Video Games through time…

Video Games through time…

Through the last 30 years or so Video Gaming as an industry has largely expanded into the world wide phenomenon we know it as today! Although frowned upon in society as a ‘bad influence to young minds’ video games outsell both Movies, Books and TV series time and time again. It is also one of the only remaining industries that refuse to stop growing in this time of economical 
struggle.

The first ever recorded video game was the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device in 1947, which was a huge machine with a small glass, this glass acted like a screen as players would control a small blip of light. This blip acted as a racket and was used to bat away the other blip of light that the player would have to prevent from falling off the screen. 

After that came a handful of other games that attempted to take the concept of Video Gaming a little bit further but none as memorable as that of Pong. Pong was not only one the first multiplayer games but also one of the most addicting. This game introduced a lot of players to the world of gaming in arcades using the Pong Cabinet which was a machine that allowed users to play Pong when out, very few people owned their own Pong unit.

In 1977 the Atari released the first home computer game system, the Atari 2600. It was originally priced at $199, and shipped with two joysticks as well as a Combat cartridge. The Atari 2600 allowed people to play games such as Pac-Man in their own home and actually, Pac-Man was the best selling game on the 2600. The Atari 2600 was the start of the gaming console industry we know today.


 
 In 1978 the Game Space Invaders was released, this has proven to be one of the most iconic games of history and is still being referenced in current video game and played online to this day. Space Invaders was developed by Tomohiro Nishikado and released into arcades, it was a huge success and thousands of people would compete for the high score on one of their local Space Invaders machines, It was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally.




Donkey Kong was another Iconic game that spawned into something a lot bigger today, the three character Donkey Kong, Jumpman and Pauline still live on as Donkey Kong, Mario and Peach. Nintendo as major game franchises Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's president at the time, assigned the project to a first-time game designer named Shigeru Miyamoto. Drawing from a wide range of inspirations, including Popeye, Beauty and the Beast and King Kong, Miyamoto developed the hit arcade game that shattered records. This influenced the gaming world as it was a very colourful game in comparison to it's contenders that generally used no more than two or three colours in their games.




The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was initially released in Japan as the Family Computer (also known as the Famicom). Spanning 20 years from July 1983 to September 2003, the Nintendo Entertainment System, is the longest lasting of any video game console. The NES used a 72 pin cartridge for it's games, this was slightly different to the Famicom's 60 Pin Cartridge.




In 1978 came one of gaming history's iconic characters, Mega Man! Although Mega Man's participation in recent high selling games has mellowed with age, he is still cropping up now and again in certain games such as Capcom Vs. Marvel and now, Super Smash Bros. The 1987 release of  Mega Man consists of six side-scrolling platformer levels that the player was free to choose from. In each level, the player-character, Mega Man, fights through various enemies and obstacles before facing a "Robot Master" boss at the level's end.




In 1989 the original Game Boy was released and it was an instant success and sold over 118 Million world wide! This was the first portable gaming console and produced by Nintendo, it was a huge hit not only in the 80s - 90s but even into todays current generation we are still receiving new installments of the Game Boy known as the DS, a double screened, touch sensitive and fairly high powered device. The Game Boy influenced the gaming industry greatly and allowed Nintendo (and it's rivals Sony with their Play Station Portable or PSP) to collect a lot of profit from on-the-move gaming.






In 1994 the first PlayStation was released, this was also the start of one of the major gaming franchises we know today, the PS1 sold 125 Million Units world wide. The project was originally supposed to be split between Nintendo and Sony in order to create a CD-ROM for the Super Famicom as of 1988 although this partnership did not end well when Nintendo pulled out at last minuet. Sony decided to continue on with this project. By the late 1990s, Sony became a highly regarded console brand due to the PlayStation, with a significant lead over second-place Nintendo while Sega was relegated to a distant third.



Speaking of Sega, 5 years later came the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was the last console developed by Sega and although it sold 10.6 Million units world wide both the console and company were brought to their knees as the games produced for the Dreamcast were not protected from piracy and more and more people copied their games and passed them on to their friends. Sega influenced the gaming industry by teaching every other company a valuable lesson about data protection and piracy prevention.




 PlayStation 2 followed in the year 2000, the play station 2 still remains the biggest sold console of all time, reaching over 155 Million units World Wide. The PlayStation 2 was a massive step up for gaming








2001, the first Xbox was released and at the time Microsoft were not a popular and only sold 24 Million Units world although the console did not do particularly well in sales it launched one of the biggest video game series of all time, Halo.



Halo: Combat Evolved was the pinnacle of the fist person shooter and introduced many features to the FPS and also o gaming as we know it now. According to GameSpot, Halo's "numerous subtle innovations have been borrowed by countless other games since." Halo was one of the first game series to fully utilize in game vehicles an they created many, as well as a diverse range of weapons from human to alien. Using Local Area Connection, Halo supported up to 4-player custom games A split screen mode allows two players to co-cooperatively play through Halo's campaign^. The game also includes five customizable competitive multilayer modes for between two and 16 players; up to four players may play split-screen on one Xbox, and further players can join using a "System Link" feature that allows up to four Xbox consoles to be connected together into a local area network.

In 2001 another console was also released, this console was the Gamecube and although it was not an especially poor selling console, the Gamecube did not 'blow up' as much as it's predecessors did Nintendo sold approximately 22 million GameCube units worldwide during its lifespan, placing it slightly behind the Xbox's 24 million, and well behind the PlayStation 2's 153 million, the other consoles of this generation where sum what over shadowed by the sheer quality and hype of the PlayStation 2.



In 2004 the next revolution in gaming occurred, this was know as the DS which stands for Double Screen. The DS was one of the best selling hand-helds of all time and in no time every child you walked past on the street had a DS of some colour in their hands. 153.96 million units were sold between all of the DS generations (DS, DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL, 3DS, 3DS XL and 2DS) which still does not equal up to the Playstation 2.