THE HISTORY OF THE VIDEOGAMES

The history of videogames started after the Second World War. In these years, a lot of people were working in the development of computers and supercomputers, and in this years appeared the first games or videogames. Initially, there were few games, and in general all of these games were about chess. This were a good field to investigate about the power of the computers, but there werent still considered games. In the 1962 , Spacewar!, it was a space combat between two players, each controlling
a spacecraft capable of firing missiles, while a star in the center of the screen. Spacewar! is credited as the first influential computer game and after, a lot of games copy de idea of the space combat. It wasnt sold because the prize was so high.

In September 1971, Galaxy Game was installed at Stanford University. Based on Spacewar!, this was the first coin-operated video game. Only one was built, using a DEC PDP-11 and vector display terminals. In 1972 it was expanded to be able to handle four to eight consoles. Also in 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created a coin-operated arcade version of Spacewar! and called it Computer Space. Nutting Associates bought the game and manufactured 1,500Computer Space machines, with the release taking place in November 1971. It was a landmark as the first mass-produced video game and the first offered for commercial sale. Bushnell and Dabney founded Atari, Inc. in 1972, before releasing their next game: Pong. Pong was the first arcade video game with widespread success. The game is loosely based on table tennis: a ball is "served" from the center of the court and as the ball moves towards their side of the court each player must maneuver their paddle to hit the ball back to their opponent. Atari sold over 19,000 Pong machines, creating many imitators. The first home 'console' system was developed by Ralph Baer and his associates. Development began in 1966 and a working prototype was completed by 1968 (called the "Brown Box") for demonstration to various potential licensees, with Magnavox eventually licensing the technology to produce the world's first home video game console. The system was released in the USA in 1972 by Magnavox, called the Magnavox Odyssey. This provided the ability to play several different games using the same system. A major marketing push, featuring TV advertisements starring Frank Sinatra, helped Magnavox sell about 100,000 Odyssey consoles that first year.

The arcade game industry entered its golden age in 1978 with the release of Space Invaders by Taito, a success that inspired dozens of manufacturers to enter the market. Space Invaders would go on to sell over 360,000 arcade cabinets worldwide, and by 1982, generate a

revenue of $2 billion in quarters, equivalent to $4.6 billion in 2011. In 1979, Namco's Galaxian sold over 40,000 cabinets in the United States, and Atari released Asteroids which sold over 70,000 cabinets. The total sales of arcade video game machines in North America increased significantly during this period, from $50 million in 1978 to $900 million by 1981, with the arcade video game industry's revenue in North America reaching nearly $1 billion in quarters by the end of the 1970s, a figure that would triple to $2.8 billion by 1980. Color arcade games also became more popular in 1979 and 1980 with the arrival of titles such as Pac-Man, which would go on to sell over 350,000 cabinets, and within a year, generate a revenue of more than $1 billion in quarters;in total, Pac-Man is estimated to have grossed over 10 billion quarters ($2.5 billion) during the 20th century, equivalent to over $3.4 billion in 2011. In 1985, the American Video Game Console market was revived with Nintendos release of its 8-bit console, the Famicom (a contraction of "Family Computer"), known outside Asia as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was offered in three tiered bundles: the basic bundle of the console and basic controller with Super Mario Bros.; the basic bundle plus the additional Zapper and Duck Hunt. The NES instantly became a success, dominating the North American and Japanese home console gaming markets until the rise of the next generation of 16-bit consoles in the early 1990s. Other markets were not as heavily dominated by Nintendo, because of heavy competition from PC's like the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 preventing the NES having much success in Europe, or lack of marketing, allowing other consoles to find an audience like the Master System in Australia and Brazil. The Legend of Zelda series made its debut in 1986 with The Legend of Zelda. In the same year, the Dragon Quest series debuted with Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior), and has created a phenomenon in Japanese culture ever since. The next year, the Japanese company Square was struggling and Hironobu Sakaguchi decided to make his final gamea role-playing game (RPG) modeled after Dragon Quest and titled Final Fantasyresulting in the Final Fantasy series, which would ironically go on to become the world's most successful RPG franchise. In 1991, the game and character Sonic the Hedgehog was introduced. The game gave Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis console mainstream popularity, and rivaled Nintendo's Mario franchise. Itsnamesake character became the mascot of Sega and one of the most recognizable video game characters in history. In 1992 the game Dune II was released. It was by no means the first in the genre (several other games can be called the first real-time strategy game, see the History of RTS), but it set the standard game mechanics for later blockbuster RTS games such as Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Command & Conquer, and StarCraft. It was in the 1990s that Maxis began publishing its successful line of "Sim" games, beginning with SimCity, and continuing with a variety of titles, such as SimEarth, SimCity 2000, SimAnt,SimTower, and the best-selling PC game in history, The Sims, in early 2000.

Arcade games, which had seen a slow decline with the increase in popularity of home gaming, experienced a brief resurgence in the early-to-mid-1990s with games such as Street Fighter II,Mortal Kombat, DanceDance Revolution or Time Crisis.

In 1994, three new consoles were released in Japan: the Sega Saturn, the Sony PlayStation, and the PC-FX, the Saturn and the PlayStation later seeing release in North America in 1995. The PlayStation quickly outsold all of its competitors mainly on the strength of its available titles, with the exception of the aging Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which still had the support of many major game companies. After many delays, during which Sony's PlayStation gained industry acceptance, Nintendo released its 64-bit console, the Nintendo 64 in 1996. The console's flagship title, Super Mario 64, became a defining title for 3D platformer games. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) for the Nintendo 64 is one of the highest critically acclaimed games of all time, currently number 2 all-time on GameRankings' list, second only to another Nintendo franchise favorite Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii. In the sixth generation of video game consoles, Sega exited the hardware market, Nintendo fell behind, Sony solidified its lead in the industry, and Microsoft developed a gaming console. The generation opened with the launch of the Dreamcast in 1998, the second release of the generation was Sony's PlayStation 2, Nintendo followed a year later with the GameCube and before the end of 2001, Microsoft Corporation entered the console market with the Xbox.

Microsoft stepped forward first in November 2005 with the Xbox 360, and Sony followed in 2006 with the PlayStation 3, released in Europe in March 2007. Nintendo would release their Wii console shortly after the PlayStation 3's launch, and the platform would put Nintendo back on track in the console race. While the Wii had lower technical specifications than both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 only a modest improvement over the GameCube and the only 7th-gen console not to offer HD graphics, its new motion control was much touted, and its lower pricepoint. Many gamers, publishers, and analysts initially dismissed the Wii as an underpowered curiosity, but were surprised as the console sold out through the 2006 Christmas season, and remained so through the next 18 months, becoming the fastest selling game console in most of the world's gaming markets.