A handheld TV game or plug and play game is an integrated

home video game console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...

and

game controller A game controller, gaming controller, or simply controller, is an input device used with video games or entertainment systems to provide input to a video game, typically to control an object or character in the game. Before the seventh generatio ...

, usually

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

powered, which connects directly to a television. The game software is built directly into the unit, which is typically designed to look like a toy or classic game console controller with the addition of a composite video cable to connect the unit. These systems usually contain either a collection of classic games or original games based on licensed properties. Because the game software is integrated into the game unit and almost never designed to be changed by the user, these game systems are typically marketed as electronic toys or collectibles rather than game consoles. Several manufacturers produced these devices beginning in the 1990s, though the concept became best known with the release in 2002 of

Jakks Pacific Jakks Pacific, Inc. is an American company that designs and markets toys and consumer products, with a range of products that feature numerous children's toy licenses. The company is named after its founder, Jack Friedman, who had previously fo ...

's Atari Classic 10-in-1 TV. Most manufacturers have their own trademarked names for these systems, such as Radica's Play TV or Majesco's TV Arcade; however, most retailers refer to them as "TV games" or "plug and play" games.

History

From the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, three things happened: the retro game movement started to gain momentum, the price of system on a chip technology fell dramatically, and car television sets became popular. Several unlicensed family games, such as the

TV Boy The TV Boy and its successors TV Boy II and Super TV Boy are 1990s handheld TV games sold by many different companies, including Systema, Akor, and NICS, based upon an unlicensed clone of Atari 2600 hardware. They were widely available across Eur ...

, were produced. These factors led to manufacturers officially licensing classic games. The first TV games include collections of classic games; one of the earliest is the Toymax Activision 10-in-1, released in 2001. The first TV games contain collections of classic games, and many manufacturers started incorporating original content and controls. Jakks Pacific reached licensing deals with

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Group. It ...

, and others. Criticism that video games were contributing to obesity in children led to the development of TV games with motion controls such as the Play TV series, including Play TV Baseball, Play TV Football, and Play TV Barbie Dance Craze in 2003. In 2004,

Tiger Electronics Tiger Electronics Ltd. (also known as Tiger and Tiger Toys) was an independent American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld LCD games, the Furby, the Talkboy, Giga Pets, the 2-XL robot, and audio games such as ''Brain Warp'' and th ...

created

paintball Paintball is a competitive team shooting sport in which players eliminate opponents from play by hitting them with spherical dye-filled gelatin capsules called paintballs that break upon impact. Paintballs are usually shot using low-energy a ...

and a ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...

'' sword-fighting game, using a toy sword as the controller. In that year, Radica started producing collections of Sega games, such as '' Sonic the Hedgehog'', ''

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a 1992 platform game developed by Sega Technical Institute (STI) for the Sega Genesis. It follows Sonic as he attempts to stop Doctor Eggman from stealing the Chaos Emeralds to power his space stationnamed The Death Egg. Like the first ''S ...

'', ''

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle is a Side-scrolling video game, side-scrolling platform game developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis, Genesis. The game was released in Japan on February 10, 1989, in the U.S. on August 14, 1989, in Europe on November 30, 1990, in So ...

'', ''

Columns A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression membe ...

'', and '' Gain Ground''. The

C64 Direct-to-TV The C64 Direct-to-TV, called C64DTV for short, is a single-chip implementation of the Commodore 64 computer, contained in a joystick (modeled after the mid-1980s Competition Pro joystick), with 30 built-in games. The design is similar to the A ...

was released in 2004 by Toy:Lobster and Mammoth Toys with a copy of the Commodore 64 operating system and a

virtual keyboard A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the input of characters without the need for physical keys. The interaction with the virtual keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also take place in a different form ...

as a hidden extra. In 2005, Jakks Pacific produced original game content for the new ''Star Wars'' and ''Fantastic Four'' films, and Tiger produced a

Jedi Jedi (), Jedi Knights, or collectively the Jedi Order are the main heroic protagonists of many works of the '' Star Wars'' franchise. Working symbiotically alongside the Old Galactic Republic, and later supporting the Rebel Alliance, the Jedi ...

lightsaber A lightsaber is a fictional energy sword featured throughout the '' Star Wars'' franchise. A typical lightsaber is depicted as a luminescent plasma blade about in length emitted from a metal hilt around in length. First introduced in the o ...

fighting game using a lightsaber as the controller. In 2005,

Milton Bradley Milton Bradley (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911) was an American business magnate, game pioneer and publisher, credited by many with launching the board game industry, with his eponymous enterprise, which was purchased by Hasbro in 1984, and ...

started producing TV game versions of Whack-a-Mole and Miniature Golf.

History

See also