(Video) Game Boyz II Men 18: E3 1995 (The First E3) (Patreon)

1995. A pivotal year in just about everything in my life and in video games. The industry finally had enough of CES pushing it around and leaving it out back in a big tent, so they finally came up with a convention of their own: The Electronic Entertainment Expo. I was 20. The PlayStation was out in Japan but wouldn't hit the States for another few months. Sega, seeing a weird opportunity, jumps the gun and puts the Saturn on shelves in conjunction with their keynote address. Sony counters with a lower price, setting the next several years in motion. Nintendo, meanwhile, wants you to check out Street Fighter on the Game Boy and Killer Instinct on the SNES.

I was a few months short of 20 and freshly out of work following the closure of Blaster Magazine. I had started hanging out with a new crowd who were teaching me about the finer things in life: malt liquor. Would I find work in the video game industry again? Who can say? All I know is that Glenn's mom's boss had a beach house and LA was driving distance from Petaluma, making this trip way less expensive than any of our previous Las Vegas or Chicago exploits.

1995 also started setting the stage for Glenn and I's music-making endeavors, but that's a story for next time...