Governor of Minnesota Tim Walzthe Democrats VP candidate, seems like a cool, laid back guy. People seem to like him. And how can you hate someone who had a Dreamcast and Crazy taxi?

Following this week’s Democratic National Convention, Timothy James Walz, better known as Tim Walz, officially became the party’s vice presidential nominee after Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July. Kamala Harris, the incumbent VP, stepped down after Biden withdrew and is the Dems’ de facto presidential nominee. Walz was a smart choice for a lot of reasons, including his progressive policies and “dad vibes.” But for most of August, I’ve mostly been hearing people talking about how Walz was a big Sega Dreamcast guy.

The first mention that Tim Walz is a gamer

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

As you might expect, this led to a lot of people saying, “Wait, Walz was a Dreamcast dude?” and people started digging into this story and the video game history of the VP nomination. 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 in 2012 for $25 from one of his former high school students who worked on his campaign,” posted by Bryn Tanner in November 2018“Walz was like, ‘Hey, we have this old video game, do you want it?’ And the guy took it.”

The day that the News profile on Walz went live, Bryn Tanner reposted about the Dreamcast on ResetEra. “LMAO. Yeah, I still have that Dreamcast, it’s really awesome!”

WaPo reactions to 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.

But at their best, video games are more than just entertainment. A plausible definition of a video game is a “problem that needs solving.” There’s something revealing about the people who dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to that endeavor: an eagerness to see something broken put back together — to do, through play, the work of systemic repair.

This led to a bad tweet from conservative idiot, weirdo, and expert in bad tweeting Charlie Kirk. On August 19, Kirk attempted to dunk to the funny story about Walz loving his Dreamcast and painting it negatively, asking, “Doesn’t anyone else find it a little sad that a 35-year-old man would become so addicted to video games? Or, dare I say, weird?” As you might expect, this backfired badly for Mr. Kirk, with big names in the video game industry ridiculing him in the comments.

“Video games have become the most important form of entertainment all over the world. It was definitely ahead of its 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 ending to this whole Dreamcast story. She was able to track down the owner of the ResetEra Dreamcast and talked to them about Walz’s console. He helped her get in touch with Tom Johnson, someone who had previously worked with Walz on his congressional campaign.

“Walz is such a great, normal guy,” Johnson said IGN.

“He’s one of those guys, it’s like, he’s your friendly neighbor, and then you find out the guy holds the Guinness Book of World Records for free throws. He’s just a regular guy, he happens to be a governor. Everything people say about him being a down-to-earth guy, very nice, very friendly, very serious, 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 this mean that the vice presidential nomination played a major role? Crazy taxi? Maybe. But then again, who had a Dreamcast and not have a copy of Crazy taxiEither way, it’s nice to know that someday a Dreamcast nut might end up in the White House.