Video Games: a Brief History

It all began in Japan in 1889 with the Marufuku Company that was founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi. By 1907 the company was manufacturing Western playing cards. The Nintendo Playing Card Company became the company's new name in 1951. "Nintendo" means "leave luck to heaven" in Japanese. Over the next 80 years, several companies were formed and were instrumental in creating video games. The five largest companies who pioneered the video game industry are Nintendo, Atari, Sony, Microsoft and Sega.

In the beginning, Philips established a company to manufacture incandescent lamps and other electrical products while Panasonic/Bell Labs worked on a mini transistor radio. Coleco began selling a plastic-forming machine and Sony became a big success selling transistor radios in Japan.

Loral, A company that manufactured complex military electronics built the first interactive game for use on a television set. Sega was formed and produced coin-operated games and a Tokyo jukebox company. The Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York invented the first table-tennis like game and displayed it on a 15-inch monitor. The inventor, physicist Higinbotham didn't patent the device. Ten years later, in 1968, a defense contractor for the military, Ralph Baer, succeeded in creating an interactive video tennis game and modified a toy gun. He patented the video tennis game and got the credit for inventing it.

Also in the 1960's, an MIT student, Steve Russell, invented "Spacewar", the first interactive computer game. It was a Digital PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) minicomputer which displayed CRT screen graphics. Russell never profited from his "Spacewar" game. Another student at the University of Utah's engineering school, Nolan Bushnell, saw Steve Russell's "Spacewar" game three years later while working at a carnival arcade and envisioned an arcade filled with computer games. He believed his dream would never come true because he thought it would be much too expensive to make his idea a reality.

In 1970, Magnavox licensed Ralph Baer's TV game. Nolan Bushnell, the same year, turned his daughter's bedroom into a computer workshop and created a hardwired version of "Spacewar" to a television set. Bushnell was later hired by Nutting Associates, an arcade game manufacturer, to rebuild the new company and released "Computer Space" in November 1971. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney later founded Atari, the company who released "Pong" as one of the first home-use video games. "Computer Space" was later cloned in 1972 by a game company called For-Play and renamed "Star Trek". Many people had difficulty playing the complicated game so it was not a success. However, it was established as the basic form of all arcade games to come.

Atari (Parent Company Warner Communications) was sold to Jack Tramiel in 1984 who renamed the company Atari Corporation. Their agreement for the sale was that all Atari Games must always include the word "Game" after "Atari" on its logo. In 1987, Atari sold cartridges for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) including a version of "Tetris". Later they sought legal remedy because of the rights to 'Tetris" and also Nintendo's lockout chip, which prevented third parties from creating unauthorized games. Atari Corporation disassembled in 2003 after a slump in game sales. Another division of Atari was renamed Midway Games West, which still produce games for home systems.

Nintendo began developing home-use video games in 1977 and started selling coin-operated arcade video games using microcomputers in 1978. Two years later, Nintendo announced changing their name to Nintendo of America, Inc. and big changes began to happen in video game technology. "Donkey Kong" was released in 1981 and quickly became the hottest selling coin-operated machine in the industry. In 1983, Nintendo began selling a home video game console with a CPU and PPU (Picture Processing Unit). In 1984, the double screened interactive C.O.V.G., the VS. System for arcades was released. By 1985, NES starts selling in America. The system R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) and games "Duck Hunt" and "super Mario Bros. Mario and Luigi" became a huge success. In 1987, the video game "Legend of Zelda" became the first new home video game to exceed sales of one million units. Game Boy was introduced in 1989 as the first portable hand-held game system with interchangeable games.

The early 1990's brought 16-bit Super NES, Super Mario World, Super NES, Mouse Accessory, Zelda sequel, Super RX Chip, Star Fox, Super Game Boy, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, 32-bit Virtual Boy and Yoshi's Island: Super Mario World 2. The quality of ACM graphics was enhanced by Nintendo.

By this time, the implementation of the video game rating system was developed and Nintendo helped set this up for the entire industry. On June 23, 1996, the N-64 was launched in Japan; the world's first true 64-bit home video game. Over 500,000 systems were sold the first day. On September 29, 1996, the N-64 was introduced in the U.S. The initial shipment of 350,000+ units were sold out in three days. It was proclaimed to be "the greatest video game of all time." In 1998, GameBoy Color was released and introduced "Pokemon" a breakthrough game concept which brought on a nationwide craze of Pokemon products.

In 2001-2002, Nintendo released Game Cube and GameBoy Advance around the world. The Game Cube System was the first to use optical discs instead of cartridges for its games. A lighter and smaller version of GameBoy, the GameBoy Advance SP was released in 2003. It was designed to be folded in a clamshell design to become pocket portable and featured a rechargeable battery and backlit screen. Also that year, the Nintendo DS (Dual Screen) and DS Lite were embraced by millions worldwide. They included built-in Wi-Fi capability and a touch screen.

In 2006 the Nintendo Wii with its several advanced features, including motion-sensitive remote controllers, was introduced. That unit also has Wi-Fi capability. Many claim the Wii to be the best selling, latest generation console system in the world.

The Sony P.S. began development in 1990 headed by engineer, Ken Kutaragi. It was designed as a multi-media entertainment unit which could read and play audio CD's, both with video and computer language. Sony later came out with the P.S.2, P.S.3, and P.S.P.

Sega produced and developed an 8-bit video game console in 1987 in Japan. Two years before they began working on their SG-1000 (Sega Genesis) to improve video hardware and increase RAM. These earlier systems had a slot for "Sega Cards" but were later replaced by a designed console including an FM sound chip, Rapid Fire Unit and 3-D glasses adapter.

Sega's game mascot character, Sonic the Hedgehog, was introduced to compete with Nintendo's "Mario" in 1991. Many believed Hedgehog was very familiar to the Mario series. Neither the Japanese Sega Master System nor the U.S. version of the Master System became commercially successful, primarily due to Nintendo's strong competition. In Europe, the Master System was very successful because Nintendo did not sell their units in these smaller-market countries. In 2008, Sega Games will be available to download on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console in North America, Europe and Japan.

Several companies have been instrumental in creating popular video game systems, but Nintendo is believed to be the all-time leader of video game systems.