History of Video Games

1
History of Video Games

• By Héctor Muñoz-Avila

• Sources
• Gamespot.com
• investor.about.com
• emuunlim.com
• designboom.com
• Wikipedia
• my own

2
Introduction

• Some ideas in the 1948
• First video game
• Tennis game in an Oscilloscope
• Space game on DEC-1

• In between
• Space Invaders http//www.spaceinvaders.de/

• Current videogames
• Half Life 2

3
Chess Origins

• 1769 Fake chess machine
• 1952 Turing design a chess algorithm
• 1956 Maniac versus Human

4
Origins of Some Companies

• 1889 company create card game
• 1932 COLECO (short for Connecticut Leather
  Company
• 1947 Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering
  Company
• 1954 David Rosen makes machines for GIs in Japan

Nintendo (leave luck to heaven)
Sony
(Service Games)
SEGA
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Other Origins

• 1951 Ralph Baer (_at_Loral) suggest adding game to
  TV
• May be considered the inventor of video games
• Only until 1967 he realized his dream of an
  intereactive television
• 1952 A.S.Douglas (_at_Cambridge) Interactive Tic
  Tac Toe
• 1958 Willy Higinbotham (_at_brookhaven national
  laboratory) Oscilloscope

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Other Origins (II)

• 1961 Steve Russell (_at_MIT) creates space war

If I hadn't done it, someone would've done
something equally exciting if not better in the
next six months. I just happened to get there
first. - Steve Russell
7
Space War Legacy
1971 Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck formed Computer
Recreations
Galaxy Game Cost 20K Play cost 10 cent Built
dozens
Galaxy Game Built 1.5K
PONG Built 10K Breaks down
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Early Games

• Pong (http//www.apn.gr/pong.html)
• 1972 Magnavox builds Odyssey

9
Early Stages 1976-1977

• COLECO builds TELSTAR
• Cartridges are born (Fairchild Camera
  Instrument Channel F)
• Atari bought by Warner Communications (28M)
• Atari releases first console (later known as
  Atari 2600)

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Early Stages 1977-78

• Nintendo releases Othello (http//www.mattelothell
  o.com/)
• Taito creates Space Invaders!
• Midway bought license
• Apple and Atari release PCs
• But Atari is seen as a gaming company

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The Golden Age 1979-1981

• Atari releases Asteroids!
• Frogger, Konami/Sega, 1981
• Pac-Man, Bally/Midway, 1980
• Donkey Kong, Nintendo, 1981
• Namco releases Pac-Man, 1982 (300K machines
  sold)
• Own television show
• US Army commissions Atari for a tank simulation
  game
• Start of a long enduring activity (Lehigh
  included!)
• Nintendo releases first console in 1981
• http//www.tripletsandus.com/80s/80s_games/

12
The Great Crash 1982-1984

• The Commodore 64 PC is released
• Coleco releases the Adam PC
• Too many competitors small and large saturate the
  market
• 1982 Warner Corp. stock fell 32 after Atari
  announces les-that-expected sells of consoles
• Atari sold to Jack Tramiel (owner of Commodore)
• New company Atari Corp. pulls from Console
  market
• Bright spot Nintendo releases famicon does well
  in Japan

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The Return of the Video Games 1985-1988

• Nintendo releases NES
• Met with skepticism by market observers
• Turns out to be an instant hit
• Legend of Zelda
• http//www.nintendoland.com/zelda/home.htm
• Apple releases the Mac, Atari releases 520ST
• Who won?
• Tetris is released!
• http//www.miniclip.com/tetris.htm
• Coleco files for bankruptcy

• 1985 MS releases Windows
• PC as a gaming platform

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The Story Continues

• 1989 Nintendo releases Gameboy, Sega releases
  Genesis
• 1991 Nintendo releases SNES, Sega releases Sonic
• 1993 32-bit consoles
• Nintendo releases Mortal Combat!
• 1999-2001 Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox

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Whats Left?

• PC Games
• We will cover these in coming classes but by
  Genre
• FPS
• RTS
• RPG (including MMO)