Thor & PSP

Patrick Scott Patterson (also known by some as OriginalPSP) is familiar to plenty of gamers, especially those that follow his reports on retro gaming and world records; he also has a strong record of media appearances talking about the medium as a whole. His public gaming history goes back a long way, though, right to the original Nintendo World Championships in 1990.

Being a committed Nintendo gamer of the time, Patterson succeeded in pushing past the opening rounds of his qualifier and making it to the semi-final stage. With the latest event's qualifiers days away, we pitched a couple of questions to Patterson about whether he'll be taking part; it turns out that he may be a force to be reckoned with in his qualifier event of choice.


What were your fondest memories of competing in the Nintendo World Championships 1990?

The event was like a dream come true. I'd never seen anything that was a celebration of video gaming like that was. A competition stage set up on one side of the building that looked like something from a rock concert and another major stage on the other side of the building where they did presentations with those fabled game play counselors and the like. Numerous stations of games that hadn't come out yet, which was an incredible thing in an era where we didn't typically know anything about a game until it was already in the store. Nintendo characters hanging from the ceilings, news cameras everywhere. I can still walk into the automotive building in Dallas Fair Park today and picture it as vividly as something that just happened to me 15 minutes ago.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming NWC 2015 event?

As far as the structure of the 2015 event, I couldn't be happier from my seat. With limited time this year the only game I've really played to any extent is the Championship Mode in NES Remix. My personal best of 7.5 million is one of the best scores known as well. This makes my odds pretty good. I'd probably feel differently if there wasn't a qualifier nearby or if it was on a different game, but for me personally this is as awesome of a scenario as could be.


If you see PSP at your qualifier, you've a tough task ahead. He's also pointed us to a neat talk with 1990 champ Thor Aackerlund, in which he discusses his experience of the original event. It was certainly a bigger event back then, and Ackerlund's young self went all out in training.

The only reason I got to go to it in the first place was because I had a friend a couple blocks over who had a subscription to Nintendo Power and got some advanced notice and he took me. I just trained with my Game Boy for the first few months of it and then later on I got an NES and I would practice getting the 50 coins in Mario. The tracks in Rad Racer were different, so I couldn't really play that much without kind of ruining that, but it wasn't too hard to remember the cars in that. Unless you messed up, then it was kinda tough. And then Tetris, of course, I would play Tetris a couple hours a day. One of the problems I had is that I was a kid and I wanted to play the other games too! I was playing Mega Man, Castlevania, once I got the NES I was like 'Oh my goodness!' All of these games that I hadn't played before!

Ackerlund said at that point - before it was announced - that he'd be up for competing in another Nintendo World Championship. It wouldn't surprise us if he appears as a special guest in LA on 14th June.

Ninterviews are a series of interviews where we get to know interesting people with a passion for Nintendo. Please contact us if you have any suggestions for future Ninterviews. Click here to see the full series.