The Nintendo Episode | Drift Off with Cozy, Meandering Talk

Looking for a sleep podcast to fall asleep fast, reduce anxiety, and quiet an overactive mind? This calming episode of The Insomnia Project is designed for insomnia relief, stress reduction, and gentle nighttime unwinding through slow, soothing conversation.
Marco Timpano welcomes guest Jesse Sesler for a relaxed discussion about Nintendo, nostalgic gaming, and pop culture, offering low-stimulation, easygoing content perfect for bedtime listening. From favourite video games to the comforting familiarity of gaming memories, this episode creates a cozy and engaging atmosphere.
The conversation also drifts into hockey, memories of Keswick, and the phrase “jumping the shark,” blending light cultural reflections with soft, meandering storytelling. With unhurried pacing and gentle topics, this relaxing podcast episode helps ease racing thoughts, reduce anxiety, and create a peaceful environment for sleep.
Whether you’re searching for a sleep podcast for insomnia, calming background noise while you work, or a gentle way to unwind at the end of the day, The Insomnia Project offers a comforting, reliable escape.

​The Nintendo Episode
(Original airdate: July 6, 2016)

Welcome to the Insomnia Project. We hope you will Listen and sleep and follow us on Twitter

Jesse: Foreign.

Marco:  Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a conversation about the mundane. One thing we can promise is that our conversation will be less than fascinating so that you can just drift off. Thank you for joining us. We hope you will Listen and sleep and follow us on Twitter. Listen and sleep and sleep. I'm your host, Marco Timpano. And joining me on today's podcast is my friend Jesse Sesler. Did I say that right?

Jesse: You did.

Marco:  I was practicing. You know, I'm always, I'm always conscious of people's names, in particular their last names because people will get mine wrong or what they'll do, I can't imagine.

Jesse: I don't think I can say yours.

Marco:  Tim.

Marco:  Pano.

Jesse: Timpano.

Marco:  Yeah, it's an easy last name. I think it's an easy last name,

Jesse: but I see it's sometimes and I don't know, it's a little, uh, intimidating, so to speak.

Marco:  This is from Mr. Zestler, whose Twitter

Marco:  feed is at Zezler.

Marco:  And I'll have that on the uh, podcast.


Before we talk about Nintendo, you have a website jamming games dot com

But let's talk about Nintendo first. Before we talk about Nintendo, um, you have a website jamming games dot com. And what exactly is that website?

Jesse: Well, when I'm not doing casting for work and trying to make a living, I like uh, to make some videos and talk about everything. Nintendo, believe it or not, even though it's a 25 year old, I think we're getting past 30 years now. A 30 year old console. There's still a lot of people really, really dedicated to it today and make new content. So I'd like to try and cover it and write about it, make some videos occasionally.

Marco:  So what were the steps that got you to Nintendo?

Jesse: Um, when I was in high school there was a, I lived in a small town and uh, there wasn't a lot to do. So my friends and I went to this tiny, tiny mom and pop game shop and we saw a Nintendo, maybe like $20. So we decided, oh, that'd be fun. Uh, picked it up and uh, just messed around and it turned out that it was kind of fun.

Marco:  So it just was happenstance that they had Nintendo and not say Atari or Colecovision.

Jesse: Well, I mean they did have both of those things. They had quite a bit at this store, but I don't know what entirely it was, but something drew me to that black and gray box.

Marco:  I see. And so, um, what's the small town? You're from?

Jesse: Keswick.

Marco:  Oh, you're from Keswick, Ontario. Tell me about Keswick. Any claims to fame? I always like to ask people to claim to fame.

Jesse: It's a very hockey oriented town and I grew up despising hockey. So uh, I was a little bit of an outsider, so to speak.

Marco:  So you never played hockey? Do you Follow. Follow hockey?

Jesse: Not in the least.

Marco:  What's funny is, so I don't follow hockey. I, I think when I was young, when I was born, it was the, uh, I think three years prior was the last time that the Toronto Maple Leafs won, uh, Stanley Cup. And so after that, my dad was so discouraged that he never watched hockey. And therefore I never got into hockey because my dad, I think, was just upset. Wow. And so as a Canadian, people have an expectation that you know about hockey. Do you find that 100? Yeah. And then it's so weird to explain, like, uh, I don't really follow it. Like, I love watching national, uh, awkward.

Jesse: It can get really just uncomfortable. It's so it. Everyone has to know hockey, right? One of those things.

Marco:  One of those things. And I, I played ball hockey when I was a kid, but that was about it.

Marco:  So.

Marco:  So I've never really played ice hockey. I played it. One time we went up to a friend's cabin and it was a bunch of us and we're all like, uh, let's play hockey. Let's play hockey. You know, you've had a few beers in you and stuff. So we're playing hockey and there was this one guy who's like, you know, the sportsman, the all, you know, very fit. He looked like he could be on one of those fitness magazines. Like, very strong and hefty. We're playing hockey first 10 minutes, I give him a black eye. To this day, that's my proudest hockey moment, is giving this huge guy back. And then people would come into the cabin and be like, what happened to your eye? And they all look at me and I was like, hockey. And they're like, wow, you must be really like a bruiser. And I'm like, no, it just. I don't know. He came around me and I don't even know what I did, but something was certainly on my side during that game.


What is it about Nintendo that makes you an enthusiast

So let me ask you this. Let's get back to Nintendo M. What is it about Nintendo that makes you an enthusiast?

Jesse: It's one simple thing. And that's what the simplicity. Oh, there's directional buttons, two buttons, an A and a B button, a select and a start, and that's it. So for most games, games, you're using the control pad and either clicking A or B. That's it. Modern controllers, I think it's up to 16 or 17 buttons and then there's the control pad and then there's two control sticks making.

Marco:  And you can get like attachments that make it even more complex. Or say, like, some sort of weaponized control pad.

Marco:  Or there.

Marco:  There's the ones that you sort of lay on the floor and you jump and step on. Or there's, I think, even almost full body suits.

Jesse: It's ridiculous. It's honestly gotten a little out of hand. So the simplistic nature of just the two buttons and the little control pad, it's, uh, refreshing and nice. You can just pick something up and you know how to play.

Marco:  It's kind of like there's grace in the simplicity. So. So I remember Nintendo when I was a kid. Are they still making Nintendo games or has the company folded? Because I remember Nintendo and Atari and Colecovision. What happened to those guys?

Jesse: Um, it's kind of interesting. Um, in around, like, the early 80s, Atari was huge.

Marco:  Huge.

Jesse: Rewind had Atari. Everyone was into Atari, but they got a little too big for themselves.

Marco:  Oh, really?

Jesse: They flooded the market with games that weren't that good but they thought people would buy.

Marco:  Right.

Jesse: Um, the infamous one is, uh, the ET Atari game.

Marco:  Right.

Jesse: Uh, people consider it infamously bad. It's not that bad in actuality, but it wasn't Pac Man. They wanted another Pac Man.

Marco:  Is that when Atari jumped the shark? The ET Game?

Jesse: Yeah. They ended up making, I think, around a million copies or something. And just. They didn't sell, of course. Uh, they. Actually, there's a recent story. Uh, they buried. The rumor always was that they buried all of these unbought, um, unsold Atari copies in some landfill in the middle of the desert, and they had a recent excavation and found them all. It was always a rumor up until this point, but it turns out, yeah, they did flood the market a little bit and had to just get rid of all these copies. And eventually that leaded to just the game market crashing. Um, and Nintendo sort of just slipped right in and brought it back to life. Rejuvenated it, if you will. And that's why a lot of people have a big attachment to it.

Marco:  Yeah, I have friends who have Nintendo boxes that they have, like, sort of in their games room. And it's kind of. It takes, like, a place of sort of a proud place in that sort of games room. And then they'll have all their Nintendo games, and they'll be like, marco, which one would you like to play? And I'm like, I don't know. Show me.

Jesse: For a lot of people, it was their first console, and that's like, uh, your first of anything can really be memorable and, like, mean something to you. And that's why I think that Nintendo has stayed around so long because the fact is, uh, it still has a huge community of the old Nintendo in 2016. There are people still making games for it. Not Nintendo specifically, but hardware enthusiasts and game developers making new games that will

Marco:  work on the old console but that aren't Nintendo approved. Is that.

Jesse: That's correct. Wow. It's uh, just made a life of its own. It's kind of wondrous that people have been keeping this, uh, granted obsolete hardware alive and kicking 30 plus years later. It's kind of magical if you think about it.


What is your favorite Nintendo game or what is one of your favorite

Marco:  So let me ask you this. What was the first game you played on your Nintendo console?

Jesse: It's um, not a very original answer, but it has to be Super Mario Brothers.

Marco:  Okay. Super Mario. Awesome. And um, what is your favorite game or what is one of your favorite games? Because I'm sure that's a hard question. That's kind of like, you know, it's

Jesse: a very difficult question.

Marco:  Uh, but what's one that you always go to?

Jesse: See, that's an easier question. Uh, there's about 650 plus officially licensed games and then there's. Oh gosh, hundreds, um, and hundreds of unofficial, so non Nintendo licensed ones.

Marco:  Right.

Jesse: So you've got quite a big pool to pick from.

Marco:  Sure.

Jesse: Um, one of the standouts for me, one of the ones that again it has sort of an infamy to it is battletoads.

Marco:  Battle toads.

Jesse: Yeah. So, uh, in the 80s, uh, as everyone remembers, Ninja Turtles was the thing that was the, in cartoon. The comics were huge. It was everywhere.

Marco:  Yeah. And we've seen, you know, recent reincarnations of it with movies and, and all kinds of games.

Marco:  And toys.

Jesse: And toys. So um, many companies wanted to sort of ride the coattails. Like how do they get in on this? How do they have their own Ninja Turtles? Right. And that's how Battletoads came around. It started just as a game, uh,

Marco:  so it's a rip off 100% of Ninja Turtles.

Jesse: But it had a sort of charm to uh, was a two player. So you could play with a friend at the same time playing, uh, not against each other, but comrades. Exactly.

Marco:  Or com Toads.

Jesse: Exactly. And it had a cartoony aesthetic. So when you would punch people, the fist would enlarge and become a giant boxing glove. When you would kick people, your foot would turn into a giant boot. It was very humorous and very cartoon. But the thing that makes it so infamous is the difficulty.

Marco:  Oh yeah.

Jesse: Um, much like many games of the era, uh, the longevity was cemented by the difficulty. So they would make things more difficult than they should be to keep kids playing and playing and playing. Sure, they'd take a long time to finish. They went a little bit too far with this one. But it's the gameplay and just the. Everything about it was very. Just fun and entertaining. That it kept people going back again, again and not being frustrated. Not. That's a very important point. You don't want to have a game that's so difficult that you get frustrated. Put it down and you don't want to play it again. Sure. Uh, you just want it to be difficult enough that you think, I can do this.

Marco:  Right.

Jesse: I can get by. And for that reason, that. That's always one. That's been a good one. Just to go back to.

Marco:  Have you gotten to the end of it?

Jesse: Oh, God, no.

Marco:  No, you haven't. As a Nintendo enthusiast, you haven't been able to get to the end of Battletoad.

Jesse: It's difficult.

Marco:  Wow.

Jesse: M. Uh, there are many cheat devices you can use. So if. If you count that, which I don't, I have beaten it.

Marco:  I see.

Jesse: But.

Marco:  But on its own, without the cheat devices, you have not beaten Battletoads has beaten you till this point.

Jesse: Yeah.


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Marco:  What was the last game Nintendo officially made?

Jesse: The last officially licensed Nintendo game is, uh, everyone remembers Mario. Everyone remembers Luigi.

Marco:  Right.

Jesse: But they wanted to add another character. I see that was Wario. Um, he was kind of like the anti Mario, but they didn't really know what to do with him. So like any character that they don't know what to do with, they gave him a puzzle game.

Marco:  Okay.

Jesse: And that was called Wario's woods. Came out in 1994 and it was actually a really good game. But unfortunately by that point, Nintendo already had the Super Nintendo that was out and that was picking up a lot of stuff and just taking over the market. So it kind of just came and went, but it was really good and people tend to not give it enough credit.

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Marco:  Thanks for not judging me.

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Jesse: Deal on a sausage McMuffin with egg.

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There's one aspect of Nintendo games that is just always stuck around

Jesse: Uh,

Marco:  since I'm talking to a Nintendo expert and someone who has like, you know, you do all these sort of this writing on Nintendo and videos and whatnot. And I'll mention your site again, which is jamming games dot com. You can find it on our sort of, um, podcast notes in case you want to see exactly where to go. Um, have you ever taken apart a box?

Jesse: Yes.

Marco:  So you're like a doctor of Nintendo. So, doctor, tell me, when you take apart a box, what do you see and what do you specifically look for?

Jesse: Okay. Um, this is gonna dive quite, uh, deep.

Marco:  Great.

Jesse: But I think everyone remembers there's the one aspect of Nintendo games that is just always stuck around. It's become a very cultural icon. When you see people blowing into the cartridge, right?

Marco:  Of course, you would blow into it when it would be like, staticky or when you would have sort of issues with the game. Is that correct?

Jesse: The games, you would put them in and they would never work. Never. It was infuriating. Everyone had the same problem. To put that into context, basically because games games just weren't that big anymore. When Nintendo hit the market, they wanted to approach it in a different way. So they made the console look more like a VHS player or a vcr. Sorry. Right. So you had to slide the cartridge in and then press it down.

Marco:  Right.

Jesse: So when you open up the Nintendo, what's actually going on is they have their main motherboard and there's a pin out on that. Attached to that pinout is called the 72 pin connector. Now that connector is a long C shape of, uh, pins. And when you put in the Nintendo cartridge and press it down, it bends those pins. Okay, so think about that. Every time that you put a game in, you're bending the pins, you press it down and take it out, you're bending the pins again. And it got to the point where these pins were bent so much that just it wasn't touching the cartridge anymore. Okay. And that's why many people, when they would put in the games, they wouldn't work. So I'm not sure exactly how it came up, but I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but blowing on the cartridges actually doesn't do anything.

Marco:  I see.

Jesse: When you put the games in, you have to sort of wiggle it around and put it at the specific angle so that the pins can hit each other. Blowing, I guess, created this sort of placebo effect. So it's kind of interesting to look back. Um, many people, surprisingly, have made some hardware revisions, again, very recent, within the past two, three years to circumvent this. Um, there's one that's called the Blinking Light Win. Uh, and essentially what that is is instead of they replace the 72 pin connector with one that you simply slide the game in and it doesn't allow you to press the game down. Once you slide it in, the pins are touching and then it just works. It's. There's many, many instances of people creating new hardware revisions to Nintendo like this. And again, it goes back to just how insane it is to see that this again, 30 year old hardware is being kept alive with all these new hardware revisions to make to extend the lives of these ancient consoles. It's quite fascinating when you really get into it.

Marco:  But isn't pushing it down part of the fun part of the sort of ceremony of using the cartridge?

Jesse: Of course, it's such a cultural icon. I mean, uh, you walk into a hot Topic and you see tons of T shirts with a picture of a cartridge and it says, blow me. Everyone knows that you press it down and you get that satisfying click. But for people like me, it gets to the point where I'm like, I just want to play the game.

Marco:  Okay?

Jesse: I'm very sick and tired of having to.

Marco:  So do you have this modification on your console?

Jesse: I don't have that specific modification.

Marco:  Do you have another modification?

Jesse: Uh, sort of.

Marco:  Tell me about this modification.

Jesse: There's this company called Analog Company and they, they're known for a, uh, specific device called a, a consolized MVS NeoGeo.

Marco:  I'm not gonna hang on a consolized MVG M, MVS MVS NeoGeo, Neo Geo.

Jesse: So I'm not gonna dive too deep.

Marco:  No, no, I do want you to dive into this.

Jesse: So what?

Marco:  That is if I have an expert on. I need to know exactly what I'm asking.

Jesse: I may be, uh, knowledgeable in the ways of Nintendo, but NeoGeo, oh my goodness, is that ever a whole other can of worms.

Marco:  Okay, so tell me about it as much as you want to get it.

Jesse: Totally, totally.


The Neo Geo AES was essentially an arcade machine shrunken down into a living room

So what this is, if you might remember back again in the 80s, Neo Geo, the MVS was, uh, or. Oh yeah, the mvs. I can't remember the specific acronym, but it was essentially just an arcade machine. You go to your local arcade and it would be a multi game arcade machine. Okay. And it had some really good titles like Metal Slug, uh, Puzzle Bobble, uh, a lot of ones that I can't quite remember.

Marco:  Okay.

Jesse: But garnered sort of this big cult following. So they decided, oh, we have all these games on this arcade machine. Why don't we turn that into a console that people can buy and bring home?

Marco:  Oh.

Jesse: And that I believe is called the Neo Geo AES.

Marco:  Okay.

Jesse: Again, I'm not entirely sure what the acronym stands for.

Marco:  Fair enough.

Jesse: But the problem was this was literally an arcade machine shrunken down to fit into your, like living room. Right. So, of course, if you remember, arcade machines are kind of expensive.

Marco:  Sure.

Jesse: So this AES cost about $1000, maybe 1200. I can't really remember. And then the games were like 100 plus each. It was ridiculously expensive, especially when compared to something like Nintendo, which is, uh, $200 for the console and $50 per the game. Um, so what many companies like Analog company decided to do was consolize the arcade machines. The big distinct factor between the AES and the MVS is the games couldn't be swapped between them. Oh, so if you had the big arcade machine, you couldn't put the console games in even though they were the same. Same ones they had a block out because essentially they wanted the arcade retailers to buy these overpriced, expensive ones, of course, so that they can make more money.

Marco:  Sure.

Jesse: So it ended up splitting the market in a really strange way. So in the world in 2016, there are significantly more, um, Neo Geo MVS games and machines.

Marco:  Okay.

Jesse: So analog, since it's a lot easier to get your hands on those MVS games, made the console where you can play those. I see it's, it's super weird and super in depth, but it again has this huge cult following. So getting back. I'm sorry for the tangent.

Marco:  No, I love it.

Jesse: Uh, getting back to.


The Nintendo Entertainment System NES is how we know it's in north America

Of the other products that they made, um, the one specifically Relating to Nintendo is called the Analogue nt and I have one of these. Oh my goodness, don't get me started on, um, how amazing this machine is really. So what they did was, um, I'm not sure if you're aware, but uh, the Nintendo Entertainment System NES is how we know it's in north, uh, America and most of the world. But in Japan, uh, they released the console as the family computer. Yeah. Again, uh, video games weren't really big at the time. Right. So they wanted to try and avoid calling it a video game system. So the family computer is a whole other beast. It's the same hardware as the nes, but the cartridges are smaller, the controllers are attached to the console. It's very weird. Analog. Took a bunch of non functioning Famicom, uh, that's the short version of the computer Famicom. They took a bunch of the Famicom non, uh, functioning consoles and fixed and repurposed the internals.

Marco:  Okay.

Jesse: Put a new shell on it and decided to sell that in America. It's a little nuts when you say it out loud, but it costs $500American for one of these.

Marco:  Okay.

Jesse: Um, compared to the like $20 you can spend on an NES at like a garage sale.

Marco:  Right.

Jesse: So let me get into the specifics on what makes this a $500 console. Like I said, they completely salvaged the internals of these non functioning Famicom units. They create their own custom board in which they put the picture processing unit and the CPU on so that essentially the hardware is identical, but then they overlay their own hardware on top of it. There's a man who goes by the name of Kevtris who created this HDMI board in which the raw RGB signal from the PPU and CPU goes through that and creates a clean 1080p picture which goes to your TV. So that I'm not sure if you remember, but uh, with the old nes you had to plug it into your cable, like your TV cable. And the picture was really fuzzy and it was meant for obviously the old tube CRT TVs.

Marco:  The smaller TVs too. Like not the wide giant screens that we have today.

Jesse: Exactly. Like the picture was super fuzzy and it was meant for those kinds of displays.

Marco:  Sure.

Jesse: With this additional board and hardware you can get pixel perfect quality on a big like 60, 70 inch HDTV going even further.

Marco:  Right.

Jesse: They encased the entire thing in a solid brick of aluminum to sort of give it that uh, status.

Marco:  Right.

Jesse: This is an expensive console. This is the highest the Cadillac or

Marco:  the Rolls Royce of consoles.

Jesse: That is literally their slogan for it. Oh really? Yeah, they call it the Porsche Nintendo.

Marco:  Forgive me because I'm not picking the cool cars. So the Porsche Nintendo, sure.

Jesse: But it's the same idea. The thing has four built in controller slots. On the Famicom there was an additional uh, expansion port for uh, Japanese exclusive controllers. And then on the back you have dual audio out. On the original Nintendo there was only Mono because again TVs just didn't have stereo.

Marco:  Sure.

Jesse: No big thing at the time. And as we progressed we changed. But some of these games, strangely enough, were designed with mono audio in mind. Right. So people again modded their consoles to dual. Dual output.

Marco:  Sure.

Jesse: Left and right channels. And this analog NT does have that. It's, it's literally every single thing that you could want. It plays Famicom games, it plays Nintendo games, it has everything. It is kind of uh, my pride and joy, if you will.

Marco:  Well, there you go. Jesse. I feel like this episode reminds me of the sea slug episode that I did a while back with my sister in law, which is gonna be a two parter. So I'm afraid we're gonna have to say thank you and perhaps do a part two on this Nintendo because I feel like we've just sort of scratched the surface or just started to play

Jesse: with the console there, There is quite a bit to go into, like quite a bit.

Marco:  Well then, then we will have you back.

Jesse: How's that? Absolutely. I'd be happy to come back.

Marco:  Jesse, thank you so much for being part of the Insomnia project. I should mention that I said jumping the shark earlier and for our listeners who may not be with that term, it represents, it actually comes from Happy Days. The episode when the Fonz jumps the shark is the turning point of where a great television show went south or bad. So that term now is sort of used to describe anything where it hits that sort of breaking point of going from great to not great. So for people who are like, what does that mean? That's what jumping the shark means. And this episode certainly doesn't jump the shark. Thanks again, Jesse.

Marco:  Thanks as always.

Marco:  The Insomnia Project is produced by drumcast Productions and we are recording this episode in Toronto, Canada.