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JAKKS Adds More Namco, Atari Paddle TV Games
Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting the press release discussing JAKKS Pacific's licensing of further classic Namco arcade games for their all-in-one 'TV game' line-up. The new "lightweight, compact, all-inclusive controller... will feature the classic games Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Xevious, and Mappy", and is a follow-up to a previously featured controller which featured other classics such as Pac-Man. JAKKS has also licensed Spider-Man for a stand-alone TV game, joining the other all-in-one games licensed from Atari, Activision, and others. The official site also has a list of forthcoming games, which look to include an as yet unannounced stand-alone Atari 2600 paddle controller.
Several such NES versions exist, some of which are legal. Check out this page to find details of some of them.
As for the SNES... After the days of the NES system, video game property rights changed dramatically. During the age of the Atari and Intellivision, the company who owned the system owned all the games, and the developing companies retained no rights.
Nintendo revolutionized this system, which was part of why developers were so happy to make games for the NES. The downside: 90% of the games for the SNES are owned by companies other than Nintendo.
Of course, since Square and Enix merged, they've put out a TV set-top Dragon Warrior game, so it wouldn't be impossible for them to create such a device containing some of their SNES greatest hits... However, a lot of video game companies are still kind of turned off at the whole idea of using solid state memory as a permanent storage medium.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
That's exactly it. It has a menu of "thousands" of games, but it's really 70 or so games listed a couple hundred times over. The thing itself is pretty shoddily built, and has mislabeled most of the games, but it's nice for a quick nostalgia fix...
Paul Lenhart writes words!
I know there are a heck of a lot of knock-off, unofficial ones, though - I even saw one recently with a Famicom cartridge port in it, so you could play Japanese NES games on it
For a list of way too many knock-offs, check out Famiclones. Some of the stranger ones are meant to be mistaken for a SNES, Genesis, or even a Playstation.