Evolution of Gaming Systems
The video game industry has evolved rapidly. From just playing in an arcade with friends to playing games at home and now to playing games on the go on a smartphone. It’s crazy. In the article The History of Gaming: An Evolving Community written by Riad Chikhani, he discusses the evolution of gaming consoles. He first talks about the “Brown Box” that was introduced in 1967 although it didn’t enter the market until 1972. He described the console as a vacuum tube-circuit that would be connected to a TV set. The “Brown Box” could play a variety of games but they knew for sure that they had a product for the market when it could play ping-pong (Chikhani, paragraph 5).
He then goes to discuss Atari, which was the second released console after the “Brown Box”. Although most people think Atari was the first console, they aren’t aware of the “Brown Box” just because it had a short life and didn’t sell many. Atari was released to the industry in 1973 for a retail cost of $1,095 (Chikhani, paragraph 10). During that same time the arcade machines began to emerge. That is where the gaming industry started, and most older people can remember. I know my parents remember spending time with friends at the arcade, that was the place to be growing up. With that being said, the tech industry was a big deal where more than 15 companies began to develop video games (Chikhani, paragraph 10).
Moving on to the modern age, in the early 2000s technology has improved at a fast rate. Many people had access to internet at the time which brought the costs of technology down. With so many people having access to internet, it has made a huge marketplace for multiplayer games in which people can play together all around the world.
I remember my brother playing Call of Duty and having a headset just to talk to other people while playing the game. I would hear people having conversations and have no idea who they were. People would be able to create relationships all around the world. Which creates that diversity.
As I’m not much of a fan of video game console playing, I do play games on my phone. The app store hit the market in 2007 and it also had a rapid evolution like consoles. I remember when a new app entered the market, everybody in school was playing and you just had to download it as well.
The presenters in the group did a great job at explaining the evolution of the gaming industry. They provided visual aids for each console that came out each year and how it has improved in the previous years. They also talked about older games such as Mario and other popular games in the past. Which brought up the nostalgic feelings when people are remembered of old games and older consoles. What would it be like for someone to walk into an old fashioned arcade again? It would be a powerful emotion that would fall on someone. I remember playing games with my brother on PlayStation 2 and being remembered of those games in class when we are using that console, which isn’t that old but the only one I am familiar with.
The presenters of group didn’t really talk about the future of the gaming industry. In the article, Chikhani talked about Virtual Reality a little bit and then went on to say that gaming in 2025 would be unrecognizable with how fast technology is improving. It seemed as though there where a few trends and popular nostalgic games from the past and I wonder if it will be the same reaction when people look back many years from now.
It was definitely interesting learning about the history of gaming and seeing how much improvement technology has made. I’m interested in seeing what the future has in store.
References
Chikhani, R. (2015, October 31). The History Of Gaming: An Evolving Community. Retrieved December 13, 2017, from https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/31/the-history-of-gaming-an-evolving-community/
