Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at
6:28 am
Isn’t it funny to think back when the first video game systems were thought of as the greatest technology? With all the types of systems to choose from, the earlier models are a joke in comparison to the new systems put out today. Although back in the day, these systems were very popular when they were first released to the public.
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.
The gaming systems usually went for about $100.00 and always sold over 100,000 units in their first year of production. Compared to standards today the beginning years were primitive, but this was the start of the home console gaming systems.
In 1972, Atari was founded by Nolan Bushnell. The name of this company was originally planned to be Syzygy. Since the name was already in use Atari was settled on for the company. A developer, Al Alcorn joined Atari and the game “Pong” originated. The popularity of this game was quite impressive when it went on sale in 1975 as a home version for Atari.
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.
Mattel in 1980 was ready to launch their response to Atari-the intellivision game system. The Nintendo at this time was on the horizons. Mario brothers came out in 1981 and the world was ready for something different. Popularity hit nearly instantly with this new release.
In 1981 Sega was yet another video gaming system that got in on the competition with the release of Turbo. This was one of the first driving video games that simulated reality. In comparison, the only driving game up to this point was Atari’s Night Driver and it was not nearly as realistic.
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.
The early games and systems were not nearly as sophisticated as today’s. The arrival of the Nintendo systems, Play Station systems and the Xbox in 2001 made yesterday’s game little more than children’s toys. The Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 are setting the trend for further technological advances today.
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