The Game.com is a handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics in August 1997. It features a touchscreen and stylus. The first version of the Game.com includes two slots for game cartridges and can be connected to a 14.4 kbit/s modem, making it the first handheld to include Internet connectivity, hence its name referencing the top level domain .com. A smaller version, the Game.com Pocket Pro, was released in September 1998, followed by a third version known as the Game.com Pocket.
Video Game.com
History
Original version
Prior to its release, Tiger Electronics stated that their Game.com system would "change the gaming world as we know it," while a spokesperson stated that it would be "one of this summer's hits." The Game.com was developed to compete directly against Nintendo's portable Game Boy console. Dennis Lynch of the Chicago Tribune considered the Game.com to be the "most interesting hand-held device" on display at the 1997 Electronic Entertainment Expo, describing it as a "sort of Game Boy for adults".
The Game.com was released in the United States in August 1997, with a price of $69.95, while an Internet-access cartridge was scheduled for release in the autumn. Lights Out was included with the console as a pack-in game and Solitaire was built into the handheld itself. By late September 1997, several games had been released for the console: Henry, Indy 500, Quiz Wiz, Wheel of Fortune, and Williams Arcade Classics.
The Game.com featured a design similar to Sega's Game Gear console, with a screen larger than the Game Boy's. The Game.com included a phone directory, a calculator, and a calendar, and had an older target audience. The device was powered by four AA batteries. Tiger produced equivalents to many Game Boy peripherals, such as the compete.com serial cable, allowing players to connect their consoles to play multiplayer games or exchange high scores. Branded items such as an AC adapter, earphones, and a carry-case were also made available.
The Game.com's monochrome touchscreen measures approximately one and a half inches by two inches, and is divided into square zones that are imprinted onto the screen itself, to aid players in determining where to apply the stylus. The Game.com touchscreen also had a fairly low sensor resolution along with no back-light, so it lacked precision and made it hard to see the on-screen controls. As with most portable devices in the 1990s, data storage was entirely dependent on a backup battery, and its failure would erase high scores or any other information stored within the console.
While Tiger was able to obtain game licenses like Wheel of Fortune, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mortal Kombat, Duke Nukem, and Resident Evil, none of these games sold in great numbers. Development of games, including licensed ones, was done in-house, with the exception of Centipede. Software development kits were not known to be widely available, and third-party development (essential to the success of most gaming systems) was absent.
Later versions
Tiger released the Game.com Pocket Pro in September 1998. This was a smaller version of the game.com which had the same specifications as the original except that it had a single cartridge slot, and required only two AA batteries. The Game.com Pocket Pro featured improved screen quality over its predecessor. The initial version of the Pocket Pro featured a front-lit screen (although it was advertised as being back-lit) and is distinguished by its rough-textured black case. A subsequent re-release, dubbed as the Game.com Pocket, omitted the front light and came in four translucent colors: green, blue, pink, and purple.
Both re-releases shared very limited success, and the handheld would be canceled in 2000, along with its exclusive Internet service. Most of the console's problems were due to a small line-up of only 20 games, poor quality of some games, lack of third-party support, poor distribution and marketing. Unlike the original Game Boy, its screen suffered from very slow screen updates (known as "ghosting"), which makes fast moving objects blur and particularly hurt the fast-moving games Tiger sought licenses for.
Although the Game.com was a commercial failure, similar features were later used successfully in the Nintendo DS. The Game.com was the first to include basic PDA-functions and the first handheld to allow Internet access.
Maps Game.com
Internet features
To access the Internet, users had to connect an external dial-up modem to the Game.com via a serial cable and dial into a game.com-exclusive internet service provider (ISP). From there, users could upload saved high scores to the game.com database (games do not feature online play functionalities), or check e-mail and access the web (text-only) if they had the Internet cartridge (sold separately from the modem).
The game.com also supported other ISPs, although set up was a matter of trial-and-error. Both Tiger's now-defunct website and the included manual gave incorrect instructions for setting up a game.com for Internet access. Later, single-cartridge re-releases of the game.com could not access the web nor check e-mail.
Technical specifications
Games
There were 20 games released for the game.com.
Released:
- Batman & Robin
- Centipede
- Duke Nukem 3D
- Fighters Megamix
- Frogger
- Henry
- Indy 500
- Jeopardy!
- Lights Out
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park
- Monopoly
- Mortal Kombat Trilogy
- Quiz Wiz: Cyber Trivia
- Resident Evil 2
- Scrabble
- Sonic Jam
- Tiger Casino
- Wheel of Fortune
- Wheel of Fortune 2
- Williams Arcade Classics
Cancelled:
- A Bug's Life
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert
- Furbyland
- The Legend of the Lost Creator
- Metal Gear Solid
- NBA Hangtime
- Shadow Madness
- WCW Whiplash
Reception
The Game.com sold fewer than 300,000 units, and was ranked as third on GamePro's 2007 list of the 10 worst-selling handheld game consoles. At the time of its release in 1997, Chip and Jonathan Carter wrote that the console did not play action games as well as it did with other games, although they praised the console's various options and wrote, "Graphically, we'd have to say this has the potential to perform better than Game Boy. As for sound, game.com delivers better than any other hand-held on the market."
Steven L. Kent, writing for the Chicago Tribune, wrote a year later that the console had an elegant design, as well as better sound and a higher-definition screen than the Game Boy: "Elegant design, however, has not translated into ideal game play. Though Tiger has produced fighting, racing and shooting games for game.com, the games have noticeably slow frame rates. The racing game looks like a flickering silent picture show." In 2004, Kent included the modem and "some PDA functionality" as the console's strengths, while listing its "Slow processor" and "lackluster library of games" as weaknesses.
Brett Alan Weiss of AllGame wrote, "The game.com, the little system that (almost) could, constantly amazes me with the strength and scope of its sound effects. [...] It's astounding what power comes out of such a tiny little speaker." Cameron Davis of VideoGames.com wrote, "Sure, this is no Game Boy Color-killer, but the Game.Com was never meant to be. To deride it by comparing it with more powerful and established formats would be a bit unfair". Davis also wrote, "The touch screen is pretty sensitive, but it works well - you won't need more than a few seconds to get used to it." However, he criticized the screen's squared zones: "more often than not it proves distracting when you are playing games that don't require it."
In 2009, PC World ranked the Game.com at number nine on its list of the 10 worst video game systems ever released, criticizing its Internet aspect, its game library, its low-resolution touchscreen, and its "Silly name that attempted to capitalize on Internet mania." However, PC World positively noted its "primitive" PDA features and its solitaire game, considered by the magazine to be the system's best game. In 2016, Motherboard stated that the Game.com was "perhaps one of the worst consoles of all time," due largely to its low screen quality.
Notes
References
External links
- Game.com Official Website (archive)
- Game.com at Curlie (based on DMOZ)
Source of article : Wikipedia
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