CreatiVision, VTech's Ambitious Console/Computer and Its Arrival in Italy with Zanussi

In that early 1980s period, however, there was a new phenomenon, home computers, which were seriously competing with the video game console market; in particular Commodore's VIC20 in 1982 was achieving astonishing sales success. VTech therefore decided to come out with a console that could offer users the possibility of programming their own software, expanding it with computer-style peripherals such as a keyboard, cassette recorder, and printer, thus creating a "hybrid" computer/console system.

The production in Hong Kong also allowed VTech to keep costs significantly low, making the CreatiVision even cheaper than even “obsolete” systems such as the VCS 2600 and Intellivision.

Sfortuna unfortunately it happened that in the same period Coleco, a company already active in the United States in the video game market, decided to launch shortly afterward its console with hardware almost identical to the CreatiVision, except for the microprocessor (the ColecoVision was equipped with a Zilog Z80) and had the same graphics and sound coprocessors.

The console was promoted as a system that could be expanded and turned into a true home computer, through accessories and the “BASIC” cartridge, highlighting its hybrid nature and its advanced capabilities.

The promotion also took place through advertising campaigns that depicted it as the most powerful home gaming-computer system on the market.

Alla fine del 1983 however the console market in general suffered a collapse given the enormous success that home computers like the already mentioned Commodore VIC20 and then especially the Commodore 64 were enjoying, decreeing the crisis of the video game giant of the era ATARI and bringing down with it also the big and small competitors such as Coleco and VTech which, like many others, exited the video game market wrongly considered “finished”… the famous “video game crash” of 1984 which in reality was not a crisis but simply a change in the market of those early ’80s.

The "Laser 2001", launched at the end of 1983/beginning of 1984, inherited much of the CreatiVision hardware, compatible with its cartridges, but featured more RAM and a professional keyboard, establishing itself as a true home computer.