this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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Lol, there were seriously no rules.
It was a very different time back in the 90's.
ETA, the other print ad: 
The second best thing to do in the dark.
Seriously though, the SP was a life changing device for me.
I still have mine in it's protective case that I play at least once a year. I'm nearly 40.
Literally read this with my GBA SP in hand
Ss.. Step-gamer?
Ss... Step-Stool?
I can't explain it, but that seductive early '00s look, which Elizabeth Hurley was also known for, got me jimmies when I was young.
That 80s Bill Gates laying with the computers still gets me.
/s
90s and 00s era were pretty wild with advertising.
The 32x had some interesting ads:
French ad for the 32x:
SEGA did what Nintendidn't.
The French magazine ads for tech in the 1990s were absolutely wild
There's no way that's a real Nintendo ad.
I remember seeing it in Nintendo powers because that was the day I learned I was stupid
I think your response is deadpan, but just to be clear, there's no way that's real. I can be convinced by someone creating a properly faked Photoshop of it in a real magazine, however.
At least they're not different races with the black one being the bad one this time.
Sex sells, especially to teenage boys. The main demographic for video game ads is teenage boys. Hence the prevalence of ads like these.
Which was a completely arbitrary unforced error from a marketing perspective, setting back acceptance of video gaming as a ubiquitous thing everyone does by decades, pigeonholing them into a thing that only maladjusted angry young men do. You have the asinine marketing choices of the 90s to partially thank for the toxic exclusionary culture that still exists in many games today. They could have had every kid, girl or boy, cool or nerd, playing video games in 1995 but patriarchy said no.
Ironically, it was counter-counter-counter culture, reacting to the vestiges of Reaganite pearl-clutching that still wafted through life and politics of the time. Same influence that inspired "badly behaved" cartoons like The Simpsons and South Park. Video game advertising just leaned into that last counter too hard and landed in misogyny.
Nah, this ad clearly says that girls can play Nintendo DS too! See look at the picture, it says good girls AND bad girls and both of them are holding a Nintendo DS!
That hasn’t been true in a while. In fact I would go as far as say as the main demographic for video game ads today is middle-aged moms who played Candy Crush.
Pretty much since the Wii casual gamers have been the bigger market.
Which is probably why gaming ads don't look like gaming ads used to anymore.
Indeed. Though the person I am replying to used present tense not past tense. Hence my comment.
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since the Wii
I mean the iPhone came out a year later…
The App Store didn’t come out until the summer of 2008. Before that the iPhone could play a primitive version of Bejeweled and that was about it. Also, if I recall correctly, they were well into the iPhone 4 before they even started to come close to Wii sales numbers. The 4 being the first that worked on carriers that weren’t AT&T or that used the same bands in other countries.
That’s fair. Forgot about the delay on the App Store. Still I’d say the pipeline of Wii gamer to iPhone gamer is pretty small. Maybe more on the developer side than customer.
Phones put gaming consoles in everyone’s hand and made non gamers into casual gamers.
Candy Crush, casual games, and their ads don't exist in gaming magazines sold wrapped in plastic bags. The main demographic for game sales is casual players. The main demographic for the ads is teenage boys (or basement dwelling manchildren). They're different markets.
Candy Crush ads are on the home screens of smart phones. Pay the carrier to include it in their bloatware, job done.
Clearly you haven’t watched any late night TV recently.
I don't think I've turned a TV onto anything live in about 3 years.
Fair enough. The channels I occasionally see have quite a few advertisements for free to play apps.
I will just leave this here. NSFW!
I remember this ad in one the computer magazines I had as a teenager. Don't ask me why I remember it so vividly.
Lady, maybe it's best that Patrick Bateman over there is busy with his NeoGeo. You have no idea!
Pray tell, what are 4 dimensional graphics?
Maybe the game freezes now and then?
Haha, wow, is that Sharon Stone?
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Nintendo, the family friendly company
Nintendo ran an ad for the Gameboy Pocket that showed the outline of a Gameboy printing through the back pocket of a pair of jeans with the slogan "KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS."
Sex sells. Video game ads have featured pretty girls since video game ads. You can go back to the late 70's early 80's and find an entire genre of ads that boil down to "pretty girl stands next to arcade cabinet."
But then the entire 90's happened, and there was a huge set of ads that seemed to say "play video games instead of having sex." Which is...weird, right? Almost all products sold to young men are sold on the promise of attracting women. Show man with product, show woman having interest in the man with product, "Product: It Makes You Fuckable.^TM^" Video games postured themselves as something to do instead of your girlfriend or even more interesting than chicks. An ad for a 16-bit console featured a full-page centerfold with a few screenshots of video games scattered around with the slogan "If you look closely, there's a beautiful naked woman on this page."
Reminds me of the copy "Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn?" from Mad Men S2E6.
Naughty-do
Lmao wtf
And I clicked on the picture!
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