![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/PXL_20260127_160219613-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s not your traditional \u2018meet up and hang out and play video games\u2019 club. It\u2019s more, almost, exhibit,\u201d says Hood. \u201cReally understanding the history hands-on is not something that a lot of people can do. So, my hope with Club Nintendo is to be able to bring real authentic hardware experiences to people [who are] interested so that we can all talk about them and learn from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hood picked Nintendo as his focus based on the company\u2019s contributions to game development, and because it\u2019s his personal favourite.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people credit Nintendo for basically saving the entire game industry. There was a point where, technologically, games just kinda reached a pinnacle with a lot of the Atari and games from that era. And people just stopped buying them cause they were all the same, but when Nintendo launched the Nintendo Entertainment System [NES] in the \u201980s with Super Mario Bros.<\/i>, that was like a revolution with games. So, they\u2019ve kinda done a lot of leading the charge in terms of innovation, starting with the NES and moving through with things like the Wii, which was a huge phenomenon,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Nintendo made very bizarre, specialized accessories for their previous consoles; remember the Wii Fit balance board, for example? Modern emulators for old games can\u2019t find a good way of replicating that experience, giving Hood another reason to start this club to keep those weird Duck Hunt<\/i> guns and Wii nunchuks alive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA lot of games you can easily play through emulation or different services, like Nintendo Switch Online lets you play classic games. But what that misses out on, something Nintendo really specializes in, is weird hardware. Like, weird accessories that you can plug in and they\u2019re these physical things you can use [instead of a controller],\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of people, they know about them, but they can\u2019t really try them. They\u2019re a thing of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Preserving the past is very important to Hood, and the rise of digital media can make people anxious about losing everything in their games if, say, a server shuts down, a fact not lost on him when discussing older forms of media.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things I love the most about older games is the physical aspect. Nowadays, most games are just downloaded from a store. Which has its advantages, it\u2019s very convenient, but you lose a lot of the ownership of your games, because [when] modern game companies are done with a platform, they can just shut it off. The store will close and you can\u2019t get those games anymore,\u201d says Hood. \u201cSo, the preservation angle is very important to me, making sure that we archive and document these experiences so that people can play them for years to come is really important, so that\u2019s a big part of why I\u2019m trying to start this.\u201d<\/p>\n Hood says that he\u2019s excited for people to come check out Club Nintendo, regardless of their background in gaming or knowledge of development.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if you\u2019re not super interested in gaming or you don\u2019t know anything about Nintendo, don\u2019t be afraid to come,\u201d says Hood. \u201cEven for one day, just to see what it\u2019s like. These games, all games, can appeal to so many different people in so many different ways. There\u2019s no reason not to try it. You might have fun; you might discover something that is actually pretty interesting to you.\u201d<\/p>\n