Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Early Video Games

By Philip Woods

Early video games were thought of as the latest technology, yet they are no comparison to the games we have today. With all the different types and systems there were to choose from, the earlier models such as Atari seem like a silly comparison. Although these games at one time when released to the public were very popular.

Magnavox Odyssey was the first video gaming system to be released in the U.S. Once called the brown box, from the prototype, a crude version of what was to become. This was completed in 1968. Odyssey gaming system, used cartridges that were to basically alter the circuits inside the game box.

Plastic sheets were needed to attach onto your television screen. These sheets added more graphics to use in conjunction to the images that the game system would project onto your screen. This was released in 1972.

This first video game and the ancestor of the many that are available today cost $100 when released and sold over 100,000 units in the first year of production. The beginning of the home console gaming system had begun, although it was quite primitive compared to the standards today.

Nolan Bushell founded Atari in 1972. The company's name was supposed to be Syzgy, but the name had already been taken so they settled on the name Atari. When developer, Al Alcorn joined Atari the game "Pong" originated at that time. The sales from pong alone were impressive in 1975, when it went on the market. The game was the video game version of ping pong.

In 1976 and 1977 many games were released including some hand-held games. In 1976 Coleco got into the video game craze with their introduction of the Telstar. The Atari 2600 home game system was released in 1977 and an electronics baseball game in 1978 by Mattel. In 1979, a Microvision game that had cartridges to change the games was released by Milton Bradley. This was the first hand-held game that had cartridges that could be changed for different games.

By 1980 Mattel was ready to launch their answer to Atari - the Intellivision game system. The Nintendo game system was on the horizon. When Mario brothers games came out in 1981, the world was ready for something different. Gaining popularity, this was a game that seemed to be an instant hit.

Sega was another new gaming system that was released in 1981, which their game turbo was released. This was one of the first simulation games that were as close to reality as possible back then. The only other game that was to compare it to was Atari's Night driver game which was not realistic at all.

The Atari 5200 super system released in 1982, replaced Atari's 2600 system. Atari's intention was to have this system in competition with the intellivision, but in all reality it became Coleco's competition. The 5200 was just not as big of a hit as they had hoped because there were many design flaws.

These early systems, were nowhere near as sophisticated as the systems you can buy today. Nintendo's systems play Station systems, and the Xbox made yesterday's games a little more than children's toys. The Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 are the trendsetters for future technology advances.

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