The Missing Link: Preserving RCA’s Intermediary Step Between Arcade Video Games and Home Consoles

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

When you think of video game pioneers, you most likely first think of companies like Atari, Taito, Midway, or Namco; or people such as Nolan Bushnell, Shigeru Miyamoto, or Space Invaders’ Tomohiro Nishikado. Your mind probably does not go to engineer Joe Weisbecker or his employer, the American consumer electronics behemoth RCA. And yet, through the efforts of Weisbecker and his coworkers, in the early 1970s RCA was on the bleeding edge of microprocessor, home computer and video game technology. Weisbecker’s work led to the creation of the 1801 and 1802, the world’s first microprocessors based around CMOS technology, the latter of which was used in RCA’s sole released home game console, the Studio II.

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Video Pinball (Arcade Pinball) – April 1981

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

While to audiences today the word arcade may conjure up images of video game cabinets and redemption games, the concept of a gaming parlor goes back decades before Computer Space was ever a gleam in Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney’s eyes. Before video games, you had electromechanical machines like Sega’s Periscope or Williams’ United Century Bowling Alley. And alongside those –and for decades earlier – you had pinball.

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Tennis – March 1981

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

The final March 1981 release, Tennis, is another sports game from the folks at Activision, which drew attention with titles like Boxing, Skiing and Dragster in its first year. While tennis as a sport has been a standby for game-makers almost as long as video games have existed, Alan Miller’s rendition was one of the earliest attempts to make a version of the sport that was more accurate than what you’d gotten out of Pong clones the previous decade.

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Laser Blast – March 1981

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

In addition to titles published by Atari and Sears, Activision had two releases in March 1981 as well. The company’s six offerings from 1980 were broadly considered to bring a new degree of graphical refinement and interesting subject matter to the VCS, and the developers at the company continued to produce inventive and impressive games in the new year. Case in point is Laser Blast, which takes the common video game premise of a space-themed shooter and flips it around, resulting in a challenge where players go on offense.

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Stellar Track – March 1981

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

At first glance, Stellar Track seems like a minor VCS release, and it is – as a Sears exclusive that requires the instruction manual to learn to play, it’s hardly the first game people talk about when bringing up the all-time classics on the platform. But what makes Stellar Track interesting is that the game itself is just a single part of a much broader history of games and popular media, a link in a greater tapestry. This is the story about the early days of fandom, a struggling science fiction TV show, and working within strict limitations to produce one of the most widespread computer games ever made. This is the story of Star Trek.

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Steeplechase – March 1981

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

March 1981 introduced a pair of novelties to the VCS library, in that they are first-party Atari games that are also retailer-exclusives. Steeplechase and Stellar Track are the first two of four games that had some kind of exclusivity to Sears, then one of the largest retailers in the United States and a partner of Atari’s in the home gaming space since it stocked Atari’s dedicated Pong console in 1975 under its own branding.

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Othello – March 1981

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

At this point in the VCS’s history, the platform has hosted a slew of traditional, real world games. Chess, checkers, backgammon, blackjack, and several others have helped fill out the VCS library with ways for enthusiasts to enjoy these games by themselves – or at the least a venue to play them without the setup. With that in mind, today’s game is practically the end of an era: Othello marks the last VCS game from Atari itself trying to translate one of these pastimes to the console. It is also incidentally the first of five games we’ll be looking at that came out in March 1981, which seems to have been the busiest month for new VCS releases that year.

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(Pele’s) Championship Soccer (Soccer) – February 1981

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

Atari didn’t take long to open up 1981 with a new release, as Championship Soccer – or Pele’s Championship Soccer, as it was quickly rebranded – started reaching store shelves that February. Despite being initially planned for a fall 1980 release, the first real soccer game on the VCS was seemingly delayed until after the Christmas season.  

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Bridge – December 1980

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

Rounding out the blockbuster year of 1980, Bridge is perhaps the most niche release to come out of Activision on the VCS. In fact, it’s arguably the most niche game on the platform. This is a single-player conversion of the team card game of the same name – a card game, it should be noted, that has appeared on home video game consoles approximately one time that I’m aware of, and that’s right here.

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Skiing – December 1980

Posted on by Kevin Bunch

While Atari itself may have wrapped up its 1980 wares in September, Activision had two final games for the year. The company itself announced these as shipping in December for sale in January, though it does appear at least some retailers started receiving and advertising them as available late in the month, shortly before the Christmas holiday in the US. Of these two games, Skiing is unquestionably the better known release today, as it wound up as an excellent rendition of the snowy sport.

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