Lexicon
Publishers
Emerson Radio Corp.
Publisher
Also Developer

Emerson Radio Corp.

American electronics company that published games for its Arcadia 2001 home console in 1982.
Action
Sports
Strategy
Racing
Driving
Founded
1915
HQ
New York City, United States
Known for
Shoot 'em up / Sports / Racing
24
Games
1982–1983
Years
1
Platforms
$31.47
Ø CIB
-36.4%
24M change

About

Emerson Radio Corp. entered the video game market in 1982 with the release of the Arcadia 2001 console. The company published several launch titles and early releases for the system, including Cat Trax, Escape, Alien Invaders, and Brain Quiz. They also published sports titles such as American Football, Baseball, Breakaway, and Capture, establishing early franchises for their short-lived platform.
To support these specific software lines, the publisher focused on porting popular arcade concepts and developing dedicated sports simulations. Within the Cat Trax franchise, the titular Cat Trax tasked players with navigating a maze as a cat avoiding dogs, shifting the chase dynamic when consuming power-ups. This title, alongside the maze-escape game Escape and the shoot-em-up Alien Invaders, represented the platform's action lineup. For intellectual challenges, Brain Quiz provided mathematical puzzles, while Capture adapted traditional grid-based board game strategy.
The sports category was anchored by the American Football and Grand Slam Tennis franchises. Both American Football and Baseball utilized unique 12-button keypad controllers, allowing players to input complex offensive and defensive plays. Breakaway offered paddle-based brick-demolition gameplay, contributing to the system's arcade-style offerings. Despite the technical promise of these releases, which featured independent player sprites and multi-channel sound, the publisher's software library struggled to compete against dominant industry giants. Consequently, these specific game franchises remained exclusive artifacts of this brief publishing venture, highly sought after by retro computing collectors today.

Key People

Victor Hugo Emerson
Founder

Company History

Former names
Emerson Radio & Phonograph Corp.

Connections

Explore

Tap a bar to narrow the games below. Tap to switch to that page.
Platforms (1)
By decade (1)
Genres (5)
Developers (7)
Settings (2)
Mechanics (6)
Perspectives (4)
Characters (2)

Games featuring Emerson Radio Corp. (24)