It only took a few days of the Harris/Walz campaign to drop a bombshell about the Minnesota Governor currently sharing the ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris: he’s a Sega Dreamcast Guy.
A profile from The New York Times dug up a chestnut about Walz from the late ’90s, when he was so addicted to playing his Sega Dreamcast that his wife had to “seize it” away from him. If you travel in gaming spaces, you understand the passions that this video game console riles up in certain people, despite being a commercial failure so large it took Sega out of the home console market.
Acton, Massachusetts resident Jon Winkler remembers experiencing this magic at a New Year’s Eve party in 1999 when he was only five years old.
“I had the controller in my hand, and it is the most mind blowing thing I have ever witnessed in my life.” Winkler said. “It is the thing that made me fall in love with video games.”
Sacramento, California resident Bakari Touray finds the Dreamcast appealing because it’s such a cultural touchstone of the time it was released in with its “shimmer effects and trance music.” Touray was shocked to find out that Walz was similarly entranced by one of his favorite home consoles.
“No fucking way,” Touray said. When asked if fellow Dreamcast Guy Walz potentially occupying our country’s executive branch was an inspiring prospect, Touray said, “I think I’m shallow enough to say yes, absolutely.”
The revelation, however, poses more questions than it answers. What games were enrapturing Walz so badly that his wife had to step in? It’s easy, more or less, to define the types of titles available on the Nintendo 64 or the original PlayStation. But the Dreamcast’s library is wonky, to say the least.
Walz is occasionally known as “Coach” to friends and allies, and it’s even a moniker Harris uses when talking about him at campaign stops. But anyone vaguely familiar with the system knows that Electronic Arts, who owns most of the big name sports titles, didn’t develop for the Sega console.
So which games did Walz become addicted to? The high-octane challenge of Crazy Taxi? The occasionally inscrutable but still captivating Shenmue? Or maybe, just maybe, there’s a possibility that a future vice president once played as Big the Cat in Sonic Adventure.
Winkler takes the simple approach, guessing that Walz likely played a lot of Sega Bass Fishing, considering Walz is an avid outdoorsman. When you take into account Walz’s Dreamcast addiction, Touray’s guess is a little more out there.
“It think it might be Phantasy Star Online,” Touray said. “If he was grinding a lot on that…spending a lot of time playing…it’s a real time sink kind of game.”
Playboy reached out to Governor Walz via his official press email, but we have not received a response. On a side note, there doesn’t seem to be a press contact page on the Kamala Harris 2024 website for either candidate. In fact, Harris hasn’t held a single press conference since officially rising to the top of the ticket.
Playboy doesn’t have a Campaign Correspondent (yet), so hopefully at least one enterprising journalist out there can finally dig up an answer to the question plaguing the mind’s of everyone who owns at least one Shadow the Hedgehog shirt: What games turned mild-mannered Minnesotan Coach Walz into a certified Dreamcast Guy?
Aside from this big campaign mystery, Walz’s Dreamcast love may give us a glimpse at his political legacy.
“I think that a lot of the Dreamcast titles were about service and taking care of people and doing your best,” Touray said. “Also Jet Set Radio is very anti-cop. The fact that there’s a chance that he’s played that…I think that’s pretty cool.”