The Evolution of Video Games and Video Games Consoles
Video games have been evolving at lightning speed since their inception. This evolution is happening in front of us right now. Just look around by yourself and you’ll realize that there’s already a debate on Forbes talking about which of the new gaming consoles should you buy? The one from Microsoft or another from the Sony? For your information, these two new consoles have just replaced their predecessors as new flagships of their respective companies.
My point so far is to tell that after every 2 to 3 years; we welcome a whole new range and games and gaming consoles. So how this whole evolution started? Interesting question.
To make it easier for you here’s a visual timeline of video games history by List Enthusiast.
The TL;DR for this infographic is located right below it.
Main points from this infographic
Early Video Games:
Video games started to come out as soon as first digital computers were made. First video game to be theorized was †’a chess simulation game’ — by none other than Allan Turing. But he didn’t have a chance to implement it. Instead, in 1950 Josef Kates implemented†the first video game, ‘tic-tac-toe’ it was, on a custom-made machine called ‘Bertie the Brain.
The fist few video games were usually made for research purposes. This was mainly because of limited and expensive computer technology. The first video game to be made solely for recreational purposes was by William Higginbotham†made in 1958, was called Tennis of Two.
In 1964, John Kemeny developed BASIC, a programming language that made game developing much easier. Before this, an MIT student Steve Russell and his other fellows made SpaceWar — the first popular computer game.
Arcade Games
The arcade era began with the launch of Magnavox Odyssey, the first commercial video games console. Developed by Ralph Baer, a Television engineer, and his small team. On the Software front, that era began when a new company Atari released Pong — A table tennis simulation game. Following the success of Pong, Atari released its console called Atari 2600.
Gaming Crash of 1983
Arcade games were making huge profits when gaming market was hit by the game crash in 1983. It was so damaging that Atari lost 97% of its pre-crash stocks. There are many likely reasons for the crash that rocked gaming industry from 83-85. Some of the main reason were over-saturated console market and low-quality video games because when we see companies like Quaker Oats trying to make money through video games, you know that there are a lot of crappy games out there.
This crash pushed console industry many years back. Instead, PC gaming started to become popular in the†mainstream market. Some critics even said that gaming industry would never recover back.
Rise of 3D games
In 1990s† Arcade games saw a rise but eventually it was a decline in favor of 3D games. Along†3D games, handheld devices, and mobile gaming also gained popularity. Sega Dreamcast was the first console with the built-in internet support.
New Console Rivalry
The 6th generation of gaming consoles started when Sony released its PlayStation while Microsoft also released its gaming console called Xbox. Sega left hardware market while†Nintendo initially†fell behind, but eventually released its own Nintendo Wii in 7th-Gen of gaming consoles.
This rivalry is present even nowadays. We see that Xbox One S and PlayStation 4 pro are coming out. Recent years have witnessed a huge boom in online games. Better internet speed and faster wifi routers have enabled us to play online games. Resolution of video games is also getting better and better every day thanks†to HD screens and improved graphics cards to render that HD resolution.
Recently there’s a rising trend of VR gaming. Oculus has announced Rift this year. So now we’re definitely entering into VR Gaming Era. In short, video games are reaching their new heights, and this trend doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon.
Post contributed by Lisa from List Enthusiast.
