NES R.O.B.

Name: Robotic Operating Buddy
Company: Nintendo

R.O.B. was a once-bundled accessory of the early Deluxe Nintendo sets. The cart Gyromite (one of two games specifically designed for use with the robot) also came packed along. Essentially, you control R.O.B. by the actions and modifications seen on the game’s screen to further in stages. The game information reacts via infra-rays from the NES and bounces them back to the system to affect both media.

R.O.B. has two assembled “claws” that are used for picking up items, gyros, and stack up discs in the second R.O.B. series title, Stack Up.

Models run either on four AA batteries or one single D battery.

The concept behind the robot accessory didn’t go too well with the public, and after releasing Stack Up, Nintendo quickly stopped production and withdrew it from future bundles. No future third party games work with R.O.B. It died before it was even born.

Some of the incidents that might have hurried its demise could have been as follows: (A.) Anxious children broke him and/or ate the small discs thereby sending families to the hospital; (B.) The Zapper quickly overthrew ROB because of its simple get-up-and-go formula (Aim, shoot ducks, KA-PLOW); or (C.) It just plain sucked.

Today R.O.B. is nothing more than a collectors item, and if you have complete parts for him, it’s a hundred dollars profitable one at that.