Hardware Heaven
Super Cassette Vision
SYSTEM SUPPLIED BY EVAN AMOS
» MANUFACTURER: Epoch » YEAR: 1984 » COST: ¥14,800 (launch), £120+ (today, boxed), £90+ (today, unboxed)
The toy manufacturer Epoch was the first Japanese company to really achieve success in creating home consoles as we know them today. It had initially moved into home gaming with Pong-clone consoles in the mid-Seventies, and introduced the original Cassette Vision in 1981. This was a success, selling hundreds of thousands of units, but it was technically surpassed by Nintendo’s Famicom and Sega’s SG-1000 in 1983. Epoch returned with the technically improved Super Cassette Vision in 1984, but couldn’t catch up to rival machines despite the presence of popular licences such as Lupin III, Doraemon, Dragon Ball, Mappy and Boulder Dash. The machine was also released in France under the Yeno brand.