The Tim Walz Dreamcast Saga, Explained

Minnesota governor Tim Walz, the Democrats’ VP nominee, appears to be a cool, chill dude. People seem to like him. And how could you hate someone who owned a Dreamcast and played Crazy Taxi?

After this week’s Democratic National Convention, Timothy James Walz, better known as Tim Walz, is officially the vice presidential nominee for the party following Joe Biden dropping out of the race in July. Kamala Harris, the current VP, stepped up after Biden dropped out and is the Dems’ de facto presidential candidate. Walz was a smart pick for a lot of reasons, including his progressive policies and “dad vibes.” But for most of August, the main thing I see people talking about is how Walz was a big Sega Dreamcast dude.

The first mention of Tim Walz being a gamer

This all started shortly after Harris announced Walz as her VP pick. On August 9, The New York Times published a report about the Minnesota governor and former football coach. And buried quietly in the article was a brief mention that Walz played so much Dreamcast that his wife reportedly “seized it” and hid it from him.

As you might expect, this led to a lot of people going, “Wait, Walz was a Dreamcast dude?” and people began digging into this story and the VP nom’s video game history. This led to someone discovering an old post on ResetEra from 2018 where user Bryn Tanner claimed to have Walz’s Dreamcast console.

“Oh I bought a Dreamcast for $25 back in 2012 from one of his former high school students who worked on his campaign,” posted Bryn Tanner in November 2018. “Walz was just like ‘Hey we have this old video game thing, do you want it?’ And the guy took it.”

The day the NYT profile on Walz went live, Bryn Tanner posted again about the Dreamcast on ResetEra. “LMAO. Yes, I still have that Dreamcast this fucking rules!”

WaPo comments on the Dreamcast, IGN finds its owner

On August 19, The Washington Post published an in-depth article connecting Walz’s candidacy to the Dreamcast and video games in general.

Yet in the best cases, video games are more than mere diversions. One plausible definition of a video game is a “problem that requires solving.” There is something revealing about the people who give themselves fully to that enterprise: an eagerness to see something broken put right — to practice, through play, the work of systemic repair.

This led to a bad tweet from conservative idiot, weirdo, and bad tweet expert Charlie Kirk. On August 19, Kirk tried to dunk on the funny story about Walz loving his Dreamcast and spin it as a negative, asking, “Doesn’t anybody else find a 35-year-old man getting that addicted to video games a little sad? Or, dare I say it, weird?” As you might expect, this went very poorly for Mr. Kirk, with big-name video game industry people clowning on him in the replies.

“Video games have grown to become the leading form of entertainment across the globe. He was certainly ahead of his time. Plus the Dreamcast was an incredible platform,” replied former Xbox hypeman and current Unity community director Larry Hyrb.

Finally, IGN reporter Rebekah Valentine put a nice bow on this whole Dreamcast story. She was able to track down the ResetEra Dreamcast owner and talked to them about Walz’s console. He helped her connect with Tom Johnson, someone who previously worked with Walz on his congressional campaign.

“Walz really is just such a great, normal guy,” Johnson told IGN.

“He’s one of those guys, it’s like, he’s your friendly neighbor, and then you find out that guy has the Guinness Book of World Records for free throw shooting. He’s just a normal guy, he just happens to be a governor too. Everything people say about him being this down-to-earth guy, really nice, really friendly, really earnest, it’s all true.”

And according to Johnson, when Walz brought the Dreamcast to the campaign office it included a copy of Crazy Taxi. Does that mean the VP nom played a ton of Crazy Taxi? Maybe. But then again, who owned a Dreamcast and didn’t have a copy of Crazy Taxi? Regardless, it’s nice to know that a Dreamcast sicko might one day end up in the White House.