VAPORWARE: The Plasmaboy
The Plasmaboy, from Plasmablam industries, was gaming’s first attempt to meld 70 inch Plasma screens with portable gaming.
PICTURED- Plasmablam’s first magazine advertisement announcing the Plasmaboy. Billboards featuring this ad were removed after dozens of complaints
Plasmablam industries was a failed manufacturer of Big Screen TV’s whose CEO Richard Ozen famously said “No one needs more than a 480p Plasma screen.” He also went to corner the market, buying up all of the 480p plasma screens coming out of China in the year 2005. After the market moved to 720p as a base minimum resolution, or 1080p, the idea of a 6o inch screen with a low resolution (for the massive size) 480p retailling for $8,000 seemed to be somewhat obsolete.
Attempts to foist the low resolution screens onto emerging markets failed when Ozen saw a magazine comparison of a Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS and hit apon a foolproof way of divesting himself of his inventory of old hat screens. Merging a relatively cheap handheld device and a giant plasma screen seemed a marriage made in heaven.
Screen aside, the system was roughly as powerful as a Nintendo DS with games tendning to be solid, if unremarkable riffs on popular games such as Metris, Furio Kart and So-So Furio Cousins.
Of course, Plasma screens are renown for using a lot of power so children wanting to play the Plasmaboy on a long car ride either had to plug into the optional battery pack (pictured) or run a very very very very very very very long cord to a power socket.
The Plasmaboy, alas, was not a success in the market and what units they did manage to sell only resulted in lawsuits from gamers who did not heed the warning to not rest the unit on the genital area. Plasmaboy is responsible for large numbers of infertile gamers, though funnily enough the birth rate has not been affected in any way.
