Excitebike

Manufacturer: Nintendo
Year: 1984
Class: Wide Release
Genre: Racing
Type: Videogame

Monitor:

Orientation: Horizontal
Type: Raster: Standard Resolution
CRT: Color

Conversion Class: Nintendo Vs.
Number of Simultaneous Players: 1
Maximum number of Players: 2
Gameplay: Alternating
Control Panel Layout: Single Player
Controls:

Joystick: 4-way (up, down, left, right)
Buttons: 2 [Accelerator|Turbo]

Sound: Unamplified Mono (requires one-channel amp)

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Excitebike Control Panel Image

Excitebike Description

A dirt bike game. The player navigates a bike over hills and around competitors.

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Cabinet Information

The game uses the standard generic Vs. artwork.

Conversion

All Vs. games can be converted by swapping the ROMs, daughterboards, or other custom chips on the board. The Vs. Dualsystem architecture allows two games, serving two separate monitors, to be played from the same board.

Game Play

The game starts with a qualifying race, where the player is the only bike on the track. The player must navigate over hills, jumps, hay bails, and other obstacles in a set amount of time to qualify for the next race. The course scrolls right to left and the view is from a slightly elevated angle to allow for 3-D.

The player moves up and down (left to right on the track) with the joystick. Moving the stick left is like pulling up on the handlebars, producing a wheelie. Moving the stick right or left in the air will change the attitude of the bike, controlling what angle it will be at during landing. Ideally, this should match the angle of the ground during landing.

Button B controls turbo. The engine will overheat if this is kept on too long. At this time, the player should use normal acceleration with button A. There are arrows on the track that will cool off the engine when the player runs over them.

If the player qualifies, the next race will be the same track with competitors. If the player places in the top five, the next race will be a qualifier on another track and so on.

Landing wrong, too big of a wheelie, running over a hay bail while not in a wheelie, or colliding with a competitor will cause a crash. There is no limit to the number of crashes, but it costs time. Overheating the engine will also just cost time. The game is over when the player fails to qualify.

CAPS/VAPS Arcade Census

There are 6,485 members of the Classic Arcade Preservation Society / Video Arcade Preservation Society, 3,728 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 61,148 machines (3,629 unique titles).

Very Common - There are 52 known instances of this machine owned by Excitebike collectors. Of these, 14 of them are original dedicated machines, 8 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet, and 30 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

This game ranks a 32 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most commonly seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

Wanted - There are 4 VAPS members currently looking for Excitebike. There is one VAPS member looking for a Excitebike circuit board set.

This game ranks a 13 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most commonly seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

For Sale - There are 2 VAPS members with Excitebike machines for sale. There is one VAPS member with an extra Excitebike circuit board for sale. VAPS members are totally independent of VAPS and the International Arcade Museum, and we are unable to recommend, endorce, or guarantee any person or company selling games or game parts.

Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. Some common games show up as very rare here because collectors don't want them even though arcade operators might be sitting on tons of them in warehouses, while some fairly scarce games are grabbed by collectors every time they show up.
Additionally, some games made in the last 5 years are still making money for operators and are thus not yet affordable to the typical collector.
In particular, since VAPS started out focusing on videogames, statistics for other types of machines should not (yet) be an indication of scarcity.
For a clue to value, look at absolute numbers of owners and potential owners above, compare a ratio of how many people want this game vs. how many people have this game (8%) and then click on the eBay links to help determine an accurate price range.

Trivia

The controls of Vs. System games allow for two players on a Unisystem and four on a Dualsystem. Unfortunately, Nintendo chose not to make use of this on Excitebike since only one player may play at a time.

eBay Listings

Click to search eBay for Excitebike Videogame machines and related items.

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TODAY'S PICKS FOR:
Excitebike

1. EXCITEBIKE NINTENDO VS UNISYSTEM CPU WORKING PCB 894
Auction ends in: 3 days, 2 hours
0 bids
$49.95

2. PLAYCHOICE 10 Arcade Machine MARIO BROS/EXCITEBIKE MINT
Auction ends in: 2 weeks, 6 days
eBay Stores (Fixed Price):
$995.00

3. vs. ExciteBike Arcade Video Game Coin-op Machine Used
Auction ends in: 3 weeks, 1 day
eBay Stores (Fixed Price):
$600.00

4. Excitebike Arcade Game (1984)
Auction ends in: 3 weeks, 2 days
eBay Stores (Fixed Price):
$1,650.00

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Excitebike - Title screen image

Photo contributed by: Cyberhick

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