Talk:History of computer and video games

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[edit] Mystery of Semag Inc

In 1977 I worked for a Mr. Varian who had a strange video game unit gathering dust in his garage. The unit was built in a "cocktail table" configuration (small round table with the display face-up under glass in the center) and had a coin box in the base. It had mini-joysticks (RC controller style) and touch-sensitive (non-mechanical) buttons. The unit was labeled "Semag Inc".

Even though it was a black & white "pong style" game the programming was actually very sophisticated... it played many variations of games like pong, hockey, and even true tennis with very realistic laws-of-physics like inertia, momentum and backspin. I asked my boss about it and he said he & his brother had built it "many years ago" but the investor funding had dried up just as they finished this prototype. The amazing thing is the printed circuit boards in the box also were etched Semag Inc and were dated 1969! three years before PONG!

Anybody know anything about this anachronistic (pre-Atari Era) unit or the company Semag Inc? I think it would make a valuable entry into the history of video games if the details can be fleshed out. Low Sea 06:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

Moved from text of article:

Everything listed on this page has to do with the history of consoles, but we're also using the word video game to apply to those played on computers. Request that someone add something about those!

I agree with the statement, but the comment belongs here, not in the article proper. —Frecklefoot 19:56, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Me too!! And it also requires a lot of tweaking and fixing. Right now it's an incoherent mess of an article. And it should not occupy the precious namespace being called "History of the video game". (half-kidding) It should be called "History of gaming consoles". Come to think of it, I will actually move the page right now.

The sections on the 1950s, 60s, and 70s are mostly not about game consoles, except for mentioning Ralph Baer's work. Computer Space, Pong, Asteroids, EDSAC Tic Tac Toe, Spacewar, etc. were not game consoles. --Arteitle 05:14, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The mess is a result of combining the seperate computer/console histories into one. They were originally very coherent by themselves, but together they have to start referencing and complementing each other, which introduces a lot of new problems. 169.233.5.71 07:27, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Sega released the DreamCast (named Katana before release). "

Is that tidbit really necessary? If I remember correctly, that was never an official name, and pretty much every console has a tentative name before it's announced (Project Reality, Playstation Next, Dolphin etc.). Mole 18:55, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] proposal to move

I propose that this page be moved to history of computer and video games, with links to history of computer games and this article pointing to it. See computer and video games. This of course assumes that more about games played on the home computer will be added, and that this article is not meant to talk specifically about console games. Seaking of which, I don't believe that a split history of computer and video gaming would do anyone much good. --Slike 05:41, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree. -Sean Curtin 05:03, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)
Just reiterating to make sure I understood: Move this to history of computer and video games and make history of computer games redirect there? If that's the case, then I agree. --Mrwojo 05:26, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I agree on the move, but keep in mind that as well as a single computer and video games article, there are separate ones for console games personal computer games, and arcade games. --24.114.252.183 22:26, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nintendo era

In the talk page for the main article of this section there's doubts as to the validity of the label. Perhaps 8-bit era would be more appropriate, as some non-NES consoles were quite popular around the world. --24.114.252.183 18:24, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Getting rid of the lists

There is already a Timeline of video games article, making the event lists here superfluous. If anyone reads this, please try to work additions into paragraph text instead of simply adding a bulleted item. --24.114.252.183 22:56, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re-sequencing of 1970's section

I added some sub-heads, combined the coin-op sections, got the console stuff together and in sequence, etc. I think the result is that the 1970's section now reads more clearly and flows in a more logical order. Comments, criticism and suggestions welcome! Coll7 08:03, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

There appears to be a formatting error/bit missing in the coin-op section, on the first paragraph? --Coffeelover 16:31, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
Rats, you're right! I'll backtrack it and find where I messed up and fix it. Thanks for the catch. Coll7 19:09, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks to 24.114.252.183 for cleaning this up before I had a chance to do it. Coll7 07:19, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re-sequencing of early consoles sections

I swapped paragraphs around, following the spirit of what I'd done with the 1970's last month. I also corrected a section that said early consoles downloaded the game code into RAM. Again, all comments welcome. Coll7 08:17, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to Add Names to Console Eras

I see from looking at talk pages that a lot of thought has gone into the subdivisions in this article. I also see that we need to look at breaking one or two more main articles out of this one due to length having grown again.

I'd like to propose adding one slot to the chronology in the CVG History template, and adding more descriptive terms to the subcategories so people recognize the eras by sight. I worked in the industry through much of this history, and without machine names to remind me I forget which machines, eras and years go together.

Maybe I'm re-opening old wounds, but I'd suggest that as part of this we subdivide the handheld continuum and give it the prominence it deserves in a separate article. Handhelds and consoles have marched to different drums for many years, and IMHO there's no neat way to make the handhelds' progress line up neatly with the consoles'.

Here's a draft sequence to start the discussion:

Now......................Proposed
Pong........................Pong (No Change)
(No section)................The First Home Console Wars (as per section in current article)
Video Game Crash of 1983....Video Game Crash of 1983 (No Change)
8-bit era..................8-bit era: Nintendo Brings Back Consoles
16-bit era.................16-bit era: Sega Genesis vs. SNES
32-bit/64-bit era..........32-bit & Beyond: Sony PSX vs. N64
Sixth generation era......The New Millenium: PS2, Xbox and GameCube
Seventh generation era....Next Gen: PS3, Xbox360

Thanks for considering these suggestions. Coll7 08:17, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

You should make your proposal at WP:CVG. I disagree with changing the names to the ones you proposed. They don't reflect all the systems, not even close. What we have now is what was settled on after long in-depth debate. I think Pong should be removed as part of the history timeline. I really don't think it fits. The "first home console wars", might be a good addition though, although I don't really care for the name. Perhaps something like "Atari era" (which I've seen used) or perhaps something else that better reflects the time. K1Bond007 04:29, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Most of this article still needs a lot of cleanup before shifting large portions to child articles.
Those titles are entirely too POV-laden. They reek of fanboyish chest-thumping and ignore consoles popular ouside the North American market. The choice of Pong as the label for the entire first generation is as dubious as calling the 8-bit era the Nintendo era(which was thankfully corrected in that article). This is also the first time I've seen the consoles of the pre-crash period as being in a "war". That didn't really come into play until the Nintendo/Sega rivalry. Console era naming and the whole "next gen" issue (especially what the hell to call the generation after the "next gen") has been discussed ad nauseum and resulted in the current labels of the two most recent generations.
The history of handhelds is already present in the main handheld article, but cannot be easily removed from here as it is essentially another parallel path alongside PC and console games. --24.114.252.183 04:32, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

While the names may be slightly biased I would hesitate to call it POV or fan boyish. While true the titles do need work titles like: "Nintendo Brings Back Consoles" and "Playstation VS N64" are essentially facts: Nintendo did infact bring back consoles (Sega released the Master System a year after Nintendo began test marketing the NES.)and much of the 32 bit era was focused on the Playstation and N64. Deathawk 20:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 1970's University Mainframe Section

I set out to copy edit the intro a little, then decided I should add Rogue (which was started in 1978, as I recall, though it first appeared in 1980) and ended up doing quite a bit of reformatting and moving things around to make it flow better. The Rogue paragraph is the only true addition. All comments, suggestions and thrown tomatoes are welcome. Coll7 02:02, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] This isn't going to work.

It seems that this article has been merged with the Timeline of video games article and while I see the logic behind the move it really kind of put both articles in turmoil. Noow half the list is a timeline while the other half consiss of written text describing the different video game eras. I propose we eithier create two seperate pages or just revert this whole thing to a timeline. Deathawk 19:58, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] NES Seal of Approval and the 8bit age

Something should be said about the difference between the way Nintendo licensed games for its platform compared to other systems. Part of the problem with earlier systems was the influx of incredibly poor quality games. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.214.140.65 (talk • contribs) .


[edit] 207.216.19.41

Can anything be done about this person? He's just constantly vandalizing the same section about the Dreamcast. Chris M. 06:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I just gave him a week of "vacation." K1Bond007 06:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Eh, he's been doing that continuously for both the Saturn and Dreamcast, apparently swearing up and down that both came out in Western countries on the year of their Japanese release, which neither did... That'd be, what, his fifth "vacation" for the same edits now? --Shadow Hog 12:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Something like that. I've blocked him twice. What do you want me to do. Block him more? If the IP is static, I guess I can. K1Bond007 19:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Years added to generations names

Discussion may have happened elsewhere so I missed it, but a hearty "Great idea!" to whoever added the years to the later generation history sections so that terms like "Sixth Generation" were easier to understand. I'd like to propose that the years also be added to the same titles in the history template box, which IMHO would make it flow much better. Coll7 01:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely disagree with making an entire generation seem as though it started in one year and ended in another. For instance, this page now claims that the sixth generation was over in 2004. This is flat out wrong. The Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2 are current systems and even Xbox was the head of the MS household until 2005 (although by some is still a current system). Theres too much gray area to define a generation by year. K1Bond007 04:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Jacoplane 04:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you that the beginnings and ends are not neat -- the PS1 era ended for high-end games in about 2001 but new PS1 games still ship. What I keep trying to explore is how to solve the following problem: if I walked up to random people in the hallways at GDC and asked them "What are 6th generation consoles and about when were they ascendent?" almost all respondents would not know what wasa 6th gen console. Our chosen terminology is not widely used, so even a knowledgable gamer won't know what era we're referring to until they read the text -- headers are supposed to be the opposite of that. Can I get you guys to go for adding "(Late 80's to early '90's)" or some other generic descriptors to give people some clue? Overlapping years to reflect the long trailing market after a machine has peaked? Thanks. Coll7 21:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No DOS/Windows commentary

I thought there'd at least be a little bit of commentary on how DOS games gradually shifted to Windows games with the advent of Windows 95. Anyway, I don't know if I could add the info myself but I did find this interesting article that'd make a great reference in regard to this. It's on the windows site archives: Windows storms last bastion of MS-DOS based applications - Games! - Phorque (talk • contribs) 20:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Obvious Question

Should the unnamed missle simulator and Italic textOXOItalic text be listed as the first computer games? After all, it says they were developed for the computers at the time. I looked at the Pong-Story and it says that Baer was the inventor of video games, so does this makes the aforementioned games the "first computer games", not games in general? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.52.255.50 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Unbiased

I'm not sure that this article is unbiased (or at least that it presents just the facts). Calling the 360 an "abysmal failure" in Japan is certainly not far from the truth, but it is narrow in scope and is certainly an opinion. Suggest it's changed to "showed poor sales numbers" or something to that effect.

The "Sixth generation" section is also very much in need of polishing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 167.1.143.100 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Casio Loopy

Since this article is integrated with the deleted category that was once 'One-of-a-kind consoles', I think this machine should be at the very least mentioned. Not only was the target market unusual (it was designed solely for a female audience), it had a built-in sticker printer. While it was only sold in Japan and wasn't even very successful there, I think it is worth mentioning. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.151.210.24 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] American bias

I've noticed amongst most of these articlse a strong American bias, until I edited it (some time ago) the video games crash article didn't evne mention it was a event restricted to the US. In particular the main problem here is the very little mention the 1980s era of cheap computers in Britain recieves- amongst the press they are widely regarded as a critical point in the development of CVG and it was a pretty damn important area. Unfortunatly I don't kknow enough about it to write it myself however someone needs to.--Josquius 10:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

  • I am sure the 1980s were a great time for computer games in the United Kingdom and I know that there were a large number of computer game publishers in that time, but lets face it, there is an American (and Japanese) bias here because in the international business of video and computer games, Europe is just not that important. Today, the largest publisher of computer games in the world is EA, an American company. The first person shooter is just about the most popular computer game genre, and important games in that field such as Doom, Quake, and Half-life came from America. MMORPGs are popular too, and this is another American phenomenon. Starcraft is still practically a national pastime in South Korea, certainly something no British game can boast anywhere in the world. Of course the making of console games is dominated by Japanese companies and always has been since the crash, which incidently was not a European phenomonon because their was no home video game market in Europe, only a computer game market, which was not affected nearly so badly by the crash. Certainly Britain has provided some important games, Elite comes to mind right away, as does the original MUD, the games of Peter Molyneux, Lemmings, and the Grand Theft Auto series, and no one can doubt that Rare made some important contributions as well, but these games are quite simply the exception that proves the rule. Britain was not "critical" to the development of video or computer games, because the roots for nearly all of todays greatest sellers are in America and Japan. Should their be an article on the history of Computer and video games in England? Absoultely. Should the truly groundbreaking games and designers that influenced game design the whole world over be included in this article? Absolutely. Should the general history article spend much time on a European market that has never been all that important to the development of the computer and video game as it exists today? Probably not. Just my two cents. Indrian 11:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Atari's fall

Should we make good on Atari's attempt to re-enter the market, or not? The velociraptor 05:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overall Organization

This is a pretty grandiose list. We're seem to be talking about all computer and video games here when it would be more worthwhile, IMO, to have stricter sections (or separate entries) for game consoles, portable consoles, coin-op games and computer games. It gets really messy when you read about generations and I don't really see how they all relate. The PSP is listed as a seventh generation console (presumably because of its release date) but its specs are more in-line with sixth generation devices (you pay a premium to make something small, this isn't a knock on the PSP as you could say that about any handheld device). Overall, I didn't find this page very satisfying to read.

Esptoronto 16:40, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grand Theft Auto 3

About the quote "Grand Theft Auto III was released on the PS2 in October. It quickly became the top-selling game in 2001, and was later released on PC and Xbox. The concept of open world, free-roaming action, new to the Grand Theft Auto series, was revolutionized in Grand Theft Auto III and many claimed that the game had invented a new genre (many GTA clones were released in attempts to emulate GTA3's success)." There seems to be too much factually incorrect information here, as the first grand theft auto was open world, free roaming, and GTA3 was a Driver clone. The only notable thing about GTA3 was it's sales volume on the PS2. Going to remove this until it's backed up with facts

  • You are correct that the original statement was inaccurate, but I think you are gonig to the extreme on the other side. Certainly, sandbox gaming has a long history going back at least to the mid-1980s with games like Pirates! and Starflight, but there is also little doubt that GTA III represents a seminal moment in the development of sandbox gaming with its fully realized 3-d world that provided a more immersive experience than its GTA predecessors and helped drive this mode of gameplay to new levels of mainstream popularity, particularly on the console where this mode of gameplay was not nearly as common as on the PC. Indrian 21:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Question about the generation divisions

Maybe I just overlooked it, but I can't find the references for the division into different generations. Is this original research? 157.161.173.24 13:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I cannot find references to these generations either: Also there are already talks of a playstation 4 - http://games.kikizo.com/news/200511/074.asp - can we conceive that information about FUTURE consoles be put on a page called "The history" I agree with the aforementioned move also. Wesleymurphy 17:15, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If you read the paragraphs above you can see the evolution of the divisions... and the constant debates about them. It's not that anyone doubts that there are in fact distinct eras. What happens is that they/we argue about how to draw the dividing lines, and there are enough contradictory "commonly used era descriptions" and approaches to when eras start and stop to cause confusion. Do you count from when a machine first shipped, or from when it became a force in the market? Do you end an era when the last of a certain kind of machine ceases manufacturing, when games stop being made for it, when ??? You'll see me argue for my views above, but I see the merit in the counterarguments as well. The final twist: The eras happened at different times in North America, Europe and Japan, so trying to cover that as well causes all sorts of headaches. So, a long winded way of saying "IMHO not original research, but trying to find a consensus on issues where the centers are clear but the edges are fuzzy." Coll7 00:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mainframe section

i believe that whole section is unnecessary. it has little to do with videogames.160.36.86.11 03:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

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