Here I am in Japan again. I spent the whole day on a plane, but somehow I still have something videogamey to blog about. Amazing!

I’ve flown with JAL before, but today was the first time I encountered one of these:

It’s a remote control sort of thing, for choosing and controlling your in-flight entertainment, and also summoning flight attendants. And you’ve noticed, of course, that turned on its side, it also seems to be a videogame controller! Specifically a SNES controller: it has A, B, X and Y buttons, shoulder buttons, and a D-pad. And that’s a proper D-pad – patented by Nintendo! They’d have had to get a licence for that, for money and everything.

So I was a bit excited, examining this nifty object – I thought I might get to play Mario for nine hours. And sure enough, the magazine in the seat pocket promised me, in addition to the usual movies and music, a selection of videogames for my enjoyment!

But the ‘selection of videogames’ was a PLATTER OF DISAPPOINTMENT:

Oh, I love ‘Tetrix’! And Tiles – a classic ohhhhh fuck it I can’t even be bothered being sarcastic.

NOUGHTS AND CROSSES OH CRIMINY JEEPERS!

Anyway the point is, why do we need a fancy SNES controller for this garbage. What’s the story?

DOES ANYONE GNOW???