In the early 1980’s, Pac-Man fever was rapidly spreading across the land. From its humble beginnings as a simple arcade game, it spawned a massive sprawling empire which, at its peak, included home console titles, a Saturday morning cartoon, a breakfast cereal, …and game watches.

In 1982, a relative newcomer to consumer electronics, Nelsonic, secured the rights from Bally-Midway to produce and sell a Pac-Man themed electronic game watch (adding to its already growing stable of innovative game watches). The Pac-Man watch was Nelsonic’s most successful game watch by far, selling over 500,000 units. It came in two major variants: a model with directional buttons and this rare model with the highly desirable screw-down joystick.

As a young boy, I logged countless hours honing my Pac-Man skills on this little device. Although my parents originally purchased it for my older brother, he stopped wearing it not long after; Alas, the Pac-Man watch was deemed too nerdy for Junior high-school. I, on the other hand, did not have such worries in second grade — and I started wearing (and playing) it non-stop on the playground.

That particular watch was tragically lost to the ages at the bottom of some junk drawer long, long ago. However, after some patient searching, I managed to track down this fine example — complete in box with papers, accessories, the whole nine yards. It even included the original four joysticks you can screw into the watch when playing the game; Each color-coded to the ghosts (Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde). And when you’re not playing the game, you can simply unscrew the joystick from the watch and place it in a holster attached to the strap. Totally righteous!

It’s not all fun and games though. Despite selling over a half-million units, not many of these watches have survived to this day in working order. They usually suffer from corroded circuitry, missing battery hatches, and pretty gnarly resin cases which unfortunately seem to have the same hardness rating as soft butter. If you’re able to track one down that is still working and relatively complete, you may be surprised at the cost considering what this is; Nostalgia doesn’t come cheap.

That said, this is a very cool piece of 80’s nostalgia on the wrist that is sure to be quite the conversation starter — assuming you only want to converse with geeky men in their mid to late 40’s. But as a hungry pie chart once said: “Waka waka waka.” – Pac-Man 🍒🟡▫️▫️▫️