Know Your Roots: A History Lesson in Gaming

If you’re a gamer, most likely you don’t have a straight, out of the box desktop. You have modified your PC, be it with changing your tower, updating your graphics cards, or just adding ram. The world in which the average desktop tower is a beige colored, bulky piece of equipment has come to an end. As for consoles, the idea of a console has also changed drastically since the original Magnavox Odyssey, a bulky white and brown gaming console that matched your Eight-Track. Since then, consoles have moved forward, pushing to new heights that were never expected when they were first introduced.


Games began to make it’s move from arcades to in-homes with the introduction of the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. The breakthrough introduced Pong to home gamers, spawning several versions. In 1976, otherwise called the beginning of the 8-Bit era, the Atari took the lead of Second-Gen with Space Invaders, along with the exclusive rights to popular arcade games, even though the Colecovision had rights to Donkey Kong. Third-Gen consoles are probably considered the most popular with the introduction of the NES, the upgraded Atari, and the Sega Master System in the early 80‘s through the early 90‘s. Second-Gen also began to introduce handheld games, including Nintendo’s Mr. Game and Watch.


The Third-Gen systems brought the along the birth of the RPG. Infamous games began here such as Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Phantasy Star, Bomberman, and Final Fantasy. Forth-Gen, the 16-Bit era, launched full on competition with consoles creators.  Most notably was the blatant rivalry between Nintendo and Sega. The infamous slogan of “Genesis does what Ninten-don’t:”, filled TV’s  across the board.  Nintendo responded with the creation of the Super NES. Forth-Gen also brought home the famous arcade versions of fighting games, such as Street Fighter.


The Fifth-Gen of videogames were considered a giant step in gaming evolution with the first signs of 64-Bit.  Starting in 1993, there were three systems that dominated houses and started the war between cartridges and CD’s. While the Sega Saturn, the Amiga, and the new Sony Playstation updated their tech to CD’s, the immensely popular Nintendo 64 stuck with cartridges and still remained a contender. The Amiga, starting at a retail price of $400 failed along with other expensive systems such as the 3DO ($700). The Sega Saturn (retail $400) managed not to sink entirely due to the fact it still brought home famous arcade games. Between the Playstation and the Nintendo 64, long hours of RPG gaming accorded that were previously only seen on the Sega Genesis.


Now that the bar had been set, consoles had no choice but to go up. Sixth-Gen games brought in the heavy hitter of the Playstation 2, the Dreamcast, the Gamecube, and Microsoft’s rat race entry of the X-box. A new feature that all four systems had in common were that they all offered some of the first real versions of console MMORPG’s. While earlier tries of internet gaming were tested with Sega Genesis’ ‘Sega Channel’, a monthly based subscription that offered played a different menu of  Sega games every month  (sort of like today’s Gametap), nothing had quite managed completely on-line interaction as much as Sixth-Gen.


Dreamcast, and later the Gamecube and the X-box, offered the popular MMO Phantasy Star Online, which was based of Sega’s popular RPG series Phantasy Star. Since the Dreamcast console had failed in sales, Sega decided to pull it off the market, marking an end to the long run of Sega’s consoles. Playstation 2, with the purchase of an extra hard drive, launched a console version of Final Fantasy XI Online, allowing console gamers to play along side of the PC gamers. X-box one-upped it’s competition for online capabilities with X-box Live. Currently, we are in the Seventh-Gen. The ever popular X-box 360, the ever sold out Wii, and the highly disappointing sales of the Playstation 3.


The Seventh-Gen began around 2004 with the release of the touch screen Nintendo DS, followed by the PSP which was released later that year. While both offer versions of Wi-Fi, the PSP sales have been lagging behind the DS since release. The X-box grew in popularity for releasing realistic games and first-person shooters, opposed the constant fantasy based RPG’s released by Nintendo and Sony. The breath of fresh air has been well received by both gamers and critics around the world, spawning spin-off of the most popular series such as Halo, Grand Theft Auto,  and Metal Gear.

Though the Nintedo lagged behind with Gamecube sales, they made a surprising comeback with the release of the highly interactive Wii, a console that encourages large group play and physical movements with a collection of motion sensors. When the Playstation 3 was announced, it was promised several exclusive titles, about all of which have appeared on X-box 360.  Since it’s release, the Sony Playstation 3 has lost 3.3 billion dollars, approximately $300 per unit shipped. As for Eight-Gen, the future remains unclear for console games. Though, I personally believe that console games will eventually become obsolete due to the fact that most gamers now own PC’s that are mod’ed to play games just as well as their consoles and the large influx of popularity of MMO’s, no one really knows for certain.