Arcadia 2001
“35 games, 18 months, endless clones — the Arcadia lived on in everyone else's living room.”
“Six games, three million consoles, and Nintendo was off to the races.”
The Color TV-Game was Nintendo's very first video game system, released in Japan as five dedicated home consoles between 1977 and 1980. Fans clearly loved it: the first two models, Color TV-Game 6 and 15, sold a million units each, and Block Breaker and Racing 112 added half a million apiece. It finished with the highest sales figures of any first-generation video game console.
On July 15, 1983, Nintendo released the Family Computer and quietly ceased production of the Color TV-Game series. It went out on top, retired by its own maker to make room for the machine that would change everything. Not a bad way for a first act to bow out.
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“35 games, 18 months, endless clones — the Arcadia lived on in everyone else's living room.”
“The last TV Jack brought its brains to the family reunion, then retired.”
“A hearing aid maker taught Europe to play. It heard the call, then bowed out in 1983.”