RCA Studio II (1977): The Studio II, only the third-ever game console to use interchangeable cartridges (behind Fairchild’s Channel F and the original Magnavox Odyssey), sold so poorly and failed so thoroughly that quite honestly very few details about it have survived to present day. There are no fansites dedicated to childhood memories of this console, it rarely appears on eBay or other aftermarket sales, many video game histories omit mention of it, and RCA itself doesn’t acknowledge it ever existed.

When it was released, during the dying days of the Pong era, the Studio II was unusual in that it was not primarily an “action game”-based console, by which I mean it did not necessarily play the sort of abstract tennis and soccer matches prevalent in the dedicated systems of the day. In fact, the actual unit itself did not feature paddles, levers, or anything that would be recognizable to the 1977 gamer as a controller – just a pair of ten-button numeric keypads, one on either side for each player.

Perhaps as a result, the games for this system were a bit more cerebral than their counterparts elsewhere. It still had its Pong clones and rudimentary car races, don’t get me wrong, but there were also a series of number puzzles (including a Mastermind clone) and even simple math tutors for the school-aged among us – sorry Atari, but that Basic Math dreck you launched with the 2600 is even less of an “innovation” than you thought it was.

But despite its novel cartridge-based technology and decidedly different lineup of games, Studio II was actually a backwards step in console evolution in several ways. Unlike Channel F and even several dedicated systems that played games in color (on color TVs), RCA’s entry remained strictly B&W.. The keypads were tough to use, and often resulted in sore and callused fingertips during spirited contests. Most importantly, the gaming public apparently weren’t interested in the sort of games it could play.

It all added up to a significant bomb. But it will go down in history as being the first console to allow for a full 16-directional movement pattern for onscreen characters, and one of the first attempts at what we now call “edutainment.”

Atari 7800 ProSystem (1986-1991): The Atari 7800 is one of the great “What Could Have Been” stories in the history of home video games. Developed during 1983 and scheduled for a 1984 release, the 7800 could boast graphics that put even Colecovision to shame (including the ability to have dozens of onscreen sprites with no flicker, a huge deal back then). It also had a major advantage of being backwards-compatible with the 2600 out of the box, addressing one of the major drawbacks of the Atari 5200 (parents having to repurchase their kids’ cartridge collection for the new hardware) and competing consoles that boasted 2600 compatibility (no extra module to buy).

Frankly, it sounded like a can’t-lose prospect. But just as Atari was preparing to ship the 7800 line to stores nationwide, a pair of unrelated events conspired to derail the train. First, and most famously, the debilitating Great Crash hit in earnest, turning formerly profitable game companies into Chapter 11 washouts literally overnight and nearly destroying the entire industry. (To give you younger readers an idea how crippling this was, there is only one major video game company from the pre-Crash era – Activision – that remains a wholly autonomous entity today. Every other name that’s still around today, Atari included, currently exists only as a name brand.) And secondly, Atari gained a new president (Jack Tramiel, former head of Commodore) who decided that the video game “fad” was dead (even turning down an opportunity to license a little Japanese console known as the Famicom!) and that Atari would henceforth focus solely on its home computer line. As a result, Atari’s stock of 7800 hardware and software was doomed to gather dust in a Sunnyvale warehouse – ready for immediate sale, but never to see the light of day.

That is, until late 1986, when the NES’s stunning success proved that maybe, just maybe, gaming wasn’t dead after all. Tramiel, no doubt looking at the NES’s sales figures and mentally kicking himself for not taking Nintendo’s offer when he had the chance, hastily (and somewhat belatedly) demanded something that would compete with Nintendo’s product. Well, it just so happened that Atari did have such a console, already developed and manufactured, that could be shipped in time for Christmas that year… Thus did the 7800 finally reach the marketplace only two years late.

Unfortunately, while the 7800 might have been revolutionary in 1984, by ‘86 it was starting to look a bit long in the tooth. Its biggest drawback was actually something that was to have been its biggest major selling point – the 2600 compatibility. Because it had to stay compatible with the older platform, some internal 7800 hardware (including its audio system) was simply lifted verbatim from a 2600 motherboard. (Admittedly, the 7800 had a provision for cartridges to include the POKEY sound chip from Atari’s computer line, but this was an added expense that the bottom-line loving Tramiel was loath to use; in the end, only two 7800 carts ever used this feature.) Making matters worse, advertising a system as having 2600 compatibility in the NES era would be the equivalent of somebody opening a garage specializing in AMC Gremlins today.

The lineup of games was another issue; Atari was again touting home versions of by-then ancient games like Asteroids, Centipede, Ms. Pac-Man, Robotron: 2084, and Dig Dug, among others. Granted, that sounds like an impressive retrogaming lineup by today’s standards, and indeed the 7800 ports are generally considered among the best for any “classic” console. (Thanks to a contract signed prior to the Crash, Nintendo mascot Mario even appeared on the 7800 in the form of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Mario Bros. ports.) But Atari had been pushing these same games ever since the height of the 2600 era, and the public was getting bored; they wanted newer and more innovative titles along the lines of Super Mario Bros., not the same recycled games from 1981 (no matter how good the ports were).

Third-party support was also a problem, as the 7800 (due to its complexity in working around legacy 2600 internals) was one of the most difficult consoles to program for. In the end, only three other publishers (Activision, Absolute, and Froggo) released software for the platform in addition to Atari, and the best of these titles could merely pass for “acceptable” in the gameplay department. Small wonder the 7800 quickly developed a reputation for being the console equivalent of the low-rent district.

For all of this, the 7800 might still have had a decent chance to succeed in the marketplace had it not been for Nintendo snapping up all the best arcade licenses and locking them into exclusivity deals… which, ironically, had been a tactic Atari themselves had used against their rivals back in the day. The worm does indeed turn. And with even the anemic Sega Master System outselling the 7800 (for that matter, Atari’s remodeled “budget” 2600 frequently outsold its big brother!), it’s not hard to figure out why it had such a brief shelf life.

But at least it got to have a shelf life. It almost didn’t.

Nintendo Virtual Boy (1995): Thank whatever higher power(s) you believe in that the “virtual reality” craze of the ’90s was so short-lived. Imagine if it had caught on. If you think gamers have an image problem now, just think how much worse it would have been if we all had to don funky eyewear and gloves to play our Final Fantasies and/or Halos. I don’t know about anyone else, but having to cosplay as a Borg drone just to play a video game would have sent me scurrying all the way to a new hobby.

Case in point: the Virtual Boy, one of the few unqualified flops Nintendo ever had. This ill-concieved scam to give gamers migraine headaches actually had a distinguished name behind its creation; the system was designed by the late Gunpei Yokoi, he of Game & Watch, Metroid, and original Game Boy fame. But alas, that was about as close to greatness as the Virtual Boy would ever get.

The inclusion of the word “Boy” in the name would seem to imply the Virtual Boy was meant to replace or support the Game Boy. It was not. It was a hybrid portable/tabletop system that you had to look through a visor in order to use. This was the first conceptual mistake Nintendo made; the visor’s tabletop stand was so short (and you couldn’t adjust its height) that you had to either hunch forward to come down to its level, or play on the floor while laying on your belly. Ideally, a system like this would be wearable, either in the form of a helmet or headband, but in 1995 that may have been cost-prohibitive for Nintendo.

Additionally, the graphics it produced were enough to make you question why you bothered risking your spine trying to get a look at them. It did, admittedly, produce a fairly impressive “3D” effect, but did so using an unorthodox method of spinning mirrors all but gauranteed to give you eyestrain and headaches. Worse, because the technology for color VR was far too expensive at the time, Virtual Boy graphics were monochrome – and given a decidedly eye-bleeding deep red tint. That only added to the uncomfortable nature of the system.

One has to think that even Nintendo realized the Virtual Boy would be little more than a niche system; a quick perusal of its mere 21 released games reveals that, of the company’s major franchises, only the always-dependable Mario made an appearance on the console (in two games, Mario Clash and Mario’s Tennis). (This makes it the only Nintendo console since the NES era to not feature the Legend of Zelda millieu in any way, shape or form.) The rest of the console library consists of unremarkable sports games and basic arcade-style contests, including a 3D Tetris redux and a pinball game. However, oddly enough, the VB gets a footnote in Nintendo history as the only console to ever feature a game starring a classic Nintendo Power character! Nester’s Funky Bowling let you bowl ten frames with either the legendary onetime star of the “Howard & Nester” comic or his “twin sister” Hester (who frankly just looks like Nester in a skirt).

The controller was a bit of a problem, awkwardly shaped and not especially comfortable to hold. Rather than analog sticks, a pair of D-pads are used to simulate three-axis movement, which only doubled the risk for “Nintendo Thumbs” following a spirited play session. (Longtime NES players know exactly the ailment to which I refer. These D-pads weren’t much of an ergonomic improvement.) The button scheme was otherwise identical to the NES; Select, Start, B, and A reading from left to right, accessible by different thumbs. This, at least, makes sense, since the Virtual Boy’s design precluded being able to simply shift your glance down at the controller to see if you’re hitting the right buttons.

But the final crippling blow to the Virtual Boy’s fortunes was that the games were simply not fun to play. Whether that’s the fault of the games themselves or the hardware you were forced to play them on, is a matter of some debate among gamers. Regardless, it all seemed like far too much work for not nearly enough reward; the graphics and sound were barely NES quality (despite the 3D effects) and none of the games were overly complex or involved. Add to this the fact that it was almost impossible for many to play on a Virtual Boy for longer than a few minutes at a time without developing headaches, and it makes you question Nintendo’s wisdom even more in developing this system.

Even the Nintendo 64, percieved by many as a marketplace failure, had enough good games released for it – GoldenEye, F-Zero X, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and its sequel (Majora’s Mask), Conker’s Bad Fur Day, the original Super Smash Bros. – to justify its existence. The Virtual Boy has no such gems in its lineup (the closest it comes is Mario Clash, a surprisingly fun variant on the original Mario Bros. game), and even if it did, playing them would be physically painful for many… and no game is worth that.

Give Nintendo credit for trying something different; it is this sense of innovation that has led them to the Wii and its revolutionary motion-sensing remote controller. But the Virtual Boy proved that even innovation can be taken too far and come off as gimmickry, when all gamers want to do is play games (that preferably don’t risk blinding them!).

If you liked that, try...

1. Retro-Active: Consoles That REALLY Never Made It
2. Retro-Active: Consoles That Never Made It
3. Retro-Active: R.O.B.
4. Retro-Active: NES Tetris Revisited
5. Retro-Active: Action 52

1 Comment »

1. 
   Migo
   October 10, 2007 at 12:31 am

   All I can say is that the StudioII is the Crystal Pepsi of the gaming world, and I didn’t know until now that the Atari 7800 was a flop because I had one as a kid and loved it. It was the first time I’d ever seen backwards compatibility in a console and I was thrilled that I didn’t have to buy all new games for it.

   As for the Virtual Boy, I remember Wario Land being not too bad. It was the first time I’d ever seen a game that made you jump into the foreground and background of a board to accomplish something. It did give you wicked headaches though, seeing as you had a 45-pound hunk of red plastic strapped to your head like a re-re.

   [Reply]

Leave a comment