History of Video Games

By: Jon Raphael Danao

 

 

 

1889

 

Fusajiro Yamauchi established a company that manufactured and sold Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda. Hanafuda became a huge hit to gamblers and even the Yakuza used it in their high stakes gambling. In 1907, Yamauchi wanted to invade the western scene by producing high quality western playing cards (Nintendo history lesson, 2003). He called this company Nintendo which means "in the end, it is in heaven's hands" (Nintendo history lesson, 2003).

 

1947

 

Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company was established by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka which licensed the transistor patent from Bell Labs creating pocket-sized radio. The pocket radio was a success in Japan and they wanted to market it in the US and Europe . Having such a long company name, they decided to rename it to Sony, from sonus the latin word of ‘sound’ (Herman, Horwitz , Kent , & Miller, 2008).

 

1954

 

David Rosen, a former war veteran, shipped coin-operated games in military bases in Japan . These were called Service Games which was later abbreviated as SEGA and adopted as the company name.

 

1966

 

Ralph Baer was a TV engineer at Sanders Associate Incorporated who envisioned another use of the television aside from watching standard broadcasts. Playing video games on the television was the single idea that he continuously dreamed of. He wrote a 4-page Disclosure Document defining the types of games that could be played in that device - action, board games, sports, racing, etc.

 

Baer wanted a small device that could easily be attached to a television set. He called this the Brown Box - the first game console which came with a light gun.

 

1970

 

Magnovox licensed Baer's game and was named the Odyssey which came with 12 built-in games, one of which was the ever popular Table Tennis, and a light gun that was an optional peripheral.

 

1972

 

Nolan Bushnell, considered as the father of electronic games, invented the game Pong and built the company Atari. They built Pong with colored graphics and sound effects which outshone Magnavox's Odyssey.

 

1976

 

Programmable game cartridges were introduced by Fairchild Channel F (Herman, Horwitz , Kent , & Miller, 2008).

 

Exidy released Death Race. The game's primary objective is to run down ‘gremlins’ which looked like stick men on the streets because of its very crude graphics. The game caused the first controversy of video game violence (Herman, Horwitz , Kent , & Miller, 2008).

 

 

1977

 

Atari introduced the first ever programmable gaming console known as the Video Computer System (VCS) which uses cartridges to store game programs. The catalog of games contains hundreds of titles including the infamous Space Invaders, Adventure and Pitfall. The launch of Space Invaders skyrocketed the sales of the Atari VCS (Stack, 2005).

 

1979

 

David Crane left Atari and Activision came to life as a third-party game development company for the Atari 2600 (Stack, 2005).  They developed several top-notch games and eventually lured Atari employees to join them.

 

1980

 

Namco, a division of Atari, released Pac-Man, the most famous coin-operated arcade game developed by Toru Iwatani. Previously called as Puck-Man, this game sold more than 10 million units worldwide and was the only game which appealed to both males and females (History of gaming, n.d.).

 

1981

 

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto designed Donkey Kong, a game with a hero called Jumpman, a carpenter trying to save his girlfriend Pauline from the wraths of a huge crazy monkey. Jumpman was then renamed to Mario by Nintendo of America.

 

1982

 

Trip Hawkins left Apple Computers and established EA - a game publishing company which does not maintain an arsenal of game artists and developers but rather scouts and distributes new games developed by independent studios.

 

1983

 

The Family Computer (Famicom) was released by Nintendo in Japan . In the United States , they released it as Nintendo Entertainment System or NES and carried the titles Metroid, Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, and Mario Bros.

 

Mario, who also starred in Donkey Kong, is a short Italian plumber in the game Mario Bros. living in the Mushroom Kingdom . He teams up with his brother Luigi to save the princess while killing countless turtles, flies and monsters in and outside the pipes. Mario became Nintendo's mascot and the most recognizable character in the game history.

 

1985

 

A Russian programmer at Moscow Academy of Science's Computer Center , Alexey Pazhitnov created Tetris, a video puzzle game which uses tetrominoes falling down a platform. The gameplay is simple - maneuver the blocks by rotating and positioning them into the platform to create a horizontal line without gaps and that line will disappear earning the player some points.

 

With its simple gameplay, this game became a huge hit and was ported to a lot of different computer platforms and game consoles over time. It has sold millions of cartridges, tapes and disks around the world.

 

1986

 

Nintendo released the NES worldwide and premiered the game Super Mario Bros. During this time, Sega tried to outsell the NES by releasing the Sega Master System (SMS) but it never came close as a competitor.

 

1989

 

Controversy over Tetris distribution began when Tengen bought the rights from Microsoft, which they learned did not own the rights to begin with. Nintendo began acquiring the legal rights and released Tetris together with the monochrome handheld Nintendo Game Boy. The Game Boy made history when it sold 150 million units since 1989 (Company history, 2007).

 

During this time, NEC released their TurboGrafx-16 system which came with a CD-ROM attachment that introduced the playable games stored in compact discs.

 

Sega also released a follow up system called Genesis. Their marketing tag line Genesis does what Nintendo don't created the necessary buzz that generated 29 million in sales ( Orlando , 2005).

 

Atari also released Handy Game, a handheld game console.

 

1990

 

Nintendo released best selling cartridge game Super Mario 3 which is the 5th release in the Super Mario series. It had many new features like a map, mini games, flying skills, shortcuts, stages, power-ups and enemies.

 

Sega released several home arcade games including Afterburner II and E-SWAT. They licensed Capcom's Strider, an award winning platform game.

 

1991

 

Nintendo released SNES or the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo collaborated with Sony to incorporate a CD-ROM drive into the SNES.

 

Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog, which was the Super Mario rival but most gamers still preferred the latter.

 

Capcom released Street Fighter II, a fighting game that plays off two players in different arenas around the world. It sports a good collection of combo moves.

 

1992

 

As an answer to Capcom's Street Fighter, Acclaim Entertainment released Mortal Kombat, a game developed by Ed Boon and John Tobias. Mortal Kombat was popularized by its realistic movements, non-cartoon-like graphics, violence, and gore.

 

1994

 

Since video games became more and more realistic and violent, the federal government gave the game industry 1 year to present itself with a rating system. Thus Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was established to create a standard system that publishers need to use to give consumers some guidelines and suggestions on the appropriate game for their children.

 

On December 3, Sony revealed the PlayStation, a spin-off of the Sony-Nintendo collaboration back in 1991. Left with a CD-ROM add-on, Sony decided to develop this device into a full-fledged gaming system. It was an instant hit in Japan and later in the US .

 

1996

 

Sony dropped its prices on PlayStation and made $12 million per day during the Christmas season (Herman, Horwitz , Kent , & Miller, 2008). Compact discs became the ultimate storage medium for games. Cartridges were slowly phased-out. The release of Virtua Fighter 3 by Sega was a huge hit in Japan and US.

 

Atari crashed when their gaming console Jaguar continued to drop. They stopped production of this product.

 

1997

 

Sony released Net Yaroze, a software development kit (SDK) for PlayStation that enables users to create games for this system in their personal computers. Yaroze means "Let's do it together" (Net Yaroze, 2006).

 

Bandai released Tamagotchi, a handheld virtual pet. It is shaped like an egg with three buttons of different functionality including feeding, playing, checking its age, happiness, hunger, etc. It was reported that Bandai was able to sell 10 million units of Tamagotchi and was later ported to PC and Game Boy platforms (Herman, Horwitz , Kent , & Miller, 2008).

 

1999

 

Sega released Dreamcast, a new video game console and made $98 million sales in one day (Herman, Horwitz , Kent , & Miller, 2008). It was the first console to have an integrated modem for online gaming. Gaming consoles highly considered this new feature in their future releases.

 

2000

 

Dreamcast was soon overshadowed by the release of PlayStation 2, the first gaming console that uses DVD as its storage medium. It shipped with the Dual Shock Controllers and sold more than 115 million units worldwide (Morris, 2007).

 

Mayor Bart Peterson of Indianapolis signed a law preventing under-aged kids to play coin-operated arcade games that feature graphic violence or sexual content.

 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a report claiming 70% of the electronic games target minors and they do very little to restrict these children from accessing mature content (FTC releases report, 2000).  The study was requested by former President Bill Clinton on June 1999 (FTC releases report, 2000).

 

2001

 

Grand Theft Auto 3 (GTA), published by Rockstar Games, entered the market. Gamers were crazy about this game because of its violence, gore and adult content which earned much controversy. The player in GTA plays a criminal who enters in the world of organized crime and is allowed to kill people, pick up prostitutes, steal money, carjacking, and other criminal acts in order to gain points, money or reputation.

 

Nintendo released Game Boy Advance (GBA) which sports a larger screen and upgraded 32-bit color graphics and sold tens of millions of units worldwide. The company also released GameCube in the same year and was the first system to use optical minidisks as storage medium.

 

Microsoft entered the gaming scene with a brand new console called the Xbox. It was the first console to have a built-in hard disk drive and completely supports HDTV. It was also the first to attempt to require broadband internet connection to enable online gaming. Microsoft announced the the release of upcoming games like Oddworld, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, WWF Raw, and Metal Gear Solid X.

 

Parents of the victims of the Columbine Massacre filed a $5 billion lawsuit against 25 game companies which they claim were responsible for the killings in the Colorado high school (Herman, Horwitz , Kent , & Miller, 2008). Reports say Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were huge fans of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D.

 

2002

 

The US Army released America 's Army, a video game which was used as a marketing tool for its recruitment. It is distributed free of charge and became one of the top rated games in America .

 

Microsoft released Xbox Live, an online multiplayer gaming service that allows console connectivity through the network.

 

Washington State started prohibiting minors access to video games involving murder of a police officer.

 

2005

 

Microsoft release Xbox 360, the first console equipped with a wireless controller (Stack, 2005).

 

2006

 

Sony released PlayStation 3, the first console to support Blu-Ray discs. Nintendo released Wii, a new console that created huge hype because of its revolutionary controllers: the Wiimote, a remote control with motion sensors, accelerometer and optical sensors, and the Nunchuk, a corded controller with a joystick and trigger buttons.

 

2007

 

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto was hailed 2007's Most Influential People of the Year by Time Magazine. He was instrumental in the development of the classic games like Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda, and the consoles Nintendo DS and Wii.

 

Rockstar Games released Manhunt 2. In this game, the player takes on a role of a fugitive who escaped from an asylum and went on a killing spree. The British Board of Film Classification initially banned the release of this title in the UK but was later allowed to distribute the game in the area.

 

References:

 

Baer, R. (1998). Genesis: how the home video games industry began. Retrieved September 21, 2008, from Ralph Baer Web site: http://www.ralphbaer.com/how_video_games.htm.

Company history. (2007). Retrieved September 20, 2008, from Nintendo Web site:

            http://www.nintendo.com/corp/history.jsp.

Frequently asked questions. (n.d.) Retrieved September 20, 2008, from Entertainment Software Rating Board Web site: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/faq.jsp.

FTC releases report on the marketing of violent entertainment to children. (2000, September 11). Retrieved September 23, 2008, from Federal State Commission Web site: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/09/youthviol.shtm.

Herman, L., Horwitz, J., Kent, S., & Miller, S. (2008). History of video games. Retrieved September 18, 2008, from GameSpot Web site: http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/video/hov/.

History of gaming: interactive timeline of game history. (n.d.) Retrieved September 20, 2008, from PBS Web site: http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/history/timeline_flash.html.

Morris, C. (2007, March 8). PlayStation 3 may be upstaged by PS2. Retrieved September 21, 2008 from CNN Web site:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/08/technology/personaltech/harrison/index.htm.

Net Yaroze. (2006). Retrieved September 26, 2008, from PlayStation Museum Web site:

            http://www.playstationmuseum.com/Hardware/Develop/DTL-H3001.htm.

New law restricts violent video games in Indianapolis . (2000, July 18). Retrieved September 23, 2008, from CNN Web site: http://edition.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/18/violent.videogames.ap/index.html.

Nintendo history lesson. (2003, September 12). Retrieved September 23, 2008, from N-Sider Web site: http://www.n-sider.com/contentview.php?contentid=34.

Orlando, G. (2007, May 15). Console portraits: a 40-year pictorial history of gaming. Retrieved September 21, 2008, from Wired Web site: http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/multimedia/2007/05/gallery_game_history.

Stack, P. (2005). A history of video game consoles. Retrieved September 23, 2008, from Time Web site: http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050523/console_timeline/.

Waugh, E. (2006). A short history of electronic arts. Retrieved September 23, 2008, from BusinessWeek Web site: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2006/id20060828_268977.htm.

 

 

 

 

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