Beyond the Mind's Eye - Thoughts & Insights from Marriott_GuyBeyond the Mind's Eye - Thoughts & Insights from Marriott_Guy

Posted on Jul 12th 2008 at 08:38:33 PM by (Marriott_Guy)
Posted under System Overview, Emerson, Arcadia, Bandai, Intellivision

In 1982, Emerson Radio Corporation decided to enter the video game hardware arena with their release of the Arcadia 2001. Better known for their development of affordable electronic products, this move was not entirely a big surprise. Emerson was always looking for market niches to penetrate to utilize their existing electronics manufacturing team. As with their previous releases of low-end, price friendly electrical component ventures, the Arcadia 2001 would eventually suffer the same fate.

The Arcadia 2001 is not necessarily a bad looking machine. The sturdy, brown plastic housing has a nice accent of wood grain trimming (which was very popular at that time). The console sports a very clean user interface, located in the front and center of the unit. Soft, rounded, gold colored buttons provide easy access to the main systems functions (Reset, Select, Option, Start). The square shaped Power button that flanks these buttons to the right does not really quite fit into the scheme - almost as if this was an afterthought of the chassis design team. The two, non-detachable keypads (Intellivision-type clone) rest in cradles to the left and right, though do not truly fit visually into the design of the console (maybe another afterthought). The Arcadia 2001 does sport one of the longest video RF cables I have seen - 12' long. The plug for the 12 Volt external power supply and a channel 3/4 switch adorn the back side of this system. There are two (2) screw 'holes' on the back as well. I have no idea what these are used for.

Underneath the hood, the Arcadia 2001 was powered by Signetics 2650 CPU running at 3.58 MHz which produced games in 8 colors and at a screen resolution of 208 x 108. The best way to describe games for the Arcadia 2001 is to think of an Atari 2600 release and inject it with a heavy does of steroids. The Arcadia 2001 was a more powerful machine that the console it was intended to dethrone, but Emerson lacked a critical component for success in the console wars - third party support.
 
Cartridges came in two different sizes and are black in color (USA) with well rendered artwork adorning the front of the cart (almost like a mini water color painting) and game instructions on the back. The title is displayed along the 'spine' of the cartridge in easy to read 'rainbow' lettering. The silver colored boxes are similar in size to the Atari 2600, but much more sturdy and are handsomely numbered. Many games come packaged with a controller overlay identical to the same concept used by Intellivision.  A number of popular games were developed for the Arcadia 2001, including Pacman, Galaxian and DefenderAtari successfully sued Emerson, and other companies, claiming they had exclusive rights to these game franchises. These games never saw the light of day and resulted in a waste of a great deal of capital. This left Emerson scrambling for suitor(s) to develop game software. With the Atari 5200 and the Coleco Colecovision about to be released, both being superior systems, development for the Arcadia 2001 was non existent. A total of 35 games (most arcade clones) were released for this system. Surprising, this console was manufactured and released in many different countries outside of the USA. All are basically the same, but differ in one significant way - cartridge size. Games are not necessarily compatible with all systems.

Development for the Arcadia 2001 ceased about one year after it's debut. Unable to compete with technologically superior consoles that were released at virtually the same time (Atari 5200 and Coleco ColecoVision) coupled with the lack of third party software support sealed this system's fate.
 
Prices seem to fluctuate greatly on this system and appear to be dependant on the respective model. Though this console was a relative failure and a mere blip on the radar, it is not that rare and can be easily obtained.



The link to the full review of this system (including ratings, pictures and video):
http://www.videogameconso...rary.com/pg80-arcadia.htm

Thanks all.

Terry (a.k.a. Marriott_Guy)
The Video Game Console Library
http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com


Permalink | Comments [2] | Digg This Article |


Recent Entries
The Top 5 Survival Horror Games for the Sega Dreamcast (2/20/2024)
Trombone Champ Is a Good Game (12/30/2023)
Exploring the Infinite Fusion Calculator (12/5/2023)
Thoughts on the Nintendo Switch OLED Model (11/21/2023)
Hypnospace Outlaw (10/30/2023)


Comments
 
I'd love to find a CIB Leisure-Vision:

http://www.cgcc.ca/articles/view.php?article=Leisure%20Vision

It also had Leisure-Vision labeled cartridges as well. I see still them pop up loose every few years or so.
 
The Leisure-Vision would be a good find - probably the second most desiably system behind the Bandia release.  Too bad that the various cartridges are not compatible - this would have increased the overall Arcadia / Leisure-Vision library significantly.

 Login or register to comment
It appears as though you are not a member of our site, or are not logged in.
It appears as though you can not comment currently. Becoming able to comment though is easy! All you need to do is register for the site! Not only will you be able to access any other site features including the forum and collection tools. If you are a registered user and just need to login then you can do so here.

Comment! It's easy, thoughtful, and who knows you might just enjoy it!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
This is Marriott_Guy's Blog.
View Profile | RSS
Welcome RFG Friends!!

You have stumbled upon my little piece of the RFG universe where you will find my published articles and various other writings / rantings. Having first hand experience through the evolution of the video gaming field (fancy way of me just telling you that I am old), the topics vary greatly.

Kick back and (hopefully) enjoy!!

Disp1.jpg

Part of my collection.
Blog Navigation
Browse Bloggers | My Blog
Hot Entries
Hot Community Entries
Site content Copyright © rfgeneration.com unless otherwise noted. Oh, and keep it on channel three.