History of Video Games
History of Video Games
The first generation of video games was around 1972-1977. It all started with Ralph Baers prototype game console that was sold to Magnavox and eventually released to the public in May, 1972. This console was the first to be able to play on a TV. The console wasn’t a particular success.
In 1975 is when home video games really took off. The company Atari released its home version of the game Pong for that Christmas and it was a huge success.
The second generation of video games was around 1977-1983. The early consoles used cartridges and were able to be plugged into the console.
The most popular company of the second generation would be the Atari company and their console called the Video Computer System, later renamed Atari 2600. The system had nine games and was released during the holiday season.
In 1979 Atari developers were hired by Activison who became the first company to use third-party developers. This was the first third-party developer of video games. In 1982 there were to many third-party developers that began to overflow the shelf capacity at toy stores. By Christmas 1982 and going through 1983 there was a complete industry crash of video games.
The third generation of video games was from 1985-1989. After the crash in 1983 the North American video game console market was revived by Nintendo’s invention of the Famicom, also known as the Nintendo Entertainment System. The console was bundled with the popular Super Mario Bros game and became a instant success.
SquareSoft, a struggling company in the 1980s, was lead by Hironobu Sakaguchi. The company decided to make their last game. The game was to be called Final Fantasy, the game was to be a role-playing game. Final Fantasy would not be SquareSoft’s final game but the companies savour. The game would eventually spawn 11 more games and become the most successful RPG franchise ever.
The NES would then start their Legend of Zelda series in 1986 and that is still a major Nintendo game to this day. Hideo Kojima also created the Metal Gear series in 1987 on the MSX2 computer. This game gave birth to the stealth-based game genre and would be released for the NES shortly thereafter.
The fourth generation was from around 1989-1994. This generation would mark the creating of the successfuly Sega Genesis in 1989. Nintendo fired right back at the Sega company by creating their next generation system, Super NES or Super Nintendo, in 1991. This generation also showed CD-ROM drives for the first time.
The fifth generation ran from about 1994-1999. In this generation the debut of Sony’s Playstation was seen with great 3D graphics. Sony’s Playstation would eventually become the highest selling console in the 90s era. The Nintendo 64 was also released in 1996.
Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time which was Nintendo’s first 3D debut and is often claimed as the greatest game of all-time. Also, the Metal Gear Solid, released in 1998 for the Playstation, established the stealth-based games as a popular genre.
At the end of the fifth generation Sony became the leader in the video game market.
The sixth generation of video game consoles was from 1998-2004. In 1999 the Sega Dreamcast was released to the US and the Nintendo company released Game Boy Color. In 2000 Sony released its new system, the Playstation 2. In 2000 The Sims was released and it became the best-selling computer game of all time.
In 2001 the Nintendo company released its new system, the GameCube, and the Game Boy Advance, the successor to the Game Boy Color. Microsoft joined the video game console race by releasing the Xbox. The key game for the console was Halo. As Microsoft entered the race Sega exited by no longer manufacturing hardware and discontinuing the Dreamcast.
The key game of Xbox, Halo, launched its sequel, Halo 2, in 2004. It became the best selling Xbox game. In 2005 Nintendo GameCube launched Resident Evil 4 that would become the most critically acclaimed game of the year.
In 2006 Sony announces they are stopping manufacturing on the PSOne and they also announce that the Playstation console was the first console ever to sell 103 million consoles.
The final generation of video games is the seventh generation which goes from 2004-today. The main events during this period are Microsoft launching its second system, the Xbox 360, and became the first company in the new generation console race. In 2006 both Sony and Wii launched their new systems, the Nintendo Wii and the Playstation 3.
In 2007 the Wii is still in popular demand and is out of stock at many retailers and the PS3 has to much stock.
That is the history of the video game consoles.