Jacob Cherian - All Headline News Staff Writer

San Francisco, CA (AHN) - Classic video games of the past like "Pac-Man" and "Space Invaders" are experiencing a rebirth, as technology is less expensive and more convenient.

Greg Canessa, group manager of Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft Corp.'s online service tells msnbc.com, "I'll tell you, the retro games really have resonated. They are some of our top selling titles."

These games are popular among the older crowd who grew up in the '80s with their Atari's and quarters for their arcade games.

Eric Levin, executive vice president of Techno Source says, "Not to get too deep about it but 9/11 seemed to create a great level of nostalgia and cocooning, and had a deep effect on the American psyche." Techno Source also makes a line of "plug and play" gaming devices.

On the other hand, classic games are also finding fans in young players.

It appears what was fun 25 to 30 years ago still carries appeal today. Levin says, "You can take some of these games, which take a minute to learn but a lifetime to master, and you can play them with your kids."

He added, "We've not only appealed to the people who had them as kids but we've attracted new players as well."

Numerous games from the past have been redesigned to play on high-end game consoles from companies such as Microsoft, Sony Corp, and Nintendo. Ltd. For instance, "Intellivision Lives" is published by Crave Entertainment for Xbox, Play Station 2 and GameCube, 60 games in all from Mattel Inc.'s 1980 console and sells for just $20.

Canessa adds:"Most of those games, frankly, are fun for 5 or 10 minutes, but you kind of had a better impression of them back in the day than you do today...We pick just the best games, the games that are as fun to play as they were 25 years ago."

Despite Microsoft's efforts to push online play as a trend of the future, there are some exceptions. Canessa said an online version of "Pac-Man," which allows gamers to take turns was something that just would not work: "It was really kind of boring to have that over Xbox Live. That was lame."

Well...back when I bought my first playstation, the first game I got for the then state-of-the-art game system was Atari's Greatest Hits.

Retro games!!

luv4u said:

I have TONS of classic games running on my PC, it's awesome

Nikster said:

I just have the PS2 games

I have played Pirate Ship, Commando, 1942, Pac Man, Space Invaders.....

Nikster said:

the only thing i hate is having an unlimited number of continues,,sure i try not to keep continuing but its there! kinda takes away some of the fun

luv4u said:

You should try MAME sometime

Mazerati said:

That is true...they should allow you to set a limit for stuff like that, like 3 times per game or something.

Nikster said:

wish there were more vector games back in the day those were cool...the vectrex emu in m.e.s.s works pretty good

Mazerati said:

Vector games were the shit...I loved Star Wars!


The first ever fighting game was vector too, Warrior.

Nikster said:

playing star wars is very cool on mame but of course you can duplicate those controls with a mouse

Mazerati said:

That's true...playing arcade games with a keyboard, or even a joypad just is not the same.

I need to get something like this...



http://www.slikstik.com/co2features.htm

I think that would about cover everything