Summer 1998 Retrospective - In Depth Review

It was sure interesting seeing summer 98 take place, I think this was the summer that made me stay away from Nintendo for a little bit. ( aside from Pokemon)
 It didn't really feel like the 90s anymore but it also felt like the 90s at the same time lol

I think Pokémon stadium was released in Japan. I do remember reading about Pokémon coming soon  in summer 1998 in at least 3 magazines. 

Here's what I remember of summer 1998:

-Ghetto Superstar, Cruel Summer are the biggest hits of the summer played everywhere non-stop
-People still wearing outdated clothes they bought in 1996 or handme downs - which was uncool in late 1998/early 1999
-Early south park merch and fandom stick out more ex. Cartman dolls and OMG they killed kenny shirts and everyone talking about gross and twisted south park is
-Snes is even deader than 1997 with a a mini version, 2 new games in the stores,(NHL, Frogger and a few old classic games)and some places still renting them out.
-Continuation of the mid-to-late 1997 culture and the final chapter to it (bubblegum pop, fashion, tech, internet, fads/trends of the same era as mid to late 1997)
-Peak of gameboy pocket and gameboy camera is pretty popular
-Tons of classic pcs games are released in mid 1998 many would be even more popular in late 1998-2000 (Unreal , Commandos, Rainbows six)
-Exciting time for both N64 and PS1 and PC games 
-Even though all exist, curtained hair still more common  than basic short haircuts, frosted tips/spiky hair, then though short basic hair is increasing since 1997. 
-Y2K vibes are strong but there is a core and late 90s culture still is present that just isn't the same as late 1998 and 1999. 
-Europe/UK are more Y2K both in fashion (fashion closer to 1999), tech (phone adoption) and music (fatboy slim, bwtiched, robbie williams stardust, etc) than the US/Canada  
-Nokia and standard regular size common cellphones start picking up but don't kick off until sometime august 98-feb 1999 as popular even though fully mainstream more around late 1999-2000.
-Internet a lot late 1997 than 1999-2000
-MSN Messenger, email, smsing, and phones are still not mainstream
-Half people have internet, other half don't
-August is most Y2K part of the summer
-Top hats are still cool
-Pokemon is being talked about in mags and internet sites as the next big thing
-Magazines are still mandatory sources for news updates
-Last gasp of real grunge vibes, tamagotchi as a fad (even though they were pets were popular later) and even though kind of fading  pogs, basketball cards, beanie babies and comic books as pop culture fads are still hanging around. 
-Last time people a few people own a saturn or defend it
-Mp3s are very limited and limited to a few sites, no Mp3 players yet.

1998 was the year the Saturn was discontinued and you could already tell Sega had completely given up on it, and decided to start over. Hell, you can already trace the console’s failure to the cancellation of Sonic X-Treme. Good or not, a Sega console without a Sonic platformer (just Sonic R). Even the MASTER SYSTEM got two Sonic platformers, and it wasn’t even the current console when Sonic came out.

It’s not even like it’s that bad of a console. There are some good games like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Nights Into Dreams. Also some great ports of Sega arcade games, but beyond that, there’s really not much to the console. In fact, Sega’s mishandling of the Saturn was the reason Sonic lost popularity. In that time, people became attracted to games like Banjo-Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon, whilst Mario cemented himself as the god of platformers after the release of Mario 64. Even today, Mario 64 is talked about more favorably than Sonic Adventure.

Gameboy camera was all the rage

There was also a underwater gameboy pocket. Yeah I still have the printer boxed. But very innovative for the time.