A Look Back At Video Game History — Do You Remember Pac Man, Space Invaders, and Super Mario Brothers?
Video games had a huge effect on culture in the 1970s, making them one of the most important things to come out of that decade. Video games have been a big part of culture and one of the most popular ways to pass the time. If you're under 40, you probably played them, and some of us played them a lot. There were Colecovision, Intellivision, and Atari. Don't forget about Nintendo and Sega. You can now download free online games from websites.
And if you remember the late '70s and early '80s, you know that the games needed better graphics and ways to kill the adversary. It was mostly a solo activity. But with the emergence of the Internet and online games, a lot of things changed. For example, you could now download games and play them online, which made games more social, with lots of players or opponents from other countries competing against each other. This might be the biggest change and the most recent good thing video games have done for the planet.
But what about the beginning? What started it all and what were the most important video games of the time?
The People Who Come Up with New Ideas
A lot of people think that Pong was the first home game, however it was actually Magnavox's "Odyssey" system in 1972. It was the first, even though it was quite easy. There were twelve easy games with pictures on top of them. But there was a lot of space for improvement, and that's where Pong came in.
Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn, the founder of Atari, invented Pong. People say that the machine broke down after two days of testing in a bar in California because it was so popular. The next step that made sense was to make a version for home use. Atari then released Pong a year later. It included with built-in paddles and a speaker. Pong was a big hit, and it marked a new step in the history of video games. Atari ruled the market, even though more than sixty Pong knock-offs were made.
Next came the microprocessor, which the whole industry used. This made it possible to make systems that were more complex. These devices made new and exciting sound and visual effects that had never been seen before. People were gobbling it up. The business was going great. Five billion dollars were spent on video arcade machines and another billion dollars were spent on home video gaming systems in 1981 alone. Atari's VCS/2600 system was the most popular until 1982, when the game market crashed.
What were some of the best games? What about Pac Man? Pac Man, the yellow blob that ate dots and ran away from squid-like ghosts, was a huge hit all over the world and is perhaps the best game ever.
Another very popular game was Space Invaders. It was a turning point for arcade games, though, because it moved them from bars to locations that families could enjoy, including stores and restaurants. The idea behind Space Invaders was to stop aliens from invading. This simple formula turned become the best arcade game ever.
Also, Super Mario was a big deal. It was about an Italian anti-hero who was made to be a character that everyone could connect with. Then came Zelda, Metroid, and other great games.
Atari's Rise and Fall
In the early 1980s, Atari was the most popular game company. Today, they are a thing of the past. What happened? Atari made some awful choices, and even if it's a little hard to explain, it's helpful to know what's going on. Back then, magnetic media were employed to store data in arcade machines. These types of storage could hold more memory than ROM cartridges.
Atari might have included a disk drive to its systems in 1982. The price difference would have been small, but the memory capacity would have been considerable. Atari, on the other hand, considered that magnetic media was too "fragile" for the average person to use. Atari's "concern" for the client didn't work out for them. In the past, there was a very thin boundary between the quality of arcade games and the quality of home games. Because arcades had storage space that is ten to forty-five times greater than home systems, that tiny line became a chasm. Arcade games looked to be getting better and better at a rapid pace, but home systems seemed to be "stuck in a time warp."
People quickly lost interest in consoles that only played video games, and sales fell sharply.
This would mean the end of Atari's time as the king of the video gaming business.
The New's Rise
Everything changed in 1984. Why? Two new things: the price drop for Dynamic RAM (DRAM) chips, which let you add extra memory, and the creation of more powerful 8-bit CPUs, which made the old chips cheaper. Sega was a new company in the home gaming system market when they released the Master System 2. The Sega Master system would do very well, but only for a short time.
Nintendo of Japan was also a prominent player. Nintendo was a genius when it came to marketing since they spent millions on ads. The sales show that our ads reached people at the right moment. Nintendo couldn't even make enough systems to meet demand. In the end, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) would be the best-selling system of all time. They would also become the most well-known because they scared stores, other suppliers, and competitors.
For the following five years, Sega and Nintendo would fight for the top spot, with each company taking turns. This competition was good for the customer.
The PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube are the only options now. Xbox has combined the old with the new. Xbox "Live Arcade" is a console system that lets you buy games directly from the device, which is like downloading them. The legendary games of the past were fantastic games, helped shape an era, and will always be fun. This is something that will never change in the video game industry.
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