Jakks Namco Arcade Classic Plug and Play TV Games Makes a Comeback at My House

My son Jimmy found a Jakks / Namco Arcade Classics Plug and Play TV Games mini-console that I picked up at Target way back in 2003. He started playing Dig Dug on it and loves it.

This is a complete shock to me because I didn't know we had left this game in the TV stand below the DVD player and VCR.

I don't think that Jimmy fully understands nuances of the games like the ability to inflate the Dig Dug monsters until they pop. But that really didn't matter. The game's simple music and graphics were entertainment for him during a day when everybody else in the family was pretty sick.

I don't know why I was so amazed at the fidelity of iPhone app versions of some of these games to the original arcade games. Looking back at this little box that I paid $24.95 for back in December 2003, it demonstrates that these games can be produced to work well on a standard definition TV. These games can certainly be reproduced on the iPhone.

The price point that Jakks Pacific and Namco put this game at six years ago also foreshadows the prices that they would end up charging for games in the iTunes App Store. Pole Position Remix at $2.99 and PAC-MAN Lite (free) are both on the apps page where I keep most of my games.