The early 2000's marked the dawn of the edutainment boom, pioneered by the likes of Leapfrog, Vtech, and Pixter. While Leapfrog and Vtech would go on to dominate the market, Pixter fell into obscurity. Despite weak sales, the platform and brand was bustling with powerful, early support from a number of hot properties.... Mega Man included.
Pocket Pixter: Mega Man NT Warrior is exactly what it sounds like. Released in 2004, the device was a self contained module similar to the famous electronic PETs. With less an emphasis on the battling but more on interactivity, the toy was centered around "educational" applications from free-style drawing to memory games. In essence, you could call it a mash up between Mario Paint and a your run-of-the-mill activity book.
Though I've no actual photos of the device itself, I have the original PDF version of the toy's manual in my archives. Spanning around forty-pages, you'll find descriptions and pictures for every activity and application the device has to offer. Select manual pages appear above, but if you'd like it in its entirety, you can download it right here.
I've looked around for the physical device for a couple years now, but haven't churned anything up yet. My usually stomping grounds for old Mega Man goodies -- the Amazon marketplace and Ebay -- are littered with Pixter products. Unfortunately, this bad boy just so happens to be the one that no one has. Shame too because, honestly, it sounds pretty awesome.
If you've got one of these in-hand, lemme know!
Please, post to your page about this new finding.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.8bitfix.com/content/rumor-marvel-vs-capcom-3-character-list-capcom-s-comic-con-announcement-2411/
Haha... oh, I've had my fair share of Super MvC3 rumors. I need something a little more concrete this time around, and a list just isn't going to cut it.
ReplyDeleteIf it's true, we'll know soon enough.
Actually Protodude, Marvel released their schedule for Comic-Con. They WILL be discussing what's going on with MvC3 and it's future, so you could at least mention that.
ReplyDeleteI'll be discussing all MM-related SDCC happenings in a single post soon.
ReplyDeleteAlso @first anon: list is fake. The instant I saw SF Megaman I knew it was fake. All the other main iterations rated higher than him, so why would they pick him? Hell, even side charies like Bass.EXE, Vile, Wily, and Sigma rated higher than him. Tis a fake.Capcom may be dumb sometimes, but they aren't THAT stupid.
ReplyDeleteQUICK DISCLAIMER: If you are not aware of Lupinko's (the person who leaked the entire MvC3 and Mortal Kombat roster beforehand) latest riddle tweets, at least don't try to talk as if you know what's going on.
ReplyDeleteEspecially the July 9, 2011 7:50 PM Anon. At this point, trying to put logic behind Capcom's decisions nowadays is not going to work.
Anyways, Protodude, I had wanted to talk to you semi-privately over Twitter about a quick question, but since people here are talking about the MvC3 rumors already, I might as well share it with everyone.
Background information first: Some of Lupinko's riddles have been interpreted as hinting at a Star Force character. Said hints are contested with the likes of Dr. Strange and so on.
There is another riddle mentioning the likes of Blade Runner and vampires. Some have taken this to mean Jubliee, while there is someone that is arguing that the Blade Runner riddle is hinting at Mega Man X.
Apparently the X series is heavily inspired by Blade Runner. But have the developers ever said anything about the X series being truly inspired by Blade Runner, or is it all just interpretation?
No one involved with the X series has gone on record to state a Blade Runner correlation. Yes, they are similar on the surface level (i.e the whole hunting down of rogue robots scenario,) but beyond that, there's nothing blatantly similar that I can think of.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, that hint may have some meat to it. I personally wouldn't dismiss it yet.
I'd say SF or EXE Megaman is the most likely. He is visually Megaman, but he also has enough weapons to be relevant in a melee fighter. Try to remember last time Megaman(Classic) was in a fighter. He had about 5 cannon moves and the rest were him just kicking and punching.
ReplyDeleteOh! I remember the Pixter! That was before I knew what a Gaming System was. I wanted one so badly for about 4 months, and then forgot about it. Cool that MM was on it. (And EXE, too!)
ReplyDelete... Well, that's surprising.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as I am a result of edutainment stuff (especially V-Tech) this is pretty cool. :D
About the MvC3: Patience is a virtue. SDCC is coming up already.
Dude, this is cool. I want one.
ReplyDeleteWHEN DOES MEGAMAN 6!!! COME OUT!!!! PLEASE TELL ME!!!!! ACCEPT THE COMMENT AND REPLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletePsst! Anon! I've answered your query in the other post ;)
ReplyDeleteCapcom messaged me and said there would be a megaman Zero 5 where you get to play as Axl. Can you post about this?
ReplyDelete@ July 10 3:04 PM Anon: Weh? Personally, I don't want a Z5 because it has ENDED already. A Z5 would only put more confusion. The Zero series ended nicely and let's leave it at that.
ReplyDeleteWow, you'd think this thread of comments was a random twitter feed.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, that EXE edutainment device isn't a far cry from the X2 and X3 game/drawing/calc. devices that Bandai put out back in the day.
@undamned: Buster Battle is exactly what I was thinking of when I saw those pictures, too...lol. I haven't actually messed with the X2 one yet, but I think that's more along the lines of X meets Tiger LCD w/ a calculater thrown in, at least according to the manual.
ReplyDeletehttp://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/071/4/5/skittle_mega_man_hyper_run_by_mattmcmanis-d3bgenm.gif
ReplyDeleteDude!
Ah, these were popular in Australia. I really wanted on of them.
ReplyDelete(I think they still sell them at Toys R US but I'm not too sure)