Nolan Bushnell's new SNAP game console

[SteveW]

I've got a copy of Wired Magazine (the one with Linus Torvalds on the cover) that has a charity eBay auction listing on page 60. You can win a new SNAP console and a night of gaming with Nolan Bushnell. The console is supposed to have 50 games pre-loaded. I've never heard of this new console. I'll admit that I haven't Googled for the info yet. Has anyone heard of this before? I didn't know Bushnell was working on anything like a new console.

[SteveW]

I couldn't find any info about it on Google. I just found a blurb about the auction stating the console would be autographed by Bushnell, and the console hasn't reached the market yet. From the picture in the magazine, it's a curved wedge shaped machine with it's own built-in monitor.

 

I'm dying to know more about this thing for some reason.

[JB]

I couldn't find any info about it on Google. I just found a blurb about the auction stating the console would be autographed by Bushnell, and the console hasn't reached the market yet. From the picture in the magazine, it's a curved wedge shaped machine with it's own built-in monitor.

 

I'm dying to know more about this thing for some reason.

Because it's from the Bushnell.

[Channel 2]

It's not a home gaming console. There's some information here: http://www.falcon-capital.com/uWink%20Exec...ry%20(8.5)1.pdf

 

"Ideal distribution points include bar-tops, tourist areas, business kiosks, points-of-sale, and the gaming and lottery industries."

[RCmodeler]

Doesn't Bushnell realize that the arcade industry is all-but-dead?

[Room 34]

Never underestimate the mighty Bushnell!!!

 

@SteveW:

Is the Cos' advertising a Texas Instruments computer there in your avatar?

 

(Looks like a TI and I seem to remember him doing commercials for them... but that image on screen looks like an Intellivision title screen!)

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Doesn't Bushnell realize that the arcade industry is all-but-dead?

Wishful thinking. I go to me local arcade all the time, I wish there were more arcades, im sure people would go if 3/4 of all the games arent on a home console.

[Room 34]

The key for arcades is to have the kinds of games you CAN'T play at home... like the one where you sit on a stationary bike and you control a pedal-propelled flying contraption chasing down balloons... that game is great!

[Major Havoc 2049]

The problem with arcades these days is that they are too expensive. When the vast majority of games cost anywhere from $1.00 to $2.00, consumers just don't feel the enjoyment is worth that much, especially with the deeper game experience at home. Most arcade games suck these days anyways, they are just some gimmick with shallow gameplay.

 

These snap machines won't be in arcades anyways, they are just like those game/trivia machines they have in bars already. People will always booze it up.

[Ze_ro]

(Looks like a TI and I seem to remember him doing commercials for them... but that image on screen looks like an Intellivision title screen!)

 

Nope, that's indeed a TI-99/4a start up screen... the two horizontal rainbow bars are a dead givaway. I don't recally Cosby advertising these though (My memory isn't what it used to be).

 

The problem with arcades these days is that they are too expensive. When the vast majority of games cost anywhere from $1.00 to $2.00, consumers just don't feel the enjoyment is worth that much

 

That's the reason I stopped playing. I used to love playing Alien Vs. Predator or WWF Wrestlefest on a quarter.... but wasting a whole dollar for 30 seconds of Daytona was never good enough for me. I also completely stopped playing pinball the day they started charging $0.50 for it. When I see quarter machines that I like, I'll still play them. Metal Slug, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo and Ms. Pac-Man at my unversity saw a decent amount of play from me.

 

Paying a lot to play fighting games always seemed like a waste of time to me too... I was really into Street Fighter 2, and to a much lesser extent, Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct... but it takes a while to get half-way decent at the games and learn their moves, and by that time, you've wasted $10. It takes far too long to learn them before you can really have fun.

 

The fact that the games are available on home consoles was never that big a factor for me... being at the arcade is a whole experience thing. Home consoles had the same arcade feeling the way emulators have the save console feeling: It's almost, but not entirely unlike the real thing. That's just me though... lots of people seem perfectly happy with emulators and consoles.

 

--Zero

[SteveW]

Room 34 wrote:

(Looks like a TI and I seem to remember him doing commercials for them... but that image on screen looks like an Intellivision title screen!)

 

 

Nope, that's indeed a TI-99/4a start up screen... the two horizontal rainbow bars are a dead givaway. I don't recally Cosby advertising these though (My memory isn't what it used to be).

 

Yep, Cosby pimped TI Computers back then. He was their spokesman for two or three years, if I remember right.

 

There's companies developing monitors that deliver true 3D without using glasses. If arcade game manufacturers used that kind of thing in their machines, it would give people something they couldn't get at home. And drop the prices of game rounds back down to a quarter. Most new machines are based on home console technology anyway. If the hardware inside only cost $200, you don't have to charge $1 each play just to make up the cost of the hardware.

[VidGameKing]

yes, if arcades mad a technology leap, and the prices went down I, as well as advertizing on TV, "At an Arcade naer you!" arcades could come bace to life. then use the arcades, not the home consoles, to pioneer new ideas. Then aftert a year or two when newer things come out, trickle the "older" arcade technology down to home consoles. just like in the pong era, or the early 2600 years.

[Ze_ro]

There's companies developing monitors that deliver true 3D without using glasses. If arcade game manufacturers used that kind of thing in their machines, it would give people something they couldn't get at home.

 

As long as they do a remake of Time Traveler, I'm all for it!

 

What really spells the death of arcades now is the fact that home consoles are already so popular. It would be almost impossible for a company to make as much money off of an arcade machine as it could off of a console release... Even if the console release is inferior (Mortal Kombat was still mighty popular on the SNES and Genesis). And it's very likely that if your game is a complete failure, then a console release of it would be less dangerous than an arcade release, since the arcade machines are probably a lot more expensive to make.

 

The only way I can see for arcades to come back is if developers make a real effort to bring them back... by making arcade exclusive games, and just absorbing the financial loss until the time that arcades become popular again. It could take an awfully long time though. Instead, perhaps it would be better to find a (legal) way to just make arcade machines with a console system in there and multiple games. For example, stick an X-Box (A real one, not just the Chihiro or whatever) in there with 20 games... this would make it a much cheaper update for arcades. It worked for the NeoGeo machines. I wonder if people would be interested in "arcade" machines with older consoles in them... would you pay $0.25 for a 2600 game in the arcade?

 

--Zero

[SteveW]

I wonder if people would be interested in "arcade" machines with older consoles in them... would you pay $0.25 for a 2600 game in the arcade?

 

This goes back to my post on a thread about console games people wanted to be in arcades. Imagine mulitplayer Ballblazer with multi cabinet networking. How about up to eight players on each side? And big-ass monitors in the machines, and surround sound stereo. It makes me drool just thinking about it.

[JB]

What really spells the death of arcades now is the fact that home consoles are already so popular. It would be almost impossible for a company to make as much money off of an arcade machine as it could off of a console release... Even if the console release is inferior (Mortal Kombat was still mighty popular on the SNES and Genesis).

But it's even worse, sinc ehte modern arcade systems are, in most cases, using the EXACT SMAE HARDWARE as their home console counterparts, so they can't even pull the "we're shinier" card.

 

As an example, Namco's Soul Calibur 2 arcade game runs on the system 246 hardware. Which is a PlayStation 2 with a coin slot.

Tekken 4 and Time Crisis 3 run on the same hardware.

 

Better-known hardware-wise is Sega's NAOMI board, which is a Dremcast with extra RAM.

[VidGameKing]

doesn't sega still make cab games using the noami board?

[JB]

I believe so.

 

They may have moved on to exclusively NAOMI2, since it's backwards-compatible.

[Tempest]

Area 51 and Max Force ran on modified Jaguar hardware.

 

Tempest

[JagWarlord]

Arcades arnt dead...I got one in my basement with 4 Machines

Anyone else have thier own arcades?

[JagWarlord]

Arcade games that I still pay $1 to play ,

Slient Scope

Top Skater

House of the Dead

Manx TT

Alot of other cool games that I cant remember the name to

[VidGameKing]

Area 51 and Max Force ran on modified Jaguar hardware.

 

hmm do you think somehow one could mod a home Jaguar to play Area 51? you know if you got the rom image and what not, could it be done? didn't they just speed up the clock and give it more memory? or did they add any additional hardware to the mix?

[SteveW]

I always thought the Area 51 hardware just had a 68030 added instead of the 68000. I don't remember reading anything about extra memory being added, but it's always possible.

[VidGameKing]

hmm, yeah thats right a different processor, it wouldn't be hard to remove the old 68K and put in a new 68030. but I think there is more to it that physically changing the co-processor. I think there may be more ram nessasery, or faster ram at least, and doing somthing with the video output, and somthing with the some sort of rom or somthing, maybe the Jag dosen't have a rom, so that wouldn't matter.

[JB]

Area51 used a hard drive. You need a disk controller and hard drive with appropriate data.

[Curt Vendel]

Doesn't Bushnell realize that the arcade industry is all-but-dead?

 

Arcades are dead, this is why these new coin-ops are targetted at bars and restaurants. Merit has that market all but locked up, in 4 1/2 years uWink has only been able to sell just over 500 of there units...

 

One shining product, the Wallruss internet jukebox was a total nightmare....Nolan tried to skirt around FCC approval by having the prototype done in China... well to get the unit into the US cost him a fortune and whomever did the Industrial design didn't take into account the height and width of doorways, so it had to be taken apart to get through the doorway at the office, geeezzzz....

 

Hopefully this new SNAP partnership will work out better and they will help clean up Nolan's severe financial issues, he's in massive debt and is doing anything right now for cash... He still has collection firms hot on his tale over the non-payment of tournaments from the uWin tournaments and most of his former employee's still haven't been paid. One employee was brought onboard with the understanding that he would put $500,000 of his own cash into the firm, they took his cash and fired him, nice huh? This is nothing new for Nolan, he did this while at PlayNet, programmers weren't paid, then fired and still never paid, then during a huge scandal over several million of missing funds Nolan packed up his family and hid in Europe for several years until things blew over...

 

Nolan has a brilliant mind, I've enjoyed our conversations, however he needs to get past his cash problems and get himself back on track.

 

 

 

Curt