Welcome to 30 Ridiculous Retro Rumors, a brand new series that will run daily between November 26 and December 25, 2015. This is a series where we debunk some of the craziest rumors and predictions of all time. Today we're imagining a world where Nintendo bought Atari. Having a hard time imagining this alternate timeline? Let Die Hard Game Fan lay out what all this means in today's episode of 30 Ridiculous Retro Rumors.


This is a real rumor taken directly from the September 1993 issue of Die Hard Game Fan ...


Some rumors are true and some are not. With even the editor sounding dubious, it's anybody's guess why Die Hard Game Fan decided to run this outlandish story next to the rest of their totally not-at-all made up rumors and gossip.

According to more than one source, Nintendo was set to buy Atari and forever change the video games industry. Instead of the Nintendo 64, Super Mario 64 ran on the Jaguar and shared shelf space with the Nintendo Lynx. Instead of wasting time on the Virtual Boy, Nintendo invested the money in finishing the Jaguar VR, ushering in a new generation of mass-market virtual reality. Unable to compete with Nintendo's head start, Sony leaves the industry to pursue floating televisions and Microsoft never enters the race. Two decades later, humanity is close to extinction after discovering that virtual reality has a bad habit of making people's heads explode.

Knowing this rumor is probably false, Die Hard Game Fan decides to devote an entire paragraph to something that could easily be debunked. Sure, they have a lot of fun guessing how that marriage would play out, but they also throw their sources under the bus in the process. Whether they intended it or not, this throws the rest of Die Hard Game Fan's rumors into doubt. And if we can't trust a magazine led by a superhero with a TV screen for a head, then what is this world coming to?