Pac-Man (Jakks Pacific)

Pac-Man by Jakks Pacific refers to a "plug & play" game compilation featuring Namco arcade titles. It was developed by HotGen and released by Jakks Pacific in 2003 under the "Plug it in & Play TV Games" brand. It is officially considered "Edition 1" of the Pac-Man plug & play series, and would be followed by the Ms. Pac-Man plug & play.
This console has been released under several alternate names: including Namco Arcade Classics, Namco Featuring Pac-Man, and The Original Pac-Man: Arcade Classics Collection. The original release of the console is branded as just Namco and Pac-Man.
== Overview ==
The Pac-Man plug & play console is colored purple with gold or yellow sides (depending on the SKU), and features a red joystick and buttons. Artwork showcasing the included games is featured on the sides of the unit, giving an appearance similar to an arcade machine. The releases with gold-colored edges were bundled with a fabric Blinky cover that could be placed over the joystick top; this cover was not included with the yellow-colored model.
The hardware of this plug & play is currently unknown, and is almost entirely undocumented. It has been reported that the console's hardware is based on a Winbond microcontroller, though this is largely unconfirmed.https://forums.atariage.com/topic/193992-what-type-of-computer-does-the-pac-man-namco-plug-and-play-joysticks-use/#findComment-2464830"I have seen forum postings citing anonymous sources which attribute the first four Jakks Pacific TV Games systems (Activision, Atari joystick, Namco Pac-Man, SpongeBob SquarePants) to Winbond, but [the sources are] unverifiable and [have] no further information available." (https://pnp-info.angelfire.com/) The hardware specifications appear to be shared with Jakks' four earliest plug & play releases (Pac-Man, Activision, Atari, and SpongeBob SquarePants); future Jakks Pacific Pac-Man releases would switch to using Sunplus-based chipsets.
== Games ==
The Pac-Man plug & play features five games, including:
*Pac-Man (1980)
*Galaxian (1979)
*Rally-X (1980)
*Bosconian (1981)
*Dig Dug (1982)
The game ports were developed by HotGen Limited. Each game is ported from scratch, and is modeled after its arcade counterpart. All games feature close approximations of the original graphics, though the music and sound effects are somewhat off, likely as a limitation of the hardware.
The ports themselves are noted as featuring several odd characteristics, compared to both the arcade originals and later plug & play releases:
*Pac-Man, Galaxian, and Dig Dug have the life indicators and scoring information moved to the righthand side of the screen, similar to the Famicom/NES versions of the games.
*Rally-X and Bosconian are modified to have their playfields display across the entire width of the screen; with scoring information moved to the top of the screen, and the map/radar screen overlaid on top of the playfield.
*Rally-X plays a sped-up version of the music to New Rally-X, but is otherwise based on the original Rally-X game.
*Dig Dug and Bosconian have their high-score tables removed for unknown reasons.
*Dig Dug features a greatly simplified title screen, possibly as a result of technical limitations.
== Pac-Man Pocket Edition ==
Pac-Man Pocket Edition is a variant of the original Pac-Man plug & play released by Jakks Pacific in 2004. This console features a completely different design; it is in a much smaller form factor, and uses an "analog stick"-like joystick instead of the original mechanism. The game software itself is identical to the original release.
== Trivia ==
*Early promotional images, as well as artwork on the back of the box, show the Pac-Man plug & play with a yellow joystick. The final release instead uses a red joystick, similarly to the original Bally Midway arcade machine. A yellow joystick top would later be used on the Ms. Pac-Man plug & play.
*All releases of this system do not save high scores; a feature that would be added in most later Pac-Man plug & plays. Some earlier releases of the console would come with a sheet of stickers for the player to write down their name and high score.
*PAL versions of the console were not optimized for the region, resulting in them running slower than the NTSC release. Ironically, this also results in the Rally-X music playing at the correct speed.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdZQyk4opOU&t=423
*The console was sold under the "Tivi Pad" branding in France, and was distributed by toy company Lansay.
*A TV commercial for the plug & play was produced for the Italian market.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIpW8N7wN78 Notably, the commercial has several errors and curiosities:
**When zooming into the TV, the Pac-Man gameplay switches to footage of the fan-made Neave Adobe Flash port of the game.
**Footage of Galaga and Xevious from the Ms. Pac-Man plug & play is used instead of the Pac-Man console's titles; despite the Ms. Pac-Man system not being shown in the commercial.
**Artwork of a Hideki Tanaami-styled Ms. Pac-Man appears on the walls of the set; this artwork is not known to exist in any other form.
*A Namco Classics Combo Pack was released in 2004, featuring the Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man plug & play bundled in the same packaging. Several similar two-pack releases were released in 2005, some of which bundle the Pac-Man systems with Atari plug & plays.
== Gallery ==
Jakks-loose-pacman.jpg|An original (yellow-colored) console, loose.
Jakks-pacman-2004-0.jpg|2004 packaging variant.
Jakks-the-original-pacman-200x-0.jpg|Mid-to-late 2000s packaging variant.
Jakks-namco-classics-combo-pack-2004-0.jpg|2004 Namco Classics Combo Pack bundle.
Jakks-2-pack-2005-ms-pacman-bonus-pacman.jpg|2005 two-pack featuring Ms. Pac-Man with "bonus" Pac-Man.
== References ==
Category:Games
Category:Compilations
Category:Consoles
Category:Merchandise