Epoch Electrotennis - 1975 - Japan's first console - brandnew condition (sealed)

Epoch's Electrotennis from 1975 was the first console designed and sold by a Japanese company in Japan. Prior to their already rare systems Cassette Vision and TV Vader and so on, Epoch released their very first console that remains unique to this day: Electrotennis (or TV Tennis in japanese).



It is unique because the console is WIRELESS. It runs on battery, sends the picture to a separate antenna that is hooked up to the TV. There is no cable that comes out of the console. Points are counted manually with a manual counter that has to be moved by the players each time a goal is scored.

This system is the holy grail of pong consoles and the big pioneer and grand-grandfather of all Japanese video game companies:

What is it worth, brand-new, never opened???

Does anyone know? What did it sell for in the past?

 

Hmm, until recently, most early UK pong consoles were worth bugger all. Retro sellers and an interest in old games has pushed prices up, certainly. I would expect you'd have been able to pick one of these up in Japan fairly cheaply in the past 10 years. Nowadays, though, I'd bet there are some shops who know what it is and price accordingly.

Personally, I wouldn't pay more than about $20 for it (as I remember the things selling for sensible prices), but I bet it'd fetch a lot more if you got a few interested parties in a bidding war.

Do you have one?

I don't think I'd class it as a console, since it doesn't have removable games, does it? I know there were some pong-style machines with cartridges over here. I wonder what the first Japanese console with carts was.....

 

Well, you won't be very lucky finding one for $20. I have seen those things sell for hundreds of $$$, even on YAJ. I think I do remember Japan-Games selling a boxed unit without instructions for $400, but I'm not very certain about that number. It may have been more, but definitely not less.

I know that most Pong consoles aren't worth the plastic they're made of. Hell, I still have a brand-new German Pong system from 1978 and I paid only EUR 1.50 for it LOL. But this console is a bit different because it's scarce, wireless and the first in Japan. Even on YAJ, it doesn't pop up very often, let alone in sealed condition. And no, I don't have it YET.

No removable games, just Pong. But come on, it was 1975! Even the Odyssey didn't really have different games, basically you had two white blobs on a screen and the games provided you with different colorful overlays.

If I'm not mistaken, then the first Japanese produced home console with carts would have been the Cassette Vision, also by Epoch - in 1981.

 

Interesting stuff, thanks!

Yeah, I don't doubt it'd sell for much more like I said, but it's not worth it to me - it's just a pong console!

Why couldn't it have had removable carts in 1975? My Radofin 1292 from 1976 does... and I got that for 50 pence from a boot fair I'd say that makes it an early cart-based console (everything before was basically a pong machine)... and that the Japanese were behind in their technology for once! lol. The Channel F came out in 1976 too, right? That's supposedly the first cart-based console, I do believe.

 

I guess the reason why there weren't more cart-based consoles by Japanese companies prior to 1983ish is that the Channel F and Atari 2600 were sold as import versions in Japan already, but didn't do too well. In addition, similar to the rest of the world there were consoles with up to 15 built-in games such as Nintendos TV Game 15. I guess the market in Japan didn't show much demand for a real cartridge based console like in the US prior to 1980?

 

I'm pretty confident it would sell for, let's say, at least 1000$ on YAJ nowadays.

 

Just for the record - one with tatty box and copied manual sold for ¥70,000 a couple of weeks ago. The seller then ended the auction early and put it back in for ¥75,000 BIN (iirc) for which it then sold as well.