Microsoft Arcade, a brief🧵: While Namco had begun rereleasing their classic arcade games in 1995 with the first volume of Namco Museum for the PlayStation, Microsoft hoped to get in on the trend to promote gaming on Windows! - ThreadSky

classicnamcodaily.bsky.social • 18 days ago

Microsoft Arcade, a brief🧵:
While Namco had begun rereleasing their classic arcade games in 1995 with the first volume of Namco Museum for the PlayStation, Microsoft hoped to get in on the trend to promote gaming on Windows!

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classicnamcodaily.bsky.social•18 days ago

I say that, but they beat Namco to the trend, releasing the first volume of their Microsoft Arcade line in 1993, though this release focused entirely on Atari arcade games, and doesn't have any of the games that Namco published for Atari in Japan! It may be the 90s, but there is no time for Klax.

classicnamcodaily.bsky.social•18 days ago

However, come 1996, Microsoft shifted focus entirely to Namco games for this line! The second volume, Microsoft Return of Arcade included four Namco Classics: Dig Dug, Galaxian, Pac-Man, and Pole Position.

classicnamcodaily.bsky.social•18 days ago

While this collection lacked the rich museum features of the PS1 Namco Museum titles, this collection did try to include some history about the games in the help files! In a way, it ends up serving as a very nice companion piece for those Playstation releases!

classicnamcodaily.bsky.social•18 days ago

It also allowed for the players to tweak certain variables, sometimes with more freedom than simple DIP switch settings, coming across more like some old hacks of the arcade games! For example, you can jack up the fire rate in Galaxian!

classicnamcodaily.bsky.social•18 days ago

In 1998, Microsoft released the next volume of Microsoft Arcade with Microsoft Revenge of Arcade. This collection included GCC's Ms. Pac-Man, Rally-X, Mappy, Motos, upping the game count to five!

classicnamcodaily.bsky.social•18 days ago

Though this collection lacked the little historical notes its predecessor had, it did include a very charming installer featuring music and visuals from the five included games!

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