Whatever happened to home tabletops?

[Ed Oscuro]

I know they weren't always the best quality, but tabletops were cool. Just look at this... I can't imagine what could be done with today's technology, but I sure would like to see. Anyhow, what's everybody else think about the issue?

[chadtower]

Very cool. The problems with making such things today stand more with manufacturing styles and with expectations. Companies don't want to make things with moving parts today. They want to put everything into software and run it from a CE or Linux kernel to keep hardware costs down. I don't think anyone would bother with such a thing today.

The expectations problem would be with the target market, today's preteen. Do you really think an 11 year old is going to want one of those when they think a REAL game has to be on a 32" screen with cinemas, boobs, violence, and violent boobs?

Okay, here's a third potential problem. The main selling point of standalones like that in 1985 was that they freed up the TV. That would mean more time for the parents to watch less danger of "ruining the TV" as was a fear back then. Nowadays many houses have a TV in every freakin' room and the
"it ruins the TV" issue is pretty much dead.

Those products are cool but I just don't see them coming back in any substantial form. I think the best we're going to see are lame LCD games that run for $10 at KB.

[Lady Jaye]

There's also the fact that, back then, there were no handheld consoles. Nowadays, why have standalone tabletops when a kid can use a GBA and change carts at the spur of the moment?

Frankly, the only market I see for these are people like us (in the 25-35-year-old range), who grew up with those tabletops. And since it's such a restricted market now, that's why the Pac-Man handheld that was released a couple of years doesn't look any better (image-wise) than the old Coleco tabletop did. It's as if the handheld development market (I mean -- Tiger Electronics) was stuck in 1984.

I'm more impressed with VFD-based handhelds (like Entex's Defender handheld). Now, these looked nice!!!

Because of all these factors, that's why I'd rather opt for a 1982-released tabletop (the casing usually looks nicer) than one that was released only a couple of years ago (go to Radio Shack and you'll know what I'm talking about). The only true problem with the vintage tabletop (aside from their size when compared to, say, a GBA) is the fact that they usually work with C batteries (either 2 or 4 of them) and that C batteries made today are slightly smaller than those produced 20 years ago (the only solution I've found for this problem is to nudge the batteries in place with paper or a kleenex).

[Ed Oscuro]

One issue - a big issue - is that all the VFD displays I see for sale now are in the $100-$200 (and if you get one with a controller, $300) range. Backlit LCD screens are similarly expensive. For somebody to make a line of these they'd have to make a good order of screens. The VFD screens are high quality and have good resolution (I've seen models out there up to 256x128 for standard displays, haven't seen any square ones), but modern graphic VFD displays don't have the same sort of character the old systems had with characters. On the plus side, you can move graphics back and forth on the newer system without that annoying flickscreen stuff...but then your system display becomes essentially a bright single color LCD screen :/

I imagine the way to go would be with some sort of cheaper backlit TFT-like screen such as the GBA has. It would be neat to bring back the 3D perspective of the Virtual Boy with better materials. You could still go crazy with the semitransparent mirrors but wouldn't need VFD screens or many moving parts.

[Jasoco]

boobs, violence, and violent boobs

My three favorite things.

[Bratwurst]

Frankly, the only market I see for these are people like us (in the 25-35-year-old range), who grew up with those tabletops. .

Agreed, the only justification nowadays would be in the form of selling it as a novelty, considering laptops, PDAs and gameboys sufficiently handle portable entertainment. As an aside, you'd be hard pressed to find a new tabletop fashioned after a real arcade cab, because frankly I feel those are pretty much a dead beast. Sure, they're still around, but never in the full force that they were in the 70s and 80s.

I could see superb mockups of licensed Pac-Man and Donkey Kong miniatures using today's technology, and those potentially selling well if the manufacturer coughed up enough money to showcase them on CNN.

For a broader market, the only viable thing I could imagine would be a mini-DDR machine where you use your fingers to represent a little man on the pad. Even though I think it would be an atrocious abomination, it'd be the modern day equivalent to that electronic Simon game.

[KJN]

Go here for an old Coleco tabletop TV-commercial (X-entertainment, great site).