The Strange (and Rare) Videogame Pics Page
TAITO - JSB - ASCII WOWOW CONSOLE

One of the most precious gems on my pages! This system was developed in joint-venture between JSB (owner of the Japanese satellite TV channel Wowow), the coin-op company Taito and the Japanese software editor ASCII and was presented in 1992 in a Tokio Game Show
(Since this is a very obscure system and these pics are not good, I'll repost them with a better quality soon!)

The (very) small (and really cool too!) prototype has a built-in CD-Rom with which it could play games on CDs. Note the beautiful design of the system, the essential pad, the Wowow logo on the left of the system and what it seems to be a sort of smart cart (white) inserted in front of the system near the two joypad ports (probably it was used to gain access to the download system and/or to insert a credit card to buy games online!).

The most innovative idea was the other media: the system could receive games via a satellite antenna (transmitted like a TV or radio station) and you would pay only the time you really play the game you choose. If only it was marketed today... with internet instead of satellite dish...

Here you could see a TV set displaying a choice of games (I could see: Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Island, Parasol Star, Kikikaikai, Rastan Saga, Darius and a vertical shoot'em'up I could not recall). When the pic was shooten Darius was loading.
I have no technical informations, anyway I suppose that the system was based on a Taito coin-op technology since the companies promised coin-op graphics and sound quality. So it was almost certainly an advanced 16-bit system.
The system was (unfortunately) never marketed but it seemed a powerful system and a tremendous idea! The same idea was later used succesfully by Nintendo with their Satellite adaptor for the Super Famicom.
The only informations I have (and all the pics) were originally published on a french videogame magazine called "Console Plus" (one of the best magazine I know!).


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