Game.com – Tiger Electronics FTW

Years ago, as we neared the dawn of the new millennium, there was a time when the internet was not as commonplace as it is today, a time when Wi-Fi was unknown and dial-up was king.  It was in this world of local multiplayer and PC-only internet play that Tiger Electronics launched its most ambitious and valiant product ever: the Game.Com.

 

 

Now, you may be tempted to call it the “Game dot com,” but my God would you be wrong.  It’s the “Game Com” and isn’t that obvious?  When has anyone ever pronounced the “dot” that precedes “com?” I know I never have and certainly, no one else did, especially in 1997 at the height of the .com industry explosion.  As you’ll see, this is just the first of many things that Tiger got right with it’s handheld console.

 

The Game.Com’s largest innovations were its internet capabilities and its unique touchscreen, something formally seen only in PDA and Palm Pilots.  It also sported an amazing two game slots, which I’ll discuss more in detail later, as well as a front-holstered stylus.   

 

So, let’s set the scene.  You, the youthful pre-teen overflowing with an endless sense of hope the likes of which even the Obama campaign/administration has never seen, have just received your Game.Com (remember that’s “Game Com!”) as a first communion present.  You can’t wait to get rockin’ all across the vast plane of the world wide web, so you get your mother, perhaps step-mother, perhaps grandmother, (depending on your parents’ life or lack thereof) to drop you off at the home of your friend, a portly blonde boy with shining eyes of the purest and strangely terrifying hazel.  Due to your caretakers’ inability to shell out the hefty sum of cash required for the unit upon its release, the year is now 1998, the beginning of the era that was Game Boy Color and the end of the era that was the Game Boy.

 

Dante, your friend, greets you at the door, only briefly breaking eye contact from his Game Boy Color displaying his heated battle with Pokémon's Elite Four.  You show him the box and he only pretends to glance away while saying things like “Ah… looks cool” amidst frantic button presses.  Unwilling to accept his lack of envy, you quickly crack open the box and unearth the beautiful and hefty silver and black casing of the Game.Com.  Not wanted to spend a minute without the newfound glory (no, not that New Found Glory) of the internet at your fingertips, You plug the Game.Com into the wall via the AC adapter.  You search out the closest phone jack, plug in the phone line that you carry with you at all times, plug that into the light-speed 14.4k modem, plug said modem into one of the two game slots along the back of your Game.Com.  You tear the Internet Browser “game” out of its separate box and plug that into the additional game slot.  Now that’s portable.

 

You power up the system, only to find yourself unable to connect to the internet because the instructions in the game manual are incorrect, the instructions your friend finds online (through his computer) are incorrect, you don’t even know the number for the ISP, and in the end, you find that none of the game’s actually have online multiplayer, just leader boards.  Heartbroken and awkwardly alone, you sit besides your friend, the only one willing to forgive you for your foolish faith in Tiger Electronics, and watch as he spawns unlimited Rare Candies and raises every Pokémon in his collection to level 100.

 

As you walk to the car that night upon your mother’s return to pick you up, you trudge slowly out of the house and, glancing back at your friend basking in the warm pale glow of his Game Boy, shed a single tear, not out of fear or out of sadness, but for the loss of innocence, not only your own, but the world’s.