Entertainment Part I- Video Games
This being my first article, I assumed I would start from the most logical place: The beginning. The following is a brief introduction to video games: Where we've been, where we are now, and where we may be going.
Looking at some of the current generation of video games, it is hard to imagine it all started with a little white ball plinking back and forth between two little white paddles. Starting way back in 1972, the first video games appeared on the scene, starting a craze that would sweep the nation. For more on the Pong phenomenon, see David Winter's fascinating site at www.pong-story.com. There you will find not only a concise history of Pong, and its many clones, but some very well written general video game history as well.
Magnavox's Odyssey system was the first true home console, although it was a short-lived run for the limited system. In video game history, the first success that springs to mind was that of Atari.
Atari was the first company to successfully package and market video games to arcades, previously dominated only by pinball machines and pool tables, as well as home users. My first home video game console was an Atari 2600. The controllers killed your hands, the games made you pound your head against the floor, and yet I spent hours in front of our living room computer playing these games. Atari started a national craze that was quickly copied by many other video game designers. The games remained much the same, however, and soon the limited home video game market was saturated.
The crash that followed was a black time in video game history. To read more about the rise and fall of Atari, you may want to visit the Atari Historical Society's very informative website at www.atari-history.com.
Many industry pundits at the time assumed that video games were no longer a viable industry and would soon go the way of poodle skirts and hoola-hoops. We have since learned to ignore industry pundits.
One of the first companies to try to convince retail outlets that video games could still sell was Nintendo Company, Ltd. Based in Kyoto, Japan, Nintendo partnered with Mitsubishi in 1975 to begin making video game systems. In 1980, Nintendo of America was formed, and Nintendo began marketing their "Game & Watch" line in America (An ancestor of the existing Gameboy systems). In 1981 Nintendo began marketing a new coin-operated arcade game known as Donkey Kong. This game starred an Ape known as Donkey Kong, who was commissioned to rescue a princess from the clutches of an evil carpenter named Mario. (Yes, THAT Mario)
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