Towards the end of 2020, as we had all been mostly stuck home for over 8 months, I decided to finally buy a capture card for my computer, and try to stream games. I had already streamed some Playstation games using the native share method, but I wanted to stream Switch games, too.

I bought an AverMedia Ultra Gamer external capture card (after the Elgato one didn't work) and it worked pretty proficiently. OBS uses a lot of power when running, so I have to limit my streams to 720p or else the battery can't charge itself fast enough from all the power usage.

I streamed Let's Go Eevee almost daily for multiple hours. Unfortunately, Nintendo did not release end of the year stats as they did for previous years. :(

In July, I was finally able to order a Playstation 5. I had tried getting one in Japan, but there were so few shipments and retailers had many weird hoops to go through to get one. I got mine directly through Sony online in America, so I had my mom ship it to me, which was a little expensive. :(

With a Playstation 5, I started playing some more games on stream rather than just Pokemon. Although, every game I played was an enhanced version of a Playstation 4 game (or simply a Playstation 4 game). Final Fantasy VII Remake got a PS5 version. Death Stranding got a PS5 version.

The first game I played through on stream was Control, a some cerebral action-adventure set in a retro corporate setting. You play as Jesse, who is appointed as the new director of the FBC, and you tear through the depths of the vast headquarters looking for your brother and the secrets of the organization. It was neat, and free with PSN from a few months prior.

My absolute favorite game of the year was Outer Wilds. It's a very simple game where you play as an alien species on a small world. The sun will go super nova at the end of the day, and you explore all the planets and other locations of your solar system to discover the ancient history of your species, as well as find a way for life to survive the super nova. It's an incredible experience where you are given the tiniest spec of a hint at the beginning of what to do, and from there, everything is found through your own exploration and experimentation.

Anyways, here are my stats:

Even though Nintendo did not release play stats for the Switch, with the termination of the Wii U and 3DS online services, Nintendo did make a webpage where you could see your lifetime stats from both platforms.

Compared to the 900 hours I played on my Nintendo Switch last year, 1102 lifetime hours on the 3DS seems a bit low. But, that is the equivalent of nearly 46 days straight, so it's definitely not nothing. No surprise, but Pokemon and Animal Crossing are my top played games.

The Wii U on the other hand, I barely played at all. I only bought it for Mario Maker, and then later played Zelda. I played a little bit of Xenoblade X, but I really did not like that game. The music is so bad.