With the fourth generation of game consoles looming in, I thought it may be a good idea to recall what we’ve come from, take a step back in time for a moment, and wonder how the hell we got where we were today. I forget who said it, but someone rather wise and noble and probably dead famous – Einstein, maybe? – said something along the lines of “the best way to suppose what to come is to look into our past.” At this point I’d like to stress that the lottery is the exception that proves the rule. Anyway, as this is my article on gaming throughout the past century or so, let me take you through the ins and outs of videogaming history. Strangely enough, our story doesn’t start with the advancements of technology in the 1970’s and 80’s, as companies today would have you believe. No. So here it is, my brief account of videogaming evolution. Please; this is not to be considered comprehensive. I daresay I have overstressed some wrong parts, understressed others, totally forgot some more. But the basics are there. It’s a long read, but hey. There’s a lot that happens.

 Our story starts in Eastern Society, well over a century ago. The year is 1889, and welcome to Japan, where one Hiroshi Yamauchi has just founded a card company called Nintendo Koppai. Throughout the late 19th century right up until mid 20th century, Nintendo Koppai was the pioneering force in board and card games in the East, and we leave the story here for a moment, because they continue with this tradition until they lose the ‘Koppai’ and become gaming geniuses.

So let us take a look at what happened in Western society for a brief moment. Well, we start to see the beginning of computer technology after World War 2. In 1948, the University of Manchester created what was the world’s biggest leap in computer technologies, the SSEM (small scale Experimental Machine), nicknamed “Baby.” This computer was the first of its kind, with the ability to store and use data in electronic memory. Breakthrough number 1, as far as us gamers are concerned. Fast-forward to 1951, and we’ve got ourselves the first commercially-available computer; based on “Baby,” nine models of the Ferranti Mark 1 were sold. A year later, and A. S. Douglas, PhD develops the world’s first computer game – an electronic version of Tic Tac Toe. This, of course is, contrary to popular belief – Spacewar didn’t make an appearance until a decade later. Breakthrough number 2.

 Meanwhile, in 1954, another company that is in no way related to computers is rearing it’s head. Service and Games Company began to import Pinball Machines into Japan.

 Okay, 1958 arrives and an early version of Pong arrives. “The Tennis Program” becomes the most advanced game in history, requiring an oscilloscope to be connected to an analogue computer. This is probably the first evidenced case of any games needing specific hardware requirements. Nothing else happens of great relevance until 1961, when Spacewar is developed, and becomes the first distributed game. Breakthrough number 3, thank you Steve Russell.

 Okay, remember the Service and Games Company and their pinball machines? Well, by 1965, they realized that this was something of a dead selling point, so in conjunction with their move into the Arcade Games business, they became SEGA. See how this is all beginning to come together now? But just as things begin to get a little simpler, the US government get involved. Of course, the administration has often been considered much worse than merely “simple,” but you’ll see what I mean about them overcomplicating the issue. In 1966, they fund a top secret project to develop training tools for the Military. That doesn’t affect the issue that much but it’s typical throughout the next thirty or so years – every available technology must be adapted. Anyway, another major revolution happened in ’66 – SEGA release an electronic shooting gallery game by the name of Periscope – it is the first ever arcade game and is distributed on the widest level yet. In ’67, the predecessor to Pong is launched, in '69 a two-player version of spacewar is released and ARPANET, the forerunner to the Internet, is launched by the US government, taking us neatly into the seventies.

It’s 1971. Afros, flares and revolting colour schemes are coming into their own and we have our first videogame flop by the name of computer SPACE, and Magnavox begin developing the first home console, the Magnavox Odyssey, launched the following year. Here we go for a really significant date – 27th June, 1972 - Atari is founded by one Nolan Bushnell, who release the first Pong arcade games in ’73. In ’75, a “home arcade” version is exhibited at a toy convention by Bushnell. In 1976, there is a flurry of activity, as the Fairchild channel F is the first home console to use interchangeable game cartridges, thus opening up a much wider market. Warner Communications also buy out Atari, and Apple Computers are started. In ’77, the year of the first Star Wars, Atari release their first console, the pointlessly-named VCS 2600, and Gunfight is the first arcade game to use a microprocessor. In ’78, we have Taiko’s Space Invaders launched from Japan, and in ’79 Atari release Asteroids. Note that there’s been about two games up until now that haven’t been space-related.

 And so we approach the 1980’s. Ah, the eighties. The years of MTV and HIV, Madonna, the fax machine, time to ditch the afro and get a Mohawk. Disco and tech became the vogue, and through the early parts of it, we saw the first Gulf War, hailed by the US administration of the time as being “the most efficient war ever, as far as costs were concerned.” There’s an underlying message there somewhere. Of course, these world events pale in comparison to the developments in the gaming industry. As Space Invaders moves into the home entertainment systems, we see a new breed of game from Namco: Pac-Man. Okay, so by today’s standards it’s a bit simplistic, but it represented a major step forward as far as games of over two decades ago went. For the first time, we saw power ups, AI (although obviously randomly flying round a screen doesn’t amount to much) and, of course, objectives. Major step forward in gameplay. Mattel also launched their first console this year, although they didn’t exactly become major players. Atari develop Battlezone as the first ever first-person perspective 3D game, which shows a big step up in graphics, and being honest, probably kick-started the whole ‘3D game’ idea. In 1981, we first see Mario in Donkey Kong, as a carpenter, not a plumber. In the US, $6 million is spent on gaming. Companies start to realise the potential.

By 1983, Nintendo had decided to move into console manufacturing, and launch the Famicom – over half a million are sold, but due to an inherent design defect, are recalled after two months. Interestingly, this same year, Mattel reveal their $225 million dollar loss from their console. It’s taken us 94 years to get this far, but we have finally reached the release of Commodore 64. This one console was the most powerful to date, practically destroying all competition. Unfortunately, the economic repercussions of the launch of this genius landmark console, it initiates the decline and collapse of the gaming industry, which came to a head in 1984, which sees Mattel and Coleco wisely pull out of the industry. Riding on the success of the Commodore, Jack Tramiel leaves and buys Atari. The VCS 2600 is discontinued shortly after this move. In 1985, the Famicom’s sequel, the NES, is launched by Nintendo to a test audience. By 1986, it is launched worldwide, the effect similar to that of the Commodore 64’s. This is the first case of game licensing – using a “lookout chip,” only licensed companies could produce games for this system. This was the first console to note the difference between toy and video equipment, thus giving the market a much more serious look. To compete with this, the Commodore-Amiga 1000 is put into development. A legal battle ensued between Atari and Nintendo, Atari accusing Nintendo of price fixing and anti-competitive prices in 1988, and continues through to ’89, where Nintendo wins Tetris rights off Atari – a small win, considering Atari devise a completely legitimate ‘lockout chip’ for the NES, allowing them to create games not licensed by Nintendo. Also, this is the year of the Game Boy, the 16-bit Genesis from SEGA, and the Internet becoming available for the public.

 The nineties waved goodbye to punk and said a nice, cheery hello to the Trance culture – that is, heroin, static noise and some funky lights. Kurt Cobain is still four years from suicide, tight white tee shirts tucked into the jeans are still dead fashionable, Labour is more than a few years of coming into power and Monica Lewinski is still but a twinkle in Bill Clinton’s testicles. We start the new decade with a typical controversy – a court hearing saw Nintendo sue blockbuster for video cartridge rentals. Unsuccessfully. Windows 3 is released by Microsoft and the omniscient Bill Gates and the Sega MegaDrive is launched in the land of hope and glory, the United Kingdom. All this in the first year proved, early on, that this was to be the decade of technology.

1991 saw more still on the games frontier, with the Super NES, Sonic the Hedgehog, the publication of Virtual Reality and the MUD version of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld showing up. ’92 featured the SNES, iD Software release Wolfenstein 3D, Atari finally lose the 1988 lawsuit against Nintendo, and Sony begin work on the mother of all modern-day consoles, the PlayStation. 1993, and the PlayStation failed to show, and faded from the news. However, Doom, the ground-breaking 3D shooter turns up from iD Software. Not bad for a consolation prize. It isn’t until 1994, coinciding with the release of the Sega Saturn, is the PlayStation released. Also note that record-breaking sales are made on Myst, shooting it to the number one-selling game of all time. 1995 and the PlayStation is released worldwide, the fashionably late Windows 95 finally turns up, and the Virtual Boy becomes a major headache for Nintendo (get it?). For these two years, the PlayStation became the console to have, unprecedented and without competition. Developers popped up everywhere, slobbering over the prospect of such capabilities. Perhaps this is why the Nintendo 64, released a year later, did so well at first. By this point, developers were more abundant than ever, and games were coming in thick and fast. Unsatisfied with being unable to completely dominate the Playstation market, most developers turned to this new console to get the recognition, credibility and sales that they were not achieving on the highly competitive Sony platform. Added to this, the Nintendo 64 ran from the now-defunct Cartridges that had been so widely used up until now, meaning developers found it much easier to make games for this console. Perhaps this is why over the next year, the PlayStation’s popularity dipped by around 7%. This is more than made up for in 1996, when all-terrain action heroine Lara Croft made her debut on PC and Playstation, practically overnight managing to revolutionise the industry. Playstation sales increased 112%, aided by the new ‘Dual Shock’ package – the first controller to have built-in vibration a year later, in 1997. 1998 and Sega fail miserably with the blocky Dreamcast, and vowing instead to forget consoles and concentrate instead on software for them, and keeping their supremacy within arcades. PCs are also shoved into the spotlight when Half Life is released by Valve. It is now that Sony choose to act, and begin developing the Playstation 2, intending to continue its supremacy in the so-called next generation console market. In the gaming vacuum of 1999, Sega, with little else to do with their money, spend a hundred million dollars to sponsor Arsenal, St. Etienne and Sampdoria, in what many consider the ‘most reckless, pointless and senseless spending ever done by a games company.’ Still, we can’t all be market geniuses, can we? Hell, if a tenth of that had gone into their Research and Development department, we’d have probably never seen the Dreamcast. See what budgeting can do for you, guys? Still, the vacuum ends all too quickly with the PS2’s release in the new millennium, coincidentally just in time for little Timmy’s best Christmas ever. Turns out that the big gaming vacuum of ’99 was just because everyone was too busy anticipating the new shiny black console to develop anything for the little grey box, now even greyer – with dust. Despite all the hype, only half the promised amount of launch games turned up, but like that mattered to anyone. Suddenly gamers got to play the good ol’ Ridge Racer 5, the fifth instalment of the series that kick started the original Playstation’s success. Oh, and we had the bouncer. I guess you could count that as a game. Sort of. It hardly mattered though – again, Sony got an entire two years of gaming supremacy before its title was ever challenged, but along come two competitors at once this time. Waving a big hello to its old friend, here was Nintendo with the most ridiculous colour scheme ever. We got a good run out of this baby, for a few months, before sadly their president died and was replaced. Since then, manufacturing stopped completely, ten games were scrapped and, rather disappointingly, the FTSE stock is falling by the second. Fusajiro Yamauchi must surely be spinning in his grave. Still, wish old Billy Gates, that nerd from junior high, would get the message. Enter the Xbox – the largest, chunkiest, most unattractive lump of black charcoal-infused plastic ever. Its controller alone was large enough to concuss someone. It is generally assumed that the impact of a falling Xbox would be something alike a grand piano being dropped from a great height. I appeal to all Xbox owners reading this article to try this experiment immediately. However, the graphics of the Xbox were amazing, unlike most of the games (the exception being Halo). Undeterred, however, by these distractions, Sony’s PlayStation 2 trundles on in the number one spot.

 So there you have it, dearest reader. Videogaming, shaped over the past 114 years, has seen many revolutions. Far away from the days of the arcade, 3D ultra-realistic gaming is available to the general public for entertainment in their own homes, a far cry from the simply card game company a Japanese visionary once set up, gaming technology is once again about to turn another corner. We sincerely hope that it will be an amazing revolution. After all, it gives us something to write about, doesn’t it? JC