A History of Video Game Consoles, pt 2 of 2

a momentary break from actual gaming by Renzie Baluyut

Hey everyone. Welcome to my two-part special on the History of Gaming Consoles on my personal gaming blog: Get Your Game On | Renzie on Gaming.

I thought I'd do a public service discussing the history of video game consoles since me and a few friends were reminiscing about the good ol' days when we played our first ever video games- the Atari 2600, the Nintendo Family Computer, the Sega Saturn, and finally the first time the Sony Playstation blew our minds.

We're now moving on to the second part of our special on the History of Gaming Consoles. If you missed the first part, you may read it here. We covered the first four generations of gaming systems in our previous post on the subject, so we continue where we left off:

Fifth Generation (1993-2002)

Video games look so much better now as we enter the 32-bit era, and we see a new surge in not just consoles, but also handhelds and video games in general. The consoles that dominated this time period: the SEGA Saturn, the Sony Playstation, and the Nintendo 64. We all know how that turned out, right?

Many gaming systems have started shifting towards using CD-ROMs instead of game cartridges. Initially the loading times were slow, but as optical drives improved, this issue was addressed. Games in CD format were also cheaper to produce, and the lower costs were passed on to the consumers. Then again, it was also easy to pirate.

Of course, there were other fifth-gen consoles that weren't as commercially successful: The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, the Amiga CD32 and the Atari Jaguar.

The Sony Playstation was comparatively cheaper than the other consoles at the time, and benefited from an effective marketing campaign: positioning itself as a lifestyle accessory for males in the late teens to late 20's age bracket. Plus, games were easy to program for the Playstation, which made for a lot of games- far more than its closest competitor, the Sega Saturn.

Nintendo was the first to go 64-bit, and did rather well with Super Mario 64. It also came out with updated versions of the Game Boy: the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Light, and the Game Boy Pocket.

Nintendo did well, but not well enough to pass the Playstation in unit sales. It did have a strong hold on its market, appealing strongly to children and families.

Successful game titles at this time: Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy VII, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil and Silent Hill, Super Mario 64, Panzer Dragoon Saga and GoldenEye 007.

Sixth Generation (1998-2006)

Enter the sixth generation of video game consoles. The sixth-gen era is also referred to as the 128-bit era, and therefore saw the rise of some awesome gaming hardware: Sega's Dreamcast, Sony's Playstation 2, the Nintendo GameCube, and Microsoft's XBox.

The clear winner in this generation was Sony's PlayStation 2- having sold over 140 million units as of mid-July 2008. Those figures also make the PS2 the best-selling console in history.

Microsoft's XBox comes in second with over 24 million units sold, Nintendo's GameCube in third with over 21 million units sold. Sega's Dreamcast came in fourth with just under 11 million units sold, and was discontinued prematurely in 2001, just before the XBox and the GameCube were released later that year.

Handhelds had also become more sophisticated. Nintendo saw continued success with its various new GameBoys, and then you had Nokia coming out with a gaming handheld/mobile phone hybrid in 2003- the Nokia N-Gage, and then the N-Gage QD a year later.

By this era, many game publishers started developing a cross-platform strategy, releasing versions of their games over multiple systems- PC, major consoles, and sometimes, even handhelds.

We also saw the rise of online gaming. While the Dreamcast was the first to incorporate a modem and browsing software into its system, it was the XBox that enabled players to play with other gamers online with XBox Live.

Notable gaming titles in this era: Grand Theft Auto III, GTA: Vice City, and finally GTA: San Andreas, Resident Evil 4, Shenmue and Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast, Halo and Halo 2 for the XBox, Metroid Prime for the GameCube, and the Disney/Square-Enix collaboration, Kingdom Hearts.

Seventh Generation (2004- today)

The Seventh Generation of gaming consoles is pretty much what we have right now-- the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft's XBox 360, and the Sony PlayStation 3.

The XBox 360 came out in November 2005, almost a full year ahead of the other two, and continued to enjoy strong sales in North America and Europe. Its advantage over its competitors has been the quantity and quality of titles, with even more titles coming out by the end of the year.

Sony's Playstation 3 hit the shelves on 11 November 2006, and had come equipped with Blu-ray capabilities, a feature critical to the success of the Blu-ray format, according to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment execs.

The Nintendo Wii dropped in stores on 19 November 2006, and had turned out to be the biggest selling gaming system of all three seventh-gen consoles. The Wii positioned itself to capture not just hard-core gamers, but also casual gamers, non-gamers and lapsed gamers.

In addition to its popular franchises, and in line to make the console more appealing to casual gamers, the Nintendo Wii came out with the Wii Series of games- which simulated real-world activities, or played around with sports, music, or doing exercises- all making use of its new gaming controllers equipped with motion-sensors.

The Wii and certain (earlier) models of the PS3 are fully backwards compatible with titles from their earlier counterparts.

As for handheld systems, we have the Nintendo DS (and later, the DS Lite) and Sony's PlayStation Portable (or PSP, and the succeeding PSP Slim and PSP Lite). The DS proved to be more popular with both core gamers and new consumers, while the PSP was mainly marketed towards a 25+ year-old (core gamer) market.

Notable titles for the Seventh Generation: Halo 3, Gears of War, Mass Effect and BioShock for the XBox 360, God of War, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy Versus XIII for the PS3 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Wii Sports for the Wii.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. A crash course on the History of Gaming Consoles. Hope you learned something new today.

Cheers, everyone!

A History of Video Game Consoles, pt 1 of 2

a momentary break from actual gaming by Renzie Baluyut

Hey everyone. Just thought I'd do a public service discussing the History of Video Game Consoles. Some friends and I were talking about the days when we played our first ever video games- it was the Atari 2600 for me, and back then, if you had one at home, you were the coolest kid on the block.

Welcome to my two-part special on my personal gaming blog: Get Your Game On | Renzie on Gaming. Enjoy!

How It All Began

As early as 1951, a dude named Ralph Baer came up with the idea of interactive television, supposedly as he was building TVs from scratch back in New Youk. Baer was actually a television engineer, and so in 1966, created the first ever video game: two dots chasing each other around onscreen.

Sanders Associates, the company he was working for, gave Baer the go-ahead to go further, and threw some funding his way. Two other dudes were signed up: Bill Harrison, who came up with the idea of a light gun, aimed to hit a target moved by another player, and Bill Rusch who came up with the concept of the video ping-pong game.

The result was the protoype known as the "Brown Box" in 1968. It had 2 controllers, a light gun, and switches to determine which game you wanted to play.

The company Magnavox came on board in 1969 and used plug-in circuits to change the games instead of switches- giving birth to the first ever commercially released video game console in May 1972: The Magnavox Odyssey.

First Generation (1972-1977)

Aside from the Magnavox Odyssey, you also had the Pong game from Atari/Sears, which came out in the Christmas of 1975. You also had the Coleco Telstar, which also had its own line of games.

The first-gen consoles were not very successful commercially, however, owing to little support from their parent companies, and therefore not having a decent marketing push.

Second Gen (1976-1984)

Things started picking up though by 1977, when Atari came out with the Atari 2600, then later with the 5200.

You also had the Fairchild Channel F, the Magnavox Odyssey, Mattel's Intellivision, Milton Bradley's Vectrex, the Emerson Arcadia 2001, Colecovision, and the SEGA SG-100.

Though everyone enjoyed fairly brisk sales in the early 8-bit era, the most popular choice was still the Atari 2600, having a good selection of games that were also popular in the arcade.

We also saw the early handheld game consoles. Milton Bradly's Microvision was the first to come out in 1979, but didn't do so well commercially. You know what did though? Nintendo's Game and Watches, which came out in 1980.

The more popular games at the time? Pac-Man, Asteroids, Defender, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Space Invaders, Pitfall, Q*bert, Mario Brothers and Spy Hunter.

The video game crash happened in 1983, mainly because the market was oversaturated with all kinds of consoles, and mostly crappy games, as many companies only wish to just cash in on the video games craze of the early 80's, without really delivering much in the way of a great gaming experience.

For a time there, the future of gaming looked rather bleak- many companies have gone bankrupt and folded. Entire inventories had gone unsold, and were even used as landfill, the stories say.

Third Gen (1983-1992)

Nintendo's Family Computer (as it was known here in the Philippines), or Famicom (as it was known in Japan), or the Nintendo Entertainment System pretty much singlehandedly saved the video game industry, at least as far as consoles were concerned.

Its most popular titles? Super Mario Bros., the first Final Fantasy games, The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Contra, Metroid, Mega Man, Castlevania and Bomberman.

Nintendo also introduced the Gameboy, which started to dominate the handheld market in the late 80's.

Despite Nintendo's success in North America and most of Asia, Sega's Master System was more popular in Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.

Fourth Gen (1987-1996)

By this time, we saw the dominance of two new consoles: the Nintendo's SuperNES, and the SEGA Genesis.

We now saw 16-bit games, which looked so much better than their earlier counterparts. In fact, many of the popular titles from the third gen got themselves updated to 16-bit versions, but we also saw some newcomers- Sonic the Hedgehog, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter were all popular fourth gen games.

Part 2 of my 2-part coverage of The History of Gaming Consoles comes up in a bit. We'll cover the rest of the gaming consoles all the way to the seventh gen, which would the consoles we have with us today.

Cheers, everyone!

Gaming Goals for the Year 2008.

This has been a fine year in gaming- but looking forward to 2008, the prospects seem very promising. After all, a lot of fine games are coming out, and I've seriously channeled my interest in video games into this whole blogging thing to keep track of what I want for myself and what's going on out there.

The ultimate goal really, is to be able to play more games- which means a dedicated effort to not just increase my weekly allotted game time, but to also maximize said game time. It also means a steady supply of games- sure I'd buy some every month, but it would be great to get some free from time to time. Gotta work on that.

My current PC still seems good enough to play the more requirement-heavy games out in the market right now, so I probably don't have to worry about it until next year- which means I can probably divert my attention to getting myself a new console.
And the gaming console on my wishlist is the Xbox360. Nothing against the PS3 or the Wii, but I think I'm really more of an Xbox person. Besides, I already have my eye on some great games for this year. Check it:

• Fallout 3 (due out last quarter of 2008)
• Grand Theft Auto IV (due out second quarter of 2008)
• Bully: Scholarship Edition (due out March 2008)
• Dynasty Warriors 6 (due out February 2008)
• and Return to Castle Wolfenstein

On top of those games, I should also secure the following titles once I get my 360: Gears of War, Halo 3, Mass Effect, Chromehounds, Viva Pinata and Call of Duty 4.

As for handhelds, I have to get myself a Nintendo DS first- I heard it has some real cool games, and it's great as far as handhelds go. Second priority would be a Sony PSP- or that PSP Slim- that thing you can plug into a TV.

Most of my efforts will still be directed towards getting new games for my PC. What am I setting my sights on for 2008?

• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich-king (out later this year)
• Galactic Civilizations 2: Twilight of the Arnor (out April 2008)
• Jagged Alliance 3 (out first quarter 2008)
• Guild Wars 2 (out mid-2008)

At this point, I still have to get me The Orange Box, The Elder Scrolls IV Expansion Packs (The Shivering Isle and Knights of the Nine) and The Witcher.

See? Got it all pretty much figured out. Now all I have to do is work doubly hard and make things happen for myself. Check you guys out in a few months.

Cheers!