3-D Games
A Brief History of Video Game Consoles
Video games have experienced quite a growth spurt in the past few decades. What many people might not realize is that the whole industry is still in its infant stages. It’s hard to imagine what video games and consoles will be available in the future, especially since the technology seems so advanced right now. That said, let’s a take a look at where we came from.
One of the first video game consoles was Intelevision. It came with small, diagonally shaped cartridges and two controllers with number and circle pads. The games were simply titled: racing, baseball, football, etc. The players resembled stick figures and moved like robots. The racing game was actually pretty neat, though.
After Intelevision came Atari. This was when video games really ‘arrived.’ With games like Frogger, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders, Atari was the coolest thing in the universe for many years. If you didn’t have Atari at home, you were seriously deprived. The graphics were much better than Intelevision and the concepts were unique: a frog jumping on lily pads to get across a stream, trying to get up four levels of stairs while a king-kong-like creature throws barrels at you, etc.
Atari was fun while it lasted, but then Nintendo came around, making Atari obsolete. Infamous games like Mike Tyson’s Punchout, Techmo Bowl and Super Mario Brothers were all over the place, and talked about by everyone. Nintendo lasted for many years, until people started to realize they had to blow into their cartridges once in a while to keep the games from freezing up. The arrival of Sony’s Playstation didn’t help much, either. There was a little hiccup between Nintendo and Playstation from Sega Genesis, but it didn’t last long at all.
Playstation featured such popular games as Mario Kart, Tiger Woods Golf, and Madden. The technology with this system was taken to a whole new level, from comfort and complexity of controls to graphics and playability. Playstation’s dominance also lasted much longer than any other system, spanning about a decade. Playstation 2 didn’t just offer games, but you were also able to watch DVDs through the system.
Microsoft came out with Xbox and offered a brief fight to Playstation. Its games were similar and it had better graphics, but the playability wasn’t as good.
While Xbox and Playstation are still around today, neither can compete with Nintendo’s Wii. Nintendo came out of nowhere to make a comeback with a unique system that allows players movements to control actions in games. While it is neat and the most popular gaming console right now, the accuracy of the movements aren’t great and there have been a lot of injuries. Look for another system to soon pop up and steal the throne.
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