(This is the second part of a 3 part post, remember to visit the first one before seeing this one)
What is that? A recreational, you see what thing ...
This is not any recreational, it is the first recreational in history. This machine was created by the fascination of a Stanford student when he saw SpaceWar !.
The idea was simple, after founding a company, they wanted to recreate the SpaceWar! in a machine that operated with coins, thus advertising the machine much more. PDP-11 was called this machine, and with a price of $ 20,000; although later it would change its name to GalaxyGame. Initially it had a price of 10 cents per game, which was quite expensive for the time.
They decided to change the prototype, and create a computer that operated up to 8 recreational simultaneously. Easier amortizing the investment. Pretty successful tube at Stanford University, where it was placed until 1979 when it was stored. Currently, it is a very important object in the history of videogames, and is in a museum in California.
It's time for Atari, they create Computer Space, when Nolan Bushnell (director of the company) discovers the famous SpaceWar !. The idea was to place a recreational game with the game in a recreational room. For which they did not have problems.
In 1968 the Data General Nova, a computer at a price of $ 3995, went on the market, well below the average price of computers at that time, and the engineer thought of using it to put his idea into action.
The first prototype did not work because it was too slow to be playable, and in 1970 the prototype was abandoned.
They created another prototype, which did not have a CPU, since it was very expensive at that time and would make the prototype too expensive. They created most of the components of this recreational, and so came the first prototype called Computer Space that in 1971 was placed in a bar near the campus of Stanford. Thanks to its proximity to the campus, this machine had an incredible success which encouraged Nutting (its creator) to produce the Computer Space in series, but this idea did not work, since they did not have the success that was expected; since the games were very complicated for a public that was not university. They only got $ 250 for their work. As far as Bushnell and Dabney, those who composed Nutting Associates finalized their contract. And in 1972 they had copyright problems, so they changed the name of the device to Atari.
Bushnell was in 1972 at a Magnavox conference that took place in California. So he decided to play Ping-Pong, a game that had new console. After this hired Alan Alcorn, Alan worked on a version of the Ping-Pong game arcade, which they called PONG.
t was a small advance since his old title, the Baer. The PONG achieved a huge success in salons.
The first 11 units of this device that was manufactured in series were sold with ease, and thanks to that capital inflow Atari improved its facilities. The same happened with the next round, which had 50 PONG machines.
There came a time when Atari was overwhelmed with work, which encouraged Bushnell to ask for a $ 50,000 loan and go looking for employees, who were not the best to be told. He had addicts to heroin, hashish etc ... That created the stereotype that Atari was a "hippie" company; even so Bushnell managed to attend the 150 PONG that was hired.
The country was filled with PONG machines, the game maddened the population. Atari in turn helped the Odyssey sell more.
So it could be said that Atari made the industry take off, and without the Odyssey it would not have been possible. So the Odyssey and Atari are responsible for you are reading this today. Since this is a forum for a video game.
The success of the PONG was tran brutal that restructured all the business of the entertainment and the videojuegos was put ahead in quality, innovation etcetera to the physical games of the time.
Bushnell held parties to encourage his workers to work even more by helping with drug incentive; which did not turn out to be counterproductive, it even helped him to get better prototypes to each one more innovative.
Its competitors did not stop taking copies of the PONG that they took years ago; however, Atari released new hits such as Space Race, Gotcha, Quadrapong, Touch Me, Tank, Qwak! o Gran Trak 10. With each video game that Atari brought out, it was the birth of a new videogame genre.
In 1975 Atari sold up to 13 million Telegames Pong, which allowed PONG to play in your own home. For what was one of the first domestic consoles.
What you see up there is perhaps the biggest contribution to the industry that Intel made and has made. Known for their processors, they created the Intel 4004, a microprocessor that was aimed at a calculator, but Nutting Associates used it to run a Bally machine, the prototype was called Spirit of 76, and Atari set another milestone in the videogame history. The Spirit Of 76 was the first recreational that used digital technology instead of the classic TTL cirquetry which required maintenance 'by hand' soldering, screwing etc ... The virtual technology eliminates that need, being much easier to control and program the machine, so many video game developers echoed the news. This technology facilitated everything, including graphic options, gameplay, etc. far beyond what TTL technology allowed.
Videogames were no longer created by engineers, they were already programmers and that has remained that way to this day.
In the middle of 1975 Gun Fight leaves an arcade of Bally Midway. In this game for the first time two 'human persons' were seen fighting each other, creating the fight genre, also inducing the industry new concepts of control, direction etc ...
The TTL technology told us goodbye in 1976.
Steve Jobs, then president of Apple Computer created the first version of Breakout. Bushnell offered $ 100 for each chip that someone managed to remove from the plates of their games, and it was Jobs who accepted the challenge. He managed with the help of a friend to reduce the chips to 42, making $ 5000 of which 350 gave them to his friend, telling him that they only paid 700 for the work.
Atari failed to reproduce that prototype, and hired an engineer who managed to do it with 100 chips. The video game for which it was used went on sale in 1976 obtaining an instant and brutal success. And everyone today, has ever seen the Breakout.
Violence in videogames ... Who is not fed up to listen to psychologists and different people entitled in a thousand different things saying that video games are violent? What makes us murderers, who serve as a military inspiration, even a terrorist? This is nothing new, and was born in 1976 with the Death Race, a driving game that consisted in running over as many zombies as possible.
Exidy, the creator, soon withdrew many machines; however, the orders increased with this controversy. And is considered by many the first controversial video game in history.
Atari is not far behind with the innovative titles, and they take out another driving game. The Night Driver programmed by Dave Sheppard could be the first simulation videogame in history, since it tried to simulate driving including a kind of cockpit that simulated a vehicle.
In 1970, the first personal computers began to appear, a luxury that matched a few, and the first was IBM.
Although in the first moments of the birth of these computers, they lacked a monitor, so the only way to visualize was through the slow printers of the time.
Thanks to the success of the recreational activities, the creation of videogames was encouraged on this platform, creating conversational or turn-based video games on this platform.
Meanwhile, new personal computers such as the Altair 8800 or the KIM-1 were making their appearance in the market. Steve Wozniak, after finishing his work with the Breakout of Atari, and having sold his first Apple I, had decided to build a more powerful personal computer, a machine that would have graphics in color, sound and connectors for the game controllers and for the television receivers. Together with Steve Jobs he presented his idea to Nolan Bushnell, but he rejected it. Finally, with the financial support of Mike Markkula they managed to launch in 1977 their Apple II, a much more advanced model that was perfect for the design of video games. Despite the competition of the PET of Commodore and the TRS-80 of Tandy, the new computer opens an important gap in the market, definitively inaugurating the era of microinformatics.
Video games quickly appeared as Microchess for KIM-1 in 1976, or as Adventureland for TRS-80 in 1978. After this appeared the 'home-made video games' that would soon bear great fruit. Sierra Entretainment launched its game called Mystery House for Apple II, inspired by Adventure, this video game had detailed graphics and managed to sell more than 3000 copies.
In 1977 the genre of 'wargames' was inaugurated with Tanktics, and 2 years later, in 79, Richard Garriot Alakabeth inaugurated the genres of role officially.
In 1976 Atari was working on one of its most important projects, its new Atari 2600 console would be the first to use the new technology of the microprocessor, it would be the first to have interchangeable cartridges. Although Atari was not at its best economic time, so they had to delay the prototype. And if they did not do well then they would not be pleased to meet a new competitor. Fairchild Channel F, machine that would advance for the first time the technology that had in mind Atari, that until then was unquestionably the leader of the market.
The Fairchild sold for $ 169 and contained games such as the PONG with its ROM circuitry. And even sold cartridges for video games (by snapped) at $ 19.95. The fairchild was a resounding success, and in 1977, RCA appeared to commercialize the RCA Studio II, which although it had no graphics, it sold for $ 20 less than the Fairchild.
Bushnell, seeing the complications that were presented to him, decided to sell the company to recover capital. In 1976, Warner Bros bought Atari for 28 million, making Bushnell a multimillionaire. With this new injection of capital, a year later, in 1977, the new Atari console came onto the market, with a catalog of video games infinitely larger than that of its competitors. However, the Christmas sales that the Atari 2600 was expected to sell like crazy, it was not like that. And that was because in 1978, the domestic video game consoles market was already formed, there was no clear winner, now it had to be won.
Mattel Electronics publishes in 1976 its first portable console, and the first one in the history of the videojuegos called Auto Race. And the same one did with Football, that reaped much more success.
Texas Instruments saw a good investment to create their Speak & Read, a videogame for educational children that managed to reproduce a very primitive synthesis of the human voice.
Ralph Baer do you remember him? In 1978 returns to revolutionize the market with another video game, his Simon.
In 1978 Magnavox denounced Atari for relying on his Ping-Pong to create his PONG success. With the money earned in that complaint, create the Oddysey II to make the competition to the Atari 2600. Bushnell decided to retire and leave the controls of Atari Ray Kassar, an executive with no experience in video games that changed the philosophy of the company completely. He decided to focus on personal computers, ending the Golden Atari and turning it into one more company.
Japan decides to get into the industry to see the great growth it had, and Tomohiro Nishikado adopts a new microprocessor technology and influenced by the Speed Race created for the Taito platform, the Space Invaders, game that originally consisted in shooting against tanks and airplanes, but that by the pressure of the company, and watching the success of Star Wars as a movie, would give the final form of the game, turning it into a game 'space', achieving a huge success, creating infinite games that tried to clone it. And not happy to create a new genre, it would be basilar in the later development of video games such as El Shoot 'em up, if not that placed in the position that deserved Japanese industry, and definitely boosted the fever of video games such a way, that many consider this stage as the Golden Age of Video Games.
In the summer of 1982 the fever for video games increased considerably. Since Space Invaders broke into the market in 1978, the income generated by the industry had gone from 454 million dollars that year to 5,393 million in 1982, that is, it was increasing its profits by 5% monthly. The interest of the general public for video games seemed endless and the arcade machines were everywhere, from bars and restaurants to hotels and supermarkets. Such was the success of the Atari 2600 in the United States that in the country many families had a unit connected to their television, and some game programmers had gone from mere fans to real millionaires. The most important companies dedicated to the entertainment business had created their video game divisions, like Lucasfilm, Walt Disney Pictures, Quaker Oats, Parker Brothers, 20th Century Fox or Thorn EMI, and even McDonald's had partnered with Atari. The American government favored the growth of an incipient industry that, in turn, was favored by the growing graphic and sound capabilities of the new generations of computers.
The vector graphics had been used with some profusion for years, but the first video game to use the new technology was Space Wars (1977), a version of the classic Spacewar! of 1962 created by Larry Rosenthal (later founder of Vectorbeam) and published by Cinematronics. The company specialized in vector video games by hiring Tim Skelly, who made a series of titles for the company from 1978 to 1981, including Armor Attack (1980) and The War of the Worlds (1979). For its part, Atari had already been working on the new technology, and in 1979 launched Lunar Lander, followed by Asteroids, which was an immediate success and ended up becoming a classic.
The emergence of color in the world of video games took place in 1979 with Galaxian, a title of Namco Japanese, following the wake of Space Invaders, was tremendously popular while marking the evolution of the genre. Missile Comand (1980), Tempest (1981) or Space Duel (1982), all of Atari, combined vector graphics with the use of color, as did Defender (by Williams, 1981), the first horizontal matamarcianos and one of the most profitable titles in history. Namco's Galaga (1981) followed in the wake of Galaxian with ever-increasing graphic advances, such as Frogger or Centipede, but none could cope with Pac-Man, from the Japanese Toru Iwatani (1980), which is, for many fans and diverse specialized critics, the most popular video game of all time.
Iwatani had set out to create a maze-free video game of violence and not focused on a male character, since most of the visitors to the arcades were male. Iwatani decided that the game would revolve around the idea of eating something, and since the image that came into his head when he tried to figure out what women enjoyed most was to imagine them eating a piece of pizza, that was the chosen character. For the design of the enemies, Iwatani was inspired by certain figures of kawaii art that he had already used in his previous game Cutie Q, and that were also inspired by the designs of the character Hello Kitty, from the Sanrio company. The technical limitations of the machines of the time forced him to use very simple designs, but Iwatani made an effort to create nice characters that would please both men and women alike. The program, unlike the trend of the time, had been designed to be played relaxed, and avoid any sign of anxiety in the player, but contrary to what was expected was an immediate and unprecedented success. Pac-Man not only burst the figures of collection of other videojuegos, if not that it attracted masívamente to the feminine public to the recreational salons and inaugurated the parallel industry of the Merchandising in the videojuegos. The "Pac-Man fever" hit all kinds of sectors, the game was ported to all the systems of the time and cloned countless times, giving rise, in addition to a whole series of video games that, with the title of the franchise, they continued to exploit the basic design and the most popular video game characters of all time.
Meanwhile Activision had entered the videogame business with several titles for the 2600 that had been very successful. For the first time in history, an external company developed games for the Atari console, an example that would soon be imitated by other firms. The managerial changes that had occurred in the pioneer Atari caused the departure of some of its employees, who founded Imagic in 1981 to continue producing games for the 2600, following the example of Activision In 1982 Atari continued to be the company that led the company. market, but only at the commercial level; the times when Nolan Bushnell's company redefined the market with each of its titles began to decline.
In early 1980, in Europe, video games were much more out of date compared to the Americans and Japanese.
Atari decided to open a company in Ireland to take advantage of the economic boom of the European video game, although the production was still happening in the United States.
European developers were more active in the development of video games. Thus, since the Magnavvox Odyssey was launched in the old continent in 1973, a wide range of similar products appeared, as well as the Videomaster Home T.V. Game, created by British.
Microdigital was one of the first computer stores opened in Europe, specifically in Liverpool. And it became a place of 'pilgrimage' for many European fans. Two of the employees of this store, dared to create Bug-Byte, in 1980. They were developers, so the intention they had when creating this was to distribute their own video games.
While Bug-Byte was forming, the Sinclair XZ80 appeared, an invention of the British Clive Sinclair promising to revolutionize the market. (What a coincidence, like the XOne ...)
In 1981 an improved version was released, the XZ81, an improved model of its predecessor that had 1KB of RAM. (That could be extended to 64), and that due to its reduced price, it achieved the definitive incursion of the personal computer in all the houses.
The first video games for this device did not take long to appear. Football Manager, in 1982 created by Kevin Toms was a game with text-based graphics that started the genre of sports strategy simulators. Mel Croucher also published several titles, and although they were very strange and surreal, they would be very influential for several later titles.
In 81, another model comes out. XZ Spectrum, achieving higher sales than its main competitors, such as the Commodore 64 or the BBC Micro. The Spectrum would be placed as one of the most popular PCs in Europe.
The game you see in the image, the Manic Miner was one of the first games that appeared for the platform he was talking about. This game revolutionized the genre of platforms, achieving a huge success.
This success motivates Matthew Smith, the creator of the game, to abandon Bug-Byte and form Software Projects. In this new endeavor, he would create the classic Jet Set Willy.
Both titles were classified as belonging to the current of "British Surrealism", characterized by the preference towards the strange and psychedelic. As well as the influence of a world of psychedelic drugs and the surreal humor of Monty Python.
In 1983, the British company Ultimate, publishes the Knight Lore, the first videogame for the Spectrum with 3D isometric perspective. The critics were enthusiastic; and the title was a tremendous success.
It was such a success that many consider it one of the best titles released for the Spectrum.
Alan Sugar presents in 1984 his Amstrad CPC 464. Another personal computer, with superior features to the Spectrum. Among its most important features were the 64KB of memory, 16 colors, a better sound chip etc ...
Tubo a great welcome, but failed to lead the European market; that at that time led the Sinclair.
Sugar had built prototypes of his model since 93, a year ago since its launch. So when the final device was presented, it already had a catalog of 50 video games. This, facilitated its entry into the market.
The fact that PCs were limited to fans of electronics was beginning to diminish. In fact the Amstrad CPC 464 was aimed at a mass audience, and included in a single pack all necessary for proper operation, including monitor, the cassette unit, cables and necessary connectors.
Several models were published and the success of the following Amstrad model was such that in 1986 he bought Sinclair Research, redesigning several machines of the company under the name of "Amstrad style", or "Amstrad's Style".
Along with the British ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, the American Commodore 64 (older but higher performance) and MSX a standard of Japanese origin whose machines were marketed by different companies, such as Phillips, Toshiba, Sanyo or Panasonic. They were the four most successful systems on the European market in the mid-1980s, and practically any video game that was commercialized had to be programmed for the four systems. The market of videojuegos developed for these machines in the decade of 1980 was characterized by the atmosphere of creativity that reigned an industry that was still taking its first steps. British companies led the industry, and among these are Ocean (with video games such as Batman, Head Over Heels and Operation Wolf), Imagine (Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Hyper Sports, MOVIE, among others), Hewson Consultants (Rana- Rama, Uridium, Nebulus, among others), Elite (Commando, Ghost'n Goblins, 1942, among others) or the US distributor Gold (Epyx's Winter Games, Street Fighter, among other games). In France came companies such as Loriciels or Infogrames, from Australia came Melbourne House or Beam Software (The Hobbit, The Way of the Exploding Fist, Asterix and the magic cauldron, among others).
(This is the second part of a 3 part post, remember to visit the first one before seeing this one)
What is that? A recreational, you see what thing ...
This is not any recreational, it is the first recreational in history. This machine was created by the fascination of a Stanford student when he saw SpaceWar !.
The idea was simple, after founding a company, they wanted to recreate the SpaceWar! in a machine that operated with coins, thus advertising the machine much more. PDP-11 was called this machine, and with a price of $ 20,000; although later it would change its name to GalaxyGame. Initially it had a price of 10 cents per game, which was quite expensive for the time.
They decided to change the prototype, and create a computer that operated up to 8 recreational simultaneously. Easier amortizing the investment. Pretty successful tube at Stanford University, where it was placed until 1979 when it was stored. Currently, it is a very important object in the history of videogames, and is in a museum in California.
It's time for Atari, they create Computer Space, when Nolan Bushnell (director of the company) discovers the famous SpaceWar !. The idea was to place a recreational game with the game in a recreational room. For which they did not have problems.
In 1968 the Data General Nova, a computer at a price of $ 3995, went on the market, well below the average price of computers at that time, and the engineer thought of using it to put his idea into action.
The first prototype did not work because it was too slow to be playable, and in 1970 the prototype was abandoned.
They created another prototype, which did not have a CPU, since it was very expensive at that time and would make the prototype too expensive. They created most of the components of this recreational, and so came the first prototype called Computer Space that in 1971 was placed in a bar near the campus of Stanford. Thanks to its proximity to the campus, this machine had an incredible success which encouraged Nutting (its creator) to produce the Computer Space in series, but this idea did not work, since they did not have the success that was expected; since the games were very complicated for a public that was not university. They only got $ 250 for their work. As far as Bushnell and Dabney, those who composed Nutting Associates finalized their contract. And in 1972 they had copyright problems, so they changed the name of the device to Atari.
Bushnell was in 1972 at a Magnavox conference that took place in California. So he decided to play Ping-Pong, a game that had new console. After this hired Alan Alcorn, Alan worked on a version of the Ping-Pong game arcade, which they called PONG.
t was a small advance since his old title, the Baer. The PONG achieved a huge success in salons.
The first 11 units of this device that was manufactured in series were sold with ease, and thanks to that capital inflow Atari improved its facilities. The same happened with the next round, which had 50 PONG machines.
There came a time when Atari was overwhelmed with work, which encouraged Bushnell to ask for a $ 50,000 loan and go looking for employees, who were not the best to be told. He had addicts to heroin, hashish etc ... That created the stereotype that Atari was a "hippie" company; even so Bushnell managed to attend the 150 PONG that was hired.
The country was filled with PONG machines, the game maddened the population. Atari in turn helped the Odyssey sell more.
So it could be said that Atari made the industry take off, and without the Odyssey it would not have been possible. So the Odyssey and Atari are responsible for you are reading this today. Since this is a forum for a video game.
The success of the PONG was tran brutal that restructured all the business of the entertainment and the videojuegos was put ahead in quality, innovation etcetera to the physical games of the time.
Bushnell held parties to encourage his workers to work even more by helping with drug incentive; which did not turn out to be counterproductive, it even helped him to get better prototypes to each one more innovative.
Its competitors did not stop taking copies of the PONG that they took years ago; however, Atari released new hits such as Space Race, Gotcha, Quadrapong, Touch Me, Tank, Qwak! o Gran Trak 10. With each video game that Atari brought out, it was the birth of a new videogame genre.
In 1975 Atari sold up to 13 million Telegames Pong, which allowed PONG to play in your own home. For what was one of the first domestic consoles.
What you see up there is perhaps the biggest contribution to the industry that Intel made and has made. Known for their processors, they created the Intel 4004, a microprocessor that was aimed at a calculator, but Nutting Associates used it to run a Bally machine, the prototype was called Spirit of 76, and Atari set another milestone in the videogame history. The Spirit Of 76 was the first recreational that used digital technology instead of the classic TTL cirquetry which required maintenance 'by hand' soldering, screwing etc ... The virtual technology eliminates that need, being much easier to control and program the machine, so many video game developers echoed the news. This technology facilitated everything, including graphic options, gameplay, etc. far beyond what TTL technology allowed.
Videogames were no longer created by engineers, they were already programmers and that has remained that way to this day.
In the middle of 1975 Gun Fight leaves an arcade of Bally Midway. In this game for the first time two 'human persons' were seen fighting each other, creating the fight genre, also inducing the industry new concepts of control, direction etc ...
The TTL technology told us goodbye in 1976.
Steve Jobs, then president of Apple Computer created the first version of Breakout. Bushnell offered $ 100 for each chip that someone managed to remove from the plates of their games, and it was Jobs who accepted the challenge. He managed with the help of a friend to reduce the chips to 42, making $ 5000 of which 350 gave them to his friend, telling him that they only paid 700 for the work.
Atari failed to reproduce that prototype, and hired an engineer who managed to do it with 100 chips. The video game for which it was used went on sale in 1976 obtaining an instant and brutal success. And everyone today, has ever seen the Breakout.
Violence in videogames ... Who is not fed up to listen to psychologists and different people entitled in a thousand different things saying that video games are violent? What makes us murderers, who serve as a military inspiration, even a terrorist? This is nothing new, and was born in 1976 with the Death Race, a driving game that consisted in running over as many zombies as possible.
Exidy, the creator, soon withdrew many machines; however, the orders increased with this controversy. And is considered by many the first controversial video game in history.
Atari is not far behind with the innovative titles, and they take out another driving game. The Night Driver programmed by Dave Sheppard could be the first simulation videogame in history, since it tried to simulate driving including a kind of cockpit that simulated a vehicle.
In 1970, the first personal computers began to appear, a luxury that matched a few, and the first was IBM.
Although in the first moments of the birth of these computers, they lacked a monitor, so the only way to visualize was through the slow printers of the time.
Thanks to the success of the recreational activities, the creation of videogames was encouraged on this platform, creating conversational or turn-based video games on this platform.
Meanwhile, new personal computers such as the Altair 8800 or the KIM-1 were making their appearance in the market. Steve Wozniak, after finishing his work with the Breakout of Atari, and having sold his first Apple I, had decided to build a more powerful personal computer, a machine that would have graphics in color, sound and connectors for the game controllers and for the television receivers. Together with Steve Jobs he presented his idea to Nolan Bushnell, but he rejected it. Finally, with the financial support of Mike Markkula they managed to launch in 1977 their Apple II, a much more advanced model that was perfect for the design of video games. Despite the competition of the PET of Commodore and the TRS-80 of Tandy, the new computer opens an important gap in the market, definitively inaugurating the era of microinformatics.
Video games quickly appeared as Microchess for KIM-1 in 1976, or as Adventureland for TRS-80 in 1978. After this appeared the 'home-made video games' that would soon bear great fruit. Sierra Entretainment launched its game called Mystery House for Apple II, inspired by Adventure, this video game had detailed graphics and managed to sell more than 3000 copies.
In 1977 the genre of 'wargames' was inaugurated with Tanktics, and 2 years later, in 79, Richard Garriot Alakabeth inaugurated the genres of role officially.
In 1976 Atari was working on one of its most important projects, its new Atari 2600 console would be the first to use the new technology of the microprocessor, it would be the first to have interchangeable cartridges. Although Atari was not at its best economic time, so they had to delay the prototype. And if they did not do well then they would not be pleased to meet a new competitor. Fairchild Channel F, machine that would advance for the first time the technology that had in mind Atari, that until then was unquestionably the leader of the market.
The Fairchild sold for $ 169 and contained games such as the PONG with its ROM circuitry. And even sold cartridges for video games (by snapped) at $ 19.95. The fairchild was a resounding success, and in 1977, RCA appeared to commercialize the RCA Studio II, which although it had no graphics, it sold for $ 20 less than the Fairchild.
Bushnell, seeing the complications that were presented to him, decided to sell the company to recover capital. In 1976, Warner Bros bought Atari for 28 million, making Bushnell a multimillionaire. With this new injection of capital, a year later, in 1977, the new Atari console came onto the market, with a catalog of video games infinitely larger than that of its competitors. However, the Christmas sales that the Atari 2600 was expected to sell like crazy, it was not like that. And that was because in 1978, the domestic video game consoles market was already formed, there was no clear winner, now it had to be won.
Mattel Electronics publishes in 1976 its first portable console, and the first one in the history of the videojuegos called Auto Race. And the same one did with Football, that reaped much more success.
Texas Instruments saw a good investment to create their Speak & Read, a videogame for educational children that managed to reproduce a very primitive synthesis of the human voice.
Ralph Baer do you remember him? In 1978 returns to revolutionize the market with another video game, his Simon.
In 1978 Magnavox denounced Atari for relying on his Ping-Pong to create his PONG success. With the money earned in that complaint, create the Oddysey II to make the competition to the Atari 2600. Bushnell decided to retire and leave the controls of Atari Ray Kassar, an executive with no experience in video games that changed the philosophy of the company completely. He decided to focus on personal computers, ending the Golden Atari and turning it into one more company.
Japan decides to get into the industry to see the great growth it had, and Tomohiro Nishikado adopts a new microprocessor technology and influenced by the Speed Race created for the Taito platform, the Space Invaders, game that originally consisted in shooting against tanks and airplanes, but that by the pressure of the company, and watching the success of Star Wars as a movie, would give the final form of the game, turning it into a game 'space', achieving a huge success, creating infinite games that tried to clone it. And not happy to create a new genre, it would be basilar in the later development of video games such as El Shoot 'em up, if not that placed in the position that deserved Japanese industry, and definitely boosted the fever of video games such a way, that many consider this stage as the Golden Age of Video Games.
In the summer of 1982 the fever for video games increased considerably. Since Space Invaders broke into the market in 1978, the income generated by the industry had gone from 454 million dollars that year to 5,393 million in 1982, that is, it was increasing its profits by 5% monthly. The interest of the general public for video games seemed endless and the arcade machines were everywhere, from bars and restaurants to hotels and supermarkets. Such was the success of the Atari 2600 in the United States that in the country many families had a unit connected to their television, and some game programmers had gone from mere fans to real millionaires. The most important companies dedicated to the entertainment business had created their video game divisions, like Lucasfilm, Walt Disney Pictures, Quaker Oats, Parker Brothers, 20th Century Fox or Thorn EMI, and even McDonald's had partnered with Atari. The American government favored the growth of an incipient industry that, in turn, was favored by the growing graphic and sound capabilities of the new generations of computers.
The vector graphics had been used with some profusion for years, but the first video game to use the new technology was Space Wars (1977), a version of the classic Spacewar! of 1962 created by Larry Rosenthal (later founder of Vectorbeam) and published by Cinematronics. The company specialized in vector video games by hiring Tim Skelly, who made a series of titles for the company from 1978 to 1981, including Armor Attack (1980) and The War of the Worlds (1979). For its part, Atari had already been working on the new technology, and in 1979 launched Lunar Lander, followed by Asteroids, which was an immediate success and ended up becoming a classic.
The emergence of color in the world of video games took place in 1979 with Galaxian, a title of Namco Japanese, following the wake of Space Invaders, was tremendously popular while marking the evolution of the genre. Missile Comand (1980), Tempest (1981) or Space Duel (1982), all of Atari, combined vector graphics with the use of color, as did Defender (by Williams, 1981), the first horizontal matamarcianos and one of the most profitable titles in history. Namco's Galaga (1981) followed in the wake of Galaxian with ever-increasing graphic advances, such as Frogger or Centipede, but none could cope with Pac-Man, from the Japanese Toru Iwatani (1980), which is, for many fans and diverse specialized critics, the most popular video game of all time.
Iwatani had set out to create a maze-free video game of violence and not focused on a male character, since most of the visitors to the arcades were male. Iwatani decided that the game would revolve around the idea of eating something, and since the image that came into his head when he tried to figure out what women enjoyed most was to imagine them eating a piece of pizza, that was the chosen character. For the design of the enemies, Iwatani was inspired by certain figures of kawaii art that he had already used in his previous game Cutie Q, and that were also inspired by the designs of the character Hello Kitty, from the Sanrio company. The technical limitations of the machines of the time forced him to use very simple designs, but Iwatani made an effort to create nice characters that would please both men and women alike. The program, unlike the trend of the time, had been designed to be played relaxed, and avoid any sign of anxiety in the player, but contrary to what was expected was an immediate and unprecedented success. Pac-Man not only burst the figures of collection of other videojuegos, if not that it attracted masívamente to the feminine public to the recreational salons and inaugurated the parallel industry of the Merchandising in the videojuegos. The "Pac-Man fever" hit all kinds of sectors, the game was ported to all the systems of the time and cloned countless times, giving rise, in addition to a whole series of video games that, with the title of the franchise, they continued to exploit the basic design and the most popular video game characters of all time.
Meanwhile Activision had entered the videogame business with several titles for the 2600 that had been very successful. For the first time in history, an external company developed games for the Atari console, an example that would soon be imitated by other firms. The managerial changes that had occurred in the pioneer Atari caused the departure of some of its employees, who founded Imagic in 1981 to continue producing games for the 2600, following the example of Activision In 1982 Atari continued to be the company that led the company. market, but only at the commercial level; the times when Nolan Bushnell's company redefined the market with each of its titles began to decline.
In early 1980, in Europe, video games were much more out of date compared to the Americans and Japanese.
Atari decided to open a company in Ireland to take advantage of the economic boom of the European video game, although the production was still happening in the United States.
European developers were more active in the development of video games. Thus, since the Magnavvox Odyssey was launched in the old continent in 1973, a wide range of similar products appeared, as well as the Videomaster Home T.V. Game, created by British.
Microdigital was one of the first computer stores opened in Europe, specifically in Liverpool. And it became a place of 'pilgrimage' for many European fans. Two of the employees of this store, dared to create Bug-Byte, in 1980. They were developers, so the intention they had when creating this was to distribute their own video games.
While Bug-Byte was forming, the Sinclair XZ80 appeared, an invention of the British Clive Sinclair promising to revolutionize the market. (What a coincidence, like the XOne ...)
In 1981 an improved version was released, the XZ81, an improved model of its predecessor that had 1KB of RAM. (That could be extended to 64), and that due to its reduced price, it achieved the definitive incursion of the personal computer in all the houses.
The first video games for this device did not take long to appear. Football Manager, in 1982 created by Kevin Toms was a game with text-based graphics that started the genre of sports strategy simulators. Mel Croucher also published several titles, and although they were very strange and surreal, they would be very influential for several later titles.
In 81, another model comes out. XZ Spectrum, achieving higher sales than its main competitors, such as the Commodore 64 or the BBC Micro. The Spectrum would be placed as one of the most popular PCs in Europe.
The game you see in the image, the Manic Miner was one of the first games that appeared for the platform he was talking about. This game revolutionized the genre of platforms, achieving a huge success.
This success motivates Matthew Smith, the creator of the game, to abandon Bug-Byte and form Software Projects. In this new endeavor, he would create the classic Jet Set Willy.
Both titles were classified as belonging to the current of "British Surrealism", characterized by the preference towards the strange and psychedelic. As well as the influence of a world of psychedelic drugs and the surreal humor of Monty Python.
In 1983, the British company Ultimate, publishes the Knight Lore, the first videogame for the Spectrum with 3D isometric perspective. The critics were enthusiastic; and the title was a tremendous success.
It was such a success that many consider it one of the best titles released for the Spectrum.
Alan Sugar presents in 1984 his Amstrad CPC 464. Another personal computer, with superior features to the Spectrum. Among its most important features were the 64KB of memory, 16 colors, a better sound chip etc ...
Tubo a great welcome, but failed to lead the European market; that at that time led the Sinclair.
Sugar had built prototypes of his model since 93, a year ago since its launch. So when the final device was presented, it already had a catalog of 50 video games. This, facilitated its entry into the market.
The fact that PCs were limited to fans of electronics was beginning to diminish. In fact the Amstrad CPC 464 was aimed at a mass audience, and included in a single pack all necessary for proper operation, including monitor, the cassette unit, cables and necessary connectors.
Several models were published and the success of the following Amstrad model was such that in 1986 he bought Sinclair Research, redesigning several machines of the company under the name of "Amstrad style", or "Amstrad's Style".
Along with the British ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, the American Commodore 64 (older but higher performance) and MSX a standard of Japanese origin whose machines were marketed by different companies, such as Phillips, Toshiba, Sanyo or Panasonic. They were the four most successful systems on the European market in the mid-1980s, and practically any video game that was commercialized had to be programmed for the four systems. The market of videojuegos developed for these machines in the decade of 1980 was characterized by the atmosphere of creativity that reigned an industry that was still taking its first steps. British companies led the industry, and among these are Ocean (with video games such as Batman, Head Over Heels and Operation Wolf), Imagine (Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Hyper Sports, MOVIE, among others), Hewson Consultants (Rana- Rama, Uridium, Nebulus, among others), Elite (Commando, Ghost'n Goblins, 1942, among others) or the US distributor Gold (Epyx's Winter Games, Street Fighter, among other games). In France came companies such as Loriciels or Infogrames, from Australia came Melbourne House or Beam Software (The Hobbit, The Way of the Exploding Fist, Asterix and the magic cauldron, among others).
Part 3 coming!
I can tell you've done your research.