History of Video Games

By: Héctor Muñoz-Avila

Sources:
• Gamespot.com
• investor.about.com
• emuunlim.com
• designboom.com
• Wikipedia
• my own
 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
 Chess Origins
• 1769 Fake chess machine
• 1952 Turing design a chess
algorithm
• 1956 Maniac versus Human
 Origins of Some Companies
• 1889 company create card game:
Nintendo (“leave luck to heaven”)
• 1932 COLECO (short for Connecticut Leather Company

• 1947 Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company:

Sony
• 1954 David Rosen makes machines for GI’s in Japan
(Service Games) SEGA
 Other Origins
• 1951 Ralph Baer (@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 (@Cambridge): Interactive Tic
Tac Toe

• 1958 Willy Higinbotham (@brookhaven national

laboratory): Oscilloscope
 Other Origins (II)
• 1961 Steve Russell (@MIT) creates space war
“IfI 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
 Space War Legacy
1971 Bill Pitts and 1972 Noland Bushnell
Hugh Tuck formed and Ted Dabney
Computer Recreations (@Nutting Associates)

Galaxy Game
Cost: $20K Galaxy Game
Play cost: 10 cent Built: 1.5K 1972
Built: dozens

PONG
Built: 10K
“Breaks down”
 Early Games
• Pong (http://www.apn.gr/pong.html)
• 1972 Magnavox builds Odyssey
 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)
 Early Stages 1977-78
• Nintendo releases Othello (http://www.mattelothello.com/)
• Taito creates Space Invaders!
– Midway bought license

• Apple and Atari release PCs

– But Atari is seen as a gaming company
 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/
 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
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
•1985 MS releases
• http://www.nintendoland.com/zelda/home.htm
• Apple releases the Mac, Atari releases 520STWindows
•PC as a gaming
– Who won? platform
• Tetris is released!
– http://www.miniclip.com/tetris.htm
• Coleco files for bankruptcy
 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

 What’s Left?
• PC Games
– We will cover these in coming classes but by
Genre:
• FPS
• RTS
• RPG (including MMO)