I owned a Microvision back in the 70s right when it came out. I still have it with all of the boxes in my meager Microvision collection. My favorite handhelds back in the late 70s were Coleco football and Mattel basketball, but the Microvision was something else since you could slap cartridges into it and the other handhelds just had one game to play. Some thoughts - 1) Star Trek Phaser Strike is significant, other than the Star Trek license, because it was essentially a primitive Missile Command released a good year or so before actual Missile Command in the arcades. You could fire from 3 positions by pressing the buttons on the keypad, not just the one you mentioned in the video. So it really was like Missile Command's three missile launchers at the bottom of the screen, albeit crude, even for the time. The game also had some difficulty settings to ramp up the challenge. 2) Vegas Slots - My opinion on these sorts of games of that era and why they were popular is because "digital" slot machines were emerging in casinos at that time. Along with the video game revolution then, this fascinated older folks who frequented the casinos who maybe didn't "get" all of the videogame excitement (Pac-Man seemed to be a universal hit with all ages, however). My aunts, for example, would go down to Atlantic City (not far from us) and I think really enjoyed the new digital versions of slots with the sounds and graphics they could generate over traditional slots as well as new play styles that conventional slots could not produce. These simple handhelds captured some of that fun and they did seem to enjoy playing Vegas Slots. I seem to recall one aunt having various standalone "slot machine" handhelds over the years, come to think of it. I think the better implementations of the video game slot machines helped people learn patterns and could possibly use them to their advantage at the casino on when they felt a machine would "payout" or not. For some reason at about 8 or 9 years old I loved playing Vegas Slots over and over, even though it was mindless. Although I did enjoy playing poker with my family at an early age, so that may have had something to do with the fascination. Also of note is that Vegas Slots has two other game modes for two players - both are push your luck variations with both players trying to maximize their scores with the results. This adds a slight bit of tactical play and thinking vs. the regular mode of just randomly spinning the slots. 3) The European carts look amazing! My US version had poor quality membranes for "buttons" which would wear out because you had to press down hard on them to get the game to respond. The buttons on yours look really good. I also love the colors and design aesthetics of yours so much more. The US versions were all bland beige. The knob on yours appears better built than the US counterpart as well. Thanks for giving some love to this forgotten but still influential (in its own way) system!
I concur, the UK version looks better than the version we got and even as a kid I was concerned about the membrane getting damaged by fingernails. I also did not get a cover. I don't know if that was because I got mine after the initial release (1980 or 1981) or because the US didn't get that. I will say my favorite game was baseball.
The different cartridges look absolutely amazing! I love the different colors and button variations. Great job on you finding and collecting all of those different cartridges. :)
Great video mate - did like the TopHatGaming take on history lesson. 👍 LCD screen failure is becoming more and more of an issue with no real resolution other than keep swapping screens for one in a slightly less worse state (with the end result still being inevitable). Did like the cheeky throw reference at the end, made me chuckle
What I especially like about your reviews is that you delve into things that aren’t as linear as the system itself, showing how we got from A to B or much further out. The history in getting there tends to be more interesting than the systems themselves. I hope you will always continue to do a lot of research on how the machines or even their companies came to be, and also what drove them into or out of existence. One interesting factoid you may have overlooked in your review or perhaps i missed it when getting a cup of coffee: this console contained no computing hardware at all, but rather only an LCD display, a speaker, a pot for the controller, intermittent button array, and the cartridge connector - all of the processors and computing occur within the cartridges themselves. So each cartridge is it’s own system and the Microvision itself is merely being utilized as an interface for the cartridge. I’m not sure if that had been done by another manufacturer as it would at first appear to be cost-prohibitive when building your entire ‘console’ into every game cartridge you create. On another note, being a technology child of the 70s into the 80s, my youth and adolescence was rife with Milton Bradley and also Parker Brothers all around me, and I was saddened frankly when Hasbro, of all corporations, gobbled them up and ended their respective legacies. Not a fan of them to begin with, and those actions cemented my feelings toward that corporation - not that they care at all mind you. Cheerio!
Top quality video. I remember these things in the toy shop back in the day. It was too expensive for me though. So my money went on a Blip instead. But is that really how you pronounce Bowling?
@15:27 I wondered too; and upon contemplating, I ken that people enjoy gambling simulators because those same people want to verify how "un-lucky" they are. Great video; Thumbsies!
The music in the background was doing my head in trying to remember what game it was. But I finally got it... Earthworm Jim 2 on the Sega Saturn. What a game! Great video once again with SOOOO much bloody research gone into it. Yeeeaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
Collecting first-of-a-kind game platforms, I actually own this one. And I played it quite a lot back in the 1980s. I even got so far in Breakout to exceed 999 points. The system starts counting up from 0 then. My record is somewhere around 1240 points. Since the system doesn't save anything, I am not sure about the exact score, of course ;-) Other titles I like on the MB Microvision are: Blitz (a base moves top to bottom and you have to hit the "alien" dots moving right to left) Connect Four Sea Duel (a strange battle featuring a destroyer and a submarine) Breakout and Super Breakout Considering the few titles available for the system, I think there is quite some entertainment to be found there. In my humble opinion that is quite impressive for this vintage pioneer of module-based handhelds. And the system has only 4-Bit CPUs - which reside in the cartridges - strange stuff indeed...
This is one of the greatest video game series ever. Now imagine if you did every home console. That would take an eternity and you'd run out of places to play.
Thank you for a stroll down memory lane. Odd thing is I had this as 13 year old. Problem is my family very light on funds during most of my childhood and don't know how they could have afforded it at the time. Do you know what the retail price was for the "console" and individual game?
The first time I've ever heard of the MB microvision was from French RUclipsr Benzaie, most famous for his work on the series "Hardcorner" and "Game Fap" on the defunct Blistered Thumbs subsite of Channel Awesome. Back when he still made English videos, he made a Hardcorner episode on the Microvision, even noting some of the same stuff you did. There's no way I can find the video now since he originally uploaded it to Blip.tv, which got shut down a couple years back, and I can't find the video reuploaded here when I search. Since then I've seen Gamester81 make a couple videos on it, and it was covered in the 1979 episode of the Retroware TV/The Punk Effect (Pat The NES Punk's website) co-produced documentary series "The Gaming Years"... Which took a skin deep look at the Microvision at best since it's a 9-ish minute video trying to cover every significant gaming related thing happening that year. I think one of the big reasons people don't talk about the handheld too much is because it didn't have any claim to fame or performed particularly great or terrible, so big RUclipsrs didn't cover it since it was, and to a point still is, relatively unknown. I doubt it has anything to do with how mainstream the console in question has to be since the AVGN has covered the Magnavox Odyssey, which despite being the first home video game console ever made, and influencing the idea behind the Pong machine and many similar consoles over the seventies, is often forgotten since it's incredibly mediocre and basic compared to even the Atari 2600. Hell, that Forbes interview with Satoru Okada you mentioned wasn't put online until New Years Eve 2016, meaning that until 6 months ago (as of the time of me writing this comment) no one knew that the Microvision actually influenced the Game & Watch and Game Boy. Sure, now it's likely to have more of a spotlight put upon it thanks to the new Nintendo related information, but until this year there was was very little connecting the Microvision to its spiritual successors other than general concept. What I'm saying is that the Microvision has been neglected because there isn't anything outlandish about it or (until recently) didn't have any strong connections to the core history of video games.
I still think being the first ever LED handheld and the first ever cartridge based handheld. Are two absolutely huge reasons to worship the Microvision, even before the Nintendo links.
Oh I certainly agree. It was both a fine example of the hardware, design and innovative nature of its time and was also simultaneously quite a bit ahead of its time. I still think that the big reason its unfairly shoved into the corner is that it got overshadowed thanks in part to the fact that it didn't last long on the market or did anything particularly, outlandishly right or wrong to the video game market.
It sold so badly, alot of people do not even realise that it even saw a European release. I'd like to import a PC Engine down the line and get into the system that route.
I recently published a try to fix video of one of these on my channel. I wanted one so much as a kid... Just goes to show how things change. Never meet your heroes.
Hello there my fellow English gamer, there's nothing wrong with being 38 years old, I am and I love my handhelds. In fact, I'm just about to relive some of my misspent youth playing Metroid on my New 3DXl using the virtual console. You do some excellent gaming videos, I wish I had the time to play more games and stick some videos on my RUclips channel, which is mainly a UK Nerf modding and review channel, check it out of you're interested. Thanks for the great quality of your videos and the time you spend making them, they're really good, entertaining, humorous and informative. I'm also from a little village in the arse end of nowhere, that uou probably don't know!
Hehehe, no. I just figured the best place to call your Man Cave would be a cave on the Island of Man. Seems obvious to me. Can even put a little flag with a Top Hat at the entrance to claim it as your own. Or you could go one step further and put a flag there that looks like one of the ones from Plok
Love this EP =). Also In your Vids some times you say "Yaaaaaaaaah" and iv always wondered what this was about. Here in Canada if you say Yaaaaaaah, After something it means you are disgusted or saying that something is wrong. But when you say it, It seems out of place being the thing you said before it is not something people would normally be not happy about. Ill give an Ex of how Yaaaaah is used. Ex: Nintendo stole the idea from MB, Yaaaaaaaaah. Any ways lol not a big deal but I always wondered if maybe its a (British?) Thing. IDK.
It's something I suppose I have carried over from my wrestling career working as a villain. The good guys would always try and get the crowd on there side, but shouting thing like 'come on everyone! Give me some support, Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhh!!!!'. I would then proceed to mock my opponents and the crowds by shouting yeaaaaaahhh sarcastically, myself. After I was on the reality TV show TNA British Bootcamp, it was the catchphrase I was remembered for. So I have stuck with it ever since.
There are two videos on wrestling games on this channel, which both feature footage of me wrestling. One is a collab with Guru Larry about forgotten WWE games, the other is on NES wrestling games and covers my short time working with TNA.
It amazes me that you put together such quality videos while on the road
Thank you sir! Always fun content creating in new scenery.
I owned a Microvision back in the 70s right when it came out. I still have it with all of the boxes in my meager Microvision collection. My favorite handhelds back in the late 70s were Coleco football and Mattel basketball, but the Microvision was something else since you could slap cartridges into it and the other handhelds just had one game to play.
Some thoughts -
1) Star Trek Phaser Strike is significant, other than the Star Trek license, because it was essentially a primitive Missile Command released a good year or so before actual Missile Command in the arcades. You could fire from 3 positions by pressing the buttons on the keypad, not just the one you mentioned in the video. So it really was like Missile Command's three missile launchers at the bottom of the screen, albeit crude, even for the time. The game also had some difficulty settings to ramp up the challenge.
2) Vegas Slots - My opinion on these sorts of games of that era and why they were popular is because "digital" slot machines were emerging in casinos at that time. Along with the video game revolution then, this fascinated older folks who frequented the casinos who maybe didn't "get" all of the videogame excitement (Pac-Man seemed to be a universal hit with all ages, however). My aunts, for example, would go down to Atlantic City (not far from us) and I think really enjoyed the new digital versions of slots with the sounds and graphics they could generate over traditional slots as well as new play styles that conventional slots could not produce. These simple handhelds captured some of that fun and they did seem to enjoy playing Vegas Slots. I seem to recall one aunt having various standalone "slot machine" handhelds over the years, come to think of it. I think the better implementations of the video game slot machines helped people learn patterns and could possibly use them to their advantage at the casino on when they felt a machine would "payout" or not. For some reason at about 8 or 9 years old I loved playing Vegas Slots over and over, even though it was mindless. Although I did enjoy playing poker with my family at an early age, so that may have had something to do with the fascination.
Also of note is that Vegas Slots has two other game modes for two players - both are push your luck variations with both players trying to maximize their scores with the results. This adds a slight bit of tactical play and thinking vs. the regular mode of just randomly spinning the slots.
3) The European carts look amazing! My US version had poor quality membranes for "buttons" which would wear out because you had to press down hard on them to get the game to respond. The buttons on yours look really good. I also love the colors and design aesthetics of yours so much more. The US versions were all bland beige. The knob on yours appears better built than the US counterpart as well.
Thanks for giving some love to this forgotten but still influential (in its own way) system!
Thank you sir, a very insightful comment indeed!
I concur, the UK version looks better than the version we got and even as a kid I was concerned about the membrane getting damaged by fingernails. I also did not get a cover. I don't know if that was because I got mine after the initial release (1980 or 1981) or because the US didn't get that. I will say my favorite game was baseball.
Great job with the video and the fantastic background information. I wasn't familiar with this system until watching your video...thanks for sharing.
You're really fortunate to find a working one! I've been trying to find one for ages.
Super review and video, really enjoyed the historical coverage of MB too👌
I always thought Milton and Bradley were two people... :p
The different cartridges look absolutely amazing! I love the different colors and button variations. Great job on you finding and collecting all of those different cartridges. :)
Great video mate - did like the TopHatGaming take on history lesson. 👍
LCD screen failure is becoming more and more of an issue with no real resolution other than keep swapping screens for one in a slightly less worse state (with the end result still being inevitable).
Did like the cheeky throw reference at the end, made me chuckle
A very informative video once again! Keep it up, man.
Genuine laughter at the faces you made during the removal of the handheld with the leather case :D
Really enjoyed this history lesson. It's great to see how the MB Company started.
Love your videos! Can't wait for the next!
Great video yet again - really good history of MB, I had no idea about any of it.
Hey man I love it when you feel they game gear into the pond the river. The 1st time I've ever seen that game gear was in A storm In a playground
What I especially like about your reviews is that you delve into things that aren’t as linear as the system itself, showing how we got from A to B or much further out. The history in getting there tends to be more interesting than the systems themselves. I hope you will always continue to do a lot of research on how the machines or even their companies came to be, and also what drove them into or out of existence.
One interesting factoid you may have overlooked in your review or perhaps i missed it when getting a cup of coffee: this console contained no computing hardware at all, but rather only an LCD display, a speaker, a pot for the controller, intermittent button array, and the cartridge connector - all of the processors and computing occur within the cartridges themselves. So each cartridge is it’s own system and the Microvision itself is merely being utilized as an interface for the cartridge. I’m not sure if that had been done by another manufacturer as it would at first appear to be cost-prohibitive when building your entire ‘console’ into every game cartridge you create.
On another note, being a technology child of the 70s into the 80s, my youth and adolescence was rife with Milton Bradley and also Parker Brothers all around me, and I was saddened frankly when Hasbro, of all corporations, gobbled them up and ended their respective legacies. Not a fan of them to begin with, and those actions cemented my feelings toward that corporation - not that they care at all mind you.
Cheerio!
Interesting video; particularly nice is the inclusion of the company history.
Top quality video. I remember these things in the toy shop back in the day. It was too expensive for me though. So my money went on a Blip instead. But is that really how you pronounce Bowling?
A homebrew Microvision Tetris port seems like a no-brainer.
that was a great video. The history of MB section was especially wonderful.
Good sir your sub count and quality and quantity do not correlate I appreciate the fans that are making u possible
When will you cover the n-gage?
Robert Hustler If he sticks to his current path, it's only a matter of time.
@15:27 I wondered too; and upon contemplating, I ken that people enjoy gambling simulators because those same people want to verify how "un-lucky" they are. Great video; Thumbsies!
The music in the background was doing my head in trying to remember what game it was. But I finally got it... Earthworm Jim 2 on the Sega Saturn. What a game!
Great video once again with SOOOO much bloody research gone into it.
Yeeeaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
Thank you sir!
Milton-Bradley is still around today... As a division of Hasbro Toys. Hasbro: Until all are one.
Yeah,they also bought out Atari,I think
Yep, this is on my wishlist.
Collecting first-of-a-kind game platforms, I actually own this one.
And I played it quite a lot back in the 1980s.
I even got so far in Breakout to exceed 999 points. The system starts counting up from 0 then. My record is somewhere around 1240 points. Since the system doesn't save anything, I am not sure about the exact score, of course ;-)
Other titles I like on the MB Microvision are:
Blitz (a base moves top to bottom and you have to hit the "alien" dots moving right to left)
Connect Four
Sea Duel (a strange battle featuring a destroyer and a submarine)
Breakout and
Super Breakout
Considering the few titles available for the system, I think there is quite some entertainment to be found there.
In my humble opinion that is quite impressive for this vintage pioneer of module-based handhelds. And the system has only 4-Bit CPUs - which reside in the cartridges - strange stuff indeed...
I for one am glad that you are a man with too much money and free time, otherwise we wouldn't have these videos!
HAD too much money and HAD too much free time. It is nearly all over haha. I back off to England on August 18th to start a new job.
Top Hat Gaming Man good luck mate, looking forward to your next vids
We should also thank his patrons, who play a big role in enabling THGM to make these great videos.
Milton Bradley in Springfield Massachusetts? Wow I work on the railroad in Springfield Massachusetts! What a small world!!!
This is one of the greatest video game series ever. Now imagine if you did every home console. That would take an eternity and you'd run out of places to play.
great videos, great humor & ideas!
Thank you for a stroll down memory lane. Odd thing is I had this as 13 year old. Problem is my family very light on funds during most of my childhood and don't know how they could have afforded it at the time. Do you know what the retail price was for the "console" and individual game?
Excellent video!
Handhelds have always been my best friends.
Is there ever going to be an "Is it worth playing?" for the Colecovision? I mean the system/controller have appeared in a number of the videos intros
Definitely, the focus has been handhelds for a while because I am traveling the world. When I eventually get home, I shall switch gears again.
I plan on buying a Microvision that is if I ever see one not so much to play but as a gaming oddity and preservation.
Jesus christ. You glorious bastard. The only man cave that can exist now is a real cave equipped with a pink psp.
In Star Trek Phaser Strike you can actually switch between three firing positions, so it plays similar to Atlantis on Atari 2600.
Fast Foward to 2019 someone on the Atari Age forum has figured out a way to fix the screen.
Ahmar Wolf really? Could you link me to this? Thanks in advance.
Only on this channel I learn about the oddest systems.
The first time I've ever heard of the MB microvision was from French RUclipsr Benzaie, most famous for his work on the series "Hardcorner" and "Game Fap" on the defunct Blistered Thumbs subsite of Channel Awesome. Back when he still made English videos, he made a Hardcorner episode on the Microvision, even noting some of the same stuff you did. There's no way I can find the video now since he originally uploaded it to Blip.tv, which got shut down a couple years back, and I can't find the video reuploaded here when I search. Since then I've seen Gamester81 make a couple videos on it, and it was covered in the 1979 episode of the Retroware TV/The Punk Effect (Pat The NES Punk's website) co-produced documentary series "The Gaming Years"... Which took a skin deep look at the Microvision at best since it's a 9-ish minute video trying to cover every significant gaming related thing happening that year.
I think one of the big reasons people don't talk about the handheld too much is because it didn't have any claim to fame or performed particularly great or terrible, so big RUclipsrs didn't cover it since it was, and to a point still is, relatively unknown. I doubt it has anything to do with how mainstream the console in question has to be since the AVGN has covered the Magnavox Odyssey, which despite being the first home video game console ever made, and influencing the idea behind the Pong machine and many similar consoles over the seventies, is often forgotten since it's incredibly mediocre and basic compared to even the Atari 2600.
Hell, that Forbes interview with Satoru Okada you mentioned wasn't put online until New Years Eve 2016, meaning that until 6 months ago (as of the time of me writing this comment) no one knew that the Microvision actually influenced the Game & Watch and Game Boy. Sure, now it's likely to have more of a spotlight put upon it thanks to the new Nintendo related information, but until this year there was was very little connecting the Microvision to its spiritual successors other than general concept. What I'm saying is that the Microvision has been neglected because there isn't anything outlandish about it or (until recently) didn't have any strong connections to the core history of video games.
I still think being the first ever LED handheld and the first ever cartridge based handheld. Are two absolutely huge reasons to worship the Microvision, even before the Nintendo links.
Oh I certainly agree. It was both a fine example of the hardware, design and innovative nature of its time and was also simultaneously quite a bit ahead of its time. I still think that the big reason its unfairly shoved into the corner is that it got overshadowed thanks in part to the fact that it didn't last long on the market or did anything particularly, outlandishly right or wrong to the video game market.
yeah this is professional as it gets! hey what was the tg16 scene like in the uk top hat gaming man? will you do a review of turbo express?
It sold so badly, alot of people do not even realise that it even saw a European release. I'd like to import a PC Engine down the line and get into the system that route.
DUDE!!! Someone needs to go rescue that poor Game Gear from the bottom of the ocean!
I recently published a try to fix video of one of these on my channel. I wanted one so much as a kid... Just goes to show how things change. Never meet your heroes.
Love your videos, your my new obsession
Wow bomber reminds me of Super Blitz on the C64, my own mothers favourite game for many years!
Hello there my fellow English gamer, there's nothing wrong with being 38 years old, I am and I love my handhelds. In fact, I'm just about to relive some of my misspent youth playing Metroid on my New 3DXl using the virtual console.
You do some excellent gaming videos, I wish I had the time to play more games and stick some videos on my RUclips channel, which is mainly a UK Nerf modding and review channel, check it out of you're interested.
Thanks for the great quality of your videos and the time you spend making them, they're really good, entertaining, humorous and informative.
I'm also from a little village in the arse end of nowhere, that uou probably don't know!
I'm very impressed by this video. Awesome stuff. Dont pollute central park tho, my guy..
Your intro music sounds like something from the old-school Ultraman shows in the 60's What is the title of that piece?
Well made well produced video as always Top Hat but... um... is that how you pronounce bowling?!
No, I just felt like trolling and I am hoping to upset some unsuspecting Americans.
In a cave? Don't touch anything with your oily fingers! We must preserve the caves.
Is it weird that I now kinda want to make a homebrew game for the microvision... with it's 4 bit processor.. probably.
So, is your Mancave, the Maria's Cave?
Is there a cave you can go to on the Island of Man?
Where have you posted this comment from? The Scilly Isles?
Hehehe, no. I just figured the best place to call your Man Cave would be a cave on the Island of Man.
Seems obvious to me. Can even put a little flag with a Top Hat at the entrance to claim it as your own. Or you could go one step further and put a flag there that looks like one of the ones from Plok
Fascinating.
That Xenoblade X music. Makes me want to dust off the old Wii U.
The best slOts are in Vegas! Great game! :)
So the colonies DID do something good for us!
You and Guru Larry are my favorite you tubers
Boww-ling? How do you not know the word “bowling”???
RUclips does NOT hate Pre-Nes videos!
Did you realy throw away a Gamegear into a river or lake?
was the vectrex a handheld?
Personally, I'd classify it as a tabletop.
Wow, I didn't know this about Milton Bradley
Fuck yes, it is!
Love this EP =). Also In your Vids some times you say "Yaaaaaaaaah" and iv always wondered what this was about. Here in Canada if you say Yaaaaaaah, After something it means you are disgusted or saying that something is wrong. But when you say it, It seems out of place being the thing you said before it is not something people would normally be not happy about.
Ill give an Ex of how Yaaaaah is used. Ex: Nintendo stole the idea from MB, Yaaaaaaaaah.
Any ways lol not a big deal but I always wondered if maybe its a (British?) Thing. IDK.
It's something I suppose I have carried over from my wrestling career working as a villain. The good guys would always try and get the crowd on there side, but shouting thing like 'come on everyone! Give me some support, Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhh!!!!'. I would then proceed to mock my opponents and the crowds by shouting yeaaaaaahhh sarcastically, myself. After I was on the reality TV show TNA British Bootcamp, it was the catchphrase I was remembered for. So I have stuck with it ever since.
You did wrestling!!!??? That would explain why your arms are so big. Do you have video of your wrestling days? Id love to watch them.
There are two videos on wrestling games on this channel, which both feature footage of me wrestling. One is a collab with Guru Larry about forgotten WWE games, the other is on NES wrestling games and covers my short time working with TNA.
Ill be sure to check them out. Thanks =)
Beard really suits you
Like the guy in the banana shirt, handsome
Skip to 10:00 for the reason you clicked the link.
"Is this system worth getting today? Probably not." Well then. I think we know why it hasn't shot up in price.
7:39 *DEMONITISATION*
Sadly the Microvisions are doomed to die and can't be repaired. Something with the LCD iirc. :(
You are not politically correct, and I like it.
reminds me of tiger r zone. i bought into that hook, line and sinker, lol..
lol that shirt @7:38 though
theres a 3rd homebrew now somebody just made tetris on it
You say bowling extremely weird.
Trip world music
7:30 hey don't be so rude in public
More like Star Trek phallic strike
it fucken gargage
Man, my dad used to own one of these things...