The good old days when men and women thought it was fun to bounce a white square off of white sticks in hopes to get past the opponent's white stick. Those were the days, with the fancy arcades. Back in the day of PacMan and Galaga. Though how did these popular games come to be? What brought along the arcade and home gaming consoles. Well it was one little company called Atari. Atari created a lot of arcade classics that have inspired games today. The arcade games were a huge start for the gaming community and even more amazing was the release of the first Atari home system. Atari had the arcades and they had the homes. Sadly though all good things must come to an end, and Atari was bought out. Atari though will always be the legend that gamers …show more content…
pass down to their children. From Atari’s early years of 8-bit arcade machines and Atari 2600s to the 64-bit Atari Jaguar. Even to their downfall, Atari made a lot of amazing games, made a lot of amazing consoles, and began the gaming world.
Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, Atari’s founders, start their gaming career with Coin-op Games in 1972 (Bellis, 1). A Coin-op game is a game you would find in an arcade. You place in your token and you get to play a game. Nolan then came out with the first Atari game which was pong. When Pong came out on November 30, 1972 the cost was around 1,099 dollars (“Atari History”, 2). Pong started appearing everywhere, from bars to bowling alleys, and even JC Penney (“Atari History”, 2). With Pong’s success Atari decided to come out with their second game called Space Race. Space Race was a dragstrip style racing game, where you could race the clock or your friends (“Arcade/Coin-op”, 3). After selling Pong and Space Race, Atari wanted to get some exclusive deals with stores and arcades that they were selling to, so in 1973 they decide to make …show more content…
their own competitor called Kee Games (“Atari History”, 3). Kee Games happened to be run by Nolan Bushnell’s neighbor, Joe Keenan, hence the name Kee Games (“Atari History”, 3). Kee Games mostly make rip offs of Atari games with different twists (“Atari History”, 3). Fast forward to 1976 and we have another famous game by Atari called Atari Breakout. Atari Breakout was meant to mimic the real life sport of racquetball (“Atar History”, 6). Atari was looking to increase their profits with Atari Breakout and found the best way to do that was to cut down on hardware, so they decide to hire Steve Jobs to make the Atari Breakout circuit board (“Atari History”, 6). Steve Jobs was able to cut the amount of chips down by fifty chips (“Atari History”, 6). Atari Breakout was basically single player Pong on it’s side, and was a huge hit. With the success from the arcade games, Atari knew they had to take it a step further. People loved playing their games, so how could they make it more accessible? Atari decided that with the success of the arcade machines they were going to have to bring the games into the consumers living rooms.
This gave birth to the Atari VCS (Video Computer System) and the beginning of the home consoles. It had a programmable motherboard so you could put games on it, they sold a few in California, but decided to drop the idea for something else (“Cartridge Consoles”, 2-3). The reason Atari decided to drop the VCS is because they came up with a way to plug in the ROMs externally in cartridge form (“Cartridge Consoles”, 3). This gave way to the Atari 2600, which is debatably the most popular video game console in the world (“Cartridge Consoles”, 11). The Atari 2600 came out in 1977 and was bundled with two joysticks, two paddles, and a game cartridge (Langshaw, 8). The Atari 2600 reached 1 million sales by 1979 (Langshaw, 11). One huge hit on the Atari 2600 was a game called Yar’s revenge. In this game you are a space bug that flies around stopping the other bad aliens (GamesRadar Staff, 12). People, though, needed more so Atari decided to follow up the Atari 2600 with the Atari 5200 (Langshaw, 15). The 5200 with it’s fast processor was not liked by many people because of the poor controls and high starting price of $270 (Langshaw, 15). Even though they were unsuccessful Atari tried another time with the Atari 7800 ProSystem. in 1986 (Langshaw, 23). The 7800 had better controls better graphics with games and it could play Atari 2600 games
(Langshaw, 24). It was infact the first console to support previous hardware (Langshaw, 24). With some great Console games it was time to shake things up a little bit. Up to this point there were two places to play games, an arcade or the living room. While those areas are great places Atari figured why not play on the go. This idea brought forth the Atari Lynx. The Atari Lynx came out in 1989, which was around the same time Nintendo came out with their first Gameboy (Langshaw, 31). The Lynx have color, amazing graphics and it was ambidextrous, so it should have blown the Game Boy out of the water (Langshaw, 31-32). The Lynx would have been great and we may not have had the Game Boy except for two things. One, Atari didn’t make enough devices to sell to retailers and two, the battery life didn’t last as long as the Game Boy (Langshaw, 33). Atari had many failed consoles so they tried one last time to woo the people with the Jaguar. The Jaguar was the first 64-bit console to be made (Langshaw, 35). The Jaguar packed some heavy machinery, but lacked the games (Langshaw, 37). The Jaguar played some famous first person shooters though, like Alien vs Predator or Doom (Langshaw, 37). Once CD-ROM came out though, it was all over for the Jaguar (Langshaw, 38). The discontinued the Jaguar after 3 years and less than 250,000 units were sold (Langshaw, 38). This brought the downfall of Atari. Atari really did start gaming with their ingenious yet simple ideas. They made a ton of popular Arcade games and went on to define home gaming. Though they did die in the end, Atari will still be in the hearts of any true gamer. Atari’s ingenuity and ability to woo the customers really did help start a domino effect that would change the world and define a new realm of entertainment.
Old games were fun because the way they made the old games like GameCube was a system that you could play two players and it comes with many games you could play. And the old system controllers were more nice and they feel better. The new games have many thing on the controllers. The old ones have a little of stuff on the controllers. I think the main thing that sucks about the new games is that you need to pay to play.
Atari was the first commercial video game company with hits like ‘break out” and “pong”. For many people pong was the first video game they have ever played. The idea of pong is that there is two rectangles that only move up and down and a little square that bounces around the screen until one of the rectangles miss, once the rectangle miss’ the game is over. This game may seem simple now but it sold 19,000 units so you can say what you want but back then this was the greatest game ever.
Nintendo's success in the home console arena can also be attributed to the rigidity of the gaming industry and culture within which its two main competitors, Sony and Microsoft, adhered themselves. Traditionally, the norm was for new home console systems to be marketed primarily based on improved audiovisual capabilities. Indeed, the original PlayStation was a huge win for Sony, and to the detriment of Nintendo, in large part because of its more lifelike 3D graphics. Note that Nintendo was no different with earlier iterations of its systems, though perhaps to a lesser extent than its competitors. However, with this specific generation, namely against the release of the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, both of which touted high definition capabilities, the Wii was unmistakably the sub performer in terms of graphics. Its competitors had no choice but to follow the dominant ideology, which...
The modifications that were made to these regular arcade games ware to make them smaller and compact. Since the new console to be released was a smaller version of those gigantic arcade games, one of biggest change was to make these consoles able to show video on a common household television. The console itself needed to be made smaller for easy carry and for it to fit in a home. Developers needed to make the power supply regular AA batteries. Next, they made the analog stick from the arcade version into a small knob used for movement. Last, the RCA cables were thinned, for easy transport. All of this didn’t obscure the fact that there was only one playable game in this console.
Did you know that Pong; the first game made by Atari, wasn’t originally meant to be released to the public? A new Atari employee was given the assignment of making it simply as a test of his game design skills. Since Pong became a hit, video games have been a large part of the entertainment business. They have found their way into homes all over the world.
Video games started as arcade machines with simple graphics and even simpler stories, soon evolving into home gaming with The Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first home-gaming console. It invaded living rooms in 1972, selling 300,000 units. Since then there has been many consoles and games released, some have been huge commercial successes which
Video games, specifically home consoles, came to the US on October 18th 1985. The NES. Most games around that time were all bright and cheerful looking games such as Mario, Kirby, Legend Of Zelda, and Pokemon a few years later on the Gameboy. But as other game developers appeared, new types of games were made. The shooter genre and fighting genre of games came mostly on the Xbox and PS systems with a couple exceptions being on a Nintendo console(Doom, Goldeneye, Smash bros). Now shooter games
We are the first generation to grow up in a world full of computers. Everyone and their cousin has one. It is almost impossible to go on a vacation anymore without seeing a computer. Some hotels and cruise ships have public computers and even many planes have video game systems built into the back of every chair. With computers being so predominant in our daily lives, we must have some use for them. Many people use them for work and many for the internet, but an overwhelming amount use them to play games as well. Games as simple as solitaire, as fun as pinball, or as challenging as chess. These are simple games that almost anyone can pick up. You can teach your four year old child how to play solitaire before you even have to teach them to shuffle a deck of cards. The simplicity of being able to play a game on a computer and the advancements in technology creates a huge market for video games, and with this, much more in depth and advanced games are created. Such as games where you can charge onto Omaha Beach as a soldier in World War II, or you can live the life of a gangster and break every rule in the book, or you can build and then govern your own modern day city. These are just a few examples of what video game creators are offering people these days. Each of these games not only offers more in terms of how interactive they are, but they are also visually breath taking.
What is the difference between a.. VIDEO GAMES & CONSOLES: 2. a The interactive game: The first video game was developed in 1947 by Thomas T. Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann on a cathode ray tube. Having gained inspiration from World War 2 missiles, they created a missile simulator game. The birth of this video game keyed up the interest among several people to design different games utilizing the analog, modern and electromechanical computers.
Chief among Atari's biggest failures, the port release of the widely popular Pac-Man on the Atari 2600, and the movie-based E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, these two games are among the most disappointing games of all time, and are among the biggest flops in video game history. Pac-Man was a smash hit in the arcades, and, after Atari acquired the rights to publish home versions of Namco's arcade games in the late 1970's, the company set its sights on the arcade game, attempting to cash in on Pac-Man's popularity. Believing that the port would be simple – as the game's popularity was attributed to its gameplay, rather than its visuals – despite the large technical difference between the Atari 2600 and arcade cabinet (with the 2600 having a processor
As video games started to get big in the 80’s, many people started competitions for the games like pac-man and pong. This was the earliest form of competitive gaming. People started taking more interest in the gaming community as more and more competitions came along. It even led into competitions that were for a prize of cash money. The first gaming competition was in 1981 for the world record for Space Invaders. The first championship for a gaming competition was in 2006 for a grand prize of 1 million dollars.
The concept of gaming, while sounding modern technology , goes further back in history than just a couple of years. With recent discoveries from ancient civilizations like Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia, the human race has enjoyed playing games for centuries. Games like Senet from ancient Egypt, The Royal Games of Ur from Mesopotamia and Nine Mens Morris from Roman are some examples of games that have been discovered. According to the British Museum Exhibition on Across the Board; “Games have been played throughout the world since ancient times” (Museum). Whereas the games from a lost time were only board games, gaming of today has significantly evolved with the change in technology. Due to the rapid and ever changing field of technology, the simple idea of playing a board game has been catapulted into a digital world created by inspired and creative programmers.
In this century, video games and computer games had become one of the important entertainments in children’s life. But, is computer games come first? Or video games come first? According to Mary (2010), in 1952, the first graphical computer game, “Tic-Tac-Toe” which created by A.S. Douglas had first starting to programmed on a EDSAC vacuum- tube computer, which had a cathode ray tube display. In 1958, the world first video game, ”Tennis for Two”, which created by William Higinbotham was first play on a Brookhaven National Laboratory. (Mary, 2010) Hence, based on the statement stated by Mary, it shows that computer games were created earlier than video games to this world.
Video game is an electronic gaming that display on a video display or television screen or the latest devices such as PSP and Nintendo. In the early 40s, the world first video games called “Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement” had been invented by Thomas T. goldsmith Jr. and Estle R. Mann that made a starting point to video games. The evolution of video game had been transform from graphic paper till the 2D graphic and better 3D graphic such as Microsoft XBOX, Wii and Sony Play Station. On the other hand, computer game known as PC game had not much different than video game which computer game is design to be use on a computer but not a video display television screen with keyboard as the controller. The first computer game was invented on 1952 called “TicTacToe” by A.S. Douglas on an EDSAC vacuum-tube computer.
Thousands of years ago calculations were done using people’s fingers and pebbles that were found just lying around. Technology has transformed so much that today the most complicated computations are done within seconds. Human dependency on computers is increasing everyday. Just think how hard it would be to live a week without a computer. We owe the advancements of computers and other such electronic devices to the intelligence of men of the past.