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Hi
story
Epoch was already a major player in the Japanese video game market. It started with the release of the TV Tennis in September 1975. The game was made entirely from discretely linked TTL chips, and creating a game using discrete logic was extremely complex. In fact, Epoch released only one other console using this technology, the System 10, another Pong-like system with 10 built-in games. During the development of the System 10, Epoch and NEC jointly created a microprocessor (uPD77xx) that would later become the core of the Cassette Vision. The time needed to release games using this technology improved tremendously, to the point that the first stand-alone console to use it, the TV Baseball, was released in August 1978, one month before the System 10, even though development of the TV Baseball started almost a year after the System 10.
In 1979, Epoch entered into a partnership with Atari and released two products on the Japanese market. The first was the TV Block, a redesign of the Atari Video Pinball C-380. The company then released, in October 1979, a rebranded version of the Atari VCS (2600) under the name Epoch Cassette TV Game. At a steep price of ¥57,300, the console was not a success. As Space Invaders was really popular in Japan, Epoch asked Atari to create a version for the 2600 to try to boost sales, but even with the release of Space Invaders on the VCS, the Cassette TV Game was not able to break into the market.
Epoch wanted to cash in on the Space Invaders craze and released a stand-alone console called the TV Vader in 1980. The console was Epoch’s take on Space Invaders, using the same hardware as the TV Baseball. With its experience on its own proprietary hardware, Epoch realized that it could create a cartridge-based system that would be far cheaper than the Cassette TV Game and take over the Japanese market. With this idea, it created the Cassette Vision.
Release
The Cassette Vision was finally released on July 30, 1981, at a price of ¥13,500. Initially, only Yosuka and Baseball were available, but two more games were released within the next three months.
Coding for the Cassette Vision was a drastic improvement over LSI systems like the System 10, but the process was still fairly complex. The developer had to code the game in assembly language and load it into an NEC TK-80 computer, which stored the program on audio cassette. Since Epoch had only one of these beasts, it could only code one game at a time. Over the next three years, Epoch released seven more games.
Although released in 1981, the technology behind the Cassette Vision dated from 1978. Epoch was aware of this shortfall, and in 1982 it started to work on the Cassette Vision’s successor, the Super Cassette Vision. While the new system was being developed, Epoch continued releasing games for the Cassette Vision. The plan was to keep supporting the Cassette Vision as long as there was demand, while slowly positioning the Super Cassette Vision as the new flagship product.
Demise
On July 15, 1983, Nintendo entered the market with a cartridge-based video game console. The Famicom was sold at ¥14,800, just ¥1,300 more than the Cassette Vision. Epoch, which was in the process of designing its own 8-bit system, knew that the Cassette Vision would not hold up against the upcoming 8-bit generation. To give itself time to finish the upcoming Super Cassette Vision, Epoch released a trimmed-down version of the Cassette Vision called the Cassette Vision Jr. on July 19, 1983, at a price of ¥5,000, about a third of the price of the Nintendo console.
The major change in the Cassette Vision Jr. was the removal of the second set of controls, which basically made it impossible to play two-player games. Fortunately, only two games fell into that category: Baseball and Big Sport 12. Baseball was more or less not an issue, as it had been re-released a year earlier with a single-player mode under the name New Baseball. Big Sport 12 was not really an issue either, as Pong-genre games were no longer generating interest by that time. This also gave Epoch the opportunity to remove the accessory connector that was used only for the pistol accessory in Big Sport 12.
On July 17, 1984, the Super Cassette Vision was released, about one year after the Nintendo Famicom. Epoch tried to prolong the life of the Cassette Vision by lowering the price of the games and changing the design of the cartridge to create a clear separation between the two products. Epoch released Elevator Panic on August 1, 1984, using the new approach, but by this time interest in the second-generation console was already gone. Grand Champion was another game that was ready to be launched, but after the discovery of a game-breaking bug (after the manufacturing process), Epoch decided to destroy the stock and not to reprint the game, as demand for Cassette Vision games was now almost non-existent following the reception of Elevator Panic.
By the end of its life cycle, the Cassette Vision (including the Cassette Vision Jr.) had sold more than 400,000 units, which was huge for the Japanese market at the time. The Cassette Vision was by far the most successful console of its generation in Japan, crushing competitors such as Bandai and Takatoku.
Technology
Epoch decided to capitalize on the NEC uPD77xx chipset, which it had already used to develop games on this platform (TV Baseball, TV Vader). To achieve this, Epoch decided to put the CPU directly in the cartridge, while the shell of the console would only contain the power supply, the controls and the video and sound output. With the ROM, the RAM and the CPU in one chip, Epoch and NEC were able to create a chip that supported 48-bit instructions, which was way faster than systems using a separate ROM at the time. Using an 8-bit ROM through a bus would have divided the speed by four. Although putting only the ROM on the cartridge would have reduced the cost of the cartridges drastically, it would have greatly increased the cost of the console itself, incurred more R&D costs and delayed the release of the console.
Games
A total of 11 games were released for the system. Game #10 (Grand Champion) was never released.
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| #1 – Yosuka Jul 30, 1981 Watch |
#2 – Baseball Jul 30, 1981 Watch |
Galaxian Aug 10, 1981 Watch |
Big Sport 12 Oct 20, 1981 |
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| Battle Vader Mar 3, 1982 Watch |
PakPak Monster Jul 13, 1982 Watch |
New Baseball Jun 15, 1982 |
Monster Mansion Oct 7, 1982 Watch |
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| Astro Command Aug 3, 1983 Watch |
Grand Champion Unreleased |
Monster Block Mar 16, 1984 Watch |
Elevator Panic Aug 1, 1984 Watch |
Japanese Ads for the Cassette Vision
Other Information
Some of the information on this page comes from an interview given by Masayuki Horie. The interview is very interesting and gives a lot of insight into the state of the video game industry in the early years. The full interview can be read here: http://shmuplations.com/epoch/