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History
In 1996 Keita Satoh decided to leave Takara, a Japanese toy company, to start Dreams Come True. Four years later, the company was absorbed by Takara Group and became a division of the latter. In 2000, Dreams Come True signed a deal with XaviX (which would later release the XaviXPORT) to use their technology in their karaoke toy line called e-Kara. In 2001, Dreams Come True decided to work to Sammy, to create a home version of some of Sammy’s blockbuster Pachislot. Sammy would be in charge of creating the build-in software
and the expansion cartridges while Takara would manufacture the hardware. Once again, XaviX technology would be used to drive the video game aspect of the console. In January 2002, the console was ready to be presented to the public. With a scheduled March released, Seiichi Suzuki, President of Dreams Come True, said, “We aim to sell 500,000 units and 1 million units of software by December 2002.”. At the time, 8 cartridges were planned.
Release
The Pachislot TV was released in March 2002 under the Takara’s PlugIt line of toys. The console was released alongside the cartridge Beast King Jr, a tone down version of the mythical “Beast King” Pachislot which would be more suited to beginners. A more accurate port of Beast King, intended for more advance player, would be released a month later in April 2002. In August 2002, to celebrate the release of the Salaryman Kintaro cartridge, based on the 2001 Pachislot of the same name, Takara released a special edition of the console featuring Salaryman Kintaro, a popular Japanese manga created by Hiroshi Motomiya. The special edition of the console didn’t come with the Salaryman Kintaro cartridge, but a special bundle was available for ¥10,000.
Demise
By 2003, the console was already failing in obscurity. Although the console was cheaper than the other video game console of the time, the fact that the games were available on other platforms was a hard sell for most people. If you already had a PlayStation 2, it was cheaper to buy the games directly for your system than to buy a new console and cartridges. The console did have some novel features such as using tokens to start the game like in a real Pachislot which was enticing to hardcore Pachislot players, but this was not enough to justify the purchase of a new console if you already had a PlayStation 2.
Games
Although 8 cartridges were planned, only 5 cartridges were found so far. Next to each cartridge, the Pachislot on which the game was based. It’s to be noted that most games were also released on other platforms, especially the PlayStation 2.
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| Aladdin アラジン |
Beast King 獣王 ジ April 2002 |
Beast King Jr. 獣王 ジュニア March 2002, ¥3,800 |
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| Gingin Maru ギンギン丸 |
Salaryman Kintaro サラリーマン金太郎 ¥3,980 |
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