ColecoVision Flashback System

[Bill Loguidice]

The tabletop games are definitely interesting. I'm sure the games will play more like their arcade counterparts and less like the vintage table kiosks which played closer to LCD games than actual arcades.

 

It sounds like Riverwest (ColecoVision Holdings), or whoever is doing the manufacturing, is replicating the LCD games (not the exact technology that they were, but a good enough term), not enhancing them.

[Bill Loguidice]

Have you ever played these tabletops before, when you were a kid? The rationale for doing tabletop simulators on the iPhone or iPad is the same as for the Flashback consoles: It's an impulse purchase based on nostalgia, or sheer curiosity about primitive games from the early 1980s.

 

As for the games being "necessarily very simple", I don't understand your point. The Galaxian tabletop has three different game modes and is tons of fun, Pac-Man also has two or three modes of play, Frogger only has one game mode IIRC, but it's still quite entertaining. They're the kind of little games you could buy for 99 cents, play in spurts, and get more than your money's worth.

 

But the licensing issues would probably be prohibitive for all three games, and Donkey Kong's not even worth talking about.

 

Of course. I had and played them then, and I have and sometimes play them now. I think the simulations are cool, but you really need the real thing for the proper experience, and I'm just not sure how much market life these would have coming back. It's a very different experience from recreating a console or arcade game. You're probably talking $30+ for a decent recreation of a single game, and probably more like $40+. It might sell for a bit due to the novelty and nostalgia, but I'm not sure it has much staying power when there are now hundreds of throwaway twitch games on smartphones readily available. We'll see, though. I'm glad Riverwest has seemingly found a partner to do this with. At the very least it will be a potentially cool collectible.

 

I actually also like what Nintendo did with the Game and Watch cartridges for their GameBoy series. That featured both close simulations, as well as enhanced modes. That's kind of why I was excited for a ColecoVision variation of that. I'm just not sure it's a mass market thing, though, especially because I'm concerned the average person won't understand why it moves like it does (screen block to screen block rather than moving like a sprite).

 

I'm also curious about the licensing for a variety of reasons. We'll see what happens with that, but hopefully no one gets bitten by that.

[+Darrin9999]

Here`s some picks of some of the original tabletops.

[misspent_youth]

 

I'd love to know who Riverwest is getting to do the manufacturing, i.e., who they're licensing the original designs to. I'm not aware of a company that makes anything similar, so it will be quite interesting to see who has stepped up as a partner.

There were tabletop space invaders and frogger available for sale a couple of christmases ago so maybe that is a source for tooling etc.

[retroillucid]

I would prefer a CV inside a tabletop though

Basically the same idea as their Flashback , but in a tabletop with LCD screen

 

Or if they make reproduction of orginal Coleco tabletop, maybe they could make it cartridge based?

With each cartridge you have a different game, or two

I can't justify having multipple tabletops , or else, they would be the original ones

[Flojomojo]

They are great controllers, I had one briefly, but the Core will not work with anything except iOS.

I did not know that. The original, mini, and the 8bitty are just (limited, custom) Bluetooth keyboards and can work with compatible android apps. Sounds like the Core doesn't even pair with standard android builds, which sounds like a pain.

 

That said, I neglected to mention that this is an ebay seller with the good deal. This is where I got mine, and it looks like there are plenty more, if someone else wants one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/251590708057

[TrekkiELO]

There were tabletop space invaders and frogger available for sale a couple of christmases ago so maybe that is a source for tooling etc.

 

Yeah, I remember seeing those, they were primarily sold at the Spencer's Gifts stores in shopping malls.

Edited August 7, 2014 by TrekkiELO

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Yeah, I remember seeing those, they were primarily sold at the Spencer's Gifts stores in shopping malls.

I wish I could travel back in time and pick up a Pacman and Donkey Kong.

 

FYI, there is a slim chance Nintendo might license the Donkey Kong tabletop since it's a novelty item and doesn't really compete with console games. Fingers crossed!

[Pixelboy]

I wish I could travel back in time and pick up a Pacman and Donkey Kong.

 

FYI, there is a slim chance Nintendo might license the Donkey Kong tabletop since it's a novelty item and doesn't really compete with console games. Fingers crossed!

Nintendo would probably ask for too much in royalties, if they were willing to entertain the idea (and I'm sure they would not). But it's good to think positively anyhow.

[H.E.R.O.]

Nintendo would probably ask for too much in royalties, if they were willing to entertain the idea (and I'm sure they would not). But it's good to think positively anyhow.

 

They'd also have to deal with whomever owns the Popeye property these days but it'll be a better chance of that than the DK games.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

They'd also have to deal with whomever owns the Popeye property these days but it'll be a better chance of that than the DK games.

 

I put a chance of Nintendo allowing licensing of anything for something like this at 0.0% for a variety of reasons. That basically leaves Sega, Konami, and Namco, and who knows how much they'd want.

[Greg2600]

 

I put a chance of Nintendo allowing licensing of anything for something like this at 0.0% for a variety of reasons. That basically leaves Sega, Konami, and Namco, and who knows how much they'd want.

 

Well Jakks Pacific did well with the Namco arcade games emulated in those TV games. They had Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position, Dig Dug, etc. They were cheap to buy. Either they or someone else did Konami tv games as well (Frogger for instance). Personally, rather than the repro of the vacuform games, I wouldn't mind if these were mini-cabs that had LCD screens and emulated arcade games.

[Flojomojo]

The Jakks games were ten years ago, and we've had a mobile surge since then. Lots of people who probably have a clue about sales numbers have said that the bottom for the plug and play device numbers fell out a few years ago. I hope the intellivision/Colecovision units do well because they're focused on weird nostalgia and have a lot of games, but it seems to me it would be easy to overdo the supply side of this kind of toy. Most people (not us) won't buy them all. I agree that a quality LCD screen running the original arcade games would be preferable to a cut-down simation of an ancient tabletop arcade port.

[Flojomojo]

The Jakks games were ten years ago, and we've had a mobile surge since then. Lots of people who probably have a clue about sales numbers have said that the bottom for the plug and play device numbers fell out a few years ago. I hope the intellivision/Colecovision units do well because they're focused on weird nostalgia and have a lot of games, but it seems to me it would be easy to overdo the supply side of this kind of toy. Most people (not us) won't buy them all. I agree that a quality LCD screen running the original arcade games would be preferable to a cut-down simation of an ancient tabletop arcade port.

[Bill Loguidice]

The Jakks games were ten years ago, and we've had a mobile surge since then. Lots of people who probably have a clue about sales numbers have said that the bottom for the plug and play device numbers fell out a few years ago. I hope the intellivision/Colecovision units do well because they're focused on weird nostalgia and have a lot of games, but it seems to me it would be easy to overdo the supply side of this kind of toy. Most people (not us) won't buy them all. I agree that a quality LCD screen running the original arcade games would be preferable to a cut-down simation of an ancient tabletop arcade port.

 

This is true. You'll note that Jakks themselves has gotten away from classic videogame products. All they have now are gun games with modern licenses that just happen to be plug and play videogames for the TV. They also have a line of Nintendo toy figures.

I'm only aware of AtGames being the remaining significant player in the plug and play videogame space as it relates to our interests. So much has changed since these types of things (up until the mid-2000s or so) could reasonably sell more than a million units. Now I think expectations are in the low hundreds of thousands. That's still a lot, but kind of indicates why this has become such a labored process of deciding what does and doesn't get made and why hitting a certain price point is so important.

I honestly thing recreating these tabletop arcade things exactly as they were is kind of cool, and there will be some type of market for it depending on price point, but I also agree that there's limited medium- to long-term value here. It's not a multi-game, and these things do take up a lot of space. Let's also hope they won't be on C batteries anymore either.

[Flojomojo]

LOL, I forgot about the C batteries. Nostalgia draining away quickly!

[retroillucid]

They'd also have to deal with whomever owns the Popeye property these days but it'll be a better chance of that than the DK games.

Popeye is not public domain?

[Bill Loguidice]

Popeye is not public domain?

 

According to Wikipedia and a seemingly well sourced reference: "On January 1, 2009, 70 years since the death of his creator, Segar's character of Popeye (though not the various films, TV shows, theme music and other media based on him) became public domain^[5] in most countries, but remains under copyright in the United States. Because Segar was an employee of King Features Syndicate when he created the Popeye character for the company's Thimble Theatre strip, Popeye is treated as a work for hire under U.S. copyright law. Works for hire are protected for 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. Since Popeye made his first appearance in January 1929, and all U.S. copyrights expire on December 31 of the year that the term ends, Popeye will not enter the public domain in the U.S. until January 1, 2025 (assuming that no further term extensions are passed into law in the interim)."

 

Regardless, I think all things considered, the tabletop itself wouldn't be in the public domain, even if Popeye were (and it's obviously not).

[retroillucid]

Oh, I see

Thanks for the headup Bill

 

[Pixelboy]

Popeye is not public domain?

LOL! I doubt King Features Syndicate would let you use the Popeye name any more than Peyo would let you use Smurf!

[retroillucid]

LOL! I doubt King Features Syndicate would let you use the Popeye name any more than Peyo would let you use Smurf!

I asked this to see if there's possibility for ATgames to make the Popeye tabletop

 

I'm not interested to make Popeye anyway

Although, I would not mind to own the arcade game

[Bill Loguidice]

Is this the complete list of Coleco tabletops?: Pac-Man, Galaxian, Donkey Kong, Frogger (1982); and Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong Junior, and Zaxxon (1983)

If so, the rest of the stuff was produced by Nintendo and other companies, so I don't think that would fall under Riverwest's purview. Of that list, clearly the only possibilities would be Pac-Man, Galaxian, Frogger, Ms. Pac-Man, and Zaxxon. Naturally, Riverwest and whoever their manufacturing partner is would have to go through an additional layer of licensing for those titles, but even scoring one of them (maybe not Zaxxon and to a lesser degree, Galaxian), would probably be a good first release with wide appeal.

[Bill Loguidice]

I asked this to see if there's possibility for ATgames to make the Popeye tabletop

 

I'm not interested to make Popeye anyway

Although, I would not mind to own the arcade game

 

AtGames is not involved. Their future planning does not involve products like this.

 

I was always a fan of the arcade game, and had several home versions, starting with the Parker Brothers Atari 2600 port.

[Hyperboy]

I have a minty Popeye cab,

It doesn't get the play time some of its brethren do though

[retroillucid]

I have a minty Popeye cab,

It doesn't get the play time some of its brethren do though

We seem to enjoy the very same arcade games