Somewhere around the year 2000, Matt Ownby wrote a piece of emulation software called Daphne (named for the princess in Dragon's Lair) to emulate laserdisc games. Everything is doom and gloom for fans and collectors. Basically, then: Laserdiscs are dead and players are dead. If you're able to find a replacement disc, it can cost as much as $500 (for a Dragon's Lair Limited Edition), and no facility is making new ones. Alternatively, they might show so many artifacts that the game looks awful. Discs can oxidize over time from scratching and eventually refuse to play.
This has stretched these games' lives even further, but inevitably even the newer players will become scarce.īy subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. In fact, a gent named Shaun Wood created a special card called Merlin that enables game owners to replace laserdisc players in the game with newer models. Players can be fixed, to a point, but eventually there simply won't be any left, as the moving parts are doomed to fail and replacements no longer exist. Laserdisc game owners today have several major problems to overcome to keep the games running, including laser rot and failing player parts. To understand why we even need Dexter to replace the original hardware, first we have to discuss its failings. For $359, you get an updatable solid-state replacement for your ancient and failing laser player. Fast-forward 30 years and this is where the Dexter laserdisc replacement joins our story: Dexter attempts to solve a number of laserdisc-game issues with modern hardware by completely removing the need to have a laserdisc player in your machine. Cinematronics even offered a satellite monitor for the top of the game so that more onlookers could follow along with other people's gameplay.īut the game had problems from the get-go - chief among them was the unreliable home-use Pioneer PR-7820 laserdisc player and later, the LD-V1000. It wasn't unusual to see it situated at the entrance of an arcade, surrounded by a crowd that spilled out of the front doors.
It quickly became an instant star in any arcade that paid $4,200 (or more) for a Dragon's Lair cabinet.
It was a pioneer game, an animated laserdisc title drawn by veteran Disney animator Don Bluth that demanded not one but two of my hard-earned quarters to play. In 1983 Cinematronics found its solution in the form of Dragon's Lair.
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