Wait wha..?
We’ll go briefly through the history of
games consoles, starting from the 70’s (good times) up until 2000’s. I’ll put
some pictures this time I promise.
70’s!!! and before
During the 50’s and 60’s we started with
the very basic games and even simpler consoles. Games like pong on the
oscilloscope anyone?
This game was called “Tennis for Two”
developed in 1958 which simulated simple game of tennis. It was created by
William Higinbotham. This was the first ever game that used graphical display.
But this was more of a game to watch. Not
really a lot of people could play this. The computer was displayed in
Brookhaven National Laboratory and people literally lined up just to play this
for few minutes. Booooooring I know…
Let’s jump to something better. Magnavox
Oddyssey! It was world’s first commercial home video game console. What did people do before that is beyond me. It was released
in 1972 (predating Atari)
Funny facts time! The console itself was digital
(not analog). No processor, no counting unit either. Hell, there was no sound
unit and the console couldn’t display any colors. It consisted of 40 diodes and
40 transistors ( but it could still play 12 games!!!) The console could handle
(and this is important) – only single straight vertical line, one dot and two
short lines. Basically, game of pong. But there’s a catch – the console
couldn’t count so no score points ;)
Some time, the game PONG was released as a
standalone arcade machine!
And later on as a house
console in 1975 with a name Home Pong by Atari. This is the most remembered
product as it sold over 150.000 units.
In 1977 Atari released their revolutionary
console called Atari (who would have thought) 2600. This console had two
controllers, color graphics and featured hundreds of games that came on
cartridges (which later on influenced the whole game market).
With steadily increasing demand came
expectations. Customers wanted more and more, better hardware – graphics and
sound, more games. So that brings us to the 80’s
The 80’s
In June of 1982 Company called Coleco
released their new and powerful Coleco Vision. This console came with
Nintendo’s Donkey Kong as its release title (this was back when Nintendo was a
game developer company).
But this console had its problems. The
controllers were very hard to use. These phone like controller had overlays
that were different for every of the 150 games released. Despite its flaws,
Coleco sold over 1.000.000 units.
Four years later, Nintendo had enough of
only developing games, and in 1985 released Nintendo entertainment system NES.
It became huge success very fast as it had the biggest and the best game titles
at the time.
With one of the best games ever:
And with huge success, there comes…. Even a better success story. Nintendo in 1989 released the
first ever portable gaming console called GameBoy. Even though the console had
a small screen, didn’t display colors, the console itself was an astounding
success in America all while Sega was dominating in Europe. With more markets
to conquer, Sega released their Sega Genesis which was the first ever 16bit
console. This is where the bit war era started, which brings us to the 90’s
The 90’s
It was all about the bits. No one knew what
the fuzz was all about, but the more bits the console had the more power it
had. To keep up with Sega, Nintendo released their new console called Super
Nintendo entertainment System SNES.
This console was a huge success as it sold
over 300.000 units on the release date! And this is where it began to be
serious. Sega and Nintendo became enemies. Sega knew if they made their console
sound cool and better in general, they would reach out for teenagers. When
Nintendo had characters like
The Sega mage games with celebrities like
After a while, Sega realized that they had to make their own character to brand their name. To
make their character sound cooler and better in every way, Sonic was created.
While Sega was still scratching their
heads, thinking what to do with their newest character, Nintendo did what they
always do, made spaceships with lasers! No, no… Just kidding (although they
made a robot for SNES I kid you not). They made their console and games even
better all while Sega made add-ons like a CD player or 32bit controller (they
sold horribly with only 6 games ever released). This resulted in Sega loosing
track and Nintendo dominating the home console market.
In 1993 Nintendo and Sony wanted to make a
better console. Nintendo wanted to use discs. That’s why they asked Sony to
help them out, and in 1 year, they created the PlayStation. Believe it or not,
Nintendo is the actual creator of the PlayStation. But since Sony wanted to
control over all the games released on discs by Nintendo, Sony released their
own console called Sony PlayStation (creative….). It was the first console to
fully utilize the Cd drive and it sold over 100.000.000 units (100 millions).
The system used 32 bits and had controllers
so good, that they are still used today (I mean, the design is still used).
While Sega was releasing their Sega Saturn (only 10.000.000 units sold),
Nintendo released their newest console called Nintendo64. The first 64 bit
console
It sold 33.000.000 units and it featured
games like Super Mario 64 and Mario Cart 64. These games were so popular that
they are considered the best games ever made. And this slowly brings us to the
end.
In 1999 Sega released Dreamcast, the last
console to be released before year 2000, but Sony PlayStation overshadowed the
console.
Nowadays
I’m sure you all know consoles like Xbox,
PlayStation and Wii. These companies are still competing between each other
with new consoles to be released by the end of this year.
Questions
1)
What was the most influential
console?
2)
Which ones did you use or are
still using?
3)
Cheers!
Comments
* Legend of Zelda
* Mario
* Mega-Man
* Final Fantasy
* Dragon Quest
* CONTRA
* Castlevania
and many more... Playstation One had one of the most sales ever. But NES set standards.
2) Sadly I sold my good old Amiga 500 which I had for many years. I plan to buy old TV Set and to buy few consoles to have fun with other computer games dinosaurs like me :)
3) Cheers! :)
2) I've seen system boxes (I think this is how are they called) which allow you to connect anything to a new TV. Scaling might be a problem but it's worth trying.
3) Cheers!
I know Sonic from PC Sonic the Hedgehog (or sth like that) game, I loved it and used to play it all days long. Didn't know it was Sega main character though :)
Currently I own an xbox one and I have bought it only for the kinect. I don't see any reason to buy games for console if I could play them on my laptop which is much more mobile. Montion sensor in kinect gives user an opportunity to ineract with game in more natural way ( f.e. jumping througth someting - not pressing space button) so I think it is worth buying and having fun :)
It's fun to look at how things looked in the past. Really it's just pure luck that video games concept didn't die in early ages. No one ever imagined that this idea would ever live on (the same was with PCs) and be so successful. Right now we have dozens of consoles and lots of ways to customize your PC to bring better quality and performance to games. Also fun thing is that computer technology started developing rapidly with video games being more popular. Maybe not everything, but with more computing power, video games got more interesting as developers were able to do more things. I am pretty sure that graphic cards could be developed further thanks to video games, and what that brought us?
http://zdrowie.dziennik.pl/nowotwory/artykuly/342219,procesor-karty-graficznej-wykryje-nowotwor.html
My first game console was Pegasus ("365 games in 1" cartridges, "Contra" - it was my childhood), then I had a Game Boy Color ("Pokemon" :) , I was a PC-gamer for a long time ("StarCraft", "Counter Strike") and near 2010 I bought PS3 to play "God of War 3" and I'm still active player (recently "GTAV" and "Battlefield 4").
I never really liked Xbox, Dreamcast or Wii consoles, comparing to PS they lack a good design, I don't know why, it's just my impression - something similar to PC vs Apple thing. Game console and TV series/ movies are the only reasons why I bought TV, because I don't watch linear TV stations.
Next steps? PS4 coming soon (2 weeks from now :)
Anyway, I will try to answer your questions. From what I have heard, Playstation is the leader in game consoles or at least it is for me, a person who plays really rarely. When I talk about game consoles I always call them Playstation, even if it's Xbox or Wii. I can't see any difference between them. According to your article, Playstation was build by Nintendo and they created CD drive which is used even today. It was the biggest change which was also the most successful. I guess Nintendo was the most influential, because they came with an idea for Playstation which I think is the best.
Now, let me answer your second question. I have played Atari once and it was really cool. Unfortunately, I don't remember which model. I have also played on Xbox and Playstation some games with car races a few times. And it's the end of my story with game consoles.
When I was young. No, I am still young :-) When I was younger I had Pegasus console and I played a lot Soccer and Robin Hood, games placed on cartridge named “The Golden For, 4 in 1” (I hope you know what I talking about). Currently I own XBOX360 but I am not fanatic or something like that I play only one game :-) Football game Fifa (currently Fifa 14), couple of years ago I played Pro Evolution Soccer. These two football games are the most popular and the best but currently my choice is Fifa. Why I play only this game, because I can make two enjoyable things in one time – meet my friends, play good game and kick their “three letter part of body”. Ok, so in fact three enjoyable things in one time. From time to time we play UFC or Fight Night Champion, also sport games, also emotive games.
Unfortunately, I have little experience with consoles. I prefer computer games rather than video games. Honestly speaking, I don't know which console was the most influential. Maybe it was PlayStation 1. At last Sony sold over million copies. Personally I haven't console. Maybe in future I'll buy PS4 because of move controller.
Game Consoles Thanks for sharing.