Monday, April 8, 2019

The "Sharp KJS TV Game XG-102"

Hi again folks,

Today i want to show the Sharp KJS TV Game XG-102 which was only released in Japan around 1977-1979 and was a "hotel (?)" game console which you inserted a 100 Yens coins and you could choose between 3 games (err...four actually).


Now this is the game console and by the looks of it, it's pretty heavy and bulky and looks like abit like a CB Radio with it's two green paddles.

Here's the front panel closer:


If you look closely, the first switch (on the left) is for the sound (built-in speaker) which you can either select "Low" (up position) and "High" (down position). The second switch (between the left switch and the big dial) is the "Game Select" which you can choose between two games variations "Game 1" and "Game 2".

The big dial in the middle is to select which game you wanna play: Block, Car Race or Sports and the last switch (to the far right) is the TV/Game Select which is a momentary switch ("TV" in up position and "Game" when pressed down).

Now as for the games: The first is "Block" which is game #3 (Break-In 1) on the GI AY-3-8606-1:


The second game is "Car Race" which is one of the 2 games (1 or 2 players) on the GI AY-3-8603-1:


And the third game is "Sports" which is either "Football/Soccer":


Or "Basketball".  Hockey and Basketball are games in the GI AY-3-8600-1 & AY-3-8610-1.


So this game console has three dedicated games chips and if you mod it, you can easily make a A/V output and play other built-in games in both the AY-3-8606-1 and AY-3-8600-1 (with extra switches).

I saw a few passed by on Yahoo Japan Auction and they usually end around 10,000 Yens (about $100 US) but shipping this beast to North America is a hefty sum as it cost about $150-200.

I wanted one for quite a while but thanks to the seller "taka868686", most of the pictures here comes from his auction (all except the first picture) so now i know exactly which dedicated chip are in this console (but would be nice to see the game board inside). And NO...i don't have this console in my collection since i already have the dedicated chips and have no space for this huge console.

So if you have at least $300 to spare and like BIG (and strange) game console than check out Yahoo Auction Japan as this game console is auction until April 13, 2019. If you missed it, there will be another one in the following weeks as it's the forth one i've saw in the past two months.

And before closing this post, here's more pictures of the console...enjoy!