RDI Video Systems
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| Company type | Incentive Corporation Limited |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Founded | 1982 |
| Founder | Rick Dyer |
| Defunct | 1985 |
| Fate | Bankrupt |
| Products | Games Halcyon |
RDI Video Systems (Rick Dyer Industries) was a video game company founded by Rick Dyer originally as Advanced Microcomputer Systems, and was well known for its Laserdisc video games, beginning with the immensely popular Dragon's Lair. The company went bankrupt shortly after completing, but before releasing, the Halcyon gaming console.
History
[edit]Rick Dyer initially experimented with interactive novel games "in the early 1980s" and decided to use a "LaserDisc player in an arcade machine" after witnessing a 1982 Amusement & Music Operators Association trade show "demo of Sega's LaserDisc game Astron Belt".[1]: 77–78 He also saw Don Bluth's The Secret of NIMH (1982) which led Dyer "to draft in Bluth's company to do the animation for what would become Dragon's Lair" (1983) for his "newly formed" company Advanced Microcomputer Systems.[1]: 78 The game was unlike other arcade games and was an "instant success" which led Dyer and Bluth to develop another arcade game titled Space Ace (1984).[1]: 78 Dryer also renamed Advanced Microcomputer Systems to "RDI Video Systems, with the RDI standing for 'Rick Dyer Industries', and formed plans to go beyond the arcade".[1]: 78
RDI Video Systems went on to develop the Halcyon gaming console for home entertainment.[1][2][3] John Free, for Popular Science in May 1985, highlighted that "most U.S. homes these days have VCRs, not laser video machines, so few interactive videodiscs for home use are available", however, RDI Video Systems was "attempting to change that" with their upcoming "voice-actuated computer" Halcyon.[3]: 108 Simone de Rochefort, for Polygon in 2018, noted that this console "came on the heels of Dyer’s success with the one-two punch of Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace. These laserdisc arcade games stunned people because they looked like movies and played like – well, a series of stressful quick-time events that made players suffer".[2]
However, RDI Video Systems went bankrupt around the planned 1985 launch of Halcyon.[1][2] The home video game industry had crashed in 1983, and by "1985, a once billion-dollar industry would be valued at just $100 million".[2] The Halcyon, with an estimated $2,500 price tag and costly production requirements, failed to attract enough investor confidence or consumer interest[1][2] and "RDI's financiers pulled out".[1] The company folded before the console was released.[1][2]
Games
[edit]- Zzyzzyxx (1982)
- Dragon's Lair (1983)[1]
- Space Ace (1984)[1]
- Thayer's Quest (1984) (Released first for the Halcyon,[1] and later in arcades)
- Raiders vs. Chargers (1985) (Released first for the Halcyon,[1] and later in arcades as NFL Football)
- Orpheus, not released
- The Spirits of Whittier Mansion, not released
- The Shadow of the Stars, not released
- Voyage to the New World, not released
- Dallas vs. Washington, not released
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Packwood, Lewis (2024). "Chapter 7: It's Like a Living Entity More than it is a Machine (RDI Halcyon, 1985)". Curious Video Game Machines: A Compendium of Rare and Unusual Consoles, Computers and Coin-Ops. White Owl. pp. 75–83. ISBN 9781399073806.
- ^ a b c d e f Rochefort, Simone de (2018-03-01). "More than a machine: The history of Halcyon". Polygon. Retrieved 2025-06-07.
- ^ a b Free, John (May 1985). "The Laser-Disc Revolution". Popular Science. Vol. 226, no. 6. pp. 108–109. ISSN 0161-7370.
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