Sometimes, news can come from the strangest of places. Like this one, from the Telegraph.
It’s a little confusing; two articles about the ZX Spectrum but neither really confirming anything that the headline might suggest. “ZX Spectrum Relaunch” is a leader that retro fans like me dream of, but the copy doesn’t really go too far in explaining what that means and where the information’s coming from.
From what we can gather, it breaks down like this: Elite Systems, they of the ZX Spectrum Collection for the iPad and iPhone, are working on bringing the ZX Spectrum out again. The format isn’t obvious until the last line of the article, but the Telegraph say that the company “plans to relaunch the console for a generation of nostalgic gamers.”
“Perhaps surprisingly, the company is also considering how best to put its titles of [sic] powerful consoles such as Xbox,” it continues, suggesting that perhaps we can expect a ZX Spectrum Collection for the 360.
The juicy bit? “The forthcoming ZX Spectrum is only really a bluetooth keyboard,” says the Telegraph, “designed in the same way that the 5 million selling, rubbery keyboard of 1984 was. It may look retro, but the updating of the technology makes allows it to mix retro with modern.
“With the Commodore brand already back in stores, it’s only a matter of time before the Spectrum is capturing the enthusiasm of a whole new generation.”
We spoke to Elite Systems at the weekend to try to clarify all this, who told TheSixthAxis to expect news on all this “quite soon.”
Tuffcub
More importantly – WTF have we got a ZX Speccy Icon?!?! Alex!
4lf13
ZX Spectrum?
How much older than me is it?
Kronik76
In other news it appears that the world has become flat again and if you sail too far you’ll fall off the edge.
hazelam
so what, is it gonna be able to play spectrum games or is it just a keyboard styled like the zx spectrum?
posem
im intrigued, being a 90’s kid whos first console was a playstation 1, i want to try this much so :D
halbpro
It may be because I’m very tired but trying to decode what they actually meant from those quotes was tricky. Their sentence structure seems a bit all over the place :S
Tuffcub
Ive just had a look at the titles Elite released a hell of lot of them were licensed – Double Dragon, R-Tyoe, Scooby Doo Space Harrier – they can’r re-release any of that. Out of the unlicensed stuff I would play Bombjack, Kokotoni Wilf and.. erm. that’s it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_Systems#List_of_games
minerwilly
Cowabunga ! To be brutally honest , it kills me to go back and play the games i played in the eighties . They honestly where at the time every bit as good as Uncharted 2 but you had to be there , i do know some people that really enjoy going back to their gaming youth of the nineties ( Megadrive , SNES Dreamcast and N64 classics ) but to me those consoles just feel like yesterday still.
One thing from the eighties is that the games are ballcrackingly tough ! A game that i always reminisce about when thinking of the speccy days is – The Great Escape by OCEAN SOFTWARE , that game was so well programmed and a single turn would last hours . Trying to evade the Jerries patrolling the fences , feeding the dogs poisoned sausages , making it back to roll call , the tunnel under the stove , making a quick break for it by just trying to cut your way through etc . I reckon id probably give it 5 mins now and run out of patience so id rather remember it for how it was at that time in gaming evolution which was easily on a par with Uncharted or anything the PS3 can offer currently