A great era of video games : How does it had a huge Success? — MOMO
Today, video games make up a $100 billion global industry, and Indian spend an average of 8.5 hours every week regularly ‘according to the Limelight Network report’. And it’s no wonder: Video games have been around for decades and span the gamut of platforms, from arcade systems to home consoles, to handheld consoles and mobile devices. They’re also often at the forefront of computer technology.
Online gaming market of India by revenue per platform in FY 2017
The early history of video games
Following the 1947 invention of the cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game as well as the first to use an electronic display, the first true video games were created in the early 1950s. Initially created as technology demonstrations, such as the Bertie the brain and Nimrod computers in 1950 and 1951, video games also became the purview of academic research
. A series of games, generally simulating real-world board games, were created at various research institutions to explore programming, human-computer interaction, and computer algorithms. These include OXO and Christopher Strschery’s draughts program in 1952, the first software-based games to incorporate a CRT display, and several chess and checkers programs. Possibly the first video game created simply for entertainment was 1958’s Tennis for two, featuring moving graphics on an oscilloscope.
As computing technology improved over time, computers became smaller and faster, and the ability to work on them was opened up to university employees and undergraduate students by the end of the 1950s. These new programmers began to create games for non-academic purposes, leading up to the 1962 release of Spacewar! as one of the earliest known digital computer games to be available outside a single research institute.
Video games transitioned into a new era in the early 1970s with the launch of the commercial video game industry in 1971 with the display of the coin-operated arcade game Galaxy Game and the release of the first arcade video game Computer Space, and then in 1972 with the release of the immensely successful arcade game Pong and the first home Video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, which launched the first generation of video-game consoles.
Dawn of the Home Console
In 1967, developers at Sanders Associates, Inc., led by Ralph Baer, invented a prototype multiplayer, multi-program video game system that could be played on a television. It was known as “The Brown Box.”
Baer, who’s sometimes referred to as Father of Video Games, licensed his device to Magnavox, which sold the system to consumers as the Odyssey, the first video game home console, in 1972. Over the next few years, the primitive Odyssey console would commercially fizzle and die out.
Yet, one of the Odyssey’s 28 games was the inspiration for Atari’s Pong, the first arcade video game, which the company released in 1972. In 1975, Atari released a home version of Pong, which was as successful as its arcade counterpart.
Magnavox, along with Sanders Associates, would eventually sue Atari for copyright infringement. Atari settled and became an Odyssey licensee; over the next 20 years, Magnavox went on to win more than $100 million in copyright lawsuits related to the Odyssey and its video game patents.
In 1977, Atari released the Atari 2600 (also known as the Video Computer System), a home console that featured joysticks and interchangeable game cartridges that played multi-coloured games, effectively kicking off the second generation of the video game consoles.
The video game industry had a few notable milestones in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including:
- The release of the Space Invaders arcade game in 1978
- The launch of Activision, the first third-party game developer (which develops software without making consoles or arcade cabinets), in 1979
- The introduction to the United States of Japan’s hugely popular Pac-Man
- Nintendo’s creation of Donkey Kong, which introduced the world to the character Mario
- Microsoft’s release of its first Flight Simulator game
Ralph Baer brown box
The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including marketsaturation in the number of game consoles and available games and waning interest in console games in favor of personal computers.
Revenues peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash abruptly ended what is retrospectively considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America, as well as weakened the arcade game market.
Lasting about two years, t he crash shook a then-booming video game industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers and video game consoles in the region. Analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles and software.
The North American video game console industry recovered a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of Nintendo’s Western branding for its Famicom console, the NintendoEntertainment System (NES) in 1985. The NES was designed to avoid the missteps that caused the 1983 crash and the stigma associated with video games.
NintendoEntertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System ( NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. Nintendo first released it in Japan as the Family Computer, commonly known as the Famicom, in 1983. The NES, a remodelled version, was released internationally in the following years.
The NES featured several groundbreaking games, such as the platform game Super Mario Bros. and the action-adventure games The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. As one of the best selling consoles of its time, the NES helped revitalize the US video game industry following the video game crash of 1983. In addition, Nintendo introduced a now-standard business model of licensing third-party developers to produce and distribute games for the NES. The NES was succeeded by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which launched in Japan in 1990 and released in North America in 1991.
The Rise of 3D Gaming
With a leap in computer technology, the fifth generation of video games ushered in the three-dimensional era of gaming.
In 1995, Sega released in North America its Saturn system, the first 32-bit console that played games on CDs rather than cartridges, five months ahead of schedule. This move was to beat Sony’s first foray into video games, the Playstation, which sold for $100 less than the Saturn when it launched later that year. The following year, Nintendo released its cartridge-based 64-bit system, the Nintendo 64.
Though Sega and Nintendo each released their fair share of highly-rated, on-brand 3D titles, such as Virtua Fighter on the Saturn and Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64, the established video game companies couldn’t compete with Sony’s strong third-party support, which helped the Playstation secure numerous exclusive titles.
Simply put: Sony dominated the video game market and would continue to do so into the next generation. In fact, the Playstation 2, released in 2000 and able to play original Playstation games, would become the best-selling game console of all time.
Sony In the Pitch
The Playstation 2, which was the first console that used DVDs, went up against the Sega Dreamcast (released in 1999), the Nintendo Gamecube (2001), and Microsoft’s Xbox (2001).
The Dreamcast-considered by many to be ahead of its time and one of the greatest consoles ever made for several reasons, including its capability for online gaming-was a commercial flop that ended Sega’s console efforts. As a result, Sega pulled the plug on the system in 2001, becoming a third-party software company henceforth.
Modern Age of Gaming
In 2005 and 2006, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s Playstation 3, and Nintendo’s Wii kicked off the modern age of high-definition gaming. Though the Playstation 3-the only system at the time to play Blu-rays-was successful in its own right, Sony, for the first time, faced stiff competition from its rivals.
The Xbox 360, which had similar graphics capabilities to the Playstation 3, was lauded for its online gaming ecosystem and won far more Game Critics Awards than the other platforms in 2007; it also featured the Microsoft Kinect, a state-of-the-art motion capture system that offered a different way to play video games (though the Kinect never caught on with core gamers or game developers).
And despite being technologically inferior to the other two systems, the Wii trounced its competition in sales. Its motion-sensitive remotes made gaming more active than ever before, helping it appeal to a much larger slice of the general public, including people in retirement homes.
Towards the end of the decade and beginning of the next, video games spread to social media platforms like Facebook and mobile devices like the iPhone, reaching a more casual gaming audience. Rovio, the company behind the Angry Birds mobile device game (and, later, Angry Birds animated movie), reportedly made a whopping $200 million in 2012.
In 2011, Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure brought video games into the physical world. The game required players to place plastic toy figures (sold separately) onto an accessory, which reads the toys’ NFC tags to bring the characters into the game. The next few years would see several sequels and other toy-video game hybrids, such as Disney Infinity, which features Disney characters.
The 8th and current generation of video games began with the release of Nintendo’s Wii U in 2012, followed by the Playstation 4 and Xbox One in 2013. Despite featuring a touch screen remote control that allowed off-TV gaming and being able to play Wii games, the Wii U was a commercial failure-the opposite of its competition-and was discontinued in 2017.
In 2016, Sony released a more powerful version of its console, called the Playstation 4 Pro, the first console capable of 4K video output. In early 2017, Nintendo released its Wii U successor, the Nintendo Switch, the only system to allow both television-based and handheld gaming. Microsoft will release its 4K-ready console, the Xbox One X, in late 2017.
With their new revamped consoles, both Sony and Microsoft currently have their sights set on virtual reality gaming, a technology that has the potential to change the way players experience video games.
Originally published at https://monitortomouse.com on May 26, 2021.
