85-477: Coleco Industries, Inc. ( / k ə ˈ l iː k oʊ / kə- LEE -koh ) was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company . It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game consoles , the Coleco Telstar dedicated consoles and ColecoVision . While the company ceased operations in 1988 as
170-644: A gimmick to enhance their collectibility, e.g. some dolls played on water toys, swam, ate food, or brushed their teeth. Some Mattel lines include the updated Kids line of basic cloth dolls that came with birth certificates , the OlympiKids that were made to coincide with the 1996 Olympics , and the Cabbage Patch Fairies . In January 1997, Mattel recalled the franchise's Snacktime Kids dolls after numerous complaints that they were chewing on children's hair and fingers. Additionally, to celebrate
255-544: A 14-inch (35.6 cm) Cabbage Patch Kids Fashionality line and other Cabbage Patch Kid products. In 2013, Jakks Pacific released the Celebration edition to commemorate the 30th Birthday of the licensed Cabbage Patch Kids. Wicked Cool Toys is the master toy licensee for Cabbage Patch Kids as of 2015. Wicked Cool Toys released new additions like Little Sprouts, a line of tiny collectable dolls, only 1.5 inches tall. They also released Adoptimals, 8-inch plus pets that
340-416: A 50 MHz printed circuit board . Following the commercial failure of Radar Scope , the game's arcade hardware was converted for use with Donkey Kong , which became a major arcade hit. Home systems at the time were not powerful enough to handle an accurate port of Donkey Kong , so Nintendo wanted to create a system that allowed a fully accurate conversion of Donkey Kong to be played in homes, leading to
425-419: A Cabbage Patch Kid can adopt. The original 1982 Cabbage Patch Kids license agreement with Coleco Industries was negotiated by Roger L. Schlaifer, doing business as Schlaifer Nance & Company (SN&C), the exclusive worldwide licensor for Original Appalachian Artworks, Roberts' company at the time. Following Schlaifer Nance & Company's signing of Coleco Industries, SN&C designed and/or directed
510-490: A Cabbage Patch Kids 25th Anniversary collection using some of the original head sculpts from the very first Coleco editions. Play Along also partnered with Carvel in a co-branding campaign. The resulting co-branded Cabbage Patch Kids were packaged with a Carvel-branded ice cream cone. JAKKS Pacific acquired Play Along Toys and assumed the master toy licensee for the Cabbage Patch Kids in 2011. Jakks introduced
595-518: A brand name has been owned by several entities since it was created in 1961 by Coleco Industries, Inc. In 2005, River West Brands, now Dormitus Brands, a Chicago -based brand revitalization company, re-introduced the Coleco brand to the marketplace. In late 2006, the company introduced the Coleco Sonic, a handheld system containing twenty Master System and Game Gear games, including two from
680-472: A historically important game for the industry. In 2021, The Guardian listed Galaxian as the greatest video game of the 1970s . In 1996, GamesMaster ranked the arcade version 63 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time." Home versions and ports of the game received mixed responses by platforms. Video magazine in 1982 reviewed the Astrocade version of Galaxian (named Galactic Invasion ), noting that
765-500: A legal battle with Schlaifer and Roberts over his introduction of "Furskins Bears"— a collection of hillbilly bears that competed with the Cabbage Patch dolls. Coleco's sales plummeted from over $ 800 million in 1986 to nothing in 1988 when the company went out of business. After changing the dolls' name to Cabbage Patch Kids, Schlaifer contacted all the major doll companies in the country. Most declined, commenting that
850-776: A line of ROM cartridges for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision , selling six million cartridges for both systems, along with two million sold for the ColecoVision for a total of eight million cartridges sold in 1982. It also introduced the Coleco Gemini , a clone of the popular Atari 2600, which came bundled with a copy of Donkey Kong . When the video game business began to implode in 1983 , it seemed clear that video game consoles were being supplanted by home computers . Bob Greenberg, son of Leonard Greenberg and nephew of Arnold Greenberg, left Microsoft where he had been working as
935-556: A line of "Furskins Bears", and failing to pay SN&C its share of the Topps settlement and refusing to allow ABC TV from doing a Saturday morning animated TV show, Roberts worked out a side deal with Coleco for tens of millions of dollars for a renewal of Schlaifer's Cabbage Patch agreement, and jointly litigated against SN&C. The suit was settled in 1988 by OAA and Coleco paying SN&C an undisclosed amount of money. In addition, Paula Osborne, OAA president until Roberts worked out
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#17327832500371020-407: A movement detector to show the positioning of the doll and whether it was sensed to be on its belly, back, or even upside down. A special plastic drinking cup containing a hidden magnet, which could be identified with the aid a small reed relay in the built into the head of the toy above the mouth, to signify when it should be seen to be drinking. A more remarkable effect occurred when one doll detected
1105-734: A normal toddler's proportions instead of the morbidly obese bodies on Roberts' originals. It was those comparatively inexpensive ($ 18 to $ 28) dolls, branded in packaging designed by Schlaifer and produced in Coleco's factories in China, that succeeded commercially. Coleco cancelled all of its advertising as they tried to keep up with demand—shipping a doll-industry record, 3.2 million dolls. Sales of dolls in 1984, along with Cabbage Patch branded merchandise generated $ 2,000,000,000 in retail sales across North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Coleco's sales continued to climb right through 1986, when they reportedly over-shipped and lost ground in
1190-515: A profit at his own store in Georgia. Thomas later stopped selling additional dolls to Roberts, prompting him to turn to a manufacturing company in Hong Kong to mass produce dolls similar in appearance to Thomas' at a cheaper cost. Thomas brought suit against Roberts and eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in 1985. She and her husband, Tucker Thomas, told the press that she
1275-556: A program developer at the time to assist in Coleco's entry into this market. Coleco's strategy was to introduce the Coleco Adam home computer, both as a stand-alone system and as an expansion module to the ColecoVision. The effort failed, in part because Adams were often unreliable due to being released with critical bugs, and in part because the computer's release coincided with the home computer industry crashing. Coleco withdrew from electronics early in 1985. In 1983, Coleco released
1360-413: A prototype posted by AtariAge showed the device utilizing a CCTV capture card in place of a motherboard. After Retro VGS failed to produce a fully working prototype, Coleco Holdings pulled out of involvement with Retro VGS, terminating the project. Cabbage Patch Kids Cabbage Patch Kids are a line of cloth dolls with plastic heads first produced by Coleco Industries in 1982. They were inspired by
1445-419: A result of bankruptcy, the Coleco brand was revived in 2005, and remains active to this day. Coleco Industries, Inc. began in 1932 as The Connecticut Leather Company. The business supplied leather and "shoe findings" (the supplies and paraphernalia of a shoe repair shop) to shoe repairers. In 1938, the company began selling rubber footwear. During World War II demand for the company's supplies increased and by
1530-491: A share. In 1963, the company acquired the Kestral Corporation of Springfield, Massachusetts , a manufacturer of inflatable vinyl pools and toys. This led to Coleco becoming the largest manufacturer of above-ground swimming pools in the world. In 1966, Leonard persuaded his brother Arnold Greenberg to join the company. Further acquisitions included Playtime Products (1966) and Eagle Toys of Canada (1968). By
1615-514: A similar space shooter released the previous year by rival developer Taito . Space Invaders was a sensation in Japan, and Namco wanted a game that could compete against it. Sawano strove to make the game simplistic and easy to understand. He was inspired by the cinematic space combat scenes in Star Wars , with enemies originally being in the shape of the film's TIE Fighters . Galaxian is one of
1700-524: A stand-alone Mini-Arcade tabletop version of Galaxian in 1981, which, along with Pac-Man , Donkey Kong , and Frogger , sold three million units combined. Entex released a handheld electronic game called Galaxian 2 in 1981. The game is called Galaxian 2 because it has a two-player mode. It is not a sequel, as there is no Entex Galaxian . Galaxian was released by Namco in Japan on September 15, 1979. Following its large success, Namco approached Midway Manufacturing in terms of releasing
1785-683: A tilemap hardware model, which created a set of 8x8 pixel tiles – this reduced processing and memory requirements up to 64 times, compared to the framebuffer model used in Space Invaders . The game's hardware was also capable of features such as multi-color sprites , sprite animation, and scrolling , though the game remained a fixed shooter with a scrolling effect only used for the starfield background. Atari, Inc. published ports of Galaxian for its own systems— Atari 8-bit computers , Atari 2600 , Atari 5200 — in 1982–3, three or more years after Galaxian appeared in arcades and
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#17327832500371870-502: A toy store, in Cleveland, Georgia . In 1981, at the height of Roberts's success, he was approached by Atlanta designer and licensing agent, Roger L. Schlaifer about licensing The Little People. As Fisher-Price owned the name "Little People", the name was changed to "Cabbage Patch Kids." His goal was to build the first and largest mass-market children's brand in history. In order to attract potential doll manufacturers and to create
1955-410: A voice chip, touch sensors, a microphone, short range 49 MHz AM transmitter and receiver for communicating with other dolls. Touch sensors in the hands enabled the toy to detect when and how it was being played with in response to its vocalizations. For example, the doll might say "hold my hand" and give an appropriate speech response when the touch sensor in either hand detected pressure. It also had
2040-491: A year or more after Galaga . Additional ports were published under the Atarisoft label: Apple II , ColecoVision , Commodore 64 , VIC-20 , IBM PC , and ZX Spectrum . Ports from other companies were sold for MSX (Europe and Japan only), NEC PC-8801 , Famicom (Japan only), and Sharp X1 . A Bally Astrocade version was published as Galaxian , but the name was later changed to Galactic Invasion . Coleco released
2125-593: A year. Among these, 1.5 million units were sold for Pac-Man alone. In 1983, it released three more Mini-Arcades: Ms. Pac-Man , Donkey Kong Junior , and Zaxxon . Coleco returned to the video game console market in 1982 with the launch of the ColecoVision . The system was quite popular and more powerful than the Atari 2600 , and came bundled with a copy of Donkey Kong . The console sold 560,000 units in 1982. Coleco also hedged its bet on video games by introducing
2210-460: Is a 1979 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Namco . The player assumes control of the Galaxip starfighter in its mission to protect Earth from waves of aliens. Gameplay involves destroying each formation of aliens, who dive down towards the player in an attempt to hit them. Designed by company engineer Kazunori Sawano, Galaxian was Namco's answer to Space Invaders ,
2295-439: Is included in numerous Namco compilations . Galaxian is a space-themed fixed shooter . The player controls a starship called the "Galaxip", the objective being to clear each round of aliens. The enemies appear in formation towards the top of the screen, with two escort ships, labeled the "Galaxian Flagship" or "Galboss". Enemies will make a divebomb towards the bottom of the screen while shooting projectiles in an attempt to hit
2380-649: Is presented as a birthing , nursery , and adoption center for the Cabbage Patch Kids. In accordance with the theme, employees dressed and pretended to be doctors and nurses caring for the dolls as if they were real. Babyland General moved to a new facility on the outskirts of Cleveland, Georgia, in 2010 and has been voted one of the Travel Channel's top 10 toylands. Under the direction of ABC V.P. of programming, Squire Rushnell, and produced by Ruby-Spears with music by Joe Raposo , The Cabbage Patch Kids' First Christmas , premiered on ABC on December 7, 1984, and
2465-597: The Galaga 30th Anniversary Collection , released in commemoration of the event by Namco Bandai . Super Impulse also released a stand-alone Tiny Arcade version of Galaxian . The Galaxian world record has been the focus of many competitive gamers since its release. The most famous Galaxian rivalry has been between British player Gary Whelan and American Perry Rodgers, who faced off at Apollo Amusements in Pompano Beach, Florida , USA, on 6–9 April 2006. Whelan held
2550-654: The Sonic the Hedgehog series. In 2014, River West Brands established the subsidiary Coleco Holdings for their Coleco-branded projects. In December 2015, Coleco Holdings announced the development of the Coleco Chameleon , a new cartridge-based video game system; in actuality, a re-branding of the controversial Retro VGS console, whose Indiegogo campaign failed to secure funding when it ended in early November 2015, with only $ 63,546 raised of its $ 1.95 million goal. In
2635-662: The Cabbage Patch Kids series of dolls which were wildly successful. In the same year, Dr. Seuss signed a deal with Coleco to design a line of toys, including home video games based on his characters. Flush with success, Coleco purchased Leisure Dynamics (manufacturer of the board games Aggravation and Perfection ) and beleaguered Selchow and Righter , manufacturers of Scrabble , Parcheesi , and Trivial Pursuit , in 1986. Sales of Selchow & Righter games had plummeted, leaving them with warehouses full of unsold games. The purchase price for Selchow & Righter
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2720-547: The Garbage Pail Kids , for copyright infringement. Having sold over $ 70 million worth of the cards, Topps settled with OAA for $ 7 million—tantamount to a license—and retained the right to continue producing the Garbage Pail Kids cards. In a bitter legal battle with SN&C over whether OAA had violated their licensing Agreement with SN&C and Coleco's exclusivity by producing a Cabbage Patch bear as
2805-591: The 20-inch dolls debuted in the Times Square flagship store. These were created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the line, and were available both online and in stores around the US. Expensive and deemed too cumbersome for most young children to play with, they did not last long at the retailer. Play Along toys next obtained exclusive licensing rights to produce the Cabbage Patch Kids doll line. In 2004, again using Schlaifer's original packaging, Play Along launched
2890-466: The Little People soft sculptured dolls sold by Xavier Roberts as collectibles. The brand was renamed 'Cabbage Patch Kids' by Roger L. Schlaifer when he acquired the exclusive worldwide licensing rights in 1982. The doll brand set every toy industry sales record for three years running, and was one of the most popular lines of children's licensed products in the 1980s and has become one of
2975-574: The Mini-Arcade series of licensed video arcade titles such as Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man . A third line of educational handhelds was also produced and included the Electronic Learning Machine, Lil Genius , Digits , and a trivia game called Quiz Wiz . Launched in 1982, their first four tabletop Mini-Arcades, for Pac-Man , Galaxian , Donkey Kong , and Frogger , sold approximately three million units within
3060-520: The Schlaifer's six-year tenure exceeded $ 4.5 billion, more than ten times the total revenues of Cabbage Patch Kids merchandise and entertainment in the thirty years since–the latter of which never made the impact Roberts claimed it would under his direction in the November 1983 edition of Esquire magazine. And while sales of the dolls and other licensed products declined precipitously in the late 1980s,
3145-474: The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The reorganized Coleco sold off all of its North American assets and outsourced thousands of jobs to foreign countries, closing plants in Amsterdam, New York and other cities. In 1988, Canada-based SLM Action Sports Inc. purchased Coleco's swimming pool and snow goods divisions. In 1989, Hasbro purchased most of Coleco's remaining product lines. Coleco as
3230-574: The core gameplay. The 2005 PlayStation Portable compilation Namco Museum Battle Collection includes a remake of Galaga titled Galaga Arrangement , having no relation to the one featured in Namco Classic Collection Vol. 1 . This game was later ported to iOS devices in 2009, renamed Galaga Remix . In 2008, Namco Bandai Games released a downloadable game for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 , Galaga Legions – this game
3315-516: The deal with Coleco, sued over the share she was entitled to as a stockholder of OAA and received a seven-figure settlement. Six months after settling with SN&C, Coleco was out of business. One of Mattel's line of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, the Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids, was designed to "eat" plastic snacks. The mechanism enabling this was a pair of one-way smooth metal rollers behind plastic lips. The snacks would exit
3400-430: The design and quality of virtually all CPK branded products produced by its over one hundred and fifty CPK licensed manufacturers, including Coleco. They included the first children's licensed character diapers and low-sugar cereal, children's apparel, bedding, stationery products, books, backyard pools, and thousands of other children's products – generating over $ 2 billion in retail sales for 1984, alone. Total sales during
3485-525: The development of the Famicom. Galaxian spawned a long series of sequels and spin-offs for multiple game platforms, including arcade hardware and home video game systems. The first of these, Galaga , was released in 1981, usurping the original in popularity as one of the greatest video games of all time , becoming a popular game during the golden age of arcade video games in North America. It
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3570-492: The development team made the number of enemies on-screen the same and gradually increased the difficulty as the player progresses, becoming more noticeable in later stages. The enemies themselves were designed to have a personality of their own, programmed to monitor the player's movements and make attacks based on them - early in development, Sawano had envisioned the enemies to resemble TIE Fighters from Star Wars . To save up on hardware memory and processing, programmers created
3655-690: The doll's back and "magically" appear into a backpack. The mechanism could be de-activated by releasing the backpack. They were extremely popular during Christmas 1996. The line was voluntarily withdrawn from the market following an agreement between Mattel and the Consumer Product Safety Commission in January 1997 following several incidents where children got their fingers or hair stuck in the dolls' mouths leading to safety warnings from Connecticut's consumer protection commissioner, Mark Shiffrin. Galaxian Galaxian
3740-463: The dolls for younger children, which led to smaller and smaller dolls. In 1994, Mattel acquired the licensing rights to the dolls from Original Appalachian Artworks. Their first Cabbage Patch dolls hit the stores in 1995. The Mattel Cabbage Patch dolls were not limited to cloth bodies and included dolls made from vinyl , resulting in a more durable play doll. The Mattel dolls are mostly sized 14" or smaller, and most variants were individualized with
3825-468: The dolls have become a mainstay of the toy industry, and one of the few long-running doll brands in history. These limited edition dolls were available from Applause gifts and later by direct mail from the Danbury Mint . They have a rigid fabric body with porcelain legs, arms, and head. "Talking Cabbage Patch Kids" were among the last new CPK lines introduced by Coleco. They were equipped with
3910-454: The dolls with various gimmicks, including dolls that played kazoos . Some of the more popular doll lines to come out under the Cabbage Patch Kids name included the "Birthday Kids", "Splash 'n' Tan Kids", and "Pretty Crimp and Curl". Hasbro produced a 10th anniversary doll, reintroducing Schlaifer's original packaging – a practice that other CPK doll manufacturers would do to give sales a boost on various anniversaries. Hasbro gradually began making
3995-643: The dolls' 15th anniversary, Mattel created a line of exclusively female dolls with reproduction face molds, dressed in a reproduction dresses reminiscent of the original line and packaged in retro style box. These were 16 inches tall, the same measurement of the first Coleco Cabbage Kids. In 2001, with Mattel's sales stalling, a former Coleco marketing employee, Al Kahn, acquired Original Appalachian's licensing rights and sold retailer Toys "R" Us on producing 20-inch (50.8 cm) Kids dolls and 18-inch (45.7 cm) baby dolls, both with cloth bodies and vinyl heads. They were packaged in cardboard cabbage leaf seats. In 2001,
4080-512: The early 1980s; Game Machine reported that it was still performing well as late as August 1983. In the United States, Galaxian was also the second highest-grossing arcade game of 1980, below Asteroids , according to Play Meter and Cash Box . Galaxian had sold 40,000 arcade units in the United States by 1981, and 50,000 units in the US as of 1982 . Critics applauded the game's use of true color graphics and for improving
4165-537: The end of the 1960s, Coleco operated ten manufacturing facilities and occupied a new corporate headquarters in Hartford, Connecticut. Coleco experienced financial difficulty during the 1970s, even though sales had grown to $ 48.6 million in 1971. In 1972, Coleco entered the snowmobile market through acquisition. Lower than expected snowfall that year and market conditions led to very reduced sales and poor profits. Dozens of companies rushed to introduce game systems after
4250-546: The end of the war, the company was larger and had expanded into new and used shoe machinery, hat cleaning equipment and marble shoeshine stands. By the early 1950s, and thanks to Maurice Greenberg's son, Leonard Greenberg, the company had diversified further and was making leather lacing and leathercraft kits. In 1954, at the New York Toy Fair, their leather moccasin kit was selected as a Child Guidance Prestige Toy, and Connecticut Leather Company decided to commit to
4335-464: The entertainment and publishing businesses he envisioned, Schlaifer and his partner/wife wrote the Legend of the Cabbage Patch Kids . To make sense of how special cabbages gave birth to Cabbage Patch Kids, Schlaifer invented BunnyBees — the bee-like creatures that use their rabbit ears to fly about and pollinate cabbages with magical crystals. Since Roberts insisted on being a character in
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#17327832500374420-405: The feeling of a space battle, specifically with the game's sound effects. Several back-and-forth sound effects were made, many being rejected by Sawano for not matching his vision. The game was Namco's first arcade game to be composed with a synthesizer. Game balance was an important part of the game, as Sawano did not want to make the game suddenly spike in difficulty with no build-up or warning;
4505-434: The first video games to feature RGB color graphics and the first ever to use a tile-based hardware system, which was capable of animated multi-color sprites as well as scrolling , though the latter was limited to the starfield background while the game itself remained a fixed shooter. Galaxian was Namco's first major arcade video game hit. It was the second highest-grossing arcade video game of 1979 and 1980 in Japan and
4590-475: The formula established in Space Invaders . The April 5, 1980 issue of Cashbox noted of the game's colorful and attractive cabinet design, while the April 26 issue called it an "earthshaking hit", referring to it as a true followup to Space Invaders . In a 2007 retrospective review, Sir Clive of Eurogamer labeled it a masterpiece, praising its "beautifully drawn" game graphics, intense gameplay, and for being
4675-492: The full order. Though dedicated game consoles did not last long on the market, their early order enabled Coleco to break even . Coleco continued to perform well in electronics. The company transitioned into handheld electronic games , a market popularized by Mattel . An early success was Electronic Quarterback . Coleco produced two popular lines of games, the "head to head" series of two player sports games ( Football , Baseball , Basketball , Soccer , Hockey , Boxing ) and
4760-420: The game at a trade exhibit in November 1979, followed by a wide release for North America in early 1980 – this move helped strengthen Midway and challenged Atari's leadership in the market. To help keep up demand for the game in Japan, Namco licensed the game to other companies for manufacturing cabinets, including Taito and Irem . Galaxian was a critical and commercial success upon release. In Japan, it
4845-501: The game lasted six months, Sawano had made several ideas half a year before production began. Sawano and his team set out to make a game anybody could play, using a "simple is best" motto during production – this helped trim away large-scale ideas in favor of a game that could loop endlessly and be able to use only two enemy types. Alongside Space Invaders , a large portion of the game was inspired by Star Wars , specifically its large-scale space battles. Sawano had wanted to replicate
4930-401: The game overseas. Midway, who had previously lost their license with Taito due to the success of Space Invaders in the west, was in the midst of trying to find a new partner for releasing games. After Namco showed Midway the game on October 17, 1979, Midway was interested in the game's unique features and wanted to acquire the rights to the game. They agreed to the deal and Midway introduced
5015-426: The game progresses alongside the number of shots that the enemies fire. Rounds are indicated by small flags at the bottom of the screen. The game's attract mode featured a slim scenario, reading "WE ARE THE GALAXIANS. MISSION: DESTROY ALIENS". Galaxian was designed by Kazunori Sawano, who had previously worked on many of Namco's electro-mechanical shooting gallery arcade games, notably Shoot Away (1977). Early in
5100-408: The game's development, Taito had released Space Invaders in Japan, which swept the country by storm and helped turn the video game industry into a highly-profitable business. To help capitalize on the game's success, Namco president Masaya Nakamura ordered Sawano to make the best "post-Invaders" game they could, which put a vast amount of pressure on the development team. Although development of
5185-585: The graphics as fast although flickery. Softline in 1983 criticized the Atari 8-bit version of the game, stating that "this game becomes tedious very quickly". The Galaxian arcade hardware had a significant influence on the hardware design of Nintendo 's later arcade and console systems, including the arcade hardware for Radar Scope (1980) and Donkey Kong (1981) as well as the Famicom and Nintendo Entertainment System . According to Nintendo R&D2 lead engineer Masayuki Uemura , Galaxian replaced
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#17327832500375270-481: The graphics were inferior to the coin-op and PC versions, but praising the play-action as "magnificent" compared to other console versions. The Astrocade version was later awarded a Certificate of Merit for "Best Arcade-to-Home Video Game Translation" at the 4th annual Arkie Awards . Home Computing Weekly in 1983 gave the Spectrum version of Galaxian 3/5 stars describing it as a well-written version and praising
5355-566: The longest-running doll franchises in the United States. Additional Cabbage Patch products include children's apparel, bedding, infants' wear, record albums and board games. According to court records, Roberts, a 21-year-old art student at a missionary school in North Georgia, discovered craft artist Martha Nelson 's Doll Babies. They came with a birth certificate and adoption papers. With the help of artist Debbie Moorehead, he hand-stitched dolls called "The Little People". Roberts modified
5440-491: The look of Little People, many of Little People's defining characteristics – such as the dolls' overly round faces and that they came with an adoption certificate – were taken from Martha Nelson Thomas , an American folk artist from Kentucky . Before Roberts became involved in the toy industry, Thomas had created and marketed her own line of dolls, called Doll Babies, which she sold at local arts and craft shows and markets. Roberts began purchasing Thomas' dolls in 1976 to sell at
5525-425: The look of Nelson's dolls, birth certificate and adoption papers sufficiently to get a copyright, and told potential customers his Little People were not for sale; however, they could be "adopted" for prices ranging from $ 60 to $ 1,000. The Little People were first sold at arts and crafts shows, then later at Babyland General Hospital , an old medical clinic that Roberts and his friends-turned-employees converted into
5610-525: The look of the Little People was too ugly to sell on the mass-market. Coleco, then famous for its success with electronic toys, were sold on becoming the Master Toy licensee, including an advertising guarantee. At the peak of their popularity, between 1983 and 1986, the dolls were highly sought-after toys for Christmas. Cabbage Patch riots occurred as parents literally fought to obtain the dolls for children. In later years, Coleco introduced variants on
5695-429: The microphone was to delay the search and communication with another of its type when the ambient noise was above a certain level. Babyland General Hospital is the "birthplace" of Little People and is located in Cleveland, Georgia . With the help of local friends, Roberts converted an old doctor's clinic into a general store/souvenir shop and "doll hospital" from which to sell his original "Little People". The facility
5780-454: The more intensive bitmap rendering system of Space Invaders with a hardware sprite rendering system that animated sprites over a scrolling background, allowing more detailed graphics, faster gameplay and a scrolling animated starfield background. This provided the basis for Nintendo's Radar Scope arcade hardware, which improved on Galaxian with technology such as high-speed emitter-coupled logic integrated circuit chips and memory on
5865-585: The original Cabbage Patch Kids, and derivatives of the original line of dolls continued to be marketed. When Coleco was producing the dolls for the North American market during the 1980s, they provided technical assistance to other doll manufacturers in Panama, Europe, Australia and Japan who wanted to use their molds. Hasbro took over the rights to produce Cabbage Patch dolls in 1988 after Coleco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and continued to make
5950-432: The player. The Galaxip can only fire a single shot at a time, and the player must wait for it to either hit an enemy or the top of the screen before being able to fire another, due to limitations of the hardware. Flagships will make a divebomb with two red escort ships - shooting all three of these will award the player bonus points, with extra points awarded to the destruction of the flagship. Enemy movement will increase as
6035-437: The presence of another through its 49 MHz AM transmitter / receiver . The dolls were programmed to signal their "awareness" of each other with a short phrase, e.g. "I think there's someone else to play with here!", and then to initiate simple conversations between the dolls themselves with enough randomness to sound somewhat natural. The joint synchronised singing of 'rounds' being particularly impressive. The inclusion of
6120-526: The press release, it was established that the system would be able to play new and classic games in the 8, 16, and 32-bit styles. The release for the system was announced to be sometime in early 2016, with a demonstration at Toy Fair New York in February. However, some critics suggested that the prototype fell short of its developmental goals and was nothing more than the motherboard of a Super NES model SNS-101 inside an Atari Jaguar case. Later mock images of
6205-458: The release of Atari 's successful Pong console and the company entered the video game console business with the Telstar . Nearly all of the new game systems were based on General Instrument 's " Pong -on-a-chip". General Instrument had underestimated demand, resulting in severe shortages. However, Coleco was one of the first to place an order and therefore one of the few companies to receive
6290-502: The second highest-grossing of 1980 in the United States, where it became one of the best-selling arcade games of all time with 50,000 arcade units sold by 1982. The game was celebrated for its gameplay and use of true color graphics. In retrospect, it has gained fame for its historical importance and technological accomplishments. Its success led to several sequels and reimaginings, most notably Galaga , which surpassed it in popularity. Galaxian has also been ported to many home systems and
6375-723: The story, Schlaifer created him as a curious, ten-year-old boy who discovered the Cabbage Patch Kids by following a BunnyBee behind a waterfall into a magical Cabbage Patch, where he found the Cabbage Patch babies being born in a neglected garden. To save them from being abducted to work in the gold mines operated by the villainess Lavender McDade and her two cohorts in crime, Cabbage Jack and Beau Weasel, young Roberts tried to save them by finding loving parents who would adopt them and keep them safe in their homes. In 1982, Coleco's design team, headed by famed doll designer Judy Albert, devised an industry first: one-of-a-kind, plastic-headed Cabbage Patch Kids dolls with cuter features, softer bodies and
6460-438: The toy business. In 1956, Leonard read about the emerging technology of vacuum formed plastic; the company adopted this and it became increasingly successful, producing a wide variety of plastic toys and wading pools. In 1961, the leather and shoe findings portion of the business was sold, and Connecticut Leather Company became Coleco Industries, Inc. On January 9, 1962, Coleco went public, offering 120,000 shares of stock at $ 5.00
6545-432: Was $ 75 million. That same year, Coleco introduced an ALF plush, based on the furry alien character who had his own television series at the time, as well as a talking version and a cassette-playing "Storytelling ALF" doll. The combination of the purchase of Selchow & Righter, the disastrous Adam computer, and the public's waning infatuation with Cabbage Patch Dolls all contributed to Coleco's financial decline. In 1988,
6630-523: Was a rail shooter where up to 28 players used lightguns to shoot down enemies and projectiles. A smaller version for arcades was released in 1992, followed by a 1996 PlayStation release in Japan and Europe. In 1995, an arcade remake of Galaga was released for the Namco Classic Collection Vol. 1 compilation, Galaga Arrangement . This game added two-player co-operative play and boss fights, alongside new enemy and weapon types. It
6715-455: Was followed by Gaplus in 1984, which added power-up items and juggling-based bonus stages. Galaga '88 was released in 1987, published in North America by Atari Games , which featured branching level paths, new enemy types and multiple endings. In 1990, Namco produced a theme-park attraction based on the series, Galaxian3: Project Dragoon . Originally presented at Expo '90 and moved to Namco's Wonder Eggs theme park two years later, it
6800-461: Was instead a twin-stick shooter game with score attack modes and multiple stages. It was followed by a 2011 sequel, Galaga Legions DX , branded under the now-defunct Namco Generations label. Galaxian is included in the Namco Museum series of collections across several platforms. Galaxian and Galaga were bundled together for a Game Boy release as Arcade Classic 3 . Galaxian
6885-456: Was more upset by the corruption of her dolls, for which she cared deeply, than the money she'd lost as the result of Roberts' actions. Thomas died in 2013, at the age of 62, with her favorite dolls attending her funeral alongside her family members and friends. Roberts' company, Original Appalachian Artworks, later brought a $ 30 million lawsuit against Topps , the company that produced grotesque trading cards parodying his company's dolls called
6970-466: Was ported to the Xbox , PlayStation 2 and GameCube in 2002 as part of the compilation disk Namco Museum . A Japan-only medal game spin-off, Galaxian Fever , was released in 2000 as part of Namco's Shooting Medal series. The following year, Hasbro Interactive released Galaga: Destination Earth for the PlayStation and Game Boy Color , adding side-scrolling and third-person stages to
7055-535: Was released on Microsoft Windows in 1995 as part of Microsoft Return of Arcade . The game was also released as part of the Pac-Man's Arcade Party 30th Anniversary arcade machine. The game has also been seen in Jakks Pacific 's " Plug It In & Play " TV game controllers. Galaxian , along with Galaga , Gaplus , and Galaga '88 , was " redesigned and modernized " for an iPhone app compilation called
7140-437: Was the second highest-earning arcade game of 1979 , below Space Invaders . The following year, Galaxian outperformed Pac-Man for a while, before the year ended with Galaxian again being the second highest-earning arcade game of 1980 , below Pac-Man . Galaxian was later the 18th highest-grossing arcade video game of 1981 , tied with Defender and Turbo . The game continued to see success in Japan throughout
7225-711: Was the top-rated show in its time-slot. Additional shows include Cabbage Patch Kids: The New Kid , a stop-motion animated special produced by Goldhill Entertainment, and aired on the FOX Kids Network programming block on August 26, 1995. It was followed by four other stop-motion animated specials, Cabbage Patch Kids: The Club House in 1996; Cabbage Patch Kids: The Screen Test in 1997; Cabbage Patch Kids: Saturday Night in 1998; and Cabbage Patch Kids: Vernon's Christmas in 1999. Roberts rejected an offer from ABC for an hour Saturday show combining Cabbage Patch Kids and Furskins Bears. Though Xavier Roberts originated
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