Meaningful Heading

Description about the history of a unit and/or peripherals related to the unit in question.

This was the first prototype unit, posted online by IGN on February 22, 2004 with many differences from the initial release. The base was dark blue and glossy and the joystick was yellow for the moment. The power switch was black and smaller without "on" and "off" labels, and the pause button was flat and pinkish. Adorning the base was a different series of images depicting the games onboard, in addition to Ms. Pac-Man on the front-center. The "head" of the unit is a lot shorter and just says Ms. Pac-Man. The smaller button was placed closer to the joystick, making it harder for the thumb to reach.


The second prototype resembles the final way more, in that the shape, colors, and placement of many things are now finalized: The smaller button was moved from near the joystick to under the bigger button, the front-center picture is now a Namco logo, the top plastic is sky-blue, and the power switch is red, although only slightly larger and still missing the "on" and "off" labels. One big difference is the illustration showing the ghosts chasing Ms. Pac-Man as she runs to the right, where the dots are, with the "Ms. Pac-Man" logo missing its orange box. Another is the joystick being red like the Pac-Man TV Games unit from 2003. Finally, looking closely, the plastic around the buttons and joystick was still glossy and untextured.

When the console was released, it returned to a yellow joystick. Concerning the illustration on the unit's head, the logo was given its characteristic orange box, the character and dot placement was mirrored and Ms. Pac-Man was redrawn.








Early in 2005, this Plug n' Play was re-released with a taller head to make room for a cartridge input. It would take cartridges called GameKeys, which come with a ROM that features two or three more Namco games. This revision also adds the ability to save high scores.







Later still, it was re-re-released by QVC with the three games from the GameKeys built in, totaling seven games. For whatever reason, the surface was colored silver. There is not too much else different except the game selection screen is bordered differently, and New Rally-X and Bosconian were added. Reflecting this, a picture for Bosconian was added on the left of the head, and a Rally-X one on the other side.