2009
June 1: The mystery of the bottom of your Xbox 360 Avatar’s shoes
At E3 2009, Microsoft gave us our first look at the motion controller we came to know as Kinect (they called it “Project Natal” back then). To show off the versatility of the new hardware, creative director Kudo Tsunoda asked, “You ever wonder what the bottom of your Avatar’s shoes look like? Well, bam! There it is.” Except there it wasn’t, because Tsunoda’s Avatar suffered a glitch and adopted a pose that was as ridiculous as it was humanly impossible.
Above: And now I guess we’ll never know.
June 2: Nintendo is just checking to see if you’re still alive
At its E3 2009 press briefing, Nintendo showed a picture of its latest planned peripheral: the Wii Vitality Sensor. Nobody said anything about what it did or what kinds of games the hardware maker was planning for it, but the idea of a device that ran between your Wii Remote and index finger was enough for the Internet to work with.
Above: Nintendo has since cancelled the device, so all of these ideas are still free to use.
June 2: Sony unveils its exciting, new-ish portable hardware and controller
Sony’s PSP Go handheld system was a little confusing. It cost more at launch ($249) than the existing PlayStation Portable ($199), and it only played downloaded games, so owners of PSPs had little reason to upgrade because they couldn’t play the physical games they’d already bought.
Above: I can’t even tell if the one in the upper right is supposed to be funny.
The same day, Sony showed off its prototype for the PlayStation Move, its answer to the Wii’s motion controls. It used different interface and was more precise than the Wii Remote, but that didn’t matter because it looked funny and was still kind of like the Wii.
Above: I mean, yeah, it does look kinda funny.
2010
Jan. 10: Pressing X becomes hilarious
This date marked the release of the first PS3 demo for Quantic Dreams’ interactive film-ish title, Heavy Rain. The demo included a now-infamous scene in which hero Ethan Mars searches for his son in a mall. While moving Mars around, players could also press the X button to call the boy’s name. This had no direct functional purpose in the game, but it did spin off a bunch of funny images, shirts, and a Flash game, so it wasn’t completely useless.
Above: Leave it to the Internet to make the loss of a child funny.
March 1: The PlayStation 3 Leap Day bug
On March 1, owners of older-model PS3s had difficulty signing into the PlayStation Network online service (PSN). It just wasn’t happening. And more mysteriously, their system clocks started reading Dec. 31, 1999. The problem turned out to be an issue in the hardware; the system thought that 2010 was a leap year, and in addition to the PSN issues, the bug also rendered consoles incapable of playing games. The issue sorted itself out once the nonexistent day passed, and the Internet managed to keep itself entertained while it was waiting for its systems to work again.
Above: They called it the “ApocalyPS3.”
June 14: Taste the adorable rainbow
At 2010’s E3, Microsoft brought out several new titles for its Kinect motion controller. One of these games, Kinectimals, had a stage demo in which a cute little girl played with an in-game tiger named Skittles. This baffled the Internet community so much that it just started putting Skittles into every game it could think of.
Above: I would play most of these.