PRGE 2026

Day 1

This year for the first time, I attended two days of this convention. The most shopping I ever did. I spent more time looking around, tried out the Neontendo car, and met a panelist in attendance. It’s time to get to it for day 1.

In the past, I’ve had to hurry looking through the stores at a certain point if I wanted to have to time to play in the arcade and in the console free play area. Staying for two days, not the case. It allowed me to more so take my time. I got to get to know some of the developers of new companies that are changing the way we think of retro games. It is amazing of what has been done with them. From being wireless, to being played on current TVs. One company that was not in attendance this year, Mod Retro, teamed up with

another 3rd party company called Hyperkin for this N64 controller resemblance. One of the first things I did was try this controller out on a Madden football game. It was real responsive. I would say to make this a replacement for your original N64 controller if you still have one and you start having problems with it. It has the same feel.

My next stop as continued on around the stores was here. Forty-four years ago was a gaming console called the Vectrex. Now it is another system attempting to make a come back, and shown at PRGE was the Vectrex Mini. This one was made differently as it is stored in a box. This is one uniquely remade console.

What really amazed me was how each game has a film like cover that goes on its screen that somehow works with the screen. The controller is much like an Atari one, but has buttons on the right side of the joystick numbered 1-4. It was fun to play and it’s hard to believe that this was possible. Whether or not it even shipped in the United States, I don’t know. But as I played, I was thinking about the Atari and it made me wonder why they didn’t try and do something like this later on. I spent awhile chatting with one of the developers on hand as he was showing me some of his games.

I was shown another Vectrex system and I got a more in depth look. In the game in the above left, I watched him switch out the screen and he could also put on a decoration on the controller for the game. The game play took place in the divided screens as you move the square target on the enemies. If that wasn’t interesting enough, the games are not cartridges or discs. They are flat pieces of film, much like what the replaceable game screens are. They have a built-in weighted chip, which keeps them from getting bent. “Our graphic designer is a talented guy,” he says. It sure showed. I was also shown some pictures of the factory they have to make all these. You could basically call this an Atari with a built-in screen. Orders are going right now if you want one.

Wild Bills Soda

I have to take moment and go over Wild Bills Soda. Located in the store section of the exhibit hall, is a refill station of four different flavors. Next to it is a booth different mugs to buy. They range from $40 – $80. You can also buy a lid and a straw for an additional $10 altogether. But it is well worth it. All weekend long, you can keep coming back to the refill station. If you look in the bottom right in the image in the above left, you’ll see a tag wrapped around the handle. Do not remove that. It shows that you paid. The only downside is that it is something extra you have to carry around.

Panel: Sonic 35th Anniversary

This year is the 35th anniversary of Sega’s most beloved character, Sonic the Hedgehog. What once carried Sega during its console days continues to have games and even a few movies. The panelists were the voice actors of the games. Sadly, the panel wasn’t much as it was them just hanging out on the stage. But I did learn a few things: Sonic Adventure made 45 millions dollars in one day. The Sonic actor created the voice. It was never edited. The engineer liked how he sounded when he changed his voice. We got to hear him sound like Sonic a few times. So that was good. Despite how the panel mostly went, it’s good to see that Sonic is still here with games to this day.

Day 2

Champ Games

I started off Day 2 by visiting a company called Champ Games. They make all-new Atari 2600 games. They use the latest enhancements and make four -player co-op possible. I met Paul, who is one of the developers of Champ Games and a high school engineering instructor. I hung out for a half hour as he showed me around his store and further explained how they make improved Atari games. He even explained some terms to me.

In both images above, you’ll see the big boxes that are hooked up with buttons and joysticks. In the image in the above left, you’ll see that the boxes are hooked up to a multiplayer adapter to allow four-player sessions. This company goes by what is called the DOS System. Originally used for the earliest computers, it gives users more freedom to run retro games for today’s standards. “We use an arm processor. We make all the boxes for the games and the artwork,” he said. I believe the arm processors are built into the multiplayer button boxes as they are small computing devices. He also uses Additive Modeling in the games.

It allows for more flexibility in the coding to make the games. One more device I was shown was the Atari Vox. This makes better sound possible in the Atari games. It can take your voice and output in a retro sound. It was very cool to watch him demonstrate. He also showed me the differences between a regular Atari and a remade one called a Plus. Obviously the remade ones have a USB and USB-C port.

I began to wonder what the motivation is here with today’s games and what they offer compared to remaking the Atari. “These games my mom can play. No blood and guts. We want more players to come together with simple games. My responsibility is to have that environment again like at a dinner table. Technology is not bad, it’s how we use it. “

I couldn’t agree more. By the end of my last day, I couldn’t help but buy a remade Atari 7600. I’m looking forward to having this one in my living room. I’ll have a whole article on this one after I have had it for awhile. You can learn more about Champ games on their Facebook page and their website.

Playdate

As I kept on browsing around the stores, I found something I never seen before that was smaller than the original Game Boy. The company was called Play Date. I had to learn more about this.

Play Date is a small company in Portland. As I experimented with this device, Dave, who is a 13 year employee, answered my questions and told me more about it. “We announced this in 2018 and finally shipped it after four years. It sold out in 20 minutes, “ he said.

That is impressive. It is not a typical handheld gaming device. As you see on the right, there is a crank that you rotate around. In the game Root Beer that I was playing, the crank is what turns the faucet off and on to pour the root beer. The line across the middle of the glass is what you need to get the root beer level to. “Half the games use the crank, “ said Dave. “We think Root Beer best represents what our system is about. “

The screen is black and white, which Dave believes is what works best. It was easy to see what I was doing. There are a lot of games available and in development for this. “It comes with 24 games to start. There are 500 games in our catalog ranging from $3 – $15. Some games start on Play Date and go to other systems, “ said Dave.

The device is quite user-friendly. They let anyone write their own code on it to make a game. No permission is required. You just need an account to talk to the server. You can own one of these for $229.

Panel: Origins of the Xbox

This panelist was something I had most been looking forward to all weekend at PRGE. In honor of 25 years of Xbox and Halo, Ed Fries, former vice president of game publishing at Microsoft, made his 4th appearance this year at PRGE. The whole panel was a Q&A session and it was real good. I learned a lot as to what went down behind the scenes before the first Xbox launched. I was also very fortunate to personally meet him afterwards and ask him a few questions.

Given that this was his 4th appearance at PRGE, he recalled when PRGE was once at a hotel. That is something that this convention and PAX West have in common. Having owned an Atari 800 and both parents being engineers, he fell in love with programming. He worked at Shakey’s Pizza to make money for his games to buy. After school, wrote Atari games and the first one was called Space War. When he started getting into carded catalogs, he met the co-founder of Apple.

Inspired by a well known Atari game called Frogger, he made Froggie. The game caught on and went around. It was then when he was offered a job by a game company called Romox. One interesting thing I learned was that before he made Froggie, his first game was rejected by Atari. His royalty checks from Froggie helped pay his college. After getting his Computer Science degree in New Mexico, he was frequently suggested to apply at Microsoft. They offered him a job and flew him back to Seattle.

He began his career in Microsoft with Microsoft Works as he was the lead programmer on Excel. Then ran Word for the next five years. From there, he wanted to get back to making games. The boss at Microsoft Games had just quit. The team at the time was made of 50 people as he was shown a well known PC game called Age of Empires. At that point, he decided to run games at Microsoft.

Ed pointed out that going from 2D-3D at the time was big in gaming. He met talented people. He acquired the team that made the robot assault game, Mech Warrior and grew the PC business. Ed’s crew went from 200 – 300 people. He then met with Direct X, the company behind Windows. They suggested a console and this is where the name Xbox came from. So you could technically call it the Direct Xbox. Ed agreed and the project was started.

At this point, the PC business was getting tough. I learned that the Sega Dreamcast could switch into Windows CE mode. It was too bad the Dreamcast did not have a longer life than it did due to that. Web TV wanted to make a console and the head of PC Hardware joined in.

Ed faced a lot of resistance before the Xbox could be approved. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were not happy. A final meeting was needed with both of them before the Xbox could be approved and that did not happen for another year. The meeting to no surprise started bad. Quite sometime had gone by in the meeting room. Ed brings up that if they are to have a gaming console, the Xbox would be the best way to go about it. But then the competition of Sony came up. They had a gaming console anyway. So the question came to be, “What about Sony?“ That is what got final approval for the Xbox.

After the release of titles for the Xbox such as Project Gotham Racing and Oddworld, this is how Halo got started: Bungie, the company that started the Halo trilogy, was getting bought out by another gaming company called Take 2. Ed gets called by a Bungie representative named Peter Tempty. He wanted to see what Halo could do. Bungie wanted Halo and all the programs. Ed makes a deal with Take 2 and buys Bungie. As the deal gets announced, Steve Jobs is mad. Peter also went to make games for the Mac. To get this deal done, Ed heads to New York to appear at a live Mac event with Steve Jobs. There were going to be 10,000 people. It was a quick event because they both just had to shake hands on stage and then leave.

So that was the story and I just cannot believe that all went on before we got one of the best gaming trilogies out there and one of the best multiplayer games. Ed hung around for some Q&A and then stood outside the panel room for a meet and greet. I got the opportunity to ask him two questions. I brought up 343 Industries and how many people have been looking down on Halo lately. I asked him what he thought needed to happen to bring Halo back to the excitement it once had. “I was not a fan of 343. Making games is hard. I’m on board with Activision taking over. “

For those that don’t know, Activision is going to be taking over Halo. These are the same people that are in charge of Call of Duty. We’ll to wait and see what they plan to do and if the excitement will be back. Before I made my way back to the exhibit hall, I asked him if he tried to get Bungie to not leave Halo altogether when they wanted to make Destiny: “No. I had left and me leaving was why Bungie departed Halo. I had a big fight with them after Halo 1 because Halo 2 needed to be good. It was a done deal all along for Bungie to leave after Halo Reach. “

It was a big Day 2 for me at PRGE. I spent the rest of the time wondering around the stores to see if there was anything else I wanted to buy. I made sure I stopped at the Neontendo Car. Now that I spent some actual time at it, it was neat how it was all put together. There was a screen on each side of the car in the back seat, and there were a bunch of screens in the hatch back. You could play original Mario and Metroid. They both looked good on current TV screens. It’s just amazing what you can find at these conventions that you didn’t know existed. That was another case when I came across a NEO GEO device at the console free play area where I ended day 2. It connects to the TV and has a bunch of classics such as Metal Slug and King of the Monsters. I think it had the first five Metal Slug games on it. I played the first two on it and it gets me ready for when the Metal Slug collection comes to Switch 2 in January.

That does it for PRGE 2026. I hope you enjoyed it and you felt like you were there. If you attended, feel free to comment below what you liked the most. Aside from the big GTA 6 launch next month, we’ve got Halo Fest in December. This is going to be huge and will look forward to telling what all went down. I’ll have an article on my final thoughts on PAX West 2026 as well as Kiln. I also just recently got an Xbox controller from GameSir. They have been a really good 3rd party company that I recommend. Check out their store. I’m still working on my Donation button on my home page. But if you want to donate and support me and my project, just let me know you would like to donate when completed.