Week 6 Research: History Of Gaming
Updated: Dec 3, 2020
Goal
To learn where video games begin in history, the most well known consoles and arcade games during the retro gaming era with some side history of computer games, and the most well known consoles and computer games in the contemporary video game era (modern day). I want to get a good understanding of the history in order to understand the progression of visuals and the types of games modern day retro gamers remember.
Beginning: Computer "Games"
1947 Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device ("Computer Game")
Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle R. Mann
Was a single dot on a screen and players controlled it from knobs. Small shapes would appear on the radar as targets and the player would have to move the dot over the shape and press a button to shoot it. It was never released to the public and was based on radar systems used in WWII.
1958 Tennis for Two ("Computer Game")
William Higinbotham
First ever "Video Game" without the intention of being a video game. It was meant to show the power of computing.
1961 SpaceWar! (Computer Game)
Steve Russell
This game was written on a PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) which is an interactive mini computer by the Digital Equipment Corporation (CED) that used a CRT (cathode-ray tube) type display and keyboard input. *Refer to my Language post to learn more about these terms* It's a two player game where each player gets a spaceship and they battle using photon torpedoes while avoiding the gravitational pull of the sun.
8 Generations of Consoles (Commercial Gaming)
I have provided a list of video game consoles found from a book I was reading called "The Game Console" by Evan Amos. I also added in some other consoles found from other sources as well as highlighted in ORANGE the consoles that I feel are most talked about in the retro gaming community in the United States. The ones highlighted in PURPLE are the consoles I grew up with and the ones highlighted in GREEN are most talked about in modern gaming. I have also added photos to see a visual of these highlighted consoles.
GEN 1
1971 Computer Space
1967-1972 Magnavox Odyssey "Brown Box"
1972 Pong Arcade
1975 Atari Sears Tele-Games Pong System
GEN 2
1976 Fairchild Channel F
1977 Nintendo Colour TV Game Series Atari 2600 RCA Studio II Coleco Telstar Arcade
1978 Magnavox Odyssey2 Bally Professional Arcade APF MP1000 VideoBrain Interton VC-4000 1979 Microvision Atari 800
1980 Intellivision Nintendo Game & Watch
1981 Entex Select-A-Game Epoch Cassette Vision
1982 Commodore 64 Vectrex ColecoVision Atari 5200 VTech CreatiVision Entex Adventure Vision Emerson Arcadia 2001
GEN 3
1983 Sega SG-1000 Nintendo Famicom Casio PV-1000 1984 Super Cassette Vision
Game Pocket Computer
1985 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
RDI Halcyon
1986 Sega Master Atari 7800
1987 Action Max
1988 VTech Socrates
GEN 4
1987 NEC PC Engine Atari XE Game System
1988 Sega Mega Drive
1989 Sega Genesis NEC TurboGrafx-16 Nintendo Gameboy Atari Lynx View-Master Interactive Vision
1990 Neo Geo AES
Sega Game Gear
Super Famicom Gamate Amstrad GX4000
1991 Super NES Commodore CDTV Philips CD-i
1992 Memorex VIS Watara Supervision
1993 Mega Duck Pioneer LaserActive
GEN 5
1993 3DO Atari Jaguar FM Towns Marty Amiga CD32
1994 Sega Saturn Sony PlayStation Bandai Playdia NEC PC-FX
1995 Nintendo Virtual Boy Tiger R-Zone Super A'can Casio Loopy
1996 Nintendo 64 Apple Pippin
1997 Tiger Game.com
1998 Neo Geo Pocket Gameboy Color
1999 WonderSwan
GEN 6
1998 Sega Dreamcast
2000 Sony PlayStation 2 Nuon
2001 Gameboy Advance Nintendo GameCube
Microsoft Xbox
2003 Nokia N-Gage Zodiac
2004 VTech V.Smile XaviXPORT
GEN 7
2004 Sony PlayStation Portable Nintendo DS
2005 Microsoft Xbox 360 Gizmondo Game Wave
2006 Sony PlayStation 3
Nintendo Wii HypeScan VTech V.Flash
GEN 8
2011 Nintendo 3DS PlayStation Vita
2012 Nintendo Wii U
2013 PlayStation 4 Microsoft Xbox One Ouya GameStick
2014 Amazon Fire TV Nexus Player
2015 Nvidia Shield TV Steam Link
2017 Nintendo Switch
NEXT GEN
2020 Sony PlayStation 5 Microsoft Xbox Series X
GAMES (RETRO - MODERN)
A small collection of YouTube gameplay videos of popular retro and modern games to visually understand the progression.
Missile Command
Tempest
Space Invaders
Donkey Kong
Galaga
Pacman + Ms. Pacman
Nintendo Game & Watch
Super Mario Bros 3
Super Mario World
Kirby's Adventure
Super Metroid
Final Fantasy VI
Star Fox 64
Call of Duty
Smash Bros Melee
Super Mario Bros DS
Red Dead Redemption 2
Animal Crossing New Horizons
Last of Us Part II
Crash Bandicoot 4
Sources:
Beginning
U.S. PATENT 2455992–THE MOST IMPORTANT PATENT IN GAMES
'Spacewar!' The story of the world's first digital video game
The History of Spacewar: The First Computer Game
Television History and the Cathode Ray Tube
A Timeline of Video Game History
Commercial Gaming
Magnavox Odyssey Video Game Unit, 1972
Magnavox Odyssey The First Gaming Console
The Untold Story Of The Invention Of The Game Cartridge
The Game Console (Book by Evan Amos)
History of Video Game Consoles
A Timeline of Video Game History
"What are people's thoughts on the next gen consoles?" (Reddit discussion)
Video Game Console Generations Database
An Exhaustive History of Eight Generations of Video Game Consoles: 1967 to 2018
Games
"What's your favorite retro video game?" (Reddit discussion)