PlayChoice-10

PlayChoice-10 was an arcade machine which could consist of as many as 10 different games previously available only on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) home console. The games for this system were in the modular form of circuit boards which would be plugged into one of the ten open slots on the PlayChoice-10's motherboard.

Description and history
By the late 1980s, console systems were quickly catching up with the arcade machines in terms of popularity. Therefore, the video game companies decided to capitalize on this trend by making stand up arcade machines out of their existing console systems. Many companies tried this tactic. Sega presented a machine which contained several Sega Master System and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games. SNK's NeoGeo was another cartridge-based system that was simultaneously available at the arcade and for home console use.

Nintendo, being the industry leader at the time, was especially successful with this concept. Nintendo packed its most popular games into a machine case and called it the PlayChoice-10. The machine was compatible with the NES, but with some key differences. An extra CPU controlled the gameplay timer, game select, and displayed hints for the current game on a separate monitor (on single-monitor systems, a button would switch between gameplay and the hint screen). Normal NES cartridges could not be used; rather, the PlayChoice used special expansion cards containing (usually unmodified) NES games along with an extra 8KB ROM to display hints. Because the PlayChoice-10 output RGB video using a slightly different palette, games did not look exactly the same as they did on the NES. It is in fact possible to replace the NES PPU with the PlayChoice-10 PPU, allowing it to output RGB natively.

Each machine had a different mix of games in it. Instead of a player getting to play one game until it was finished, the player got a fixed time limit to play as many PlayChoice games as they wanted to.

Nintendo also created a standalone PlayChoice which only had a single available game.

List of available games
The following is a list of all 54 games that were made available on various PlayChoice-10 machines.


 * 1942 (1986 Capcom)
 * Balloon Fight (1986 Nintendo)
 * Baseball (1985 Nintendo)
 * Baseball Stars (1989 SNK)
 * Captain Skyhawk (1990 Milton Bradley)
 * Castlevania (1987 Konami)
 * Contra (1988 Konami)
 * Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (1990 Capcom)
 * Double Dragon (1988 Technos)
 * Double Dribble (1987 Konami)
 * Dr. Mario (1990 Nintendo)
 * Duck Hunt (1985 Nintendo)
 * Excitebike (1985 Nintendo)
 * Fester's Quest (1989 Sunsoft)
 * Gauntlet (1985 Atari)
 * Golf (1985 Nintendo)
 * The Goonies (1986 Konami)
 * Gradius (1986 Konami)
 * Hogan's Alley (1985 Nintendo)
 * Kung Fu (1985 Irem)
 * Mario Bros. (1986 Nintendo)
 * Mario's Open Golf (1991 Nintendo)
 * Mega Man 3 (1990 Capcom)
 * Metroid (1987 Nintendo)
 * Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (1987 Nintendo)
 * Ninja Gaiden (1989 Tecmo)
 * Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (1990 Tecmo)
 * Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (1991 Tecmo)
 * Pinbot (1990 Rare)
 * Power Blade (1991 Taito)
 * Pro Wrestling (1987 Nintendo)
 * Rad Racer (1987 Square)
 * Rad Racer II (1990 Square)
 * RBI Baseball (1987 Atari)
 * R.C. Pro-Am (1988 Rare)
 * Rockin' Kats (1991 Atlus)
 * Rush'n Attack (1987 Konami)
 * Rygar (1987 Tecmo)
 * Shatterhand (1991 Jaleco)
 * Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship (1990 Rare)
 * Super C (1990 Konami)
 * Super Mario Bros. (1985 Nintendo)
 * Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988 Nintendo)
 * Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988 Nintendo)
 * Tecmo Bowl (1989 Tecmo Inc.)
 * Tennis (1985 Nintendo)
 * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989 Konami)
 * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (1990 Konami)
 * Track & Field (1987 Konami)
 * Trojan (1987 Capcom)
 * Volleyball (1987 Nintendo)
 * Wild Gunman (1985 Nintendo)
 * World Cup Soccer (1990 Technos)
 * Yo! Noid (1990 Capcom)