About this web site

This web site was created by Ward Shrake. It's original purpose was to dig up facts and artifacts related to the "Arcadia 2001" video game console group, and to share them with the retro-gaming community. The console group was largely a mystery before an informal band of researchers figured out its hidden history.

The console was available in one form or anothers from roughly 1980 through 1983. It made only a short blip on U.S. gamer's radar during 1982 under the "Emerson Arcadia 2001" name, but it was marketed globally under other names. It took nearly two decades just to figure out that this console group was made by Philips and Signetics, and marketed by licensees under various brand names.

The history of the machine may be a bit more interesting than the games. It was more or less the 3DO's marketing strategy... just a dozen or so years earlier.

Ultimately, modern gamers will probably not think much of the game play of the average game on this machine. Of the 50 or so games available globally, none really strike this author as a "killer ap" -- although some good arcade game ports do exist. These games were mostly derivative clones of other games... so why not skip the copies, and just buy the original console that was being imitated?

This site contains what may be the single best repository of publicly-available info on the Internet on this particular subject, correcting a lot of the bad information that is found elsewhere on the Internet and in print. This web site went through a number of continual changes, additions and updates from 1998 to 2002. At the end of 2002, Ward decided to make this site a "static display" due to his own desire to find other things to do with his hobby time, outside of retro-gaming.

Home page  -  Contents  -  News  -  Pictures  -  Texts  -  Links

© Copyright 1998 - 2002 Ward Shrake. All rights reserved.