The is a

second generation Second generation or variants may refer to: * Second generation immigrant ** Nisei, one of the second generation of people of Japanese descent in the Americas * Second generation of Chinese leaders, see Generations of Chinese leadership * Second-ge ...

home video game console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. While initial consoles were dedicated units with only a few game ...

developed by

Gakken is a Japanese publishing company founded in 1947 by Hideto Furuoka, which also produces educational toys. Their annual sales are reported at ¥ 90 billion ($789 million US). Gakken publishes educational books and magazines and produces othe ...

and released in Japan in 1983 for a price of ¥8,800. The system was made to compete with the

Epoch Cassette Vision The is a second generation home video game console made by Epoch Co. and released in Japan on July 30, 1981. A redesigned model called the Cassette Vision Jr. was released afterwards. The term ''cassette'' is a contemporary Japanese synonym fo ...

, which had a market dominance of 70% in Japan. The console was released months after the

Nintendo Famicom The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the U ...

and

Sega SG-1000 The is a home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was Sega's first entry into the home video game hardware business. Developed in response to a downturn in arcades starting in 1982, the SG-1000 was created on the advice of Hayao Nakay ...

which, although more expensive at ¥15,000, were more advanced and had more features as well as bigger games libraries; furthermore, Epoch had just launched the Cassette Vision Jr. revision for ¥5,000. These factors made the system obsolete from the start, with a high price tag, few and comparably rudimentary games, and a strange form factor, leading to poor sales. As a result, it is now a rare collector's item among some retro gamers. In January 2024, the Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy game console hardware and six games were ROM dumped, scanned and preserved. This console could only be played on the

MAME MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to emulate the hardware of arcade games, video game consoles, old computers and other systems in software on modern personal computers and ...

emulator.

Technical specifications

* CPU (cartridge): Motorola MC6801 (8-bit) clocked at 4 MHz *

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

: 2 Kb * Internal graphics: Motorola MC6847: 128 × 192 pixel; 9 colors (only four at the same time: white, orange, green and magenta or yellow, green, red and blue)

Games

There were only six games officially released for the system, each being sold for ¥3,800, and designed for a single player. * ''Excite Invader'' * ''Mr. Bomb'' * ''Robotan Wars'' * - a port of ''

Super Cobra ''Super Cobra'' is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed by Konami, originally released as an arcade video game in 1981. It was published by Konami in Japan in March 1981 and manufactured and distributed by Stern in North America on June ...

'' * ''

Frogger is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and published by Sega. In North America, it was distributed by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct five frogs to their homes by dodging traffic on a busy road, then crossing a ri ...

'' *

References

Products introduced in 1983 Second-generation video game consoles Discontinued video game consoles Home video game consoles {{videogame-hardware-stub