the day the brief predicted. Five studios on the block, a Kojima game spared, and 3,500 workers refusing to be a line item. Part two of The Subsidy.