[StoneAgeGamer]

FYI: These keychains are actually no longer being made, they haven't been made for awhile now. We just sold our last one we had in stock to a guy in Brazil about a month ago.

[jaybird3rd]

awace, on Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:59 AM, said:

wow i cant belive youre actually giving them crap think about the fact that the chip that they fit into the keychain is so small the i was impressed they actually got it to work PLus the fact that have you ever made a product and got it to production and then sold it to wallmart I bet that would be harder than you thought ... <snip>

Just noticed that this thread got bumped after a year and a half; I had almost forgotten about it.

First of all, the "period" and "Enter" keys on your keyboard were put there for a reason. Punctuation and paragraph breaks are a good thing and would make your posts much easier to read.

Since the Basic Fun keychains are (thankfully) dead and gone outside of eBay, the discussion is moot anyway, but I couldn't help but notice the picture you posted of your paddle unit. From the looks of the on-screen user interface, that unit seems to be using the same software as the Jakks 13-in-1 paddle controller (or at least some derivative of that software), which is something I wasn't aware of before. I have praised the 13-in-1 in the past, and I still happen to think it's one of the best TV-game products ever made; I still own and play mine. Its accurate representation of the games is especially surprising given that the tiny NES chipset inside the unit is so different from the original platforms. I remain convinced (for reasons I describe in the review linked above) that Digital Eclipse somehow adapted the original game code for the new hardware, a very impressive accomplishment which represents the kind of ingenuity and expertise I've come to expect from them.

So yes, I am very impressed that these units are able to fit so much into such a tiny package, but remember that the hardware is nothing without quality software. Digital Eclipse showed how to do it the right way, but whoever did the bad rewrites in the Flashback 1 and Basic Fun Joystick units evidently didn't have the same level of skill, and that's the only reason those products didn't turn out nearly as well as the paddles did; it wasn't because of any limitations of the hardware at all. Charging top dollar for mediocre talent isn't my idea of a good deal, which is why I came down so hard on the joystick units. If the paddle keychains did in fact use the Digital Eclipse software, the people who bought them were a little less gypped than those who bought the joysticks; at least the paddles offered something playable. The original MSRP was way too high on both units, though, especially since they only came with two games when they could easily have included more. And no, I have never built a product and sold it to Wal-Mart. I've never made a movie, either, but that doesn't preclude me from calling Gigli a bad movie and being secure in my knowledge that it was bad.

I'm actually disappointed that the TV-game "fad" seems to have died off. In my opinion, inexpensive and simple dedicated consoles are the best way to introduce classic video games to new generations of players. It's a pity that most of the classic-themed systems we've seen to date (such as the Basic Fun keychains and the Intellivision handhelds) did not live up to the high standards established by the Jakks 13-in-1 and the Atari Flashback 2. If there is ever to be a TV-game revival, the next generation of consoles should learn from the mistakes (and successes) of the past. They should offer a more authentic experience and should not be completely closed systems, but should take full advantage of the very large and very cheap removable storage technologies available today, as well as the ease of Internet game distribution. I laid out some ideas for such a system in my Flashback 3 thread nearly three years ago. I still hope something like this comes to pass.

This post has been edited by jaybird3rd: Mon Aug 24, 2009 11:39 AM

[jaybird3rd]

Deleted; double-post.

This post has been edited by jaybird3rd: Mon Aug 24, 2009 11:53 AM

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

I bought a set of those mini's.... from a store called "Five Below".... I don't even remember what I paid for them, but it was mostly for the novelty of it. They are still in the packages, and only for show.

Edit: Wow... my 500th post. Far out!

This post has been edited by [d2f]Iggy*SJB: Wed Dec 2, 2009 6:42 PM