The History Of Video Games
The history of video games, like the history of computers, began in the 1940’s. However, despite their existence in nascent form for some time, technological limitations didn’t allow video games to become affordable for the general public—or, for that matter, sufficiently entertaining—until the 1970’s.
In 1972, the first home-console—that is, the immediate predecessor of our beloved and more familiar Nintendo’s—was introduced to the market. The console was called the Magnavox Odyssey, and it was soon overshadowed by the popular Atari systems. One of the first popular Atari games was pong, a game in which the player paddles a ball back and forth across the screen against a computer opponent.
The 80’s was one of the great periods in the history of video games. There was a boom in popularity and, thus, funding for home-consoles and arcade games. The 80’s was the time of Pac-Man and Space Invaders, and it also witnessed the birth of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) and, with it, the rise of Nintendo, Inc., arguably the single-most influential video game and console producer in the history of video games.
After some success with the famous Donkey Kong arcade game, Nintendo, a Japanese company that had once produced board games, created the NES and introduced it to American stores in 1986. The original NES featured games such as Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. Later, in 1989, the Game Boy was introduced to the markets.
Meanwhile, the other great system of the late 80’s and early 90’s was developing. Sega Inc. introduced its Genesis console to the markets in 1988. The classic games of the Genesis included Sonic the Hedgehog and Streets of Rage.
Eventually, the Nintendo console gained dominance in the field of home consoles, though, even with the development of the Super Nintendo in the early nineties, the Sega Genesis continued to enjoy considerable success.
In the meantime, however, a new development in the history of video games was taking place. While personal computers had become realistic tools for both business and home-use in the 80’s, they were still quite limited in their capabilities. It was in the early nineties that computers, along with the CD and the CD-ROM, became a ubiquitous presence in American culture.
Computer games were of an altogether different variety. Instead of employing a simple controller with limited input, computer games could make use of the entire keyboard. While the keyboard did not allow for the lightning quick motions a controller provided, it did provide the possibility of more complex directives. Another aspect that computers introduced into the history of video games is the internet and online gaming.
In 1994 the Playstation was introduced to stores. After almost a decade of undisputed dominance in the home-console world, Nintendo met a true rival in Sony’s Playstation. The Playstation was reliant on an entirely different format: the CD. Eventually, Nintendo would switch to that format; however, before doing so, it created the Nintendo 64 and, with it, such classic games as Goldeneye. Both these systems boasted “3-D†graphics and greater computing capability.
After several years of Playstation and N64 dominance, a new model, characterized by the Playstation 2 (2000), the Nintendo Game-Cube (2001), and the Microsoft X-Box (2001) was introduced. All of these systems had greater processing power and higher graphics resolution, and they were all CD based. These were also the first home-consoles to provide internet access ports and, therefore, online gaming. These systems, some in newer models, continue to dominate the world of video games. No doubt, the history of video games will continue to develop according to the innovation of these companies.
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27 May 2011, 7:26 am
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