History of video games
By the mid-1970s, low-cost programmable microprocessors replaced the discrete transistor–transistor logic circuitry of early hardware, and the first ROM cartridge-based home consoles arrived, including the Atari Video Computer System (VCS).
The latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s included video games driven by improvements and standardization in personal computers and the console war competition between Nintendo and Sega as they fought for market share in the United States.
Notably, Nintendo entered the video game market during this period alongside its current traditional and electronic toy product lines, producing the series of Color TV-Game consoles in partnership with Mitsubishi.
Taito designer Tomohiro Nishikado, who had developed Gun Fight previously, was inspired by Atari's Breakout to create a shooting-based game, Space Invaders, first released in Japan in 1978.
Several influential and best-selling arcade games were released during this period from Atari, Namco, Taito, Williams, and Nintendo, including Asteroids (1979), Galaxian (1979), Defender (1980), Missile Command (1980), Tempest (1981), and Galaga (1981).
Pac-Man, released in 1980, became a popular culture icon, and a new wave of games appeared that focused on identifiable characters and alternate mechanics such as navigating a maze or traversing a series of platforms.
[19] Development costs of dedicated game hardware for arcade and home consoles based on discrete component circuitry and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) with only limited consumer lifespans drove engineers to find alternatives.
This second batch included the VIC-20 and Commodore 64; Sinclair ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum; NEC PC-8000, PC-6001, PC-88 and PC-98; Sharp X1 and X68000; Fujitsu FM Towns, and Atari 8-bit computers, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, and MSX series.
[58] Between the BBC Micro, the ZX Spectrum, and the Commodore 64, a new wave of "bedroom coders" emerged in the United Kingdom and started selling their own software for these platforms, alongside those developed by small professional teams.
[64] Early installments in a number of long-running franchises such as Castlevania, Metal Gear, Bubble Bobble, Gradius, as well as ports of console games and visual novels appeared on Japanese platforms like the PC88, X68000, and MSX.
These included Bullfrog Productions, founded by Peter Molyneux, with the release of Populous (the first such god game), DMA Design with Lemmings, Psygnosis with Shadow of the Beast, and Team17 with Worms.
The formulative center of turn-based computer role-playing games were launched with Dragon Quest (1986) from Chunsoft and Enix, Final Fantasy (1987) from Square, and Phantasy Star (1987) from Sega.
When Sega of America first introduced the Genesis to the United States, it had gotten naming rights from high-profile people in the various sports, such as Pat Riley Basketball and Joe Montana Football, but the games still lacked any complexity.
The gap left by the old corner arcades was partly filled by large amusement centers dedicated to providing clean, safe environments and costly game control systems unavailable to home users.
[14] Arcade establishments expanded out to include other entertainment options, such as food and drink, such as the adult-oriented Dave & Buster's and GameWorks franchises, while Chuck E. Cheese's is a similar type of business for families and young children.
Game developers found it difficult to program for some of the earlier versions of Windows, as the operating system tended to block their programmatic access to input and output devices.
This also helped to provide a standard interface to normalize the wide array of graphics and sound cards available for personal computers by this time, further aiding in ongoing game development.
The Dreamcast's library has some groundbreaking games, notably the Shenmue series which are regarded as a major step forward for 3D open-world gameplay[136] and has introduced the quick time event mechanic in its modern form.
Microsoft had feared that Sony's PS2 would become a central point of electronic entertainment in the living room and squeeze out the PC in the home, and after having recently developing the DirectX set of libraries to standardize game hardware interfaces for Windows-based computers, used this same approach to create the Xbox.
This was in part due to a number of critical games released on the system, including Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Final Fantasy X.
The Xbox 360 and PS3 showed a convergence with personal computer hardware: both consoles shipped with support for high-definition graphics, higher-density optical media like Blu-rays, internal hard drives for storage of games, and had built-in Internet connectivity.
A further rise in the popularity of mobile games was from China, where most residents do not own computers and where imported consoles were banned by the government starting in 2000, though eventually eased in 2014 and completely lifted in 2015.
[183] Examples of influential games from this period include Half-Life 2, Portal, Batman: Arkham Asylum, BioShock, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Resident Evil 4,[182] as well as the first entries in the long-running series Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed.
[196] Cathode ray tube-based display units had begun to phase out in the 2000s, replaced by inexpensive flat-screen televisions and monitors which had far higher screen resolution and refresh rates.
Video game hardware began introducing support for the new High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) standard, allowing for resolutions up to 4K (3840 × 2160 pixels), which itself stressed the need for more powerful GPU cards with faster processors and larger memory.
Fortnite had quickly gained popularity in its first few months of release, and Epic had been able to prove the ease with which cross-platform play could be implemented between the Xbox, Windows, and mobile platforms with its backend libraries.
[207][208] Cloud gaming became more refined in the 2010s as total network capacity around the world increased with higher bandwidths made available to consumers, in addition to new technologies to try to overcome the latency issue.
Microsoft enabled developers to offer microtransactions, content sold at a small price point typically under $5, for their games on the Xbox 360 around 2005, with one of the most well-known examples being a horse armor package for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006.
As handheld consoles including the PSP and the Nintendo DS line, and mobile phones incorporated video camera capabilities, new AR possibilities opened up on portable devices.
However, this rapid growth fell back on the industry around 2023 and into 2024 with numerous layoffs, as several major publishers had to cull employees and studios with the world returning to normal following the pandemic.
