In the beginning, all there was were two lines and a white dot that started this train called video games. The first video game was Tennis for Two or more commonly called Pong created by William Higinbotham in 1958. Later in 1962, Steve Russell invented Spacewar! which was a computer-based space combat video game. Spacewar! was the first video game that could be played on a computer. Approximately 5 years later Ralph Baer created the very first home game console, a device that could simply be plugged into a TV to play video games. It would take them about another 5 years until they started distributing them in 1972. More and more games were made through the rest of the 70s. Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, and Pac-Man were created and an industry came into being.
However, the video game train eventually ran off the tracks in an event known as the video game crash of 1983. The crash was mainly caused by Atari. Atari had been very successful in the home game console market mostly due to the fact that they owned popular arcade games. They put those arcade games into their consoles. This led to some downfalls to this success. One example is what is called the worst game of all time E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Despite the success of the movie, the game was a flop. It was so bad in fact that it sparked the myth of there existing piles of unsold E.T. game cartridges buried somewhere in New Mexico.
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the video game train to pick up speed. In 1985 a Japanese company called Nintendo came to the United States. Nintendo took a significant risk by investing their money into developing a console with better quality and selling it for a lot less. In keeping the price low on the console, Nintendo had to rely on the sales of their games in order to make a profit. This idea worked in their favor. Nintendo dominated the home video game market until the end of the decade with games like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid.
At the same time Nintendo was dominating the home console market there was a huge leap in computer technology. Now it was Sega’s turn to innovate. They challenged Nintendo with the release of The Sega Master System but it was a failure. However, they learned valuable lessons and developed the Sega Genesis. Nintendo’s main target was a younger audience. Sega‘s plan was to target more mature audiences. Based on the success of The Genesis, Nintendo tried to attract a mature audience as well. During this time Sony jumped in and came out with the first Playstation. Nintendo and Sega couldn’t compete with the Playstation's more enhanced support experience. The Playstation completely dominated the video game market up until the Playstation 2, which was also able to play games from the original Playstation. Additionally, it was the first gaming console that allowed you to play DVDs which made it the best-selling console of all time.
In 2006, the Playstation 3 was released and for the first time Sony was experiencing some serious heat from its competitors. The Xbox 360 was very similar to the Playstation 3. Although Xbox and PS were high tech, the Wii was more popular because of its motion-sensitive remotes which made gaming more active and helped appeal to a larger audience.
In 2012, Nintendo released the Wii U, and a year later the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One were also released. A few years later they all created more powerful versions of their previous consoles. With the Playstation 4 Pro in 2016 and a year later with the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox One X.
Video games have changed the way we communicate by building up friendships both in person and
virtually. What was once something you would only share with people watching you at an arcade was transformed into something you could play at home with your family. Now you can play video games with players all over the world. What originally started as two white lines and a dot has morphed into real-life graphics and interactive gameplay. Minecraft, the best-seller game of all time, has helped people use their imagination and creativity. Additionally it has been used as an educational system and even a blueprint for a Microsoft campus.
Convenience can also be created by video games. When you are at a boss battle you need convenience to proceed. Video games are going beyond being just entertainment. For example in the Disney+ original series The Mandalorian instead of using a typical green or blue screen the designers utilized a giant screen that displayed the scene in real time using unreal engine which is a software used to make games.
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