Codex Gamicus
Register
Advertisement
Nintendo PlayChoice-10
Developer(s) Nintendo
Publisher(s) Nintendo
Designer Designer Missing
Engine Engine Missing
status Status Missing
Release date 1986
Genre Retro
Mode(s) Up to 2 players
Age rating(s) Ratings Missing
Platform(s) Arcade
Arcade system CPU: Main: Z80 @ 4 MHz
Game: See NES Technical Specs
Media Media Missing
Input 8-way joystick, 2 buttons, light gun
Requirements Requirements Missing
Credits | Soundtrack | Codes | Walkthrough

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 [1].

List of available games[ | ]

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

References[ | ]

  1. โ†‘ PlayChoice history (Accessed June 9, 2006)

External links[ | ]

Advertisement