21 replies to this topic

[lucifershalo]

from Robotron 2084 wikipedia: "In 2004, Midway Games released a plug and play version of Robotron: 2084 as part of a line of TV Games..."

any infos about that?

thanks

[nonner242]

I never saw this?

[Crazy Climber]

I never even heard of it. I really like Robotron, probably would have bought it....only if it had 2 joysticks though

[pboland]

I know one was announced but, I don't think it ever saw the light of day. Remember wikipedia is not always right. I just tried searching on the net and found nothing on this but, at wikipedia.

[brojamfootball]

I don't think it exists. I've done tons of searching around the net and on many forums for info on hacking plug-and-plays, and have never heard it mentioned. I would probably already own it if it did exist.

[Retro Rogue]

Just corrected the Wikipedia entry. According to Jeff V's page (he was the coder on it via Digital Eclipse, the company responsible for the conversions), it was never released.

[onmode-ky]

As the (corrected) Wikipedia entry notes, a Midway TV Games unit had been planned by Jakks Pacific, who announced in mid-February 2004 their acquisition of a license to release such a product. That license did result in the Mortal Kombat TV Games unit, but nothing beyond that (possibly due to the MK unit's poor sales, despite stellar reviews, or simply as a result of the retro TV Games in general selling below expectations). There were several licenses acquired by Jakks Pacific which they announced but for which they never released actual products, such as the Tecmo license (announced August 2004; I have a picture of a prototype/mockup that was displayed at EntertainmentEarth.com for a while, but that's as close as it got to release) and the SNK license (announced February 2005). Toward the end of 2005, I had begun to suspect that the Capcom announcement from the same time as the Midway announcement was never going to result in actual product, but, to my surprise and joy, the Capcom TV Game actually did get released near the end of that year, though it was only in Canada for the first few months (and mine is a bilingual Canadian release bought for me by an aunt in Vancouver). That one ended up being the last retro TV Game released that was not Pac-Man-related or a rerelease like the Atari joystick.

All that information and more, available in the files of my Comprehensive Plug-and-Play Listing thread! Sorry for the bit of self-promotion, but I did just attach the 20090502 edition of my data file to it. The file itself is actually dated mid-March; since the beginning of the year, a whopping 2 new products is all that I have found to add to the file. The plug-and-play category is really dwindling these days (and it's also the slowest quarter of the year for new toys). I'd intended to wait until I could post a more substantive update of my file, but I figured 4 months since the last update was long enough. Well, I did discover that one of the generic plug-and-play OEM manufacturers had a website update and listed different products from before, but since they're just OEM and have no actual proof of the products being produced and sold, I didn't add them to my file.

Anyway, I hope I added some context to this discussion.

onmode-ky

[awace]

http://www.atariage....mp;hl=plug play
also the keychains are cool too.
now i want 2 stelladaptors to play robotron. oh and some tiewraps to mount joysticks..

[brojamfootball]

onmode-ky, on Sat May 2, 2009 7:41 PM, said:

I have a picture of a prototype/mockup that was displayed at EntertainmentEarth.com for a while, but that's as close as it got to release) and the SNK license (announced February 2005). Toward the end of 2005, I had begun to suspect that the Capcom announcement from the same time as the Midway announcement was never going to result in actual product, but, to my surprise and joy, the Capcom TV Game actually did get released near the end of that year, though it was only in Canada for the first few months (and mine is a bilingual Canadian release bought for me by an aunt in Vancouver). That one ended up being the last retro TV Game released that was not Pac-Man-related or a rerelease like the Atari joystick.

I'd love to see that pic of the unreleased Tecmo unit, and/or the Capcom unit which I don't think I've seen.

[onmode-ky]

Here are the publicity shots I have of the canceled Tecmo TV Game and the Capcom TV Game. The production Capcom unit looks pretty much identical to this one; the only difference I can tell at a glance is the fact that, in this picture, the yellow Capcom name/logo sticker is not filling in that empty indentation for it at the lower left corner of the unit's top side.

I wonder if the Midway TV Game ever had a prototype made of the controller. After all, it got far enough for all the programming to be done already (as related at Jeff Vavasour's page). Flipping things around, I also wonder if the Tecmo unit had any programming finished for it, since it had at least a controller mockup finished.

onmode-ky

Attached Thumbnails

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[brojamfootball]

onmode-ky, on Sun May 3, 2009 8:46 PM, said:

Here are the publicity shots I have of the canceled Tecmo TV Game and the Capcom TV Game. The production Capcom unit looks pretty much identical to this one; the only difference I can tell at a glance is the fact that, in this picture, the yellow Capcom name/logo sticker is not filling in that empty indentation for it at the lower left corner of the unit's top side.

I wonder if the Midway TV Game ever had a prototype made of the controller. After all, it got far enough for all the programming to be done already (as related at Jeff Vavasour's page). Flipping things around, I also wonder if the Tecmo unit had any programming finished for it, since it had at least a controller mockup finished.

onmode-ky

Thanks for the pics! What games are on the Capcom one? I've never seen it.

[onmode-ky]

brojamfootball, on Mon May 4, 2009 3:51 AM, said:

Thanks for the pics! What games are on the Capcom one? I've never seen it.

Commando, 1942, and Ghosts 'n Goblins. The porting was done by frequent TV Games developer HotGen. I'm not well-versed enough with any of these to know how close they are to the original arcade releases, but I think they're pretty close. The only difference I ever noticed was that the sound glitches out a little bit when you do a roll in 1942.

The original press release for this TV Game listed the game set as 1942, Ghosts 'N Goblins, Mega Man, Gun Smoke, and Side Arms. Obviously, things changed over the course of the nearly 2 years that passed between announcement and release. The back of the retail box advertises Mega Man as being available soon as a GameKey for this unit, but, of course, that and most other GameKeys never materialized.

Interestingly, about a year after the original press release, another one (see this) announced an expanded game set for the planned GameKey line. Now, the set included Commando, Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3, and Street Fighter II: Championship Edition. Particularly unusual about this announcement was that just 2 months prior, Radica had announced the release of their 2-player Sega Genesis plug-and-play unit with Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition and Ghouls 'n Ghosts. So, it looked like we would end up with one unit reproducing an arcade SFII, possibly with only 1 player, as well as another, 2-player unit reproducing the Genesis SFII. As things turned out, only the latter made it into the public's hands (and retailed for what I thought was a ridiculously high price, either $35 or $40).

That has to be more information than anyone wanted to know about this. . . .

onmode-ky

[brojamfootball]

onmode-ky, on Sat May 9, 2009 9:48 AM, said:

brojamfootball, on Mon May 4, 2009 3:51 AM, said:

Thanks for the pics! What games are on the Capcom one? I've never seen it.

Commando, 1942, and Ghosts 'n Goblins. The porting was done by frequent TV Games developer HotGen. I'm not well-versed enough with any of these to know how close they are to the original arcade releases, but I think they're pretty close. The only difference I ever noticed was that the sound glitches out a little bit when you do a roll in 1942.

The original press release for this TV Game listed the game set as 1942, Ghosts 'N Goblins, Mega Man, Gun Smoke, and Side Arms. Obviously, things changed over the course of the nearly 2 years that passed between announcement and release. The back of the retail box advertises Mega Man as being available soon as a GameKey for this unit, but, of course, that and most other GameKeys never materialized.

Interestingly, about a year after the original press release, another one (see this) announced an expanded game set for the planned GameKey line. Now, the set included Commando, Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3, and Street Fighter II: Championship Edition. Particularly unusual about this announcement was that just 2 months prior, Radica had announced the release of their 2-player Sega Genesis plug-and-play unit with Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition and Ghouls 'n Ghosts. So, it looked like we would end up with one unit reproducing an arcade SFII, possibly with only 1 player, as well as another, 2-player unit reproducing the Genesis SFII. As things turned out, only the latter made it into the public's hands (and retailed for what I thought was a ridiculously high price, either $35 or $40).

That has to be more information than anyone wanted to know about this. . . .

onmode-ky

Thanks for the info. As I said, I have never seen that Capcom unit. Many times when I have looked for better info on similar plug and plays the dialogue gets sidetracked by arcade 'nazis' going nuts about the lack of perfect accuracy compared to arcade originals. Thanks for the straightforward info.

[pboland]

onmode-ky, on Sat May 2, 2009 9:41 PM, said:

All that information and more, available in the files of my Comprehensive Plug-and-Play Listing thread! Sorry for the bit of self-promotion, but I did just attach the 20090502 edition of my data file to it. The file itself is actually dated mid-March; since the beginning of the year, a whopping 2 new products is all that I have found to add to the file. The plug-and-play category is really dwindling these days (and it's also the slowest quarter of the year for new toys). I'd intended to wait until I could post a more substantive update of my file, but I figured 4 months since the last update was long enough. Well, I did discover that one of the generic plug-and-play OEM manufacturers had a website update and listed different products from before, but since they're just OEM and have no actual proof of the products being produced and sold, I didn't add them to my file.

Anyway, I hope I added some context to this discussion.

onmode-ky

This might be a little off topic but onmode-ky have you ever thought of putting up a website for the Plug-and-Plays? That would be pretty neat with pics and screen shots. Just a thought.

[Kripto]

Can you imagine how hectic and unpleasant a game of arcade Robotron would get if all you had to control it was two little sticks on a tiny board? It sucks badly enough when you try and play it with a PlayStation-style dual-analog stick controller...

[mcjakeqcool]

Yeah, I'm a user on wikipedia and I have noticed that they don't allways get things right, there was meant to be a Saturn port of Doom 2, and I searched the net top to bottom, and no sources what so ever. I mean if there is a Saturn port, I put my hands up and apologize, but... ya know.

[Video]

They might have meant to have a Doom 2 for the Saturn, but never finished it (or perhaps even started it)

AFAIK, the only Doom 2 to hit something other than computer, is on Gameboy Advance (or one of the collectors Doom3's for X-box)

[onmode-ky]

pboland, on Sun May 10, 2009 4:46 PM, said:

This might be a little off topic but onmode-ky have you ever thought of putting up a website for the Plug-and-Plays? That would be pretty neat with pics and screen shots. Just a thought.

No, I haven't. I don't have pictures and screenshots of every plug-and-play product (not by a very, very long shot, fewer than 5 pictures, I think). I have a list, and that is all; the number that I actually own is about a dozen, far from the hundreds of products which have been released. So, with few assets and insufficient hands-on experience to even have reviews, all I can present is a list, which I have done.

Incidentally, I may have found the answer to my own question from a few days ago, when I wondered if the Tecmo TV Game, though unreleased, ever had its coding done. If you go to the ESRB website, you can find in the plug-and-play listings that there is indeed an entry for "Tecmo TV Games" (rated Everyone, no content descriptors). If the rating exists, then surely something was reviewed by the ESRB to get that rating. You can also find "Midway Gamekey - Defender/Toobin" (rated Everyone, with Animated Blood, Mild Violence) and "Midway Gamekeys - Joust/Sinistar" (rated Everyone, Mild Violence) among the entries, though no sign of a Robotron rating. In fact, there are quite a few Jakks Pacific entries there which never had a retail release. I wonder how much development funding without return on investment that adds up to.

onmode-ky

[mcjakeqcool]

@onmode-ky

Not sure.

[S1500]

http://ultimateconso...com/tvgames.htm has a list of some(I doubt all) of the TV dedicated games.

[brojamfootball]

onmode-ky, on Sun May 17, 2009 5:49 PM, said:

pboland, on Sun May 10, 2009 4:46 PM, said:

This might be a little off topic but onmode-ky have you ever thought of putting up a website for the Plug-and-Plays? That would be pretty neat with pics and screen shots. Just a thought.

No, I haven't. I don't have pictures and screenshots of every plug-and-play product (not by a very, very long shot, fewer than 5 pictures, I think). I have a list, and that is all; the number that I actually own is about a dozen, far from the hundreds of products which have been released. So, with few assets and insufficient hands-on experience to even have reviews, all I can present is a list, which I have done.

Incidentally, I may have found the answer to my own question from a few days ago, when I wondered if the Tecmo TV Game, though unreleased, ever had its coding done. If you go to the ESRB website, you can find in the plug-and-play listings that there is indeed an entry for "Tecmo TV Games" (rated Everyone, no content descriptors). If the rating exists, then surely something was reviewed by the ESRB to get that rating. You can also find "Midway Gamekey - Defender/Toobin" (rated Everyone, with Animated Blood, Mild Violence) and "Midway Gamekeys - Joust/Sinistar" (rated Everyone, Mild Violence) among the entries, though no sign of a Robotron rating. In fact, there are quite a few Jakks Pacific entries there which never had a retail release. I wonder how much development funding without return on investment that adds up to.

onmode-ky

Maybe with that development cash already spent, we'll get to see a Midway plug and play with Joust, Sinistar, Defender and Toobin someday. I'd buy that for a dollar!

[mcjakeqcool]

Shame it was cancelled, I'm a own every system collector, so I would have bought it just to say I own it.