History of video games/Platforms/Casio Loopy

Development
The Loopy followed the ill-fated PV-1000 as Casio's second major attempt to enter the home video game console market.

While in development, the Loopy was not initially intended to appeal to a specific demographic, with the progression to be a female oriented console being somewhat a matter of happenstance.

Launch
The Casio Loopy was released in Japan in October 1995 at a cost of cost 25,000 yen, and was marketed to women. First year production was expected to be 200,000 units, though little is known of actual production or sales numbers.

Legacy
Software development ended in November 1996, the final software released in 1997, and console production ended in December 1998.

Though the Loopy was not a big success, it was a much greater success than Casio's previous console, the PV-1000. However the main legacy of the Loopy is more concerned with its reception rather than with its performance on the market. Not only was the Casio Loopy was among the most atypical consoles of the fifth generation, it is one of a select few consoles marketed to appeal to women as a specific demographic. A similar tactic of appealing to non-traditional gamers by forgoing the latest technology, and focusing on a fun and appealing hardware differentiator would later find much greater success with other consoles, such as the Nintendo Wii.

Contentious discussion of the Loopy at the intersection of gaming and feminism emerged during and after the 2010's, with some finding the marketing of the Loopy as quite patronizing, and others hailing the console as a subversion of common narratives of gaming in the 1990's.

Technology


In general, technology in the Casio Loopy was selected to be similar to the Super Famicom, then a market leader. This made the Loopy competitive with fourth generation consoles, but underpowered compared to other fifth generation consoles. As a result, Casio compensated for this by relying heavily on leveraging features of the console not found on competing devices.

The Casio Loopy is powered by a 32 bit RISC SH-1 CPU clocked at 16MHz. The front of the box proudly advertises 32-bit RISC CPU, suggesting that Casio thought that marketing the Loopy as an advanced 32-bit system was a key marketing point. The Loopy has 512 kilobytes of system RAM and 192 kilobytes of video RAM, and supports up to 4 megabytes of game cartridge ROM. Most games used only 2 megabytes of ROM, with some larger titles using 3 megabytes. Games also support battery-backed RAM for save data.

The console outputs graphics in 15-bit color with a maximum palette of 256 colors on screen. The graphics output is handled in part by a Sony CXA1645M RGB encoder chip. The Loopy outputs 4 channel 12 bit PCM audio.



The Loopy has a built in color thermal printer, with setting dial to adjust contrast. While the printer may seem like a strange choice, the ability to print custom art on stickers (Called "Seals" in the context of the Loopy ) proved to be a fun and creative tool for play beyond video games. Output from the printer is 180 DPI resolution and is generally considered to be of good quality, and while a few game consoles of the 1990's would see optional printers released, none would match the quality of the colorful prints of the Loopy.

The Loopy was about one foot long, four inches high, and weighed 3.5 pounds. The console is powered by a 24 volt external power supply.

Optional hardware
The Magical Shop is an add on for the Loopy that allows for screen capture from video streams. The Magical Shop add on cost 14,800 yen, a significant cost at the time.

The Loopy two button mouse used a trackball mechanism.

Games / Software
Eleven titles were released for the system.

1995

 * Dream Change: Kokin-chan's Fashion Party
 * Anime Land - Character and scene creation software.
 * Magical Shop - Video capture to image manipulator to sticker software.
 * PC Collection - Suite containing 10 creative, supernatural, or productivity applications supporting the mouse.
 * Lupiton no Wonder Palette - Art application.
 * Wanwan Aijou Monogatari - Game featuring a dog named Peach. Worked on by Kenji Terada.
 * HARIHARI Seal Paradise - Sticker printing game.
 * Nigaoe Artist - Caricature art application

1996

 * Loopy Town no Oheya ga Hoshii! - Life simulation game with room decoration, jobs, and a pet. The game was worked on by Kenji Terada, a writer on the first three Final Fantasy games.
 * Little Romance - Dating simulator.

1997

 * Chakurakun no Omajinai Paradise - Charm and spell making program.

Preservation
As of October 2020 an incomplete skeleton Loopy driver exists for MAME.