Visual Timeline:
Ever since the 1960's game platforms have improved and evolved substantially. From the coin based arcades of the 60's to the VR headsets of the 2010's, gaming has gone through many stages, with significant differences taking place every decade.
1960's:
In the 1960's, the first true video game, Space War!, was created. It was made for the PDP 1, a form of computer that was primarily used in educational institutes due to its high cost (The equivalent of $950,000 in today's price). Space War! was created by Steve Russell, a computer scientist for entertainment purposes. Due to it popularity among programmers, it spiked interest outside the programming community which then domino-ed into the games industry that is today.
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| Space War! was the first true video game and its creation increased interest in virtual realities. |
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| The first television based console |
He spent almost the entirety of the late 60's creating prototypes for a potential television based gaming machine. He created up to three completed prototype machines until he finally succeeded in his goal and created a console called the Magnavox Odyssey which he released in the early 1970's.
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| "What I created got abominated" Ralph H. Baer |
1970's:
After the success of the prototypes that Baer had previously made, he finally refined his work into a fully functioning console. It was called the Magnavox Odyssey and was released September 1972. It was the first console ever made and was the herald of the First Generation of video game consoles. The same generation also was home to the Atari Pong console. This was a console dedicated to the game Pong.
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| Pong |
Pong was a Sports Arcade game that was released on the 29th of November 1972. It was created by a computer scientist called Allan Alcorn and was originally made as a training exercise. He was issued the project Pong by Nolan Bushnell, one of the Atari founders, who was inspired by seeing the Magnavox in action, which sparked his interest in creating a table tennis game.
After creating a working prototype, they decided to install it at a local bar called the Andy Capp's Tavern in order to find out what people would think of their game alongside more conventional entertainment machines such as Juke Boxes, Pool Tables and Pin Ball machines. From this, they got a deal from Wells Fargo which allowed them to produce Pong Machines and release them to the general public.
Despite all of the achievements of Atari and the Magnavox, the games industry became full of budding games designers, hoping for a quick buck. The market became over-saturated with shovel-ware and Clones of popular games. The public's dissatisfaction with the games industry reached a peak with the release of E.T The Game.
Once the licence had been acquired for the E.T, the development team at Atari had only 5 and a half week in order to release E.T for the Christmas break. As a result of this, the game turned out to be one of the worst video games ever made, and was one of the main contributing factors to the video game crash in the early 1980's.
The two prominent consoles of the era, The Magnavox Odyssey and the Atari Pong were similar in many ways. They used TV's as its output in order to actually display the game. They were also consoles that lacked the versatility the PDP - 1 featured. However, one big difference between the console was that the Magnavox was separate from its TV output, while the Atari pong was attached to its TV output. Neither console has any information on their specs, making a technical analysis difficult to perform.
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| "The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer" Nolan Bushnell |
1980's
After the public uproar after the release of the E.T game, the industry sales and global income began to decline. This all reached a climax when in 1983, the sheer amount of new games being released caused many retailers to simply not have enough room for this flood of games. As such, when they had to sell the surplus games, they had to reduce the prices significantly in order to sell them off. Due to this, many game retailers folded due to lack of sales.
Due to this lack of sales, many surviving retailers stopped selling video games or video game consoles. Due to this, global sales of the games industry dropped from over $3 billion in 1982 to a low $100 million in 1985. This was an incredibly large decrease in revenue and as such, the entire industry was brought to its knees.
Despite this negativity, some companies still tried to make games and game consoles during the crash. One such company was Nintendo. They started making a console called the Famicom (Which was called the Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan), which was a really large hit upon release.
Due to the NES's popularity, home console gaming really took off and the games industry began becoming truly successful. Sega also released a console the same decade called the Sega Master System. This console outsold the NES in Europe and South America.
The two primary consoles of this era were the NES and the Sega Master System. Both were very similar in the fact that they were games consoles with set hardware and they had a cartridge based system for their games.
The only notable difference was the specs of the systems, with the Sega Master System being more powerful than the NES. The NES featured a Ricoh 2A03 8-Bit processor which made it technically inferior to the Mega Drive which featured Zilog Z80 CPU clocked at 4MHz with 8 kB of RAM and 16kB of VRAM.
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| "I think that inside every adult is the heart of a child. We just gradually convince ourselves that we have to act more like adults" Shigeru Miyamoto |
1990's
After the success of home console gaming, developer's began to look at alternative forms of gaming. One such concept was that gaming could be handheld. This became a reality when in September 1990, Nintendo released a portable gaming device called the Game Boy. It released with games such as Super Mario Land and Tetris.
It was an instant hit. The gameboy allowed other players to play against each other via a Link Cable, which was revolutionary at the time. Up to 16 players could be included, providing the game allowed them. It had sold over 64.42 million times by 1997 and the release of Gameboy Colour. This made it the most sold portable console ever, until Nintendo released the Nintendo DS in 2004.
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| This Cable allowed players to play together and do ingame activities such as trade Pokemon etc |
Hand-Held gaming wasn't the only major development in Game Platforms in the 1990's. This decade also saw the introduction to 3D gaming. The first game to feature full 3D was Super Mario 64 in 1996. The Nintendo 64 had hardware capable of 3D game being developed for it, which allowed Nintendo to create a game of that size and scope.
Despite the fact it was the industries first proper 3D game, the developer of Super Mario 64 went all out. They made the game world large and diverse, with plenty of enemies, new mechanics and environments. The graphics were also ground breaking at the time which help reinforce the 3D nature of the graphics.
After Super Mario 64, the entire industry steered in the direction of 3D games. Games such as Goldeneye and Conkers Bad Fur Day based their 3D pixel on Super Mario 64. It completely revolutionized the industry and made it was it is today.
The two main consoles of the 1990's were the PlayStation 1 and the Nintendo 64. They were once again similar due to the fact they were consoles and had not option to alter their specs. One big difference between the two consoles were their HCI's. The PlayStation has a conventional game-pad called the Dual-shock. The Nintendo 64 however had an unusual HCI. It was a game-pad with a layout unseen in the industry before it. It featured a analog stick at the bottom with buttons above it at the far left and right of the controller. This was a selling point of the system with the controller being very effective at controlling the games of the time. On a technical level, the Nintendo 64 was more powerful with a 64-bit NEC VR4300 CPU clocked at 93.75 MHz. It also had SGI RCP GPU with 62.5 MHz of VRAM. The PlayStation was weaker with a MIPS R3000 Processor clocked at 33.86 MHz.
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| "Games shouldn't only be fun. They should teach or spark an interest in other things" Hideo Kojima |
2000's
After the introduction of 3D polygons to the industry in the 90's, Game Platform Development went to a more content based route. The main aspect of development in the 90's was on a graphical level, but in the 2000's development was based more on how much your console could do in regards to functions and features.
The seventh generation of consoles had an emphasis on being multimedia machines, with options to do more than just play games. Options such as to watch movies, watch TV, access social networks and play online. Playing online had been explored albeit shallowly in the sixth generation but only exploded in popularity in the seventh generation.
The Seventh Generation Consoles all had individual online services such as Xbox Live and PSN. This allowed for new features to be added to consoles such as apps, DLC (Downloadable Content) and music. Services such as Sky, Netflix, Twitch and YouTube among many more could be accessed from a console due to the inclusion of such online services. The games console began to have more of a prominence in living rooms due to the multimedia aspects of consoles. It also closed the gap between PC and Console in regards to their ability to access multiple features and services.
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| The above picture shows some of the many apps available on the Xbox store. |
As far as sales were concerned it sold far more than both the PS3 and the Xbox 360. By July 2013, the Wii had sold a massive 100.4 million units. This was a huge difference to the 78.2 million of the Xbox 360 and the 77 million of the PS3.
Due to the success of motion control with the Wii, Microsoft and Sony tried to jump onto the motion control bandwagon with the Kinect and the Playstation Move. While commercially successful, both devices were hit and miss when it came to recognizing commands, and neither were as refined as the Wii and its superb sensor bar.
One notable difference between the Wii and its competitors was that it was considerably weaker than its rivals. At launch the PS3 and the Xbox 360 were graphical powerhouses. They were even more powerful than the best gaming PC's of the time. While this didn't last because of the rapid development of PC components such as CPU's and GPU's, the Wii was internally weak from the beginning. While this was noted by the gaming community, it still sold far more than its rivals due to its cheaper price and emphasis on casual gaming.
Motion Control and Multimedia weren't the only major development for gaming platforms, Mobile Gaming began in earnest during the 2000's. It began in Japan in the early 2000's games became more popular with the Japanese mobile phone culture.
The idea of mainstream mobile games began becoming a reality in 2003 when Nokia tried to make the N-Gage, a hand held console made to have the functionality of a mobile phone. Despite Nokia best efforts the N-Gage was commercially unsuccessful and was discontinued a mere 2 year after launch in 2005.
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| While the idea was there, the execution of it was lackluster. |
With the mobile market steadily growing many early hits became success. One such success was Angry Birds. Developed by Rovio Entertainment, it was released in 2009 to wide spread success. While reviews were not always positive, sales were lucrative. It had been downloaded over 2 billion times by 2014 making it one of the most downloaded games ever.
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| "Above all, video games are meant to be just one thing: fun. Fun for everyone." Satoru Iwata |
2010's:
After many different changes and development to game platforms, the 2010's thus far hasn't had many developments to game platforms. Only one big change is currently in process, which is the start of VR gaming. Interest in this particular form of HCI was in 2012 at E3 when a VR enthusiast Palmer Luckey debuted a prototype of his VR headset, The Oculus Rift, which was met to some enthusiasm and interest.
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| A Dev Kit for the Oculus Rift |
After this event, many companies began looking into creating VR headsets. Over the years many similar device's have been made such as the HTC Vive, Playstation VR and the Samsung Gear VR.
The industry has allocated much time and money into developing VR gaming further. Despite the effectiveness of VR gameplay in regards to its immersive nature, the high cost of the headsets and the machines capable of VR gameplay, the HCI hasn't quite taken off.
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| "It turns out that the killer application for virtual reality is other human beings. Build a world that people want to inhabit, and the inhabitants will come." Charles Stross |
From a technical standpoint, the PS4 was the most powerful with a AMD x86-64 Jaguar CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz. It also featured a AMD GCN Radeon which was integrated within the CPU making the Core an APU. The console also has over 8GB of RAM. The Xbox One was slightly weaker with a AMD Jaguar 8 Core APU clocked at 1.75 GHz. It also, like the PS4, had 8GB of RAM. By far the weakest, is the Wii U, which has a Tri-Core 'Expresso' CPU clocked at 1.24 GHz and has a paltry 2GB RAM. These specs put the PS4 on top in regards to technical performance, with the Wii U not even coming close.
Overall, Game Platforms have evolved and grown incredibly since the 1960's. Graphics and game-play have improved massively since the likes of Pong and Space Invaders and HCI's such as VR have moved out of the realm of Sci Fi and into reality. And Game Platforms are still growing. Only time can tell what Game Platforms might do next.
Visual References:
1960's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!
http://media.insidepulse.com/zones/diehardgamefan/uploads/2008/05/ralph-baer-profile.jpg
http://www.theverge.com/products/odyssey/1716
1970's
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/161104/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidsturt/2014/05/20/get-rid-of-the-recipe-innovation-advice-from-atari-founder-nolan-bushnell/#7d1a6a3367d3
1980's
http://questicle.net/
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/why-did-hideo-kojima-leave-konami
1990's
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/10/gameboy-case-lives-on-with-a-pi-zero/2000's
http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Boy_Link_Cable
http://kotaku.com/tag/super-mario-64
http://wiiudaily.com/2014/10/shigeru-miyamoto-premiered-his-first-film-at-the-tokyo-international-film-festival/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_controller
2000's
http://help.unotelly.com/support/solutions/articles/9581-how-to-unlock-websites-app-on-your-xbox
https://skatter.com/2007/01/new-wii-ps3-360-games/
https://skatter.com/2010/06/xbox-kinect-vs-playstation-move/
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n_gage-pictures-390.php
http://www.geek.com/games/angry-birds-now-available-for-netbooks-1303650/
http://supersmashbros.wikia.com/wiki/Satoru_Iwata
2010's
https://www1.oculus.com/order/
https://www.wired.com/2014/08/geeks-guide-charles-stross/
Written References:
1960's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_H._Baer
1970's
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=378141
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong
1980's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System
1990's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64
2000's
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/wii-system-sales-cross-100-million-units/1100-6412271/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_game
2010's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_Rift
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