Where Will Video Games Go Next?

Video games have been around for years. The first video game was made by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann on a cathode ray tube in 1947. This was probably amazing, at the time. If you looked at it now, you'd wonder why it was made. Of course, you have to start somewhere. The first home video game console was the Magnavox Odyssey. It was a very simple console. Most of the game were things, like Pong. It actually ran off of a circuit card, which is similar to a game cartridge. It also featured the first light gun, which detected light from the screen, but didn't work well, because just pointing it at a lightbulb would register as a hit.

After that, many more consoles came out. The Atari, NES, Sega Master System, TurboGrafx-16, SNES, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, etc. The list goes on for a while. Obviously, as time goes on, things improve. More advanced technology comes out, allowing them to make 3D graphics, use different control schemes, add more effects, and better sound. The SNES was the first console to use a form of 3D graphics. They also started making handheld consoles. Like the Gameboy, Atari Lynx, and Sega Game Gear. Apple even made a console. It was called the Apple Pippin. It didn't do very well; only selling 42,000 units.

Obviously, video cames started becoming a big thing. More and more people became interested. The biggest video game companies today are, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Microsoft has only created 2 consoles, but are doing well. However, Nintendo has been around for 6 generations, giving them much more time to dominate the market. Sony is doing well, too. With the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Portable, they've made plenty of money. In 1989, Nintendo had asked Sony to create a disc drive for them, so that they could have a disc based console, thus giving them the ability to work with 600MB of storage for a video game. Sony accepted the offer, but wanted to keep all of the rights to themselves and Nintendo rejected them.

Today, we have the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and the PSP. All are huge improvements, over the original consoles, obviously. Nintendo is dominating the market with around 21.15 million sold. Microsoft, with about 17.7 milion units sold, is not far behind. But the fact that the Xbox 360 was released a year before the Wii, indicates that it is definitely not doing as well. The PS3, with only 10.49 million sold, is far behind. This is probably due to the high cost of their console. I'm sure the price will drop fairly low, after a while, though. Anyway, we can expect these consoles to be on the market for a few more years.

The question is? Where will this all go? After a while, how can you improve the graphics or sounnd quality any more? After they hit the point where games are as real as real life, there'lll be nothing more to do. Sure, we can still make games, but after a while, people will run out of ideas. Video games will probably have to end, sometime. Of course, something like a virtual MMORPG could go on forever, and that would be amazing. But even if that's created, where will video games go next?