STACK #185 Mar 2020

FEATURE GAMING

I grew up in the ’80s, when consoles weren’t normal household items like they are today

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STACK ROVING REPORTER

Cameron tells us that he found his way into gaming via a PC classic. “I played a lot

Like in many JBs around the country, Nintendo’s Switch is big in Launceston. But, as Cameron notes, sometimes there are big regional differences in what’s popular. “It’s interesting, because with inter-store discussions somewhere like Sydney they’re like, ‘We can’t keep Rugby in stock,’ and I’m like, ‘We don’t sell any of those, but Farming Simulator goes crazy here!’.

best sellers at

of Football Manager back in the day, and I was really into that for quite some

Date ending: 28/02/20

SHOP TALK

N ot everybody’s been gaming since they were a kid, with many finding an affinity later that was lying dormant. This was much the case with Cameron Jagoe at JB Hi-Fi Home in Launceston. “I moved over from the music department. I guess I was then a bit of a music nerd and going to games I was like, ‘Oh, I’m not really into games,’ and thought that maybe I wasn’t gamer enough or whatever. But when I got over there I was like, ‘Hey, no, I am!’ Cameron’s been at the store since it opened almost four years ago and, now that he’s unshackled his inner gamer, he’s loving interacting with his customers. “I have really good conversations with a lot of them. They might come in for the smallest thing and you end up having huge conversations about games and the industry. I just really enjoy the passion.” 2002: The Mars Odyssey finds water on the red planet, Stephen Bradbury finds gold in Salt Lake City by not falling over, Spider- Man is king of the cinemas, and Fujitsu release their iPAD. It flopped, but they did make a cool US$4mill flogging the trademark to Apple. Meanwhile, another tech behemoth, Microsoft, invaded the Australian home console space in March with their Xbox. With Nintendo and Sony dominating and SEGA flailing, they saw a chance and they took it. Essentially a highly- specced (for the time) PC in a box, they had a secret weapon for world domination – or at least a decent share of the console MARCH

time.”

1 call of Duty: Modern Warfare (PS4/xbo/pc) 2 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE (SWITCH) 3 two point hospital (PS4/xbo/pc/switch) 4 The legend of zelda (switch) 5 just dance 2020 (PS4/xbox/switch) 6 fifa 20 (PS4/xbo/pc/switch) 7 swj: Fallen Order (PS4/xbo/pc) 8 hunt showdown (PS4/xbo/pc) 9 super smash bros. ultimate (switch) 10 nba 2k20 (PS4/xbo/pc/switch)

So, he didn’t have console? “I grew up in the ’80s, when

consoles weren’t normal household items like they are today. I didn’t actually get a console until I started here at JB – I’ve got an Xbox and a Switch now.” Being the father of a young child, gaming time is tight for Cameron. But he also has somebody to play co-op with! “I’m playing a lot of Super Mario Party with my son – there’s a lot of me playing games with my son on the Switch, which is always really fun.” Looking to the future, we wondered what Cameron was most keen for. “Oh, there’s so much this year! Final Fantasy VII Remastered, Cyberpunk when that finally comes out… It sometimes seems like ‘ Cyberpunk 2077 ’ is the release date, not the title!” player into a sleek box that also had a load of incredible game- powering tech within. However, the PS3 didn’t have a launch title as all-consuming as Halo until six months later, and the arrival of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune ... Not to be outdone, Nintendo have used March to launch two of their biggest consoles over the years. On March 1, 1997, we finally got to get our Aussie mitts on the Nintendo 64. Despite packing one of the most, erm, interesting controllers that we’d ever seen, any reservations melted away as we got down to some serious Mario – in 3D! That machine was a huge success, its follow-up the GameCube wasn’t, its follow-up

Working with games makes Cameron Jagoe at JB Launceston Home a happy man.

A little slice of gaming history…

the Wii was, its follow-up the Wii U wasn’t, and then it was time to Switch. March 3, 2017 was the day, and the story continues…

Games Released In MARCH

market – up their sleeve. It was a game called Halo: Combat Evolved , or simply “Halo” to pretty much everybody with a pulse and itchy trigger finger. It was an ace first-person shooter, and confused many a cooking show fan with its lead character, Master Chief... Microsoft aren’t the only ones to have launched a major console locally in March, though. In 2007, Sony unleashed their magnificent PlayStation 3, packing a then new-tech Blu-ray

Shining Force (1992) Chrono Trigger (1995) Conker’s Bad Day (2001)

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (2008) StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (2013) Tom Clancy’s The Division (2016) Dead or Alive 6 ( 2019)

19 years since the first Animal Crossing released on Nintendo 64

12.21 million units of Animal Crossing: New Leaf sold in 2012

15 names that feature in the credits of 1993’s Doom

20 levels in Manic Miner (1983)

140 million copies of Assassin’s Creed sold to date

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