Sports has always been a topic of relevance for decades, so much so that since the birth of video games have come thousands of games focused on that genre, we can locate tennis, boxing, baseball, football and many more, also have had a great wave of fans who are entertained playing their favorite sports.
Some developers and console companies have wanted to innovate the way users play sports video games, a clear example is the accessory Power Pad that Nintendo launched in 1986, with this peripheral we simulated a race at full speed, this would serve as a base idea for what was to come in the not too distant future.
Over time many companies would launch accessories with similar functions, however, after 20 years Nintendo would launch one of its most famous consoles, the Wii, this would fully exploit the concept of motion control through its controls called Wii Motion, thanks to them the way sports games were played would change completely.
But what if you knew that Nintendo Wii wasn't the first console to do this? Everyone at some point thought that this company was the pioneer in performing motion control, however, in 2004 the developer SSD COMPANY LIMITED launched a unique console at the time which went unnoticed, its name was XaviXPORT.
At first glance it doesn't look like a video game console, but a portable DVD or something similar, but seeing its main functions makes you change your mind. It's an entertainment center focused on the sports genre, that is, we would only find Baseball games, Golf, Bowling, among others.
The XaviXPORT was not like the normal game consoles, by focusing only on sports games innovated in the way to play them, incorporating unique motion controls, for example, to play Baseball you had to have a bat or a ball which had inside small sensors that sent signals to the console indicating certain limited movements to be able to play.
Despite the great potential that had the XaviXPORT only had 14 titles, 4 of them were exclusive to Japan, unfortunately are very few games to choose, this caused many people to choose other consoles which had a more extensive catalog, despite this can not take away the merit of being unique at the time of its release.
The XaviXPORT was developed by engineers who previously worked for Nintendo, so some of its components were the same as the NES and SNES. The maximum graphic capacity that could give was 16 bits, this was somewhat delayed because at that time there were consoles with twice the graphic improvement.
This console lasted more than 13 years in the market, its initial price was 80 dollars, however, came to cost 20 dollars, this happened because in 2013 there were very outstanding consoles, such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or Nintendo Wii itself, which offered a system similar to the XaviXPORT but improved.
The XaviXPORT was undoubtedly an excellent console that drove a unique way of playing video games, also served as a basis for future game developers to create new titles, although it was not a successful console left an indelible mark on the world of video games.
Did you know the XaviXPORT? Let me know your opinion in the comments section.
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