Did you know that the Nintendo Family Computer wasn’t the first home video game system
to be sold in Japan?
Well it is not!
Even though the history and worldview of gaming has been written around July 15, 1983 and
the success of Nintendo, who, to their credit took over the industry and smoothed it out
and kept things in order, but they way that THEY saw fit, there was a piece of hardware
before that, that should get the credit as the first popular mainstream console.
Cassette Vision!!
Yeah, back in the pre-Nintendo antediluvian gaming world The Cassette Vision, made by
Epoch, was the market leader.
Epoch and Nintendo were actually in a rivalry as heated at any console war past or present,
and in the 70s and 80 were constantly one upping each other.
That’s back when one up meant something else.
Epoch started operations in Japan in 1958 producing toys and mechanical games.
In the 1970s Epoch took to the emerging market of handheld LCD games, releasing the first
original Japanese made game in 1975 and from there, becoming the most popular maker.
In 1970s Epoch got in on the home Pong clone craze and even imported the Atari 2600 to
Japan for a little while.
They also put out a dedicated Space Invaders clone as well.
On July 30, 1981 Epoch debuted the Cassette Vision to a receptive Japanese audience.
The sticker pice was 13,500 yen.
About 50$ in 1981 and not a lot of money for a county in an economic boom.
The Cassette Vision really is a product of its time.
An evolutionary link in the chain from a home Pong, to what we know today.
There are a lot of switches on the console face and the controllers are built in.
The controllers are a little odd as they have buttons and dials and switches that work differently
with each game.
Each game also housed the Ram and certain processors.
Meaning that the Cassette Vision doesn’t have much going on inside.
11 games were released between 1981 and 1983!
That’s it!
11!
And those 11 games; Yosaku, Baseball, Galaxian, Big Sports Juu-ni, Battle Vader, PakPak Monster,
New Baseball, Monster Mansion, Astro Command, Monster Block and Elevator Panic carried the
Cassette Vision to sales of 450,000 units when it was all said and done.
Nintendo dropped the Family Computer in July 1983 and that was pretty much it for the Cassette
Vision, so Epoch released a redesigned Cassette Vision Jr for the time being and went back
to the drawing board to beat the eventual 8 bit champion.
The came back in 1984 with SUPER Cassette Vision!!
With specs that matched the Family Computer and anything else that was new in 1984!
It debuted on.
July 17, 1984 For 15,000 yen.
The machine also comes closer to resembling a modern home video game, but still isn’t
just quite there.
The SUPER Cassette Vision saw 30 games over the course of 1984 and 85.
Some of these titles like Pole Position 2, Mappy, Miner 2049er and Dragon Ball will ring
a bell!
Some SUPER Cassette Vision titles even had battery backup, which again is something of
a first that the other guys didn’t do for at least a few years.
Other one ups on the competition included RGB Outputs and The machine also made it to
Europe with about half of the games in tow.
In 1985 to boost sales a bright pink version was released called the Lady Cassette Vision,
just for girls, or for collectors, if that’s the story you’re sticking to.
So how did the SUPER Cassette Vision fare?
About 300,000 units, less that the first, but impressive for going up against Nintendo.
Believe it or not the SCV has quiet a home brew community in Japan, with playable version
of Super Mario Bros, Dragon Quest and others available to play!
Pretty impressive!
Release the Game Poke Kon short of the Game Pocket Computer in 1984, which was pretty
much a GameBoy long before the GameBoy was on the drawing board.
But Epoch did move on to other areas including trading card games and even Family Computer
Software on its own.
They also developed Barcode Battler, which again beat Nintendo’s e-reader by about
a decade.
And in what is the most indelible mark left by Epoch, game software in Japan is still
to this day referred to as Cassettes, thanks to the Cassette Vision.
While in English, the word Game Pak has faded from the lexicon.