Lecture for Level 5 of The Los Angeles Film School's Survey of the Videogame Industry course.

1. Level 5
David Mullich
Survey of the Videogame Industry
The Los Angeles Film School

3. 1947: Cathode Ray Tube
Amusement Device
 Earliest known interactive
electronic game
 Missile simulator using
analog circuitry to control
the CRT beam and
position a dot on the
screen
 Patent filed by Thomas T.
Goldsmith and Estle Ray
Mann in 1947 and filed in
1948
Circuitry schematic of Cathode Ray
Tube Amusement Device

4. 1951: Baer’s Idea for Interactive
Television
 Inventor Ralph Baer realizes
that by giving audience the
ability to control what was
projected on their television
set, their role changes from
passive observing to
interactive manipulation
 Bear’s boss at electronics
company Loral dismisses the
idea because they’re behind
schedule
 Baer later becomes known as
“The Father of Video Games”
Ralph Baer (left) receives the National
Medal of Technology from former
president George W. Bush (right)

5. 1966: First Video Game
Displayed on Television
 Baer and Bill Harrison, a
co-worker at electronics
contractor Sanders
Associates create a
game called Chase, the
first to display on a
standard television set
 Harrison, with Baer’s
help, creates a light gun,
the first video game
peripheralBill Harrison, co-creator of the first
video game for television

6. 1968: The First Video Game
Console
 Work is completed on a
prototype, which Baer called
“The Brown Box”, that could
play several different games
such as table tennis and
target shooting
 By 1969, Sanders shows off
the world’s first home video
game console to
manufacturers
 This console would
eventually become the
Magnavox Odyssey
Brown Box prototype now on display at
the Smithsonian Institution’s National
Museum of American History

7. Rise of the Video Game: Ralph Baer (2:56)
Ralph Baer

8. Arcade Games
G4 Icons Episode #26: Arcade (22:45)

9. 1966: Sega’s Periscope
Worldwide Success
 Sega introduces electro-
mechanical game called
Periscope, a submarine
simulator and light gun
shooter
 Huge success in Japan,
Europe and North
America
 First arcade machine to
cost a quarter to play

10. 1969: Duck Hunt
 Sega produces gun games
similar to first-person
shooters
 Electro-mechanical game
using rear image projection
to produce moving images
on screen
 First of these was Duck
Hunt featuring animated
moving targets, score
printed on ticket, and
volume-controlled sound
effects

11. 1969: Missile
 Sega releases Missile, a
shooter and vehicle
combat simulation
featuring electronic
sound and a moving film
strip to represent targets
on a projection screen
 Earliest known arcade
game to feature a
joystick with a fire button

12. 1971: First Coin-Op Arcade
Video Game
 Students at Stanford
University set up the
Galaxy Game, a coin-
operated version of
SpaceWar!
 Earliest known
instance of a coin-
operated video game
 Console incorporated a
DEC PDP-11/20 with
vector displays

13. 1971: First Commercially Sold
Arcade Game
 Computer Space was
created by Nolan Bushnell
and Ted Dabney, and
released by Nutting
Associates in November
1971
 World’s first commercially
sold coin-operated video
arcade game
 Display is rendered on a
specially modified General
Electric 15" black-and-white
portable television vacuum
tube set

14. 1972: Nolan Bushnell Forms
Atari and Creates Pong
 Nolan Bushnell and Ted
Dabney form Atari, although
Nolan buys Dabney out soon
afterwards
 Atari hires engineer Allan
Alcorn as its first employee,
who creates coin-op version
of the Magnavox tennis game
 Pong is so successful in
bringing video games to the
masses that Atari is credited
with creating the coin-op
video arcade industryAtari founder Nolan Bushnell and Pong

16. 1972: Magnavox Odyssey
 US television manufacturer
Magnavox signs deal to sell
Ralph Baer’s “Brown Box”
console system under the
name Magnavox Odyssey
 Alternations include using
plug-in circuits to change
games and using color
overlays for game
backgrounds
 Released with 27 games
including Simon Says, Table
Tennis, Volleyball and
Shooting Gallery
 330,000 units sold
Magnavox Odyssey

17. 1975: Atari/Sears Tele-Games
Home Pong
 Atari engineer teams up
with Pong inventor Alcorn
to create a home version
of the coin-op game
 Home Pong becomes
Sears most successful
product at the time, selling
150,000 units during the
holiday season
 Magnavox sues Atari, but
settles out of court with
Atari becoming a
Magnavox licensee
Atari/Sears Tele-Games Home Pong

18. 1976: Coleco Telestar
 Series of 14 consoles
produced from 1976 to
1978
 Console had two paddle
controllers and the first
to use General
Instrument's AY-3-8500
chip, a processor that
had 6 games: Tennis,
Soccer, Squash,
Practice, and Rifle Game
(1 and 2 player versions)
 One million Telestar units
sold
Coleco Telestar

19. 1977: Nintendo Color TV Game
 Nintendo’s first entry into
the videogame industry
was securing rights to
distribute the Magnavox
Odyssey in 1974
 Beginning in 1977,
Nintendo produced a
series of four dedicated
home consoles for the
Japanese market
 Three million Color TV
Game units sold
Nintendo Color TV Game

20. Video Game Crash of 1977
 Pong “clones” had flooded
the market and
manufacturers sold older,
obsolete clones at a loss
 Many manufacturers
abandoned their console
game business, leaving
only Atari and Magnavox
 Crash came to an end
with the success of Taito’s
Space Invaders in 1978

22. 1978: Space Invaders
(Taito/Midway)
 Designed by Tomohiro
Nishikado
 Manufactured by Taito in Japan
and later licensed to Midway in
the US
 By 1981, the game grossed
over $1 Billion, making it the
best-selling entertainment
product of its time
 Inspired arcade machines to
become prevalent in
mainstream locations such as
shopping malls
 Considered to have started The
Golden Age of Arcade Games

23. 1979: Asteroids (Atari)
 One of the most
popular and influential
games of the Golden
Age
 70,000 arcade
cabinets sold,
becoming Atari’s best-
selling game of all
time

24. 1980: Pac-Man (Namco/Midway)
 Sold by Namco in Japan
and sold by Midway in the
US
 Established the maze chase
genre, which appealed to
both men and women
 Introduced the first gaming
mascot, power-ups and cut-
scenes
 Considered a video game
classic and an icon of 1980s
pop culture

25. 1981: Donkey Kong (Nintendo)
 Nintendo’s first big hit!
 Designed by first-time game
designer Shigeru Miyamoto
 Laid foundations for platform
game genre as well as for
visual storytelling in video
games
 Introduced Mario (originally
called “Jumpman”, the
character who would become
Nintendo’s mascot
 Enormously successful in
Japan and North America

26. 1982: Tron (Bally Midway)
 Based on the Walt
Disney film “Tron”
released that same year
 Consisted of four mini-
games based on scenes
from the film
 The game earned more
money than the film’s
initial release

27. 1983: Dragon’s Lair
(Cinematronics)
 Laserdisc video game
featuring animation
created by ex-Disney
animator Don Bluth
 One of only three video
games (along with
Pong and Pac-Man) on
display in the
Smithsonian Institution
Dirk the Daring, hero of Dragon’s Lair

29. 1976: Fairchild Channel F
 First programmable ROM
cartridge–based video game
console, and the first
console to use a
microprocessor
 Contained two built-in
games, Hockey and Tennis,
with 27 additional Videocarts
 Spurred Atari into improving
and releasing their Atari VCS
gaming system, which was
still in development
 250,000 units sold
Fairchild Channel F Promotional
Poster

30. 1977: Atari 2600
 Popularized use of
microprocessor-based
hardware and ROM cartridges
containing game code by being
superior to the Fairchild
 Originally named the Atari VCS
 Typically bundled with two
joystick controllers, pair of
game paddles, and the game
Combat (later Pac-Man)
 30 million units sold, and
considered one of the greatest
game consoles of all time
 This is the system that brought
video games into the home.
Atari 2600

31. 1979: Activision Founded
 Formed by disgruntled Atari
game designers who failed to
convince Atari to pay them
royalties and give them credit
on game boxes
 Became the first third-party
developer of video games
 Promoted game creators
along with the games
themselves
 In 1982, released Pitfall!, a
best-selling title on the Atari
2600
In 1982, Activision releases
Pitfall for the Atari 2600

32. 1980: Mattel Intellivision
 Introduced by Mattel
toy company in 1989
 Featured unique
processor allowing
superior graphics to
the older Atari 2600
 More than 125 games
released
 Sold 3 million units
Mattel Intellivision

33. 1982: ColecoVision
 A powerful machine with
near-arcade-quality
graphics
 Catalog of about 145
game titles
 Licensed Nintendo’s
Donkey Kong as the
official pack-in cartridge,
which was received as a
near-perfect arcade port
ColecoVision
“The arcade quality video
game system”

34. Video Game Crash of 1983
 Massive recession of the
videogame industry lasting from
1983 to 1985
 Revenues that had peaked at
$3.2 billion in 1983 fell to $100
million by 1985, almost
destroying the industry
 Crash blamed on a glut of low-
quality video games, flooded
console market, and competition
from home computers
High-profile failures like the
ET-The Extraterrestrial
video game contributed to
the crash

35. Video Game Crash of 1983
G4 Icons Episode #32: The Video Game
Crash (22:45)

37. 1983: Nintendo Entertainment
System (NES)
 Released in Japan as the
Famicom (Family Computer)
 First console of the 8-bit era,
with tile and sprite-based
graphics
 Introduced the gamepad
 Nintendo introduced now-
standard business model of
licensing third-party developers
 Longest production run of any
console (1983-2003) and
credited with ending the Video
Game Crash of 1983
 Considered the greatest video
game console in history
NES gamepad
controller

38. 1985: Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo)
 Designer Shigeru
Miyamoto’s first home
console game
 The standard to which all 2D
platformers would be judged!
 “Jumpman” renamed Mario
 Sold 40.24 million copies,
making it the best-selling
video game in the Mario
series and the fifth best-
selling game ever
 Ensured Nintendo’s
dominance over the console
market with the NESDesign Club - Super Mario
Bros: Level 1-1

39. 1985: Sega Master System
 Released as a direct
competitor to the NES,
starting the Console Wars
 Could play both cartridges
and credit card-sized “Sega
cards”
 Although technically superior
to the NES, it failed to
overturn Nintendo’s market
share in Japan and North
America
 Small game library, coupled
with the highly uneven quality
of the few games released
Sega Master System with Light
Gun

40. 1986: Atari 7800
 Originally announced in
1984 but release was
shelved due to sale of the
company
 When released in 1986, it
had simple dual joysticks
and was almost fully
backward compatible with
the Atari 2600
 Considered affordable at
$140Atari 7800 ProSystem

41. 1986: The Legend of Zelda
(Nintendo)
 Created by game
designers Shigeru
Miyamoto and Takashi
Tezuka
 Gameplay consists of a
mixture of action,
adventure, and puzzle
solving
 Original game is the fourth
best-selling NES game of
all time
 Series consists of 16
games, with a total of 67.9
million copies
The Legend of Zelda for NES

42. 1987: Final Fantasy (Square)
 Conceived by designer
Hironobu Sakaguchi as his
“final” effort in the video
game industry
 RPG that introduced a side-
view perspective of combat,
evolving class-change
system, and different modes
of transportation
 Regarded as one of the most
influential early RPG’s and
launched a series that has
sold over 100 million unitsFinal Fantasy for NES

43. 1987: Metal Gear (Konami / Ultra
Games)
 Originally created for
the MSX2 in Japan by
first-time video game
designer Hideo Kojima
 Considered to be the
progenitor of the
stealth game genre
 Ported to the NES and
sold in US by Konami’s
Ultra GamesMetal Gear for NES

44. 1989: Nintendo GameBoy
 8-bit handheld video game
device released in Japan and
North America in 1989
 The popular puzzle game
Tetris was included with the
system
 It was a tremendous success.
The Game Boy and its
successor, the Game Boy
Color, sold a combined 118
million units worldwide
 Made play portable and
helped gamers to stick with
Nintendo rather than Sega
Nintendo GameBoy with Tetris

46. 1987: TurboGrafx-16
Entertainment SuperSystem
 Released in Japan as the PC
Engine in 1987 and in North
America two years later
 First console of the 16-bit era,
although it had a 8-bit
processor with dual 16-bit
GPU capable of producing
482 colors simultaneously
 CD-ROMS were introduced in
this generation as add-ons
 Suffered from a lack of third-
party support and the
absence of a second
controller port
TurboGrafx-16

47. 1988: Sega Genesis
 Released in Japan in 1988
as the Sega Mega Drive,
and in North America in
1989 under the name
Genesis
 Sega’s most successful
game console
 Controversy over violent
games like Mortal Combat
forced Sega to create the
first video game rating
system, allowing it to ship
games with little censorship
and giving it a competitive
edge over Nintendo
Sega Genesis

48. 1990: Neo-Geo
 SNK’s NEO-GEO was
capable of 2D graphics
at a quality level years
ahead of other consoles
because it had the
same hardware as
SNK’s arcade games
 However, it was also
the most expensive
console at the time by a
wide margin
Neo-Geo

49. 1990: Super NES
 Released in Japan in
1990 as Super Famicom,
and in North America in
1990
 Introduced advanced
graphics and sounds and
was able to run some of
the first three-
dimensional video games
on consoles
 Became the best-selling
console of the 16-bit era
despite its late start and
fierce competition
Super NES

51. 1993: Atari Jaguar
 Marketed as the first 64-
bit gaming system
 Proved to be a
commercial failure due to
its small library of games
and prompted Atari to
leave the home video
game console market
 Last console from an
American company until
the 2001 introduction of
the X-BoxAtari Jaguar

52. 1993: 3DO Interactive
Multiplayer
 Conceived by Electronic
Arts founder Trip Hawkins
 The 3DO Company
licensed the technology for
other manufactures, such
as Panasonic, to produced
 Despite a highly promoted
launch (including being
named Time magazine’s
“1994 Product of the
Year”) its high price of
$699 was one of the
factors that prevented it
from achieving success
3DO Interactive
Multiplayer

53. 1994: Sega Saturn
 Released by Sega in
1994 in Japan and
1995 in North America
 Sold 9.4 million units
worldwide
 Installed base was 6
million units in Japan
but only 2 million in the
US, losing market
share to its competitorsSega Saturn

54. 1994: Sony PlayStation
 Released by Sony in 1994
in Japan and 1995 in North
America
 First “computer
entertainment platform” to
ship 100 million units
 The best selling console of
all time from 1998 until
2006, when it was
surpassed by the
PlayStation 2
 Its competitor Nintendo was
considered stuck in the past
with its use of cartridges
and cap on mature-themed
games
Sony PlayStation

55. 1996: Nintendo 64
 Released by Nintendo in
1996 in both Japan and
North America
 Suggested retail price
was $199.99 at launch
and sold 32.93 million
units worldwide
 Time Magazine named it
“1996 Machine of the
Year” despite having a
limited texture cache and
still relying on ROM
cartridges
Nintendo 64

56. 1997: GoldenEye (Nintendo)
 Nintendo 64 title principally
made by a team who had
never coded a video game
before
 Directed by Martin Hollis of
Rare and published by
Nintendo
 Multiplayer deathmatch
mode considered one of the
most enjoyable multiplayer
experiences ever
 Sold 8 million units
worldwide, making it the
third best selling Nintendo
64 game

58. 1998: Sega Dreamcast
 Launched by Sega in Japan in 1998
and other territories in 1999
 Intended as a comeback after
previous efforts with the Sega
Saturn failed
 First console with a built-in modem
and internet support for online play
 Despite it being initially well
received, sales plummeted when
the PlayStation 2 was announced
and the system was discontinued in
2001
Sega Dreamcast

59. 2000: PlayStation 2
 Released by Sony in all
territories in 2000
 Featured DVD-base game
disks with the ability to play
DVD movies and audio CD’s
 More than 3,800 game titles
have been released for the
PS2 since launch
 It is the best-selling video
game console of all time,
selling over 150 million units,
winning the Console Wars
Sony PlayStation 2

60. 2001: Nintendo GameCube
 Released by Nintendo in all
territories in 2001
 Nintendo’s first optical disc-
based console using 80mm
“mini-DVD”’s (but couldn’t
play standard DVD’s or
audio CD’s)
 First Nintendo to support
online gaming
 Criticized for its color
scheme and lack of features
 Sold 22 million units
worldwide before being
discontinued in 2007
Nintendo
GameCube

61. 2001: Xbox
 Released by Microsoft
in North America in
2001 and in other
territories in 2002
 Microsoft’s first entry in
the console market,
and first American
console since the Atari
Jaguar
 In 2002, Microsoft
launched Xbox live, a
fee-based online
gaming system
Microsoft Xbox

63. 2005: Xbox 360
 Microsoft unveiled the
Xbox 360 on MTV in
2005
 Major features include
integrated Xbox Live
service that allows
players to compete
online
 Windows Media Center
multimedia capabilities
 Games rendered
natively at HD
resolutions
Xbox 360

64. 2006: PlayStation 3
 First released by Sony
in 2006 in Japan and in
other territories shortly
thereafter
 First console to use Blu-
ray Disc as its major
storage medium
 Major features include
its unified gaming
services, the
PlayStation Network
PlayStation 3

65. 2006: Wii
 First released by Nintendo
in 2006
 Wii Remote can be used
as a handheld pointing
device and detects
movement in three
dimensions
 First console to offer
Virtual Console service,
with which select emulated
games from past systems
can be downloadedWii Remote in
action

66. Nintendo’s Vision
 Make games for an expanded
audience
 Devotion to entertainment
business
 Willingness to take risks
Shigeru Miyamoto