History of Gaming: Part 3.

The 1980's from what I can gather was a weird decade. Bad hair, the cold war, strikes, riots, the Falklands and Thatcher, yet everyone says it was a great time to live, for the video game industry it saw a massive shift in the dominating market. At the start of the 80's, Atari dominated with its' 2600 but as the life the console dragged on the market became saturated with too many consoles and too many low quality games. This was the beginning of the end for Atari.

In 1982, Atari had released the E.T video game. Based off the hugely popular film Atari payed quite heavily to get the rights to this game, thinking it would make them lots of money in return. Unfortunately the game had to be made from scratch within 5 weeks in order to be on shelves for Christmas, because of this the game was terrible, leaving Atari with millions of unsold copies which were apparently dumped in a landfill, as Atari tried to hide their shame.(Raiford, 2009) E.T was the final nail in the coffin for Atari and they couldn't survive the North American Video Game Crash that happened in 83 from over saturation. The rising Japanese market was unaffected and so was the PC gaming market.

E.T - Is that Bert in the bottom left corner? [1]

In 1985 Nintendo released the NES which was an instant hit, almost single handedly reviving the US console market. This saw the first shift in power to Japan, ending the US dominance. In 87 Sega released the Master System (Probably one of my earliest gaming memories) in direct competition with Nintendo, but failed to make an impact. A year later, in 88, Sega released the Mega Drive (Named the Genesis too) which was one of the first 16-bit consoles but yet again failed to make a splash because of the release of Super Mario Bros.3 on the NES. At the end of the 80's, Nintendo released the Game Boy with Tetris, defining portable gaming and making Nintendo seem unstoppable with hit after hit.

Alex the Kid for the Master System - Pretty sure I couldn't get past this level... [2]

Through out the 80's there were many consoles released, such as the Coleco Telstar, the Emerson Arcadia, the Coleco Vision or the Sega SG100. All of these consoles though were pretty much dead on arrival, failing to sell and only adding to the saturated market. While this was happening the PC gaming market was rising, causing more strain on the console market and continued to do so through the 90's

The start of the 90's saw the end of the Soviet Union and then the end of the Cold War, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, to celebrate all this David Hasselhoff sang in a sparkly coat. Unfortunately, it also saw the start of the first Gulf War and the terrible Yugoslavian War, one of the worst wars since World War II. Console gaming was on the rise again with the release of the SNES in 1992, Nintendo's own 16-bit console. This lead to a console war between Nintendo and Sega, where they'd often use aggressive marketing to try and undermine their opponents. (Scullion C, 2009)

90's Wall of Text [3]

Sega released the Game Gear in '92 to try and combat Nintendo's Game Boy. I was lucky enough to play my sister's from time to time and the thing was the size of brick, but it did have a colour screen. Atari also released their portable gaming machine, the Lynx, but like Sega failed to beat Nintendo despite a colour screen as well. While this was happening the arcades where in decline.

1993 saw the release of the Atari Jaguar. The Jaguar was a 64-bit console, making it very a powerful machine but the console was difficult to program for, making good games a rarity. Things were on the rise for Atari however once games like Doom, Wolfentstein and Alien vs. Predator were released, but this didn't last long as in 1995 a new competitor was about to come into the gaming market. Sony had spent 4 years developing the Playstation and sold over 100,00 consoles in the first weekend, with it's new disk based format. Atari tried to compete but was quickly forgotten.

Sony Playstation - My first console [4]

Nintendo's response to the Playstation was the Nintendo 64, still using the older cartridges, was released in 1996. This time Nintendo didn't steal the market, Sony had already done that with clever marketing and an earlier release and because of this Nintendo was playing catch up for the first time. (Scullion C, 2009) Resident Evil was released for the Playstation in '96, using pre-rendered backgrounds and real-time poly models for the characters. 1997 saw Golden Eye released for the Nintendo 64, created by Rare the game was a massive success and now has a lasting legacy. Final Fantasy 7 was also released  in '97 for the Playstation and in 1998 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released for Nintendo's console. Both consoles had their fair share of great games.

Resident Evil - "I bet you're dying to smell these roses!" [5]

Sega in 1998 also had their last attempt at market domination with the release of  the Dreamcast. The console didn't launch well in either Japan or America, but in Europe, Sega's strongest region, the Dreamcast shattered records. The launch line-up was probably one of the best ever, but after this the games couldn't keep up with the likes of Mario and Metal Gear and the company was hemorrhaging money in the US and Japanese markets. When Sony released the Playstation 2 in 2001 this spelled the end for the Dreamcast, the decision was made to stop production of the Dreamcast and focus on making games for other consoles. (Fahs T, 2010)

During the 90's Bandai were also releasing consoles, but they didn't stop the epic battle between Nintendo, Sega and Sony. The 00's saw another competitor step into the gaming market to essentially create the 3-way console war that we have right now, all the while PC gaming is still sitting in the background, not effected too much by the shifting console market yet never rising to the top either.


References & Notes
Fahs, T. (2010). IGN Presents the History of Dreamcast. Available: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2010/09/10/ign-presents-the-history-of-dreamcast?page=10. Last accessed 15th Nov 2013.

Raiford, Guins. (2009). Concrete and Clay: The Life and Afterlife of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600.. Design and Culture. 1 (3), 345-364.

Scullion, C. (2009). History Of Nintendo: N64. Available: http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/12769/features/history-of-nintendo-n64/. Last accessed 15th Nov 2013.

Scullion, C. (2009). History Of Nintendo: SNES. Available: http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/12580/features/history-of-nintendo-snes/. Last accessed 15th Nov 2013.

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/history.jsp

http://classicgames.about.com/od/history/a/Atari2600Histor_2.htm

http://www.atariage.com

http://en.wikipedia.org

http://us.playstation.com/corporate/about/theplaystationstory/

[1]http://killscreendaily.com/articles/interviews/creator-worst-videogame-world-sees-
new-life-bdsm-film-and-therapy/
[2]http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/11/10/replay-alex-kidd-in-miracle-world.aspx
[3] http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/viewer.php?mode=article&id=24541
[4]http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gamelife/2012/09/ps1.jpg
[5]http://cdn.mashthosebuttons.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/resident-evil-1.jpg