The 1950s saw the first time computers being used for recreational purposes. Up until this point, computers had mainly been used for calculations, or, for example, decoding messages during the war.
In 1958, a man called William Higinbotham created one of the first games, called 'Tennis for Two' and was created using an oscilloscope and analog computer. It was a simple side view of a tennis course, for two players. This just makes me smile. The advancements are amazing, and at the time this must have been a really exciting development. I can imagine that it would get boring fairly quickly though...
'SpaceWar!' was invented in 1962 by Steve Russell for the PDP-1. The PDP-1 was the first operating system to allow multiplayer, so playing spacebar was more interactive and fun. The players would play against each other, controlling their ships with two boxy controllers. Here's a video of some 'SpaceWar!' gameplay!
Looks fun right? The point of the genre is that two players are pitted against one another, controlling spacecrafts. There's a sun in the middle which provides great difficulties for the players as they fire missiles at one another, avoiding it's gravitational pull. SpaceWar! is quite a feat of an achievement, often credited as the first widely available and influential computer game!
Computer Space, based on Space war, was the first ever arcade game. It was created in Nolan Bushnell (who would later start Atari Computers in 1972).
There were two versions of Computer Space, a one player machine and a two player. In the one player version, the player controls a rocket ship in a face off against two spaceships, whereas in the two player version, two players battle one another.
Pong
Here, you can have a go at a version of Pong! Probably famous as one of the symbols of classing computer games, it was originally a training device set by Nolan Bushnell for an Atari employee, Allan Alcorn. Atari was first made as a single arcade machine and put in a pub, and it became so quickly successful that Atari started to mass produce them!
Playing it.. it's actually incredibly easy to see why it became so popular. It's simple, but consider how advanced it was at the time! It's strangely addictive, and actually quite fun, and I wish there was more of this now. I wish that it was still the case that you'd pop down the local and there'd be pong or even maybe a PacMan machine.
PacMan
PacMan.. the immensely famous, world popular symbol of 80s Pop Culture. PacMan was developed by Namco in 1980 and sold over 100,000 units in its first year.
Everyone's heard of PacMan and most people have played a version of it at some point during their lives. It's very easily argued that PacMan is one of the most popular video games in history.
It's easy to see why this was so exciting and entertaining to play. There was an introduction of characters, and with the release of Ms. PacMan in 1981, a direct introduction of girls to the world of gaming.
The Magnavox Odyssey
The Magnavox Odyssey was the machine that introduced the world to home gaming. Designed by Ralph Baer and made available in 1972, it was a digital video game console plugged into the television and controlled by two paddles. It was also released with six cartridges to play twelve different games (one of which, incidentally, being Pong).
Emerson Arcadia 2001
In 1982, Emerson Radio Corp released the arcadia 2001 console, and a lot of trouble followed this for them...
Arcadia 2001 was small and powered by a 12 volt power supply, meaning it could be used in vehicles. This would have been a fantastic launch into portable gaming... if it weren't for the face that it required a portable television... no common thing in the 80s, funnily enough.
Its release wasn't exactly well timed either, as it came out at the same time as the much more popular Coleco Vision and the Atari 5200.
The competition.. the Atari 5200
Meanwhile, Atari released the Atari 5200. These included an analog joystick, and the controller allowed a full 360 degree movement, however there were troubles with this and the controllers were very failure prone. The 5200 was also one of the first controllers to come with a pause button (What. I would be so lost without that thing.. trips to the fridge would inevitably end in death and disaster...)
The Atari 5200 was thrown ahead of its competition though, because it had a lot more good quality games that other systems of that year. Unfortunately, the Atari 5200 was short-lived because of the great computer game crash of '83.
The Crash
There were quite a few contributing factors to the crash in the gaming market in 1983. This article from IGN is a pretty interesting read into some facts about the crash.
As it says in this article, one of the main reasons for the crash was an oversupply in consoles on the market. There was the Emerson Arcadia 2001, Atari 5200, the Coleco Vision and many others. Also as Computer gaming became more prominent as home computers became more affordable, these consoles had even more competition.
NES
The courageous release of the Nintendo Entertainment System is what brought gaming consoles back after the crash. Originally the 'Famicon' in Japan, Nintendo sold the console in America as the NES and it took off in leaps and bounds. No wonder! When the world was being introduced to classics like Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros.
The NES controller, a horizontal block that you hold with both hands has become the standard design used for all consoles nowadays pretty much, with the directional keys on the left and action buttons on the right, with a start and select in the middle.
Nintendo Gameboy
In 1989, Nintendo released the pocket sized revolution for gaming, the Gameboy. The Gameboy offered the opportunity for portability to already much loved classics, such as Super Mario Bros and Zelda, and would also be the leap into the Pokemon gaming franchise. The Gameboy, the first in the Gameboy series, is what we have to thank for our current Nintendo handheld feat, the 3DS.
The Gameboy and Gameboy Color progressed to the Advance and SP, the games for which could still be used in the Nintendo DS and DS Lite. From the DS lite came the DSi, and we've steadily risen to the 3DS, which still has the fundamental charm and lovability of all of its predecessors.
References
- inventors.about.com/library/blcomputer_videogames.htm
- iventors.about.com/od/sstartinventions/a/spacewar.htm
- www.arcade-museum.com/c/computer_space.html
- www.ponggame.org
- pacman.com/en/pac-man-history/
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/magnavox
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/arcadia_2001
- atariage.com/5200/
- www.nintendo.co.uk/Corporate/Nintendo-History/Nintendo-Entertainment-System/Nintendo-Entertainment-System-627024.html
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