Page 16 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #4

I game re-
magine if
surgence
there was
one com-
pany that ful- of the late
eighties.
filled all the Hasbro
needs of all reentered
gamers, clas- the elec-
sic and cur- tronic
rent. Imagine gaming
if one com- forum in
pany owned 1995
the rights to all the classic games and tronic age in 1988. Under a new divi- when it formed Hasbro Interactive. The
reissued them in contemporary and sion imaginatively named Hasbro Elec- company quickly created a niche for
classic editions. Well, before you get tronics, the company planned to market itself by releasing computer versions of
your hopes too high, you may as well a new interactive console called Con- practically every board game in its
know that such a company does not trol-Vision, which had been developed catalog. Then, in 1997, it released
exist. But what if there was one com- by Nolan Bushnell's company, Axlon. Frogger for the PlayStation and PC.
pany today that has some involvement Unlike the existing consoles, the Con- After the game sold millions of copies,
with nearly every console that ever ex- trol-Vision was going to use video- Hasbro Interactive knew for certain that
isted? By all reasoning, this company tapes. Axlon developed a compression there was money to be made with well-
would surely be the Ultimate Video- routine that allowed five full-motion known classic games. The company
video tracks and sixteen digital
audio tracks to be crammed to-
gether on one videotape without
any quality loss. The system
could switch back and forth be-
tween the 21 tracks instantane-
ously. Hasbro claimed that the
new system would be a cross
between a movie and a video-
game and produced two live-
action games at a cost of $4.5
million.
Hasbro had hoped to sell the
system for $200 and intended to
Frogger (Hasbro Interactive) market it directly against the Nin-
tendo Entertainment System (NES). Night Trap (Hasbro/Sega CD)
game Company. And this company Unfortunately, the cost of dynamic
does exist! RAM (DRAM) was more expensive decided to go after bigger fish.
During the height of videogames’ than Hasbro had anticipated and there In 1998, Hasbro Interactive pur-
popularity, when every imaginable was no way that the company could chased the remnants of Atari from JTS
company was joining in, it was com- sell the system for under $300. Nobody Corporation for a mere $5,000,000.
pletely assumed that toy companies at Hasbro or Axlon felt that the Control- Hasbro Interactive’s plan was to update
would be interested in claiming a piece Vision could ever succeed at that price such well-known titles as Missile Com-
of the videogame pie. Mattel, the num- so the project, as well as Hasbro's mand, Centipede, and Pong.
ber one toy company, wasted little time hope of being a major force in the elec- Owning the Atari catalog alone
in creating an electronics division and tronic arena, was scrapped. would have given Hasbro the title of
diving right in. Other toy and game In a classic rags-to-riches type being the 'Ultimate Gaming Company.'
companies such as Coleco, Milton story, today Hasbro is one of the lead- And since the company also owned all
Bradley, and Parker Brothers followed ing software developers in the world. of Atari's consoles from the JTS deal, it
suit. Through many acquisitions, the compa- could theoretically re-release the
Surprisingly, Hasbro, the second nies under the Hasbro umbrella own 2600/7800 and 5200 with enough soft-
largest toy company, never joined the the majority of games that were avail- ware to keep potential hardware cus-
fray. Referred to as ‘Has-Been’ by its able during the early eighties. But Has- tomers supplied with 'new' software for
competitors, the Hasbro myth was that bro's reign doesn't only cover the clas- many years.
it was an old-fashioned company with sic games. Hasbro owns several com- And what about the third party ti-
absolutely no interest in electronic fads panies that played a part in the video- tles? Well Hasbro owns much of those
at all. The truth of the matter was that too.
the company’s CEO, Stephen Has- The Parker Brothers titles could be
senfeld, wanted to jump on the elec- available since Parker Brothers is a
tronic bandwagon all along. Unfortu- division of Hasbro. In fact it was one of
nately, Hassenfeld didn’t trust his own those Parker Brothers titles, Frogger,
designers to build a winning videogame that set Hasbro Interactive on its retro
system from scratch and he wasn’t awakening.
thrilled with the concepts that inde- Parker Brothers' perpetual rival had
pendent developers offered him. So always been that other Massachusetts-
Hasbro stayed away from the elec- based game company, Milton Bradley.
tronic industry during the early eighties. And naturally Milton Bradley had also
Hasbro formally entered the elec- jumped on the 2600 bandwagon, re-
River Patrol (TigerVision)
Classic Gamer Magazine Summer 2000 16