Back in 2002, G4: TV 4 Gamers was born, mining a previously untapped market of people hungry for gaming-related programming in the days when the Xbox and PS2 were at the height of their power and video gaming was raking in huge money. The network was host to a variety of noteworthy programs including Attack of the Show, X-Play, and Cinematech, and ran until its decline and eventual shutdown in 2014 as the channel seemed to move away from regular programming and instead focused on giant marathons of Cops and Ninja Warrior.
With more internet shows and podcasts all about gaming out now than ever before, it would appear that a G4 would never return or even be needed. However, a surprise announcement from IGN at SDCC’s digital ComicCon @ Home unveiled that G4 TV is coming back.
The return was publicized in the digital show as well as on the official Twitter accounts of both X-Play and Attack of the Show, all of which involved a video panning around an empty warehouse full of G4-related memorabilia and finally focusing on a marathon of Pong — G4’s very first aired anything — which was interrupted by the G4 logo and the year 2021. The reveal appears to have taken former X-Play hosts Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb by surprise, though former AOTS hosts Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira seem intriguingly less surprised.
Specifics on just what form G4 will take in 2021 are not available right now, though the presumed wisdom is that it will be part of NBC’s Peacock streaming service, as G4 was recently owned by Comcast, an NBCUniversal subsidiary. One should also consider the possibility that G4 will be associated with IGN in some fashion simply because they were the ones to pull back the curtain, though that’s more supposition than anything. For now, we can all just sort of marvel that this is going to be a thing again in the video below. There’s also an excellent documentary about the rise and fall of G4 from GoodBadFlicks below that as well. Just in case anyone reading is too young to know what a G4 was.
