epq - what were the major changes, improvements and turning points throughout the history of video...

7/30/2019 EPQ - What were the major changes, improvements and turning points throughout the History of Video Games?

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Introduction

Video Games have changed in many significant ways over the 30+ years of theirexistence. At a first glance someone might say that the only change has been theamount of pixels, colours and sounds that a game can handle and the form of media

that they are distributed on (cartridges, discs, downloads, etc). But this is far from thecase.

Not only have video games changed based on the technology they use but in manyother ways that people don't often consider. For example, how have video gamesmoved on from a niche little hobby to a part of everyday entertainment? Why havevideo games become so mainstream that games like Call of Duty are now outsellingother forms of media entirely? When did video games even become a form of mediaand a multi-billion dollar industry? Why are some games so violent that they arecompletely banned in certain countries? Are video games a form of art?

The point of this essay is to address and try to answer questions like this. The videogame industry is much more complicated then it first may seem as there have been asignificant amount of changes that have shaped it to be what it is today. This essaywill take you through the entire history of video games, give you an insight as to whatthe industry is like and mark the major changes, improvements and turning points invideo game history. Throughout this essay I will mainly talk about a number of maincompanies that particularly played a large role in shaping the video game industry aswell as minor companies. These main companies are: Magnavox, Atari, Nintendo,Sega, Sony and Microsoft.

I believe that the main turning point in video game history was the transition between

the fourth and fifth generation. The leap into the third generation and theimprovement of graphics, sound and just the overall way that games were madeshowed the most amount of progress and since then it has just been about tweakingand fine tuning video games. Also, the fifth generation was when video gamesbecame fully embraced as a mainstream industry. This will be explained more indepth in the Fifth Generation section.

Pre-First Generation

Prior to the invention of video games there were other types of games that provided

the same sense of enjoyment and amusement to the player in similar ways. The twoforms of entertainment that most resembled video games before video games werepinball tables and board games. Despite not being presented to the player the sameway a video game is they share many similarities with video games.Pinball tables were introduced as early as the late 1700s with theinvention of the spring launcher. However, it was not until the1930s/40s when electrification, active bumpers and flippers wereintroduced. This became the contemporary basis of what wasconsidered a pinball table. The aim of pinball is to use your hands toactivate the flippers at the bottom of a pinball table to keep a ball inplay and to earn points or to carry on for as long as possible. Thisstimulates the same sense of enjoyment in the player as early video


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games did where the main aim would be to earn high scores.

Board games also share similarities to video games in terms of multiplayer. Boardgames have been around since as early as 3500 BC. Board games are played by usinga number of pieces on a board in different ways but generally involve the same

objectives to beat the opponent. These include: having more points than youropponent (Scrabble); winning position (Snakes & Ladders); and ridding the player oftheir pieces (Chess). Like pinball, board games are a type of game presented andplayed in a different way but still stimulate a similar sense of enjoyment in the playeras video games. Later board games such as 1974s Dungeons & Dragons and otherrole playing board games try to emulate a feeling of going on an adventure to theplayer similar to role-playing video games introduced in the third generation.

Video game generations are generally defined by the life cycle of a set of video gameconsoles and end when the successor of those consoles is released. However, videogames did not start with the first generation of consoles and a big debate is what isconsidered the first video game. It is very hard to come to a solid answer because itdepends on what people consider a video game is. The earliest electronic game wasby Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. in 1947 and was known as the Cathode Ray Tube

Amusement Device. It was a missile simulator inspired by radar displays during WorldWar II. However, at this time graphics were not evenpossible and it used screen overlays as targets.

Therefore there isnt any video in this video and cantreally be considered a video game. A much morelikely candidate for the first video game is 1959s

Tennis for Two. The plans for Tennis for Two wereconstructed in only two hours and the actual game inthree weeks. The game was only shown off atBrookhaven National Laboratories and was never made commercially available. Thisgame used an oscilloscope in order to project the vector graphics to the player. Thegame has no objective but involves the player hitting a tennis ball over a net. Theplayer used a button to hit the ball and a knob to alter trajectory. This could beconsidered the first ever video game because it actually involves an image beingpowered electrically and input from the player is required. However, the game has noobjectives and presents the player with no sense of progression or achievement andtherefore lacks fundamental attributes of video games. The first video game tointroduce this was Spacewar! It was created by Steve Russell only three years afterTennis for Two. This game included two players controlling spaceships trying to shootdown enemy spaceships. This game can be considered the first true video game as itinvolved all of the core elements of video games and was also the first multiplayergame as well as the first game of the shooter genre.


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First GenerationThe first generation of games began in 1972 with the Magnavox Odyssey. TheMagnavox Odyssey was the first games console of all time and was created by Bill

Rusch and Ralph Baer. Their vision began in 1951 while RalphBaer was constructing a Television from scratch. He wanted tofocus on somehow creating an interactive television and carried onwork on it until 1966. Baer created a simple two-player video gamethat could be displayed on a standard television set called Chase,where two dots chased each other around the screen. Bill Rusch was

appointed to the project in order to speed up the process. A thirdmachine-controlled dot was used to create a Ping-Pong style game(most commonly referred to as Pong. Further funding was pushed tothis project in order to create more games. Originally Magnavox

were trying to partner with TV companies in order to distribute the games on thetelevision set and use a switchboard to switch between games something that theynamed Brown Box. However, during the 1960s and 1970s the cable televisionindustry wasnt doing well and a lack of funding meant Magnavox had to change their

approach. They made alterations to Brown Box. Games were now stored onto a type

of removable printed circuit board card that inserts into a slot similar to a cartridgeslot. Also, to reduce manufacturing costs they opted to use black and white graphics

rather than colour graphics but included coloured overlays which are placed over theTV to give the screen a colour tint. After all these alterations the Magnavox Odysseywas released unto the public as the first video game system of all time.

One of the main turning points that the Magnavox Odyssey presented to the gamingindustry was interchangeable cartridges. A lot of video games released in thisgeneration plugged straight into the television and only included one game. Eventhough many games released for the Odyssey were clones of the ping pong style gameit showed the possibilities that could come with consoles with interchangeablecartridges. However, the data for the game was not actually stored on the cartridgesthemselves but on the console. The cartridges were merely coded to start a specificgame on the console. Also, the Magnavox Odyssey introduced the first video gameperipherals. A video game peripheral is a form of equipment that you use with a videogame that changes the way you play. The peripheral released with the MagnavoxOdyssey was the light gun used for shooting games. It is known as the light gun as ituses light detection in order to see where the player is aiming. This alters the way theplayer would play as normally you would only play the Magnavox Odyssey using the

included two paddle controllers.


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The Magnavox Odyssey was not released to much success due to poor marketing.Many consumers were under the impression that the Magnavox Odyssey only workedon Magnavox television sets. However, other companies saw the potential of videogames and so decided to capitalise on the idea and made their own version of Pong.The most successful of these being Atari/Sears Tele-Games Pong and the Coleco

Telstar. These gained more success than the Magnavox Odyssey and soon many morecompanies created their own Pong clones including big toy and television companiessuch as Philips, Commodore, Mattel and Nintendo. This led to many lawsuits betweenMagnavox and other companies all ending in favour of Magnavox.

Second Generation

The second generation is a very important generation in the history of video gamesdue to many factors. The second generation displayed a massive rise and fall in thepopularity of video games mainly in the United States. Due to technological advancesand developers becoming more familiar with creating games more original gamescould be created which branched into new genres which is a big difference from the

first generation where a video game was typically a Pong clone.

The first video game console released in the second generation was the FairchildChannel F in 1976. This console did not introduce much into the video game industryand did not sell very well compared to other consoles only selling 250,000 units. Theconsole could only display basic graphics for the time and had a pretty basicprocesser. However, it did introduce a few things into the industry. The main onebeing actual game cartridges. Each game cartridge sold separately housed one or

several games each and became a staple in the video gameindustry where all big game consoles afterwards hadcartridges or another form of interchangeable media. It also

introduced computer controlled opponents (often referred toas A.I.). Prior to this opponents could only be controlled

by human players.

The most popular console of this generation was the Atari 2600 (first known as theAtari VCS). The Atari 2600 was the first mainstream home video game system andsold 30 million units. Atari really pushed the Atari 2600 and flooded America withadvertisements to try and get as many Atari 2600s into as many homes as possible. Itbecame so popular that the name Atari became the associated word with video games.You couldnt hear video games without hearing Atari. This was also when the term

joystick was coined because of the Atari 2600s controller. It included a single button

and a vertical stick used for movement and other things. The Atari housed a multitudeof popular games such asAsteroids, Space Invaders and Combat. Initially games were


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only developed by Atari and Sears (under their Tele-Games brand). However, afterthe growth in popularity of the console it became the first console to acquire third-party support. A wide range of developers began developing for the Atari 2600 one ofthe most famous being Activision who made some of the best games for Atari 2600including Pitfall and the first ever Action/Adventure game Adventure. Due to the

large success of the Atari 2600 the video game industry became a much moremainstream thing. The Atari 2600s success still stands today as even nowindependent companies are making homebrew games in 2012 and releasing themunofficially for Ataris 1976 console.

However, after the rise in popularity of video games it declined until a large crash inthe video game industry known as the Video game crash of 1983. There are manyfactors that led to this crash. Firstly, due to the success of the Atari 2600 othercompanies also tried to create video game systems. Some of these systems gained aslight amount of success such as the Magnavox Odyssey 2, Mattel Intellivision andColecoVision. However, other systems did not gain as much success and the complete

oversaturation of game consoles confused consumers and they didnt know whichconsoles to buy as each had a separate library of games. Even Atari were trying topush their new consolethe Atari 5200 while still supporting the Atari 2600.

Also, too many games were coming out in too little time that a lot of them were beingpassed over and ended up costing companies much more money than they wouldmake in return. One of the main reasons for the crash was the plethora of bad gamesreleased by Atari the main culprits being Pac Man and E.T. Extra Terrestrial on

Atari 2600. Pac Man was one of the most successful arcade games of that time andAtari were severely advertising it in attempts to make the home version ofPac Mansell Atari 2600s. In fact, they were so confident that this game would sell systems thatthey created more cartridges of Pac Man than amount of Atari2600 units sold at the time. It did end up being the best sellinggame on the Atari 2600 selling over 7 million copies. However,the game was so bad that consumers complained and became veryangry that it was so far off from the arcade version. E.T. ExtraTerrestrial was another story of false promises. It was advertisedas a close adaptation of the very popular Steven Spielberg film. Itwas far from it. The development team were only given five

weeks to make the game in order to get it out for Christmas 1982.The game was so bad that it is often classed as the worst video game of all time andwas a commercial failure.

Another embarrassment for Atari were a number of pornographic games released forthe Atari 2600 the most famous being Mystiques Custers Revenge. The gameinvolved the player controlling General Custer (a famous American general during

battles fought against the Native Americans in the 1800s). The objective was to cross

the screen and rape a Native American female in order to score points. This gamecaused massive protest by both womens and Native Americansgroups. Atari successfully sued Mystique for this game. Atari, aswell as other video game companies, were losing massiveamounts of money during this time and thus the North American


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video game crash of 1983 occurred.

One advancement in the video game industry during this generationwas Milton Bradleys Microvision. It was the first handheld to

include interchangeable cartridges. Also, during this generation

computers became a popular source of video games and manygames were made exclusively for computers. Popularcomputer/gaming systems included the Apple II and Commodore64.

Third Generation

After the North American video game crash of 1983, video game and consoledevelopment shifted to Japan. A company called Nintendo tried their hand at makinga video game console and marketing towards a more Eastern audience. They createdthe Famicom which became one of the greatest-selling video game systems of all

time. In order to sell the Famicom in North America they were unable to label it as avideo game system as stores were unlikely to stock them due to a lack of interestcreated by the video game crash. To get around this they cunningly bundled the videogame system in with a peripheral called R.O.B. the

Robotand marketed it as a robot system rather thana video game system and called it the NintendoEntertainment System (NES). The NES receivedmuch success and was later advertised as a videogame system and bundled with Super Mario Bros.(one of the best selling games of all time whichsold over 40 million units) which drew moresuccess. Japanese development was clearlyembraced worldwide seeing as the NES outsoldAtaris Atari 7800 (a competing console during this generation) 17/1. In terms ofgraphic and sound quality the Famicom was superior to the Atari 2600. However, oneof the biggest changes was that the Famicom could handle screen-scrolling graphicsas opposed to just static screens. This gave birth to one of the most popular genres,especially during this generation, the Platformer. The general idea of mostPlatformers is to traverse from the left side of a side-scrolling screen to the right while

jumping or shooting to avoid obstacles and enemies. There were an abundance ofPlatformers during this generation. Some of the most popular include: Super Mario

Bros.,Mega Man, Contra and several others. The NES also popularised the traditionalcontroller. Rather than a joystick it featured a 4-way directional pad, 2 face buttonsand a start/select button. This became the standard for controllers and has only beenimproved since. Controllers rarely used joysticks after this was introduced.

Not only was this generation the introduction to Nintendo but it was also theintroduction to Sega. In 1985 they released the Sega Master system. In terms ofcapabilities it was generally on par with the NES, however, its success in certain

regions of the world led to the beginning of what are known as the console wars that

still have not ended today. Console wars are when there is not one dominant videogame console in the market, but two or more that are competing against each other.

The NES greatly outsold the Sega Master system in North America and Japan,however it failed to capture an audience as well as the Sega Master System did in


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Brazil and Europe. Therefore, the console war mainly took place in these territoriesas Nintendo tried new ways to get the NES to outsell the Sega Master System.

Another change during this generation was that games began to tell stories. Thismainly occurred in Adventure games or RPGs and helped form these two genres.Some examples of games that were heavily focused on stories are: The Legend of

Zelda; Final Fantasy;Dragon Questand Phantasy Star. Some of these games focusedheavily on using in game text in order to tell and expand these stories. A strongargument for the debate whether or not video games are a form of art stems from

these early RPGs since their stories are similar toliterature which is considered a form of art. Anotherimprovement was the ability to save game data to thecartridge. Since games were becoming much lengthier

some taking several hours to complete one sittingwas not enough to complete some games and so theability to save game data was introduced so thatplayers could resume from where they last left off.Again, this feature was mostly used in Adventuregames and RPGs.

Fourth Generation

In the fourth generation of video games a new era startedknown as the bit wars. This was first started because of

NECs new console the Turbografx-16 (known in Japan asthe PC Engine). It was the first 16-bit console released on themarket while both Nintendo and Sega only had 8-bitconsoles. The bit wars were more of a marketing strategy

than anything as average consumers wouldnt truly know what it means if a console

has more bits apart from that they are capable of better graphics. Despite theTurbografx-16 having superior graphics to both the Nintendo Entertainment Systemand Sega Master System the console was built around an 8-bit microprocessor andtherefore couldnt reach the same quality of graphics as the Sega Megadrive and

Super Nintendo Entertainment System that came later. One game in particular on theTurbografx-16 changed the video game industry: Splatterhouse. This was one of thefirst violent games released and caused a lot of controversy.

In 1988 Sega released the Sega Megadrive (known as Sega Genesis in United States).While the console was not released to major success at the start it became much morepopular in 1991 with the release of its best selling game Sonic the Hedgehog. Thisgame really showed off one of the Sega Megadrives unique and most marketable

feature blast processing which allowed games to run at a higher speed than other


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consoles and was shown off best in Sonic the Hedgehog. The Sega Megadrive alsohoused more arcade games than other consoles.

In 1990 Nintendo released the successor to their popular Nintendo EntertainmentSystem in the form of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (known as SuperFamicom in Japan. For the first time in gaming history two systems had almost anequal share of the market and this was the first time that the term console wars could

be used. Unlike in the previous threegenerations where there was one leadingconsole in terms of sales (MagnavoxOdyssey, Atari 2600 and NintendoEntertainment System for first, second andthird respectfully) this generation had twoleading consoles which led to a verydifferent generation of gaming and has remained the same ever since. Both Sega andNintendo had to work harder in showing the differences in the consoles and how oneis better than the other. For the most part the SNES had better graphics than the SegaMegadrive and had something that they called Mode 7. Mode 7 was a type of 3D

mode that was used in some games on the SNES most notably in F Zero and Final

Fantasy VI(known in United States as Final Fantasy III).

The main improvements that were seen duringthis generation were in visual and audio quality.As well as Mode 7 and the introduction of 3D

sprites another big improvement in graphics isbeing able to include sprites rendered using CG.This is shown in games such as Donkey KongCountry, Killer InstinctandMortal Kombat. Also,a lot of genres were introduced or made popularduring this generation. One in particular was thefighting genre. Two of the most popular fightingfranchises had their most popular games duringthis generation:Mortal Kombatand Street Fighter II. As well as console wars during

this generation there were also rivalries between franchises incertain genres one of the most famous being Mortal

Kombat vs. Street Fighter II. Another example being Sonicthe Hedgehog vs. Super Mario World


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in the platforming genre. Another genre introduced during this generation was FirstPerson Shooters. Examples of this genre are: Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. One of thebig problems introduced during this generation is violent video games and haveearned a lot of controversy. Generally video games werent aimed at mature

audiences but that has particularly been pushed during this generation with games

such as Splatterhouse, Mortal Kombatand Doom. One thing about these games thatparticularly makes them violent is the inclusion of blood. During this time that wasespecially frowned upon since video games were generally aimed at a youngeraudience. Nintendo particularly stressed this by getting the blood removed from theSNES version ofMortal Kombatwhereas it remained in the Sega Megadrive version.Another thing that only really occurred during this generation and then died down wasthe Sega Channel and Nintendo Satellaview. These were add-ons for the SegaMegadrive and Super Famicom. Rather than reading data from a cartridge to play agame they received it from an antenna just like television channels. The serviceprovided a number of games and would change periodically. What is interesting isthat these were quite popular services but when they ended they were never tried

again. However, they could be considered as very early forms of downloadablecontent which will be discussed further in a later section. Another thing that saw a risein this generation was import gaming. This is where gamers would import a gamefrom another country usually because of availability issues. A lot of the time this wasbecause of RPGs that were never released in Europe such as Final Fantasy IV, VI,

Earthbound,Dragon Questand others.

SNKs Neo Geo was also released in this generation. The great achievement that this

console had was its amazing graphical and process power. It was home to a lot ofperfect ports of arcade games such as Samurai Showdown,Metal Slug and King ofFighters to name a few. It was clearly the most advanced system of this generation.However, because of the very large price of $650 for the console and upwards of $200per game it was not much of a commercial success.

One thing introduced in this generation which wasnt much of a success was the many

games using full-motion video. Sega released the Sega Mega CD and Sega 32X as

add-ons for the Sega Megadrive. The Sega Mega CD could run games on a CD formatwhich allowed games to have more data and to have much higher sound and graphicsquality. The Sega 32X meant games could have higher graphical quality and wasanother way for Sega to best the competition in the bit wars. (However, neither ofthese add-ons were very popular.) Phillips and Nintendo were working together toproduce a CD add-on for the SNES to compete with Segas Mega CD. Due todisagreements Nintendo and Phillips ceased work together and Nintendo disbandedthe idea. However, Phillips created their own CD basedconsole the Phillips CD-i. The CD-i, Sega Mega CD andSega 32X had a lot of games that used full-motion videowhich was recorded video using live actors. Most ofthese games werent very good and received poor salesand poor reviews. Some examples of games that did this


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are:Night Trap, Make My Video: Marky Markand Slam City with Scotty Pippen.

One of the biggest things during this generation was the huge success of handheldgaming thanks to the Nintendo Game Boy. It was released in 1989 and has sold over110 million units. It could only be played in black and white but had similar power

and capabilities to the NES. One of the main reasons for its success was the pack intitle: Tetris. Tetris is one of the best selling games of all time and is regarded as one ofthe best games of all time. As well as this it launched with Super Mario Landwhichwas also very popular. Other handheld consoles were released during this generation

but didnt have anywhere near the success that the Nintendo Game Boy had and

didnt really stand out much. Apart from the Sega Game Gear which was the first

handheld console which played in colour.

Section 6: Fifth Generation

What could be considered perhaps the biggest turning point throughout the History ofVideo Games occurred during this generation. The leap from into the third dimension.Prior to this video games were predominantly only able tobe created in 2D. Of course, there were some grandexamples of 3D games previously, such as Doom.However, the biggest difference between previous 3Dgames was that they could only use pixels to create thegame and therefore most objects came out looking flat.Also, 3D was only used in first-person view. The biggestdifference in 3D that occurred during this generation was the increased use ofpolygons. Whereas objects were previously made up of large numbers of little

squares; polygons can be of any shape and can be stretched and manipulated in a vastnumber of ways. 3D objects are made up of numbers of different polygons that can be

bent at different angles to give an object depth. This is similar to netting in real-lifewhere a number of 2D surfaces are placed together to make a 3D object.

The first console that was released with these fully functional 3D capabilities was theSega Saturn in November 22nd 1994 in Japan and along with the Sega 32x wasconsidered one of Segas biggest failures due to several reasons. Firstly, it was

released merely 6 months after the Sega 32x. Consumers were confused at the actualpoint of the console and how it differentiated from the Sega 32x. They were bothmarketed as 32-bit consoles and the 32x

clearly showed with games such asVirtua Fighter and Virtua Racer that it


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could handle 32-bit polygons. Secondly, the lack of first party titles and not enoughdecent exclusive titles made the Sega Saturn much less appealing than the recentlyreleased Sony Playstation. Arguably, one of the main reasons for the SegaMegadrives success was Sonic the Hedgehog and the Sega Saturn did not releasewith a Sonic title. In fact, the planned 3D Sonic title, Sonic Xtreme, was cancelled.

Thirdly, the Sega Saturn was much harder for developers to develop multi-platformgames for. The Sega Saturn used quadrilaterals as its basic geometric primitivecompared to the Sony Playstation and Nintendo 64 that used triangles. This faceddevelopers with a problem as it would be a much harder task developing games forboth Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn which therefore led many developers tochoose Sony Playstation/ Nintendo 64 as their platform to develop for. Somedevelopers tried to released games that used triangular 3D polygons on both Sony

Playstation and Sega Saturn but ultimately led to a distorted look of some 3D objectsin the Sega Saturn versions (an example being Tomb Raider). However, thissometimes gave Sega Saturn versions of some games an advantage and made themlook better over their Sony Playstation counterpart (e.g. Wipeout and Destruction

Derby).

Despite the Sega Saturns commercial failure, it actually had merits that made it a

valid competitor to the Sony Playstation. Firstly, it was the only console that housedmany exclusive games that could easily compete with other system exclusives such asGuardian Heroes, Panzer Dragoon Saga, The Shining Force Series, and NiGHTS into

Dreams. Secondly, due to the unique system specs of the Sega Saturn it could handlemuch better versions of 2D games such as X-men Vs. Street Fighterand Metal Slug.

In fact, this led many developers to choose to develop exclusive titles on the SegaSaturn (CapcomsNight Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge). The Sega Saturn was alsothe best console to develop for if you wanted to make arcade ports as the motherboardof the Sega Saturn more closely resembled that of an arcade motherboard compared tothe other consoles. This was used to create the arcade perfect port ofAfter Burner.These merits however did not give enough consumers a reason to choose a Sega

Saturn over the Sony Playstation and thus it only sold 9.5 million and wasdiscontinued in 1998 in North America and Europe only 3 years after it wasreleased. The Saturn was much more popular in Japan and lasted until 2000.

After Sony disbanded work on the SNES-CD with Nintendo, like Phillips, theydecided to create their own CD based video game console. The end result of this wasthe extremely popular 32-bit video game system Sony Playstation. The SonyPlaystation was one of the most successful consoles of all time and sold over 102million systems worldwide making it the 4th best selling system of all time. One of thebiggest advantages that the Sony Playstation had over the Nintendo 64 (its maincompetitor) was the format that the games were stored on. Although Compact discs

did not begin on the Playstation its huge success led to the demise of the cartridge.Due to the increasing complexity of games (in terms of amount of content, graphics


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and sound) storage on cartridges were being pushed to their limit. CDs could holdover 650 MB worth of data compared to a Nintendo 64 cartridge that could only hold64 MB worth of data. This made the Playstation a much more desirable platform todevelop for. And in which case Nintendo lost many exclusive franchises to Sony suchas Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Mega Man and Castlevania. In fact, Square and

Enix were initially developing Final Fantasy VIIandDragon Quest VII, respectfully,for Nintendo 64. However, due to the quality of these games and the extreme lengthof these games (Dragon Quest VIIbeing more than 100 hours in length) they requiredmuch more memory to make than the Nintendo 64 could offer and in such case had toswitch to design for Playstation. Not only that but many games that came out in thisgeneration were so large that they required multiple CDs to store them on even if theywerent extremely long games. Metal Gear Solid required two discs; Final FantasyVIIIrequired 4 discs. Even Fear Effectwhich is less than 10 hours in length requires 4CDs. This is due to the game constantly looping full-motion video for thebackgrounds (known as FX technology) rather than using pre-rendered 2Dbackgrounds which was usually the case. This shows how much of a leap video

games took form the fourth generation of consoles to the fifth generation of consoles.The largest games on the SNES were Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean which were48 MB. This pales in comparison to games of this generation which were exceeding 2GB (2000 MB). Despite the qualities that CDs had to offer they also had somedrawbacks. One big problem was that it made piracy much easier. Due to the growingpopularity of CD burners it was much easier to copy a Playstation game than it was tocopy any cartridge-based games. This was when illegal piracy became a big issue inthe video game industry and has been a big problem ever since.

The Playstation had many games that clearly showedoff the capabilities of video games and in some ways

changed how games were made. Many Playstationgames presented things that were first for the industry.For example, Final Fantasy VIIwas the first game tointroduce full pre-rendered 3D CG cut scenes and forthe time it was visually stunning and impressed gamersand critics everywhere. Since then it has only beenimproved upon further and made to look even better. What is more impressive,however, is some games managed to integrate 3D CG cut scenes in the backgroundwhile still allowing the in-game engine to run in the foreground. Most notable use ofthis is within the games Final Fantasy VIIIand Final Fantasy IX.

Another game that received critical acclaim and is one of the first for its time is MetalGear Solid. This game had a huge impact on the industry as it was a video game thatvery closely resembled a movie. The game included some of the most realisticlooking characters that could be achieved at the time and used a full cast ofexceptional voice actors. Previously, it would tend to only be games of the RPG genrethat truly focused on storyline. However, Metal Gear Solidan action game, focusedheavily on the narrative and delivered a very story driven experience that was filledwith believable characters, thousands of lines of dialogue and exciting plot twists. Thegame very closely resembled an action movie which no games at the time evenattempted. After this it wasnt just RPGs and Adventure games that attempted to addin a story but most genres began to do it.


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The Playstation also popularised many newgenres. One example of this being the survivalhorror genre that mainly resided on PC. Twogames that particularly drew attention to thisgenre were Silent Hill and the Resident Evilfranchise. The survival horror genre had beenattempted previously and had been done well

such as Sweet Home on the NES and Ghost House on the Sega Master System.However, these games did not receive much popularity. Horror games that did receivepopularity such as Castlevania and Splatterhouse were much more action-orientedand therefore cannot be considered survival horror.Resident Evil and Silent Hill weremuch more focused on puzzles and building up tension; closely resembling Alone inthe Darkon PC. These games were very popular and so it can be argued that this wasthe golden age of survival horror. The Playstation also helped popularise the

traditional Music/Rhythm genre. The game that did this wasDance Dance Revolution (known as Dancing Stage in Europe).This genre had previously received success in Japan in thearcades through games such as Guitar Freaks. Dance Dance

Revolution was one of the first games released in the West thatused a peripheral in order to play it. This genre became verypopular afterwards and its popularity continued until much later.

The third main console of this generation was the Nintendo 64. It was released in June1996 in Japan and despite its format flaws and less popularity it was superior to the

Sony Playstation in a number of ways. Firstly, the Nintendo 64 was in the lead in thebit wars as it was a 64-bit console as opposed to the Sony Playstation and SegaSaturn which were only 32-bit consoles.

The Nintendo 64, however, was not the first 64-bit console but it was in fact the Atari

Jaguar which was released in 1993. Atari attempted to jump from making 8-bitconsoles straight to making 64-bit consoles. Their main advertising campaign was thatthe consumer could jump past 32-bit and immediately began playing in 64-bit. Thisconsole failed and was the final attempt from Atari inthe console market. It had very few good games(Alien vs. Predator and Tempest 2000 are the onlynotable exclusives). Therefore, due to the failure ofthe Atari Jaguar the Nintendo 64 was the only 64-bitconsole on the market.

The main advantage that the Nintendo 64 had over the Sony Playstation was the

uniqueness of the graphics processor. The Nintendo 64s graphic chip was capable oftrilinear filtering unlike the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation. Trilinear filtering


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meant that textures could look smooth unlike the Saturn and Playstation where gameslooked much more pixelated. Therefore, generally Nintendo 64 games had bettergraphics (strong examples of this are The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask, Banjo-Tooie, Perfect Dark).

The Nintendo 64 was much better to produce 3D games for. However, the downsideof this is that it was much harder to produce 2D games for. Almost all Nintendo 64games used polygonal objects as opposed to pixelated sprites which were often used

in Saturn and PlayStation games. That is why big selling games like Castlevania:Symphony of the Nightwere not also created for Nintendo 64. The only 2D games thatappeared on Nintendo 64 that worked well were ones that used 3D backgrounds suchas Kirby 64.

The Nintendo 64 also introduced many things into the gaming industry that still standtoday. The first of which being the analogue stick. Up to this point controllers tendedto use digital pads as directional buttons and could only be used in four directions: up,down, left and right. The Nintendo 64s analogue stick could be used in eight

directions including each diagonal. The Nintendo 64 did not introduce the analoguestick. A few months before the release of the Nintendo 64 acontroller with an analogue stick known as the 3D controller wasreleased for the Sega Saturn and bundled with the gameNiGHTS into

Dreams. Even though this was the first use of an analogue stick it didnot achieve commercial success unlike the Nintendo 64s controller.

Another first for the games industry that the Nintendo 64 achieved

was controller vibration through the use of the Rumble Pak. TheRumble Pak was bundled with the game Lylat Wars (thefirst game to use controller vibration). The Rumble Pakplugged into the controller and provided haptic feedbackto the player through the use of vibration. Theseinventions had a great impact on the games industrybecause after the release of the Nintendo 64, Sony revisedtheir controller and released the Dualshock controller whichincluded both vibration and dual analogue sticks. Another thingthat the Nintendo 64 achieved was popularising the First-PersonShooter genre particularly the multiplayer aspect. The main

game that did this was Rares Goldeneye 007. This game is oftenpraised as one of the best multiplayer games of all time and


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started off a trend that continued into future generations.

In terms of handheld video game systems not much was achieved in this generation.Nintendo released the Game Boy Colour which was the first colour handheld releasedby Nintendo. However, this had already been achieved by the Sega Game Gear but

the Game Boy Colour was much more popular. Nintendo became the dominant namein the handheld market as there were no rival systems released in this generation.However, Nintendo did release what was one of the biggest failures in the video gameindustry: Virtual Boy. It was released in 1995 when the idea of virtual reality and 3Dtechnology was the latest craze. Nintendo tried to capitalise on this idea and releasedthe Virtual Boy. It used a combination of a pair of screens and mirrors to project animage that appeared to be proceeding towards the player. This was a first for thegaming industry as it was the first console to fully embrace 3D. Despite this it failedfor many reasons. The 24-bit 3D red graphics were not appealing and many playersclaimed that it gave them headaches after just 30 minutes of play.

Sixth Generation

Sega kickstarted the sixth generation quite early with the 1998 release of the SegaDreamcast. Sega hoped that the Sega Dreamcast would restore Segas reputation

which had been damaged by the Sega Saturn, 32x and Mega-CD. With early games such as Sonic Adventure, SoulCaliburand The House of The Dead 2 it was clear that thr3D graphics were superior to the Nintendo 64s. However,

there was not much hype created for the Dreamcast becausemost people were waiting for the Playstation 2 which was tobe released in 2000.

Consequently, the Dreamcast sold poorly and was

discontinued in 2002. Despite the Dreamcastssomewhat imediate failure it did have some merits. Aswith most Sega consoles, it was the best console todevelop arcade games and 2D fighters for. Pixelated

games were quickly dying down but games such asMarvel Vs. Capcom showed that they could still be donevery well. Although, the demand for these games wasrather niche and didnt contribute much to sales. TheDreamcast also had the first true free-roaming game in theform ofShenmue (pre-dating Grand Theft Auto 3 which isconsidered one of the best) which became an instant cult

classic. One of the biggest contributions that theDreamcast introduced was online play with other people using an internet connection.


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Although it was not greatly popular, games like Phantasy Star Online andBomberman Online showed the potential of online play which later became a hugesuccess. After the Dreamcast Sega began devoloping for other consoles. One of thebiggest shocks of the time was when Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was released on theNintendo Gamecube.

In 2000, Sony released what is currently the best selling console of all time: the SonyPlaystation 2. It sold over 154 million units. One of the biggest contributing factors tothe Playstation 2s success was that its proprietory Media were CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs. DVDs were significantly larger than CDs and could store much more dataallowing for even larger games. However, I dont believe that the allowance for larger

games is what sold the console to consumers. The Playstation 2 could also playmovies stored on DVDs and music CDs. Therefore it was a multi-media/multi-puropse machince. People would bo longer have to buy three systems in order towatch films, play games and listen to music. This was a major selling point for thePlaystation 2 and is one of the main reasons I believe it sold as well as it did. After

this almost every system released was a multi-media system or built even more on theconcept.

This generation saw the introduction of a massive computer company into the worldof video games. Microsoft released the Xbox. Whereas Segas consoles hardware is

modelled towards Arcade boards, Microsofts consoles are modelled towards PCs

which is why some games like Splinter Cell andMax Payne can achieve bettergraphics on Xbox compared to Playstation 2. Microsofts biggest success was the

launch gameHalo which some may argue is the sole reason thatthe Xbox was successful. It reintroduced the First-PersonShooter genre to consoles and followed the legacy of games such

as Goldeneye before it. Like Goldeneye,Halo included amultiplayer mode which saw much success and can also beconsidered the sole reason that LAN (Local Area Connection)parties became popular. A LAN party is when you connectseveral Xboxes together in order to play multiplayer on severalTVs with more than 4 players.

A year after the Xbox was released Microsoft released Xbox Live which was anonline service for the Xbox. Like the Dreamcast, allowed players to connect theirconsoles online using an internet connection and play against people around theworld. This service gained great popularity compared to Segas online service which

could be due to a few reasons. Firstly, the Xbox simply had better games that weremore popular such as Unreal Championship andHalo 2. Secondly, Xbox Live offered


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more social aspects such as a Friends List and voice chat.

Shortly after the Xbox was released Nintendo released the Nintendo Gamecube. TheNintendo Gamecube was very similar to the Playstation 2 and Xbox and didnt offer

many contributions to the video game industry. However, one that was introducedlater after its launch was wireless controllers in the form of the Wavebird wirelesscontroller. It used radio frequency to communicate and could reach 20 feet away from

the console.

Not much happened in terms of handheld gaming during this generation. Nintendo

released the Game Boy Advance which was very popular and was essentially aportable SNES with slightly better capabilities. However, one thing to note during thisgeneration was Nokias N-Gage. It was a phone that was also a full-fledged handheldgaming system. It wasnt very popular as mobile gaming wasnt very popular.However, it was the first of its kind which will see a grow in popularity in latergenerations.

Seventh Generation

There are 4 things that this generation is particularly known for: HD graphics andextremely realistic graphics; a massive push for online gaming; downloadable gamesand Mobile gaming; and motion gaming.

Firstly, lets talk about the introduction of HD graphics. The Xbox 360 was released

in 2005 and was the first console released that offered HD graphics. HD graphicswere of better quality, clearer, smoother and overall just better looking than anything

that had been seen previously. The PlayStation 3 followed soon after in 2006 andoffered similar specs to the Xbox 360 although was slightly more powerful and


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boasted a Blu Ray drive which allowed it to read Blu Ray discs which weresignificantly larger than DVDs in terms of storage. Thanks to the power of these twoconsoles developers were able to make games look very realistic and as close aspossible to real-life. Games that particularly show off this realism areMetal GearSolid 4,UnchartedandHeavy Rain.

One game to particularly note for realism isL.A. Noire. L.A. Noire features DepthAnalysis's newly developed technology for the film and video game industries calledMotionScan that utilizes 32 cameras to record an actor's every wince, swallow, and

blink which is then transferred to in-game animation.The game also incorporates real actors in the gamerather than just their voices. This is the closest agame has ever come to a film. Games were justgenerally becoming more like film. Developers nolonger cared much about censorship in terms ofswearing, violence and sex or nudity In fact, a lot of

games were fuelled by this. HD graphics didnt only make games look more realistic

but they also improved the look of games that used more cartoony styled graphics.

Video games in this generation also try to take a much more artistic approach andcreate stories, worlds and unique experiences that can only be seen in the video gameindustry. These games tend to be rather niche but often acquire cult followings. Someexamples of games that take this approach areEl Shaddai and Catherine.

This generation saw a massive push in online gaming where so many games wereincorporating it in some way. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 both had onlineservices that boasted millions of active users. A lot of the success of online gaming isdue to popular games like the Call of Duty franchise, theHalo Franchise and theGears of Warfranchise. Most of online gaming is seen in the shooter, sports or racinggenre of games but it has branched off into many other genres. In fact, some

franchises that were single-player only decided to incorporate versus multiplayer suchasAssassins Creedand Uncharted. This can be dangerous as a lot of franchises have


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started to shift away from their single player routes (like Shadowrun) and some gamesare just getting tacked-on online multiplayer because developers are worried thatgames will not sell without it due to the type of gamers these days.

Due to the massive success of the iPod andiPad mobile gaming has become adominant part of the market. Many peopletend to avoid buying consoles altogetherbecause they can just buy an iPad anddownload games much cheaper, quickerand have it all stored on the iPad itself.Downloadable games also became a largepart of gaming during this generation thanks to the Xbox Live Arcade, the PlayStationNetwork and the Wii Ware. Downloadable and mobile games are generally created bysmaller, less known independent companies and are released much more frequentlythan retail games. Because of the large amount of games coming out for theseplatforms developers are forced to be much more creative in order to make theirgames stand out and not lost under the masses. This is strength because it leads tomassive indie hits such asAngry Birds and Castle Crashers. However, it is also a

weakness as, like with the Atari 2600, it can also lead to an abundance of games oflow quality or that just dont sell at all. A lot of the most creative games that arereleased that are very unique and that sometimes cross genres are released asdownloadable games. This is because it is much less of a financial risk to releasedownloadable games and so independent companies can take more risks with games.Some examples of this areLostwinds on WiiWare andJourney on PlayStationNetwork.

The last thing that has really shown an increase in this generation is Motion Gaming.This is where the player is required to do more than just press buttons to play games.The release of the Nintendo Wii in 2006 was the first majorstep in motion gaming. Unlike the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3the Wii did not have HD graphics. Instead, its major sellingpoint was the controller which was designed like a remote.You operated it by tilting it, waving it, pointing it at the screenand performing several other motions. In 2010 Microsoft

improved upon motion gaming with the release of Kinect. In anutshell, Kinect was a camera that could detect your bodys


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movement in order to play games. The Kinect attempted to get rid of the controllerand make the player them self the controller. Sony also tried to capitalise on motiongaming with the release of the PlayStation Move although it did not see the samelevel of success as either the Wii or the Kinect. Motion gaming, in particular, madethe divide between Hard-core gamer and Casual gamer much more apparent. A lot of

people owned Wiis and Kinects just to play fitness games or party games. The factthat the Wiia less powerful consoleoutsold both its competitors shows thatmotion gaming and innovation is more important to the masses than HD graphics.

In terms of handheld gaming in this generation, the best selling handheld of all timewas released: The Nintendo DS. The DS was the first handheld to fully embrace 3Dgraphics. But the most innovative thing about the DS was its dual screens, the bottomof which was a touch screen. This allowed for many unique experiences to be createdfor the Nintendo DS and was a very big influence as most handheld consoles after thispoint used touch screen technology.

Sony also released the PlayStation Portable. The PSP was the first handheld to usediscs as its media format. It used small discs known as UMDs. The PSP focusedheavily on graphics and was comparable to the PS2 in terms of graphical and soundcapabilities. It was also like the PS2 in that it focused heavily on being a multimediadevice and was advertised as such. As well as play games it could play music, playvideo, view photos and other things. The PSP was also the first handheld console to

feature an analogue stick.


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Eighth Generation and the Future of Gaming

Although this generation has only recently started this generation has already beenfilled with innovation. So far, mainly in terms of handheld gaming. The first handheldconsole released was Nintendos 3DS. It included an auto stereoscopic screen which

allowed the projection of 3D images without the use of glasses. This was not only afirst for the video game industry but was a first for electronic entertainment ingeneral. The 3DS also has a built in gyro sensor for motion controls and augmentedreality technology.

Earlier this year Sony released the Sony Playstation Vita. The Playstation Vita hadmany never-before-seen features. These included dual analogue sticks on a handheldconsole, a front touch screen and a rear touch pad and HD graphics on a handheld.

So far all that has been shown off in terms of new consoles being released thisgeneration is Nintendos Wii U which is set for release November 30th in Europe. TheWii Us most unique feature is the controller that features a 6.2 inch HD screen built

onto it. It features a built-in touch screen, which can either supplement or replicate thegameplay shown on the main display, and can function as a standalone screen withoutthe use of a television screen.

Weve come so far in so little time and I dont believe were going to see as much

change in the video game industry in the next 30-40 years as weve seen in theprevious 30-40 years. Although its always improving were actually coming to ourlimit in terms of graphical capability due to technical limitations and what the humaneye can handle. This means that companies have to think about new ways to innovateand to sell their consoles which has clearly been shown by the few consoles releasedalready. We have yet to see what Microsoft and Sony are going to offer us in this


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generation. One thing that Square Enix have shown us is the potential of graphics onnext-gen consoles.

One problem with the video game industry nowadays is that competing video gameconsoles are becoming identical from a technical perspective. Soon one game will be

able to be made identically on 4, potentially 5, different consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, WiiU, Playstation Vita and 3DS although perhaps not as its not as powerful as the other

4 consoles.) One of the biggest drawbacks this has is that the Playstation Vita iscapable of playing games to a PS3 standard. This has set a trend where Sony release alot of games on both Vita and PS3. This means that there are less original games onthe Playstation Vita and is why, in my opinion, the 3DS is seeing stronger sales thanthe Playstation Vita at the moment. Because more people own PS3s as it has been outlonger and owning a Vita seems pointless as theyre very similar. Despite this, anddespite the rise in mobile gaming, handheld sales are still rather strong. Does thismean that Microsoft will try to capitalise and also a release a handheld system similarto Sonys Playstation Vita? This could likely happen as both the Xbox and Xbox 360

were very similar to Sonys Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 respectfully. If this wereto happen there would be even more products on the market that are identical and theonly factor that would matter when deciding between them would be exclusive games

which are becoming less common.

Another problem is that eventually (and probably more sooner than later) distributionof games will become fully digital since its cheaper to manufacture and will stop theused game trade. This has a lot of issues. This means that video game shops and usedgames will become obsolete. Digital distribution is less user-friendly than retail shops.Nothing stops a company from pulling a game from a digital distribution store whichmeans once a game has been pulled it can no longer be purchased by consumers. Thishas already happened. An example of this is whenRock Bandwas removed from theiOS store due to licensing issues between Harmonix and EA. Also, this could rendersome games unplayable which means that content someone has purchased has beenlost.

To some up, the future of gaming could be very different to what it is now. Not due tochanges and innovation in the games themselves, but due to changes in industry as awhole. Could we see another big company dropping out of the console wars like Atariand Sega beforehand? It could happen.

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