About Electronic Toys
Electronic toys have been admired by children and adults for decades. There are many different types of electronic toys, some simple and some remarkably complex. They share common characteristics like being able to move or operate on their own, make noises and light up. They usually contain at least one circuit board and draw energy from a power source. In the 1970s and '80s, innovative electronic toys became immensely popular, paving the way for future toys and creating a massive new consumer market that is still thriving today.
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Types
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Many different types of electronic toys have been manufactured and sold all around the world. Some became instantly trendy before eventually leveling off, some have remained popular and even turned into collectors items, while some never really took off in the first place. Some well-known categories are train sets, radio and remote controlled cars, handheld video games, home television (console) video games, action figures, stuffed animals, educational games, virtual pets, light and laser guns and robots.
Price
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The prices for electronic toys are as diverse as the toys themselves. Advances in modern technology have decreased the costs of electronic components considerable; cheaper toys with minimal functionality can be bought for less than a dollar. At the other end of the spectrum, you could easily spend thousands of dollars on an electronic toy---like a robotic pet, for example. The overall trend in electronics is for prices on specific items to go down considerably over a short period of time. This is most often true for toys, although rare and collectible toys will go up in price over time.
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Pong
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Pong was the first home video game that could be played directly on a television set. It was invented by Nolan Bushnell in the early 1970s as an alternative to his arcade version called Video Table Tennis. It became an instant craze for kids, teenagers and adults, providing simple yet highly addictive gameplay. The basic idea was for two players to each hit a ball with their onscreen paddles, trying to move the ball past the opponent's paddle, thus scoring a point.
Teddy Ruxpin
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In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, electronic components began to show up in dolls and stuffed animals. One of the most popular examples of this is a stuffed bear named Teddy Ruxpin. A cassette tape player was built into the back of the bear, and audio adventure stories (accompanied by picture books) of Teddy and his friends could be played in it. An impressive innovation was that the bear would blink his eyes and move his mouth, as if he were telling the story.
Nintendo Game and Watch
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Today, you would have a hard time finding someone who hasn't at least heard of Nintendo. But before its rise to iconic status, Nintendo had a hard time finding something they could successfully make money with. Some of their earlier ventures included playing cards and a taxicab service. This all changed when Gunpei Yokoi created the Nintendo Game and Watch. The idea came to him while he observed someone playing with a calculator on a train, and he used this same basic technology to make a variety of different portable video games. These games were made for over a decade, and without them, it is very possible that Nintendo would have never gained the popularity that the company now enjoys.
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References
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- Photo Credit train toy image by gajatz from Fotolia.com
