After 30 years spent climbing to the top of the video game world (and falling in disgrace), four best friends spend a night creating their own console - while high on LSD. The moment they turn it on they are unwittingly sent back to the moment they all met in 1990; forced to relive the Sega vs. Nintendo wars, but with the knowledge of today.

SYNOPSIS:

The year is 1990 at “Action Games”, a fictional 3rd party video game developer. Four 19 year old interns - FERN (Mexican), DEANDRE (Black), DANIEL (Asian) and LUKE (white) - are tasked by their boss PETE (a problematic, cocaine/sugar addict) with coming up with ideas for an ethnic Super Mario-like character. They immediately become best friends, moving in together while assigned to the same projects. Fern meets LIZ there, dating for 5 years.

1995: After AG shuts down, they try getting hired as a team. Since nobody can hire all four, they decide to split up at two companies. DeAndre meets his future wife VANESSA, while Fern finds out Liz got married.

2006: Pete has “found Christ”, as a much more composed and respectable man. Having acquired the rights to AG and all its properties, his first move as CEO is to hire the guys. As a show of good faith, he gives them part ownership in the new company. They go on to have the most successful video game franchise of all time, only to be sued by the kids of AG’s original owner. Pete admits he never legally acquired the rights to Action Games, assuming no one would question his relaunch of the company. Since they were part owners, they spend 2 years deemed unhireable by the industry while fighting the lawsuit.

2020: Unemployed, the guys help DeAndre finish the console he’s always tried to build…after taking LSD. When they finish, they turn on the console, only to have their consciousnesses sent back in time to the day they met in 1990, the moment Pete walks out the conference room. They all panic, DeAndre worries that after 25 years together, he’ll never replicate his natural chemistry with Vanessa. Fern, hopeful, is accused of relishing the chance to avoid his three divorces by staying with Liz. They decide to embrace it, quitting their AG internship to create an extremely advanced console.

They quickly realize they don’t have the money to build a new console yet, so they instead create the perfect game on a cartridge twice the size of the current standard. They return to AG, where the owner buys the game, licenses their cartridge tech and signs them to a lucrative multi-game deal.

Daniel remembers he was still dating KATHERINE in 1990. He dated her since Junior High, but she cheated on him a month later in the previous timeline. When Daniel attempts to break up with Katherine, she is in tears. Her grandma was in a major accident he is certain did not happen last time, prompting fears amongst the guys that their time travel has already had a major impact. The guys are shook when news then breaks that Michael Jordan has had what is likely a career-ending injury to his knee, before winning his first of six championships. A flashback shows the moment they bump into a random guy when returning to AG, who drops a rogue donut that eventually causes Jordan’s injury.

TIME CONSOLE