Retroist Podcast Episode 364 (Game Genie)

Retroist Podcast Episode 364 (Game Genie)

From Retroist Retro Podcast by The Retroist

May 15, 2026 · 45 min · Episode 364

About this episode

The episode discusses the impact and mechanics of the Game Genie, a device that altered gameplay experiences for Nintendo games.

I first saw the Game Genie at a friend’s house just after Christmas in 1991. We were doing the usual thing, seeing what everyone got, trying out games, handing controllers back and forth. Then he brought out the Game Genie and plugged it into the Nintendo. The second I saw what it could do, I wanted one of my own. It was that simple. If you spent enough time with games, you knew their rules pretty well, and this thing seemed to step right past them. On this episode of the Retroist Podcast, I talk about that first time seeing the Game Genie in action and why it was such a revelation the moment it was plugged in. Until then, games felt locked. They were hard in the ways they were hard, and if you could not get past something, that was that. Then this little cartridge adapter shows up and suddenly you can start with extra lives, make impossible jumps easier, or see parts of a game you had never been able to reach on your own. It did not feel like a normal accessory. It felt like you were getting access to something you were not really supposed to have. From there I get into how the Game Genie actually worked, by changing the values a game was reading without permanently altering the…

People in this episode

Host: The Retroist

Topics covered

  • Game Genie
  • video games
  • gaming accessories
  • Nintendo
  • court case
  • game mechanics

Keywords

  • Game Genie
  • Nintendo
  • Codemasters
  • Galoob
  • gaming
  • video games
  • court case
  • accessories

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Codemasters, Galoob, Nintendo

Products: Game Genie

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