Game Watches: Better than you Don't Remember | Nostalgia Nerd

imagine a world where you didn't have to carry around this big slab of plastic to play games or find out the time imagine instead you could get both those features on a wrist watch what year is it 1977 [Music] welcome to 1977 and the arm of a fine business person sporting a unitrex datatime monte carlo watch on the surface it looks like your standard digital timepiece but press a bit further and we quickly discover that this little miracle device has not one but three separate games huddled within its tiny shell that's right this is where the story of casual on the go gaming begins all thanks to a japanese company named aiko business machine co who decided that gaming was no longer for the stationary player it was for people who needed to get up and go if that sounds like you then you're going to benefit from my sponsor morning brew you all know that i love tea right well this is the perfect pairing it takes literally seconds to sign up and then monday to saturday you'll get a free daily newsletter this is good for two reasons number one it gives you a relevant funny and informative breakdown of useful news number two it stops you jumping on social media first thing in the morning and needlessly scrolling you get tech updates business updates even cinema updates here you go universal have just struck a deal with theater chain cinemark allowing it to debut a movie on streaming just 31 days after theaters god i remember when it used to take literally years before even landing on vhs it's free so click the link in the description to subscribe to morningbrew today like many companies who would soon enter this new wrist-based world iko business machine co were more familiar with other types of electronic production through their unitrex brand the office became easier to use with revision upon revision of desk calculators which of course gave them a good basis for wrist watches especially with calculator watches well and all sorts doing the rounds despite the impossibly small size of the buttons gimmick watches like this proved successful but with arcades becoming ever more prominent and households filling up with pong machines and the like the gap they saw in the market was a profound one the august 1977 issue of news scope magazine said an on the wrist gambling casino is the latest feature to be packaged into an lcd digital watch based on a random number generator in the watch circuitry three games are available simply by pressing a game and display switch jackpot dice and roulette so this was gameplay at its most simple press a button random numbers were generated and depending on the outcome you would win or lose by 1980 another japanese firm cassio were keen to capitalize on this newly carved niche but with something aimed at perhaps of a younger more infused gamer after all not many teenagers were playing dice and roulette this is the casio game 10 and really the first time the world would witness an arcade style game on a watch here we have a game with a bespoke play area and it seems to borrow very heavily from taito space invaders from 1978 i mean who wouldn't want to play space invaders on demand from their wrist i do so here we have it a game watch it's easier to play on its side and it's very simple but it's actually quite entertaining shoot the enemy ships as they both fire back and descend towards you one button cycles between each position whilst the other fires aside from that it's pretty much a normal watch with an alarm a stopwatch even a corner light it's really a tentative step for cassio to test for waters in this new market this then is where the world of watch gaming takes off and it would be nintendo who first grabbed the concept and ran with it [Music] but they decided the platform should be more of a handheld affair rather than a finger driven affair the game and watch series really laid the foundations for nintendo's game boy but here it's just a passing mention because it strays from the fundamental idea of being a wrist-based game and watch in 1981 a company popped up seemingly from nowhere operating out of long island city new york this company was called nelsonic industries but rather than being born from thin air it was actually a subsidiary of the watch and jewelry manufacturer m z burger and co burger and co had been founded in 1950 by michael zachary burger and joseph mermelstein but it was joseph's son bernie who decided that the company needed to forge better relations with the upcoming electronics industry in hong kong now sonic then would import technology and sell these products to an eager and younger market they were really looking to build on casio's innovation and create a watch line that would really fire the imagination here i have the star trek 2 the wrath of khan video game watch from 1982. now this particular watch isn't branded now sonic instead carrying the name collins industrial but the hardware and game itself is exactly the same as this space attacker this is one of the first products to roll out of nelsonic stores and really the product which established their name but it also features one of the most banded around watch cores you're likely to see you'll find it relaunched as a zeon space invaders game a pulsar watch and you'll even find the same layout and hardware used in an animated saxon watch released by chiong kunko limited along with this 1982 star trek watch so the core of all these watches actually rolled out of the same hong kong factory before having their own hardware and design tweaks now sonic were just the first and actually it's a pretty nifty piece of hardware whereas casio's watch needed a separate and dedicated game area now sonics could seemingly switch to an alter ego where the entire screen was transformed into game mode but how is this possible after all lcd screens contain fixed pre-imaged cells which are simply turned on and off when needed these cells cannot overlap or contain multiple images as when turned on they just appear as one amalgamating blob of the two well simply space attacker uses a dual layer lcd two lcd elements are placed on top of each other exposing one line of contacts for each one top the other bottom and when switching into game mode the watch simply switches over to the second lcd and the fun can begin well almost i mean it's a simple game as you'd expect ufos enter from the side of the screen and we can move the gun to shoot in one of three positions however you have to cycle through these positions by pressing the left button so moving from right to middle actually takes two presses and then you can fire and this leaves a lot of scope to die especially with ufos entering from areas on the left and right which you can't even reach and then dive bombing you apparently out of the blue it's a tough game but for a 1981 wrist game it's decent it's also generic enough to get away with the numerous branding offerings including star trek although priced at 45 or a whopping 128 accounting for inflation it was not cheap after testing the concept worked nelsonic perhaps spurred on by the collins industrial version decided to plunge into the growing world of video games and license for titles that were already known and loved pac-man was first licensing recognizable brands made these game watches instantly more desirable and there was none bigger than pac-man the map may be smaller the graphics may be limited but look at this thing it's got an actual joystick in fact it comes with four joysticks you can switch out representing each of the ghost colors you can then wangle until your heart's content or from the comfort of your own wrist wherever you are remember this was the early 80s and arcades were becoming huge imagine as a kid being able to stretch out your r member playgrounds and play pac-man at whim imagine the looks on your friends faces now this now highly collectible joystick version was quickly superseded by the cheaper and more reliable button version and more licenses would quickly follow here's frogger licensed from sega no less yep sega did get in there before nintendo and it's a game which perfectly translates onto a tiny lcd screen i mean not this screen as this one is broken but look that's irrelevant here's cubert as another example in the arcades it's a simple one screen game so on the watch it translates beautifully as a one screen game of course compared to the original space attacker we're dealing with more complex games here more elements more movement points and so the number of connectors required for a dual layer lcd starts to become more fiddly combined with the increased play space required the answer instead was simply to expand the lcd gaming area and push the actual watch part of the watch to the top right hand corner this is the type of design we would see on most game watches going forward whether now sonic or not now you might note that this watch is actually branded clown it's the exact same watch this is just another example of where the hong kong based manufacturer has skirted around now sonic and distributed non-branded versions of the watch to other suppliers for distribution this happened a lot in the 80s but in terms of sales it did little to dent nelsonix cash flow i mean did you want to be that kid in the playground with the clown watch or cubert i mean come on whilst nelsonic was snapping up licenses another company gce had created the game time watch and see what they did there i like it general consumer electronics who would go on to create the vetrex home video game console had dabbled in the world of lcd gaming but lacked the experience necessary for a game watch they therefore went to the toy think tank western technologies it was then up to jerry carr and tom sloper to come up with the concept of integrating four games using an lcd screen western already had available this means that the games themselves look fairly generic and basic but with titles such as firing squad alien assault missile strike and blast away the device proved successful by this point cassio had also expanded their game watch line along with numerous other competitors and clones but it was still now sonic with their recognizable licensing but shone through for any kid who opened up their parents mail order catalog or who chose something from an index or argos store it was these watches which really stood out and that in large part was thanks to the recognizable characters and branding that drew your eyes directly in from a distance these devices felt incredible they felt like they were doing the impossible and placing almost full arcade games in a tiny wearable unit this was the future so when nintendo brought out their nes console in the states and agreed a licensing deal with nelsonic things escalated to a whole new like you're level involved with real sound and real pictures that come out and hit you in the face after all nintendo themselves didn't have time for such trivialities especially with their new game boy on the horizon but they still wanted to fill the market space nevertheless introducing game boy super mario brothers and the legend of zelda were the first games to get the watch treatment and zelda in particular is one which can really capture the feel of the original console game the view is top down movement is chest like and you have various rooms with increasing levels of challenge it's unmistakably zelda and that's helped in part by the colored lc background of course the sound output of these devices is still very piezo and watch-like but you can always turn that off and crack on now 1989 is also significant because it's when these guys started taking off but now tiger gives you all the fun and excitement of your favorite arcade game in the palm of your hand games like jordan versus bird seven game variations make going one-on-one with your favorite basketball heroes a real matchup of thrills and action ah tiger nor their overly exaggerated marketing splendor now tiger based out of vernon hills and illinois were founded in 1978 by the wristman brothers they had created various electronic toys throughout the 80s including their own take on nintendo's game and watch series but it was the launch of their handheld range which really turned people on well most people that didn't have a game boy at least again this was in large part due to their licensing deals which really differentiated between an unknown lcd game and something that was instantly recognizable and relatable of course it was then only natural to produce game watches after all if you've got a handheld it's not too difficult to shrink it down into a watch here's one of the first hard driving now you recognize this layout don't you this is instantly recognizable as a tiger watch the metal push selectors on the side make way for chunky red bits of plastic the color bezel burns its way into your retina and the almost neon playing buttons etch their rubbery ways into your soul this is what tiger did they took a gaming medium that was subpar and colored the crap out of it until it looked phenomenal it doesn't even matter what game it is wwf superstars robocop i mean these are just lust worthy aren't they they scream at you from your friend's wrist you see it and then you look at your own wrist and you're like good god i need that colorful glory on my arm instantly what you don't need is tiger's marketing slogan collect them all and you'll have the most popular wrist in town most popular wrist in town it sounds like something you'd find scrawled on a toilet wall for crying out loud you know you need the sheer power of robocop's ultra blaster ripping through ed 209's hyper alloy armor and blowing your mind with break time satisfaction yeah the reality was never quite the same as expectations but while tiger were blowing our minds now sonic or if you were in the uk it's outsourced licensee xeon were busy upgrading their output to something chunkier something that would compete with tiger's offerings this is when we saw a move from this style to this now i distinctly remember opening up super mario 3 for christmas 92 and my soul was instantly enriched like all these games the premise is simple get through the level defeating the same obstacles which tend to get faster on each round but it was truly portable it was always almost literally on hand and it meant you could get away with it in school in the doctor's waiting room in church whether satanic or normal or anywhere you wouldn't have got away with a chunky handheld unit all you had to do was remember to slap it on your wrist each morning and you were never left without entertainment it's a bit like what we instinctively now do with our phones every day but this was just much cooler of course every series has its peak and in their bid to try and get one back on now sonic tiger moved onto this style of watch yeah i mean it was nice while it lasted lads but every dog has its day and you had yours tiger you definitely had yours by the late 90s with proper handheld consoles becoming even cheaper the game watch disappeared into history i mean they came back recently what with smart watches and the like but these artefacts of the 80s and 90s with their distinctive bleepy tones and screens that you're barely able to see were very much a thing of their time and for many of us a truly treasured thing thanks for watching hey and have a great evening [Music] you

Channel: Nostalgia Nerd

Views: 143,731

Keywords: game watch, game and watch, nelsonic, game wrist watch, tiger handheld, nintendo

Id: E9JS00b_-Uo

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020