1983-1984 In June 5, 1983, Xonox announced its entry into the home video game industry with the introduction of three double-ender videogame cartridges and one single-game cartridge for the Atari 2600. This marked the second company to bring to market double-ender cartridges (the first being Playaround), with Xonox's having two individual 8K games on either end of a single cartridge. "The Xonox double-ender concept was born from the notion that two games on one cartridge would more likely be purchased by game players who are often limited by budgetary reasons to only one or two new cartridges per year," explained Mickey Elfenbein, (then) Executive Vice President. "With the double-ender they'll have the benefit of twice the number of games per purchase." Unfortunately for Xonox and gamers alike, their games failed to stand out, despite many of their games being quite original in concept. In Spike's Peak, you play the role of Spike, with only three lives in which to reach the summit of the Peak. Three different screens provide a modest challenge, demanding precise timing in jumps and careful movement to avoid various obstacles including diving eagles, rocks and even an Abominable Snowman. In Ghost Manor, you find yourself in a lonely graveyard outside Ghost Manor. Inside, a friend in distress is trapped and awaits your help. Your task is to find the key which is hidden under one of the tombstones and rescue your friend who's trapped inside the haunted mansion. With five screens of variety, Ghost Manor is one of the better 2600 games out there. Games like Spike's Peak and Ghost Manor, however, never really had a chance to succeed. By the time Xonox games were made available, stores were already overflowing with unsold 2600 games being dumped at deeply discounted prices. Furthermore, Xonox suffered from poor distribution (although they did an admirable job with advertising), and most of their games were hardly ever seen in store shelves. SOFTWARE LIST Artillery Duel Artillery Duel/Chuck Norris Superkicks Artillery Duel/Ghost Manor Artillery Duel/Spike's Peak Chuck Norris Superkicks Chuck Norris Superkicks/Ghost Manor Chuck Norris Superkicks/Spike's Peak Ghost Manor Ghost Manor/Spike's Peak Hercules/Chuck Norris Superkicks (not released) Motorcross Racer Motocrosss Racer/Tomarc the Barbarian Robin Hood Robin Hood/Sir Lancelot Robin Hood/Super Kung Fu (PAL release only) Sir Lancelot Spike's Peak Thundarr the Barbarian (not released, renamed Tomarc the Barbarian) Tomarc the Barbarian