Presently, the video games industry is a whopping $100 billion global industry, with over two-thirds of American households having people who play video games regularly. And it’s no surprise: video games have been around for decades and cover a variety of platforms, including arcade systems, home consoles, handheld consoles, and mobile devices. They are also frequently at the cutting edge of gaming technology such as the fruit machine online.
The Early Days
Today, you can virtually find video games in almost every home in America, although they began in scientists’ research facilities.
For example, as part of his Ph.D. research at the University of Cambridge in 1952, British professor A.S. Douglas invented OXO, often known as noughts and crosses or tic-tac-toe. In 1958, during the annual visitor’s day at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, William Higinbotham built Tennis for two on a huge analog computer and linked oscilloscope screen.
Spacewar!, a computer-based space warfare video game for the Programmed Data Processor-1, was created in 1962 by Steve Russell at the MIIT. It was the first video game that could be played on more than one computer.
Dawn of the Home Console
Sanders Associates, Inc., led by Ralph Baer, created a prototype multiplayer, multi-program video game system that could be played on a television in 1967. It was dubbed “The Brown Box.”
Baer, known as the “Father of Video Games,” leased his invention to Magnavox, who marketed it to customers as the Odyssey, the first video game home console, in 1972. The rudimentary Odyssey console would commercially flop and fade away over the following three years.
Nonetheless, one of the Odyssey’s 28 games served as the idea for Atari’s Pong, the first arcade video game launched in 1972. In 1975, Atari produced a home version of Pong that was just as popular as the arcade version.
Magnavox and Sanders Associates would go on to sue Atari for copyright infringement. Atari settled and became an Odyssey licensee; Magnavox went on to win more than $100 million in copyright litigation connected to the Odyssey and its video game patents over the next 20 years.
The Video Game Crash
The North American video game industry experienced a major “crash” in 1983 as a result of several factors, including an oversaturated game console market, competition from computer gaming, and an abundance of over-hyped, low-quality games, such as the infamous E.T., an Atari game based on the eponymous film and widely regarded as the worst game ever created.
The crisis, which lasted a few years, resulted in the bankruptcy of numerous personal computer and video game console businesses. The home video game business began to revive in 1985, when the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), known as the Famicom in Japan, was released in the United States.
Nintendo, a Japanese corporation that originated as a developer of card games in 1889, created several major video game brands still in use today, including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid.
Furthermore, Nintendo set several rules on third-party games produced for their system, helping in the fight against hurried, low-quality software. Several quality brands were created by third-party creators, like; Enix’s Dragon Quest, Konami’s Castlevania, Capcom’s Mega Man, and Square’s Final Fantasy. With the debut of its 8-bit Game Boy video game system and the regular game Tetris in 1989, Nintendo created waves once more by popularizing portable gaming.
Nintendo would produce a series of successful successors to the Game Boy over the following 25 years, including the Game Boy Color in 1998, the Nintendo D.S. in 2004, and the Nintendo 3DS in 2011.
The First Console War
Sega also introduced its 16-bit Genesis platform in North America in 1989 as a replacement to its 1986 Sega Master System, which failed to compete sufficiently against the NES. With its technological advantage to the NES, smart marketing, and the 1991 debut of Sonic the Hedgehog, Genesis made tremendous progress against its elder competitor. Nintendo introduced their 16-bit Super NES device in North America in 1991, ushering in the first true “console war.”
In the early to mid-1990s, both systems saw the debut of a slew of popular titles, including new brands like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, a fighting game that featured blood and gore on the Genesis version of the game. Sega established the Videogame Rating Council in 1993 to offer detailed labeling for all Sega home console games in reaction to the violent game. The council later gave birth to the industry-wide Entertainment Software Rating Board, which is still used to rate video games based on content today.
The debut of the Super Mario Bros. live-action movie in 1993, followed by Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat over the next two years, catapulted video games to the big screen in the mid-1990s. Since then, a slew of movies based on video games have been released.
The Genesis had surpassed the SNES in North America at this point, thanks to a far wider library of titles, a lower price point, and excellent marketing. However, Sega was unable to replicate its success in Japan.
The Rise of 3D Gaming
The fifth generation of video games heralded the three-dimensional age of gaming, thanks to technological improvements. Five months ahead of schedule in 1995, Sega debuted one of the very first 32-bit consoles that used CDs instead of cartridges (Saturn system). This was done to compete with Sony’s initial entry into video games, the Playstation, which cost $100 less than the Saturn when released later that year. The Nintendo 64, a cartridge-based 64-bit console, was introduced the following year.
Modern Age of Gaming
Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s Playstation 3, and Nintendo’s Wii launched the present generation of high-definition gaming in 2005 and 2006. Though the Playstation 3—the only system at the time that could play Blu-ray discs—was a success in its own right, Sony faced tough competition from its rivals for the first time.
The Xbox 360, whose graphics could be compared to that of the Playstation 3, was praised for its gaming ecosystem and got lot of recognition in the 2007 GCA(Game Critics Awards) than the other game brands; it also included the Microsoft Kinect, a cutting-edge motion capture system that provided a new way to play video games.
Sony introduced a more powerful version of their console, the Playstation 4 Pro, in 2016, making it the first console capable of 4 K visual outputs. Nintendo announced its Wii U replacement, the Nintendo Switch, in early 2017, making it the only system that supports both television-based and portable gameplay. Microsoft’s 4K-ready system, the Xbox One X, was released in late 2017.
Both Sony and Microsoft have their eyes set on virtual reality gaming with their new redesigned consoles. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way gamers enjoy video games.
