Pioneer LaserActive

Background

The Pioneer LaserActive was a home video game system introduced by Pioneer Corporation in 1993 that could also play laserdiscs and CDs. With add-on modules, it could also play Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 games.

Logo (August 20, 1993-1996)

Visuals: The animation for both logos is the same, but explained differently:

Sega version: On a black background, there is a blue Pioneer logo on top, and two logos for Mega LD and Sega CD. Two copyright dates for Pioneer and Sega are seen below. "LaserActive", in the same font as "LaserDisc" in the old Pioneer LaserDisc logo of the 80s on the "LaserDisc: What It Is, How It Works" LD zooms in with a flare effect and the Mega LD and Sega CD logos spin around.
NEC/Hudson version: Same as the above version, only logos for the Super CD-ROM are below "LaserActive" (but they don't spin), and there are copyright dates for Pioneer, NEC, and Hudson below.

Technique: Sprite animation.

Audio: None for the Sega variant, a synth "whoosh" for the NEC variant.

Availability: Seen when a Pioneer LaserActive is turned on. It is a rare system to find, given its $970 launch price (cheaper than Halcyon, that's for sure) caused it to not sell very well. The Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 PACs (both with a $600 price tag!) are pretty hard to find, too, although the Genesis PAC may be easier to find than the TurboGrafx-16 PAC. Only about 15 games were ever released for the system which sold about 10,000 units.

External Links

LaserActive article on Wikipedia