Welcome back to Pushing Buttons! First up – last week's newsletter had a few errors in it. Most obviously, I referred to the Meta Quest 2 headset as the now-discontinued Oculus Go (even though I'd just been playing with the Quest 2, to compare it with PSVR2 – nice job, brain). I also gave some incorrect pricing info. A corrected version is on the Guardian site.

Regular readers will know that I find video games' ability to pull people together to be one of the most interesting things about them. I have a weakness for stories about outsiders finding each other, and games make that happen with charming regularity. I once wrote about a long-distance couple who stayed connected by playing Dark Souls, wrestling with that game's opaque online matchmaking to ensure that they could always find each others' summon signs, hidden in a nook behind a wall or under a distinctive vase. And I'm fascinated by how Eve Online has attracted a particular flavour of person – usually science-fiction-obsessed, very often in some position of power in real life – to create an intergalactic community that mimics the economics and power structures of our own, but with extra skullduggery. Online gaming has brought us so much in this regard: people have formed lifelong friendships through all kinds of video games, from World of Warcraft to No Man's Sky.

Standout titles include Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X. It was also the year Xbox made its debut, while the Sega Dreamcast bowed out. But while all that was going on Nintendo was still going strong, releasing the Game Boy Advance in March of that year and a new home system in September. The GameCube was quite a console, an adorable box with a great wireless controller and fun add-ons like the Game Boy Player. Unfortunately, the system was plagued by a thin library, especially compared to the PlayStation's combined roster of PS1 and PS2 games.