The suit was quickly put aside when Bushnell arranged a licensing deal with Atari, granting them exclusive rights to home releases of Sente's arcade games. Īlthough Sente did not officially exist until October, Atari sued Bushnell anyway, claiming his April purchase of the company broke their non-compete agreement.
The intent to acquire Videa for $2.2 million was published in January 1983 and Sente Technologies was officially founded on October 1, 1983. He hoped to use Videa as a way to re-enter the arcade game market quickly without having to start a company from the ground up since his agreement was set to expire in late 1983. Bushnell had left Atari (a company he co-founded) in 1978 and was required to sign a non-competitive agreement to keep him out of the video game business for several years. Shortly thereafter Videa was acquired by Nolan Bushnell's Chuck E. The console market crashed in Christmas of 1983 and the prototype Gridlee machine did poorly out on its field test so Gottlieb and Fox both passed on their respective deals. An attempt was made to get Gottlieb to distribute Gridlee and Fox to release Lasercade and Atom Smasher (also known as Meltdown) but all three failed to come to market. Meltdown, also for the Atari 2600) in 1982 with the intent of entering both the arcade and home console market in 1983. Pogoz, an arcade game), Lasercade (for the Atari 2600) and Atom Smasher (a.k.a. In the meantime, these funky CT CPO’s will make a nice addition to the archive.Videa developed their first games, Gridlee (a.k.a. If you liked this installment of NOS arcade artwork, please visit my NOS artwork page, where you’ll find more information and a gallery of pieces in my collection. If you happen to own a Sente cocktail cabinet, drop me a line, I’d love to see it. I’ve never seen a Sente cocktail table in person and a little searching didn’t dig up any photos. A fun, multi-color overlay would have cost more money and these games were meant to be money savers for the op. As for the aesthetics, while the green background, white stripes and gold metallic accent color scheme is OK, it is also very boring. The backing has some minor peeling, but other wise excellent. The die-cuts are all missing, but they were likely cut out and not punched with tabs as the holes are clean.
BALLY SENTE INSTALL
The top edges of each overlay has a slight bend, but I believe they were pre-scored to make it easier to install on the panels. They are in excellent condition, printed on heavy duty poly-carbonate with a plain paper backing.
BALLY SENTE ARCHIVE
Checking over the flyer images from The Arcade Flyer Archive I was pretty sure the overlays wouldn’t fit either of those cabs, take a look.īelow you can see various images of both overlays. Even the conversion kit artwork would have had a wider control panel to fit games like Pac-Man, Rally-X, or Bump N Jump. The standard Sente Arcade Computer I cabinet takes a much wider control panel, so it couldn’t be for that cabinet. The overlay’s are only 11 1/4″ tall x 10 7/8″ wide and at first I thought they must be for the Sente Arcade Computer I Deluxe, due to the narrow width.
Unfortunately, the industry was starting its massive downward spiral and the Sente System never got the chance it deserved. A supposedly quick and painless conversion for the operator. The idea was simple, buy a generic cabinet and swap out a few parts to create a whole new game. Bally Sente was the brain child of Nolan Bushnell back in the mid 80’s. For about $22 shipped, I grabbed this pair of Bally Sente control panel overlays, not a bad deal and I’m a fan of the Sente system, so why not. Flush with cash from a few recent eBay sales, I decided to shop around and find some new stuff to add to my arcade artwork collection.
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