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Games Entertainment

History of Video Games 154

Posted by CmdrTaco from the something-to-read dept.
seer writes "There's a nice history of videogames over at GameSpot. It starts with pre-videogame activity in 1889 with the Marufuku Company (later Nintendo) and stretches to the recently released GameCube-DVD system." Hey, it's sunday. No reason to knock yourself out reading the works of ancient philosophers (unless you're taking Ancient Philosophers 230 and have an exam this week).
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History of Video Games More

History of Video Games

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  • that they don't have good innocent games like they used too. Pitfall, Donkey Kong, and Breakout... oh I'm getting too sentimental :-)
    • Pikmin, Luigi's Manson. Waveracer even. Heck if you want good gaming goto Nintendo (who do you think invented Donkey Kong? :) :) :) )

  • Thanks emu programmers (Score:5, Informative)

    by elcairo ( 442870 ) <santonel@nOspAM.alice.it> on Sunday January 20, 2002 @09:37AM (#2871910) Homepage
    Because they saved a LOT of the videogames story. Project like
    mame [mame.net],
    uae [linux.de],
    mess [mame.net] is simply amazing,
    and thanks to any others [retrofaction.com] that contributes.
  • With his discussion about caves and shadows and the perfect form.
    As Plato said, we are nothing but imperfect shadows from the ideal form, which is in this cave, cast from the light from the perfect fire.
    So all we have to do is find this cave and we can play the perfect video game.
    ...waka-waka-waka...

  • I really miss Intellivision :-( (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @09:41AM (#2871916)
    I think what's interesting is that unlike today, earlier videogame designers were often very inventive in the look of the game itself.

    It's too bad that Mattel's Intellivision system never really succeeded in the long run; they had games that in many cases were vastly superior to the competition at the time from Atari, Coleco, and so on. The PGA golf game on that system was quite playable for its time; and who can forget the games that used the Voice Module such as B-17 Bomber and Bomb Squad? The Bomb Squad game can be extremely unnerving, especially when you set it at the highest level of difficulty.
    • Tron: Deadly Discs, and Motocross. Hell, even the AD&D game was decent. Emphasis was on game play, not snazzy graphics. The only major failing of the intellivision was it's tendency to overheat and die when I was soooo far into a round of Tron. You even got used to the controllers after a while.
    • Colecovision came after Intellevision, and the graphics were way better (as one would expect coming 3 years later). And the controllers sucked.

      I'll give you the Voice Module, but I was unimpressed with it then, and remain so to this day. Go Pepper ][!

  • Gaming Philosophy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @09:46AM (#2871920) Journal
    Gaming Philosophy is important.

    Which opponent to frag first often has other implications that can ruin your success in a game. And this is all split second decision making.

    Of course, this is not Ancient Philosophy, but modern.

    So a study of the history of games, the design of video games, etc, can be valuable.

    • You might wanna pick up a couple of these titles. They certainly are worth the time and money:

      "Homo Ludens - a Study of the Play-element in Culture" (Johann Huizinga)

      "The Study of Games" (Elliot M. Avedon and Brian Sutton-Smith)

      "I have no words and I must design" (Greg Costikyan)

      "The art of computer game design" (Chris Crawford)

      "Finite and Infinite Games - A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility" (James P. Carse)

      Hope you find this usefull.

  • Missing? (Score:3, Informative)

    by larien ( 5608 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @09:53AM (#2871935) Homepage Journal
    Hrm, they mention the C64, but completely miss out the humble Speccy and Amstrad C64. Worse still, they omit the Amiga and ST as well.

    Still, it's interesting to see how many of these companies start out; Nintendo started out selling playing cards, moved to computer games and then went back to cards with Pokemon (gotta buy 'em all!).

    My particular favourite line was regarding "Death Race 2000": "Public outcry against video game violence gains national attention". This in 1976...

    • It's worse than that, they don't even mention the Amiga CD32! I really liked that machine, played Liberation and Diggers constantly. No, seriously, it was a good machine.
      • Where's my Mod points when i need them, as you'd get a +1 funny any day .. CD32 good ?

        Sorry, I still hold a grudge about the CD32, as i firmly believe it was one of the decisions that contributed to the death of Amiga *sob*.

        The Amiga was my first introduction to the world of computers (as you'll see if you read my journal), and i find it interesting that they bypass it. Was there a comparable personal computer in the mid 80's to early 90's? (well aside from the AtariST, and we all know who one that battle). From what i remember, the Amiga scene was huge until it suffered it's premature death (and no, i'm not holding my breath about a rebirth)..

        i still believe that New Zealand story was the height of computer game technology (well up there with Doom, but hey the music in NZS was excellent so that gets the nod from me)
        • Ah, the good old ST vs Amiga wars of olde; they followed on quite handily from the Speccy vs C64 vs Amstrad wars. Technically, both were quite similar in abilities, but the Amiga blitter chip held the edge for sprite work and IIRC it had more colours. STs still hold a niche in their builtin MIDI capabilities and I believe some are still in use in various places. Hey, they're good enough, so why replace them? You don't need a 2.2 GHz PIV to send some (fairly basic) signals to a keyboard (contrary to what Intel might have you believe; come on, how is a faster CPU gonna speed up your internet connection?????).

          As for NZS, ah, good game; can't remember the music for it, unfortunately, but my favourite music was always Monty on the Run on the C64.

          • > I believe some are still in use in various places.

            I'll give one thing for the ST; for those of you with the Moulin Rouge DVD, you'll see on the second disk interview with Mr Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) that he still uses his AtariST as his main 'development' box. Something that interested me intially, but then made sense, for as you say, if they're good enough, why replace them?

    • Re:Missing? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by schtum ( 166052 )
      My particular favourite line was regarding "Death Race 2000" My favorite line was "You earn points by running over stick figures", because I just played Grand Theft Auto 3 for the first time a week ago and it's hilarious how little video games have changed in almost 30 years. Slightly Offtopic: I looked up the movie that Death Race 2000 was supposedly based on on IMDB [imdb.com]. Tagline: "In The Year 2000 Hit And Run Driving Is No Longer A Felony. It's The National Sport!" Sigh, yet another prediction we've failed to live up to.
    • I noticed all that too, but then it is a history of video games, not computer games. That's why they left out all the PC gaming history too. They do mention the Atari ST though, presumably because it was made by a video game company.

  • Worldwide history of video games (in the US) (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think it should be pointed out that this article is a US centric version of the history of the video game. (Wooo, that's a suprise!).

    From a UK perpective (which is supposedly the third biggest games producer in the world behind the US and Japan), the articles fails to mention the ZX Spectrum or any UK games which influenced generations of UK (and perhaps European) game developers.

    Of course, every country has it's own unique history of video games (and the big US and Japanese companies have had a big influence no doubt).

    But let's not get to US centric folks.

  • heh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sk3lt ( 464645 ) <pete@adoomedmarinTOKYOe.com minus city> on Sunday January 20, 2002 @10:00AM (#2871950)
    "Marufuku Company (later Nintendo)"

    No wonder they changed their name, but then again if they kept it maybe they wouldn't be accused of being a kiddie company ;)
  • ...I found this bit of the article amusing...

    "Exidy Games releases Death Race 2000, a driving game based on a 1975 movie of the same name. You earn points by running over stick figures. Public outcry against video game violence gains national attention, and the game is taken off the market. "

    which made me think of this game [slashdot.org], 25 years later.

    ...So I guess the moral is, violence in video games is OK, so long as it doesn't involve pedestrians.

  • PDP-1 Mainframe? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajs.ajs@com> on Sunday January 20, 2002 @10:03AM (#2871959) Homepage Journal
    Very minor nit, but the PDP-1 was the first mini, not a mainframe. The name, Peripheral Data Processor was in response to the econimics of the time. Trying to get PHBs to see the wisdom of buying a couple of minis instead of an IBM mainframe was virtual job-suicide.

    However, you could easily justify buying a peripheral to offload some data processing to. Thus was born the PDP and the mini (and eventually PDP was the reason for two of the best OSes of all time: VMS via DEC which is now Compaq and UNIX via Bell Labs which is now partly AT&T, partly Lucent and partly Caldera... what a long road).

    • actually... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by karm13 ( 538402 )
      ...the name is programmable data processor.

      and it was huge. the pdp-8 was small and cheap (at about the size of a fridge and $10.000).
      it had lots of great peripherals, such as the teletype (standart for in/output, but in theory you could interact with 12 switches on the front panel that could set the accumulator directly, and 12 + 1 lights indicating its value), extra ram (magnetic - and expensive) or even a crt.

  • Lack of Detail (Score:4, Informative)

    by karmma ( 105156 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @10:05AM (#2871962)
    I was very disappointed by the lack of detail in the article. For example: "Magnavox licenses Baer's TV game from Sanders Associates." That's all it mentions about a critical milestone in video game history. While the article notes that Sanders and Associates was a defense contractor, it doesn't mention that the game was classified as Top Secret by the Pentagon for four years while the military pondered its usefulness for their applications. It also fails to mention that RCA had first dibs on the game before Magnavox, but refused when the terms involved the purchase of Sanders and Assoc. along with the game machine itself.


    If you want an informative (albeit poorly edited, IMHO) book about the early history of video games, check out "ZAP! The Rise and Fall of Atari" by Scott Cohen.

  • I remember the day when we all went to County Stadium in Milwaukee, WI. to play in the "atari Pac-man" championships back in the early 80's.

    We never thought it could get better than that.

    Has it?

  • The neverending life of a microcontroller (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Uberminky ( 122220 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @10:08AM (#2871968) Homepage
    What I'd like to see is a technical history of videogames. (There are some, but I want to find a more comprehensive and in-depth one.) I want all the details. I do some work with microcontrollers (AVRs are my new favorite). I'm not the best coder, but I enjoy mucking around in the bits and bytes of assembly language. The old videogames fascinate me, not for the games (I have yet to find a game I enjoy), but for the hardware. In today's world of bigger-faster-better, I think most people don't realize the incredible power of the systems they have. It seems people scoff at anything short of a GHz today, but the power of even a few KHz is simply incredible. When used right, it can do incredible things. (When slowed and bloated, it seems awful, but that's entirely due to the programmers.)

    In my assembly class, people like to complain that the 68k chip we're programming is "outdated". They don't understand that "outdated" is a word that has almost no meaning in the embedded world. Remember the Sega Genesis? Neo Geo? Both 68k. Comparable to the processor in my Visor. The processor in the original PONG machines were comparable to what is used in the Nintendo Gameboy, 20 years later. Same processor as is in my TI-85 calculator, for which there is a raycasting Wolfenstein 3D look-alike. Not too shabby.

    Anyway. I don't claim to be the most knowledgeable on this stuff, but I think it's very interesting. The workstations of yesterday become the pocket toys of tomorrow. Nothing ever dies, everything has its place. You can't always program in Java, you can't always throw more hardware at it and make the problems go away. Sometimes you have to use skill and ingenuity, and this is something that I admire greatly. I say, Cheers to the old game coders! Remarkable work.

    • The processor in the original PONG machines were comparable to what is used in the Nintendo Gameboy, 20 years later

      You are probabably referring the the Z80. The Z80 was developed years after the original PONG machine, and could therefore hardly been used in PONG. In fact the original PONG machine did not use any CPU, but was all hardwired. AFAIR most of the circuit is analog.

      In my assembly class, people like to complain that the 68k chip we're programming is "outdated".

      Maybe the fail to notice that the x86 instruction set architecture is several years older than the 68k, which is for sure the best processor of its time. Even the 68060 from 1993 is still a marvel from an architecture point of view.

      • You are probabably referring the the Z80
        Interesting, I didn't know the original machines were hardwired. (Really? In the "Pong is born" section of the article, it claims, "Bushnell hires Al Alcorn to program games." Says he wrote Pong as an exercise. Hm. At any rate, not important..) Change my comment to "the Atari 2600" and it's pretty much valid, I think. ;) (I wasn't referring to the Z80 specifically, just saying it was comparable in power, which I believe it is. Feel free to correct me on that, I'm not really up on this stuff, just interested.)

        Maybe the fail to notice that the x86 instruction set architecture is several years older than the 68k
        Good call, I hadn't even thought of that. :)
        • Yes, the original Pong and also the Magnavox Odyssey (the first home system) were both entirely IC-free. Coming as they did in 1972, they pre-date microprocessors by a few(?) years anyway. Nothing like opening up my old Odyssey to see only transistors, caps, and resistors :) Oh, and the game cartridges were only fancy jumpers; programmable game carts were still 4 years away.

    • I mostly agree with you. One of my buddies scoffed at the speed of the PIC in my first project: 1 MIPS. It's not like I was going to run UT on it.

      Hmm, that gives me an idea for a new PIC project... =)
    • Read this article [extremetech.com] over at Extremetech [extremetech.com]. It shows how the 8bit chips are used more than any other type in real world applications. The 68k type, although old, are still used.
    • Sounds like you want to get into Gameboy development. At the company [amazeentertainment.com] I work for, one of the guys from our handheld division [griptonite.com] walked by my cube saying something about the AI code he just wrote in optimized Z80.

      At first, I shuddered, having horrible flashbacks to my father throwing some assembler manuals and a Timex Sinclair 1000 in my lap at age 8 and telling me to learn it. But then I looked at the Gamecube SDK and Hardware docs I've been pouring over and wondered if it wouldn't be more fun to explore that simpler, more elegant world...

    • I know of one set of docs, relating to the history of Cinematronics games and their related hardware. VERY detailed stuff, and pretty amazing when you read it and find out some of the early games like Armor Attack used TTL-only systems, no microprocessor at all!
      [spies.com]
      http://www.spies.com/arcade/info/CineHistV2.0.tx t


      After being in the coin-op biz for a while, you hear the same microprocessors mentioned over and over: Z80, 6800, 6809, 68000, 6502. That pretty much covers arcade history from 1980 to 1987. Sure, there were custom chips for I/O, sound, video, what have you, but it seems that most of the hardware designers pulled out their Moto or Zilog book and went from there. Remember that cost is king, and if you can find a commodity chip that will make your design even cheaper that's a good thing. Being cutting-edge and exotic didn't win you any fans upstairs, or from your technicians that had to field repair these things.

    • Actually, I should make one big plug for the Wiretap archive, a great coin-op history repository.

      http://www.spies.com/arcade

      and more specifically

      http://www.spies.com/arcade/info/

    • I love archaic technology. However, I think that you overestimate the case for microprocessors, though. Much of the hardware in early video games was either simple digital or even analog.

      Consider the venerable "paddle." Take an RC-based timer, reset on the vertical retrace. Use the potentiometer on the console as the R part of the circuit. When the timer fires, have it trigger a one-shot timer for a short period of time. Feed the ouput of that time to the gun of the CRT. Voila, a horizontal bar that you can move up and down the screen with the knob.

      Take another shorter RC timer, triggered by the horizontal retrace. Have a fixed timing, so that it fires when the beam is about an inch from the left of the screen. Have it fire another timer that will stay on for a few pixels' trace. Take this output and the ouput of the timer in the previous paragraph, run them through an AND gate, and you have a paddle for the left of the screen.

      Of course, eventually you are going to have to have some counters in there, but it's amazing how much you can do with very simple circuitry.

  • It's ~1:30am Monday morning (.au Time), with a deadline to be reached by 9:30am, and I can't stop playing a 3D shockwave version of Pong!

    Talk about your history of games... Pong's appeal is ever reaching. It is God's gift to the CRT. It is the pixelated equivalent of a fresh spring morn.

    In a word:

    Quintessential!!!

    Either that or procrastination is somehow involved.

    :)
  • 1993: Congress Notes Video Game Violence
    Incensed by the violence in Mortal Kombat and Night Trap, Senators Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut) and Herbert Kohl (Wisconsin) launch a Senate "investigation" into video game violence, threaten to somehow effect a ban on "violent" games, and eventually soften their demands and concede to an industry-wide rating system.
    they are still in office? ... sigh... people never remember anything
    joe lieberman?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I hate you for this link. You just ruined my lousy sunday evening bringing up long lost memories of the days, when computers wheres simple, games in 16 colors and girls just a thing you met in schools. I remember the first time i poked my C64 to get 255 Lifes in Fort Apocalypse. I'm repeating this experience in this moment.

      I thought i have lost my childhood, but now i have it back. But sadly now that i'm an adult human being, i've got not enough time to play Pirates! for 8 hours straight. How should i cure this disease ?

    • I agree - and someone should mod you up. I never even had a nintendo when they came out for the simple reason my Commodore 64 was good enough. And when the Amiga came out I remember everyone saying - "oh thats just a games machine" - and actually it played some of the best games at the time.

      Commodore Amiga also had the A) first CD based game console CDTV (which they mention almost as a footnote - despite the fact that it was designed by the same guy who gave us pong) and B) the first 32 bit console the CD-32.

      Its just like the "history of multimedia" in new media magazine a while back (which I think is defunct) despite the fact that Commodore used to advertise in their rag - they didn't mention Amiga at all. Yet when I was using the machine full time I couldn't imagine doing multimedia on anything else.
  • MIT student Steve Russell creates Spacewar, the first interactive computer game, on a Digital PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) mainframe computer. Limited by the computer technology of the time, ASCII text characters are the "graphics," and people can only play the game on a device that takes up enough floor space to fill a small house.

    Hmm... First, they say that Spacewar uses ASCII graphics, then they provide a screen-shot with vector graphics. The screen shot is correct; a better article on Spacewar can be found here [gamesoffame.com].

  • For those interested in reading a good book about the history of video games, check out The First Quater by Steven Kent. It starts with pre-pong era of games up until the playstation . It has some really good insight on all of the trials and such that happened during the 16-bit era.
  • In the article it says how the name came up:

    they modify the Latin word sonus (sound) and come up with Sony



    I saw an interview in the 80's with one of the guys who did come up with the name and he said that it was the whole California craze was just starting and they wanted to associate with those "sunny boys " out there.

    I don't know which is right but I think it puts a whole different spin on the name.

  • 1971 Nutting Releases First Arcade Video Game Nutting manufactures 1,500 Computer Space machines. The components are packaged with a 13-inch black-and-white TV set in a futuristic-looking cabinet. The first arcade video game is released, but the public finds it too difficult to play.

    So 30 years of research have done something good. At least my Dad can play something simple like "Moorhuhn" :-). And these Computer Space games seems to have an even simpler GUI than XP.

  • with the Marufuku Company (later Nintendo)

    Geez.... I doubt they had any english people around when they chose that name
    • It was likely pronounced maroofookoo or something like that. Ignorant english speaking people screw everything up, this is why matsushita is called panasonic in north america. Matsushita is pronounced something like mastu-shtika in japan, I've visited and heard them say it but it's hard to spell out how it sounds, it certainly doesn't sound anything like matsu-shit-a
  • The Dot Eaters [emuunlim.com]

    Doesn't go as far back or forward, but much more detailed and better written.

  • The biggest thing I noticed was the utter lack of focus on the PC Games. The only mention of them after the development of the consoles was a snippet about Half Life. For quite a while PC games have led the way in many parts of the market. How about some info on Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, and other famous titles? How about the best selling Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diable games that I have spent so mny countless hours on?

    Oh, and the Turbo Graphix 16 was the shitnitz in its day if you could manage to get anything other than that damn Keith Courage game.
  • If someone actually liked that site, which was low on information, you'll absolutley love this site: http://www.emuunlim.com/doteaters/

    The doteaters examines the history of arcade, home and computer games. Anyone remember Wampus?

    By far the best feature of the site is the overall timelines: http://www.emuunlim.com/doteaters/timescape.htm
  • If you feel like reading more...here's another link on Video Game History

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/02/27/225024 9&mode=thread [slashdot.org]

    There was another detailed web presentation of the history of video games posted about two years ago..I want to say it was GameSpot, but can't remember..Does anyone know?

    thx

  • The article fails to note that the Atari Lynx color handheld accommodated left-handed users. Game buttons were placed on both sides of the unit and you could flip the screen.

    It ran circles around the gray Nintendo Gameboy (256 colors, stereo sound, multiplayer option), but Atari knew squat about marketing. A single commercial on MTV once in a blue moon, while Nintendo smothered every nook and cranny of the market. It was like Atari was satisfied if it produced X units and sold those units, instead of being more ambitious.
  • They seem to have left out any real mention of the booming PC gaming industry, and the advances in the graphics cards. They also don't mention how many people participate in online gaming, and how many hours are "wasted" playing Anarchy Online and other online RPG's.
    • Considering the incredible detail that the authors went into and the length of the article, I think that PC games would best be left to another feature.

      My guess (from a marketing perspective) is that since consoles are so hot right now it makes sense for a gaming site to run a feature on them. Advertisers love stuff like this.

      PC games OTOH...well, as far as I can see there's just not a hell of a lot going on there right now. What was the last big-buzz must-have PC game? For me it was Civ3, which turned out to be quite the stinker. Ditto for Black and White. Lately, the console market has been delivering on its hype, whereas PC games haven't. Gamespot has to go where the money is.

      What? You thought they published articles as a public service? ;)

  • The World Trade Center apparently never existed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Calle Ballz ( 238584 ) on Sunday January 20, 2002 @01:16PM (#2872624) Homepage
    Okay, before I'm moderated as a troll, and this is in reference to the article... read:


    * Spider-Man 2 for the PlayStation is delayed to remove a scene that had the superhero on top of a building that looked like the World Trade Center.

    * Changes are made to Flight Simulator 2002 to remove the World Trade Center towers from the flying environment and a patch is released to remove them from Flight Simulator 2000.


    Why the hell is the world trade center being removed from old movies, video games, advertisements and just about anything else. Isn't this rewriting history? Are we supposed to pretend that they never existed? I have a picture of myself as a child with the World Trade Center right behind me.... should I doctor that photo to reflect the newer, more post 9/11 NYC skyline? I'm sorry, but there used to be two giant buildings where the empty space is... and pretending that they never existed will not help this country whatsoever.
    • Okay, it's not like me to post one of these lame ass "mod up" articles, but I've been confounded about the issue just as much as the above poster.

      Since there is a barely a response to the above article, please consider modding it up for more exposure.
    • Why should the WTC towers be included in a game like Flight Simulator 2002? They no longer exist. This is not rewriting history at all. Pretending they never collapsed will not help this country whatsoever.
      • The problem is not with it being removed from Flight Simulator 2002: but rather a patch to remove it from the 2000 edition. It's like saying we should remove all references to Rome from modern media - after all, Rome did fall.
        • I know this is probably not the reason they made the patch but it validates it for me. (i'm not american btw, and would probably hate to be ;-) )

          Flight SIMULATOR 2000. just that a simulator, i see the patch as a modernising patch, like a scenery update. to how it is now. do you really want them to FORCE UPGRADES to new products for realism?

          carrot007.
    • No, this is a really good idea!

      Remember when you were a little kid, and your friends would do things to annoy you? Eventually, you learned that if you ignore them instead of reacting, they would leave you alone, because they didn't get the reaction they wanted.

      America is remembering the lessons we learned as little kids. Instead of getting all huffy-puffy about the buildings being knocked down, we'll just completely erase all memories of them!

      Bin Laden: Haha, America! I knocked your shit down!
      America: Huh? There were never any buildings there in the first place. Notice this flight simulator from 2000. There are just blank spots where you claim there were some "buildings."
      Bin Laden (exasperated): I... HATE... YOU!!!!

      Clearly, we can win by not giving him the satisfaction of thinking he did anything.
    • Why the hell is the world trade center being removed from old movies, video games, advertisements and just about anything else.

      Because if you want to SELL something, such as entertainment, you don't want to interrupt the happy-happy consumer mindset with "bad feelings" for even an instant!

      Same reason Time Magazine chose Giuliani over Bin Laden for person of the year -- money.

      (Of course, if your "business" *is* selling WTC "souvenirs", then the psychology is reversed... and this is in fact more despicable IMO.)

      --

    • I agree with you in the case of the spiderman reference, but in the case of removing it from flight simulator, I side with Microsoft. I think it was appropriate for them to offer an optional patch to the old game, so that it is not possible to crash into the building and 'recreate' anything. And as far as the new game goes - FS 2002, it is not rewriting history - it is a current game that should include the current landscape.
    • Nah, I think it has more to do with the fact that to make the games current, they need a current landscape. It would make the games look newer if they did not include the towers. Just changing with the times, trying to keep up as usual.
    • Read 1984. Note the mission of the Ministry of Truth. All will be revealed.
    • Why the hell is the world trade center being removed from old movies, video games, advertisements and just about anything else. Isn't this rewriting history?
      Care to specify what "old movies, video games" the WTC is being removed from? Vanilla Sky? Nope, still there. Spider Man 2? Yup, because SM2 wasn't released until after the WTC was gone. The same with the movie; it's supposed to be taking place in the present day, and presently the towers aren't there.

      As for Flight Simulator 2002, umm, notice the year in the name "2002"? Tell me now, is the WTC on the New York skyline in 2002? No? Then why should they put it there? How about the Larkin building or the Georgia Medical Dental building? Those building were demolished before 2002 and aren't in Spider Man or Flight Simulator 2002 either. Are you going to be outraged about their absence?

  • Heh, I don't know about everybody else. But I really enjoyed the Futurama episode where Fry wished life were more like a computer game.
    Just in case any body was wondering, the little backwards speaking monster fellow said "Where can a guy get some pants around here".
  • No reason to knock yourself out reading the works of ancient philosophers (unless you're taking Ancient Philosophers 230 and have an exam this week).

    "I can teach Japanese to a monkey in 46 hours. It's just a matter of being able to relate to the material. You like pro-wrestling, right?"
  • For the same reason there's only what - 100+ titles for the PS2 in the US - no-one wants to translate titles released in Japan - I highly doubt it had anything to do with sega jumping the gun. There are thousands of good titles for the saturn, but you better know japanese first (and get some mods to play them). I have a friend who just returned from there and he says there are literally thousands of cool titles for the ps2 - we'll never see 99% of them though.
  • More nostalgia:
    Killer List of Videogames [klov.com] is definately worth a visit. Over 3.500 videogames has been indexed. Nice screenshots, trivia and even cheats for some videogames.
  • What happened to the Game Gear in this history. It's only mentioned once very vaguely that some company was going to sell a cheaper version of it and other Sega products. Game Gear was a great product, just had bad battery life which eventually killed it (and it not being marketed very well).
  • `Game Over' by David Sheff is a very good book on the history of Nintendo. It has also been recently updated with news of the impact of Sony.

    Go read it. You will enjoy it!
  • A cold night, New York, 1923. A giant trained gorilla renowned for its barrel tossing act escapes from the Barham & Bailey circus, climbing to the top of an unfinished wrought iron building. In the confusion, the girlfriend of a recently immigrated Italian plumber is taken hostage. And thus a legend is born.
  • Columbine Families Play the Blame Game
    The families of several victims of the 1999 Columbine High School shootings file a $5 billion lawsuit against 25 video game publishers, including Nintendo, Sega, Sony, id Software, and GT Interactive.

    Wow, I'd never even heard about this. Anyone know how it turned out? I wonder if I can sue these companies for causing me to waste my life away in front of a television...
  • The CD32 was left out of the list, (a cd based console version of the Amiga 1200 for those that dont remember) one of many consoles that failed due to lack of third party developer support and frankly naff marketing...just like the Jaguar, Indrema and the CDTV.

    The CD32 had one bonus for consumers, through 3rd party add ons it could be turned into a 'real computer', that could be upgraded with a new processor, extra ram and even an external modem to get surfing...

    "is it a games console, is it a PC, no we'll just hide the CDTV amongst the electronics section and hope someone buys it".. aah Commodore marketing at its best, on wonder noone bought one and the idiots took a similar approach to the CD32...

    I know most of the stuff released for the CD32 it was shovelware, but that was more due to Commodore's legendary lack of marketing skill and their stupidity in trying to sell a console without first getting the backing of developers to make games exclusively for their console.

    Witness the XBox, who would REALLY buy a stripped down PC if it wasn't for the exclusive XBOX only games ?
  • They missed the Interact computer, from Ann Arbor, from 1978. It was a video game machine with a keyboard, later more apps too advantage of its being a computer. I actually worked there...

    Does anyone remember Interact?
  • I accidently read "Microsoft removes the veil" as "Microsoft reveals the evil."
  • Actually, I got a great book for Cristmas. Tons of stuff from ancient philosophers in it, from a modern historian. In the last few days I have finally had time to start reading it. I could care less about playing card companies. The roots of western civilization, now that's recreation!
  • 1989
    Tengen's Tetris.
    Tetris Troubles
    Tengen acquires the home rights to Tetris and begins selling the extremely popular game. However, it is quickly discovered that Tengen bought the rights from Mirrorsoft, which did not own the rights in the first place. Nintendo quietly acquires the legitimate home rights to Tetris and releases it under its own label. The Tengen version is removed from the marketplace
  • An article about the history of video games, without even a mention of the Amiga? This is a crime!

    How can you not mention the most pirated gaming system ever released.. the one where only like 1 in 10 people owned a legal version of the game, nearly destroying the industry :) (Though in the end it only destroyed Commodore)

    As if that history isn't enough, it was a superb, powerful platform. Some of the best games released were on it. I bought one off Ebay recently for old time's sake. Good stuff!

    I suppose it wasn't a "console" as such, which may be why they didn't mention it. But it spent all its time in front of a TV, which is close enough for me (especially the nice, small A600 that resembled a console better)

  • 1977

    Pizza Time Theatre Atari opens the first Pizza Time Theatre, a new arcade-restaurant combination that features moving robotic animals, electronic games, and food. The mascot for the restaurant is a rat named Chuck E. Cheese. Bushnell thought up the concept three years earlier while standing in line at a pizza parlor.

    I still have a Chuck E. Cheese token back from when I used to play games a lot. It's a 1984 token and it says "In pizza we trust" on it.

    There is no way I would play it now. I just hold onto it as a memory of youth, and wonder if it will ever achieve spectacular collector value.

  • Two minor nitpicks (only two!):
    * I thought Space War was first implemented on the TX-O, not the PDP-1.
    * Systems never mentioned: RCA Studio II (the only pre-2600 cartridge system not mentioned), Emerson Arcadia 2001 (with sound effects that must have been programmed by a tone-deaf person; you have to hear it to understand just how bad they are), APF M-1000, Atari Lynx.

    More random stuff:
    * When Atari finally released the 7800 in 1986, the units had been sitting in a warehouse, ready for sale for two years, since being cancelled in 1984 because "nobody wanted to buy video games any more". Sure, nobody wanted to buy crappy 2600 games any more... but Nintendo was foolish enough to release a system anyhow. :)
    * I had one of those old Coleco Telstar units when I was a kid. One thing about it was that if you slid the game select switch to just the right position, you got a version of the "hockey" game where one side had three paddles instead of two.
    * And FWIW, a few years back I found a (very thick) book by Tab Books which covers the design of TTL-based (as in no CPU) games. Very interesting what you can do without a CPU, but it really takes a Woz to get that kind of stuff right. (IIRC, Woz designed the coin-op Breakout machine.)

  • This site: http://www.geekcomix.com/vgh/first/index.shtml provides as much depth as you could want(I've been reading it for the last week and still haven't even gotten out of the 80's) It's got technical stuff, as well as non-technical.

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