Gaming Through The Years
We all are familiar with gaming and some of the consoles, but many people who enjoy gaming are unaware of the first successful consoles that made the ones we have today be in the spotlight. So many eras in gaming have happened over the years since the early 70s. This informative article will be diving into the details about ten consoles that were invented and how it affected the development of gaming today.
The Impact of Retro Gaming Development
As we all know, in order for something to be successful, there has to be trial and error. We needed unsuccessful consoles to be made in order to learn from the mistakes that caused the downfall so they could be avoided and improved in future projects. After all, there is a reason modern games are so different from the retro ones. It didn’t all start out with realistic graphics and perfect audio.
Back when games were first being invented, advanced technology was not yet made. This caused developers to have to use regular PCs and low-level programming languages, which is considered low quality nowadays, but back then the quality was considered excellent. “In the 70’s and 80’s professional games developers were using cross-assemblers to develop games on a PC and then send the output bits and bytes to the arcade hardware via an RS232 cable.” (Copy and pasted from quora.com).
As impressive as it was back then, game developers were inspired to make more efficient, high-quality technology that could improve the development of games. Today, there are many different softwares to choose from to develop games. For example, many games on mobile were developed using Unity.
The 10 Consoles
The first console that was ever invented was called Magnavox’s Odyssey. It was released in 1972, and the first game that was made for it was Table Tennis Game. This console was created by a small team at Sanders Associates that was led by Ralph H. Baer. Magnavox Odyssey was discontinued in 1975 due to poor marketing, and there were not enough sold to keep the console on the market.
The second popular console invented was the Atari 2600, which was released in 1977. The first game that was added was called Pong. This console was created by David Bushnell and Ted Dabney, who originally founded Atari in June of 1972. Unfortunately, Atari was eventually unsuccessful due its competition that it could not keep up with financially. The Atari was discontinued in 1992.
The third popular console that was released is Sega’s SG-1000. It came out July 15th, of 1983, and was Sega’s first release to the home video game hardware business. Sega was originally an arcade game business, but switched to making home video games due to arcade games becoming unpopular. The first game released to the SG-1000 was Congo Bongo, which started as an arcade game but was then released on the SG-1000. The SG-1000 was discontinued in 1985 due to poor commercial success and its competition with Nintendo.
The fourth popular gaming console released was the TurboGrafx 16. It was released October 30th of 1987. It was designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. The TurboGrafx 16 was also the first 16-bit gaming console invented. The first game released onto it was called Fighting Street. The console was discontinued in 1994 due to the lack of support from third-party software developers.
November 22nd of 1994, Sega released the Sega Saturn. It was the first 32-bit gaming console that was put on the market, and was the fifth popular gaming console released. The first game released to this console was Virtua Fighter. The main competitors with the Sega Saturn was the Playstation and Nintendo 64, which both were very popular. The Sega Saturn was very successful in Japan, but unfortunately failed to make it in the U.S. due to losing market share.
Now I bet you were waiting for this one. Sony’s Playstation was released December 3rd of 1994 and was the sixth popular gaming console released. This console was very successful, and though this specific one is no longer made, Sony continues to release newer versions of the Playstation. The first game it came with was called Crime Crackers. This console was the most successful out of its two competitors, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64. Unlike many other popular retro consoles, the Playstation was discontinued for a productive reason in 2006. Instead of discontinuing it due to a downfall, Sony decided to move on and create a newer, up to date model to keep profiting off of Playstation.
The Nintendo 64 was the seventh popular gaming console released June 23rd of 1996. This console was popular worldwide, and was overall very successful. The first game released onto the Nintendo 64 was Super Mario 64. Nintendo discontinued this console in 2002, but Nintendo itself remains to be one of the most popular gaming companies today. Nintendo continued to make very successful systems, each one being even more up to date than the last.
Sony released the famous Playstation 2 October 26th of the year 2000. It was the eighth popular gaming console released, and was very successful for many years. The first game released on this console was Armored Core 2, but was first released August 3rd of the year 2000. The Playstation 2 was named the best selling gaming console of all time. This console was discontinued in 2013 due to the game style being out of date, so Sony released newer up to date gaming tech.
The Nintendo GameCube was the ninth popular console released September 14th of 2001. The GameCube was not as successful as Playstation since it only lasted around 6 years, but was still a very popular console during the 2000s. The first GameCube game was Luigi’s Mansion. The GameCube was discontinued in 2007 due to Nintendo wanting to work on newer projects such as the Wii and DS.
Now last but not least, the Nintendo Wii. This was the tenth popular gaming console released November 19th of 2006. It was a very successful system and loved by many. This system was very well known for the game Wii Sports, which was the first game released on the system. The Wii was discontinued in 2013, but many people continued to play with the system until Nintendo shut down all online Wii servers in 2024.
The Fame Continues
Many different game companies tried their luck over the years, and even though not all were successful, it still made a huge impact on the evolution of gaming. Before anyone calls the retro systems useless, they should remember that there wouldn’t be high quality systems today without the older systems in the past. Retro gaming consoles deserve to be remembered even if not all of them made it to modern gaming.
The two major gaming companies that continue to shine today are Sony’s Playstation and Nintendo. These companies continue to release new systems, games, and other enjoyable content for their fans. So far Nintendo has released twelve systems over the years, and Playstation has released five. There will most likely be more systems that get released in the future and enjoyed by many.
Links
If you want to learn more about these consoles, I suggest checking out the links below. Thank you for reading!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SG-1000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboGrafx-16
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_(console)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameCube
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