Wing Commander Goes Commercial

In 1995, Origin partnered with microchip manufacturer Intel to develop a series of advertisements. Co-sponsored magazine advertisements touted the performance Pentium chips would offer Ultima VIII and Pacific Strike... but the most interesting product of the partnership was a television commercial which featured Wing Commander!

The commercial shows a boy studying the solar system using the Redshift planetarium software. He goes through several planets and recites facts about them; then he announces that it's time to "study the Kilrathi system," picks up a flight stick and instantly switches to an Arrow cockpit playing Wing Commander III!

It's amazing to think that 'Kilrathi' was a perfectly explicable word for a national TV spot in 1995. The footage itself is very interesting as well: of course, the instant switch between Redshift and Wing Commander III was impossible at the time... and eagle-eyed Wing Commander fans will also recognize that the game itself is a prettier mockup rather than the released version. The game mirrors the planetarium software with a lush planet image in the background and pairs of high resolution Arrows swoop past the view.

You can view the full commercial on YouTube or download your own copy here (WMV, 16.4 megs).