Atari Paddle TV Game Confirmed, Capcom, EA Next

Thanks to IGN Gear for its article confirming the forthcoming Atari 2600 Paddle TV game from Jakks - the news story explains: "Like the Atari TV Games joystick released two years ago... gamers simply plug it directly into the television to experience the old-school games", and indicates the game line-up for the 1 or 2-player versions will include "Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Casino, Circus Atari, Demons to Diamonds, Night Driver, Steeplechase, Street Racer, Super Breakout, Warlords, Warlords Arcade, Video Olympics, Arcade Pong and Pong." We've previously covered announcements of many other licensed TV games from Jakks (Midway, Namco, Activision), but haven't mentioned a forthcoming Capcom TV game "including 1942, Ghosts 'N Goblins, Mega Man, Gun Smoke and Side Arms" - the official Jakks TV Games site also has 'EA Sports' listed as an (unelaborated on) game choice.

Comments

right on!

[Tumbleweed]

Warlords was a lotta fun - a multiplayer breakout, very cool.

The problem here is that once you collect all these joysticks, then you've got a big collection of joysticks to hook & unhook, depending on which games you want to play. They should figure out a way around that, like have one joystick, with, I dunno, a cartridge system or something.

Oh, wait...

Re:right on!

[Saige]

No, the real problem, at least with this one, is that you can only play 1 or two player Warlords.

Warlords isn't really great unless you have four people playing. It's like having a SF2 game - that can only be played single player. It's a HUGE issue that takes the best game of the set and makes it just mediocre.

I'd rather just get the original Atari, Warlords, and 2 sets of paddles, instead of getting this half-functional set.

Let's wait until we can play it ourselves

[lightspawn]

If similar products are any indication, they'll find a way to make the games subtly different in ways that will completely destroy gameplay (different timing, quirks, uncomfortable controllers, huge reset buttons you can't help but press every once in a while).

Is the concept nice? Sure. Is the execution any good? Can't tell yet.

So you'll excuse me if my nipples don't explode with delight just yet.

And here's a thought: Buy a used VCS2600! They're not exactly rare (by virtue of being very popular back in the day, and not being very easy to destroy).

Re:Let's wait until we can play it ourselves

[josh glaser]

Those points may hold true for other "classic" devices, but Jakks' TV Games are different. They use controllers based on the original arcade/2600 sticks, for example. They're much better than any other "Plug & Play" game.

Re:Let's wait until we can play it ourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the Atari Joystik thing -- the joystick feel is perfect, but half the games on the thing are paddle games!

The probably worked their ass off porting joystik games to the paddle controller.

Atari one

[hiroshi912681]

I had the pleasure of playing the original Atari controller, and I could tell, it was NO atari. They're ports. It's slightly entertaining, but I'd rather pay $10 than $20 for it. I don't know much about the first Namco one, other than Pacman's patterns are missing. (I kind of wonder how the vertical screen was handled). If the first namco one had Galaga instead of galaxian, it'd have been mine. They split up my favourites, I'm not going to get them both. All of these things are well emulated, so the only one I could make good use of is the paddle version (sold my atari collection).

Does anyone know what Megaman game is going to be on the Capcom controller? It'd be a crime to humanity if it weren't Megaman 2 or 3. The first is just masochistic. Are the other games arcade ports or NES ports?

Nice and all

[miyako]

these things are nice and all, good when you are yearning for a bit of nostalgia from these few games, but I think companies are still overlooking the killing that could be made by selling roms.
I for one think that the first company to offer an iTMS-esque rom download center could make a killing.
Imagine selling a SNES controller with an emulator built into it. You get the urge to play chrono trigger or Super Mario All Stars you just download the game for a buck or two, upload it to the controller, hook it up to your tv or computer via usb and start playing.
The fact that they are making a profit off of these things, and the sheer number of sites dedicated to (s)nes, genesis, atari, etc emulator shows that there is a market for this.
I'm not the type to think that a game being old automatically makes it a good game, but there are a lot of timeless games out there that are still fun, and a lot harder to play now that functioning hardware is not as readily available.

Re:Nice and all

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

Not exactly what you're after, but www.starroms.com trades in licensed MAME images. I guess it's a start, but seeing what's happening with GBA ports, don't get your hopes up about Nintendo.

Re:Nice and all

[miyako]

I'm not really sure how nintendo's license contracts go, but could they really do anything to prevent other companies from releasing their SNES games onto something like this?
I really think that once one company takes the plunge, other companies will follow because I think this could make good money. I also do not think that this would really conflict with nintendo's GBA ports too heavily, because while there is an overlap, the best games to play on the road might not always be the same games one would want to play at home.
Of course I could be slightly bias because I love RPGs but I hate playing RPGs on a handheld system. The text is often too small for one, and also if I'm going to be playing at home I would much rather be playing on the comsole/computer (of course I guess that is what the GBA player for GC is for, I really need to pick one of these up, anyone had any good/bad experiences with them?)

Re:Nice and all

[BTWR]

Capcom may own the code for Street Fighter, but Nintendo owns the code for the "OS" that it's played on, so any emulator of an SNES game would automatically have to use some sort of Nintendo copyright. As you smartly saw, the GBA ports are now a very profitable source of SNES games, so such a system (where games sell for $2 instead of $29.99 carts) will not, and should not, happen for a while.

Can Capcom go an re-write it's SNES Street Fighter game for another handheld OS? Sure. But will it? Probably not...

Re:Nice and all

[hiroshi912681]

besides starroms, there IS a legal source of playing emulated roms... It's KIND of like iTMS... Check out Consoleclassix

They have snes, nes, sega genesis and atari. Someone figured out a legal loophole that allows you to "rent" a game online. They have original cartridges that they have backed up onto their server, and only allocate the number of copies they own to members. So, if 4 people are playing final fantasy, and they only have 4 copies, you can't play until someone logs off of that game. I believe the service is free for NES and 2600, and you'll have to pay for the rest.

Also, besides just roms, there are some new companies offering netflix-like services for older console games... if you still have those systems, anyway.

Young people these days.

[barrettlight50]

I got your 2 player paddle game right here.

Where is Kaboom!?

[Anonymous Coward]

How could they leave out the all-time greatest Atari 2600 paddle game?

Re:Where is Kaboom!?

[Saige]

Because it was an Activision game, and not made by Atari as the other games on the set are. It's a completely different company, and as Activision is busy continuing to make collections containing their Atari 2600 games available now and then, it's not likely they'd have been able to get it without at least significant royalties.

Re:Where is Kaboom!?

[dangermouse]

There's supposed to be an earth-shattering Kaboom!

awww. they need an activision one

[cheezus]

I wanna play Kaboom!

Re:awww. they need an activision one

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, that was the greatest paddle game, period.

Re:awww. they need an activision one

[exick]

The fact that Kaboom is not on the list makes the whole thing worthless.

Re:awww. they need an activision one

[generic-man]

They make an Activision 10-in-1 version, but it lacks Kaboom!.

Best way to tell if a woman is lying about her age

[linzeal]

Since getting one of these joysticks and leaving it hooked up to the TV in the living room me and my room mates have watched with glee as both men and women but esp women react to it.

Have the Namco one

[Mantrid]

I got the Namco one (pac-man etc) for my wife, but thinking "she'll never really play this...", to my surprise she fires it up fairly often. Something about zero load times, simple game play, being able to insta-reset and play a different game...she loves it. Plus it has a "real" arcade joystick. I think games have gotten too complicated for a lot of people to bother playing...but don't try and take away my Far Cry mind you!

I hope it is more sturdy that the original

[Xian97]

From what I remember, the paddle controllers were not very sturdy compared to the old Atari joysticks. 20 years ago my girlfriend was hooked on Breakout on the Atari 800 and would go through a paddle controller a month. They would eventually just start sticking and finally only move in one direction. Taking them apart and cleaning them internally did little to prolong their life once they started sticking. On the other hand, I still have working Atari joysticks that were heavily used on the Atari 800, Atari ST, and Amiga.

Re:I hope it is more sturdy that the original

[Sylver Dragon]

That's wierd, I had the exact opposite experience. The paddles we had lasted for the entire time we had our 2600. Granted that we didn't use them as much as your girlfriend, but Warlords and Breakout we still favorites. The Joysticks on the other hand were absolute crap. We'd kill another one every couple of months; granted, my brother and I had nothing better to do in the afternoons than play with the Atari, and I had a Yar's Revenge addiction. We eventually found that the main failure had to do with the silver button on the board in the joysticks, which controlled movement. And that by using a knife or other small impliment we could reshape the button somewhat and get more life out of the joystick, but even that eventually didn't work after a while. In all, the controllers for the Atari were pretty good for the time, but the didn't stand up to heavy use/abuse.

MOD PARENT UP

[ClioCJS]

Because he's 100% right!