NES drinking

Still searching for that perfect Christmas gift? Well, look no further – I give you the gift of the century!

Regardless if you’re spending the holidays with your boyfriend or girlfriend, long lost family or drunk in-laws, crazy cat ladies or that weird hippie neighbor who “doesn’t believe in material possessions” this is the obvious gift of choice!

As kids of the 80tees we all know what a NES is, remember that special moment when first unboxing the system, and although we ourselves never fought him, we all knew that one guy who reached and beat Mike Tyson in Punch-Out. We know how to find the warp-zone in level 1-2 in SMB, we can all recite the Konami code in our sleep, and we all know the theme to the Moon in Duck Tales. Long story short - we´re all of the NES generation.

As we have grown up, we may have left the NES behind, but the nostalgia never leaves. And as we beers and whiskey replaced soda as the drink of choice, so must also these new bereaves adapt to our living memories. Enter the extremely stylish Ink Whiskey Concealable Entertainment Flask – the first container that truly matches your retro gaming fandom.

Matt Cornell, the inventor behind the flask and founder of Ink Whiskey LLC, wanted to make this canteen a concealable flask instead of a flask that was just shaped differently. He wanted the product to look and feel exactly like the game cartridges we all grew up with. Therefor it looks like an NES game cartridge, right down to the classic dull-gray color.

Outside of being a handy little way to be sneaky, the team also created some awesome alcohol-themed parody art labels of some classic video games that we all know and love. Here's a quick sneak peak at the five labels available to choose from:

The funding goal for this KickStarter project has already been topped off. You can get a Drunk Hunt-labeled flask for $15 or choose from one of the other labels at the $20 level. So, go ahead: Raise your flask to retro gaming and make a toast to the perks of adulthood.

Tribute to a Legend

This is a sad day for gamer everywhere...

Hiroshi Yamauchi, the man who transformed Nintendo from a maker of playing cards and board games into a global videogame giant, has died at the age of 85.

“The entire Nintendo group will carry on the spirit of Mr. Yamauchi by honoring, in our approach to entertainment, the sense of value he has taught us — that there is merit in doing what is different — and at the same time, by changing Nintendo in accordance with changing times,” said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in a statement.

Yamauchi took over the company in 1949, when he was just 22 years old. Nintendo was founded in 1889 by his grandfather Fusajiro Yamauchi as a maker of hanafuda, traditional Japanese playing cards with images of flowers on their faces. Yamauchi dropped out of Waseda University to lead Nintendo.

In Game Over, a book about the rise of Nintendo, writer David Sheff reported that Nintendo’s employees “resented youth and inexperience,” and in response, Yamauchi fired “every manager… left over from his grandfather’s reign.”

One of Yamauchi's greatest feats was to take the US arcade market from a slow, underground movement, into the mainstream scene by introducing Donkey Kong in 1981. This game became an immediate hit, prompting new high scores, contests, and the loss of countless quarters. With Donkey Kong we also saw the first real competitive gaming; today a million dollar industry.

Under his leadership, the company developed the Famicom (or Nintendo Entertainment System as it was know to westerners), as well as the Game Boy; two consoles that helped to usher in the era of home game machines. It is fair to say that Yamauchi contributed massively to forming the gaming scene, changing the industry forever ...