Recently, the Russian government started talking about creating a domestic gaming console. What will come of this, we will only know in a few years, because the development of such a device takes a lot of time. In the meantime, we invite you to remember which consoles and portables have already been released in our country.
Russia currently does not have its own PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X or Nintendo Switch. At the same time, don’t think that we haven’t made any attempt to do something ourselves. We are talking about both clones of popular consoles and our own devices that have no direct analogues.
Portable consoles from the “Electronics” family.
Pocket electronics consoles have been released since 1984. Many of them were exact copies of Nintendo’s Game & Watch. But in some cases, engineers showed imagination and changed their character. For example, in “Electronics IM-02” the wolf looks the same as in the Soviet animated series “Well, wait a minute!” There was a legend among schoolchildren of those years that if you collected 1000 eggs, an exclusive episode would appear on the screen. Of course this is fiction. The segmented displays of those years were too simple to show full video.
The more advanced “Electronics IM-12” turned out to be an analogue of the Nintendo CJ-93 Donkey-Kong JRe. It has a color screen and supports cartridges. Instead of Donkey Kong, we control Winnie the Pooh.
It wasn’t just the Game & Watch that was copied. For example, Electronics IER-01 was an adaptation of Mattel Electronics Auto Race, the first portable console in history. The only game recorded on it turned out to be a simple race.
Another interesting example is “Electronics IM-27. Space adventures.” It is glasses with a double LCD display that creates a 3D effect. It sounds interesting, but in reality such devices caused severe headaches and eye fatigue. The console itself turned out to be a copy of Planet Zeon, which belongs to the Tomytronic 3-D series from Tomy.
In addition to clones of foreign products, there were also unique portables. For example: ‘Electronics IM-50. Fun Arithmetic” suggested practicing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It is curious that they were sold not only in the USSR, but also abroad.
But the most interesting example is “Electronics MK 90”, also known as “PK-100”. This is already a full-fledged microcomputer that allowed programming in BASIC and supported memory cards. Among the built-in games there were “Tetris” Pac-Man and chess. Moreover, the device appeared on store shelves in 1988, a year before the release of the Nintendo Game Boy. Unfortunately, the price of 3,500 rubles made “Electronics MK 90” inaccessible to most residents of our country.
Have you ever played on portable Soviet consoles?
Stationary Soviet consoles
The first set-top boxes appeared on the world market in 1972. It all started with the Magnavox Odyssey, and then we saw the Atari Pong and the Coleco Telstar. As in the case of Game & Watch, they were copied and released under the guise of their own developments. The first Soviet home console was released in 1978 and was called “Tournament”. It was a clone of Atari Pong – it offered to hit a ball using a small platform. What happens is reminiscent of table tennis.
Later consoles “Leader”, “Palaestra-02”, “Eureka” and “Electronics Exi Video 01” also turned out to be variations on the Pong theme. They differed minimally from each other. Among them we can highlight “Videosport”, which came with the electronic gun. Players were asked to aim at the screen and shoot at a white square.
Separately, it is worth noting the Rubin TV Ts1-205, which was released from 1981 to 1983. It had built-in games from Pong consoles. And two controllers made it possible to have a competition with a friend.
In addition to consoles, computers were also copied. An example is the Duet PC, an exact clone of the ZX Spectrum. It was possible to run games on it, but the main task was related to programming. Therefore, we would like to draw attention to another specimen: a device called “Elf”. Essentially, this is the same Spectrum, just tailor-made for video games. It came with two gamepads, one of which resembled a NES controller and the other resembled a flight simulator joystick. Cartridges were used as storage media. It’s true that the appearance of the Elf games reminded me of the early 80s. And the console itself was released in 1993, when the world had already seen Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive.
In turn, the “Krokha” console was created on the basis of the Soviet “Specialist” computer. It is designed as a home analogue of a slot machine. Among the built-in games were Tetris, a clone of Arkanoid, a shoot’em up called Air Defense, as well as an unusual puzzle called Balls. In total, several hundred “Krokh” were produced, after which their production was curtailed.
Russian console. GS gaming kit
In the 90s, many foreign analogues of Nintendo and Sega consoles appeared on the Russian market. The most popular was Dendy, an NES clone. It was produced in Taiwan, so a detailed story about it is beyond the scope of our article. But it is important to note that its appearance discouraged domestic manufacturers from investing in their own developments.
A completely new household appliance called GS Gamekit only appeared on the market in 2016. It was presented as a full-fledged gaming console. True, only subscribers of the Tricolor TV operator could use it. To access the local game library, you need a wireless Internet connection and pay 1,000 rubles per year.
Unfortunately, the games that GS Gamekit offers are too simple. Of the good projects one might perhaps highlight a quest “Machinarium” All other races, hunting simulators and top-down shooters are ports of mobile phones.
Which domestic consoles have you played? Share your thoughts in the comments!
What home console did you have as a child?
Source: VG Times
Christina Moncayo is a contributing writer for “Social Bites”. Her focus is on the gaming industry and she provides in-depth coverage of the latest news and trends in the world of gaming.