The Evolution of Video Games

1
The Evolution ofVideo Games

• By Jacob T. Sloan

2
Early Beginnings

• The videogame was first developed in 1951, by
  Ralph Baer.
• At this time his boss had asked him to develop
  the best television set in the world.
• His solution was a television which would allow
  interaction on the part of the viewer in the form
  of games, so he began work on prototypes.
• As such he is accredited with their creation.
• In 1947, however, Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and
  Estle Ray Mann developed a simulator of sorts
  that depicted WWII missiles being shot at eight
  different targets.
• This would be credited as the first inception of
  video gaming, but at the time video games were
  defined by the display being some form of
  television set, as opposed to the Cathode Ray
  Tubes on which the missile simulator was
  displayed on.

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Even More Beginnings

• The first official (as in obeying the given
  definition) game was made in 1961 by 3 MIT
  students.
• It was known as Space War.
• It was discovered by accident, when the students
  were trying to create a game involving two
  spaceships shooting at one another. They
  discovered that when their debugger ran it made
  little dots display on the screen. Which worked
  fine for them as they felt it accurately depicted
  space.
• In 1966 the Chase Game came out, on it two
  squares would chase each other around the screen.
• In May of 1972 the Magnavox Odyssey came out,
  later in November of that same year the Atari
  came out. And thus PONG was born.

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From Simple to Complex(Really Quickly Too!)

• During the 1970s and since, games have begun to
  advance in complexity really fast.
• Games depicting worlds completely with text, such
  as Star Trek, Hunt the Wumpus and Adventure.
• Even Games that depicted a 3D world. (Yes, 3
  Dimensions, displayed in first person
  perspective, the first game with avatars
  representing the players and it featured
  networking too I might add)

5
Games Systems for You and Me

• Later several game systems would be created in a
  manner that allowed for different games to be
  played on the same system, the idea was
  revolutionary and everyone in the field had the
  same idea.
• Atari 2600
• Intellivision
• ColecoVision
• Commodore 64
• At the same time as these some Atari members
  broke off and founded the first 3rd party game
  developer, Activision.

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Crashes and Recovery

• Like most new industries the gaming industry was
  plagued by crashes in its economy.
• The first was in 1977.
• The second was in 1983.
• These were due to lack of popularity of some
  games and in some cases poor ideas on the parts
  of the designers.
• In the case of the 1983 crash it was primarily
  influenced by Ataris poorly conceived ET game
  and a record keeping error which resulted in the
  release of more Pac-Man games than there were
  consoles.
• These crashes would result in the next generation
  of gaming, and the concept of next-gen as we
  know it today was developed as a preventive
  measure against stagnation and as a way to keep
  the industry alive.

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The 3rd Generation

• Most of us will at this point begin to recognize
  these consoles and companies.
• Following the North American crash of 1983, a
  Japanese company decided to go international with
  its system, the Famicom.
• This system is known outside of Japan as the
  Nintendo Entertainment System.
• The games developed for this system also
  established another well known feature of games,
  franchises.
• At the same time a company known as Sega released
  its Sega Master System.

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Fallout

• As a result of games being readily available in
  households around the world, arcades began to go
  out of business.
• Another major event was the urge for gaming on
  the go.
• During this time, the Game Watch was
  released, followed by the Game Boy in 1989.
• Nintendos Game Boy had competition from Segas
  Game Gear and Ataris Lynx.

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The Step to 3D(Havent we done this before?)

• The step to 3D was a rocky one, shortly after the
  Super Nintendo was released Nintendo wanted
  something more. They began working with Sony to
  develop the SNES-CD. They eventually decided
  that they wanted to stick with cartridges and
  Sony decided they were going to use the research
  for their own system.
• Atari Jaguar
• Sega Saturn
• Sony Playstation
• Nintendo 64

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Next-gen

• In 1998 Sega released the first of the Sixth
  Generation consoles, the Dreamcast.
• Two years later Sony releases the PS2, which
  signs the demise of the Dreamcast due to its
  inbuilt DVD player.
• In 2001 the Nintendo GameCube came about
  supporting Optical Mini-disks instead of the
  standard CD or DVD.
• That same year Microsoft released the Xbox.
• The flop of the Dreamcast forced Sega into
  retreating as a console developer and becoming
  solely a game developer.
• The lack in sales of the Gamecube did not deter
  Nintendo, however, they immediately began work on
  their next system.

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Next-gen Again

• The current generation is that of the Xbox 360,
  the PS3, and the Wii.
• The Wii has become the best selling gaming system
  worldwide in history.
• The PS3 was predicted to be the flop of this
  generation with its debut price of over 600, but
  has since lowered the price and has managed to
  keep the majority of its fanbase.
• The Xbox360 currently is the best selling system
  in America, but unfortunately its sales in
  America are almost equal to its sales
  internationally.
• This generation has just begun, and all three
  competitors seem to be doing well, who knows who
  will win this generation? Only time will tell.

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References

• http//www.pong-story.com/intro.htm
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_video_game
• http//zip-zapgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11
  /pong.png
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game
  s
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColecoVision
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellivision
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainmen
  t_System
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3