MICROSOFT PINBALL ARCADE INTRO PC
MICROSOFT PINBALL ARCADE INTRO OFFLINE

But nothing will ever compare to finally beating that high score after hours of failed attempts at getting online. But with today’s technology, the game would likely feel out of place, and there are hundreds of options that you can find through your web browser to take its place. NCommander speculates that Microsoft either didn’t have the rights to further develop the game or it simply didn’t want to spend the time and money it would take.įor us 90s kids, Space Cadet Pinball is super nostalgic and it was sad to see it go. As it turns out, the game was actually developed by another company and later acquired by Microsoft. The TLDR version of NCommander’s findings is that Space Cadet Pinball was simply too outdated for newer technology. Now I can play all the pinball games I want right from the comfort of my sofa. I decided to make the experience a little more authentic by building a desktop (or laptop) pinball controller.

MICROSOFT PINBALL ARCADE INTRO PC

In fact, Space Cadet Pinball even launched on one 64-bit version of Windows XP, though it did have some graphical bugs. Free pinball emulators,like Visual Pinball and Future Pinball, are a lot of fun, but they're tough to play with a pc keyboard. With NCommander’s findings, it seems like 64-bit processing wasn’t the ultimate problem. YouTube channel NCommander set out with a goal to find the reason behind the demise of Space Cadet Pinball. As it turns out, the introduction of Windows XP was the ultimate demise of Space Cadet Pinball.īut why did Windows leave the game off of Windows XP and all versions of the OS that came after? Long-time Windows developer Raymond Chen said back in 2018 that the reason for the game’s demise was the advancement to a 64-bit version of Windows.īut one YouTuber is not buying the claims. I had a hard time pinpointing the exact time, but I vividly remember getting a new family computer one day and being disappointed to find out that it didn’t come with the iconic game.

The flashing lights and satisfying sounds had me on that game for hours at a time, playing against myself, trying to beat the family high score. I somewhat envy the generation that grew up playing with physical pinball machines (queue The Who’s Pinball Wizard), but Space Cadet Pinball was the shit. Pinball, one of the first pinball games for Windows. That’s where Space Cadet Pinball came in. The pinball machine-any pinball machine you play in any penny arcade-is so remarkable, so fine. The internet came through the phone line, so you couldn’t talk on the phone and be online at the same time.

MICROSOFT PINBALL ARCADE INTRO OFFLINE

I remember spending half an hour to get Runescape to finally load up just to be kicked offline when my mom’s friend would call for their daily chat. The game came preloaded on Windows computers and we boomers would spend hours trying to beat our high score in the game.īack in the early days of the modern internet, computer time was spent a lot differently. If you came up with a computer in the 90s or the early 2000s, there’s no doubt that you became familiar with Space Cadet Pinball.

Microsoft pinball arcade intro