Monday, December 21, 2009

Dragon's Lair: Activision, Kneel Before Your Digital Leisure Masters

When I saw that Dragon's Lair was being released for the Blu-Ray format, I decided it was time to find out all the systems this game had been released on, mostly because it's been released on every video game system ever made.

Almost.

If you want to talk about milking franchises, nothing has ever approached the twenty-five year run of Dragon's Lair. Take a look at the platforms (thanks, Dragon's Lair Fans):
Coleco Adam
Amstrad CPC
Commodore 64
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
Amiga
Atari ST
MS-DOS
Super Nintendo
NES
Sega CD
3DO
Phillips CD-i
Apple Macintosh
Atari Jaguar
Microsoft Windows
Game Boy Color
Nintendo Gamecube
Xbox
DVD
PS2
HD-DVD
Xbox 360
PS3
Blu-Ray
iPhone
DSi (via DSiWare)

Missing something? DS and PSP versions were announced, but I don't think they've ever seen the light of day. Still, though, that's an epic twenty-five platforms.

I used to be on the Digital Leisure mailing list, and they absolutely had the most fantastic PR person ever--her first name was Elizabeth, which is all I remember. She would put out these incredibly enthusiastic press releases about Dragon's Lair and Space Ace being ported to flip books, Etch-a-Sketch, and claymation (barely an exaggeration), and she always did it in such a good humor.

I still remember when Dragon's Lair first came to the arcade. It was 1983, and believe me, when you saw it, your mind was totally blown. It was spectacular looking (and sounding) because everything was on laserdisc, so there were no real storage limitations. Sure, it wasn't much of a "game", really, but it printed money for quite a while.

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