Microsoft Arcade 1993
Dunstan Jomphe
Although the games included in these compilations were very similar to the original arcade games in both appearance and gameplay, they were newly written versions, not ports of the original arcade game code; these versions of the games were programmed specifically for Windows, with each game running in a small window (or in a large window with a border). Each game allowed certain customizations not available in the original arcade game, i.e. the number of lives and bonus levels. The Microsoft Help files included with the games contained history of the development of the original arcade versions of the games.
Two follow up versions were released, including the arcade games from Namco. The first was Microsoft Return of Arcade, released in April 1996.[1] The compilation sold 335,176 copies in 1996 making it the 8th best-selling PC game that year.[2]This compilation contains:
Officially, both of these follow-ups required Windows 95 or later, though the demo for Return of Arcade is a 16-bit program that requires only WinG to run in Windows 3.1.[3] This game will not work on 64-bit versions of Windows.
Next Generation criticized the PC version of the game, stating that that "(with the exception of Mrs. Pac-Man) all these games are sort of past their sell-by date, and you have an unmitigated disaster, callously cashing in on people's misremembered childhood memories."[4]
Computer Gaming World in 1993 stated that Microsoft Arcade's adaptation of the five games was "nearly flawless". It favorably cited the many hints and strategies included in WinHelp files for the games, and the boss key. The magazine liked Battlezone the most out of the five games in Microsoft Arcade, but stated that "it's been done better since" by games like Spectre. Despite finding that the games were "made obsolete by technology", it predicted that Arcade would be very successful because of nostalgia, and wished that Microsoft would have updated the games with modern graphics and gameplay.[5] Microsoft Arcade was named the best computer arcade game of 1993 by Computer Games Strategy Plus.[6]
In the United States, Return of Arcade debuted in position 16 on PC Data's computer game sales rankings for April 1996. It rose to 10th place the following month,[7] and continued to chart in the top 10 through August, peaking at #5.[8][9][10] The game's streak in the top 20 held through November,[11][12][13] but ended with a fall from the charts in December.[14] According to PC Data, Return of Arcade was the eighth-best-selling computer game in the United States for 1996 overall,[15] after claiming 16th in the rankings for the first half of the year.[16] PC Data reported the game's sales at 335,176 units that year, which earned revenues of $9.5 million.[17]
Taking advantage of this multimedia revolution, Microsoft launched a range of software titles under the Microsoft Home branding that grew significantly over a relatively short period of time. As the name suggests these were aimed at the home consumer end of the market, and thus priced accordingly (usually below $100). Much of the software fell into educational, entertainment, and productivity categories.
Many of the educational titles (i.e. Ancient Lands and Dangerous Creatures) were relatively light on information and were not considered useful for serious research. The focus was on displaying photos, playing sound effects or voice overs, and watching short videos albeit at a very low resolution. That being said, these did find their way into schools for students to get a grasp of the subject.
The demise of Microsoft Home was mostly led by the uptake of internet connections around 1998 which made the need to source large amounts of data from a CD redundant to an extent. The internet also had the advantage of information not being out of date. Some of the software titles survived and continued without the Microsoft Home branding being associated to it, while others only ever saw a single release during this time.
Aimed for children, 3D Movie Maker allowed under a controlled environment to place and control 3D characters adding motion, sound effects, text, speech, etc. to create their own animated movies. Secondary spin-offs from the product emphasised cartoons found on the Nickelodeon cable TV channel, as well as a Japanese expansion pack with an anime focus.
Featuring the actor Kevin Costner, an interactive guide providing reference material regarding the North American Indians. I highly suspect Kevin was involved due to being the leading actor from the movie Dances with Wolves from 1990.
Coming on a single floppy disk, Arcade was a small collection of games that were once seen on arcade machines during the 1970s and 80s. The games were Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Missile Command, and Tempest. Arcade also was at one time included inside the box when purchasing a new Microsoft Home Mouse.
Both of these were separate products focussing on mapping and travel planning. There were only two geographic editions, North America and Europe. The product after the Home branding was defunct went through a few different names, ending with Streets & Trips for the North American market, and AutoRoute for the European market.
One of most popular titles in the range as it often came with multimedia kits and new PCs, Encarta was for some time the go-to digital encyclopaedia. Depending on the year some extras were included such as a quiz maze game. Since 1993 an updated version had been released every year until it became defunct in 2009. Most releases had the ability to download additional content via the internet.
Dating back to the early 1980s, Flight Simulator was one of the longest running game franchises for Microsoft. Versions 5.0 (1993) and 5.1 (1995) received the Home branding and were one of only two product lines that ran under MS-DOS. Sold separately scenery packs were also available at the time for the Caribbean, Japan, Paris, and New York City regions.
A space simulation air combat game developed by Terminal Reality and published under Microsoft. It was criticised for being much the same as Terminal Velocity apart from being able to run natively under Windows. A sequel was released named Hellbender the following year when the Home branding was waning.
A basic 2-button serial and PS/2 mouse in dark turquoise colour. The packaging had changed since release and would occasionally come with an included games disk such as Microsoft Arcade. I suspect production ended in 1997.
Russian-born Isaac Asimov was a biochemistry professor who wrote quite a number of science fiction novels during his life before passing away in 1992. This release provided insight into robotics, robots used in films, and a collection of short stories and essays written by Isaac.
Julia Child was well known within North America as a chef and celebrity, although I question how well she was known elsewhere. This release encompassed her and 16 other chefs to learn new recipes, understand ingredients, and improve your cooking skills.
A personal/SOHO finance application. Money was an application not originally associated with Home, but this particular version like Works 3.0 fell under the Home branding and was included with some new PCs.
A Windows 3.1 application that came with a themed collection of various pictures to use as your desktop wallpaper or screensaver. After only two versions development ceased and became more or less irrelevant when Desktop Themes became available from Windows 95 onwards.
In a similar fashion to Microsoft Scenes, SoundBits was also a Windows 3.1 application that came with a themed group of sound files to be used for various events such as when a dialog box would appear. Again like Scenes, it lost relevancy with the introduction of Desktop Themes in Windows 95.
The game was first released in 1991 on the original Nintendo (of the Entertainment System, or NES, variety). And it was a big hit. Gamers loved it, even though it is considered one of the most difficult video games to beat, even still today. Yet despite the popularity, the last home console video game was released in 1993, while the last Battletoads video game ever was released in 1994 as an arcade machine. And then, nothing.
But the fans continued to praise the game. From 2010 onward, gamers and media organizations continued to place Battletoads as one of the top games that should be remade on a new system. Among the advocates were Game Informer, Maxim, GameRevolution, SiliconEra, and yes, even Forbes. Sounds like a great idea. But who owns the rights to the game?
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Who would have thought facilitating payments for Beanie Baby trades could be so lucrative? The only acquisition on our list whose value we can precisely measure, eBay spun off PayPal into a stand-alone public company in July 2015. Its value at the time? A cool 31x what eBay paid in 2002.
Ben: Yup. All right, now on to NVIDIA. Welcome to season 10, episode 5 of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert. I'm the co-founder and managing director of Seattle-based Pioneer Square Labs and our venture fund, PSL ventures.
As David and I began our research, we realized this really could be a book and a thriller of a book since the co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang really has bet the whole company three separate times, nearly going bankrupt each time. But obviously, as we reflect back here today, that certainly did not happen.
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