"The Astrocade Question: Sink or Swim?" By Mark Brownstein "Video Games," (April 1983): 10, 12-13. Though it may seem Astrocade has exhausted its nine lives, the company, like some bedeviled cat, isn't dead yet. Nitron, a Silicon Valley semiconductor manufacturer, may very well come to the ailing game company's rescue. According to Nitron spokesman Rich Forte, "There's a very good chance that we will put up the money to revive Astrocade." Astrocade, which took over rights to the Bally Professional Arcade (aka, Astrocade) in 1980, filed a Chapter XI petition in Federal Court in Dec. '82. At press time, the Columbus, Ohio-based firm was seeking out other backers and exploring the possibility of marketing its seven year-old TV-game system in Europe. In addition, Forte suggested the unit might be totally revamped and reappear on the shelves for about $150-- half the current list price. Recently, Astrocade has been selling in some locations for as low as $89. There was little cause for optimism at the January Consumer Electronics Show (CES), however. The Astrocade booth was deserted except for four arcade-like promotion cabinets that housed an Astrocade and an assortment of games in each one. Vice-President Ray George, the man who had predicted less than a year before that Astrocade would be as "common and generic a name as Xerox" by 1985, was not to be found. Tom Meeks, Astrocade's product manager, fielded questions from angry retailers and curious reporters. "It's a strange situation," he said. "The president of the company is currently a Federal judge. We can't even give out a sample cartridge without his approval." The Astrocade story is characterized by public indifference, corporate mismanagement, early technical failures, and the dogged persistence of those who tried so desperately to keep the system alive. Originally, the Professional Arcade was Bally's grand bid to get into the consumer games business in the mid-'70s. "Bally and Atari were running neck and neck (in the arcade games business) and were constantly looking at each other to see how the competition was doing," recalls Dave Nutting, of Dave Nutting Associates, who co-designed the Arcade with Jeff Fredricksen. When Bally found out that Atari was developing a programmable TV-game system (the Video Computer System or VCS), executives at the coin machine company decided "they had to be in it too," Nutting says. Nutting's master plan was to "put a computer in everybody's home." Once the system, which utilized the Z-80 microprocessor (the same chip Nutting was using to design arcade games), was in enough homes, a BASIC programming cartridge would be released, followed by an "add-under" keyboard in the form of a Z-Grass computer. JS&A, a leading mail-order marketer of specialty electronics, took out full- page ads in trade publications in 1977, announcing that the computer age had arrived. The Bally Professional Arcade was "the secret of the computer revolution," JS&A hyped, a device that could play games as well as be expanded into a home computer. The mail-order house went as far as to devote five pages in its catalog to the virtues of the system. Problems began shortly after the Arcade's introduction, however. Units promised in September were not delivered until five months later, and a majority of them were defective. In April 1978, Bally shipped supposedly "perfected" units that were "still not right," according to JS&A's Joseph Sugarman. By 1979, discouraged by reliability problems, limited software, and doubts about whether the add-under would ever be marketed, JS&A cancelled all orders and offered to buy back the units its customers had purchased. "We could have sold 30,000 Arcades," says Sugarman. "Instead, we lost thousands of dollars. This could have killed a smaller company." Why didn't Bally take better care of its customers? Dave Nutting cites several reasons. "Bally is a commercial game manufacturer. They build a game, test it, ship it. The arcade owner opens the box, plugs in the game and tests it. If it doesn't work, he gets out the manual, pokes it a few times and gets it going. The consumer, on the other hand, gets the unit and plugs it in; if it doesn't work, he sends it back." In other words, Bally was not ready for the world of consumer marketing. "They tried to market the Arcade like it was a radio or TV," Nutting explains, "not as a whole new product." As might be expected, most of Bally's energy at the time focused on launching new casino operations; hence, its new consumer products took a back seat. "They got discouraged," he says, "and wished it would all go away." Bally got its wish by selling the Arcade to Astrovision for $2.3 million in August 1980. The company immediately rechristened the system "Astro Professional Arcade." As part of the agreement, Bally would provide engineering support (i.e., Dave Nutting and Bob Ogden, a Dave Nutting Associates alumni), plus the rights to such Bally/ Midway coin-op games as Wizard of Wor, Space Zap, and Galaxian. Promising an "explosive 1,000 percent growth," Ray George began gearing up for $10 million in sales for 1981, $100 million for '82 and $1 billion by '85. New distributorships were assigned and design began on an extensive new line of software. When George's bullish rhetoric was realized at the end of '81 actually, the figure was about $9 million-- and the company unveiled the Z- Grass machine at the January '82 CES, people finally began to think that Astrovision might be for real. Early last year, Astrovision made two major announcements: it would be changing its name to Astro-cade, and Nitron, the company's chip supplier, would begin designing cartridges for the system. The contract was for a sum of $108 million through 1983. Unfortunately for Astrocade, this was the last truly positive news to come out of its Ohio offices. Although Astrocade insisted that two cartridges a month would be released starting in July and that the computer would be available in the fall, only two games, Pirate's Chase and Artillery Duel, were offered for the remainder of '82. The much-ballyhooed Conan the Barbarian game never saw the light of day, nor did the Z- Grass. Astrocade's '82 sales have been estimated at $20 million, its profits at $250,000. Says Astrocade spokesperson Elena Quintana: "It cost us $120 to manufacture the motherboard (electronic circuitry) alone. How could we compete with Atari (the VCS) selling for $129 or Mattel's $50 rebate? When Astrocade was formed in 1980, Atari was around $200 and Intellivision was up around $299. Back then, at least we had a chance." Tom Meeks still thinks Astrocade has a chance. "We realize that the key (to Astrocade's survival) is software," observes the product manager, "and we have the best game designers in the business. We shipped 20,000 copies of our latest cartridge, Artillery Duel, and they were sold out in two days." There are some 100,000 Astrocades currently in American homes. If the company is resurrected, expect to see several more Bally/Midway licensed titles. In the past, Astrocade's interpretations of arcade games have been extremely good. The Incredible Wizard is one of the best conversions ever of a coin-op game; Galactic Invasion is an excellent Galaxian; and Space Fortress even surpassed the original, Space Zap. If Astrocade's track record holds up, then it's probably fair to assume that Solar Fox, Omega Race, and The Adventures of Robby Roto would all be winners. Whether Astrocade ever gets the chance to prove this is now in the hands of investors and a Federal judge.