The Video Games Textbook

The Video Games Textbook
History • Business • Technology

http://taylorandfrancis.com
The Video Games Textbook
History • Business • Technology
Dr. Brian J. Wardyga

CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Contents
List of Abbreviations, xv
Acknowledgments, xix
Author, xxi
Introduction, xxiii
CHAPTER 1 ◾ The First Video Games 1

OBJECTIVES 1
KEY TERMS AND PEOPLE 2
FIRST GENERATION TIMELINE 2
THE BEGINNING 3
THE FIRST INTERACTIVE COMPUTER GAMES 4
TENNIS FOR TWO 4
SPACEWAR! 4
COMPUTER SPACE 4
MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY 5
UNDERSTANDING ODYSSEY GAMES 6
PONG 10
PONG FOR YOUR HOME TV 12
COLECO TELSTAR 15
COLOR TV-GAME SERIES 19
FIRST GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY 19
FIRST GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS 20
REFERENCES 24
CHAPTER 2 ◾ Behind the Technology 27

OBJECTIVES 27
CHAPTER OUTLINE 29
INTRODUCTION 29
UNDER THE HOOD 29
CPU 30
RAM AND ROM 30
v
vi ◾ Contents
BIOS 30
GRAPHICS AND SOUND CARDS 31
PORTS 31
MAKING THE CONNECTION 31
BITS AND BYTES 32
HERTZ AND FRAME RATE 33
INTERLACED AND PROGRESSIVE SCAN 34
TYPES OF MONITORS 36
VIDEO FORMATS 36
ASCII AND VECTOR GRAPHICS 37
RASTER AND POLYGON GRAPHICS 38
SHADERS, FLOPS, AND CORES 39
A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE 40
SOUND CHANNELS 42
MUSIC AND SOUND 43
SOUND THEORY 44
REFERENCES 48
CHAPTER 3 ◾ The Second Generation 49

OBJECTIVES 49
CONSOLE TIMELINE 50
THE GOLDEN AGE 51
THE SECOND GENERATION 52
ATARI VCS (2600) 52
CONSOLE COMPARISON 55
KEY ATARI VCS TITLES 57
2
MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY 57
2
CONSOLE COMPARISON: ODYSSEY VERSUS ATARI VCS 59
2
KEY MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY TITLES 61
MATTEL INTELLIVISION 61
2
CONSOLE COMPARISON: INTELLIVISION VERSUS ATARI VCS AND ODYSSEY 64
KEY INTELLIVISION TITLES 65
COLECOVISION 65
CONSOLE COMPARISON: COLECOVISION VERSUS ATARI VCS AND INTELLIVISION 67
KEY COLECOVISION TITLES 68
ATARI 5200 70
CONSOLE COMPARISON: ATARI 5200 VERSUS COLECOVISION 71
KEY ATARI 5200 TITLES 73
VIDEO GAME CRASH OF 1983 73
Contents ◾ vii
SECOND-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY 73

SECOND GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS 75
REFERENCES 80
CHAPTER 4 ◾ Early PC Gaming 83

OBJECTIVES 83
EARLY COMPUTER TIMELINE (APPLE, ATARI, AND COMMODORE) 84
INTRODUCTION 85
APPLE I AND II 85
COMPUTER VERSUS CONSOLE COMPARISON: APPLE II VERSUS ATARI VCS (2600) 85
KEY APPLE II TITLES 89
ELECTRONIC ARTS 89
APPLE II SUCCESSORS 90
ATARI 8-BIT FAMILY: 400 AND 800 92
COMPUTER COMPARISON: ATARI 8-BIT VERSUS APPLE II 92
KEY ATARI 8-BIT TITLES 93
EXTENDED FAMILY: ATARI 8-BIT SUCCESSORS 95
COMMODORE 64 95
COMPUTER COMPARISON: COMMODORE 64 VERSUS ATARI 8-BIT 96
KEY COMMODORE 64 TITLES 98
COMMODORE 64 SUCCESSORS 99
GENRE PIONEERS 99
MARKET SUMMARY 101
REFERENCES 105
CHAPTER 5 ◾ The 8-bit Era 107

OBJECTIVES 107
CONSOLE TIMELINE 108
THE ARCADE SCENE 109
THE THIRD GENERATION: NINTENDO FAMICOM 109
COMING TO AMERICA 110
NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM 111
CONSOLE COMPARISON: NES VERSUS ATARI 2600 (VCS) 114
KEY NES TITLES 114
SEGA MARK III 116
SEGA MASTER SYSTEM 117
CONSOLE COMPARISON: MASTER SYSTEM VERSUS NES 119
KEY SEGA MASTER SYSTEM TITLES 119
viii ◾ Contents
ATARI 7800 PROSYSTEM 120

CONSOLE COMPARISON: ATARI 7800 VERSUS NES 121
KEY ATARI 7800 TITLES 123
THIRD-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY 123
THIRD-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS 124
REFERENCES 128
CHAPTER 6 ◾ The 16-bit Era 129

OBJECTIVES 129
ARCADE REVIVAL 131
THE 16-BIT ERA: NEC PC ENGINE 131
TURBOGRAFX-16 133
CONSOLE COMPARISON: TURBOGRAFX-16 VERSUS NES 135
KEY TURBOGRAFX-16 TITLES 135
SEGA MEGA DRIVE 137
SEGA GENESIS 139
CONSOLE COMPARISON: GENESIS VERSUS TURBOGRAFX-16 142
KEY GENESIS TITLES 143
SUPER FAMICOM 145
SUPER NINTENDO 145
CONSOLE COMPARISON: SNES VERSUS GENESIS AND TURBOGRAFX-16 146
KEY SUPER NINTENDO TITLES 149
NO CD-ROM? 149
SNK NEO•GEO AES 151
CONSOLE COMPARISON: NEO•GEO AES VERSUS THE REST 152
KEY NEO•GEO TITLES 154
NEO•GEO CD 154
FOURTH-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY 154
FOURTH-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS 155
REFERENCES 160
CHAPTER 7 ◾ Sex and Violence Take Center Stage 161

OBJECTIVES 161
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES TIMELINE 162
INTRODUCTION 163
WHO PLAYS VIDEO GAMES? 163
SEX AND SOFTPORN ADVENTURE 163
Contents ◾ ix
CUSTER’S REVENGE 163

LEISURE SUIT LARRY 164
NIGHT TRAP AND FMV GAMES 165
THE GUY GAME 165
GRAND THEFT AUTO AND MODS 166
GENDER AND RACE 167
VIOLENCE AND DEATH RACE 169
MORTAL KOMBAT 169
REGULATION AND THE ESRB 171
DOOM AND FPS GAMES 171
ROCKSTAR GAMES AND CONGRESSIONAL BILLS 172
EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAME VIOLENCE 176
OTHER EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAMES 177
REFERENCES 181
CHAPTER 8 ◾ The 3D Era 185

OBJECTIVES 185
ARCADES IN FLUX 187
THE 3D ERA 187
3DO INTERACTIVE MULTIPLAYER 188
KEY 3DO TITLES 192
ATARI JAGUAR 192
CONSOLE COMPARISON: JAGUAR VERSUS 3DO 193
KEY ATARI JAGUAR TITLES 195
SEGA 32X AND SATURN 196
CONSOLE COMPARISON: SATURN VERSUS 3DO AND JAGUAR 198
KEY SATURN TITLES 198
CHANGES AT SEGA 200
SONY PLAYSTATION 200
CONSOLE COMPARISON: SONY PLAYSTATION VERSUS SEGA SATURN 203
KEY PLAYSTATION TITLES 204
NINTENDO 64 205
CONSOLE COMPARISON: NINTENDO 64 VERSUS PLAYSTATION 208
KEY NINTENDO 64 TITLES 209
FIFTH-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY 211
FIFTH-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS 212
REFERENCES 217
x ◾ Contents
CHAPTER 9 ◾ Video Games Become Big Business 219

OBJECTIVES 219
CHAPTER OUTLINE 220
INTRODUCTION 221
GAME INDUSTRY VALUE CHAIN 221
FUNDING 221
PUBLISHING 222
DEVELOPMENT 222
MANUFACTURING 225
DISTRIBUTION 226
RETAIL 227
DATA RESEARCH 228
END-USERS 228
BIG BUSINESS 230
VIDEO GAME CONVENTIONS 232
eSPORTS 233
SUMMARY 235
REFERENCES 239
CHAPTER 10 ◾ The Sixth Generation 241

OBJECTIVES 241
ARCADE DECLINE AND RESTRUCTURING 243
THE SIXTH GENERATION: SEGA DREAMCAST 244
KEY DREAMCAST TITLES 247
SONY PLAYSTATION 2 248
CONSOLE COMPARISON: PLAYSTATION 2 VERSUS DREAMCAST 251
KEY PLAYSTATION 2 TITLES 253
NINTENDO GAMECUBE 255
CONSOLE COMPARISON: GAMECUBE VERSUS PLAYSTATION 2 257
KEY GAMECUBE TITLES 257
CHANGES AT NINTENDO 259
MICROSOFT XBOX 260
CONSOLE COMPARISON: XBOX VERSUS THE REST 263
KEY XBOX TITLES 263
SIXTH-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY 264
Contents ◾ xi
SIXTH-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS 265

REFERENCES 269
CHAPTER 11 ◾ The Rise of PC Gaming 271

OBJECTIVES 271
COMPUTER MILESTONES TIMELINE 272
INTRODUCTION 273
END OF AN ERA 273
IBM AND THE RISE OF THE CLONES 274
GAMING IN DOS 278
GENRE PIONEERS: EARLY 1990s 278
WINDOWS 95 AND THE MID-1990s 279
LATE 1990s 279
THE NEW MILLENNIUM OF PC GAMING 282
STEAM AND INDIE GAMES 283
VIRTUAL ONLINE WORLDS 285
RECENT TRENDS 286
MARKET SUMMARY 288
REFERENCES 292
CHAPTER 12 ◾ The Seventh Generation 295

OBJECTIVES 295
ARCADE UPDATE 297
THE SEVENTH GENERATION 297
XBOX 360 297
KEY XBOX 360 TITLES 302
SONY PLAYSTATION 3 304
CONSOLE COMPARISON: PS3 VERSUS XBOX 360 308
NINTENDO WII 312
CONSOLE COMPARISON: WII VERSUS PLAYSTATION 3 AND XBOX 360 315
KEY WII TITLES 316
SEVENTH-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY 317
SEVENTH-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS 319
REFERENCES 323
xii ◾ Contents
CHAPTER 13 ◾ Military, Science, and Education Climb Aboard 325

OBJECTIVES 325
CHAPTER OUTLINE 327
INTRODUCTION 327
EARLY WAR GAMES 327
MILITARY SIMULATION 328
THE BRADLEY TRAINER 329
MULTIPURPOSE ARCADE COMBAT SIMULATOR 329
MARINE DOOM 329
AMERICA’S ARMY 330
FULL SPECTRUM WARRIOR 330
DARWARS 331
VIRTUAL BATTLEFIELDS 333
AT EASE 334
VIDEO GAMES IN SCIENCE 334
SERIOUS GAMES 334
SERIOUS GAMES SHOWCASE AND CHALLENGE 336
GAMES WITH A PURPOSE 336
VIDEO GAME RESEARCH 337
NEGATIVE SIDE EFFECTS 337
POSITIVE IMPACT 338
BRAIN DEVELOPMENT 339
FROM SCIENCE TO EDUCATION 339
POPULAR COTS EDUCATIONAL GAMES 341
SCHOOLS SPECIALIZING IN GAMING 342
FINAL EXAMINATION 343
REFERENCES 348
CHAPTER 14 ◾ Mobile and Casual Change the Game 351

OBJECTIVES 351
MOBILE PLATFORMS TIMELINE 352
INTRODUCTION 353
MOBILE AND CASUAL GAMES DEFINED 353
PHONES GET SMART 353
MOBILE GAMING ORIGINS 354
THE NEW MILLENNIUM OF MOBILE 355
NOKIA N-GAGE 355
THE COMPETITION 357
Contents ◾ xiii
KEY N-GAGE TITLES 359

OTHER MOBILE DEVELOPMENTS 360
GIZMONDO 360
STILL GROWING 361
APPLE IPHONE 361
EARLY IPHONE GAMES 362
MORE PLATFORMS THAN EVER 364
MOBILE MILESTONES 365
RECENT TRENDS 368
MARKET SUMMARY 370
REFERENCES 373
CHAPTER 15 ◾ Modern Console Gaming 377

OBJECTIVES 377
THE MODERN ARCADE 379
MODERN CONSOLE GAMING 379
WII U 380
CONSOLE COMPARISON: WII U VERSUS XBOX 360 AND PS3 383
KEY WII U TITLES 384
PLAYSTATION 4 386
CONSOLE COMPARISON: PLAYSTATION 4 VERSUS WII U 389
XBOX ONE 393
CONSOLE COMPARISON: XBOX ONE VERSUS PLAYSTATION 4 396
KEY XBOX ONE TITLES 398
MARKET SUMMARY 400
MODERN GAMING BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS 401
FINAL THOUGHTS 401
REFERENCES 405
INDEX, 409
List of Abbreviations
2D Two-Dimensional CF CompactFlash
3D Three-Dimensional COLECO Connecticut Leather Company
3G Third Generation Compaq Compatibility and Quality
4G Fourth Generation COTS Commercial Off-The-Shelf
64DD Nintendo 64 Disk Drive CP/M Control Program/Monitor
AAR After Action Review CPU Central Processing Unit
ADF Australian Defence Force CRT Cathode Ray Tube
AES Advanced Entertainment System CSSC Clinical Skills and Simulations Center
AGS Asia Game Show CTIA Color Television Interface Adaptor
AI Artificial Intelligence CTR Computing-Tabulating-Recording
AMD Advanced Micro Devices Company
ANTIC Alphanumeric Television Interface DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects
Controller Agency
AO ESRB: Adults Only DAT Digital Audio Tape
APA American Psychological Association DDP Digital Data Pack
API Application Programming Interface DDR Dance Dance Revolution
APU Accelerated Processing Unit DLC Downloadable content
AR Augmented Reality DLNA Digital Living Network Alliance
ARM Advanced RISC Machines DMA Direct Memory Access
ASA Advertising Standards Authority DOS Disk Operating System
ASCII American Standard Code for DRAM Dynamic Random-Access Memory
Information Interchange DRM Digital Rights Management
ASIC Application-Specific Integrated Circuit DSP Digital Signal Processor
ASL Advanced Squad Leader DTS Dedicated to Sound
ATI Array Technology Inc. DVD Digital Versatile Disc
AT&T American Telephone and Telegraph DVI Digital Visual Interface
Company DVR Digital Video Recorder
AVS Advanced Video System DWGE Dubai World Game Expo
BASIC Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic E ESRB: Everyone
Instruction Code E3 Entertainment Expo
BD-ROM Blu-ray Disc ROM E10+ ESRB: Everyone 10+
BGS Brasil Game Show EA Electronic Arts
BIOS Basic Input/Output System EC ESRB: Early Childhood
Bit/b Binary Digit ED Enhanced Definition
BREW Binary Runtime Environment for EDSAC Electronic Delay Storage Automatic
Wireless Calculator
CAD Computer-Aided Design EEDAR Electronic Entertainment Design and
CD Compact Disc Research
CES Consumer Electronics Show EGA Enhanced Graphics Adapter
xv
xvi ◾ List of Abbreviations
ESA Entertainment Software Association IBM International Business Machines

ESL Electronic Sports League ICT Institute for Creative Technologies
ESP Extra Sensory Perception IDSA Interactive Digital Software Association
ESRB Entertainment Software Rating Board IEM Intel Extreme Masters
EST Engagement Skills Trainer INTV Intellivision Inc.
EVO Evolution Championship Series IP Intellectual Property
F.A.T.S FireArms Training Simulator iOS iPhone Operating System
F2P Free-To-Play ISFE Interactive Software Federation of
FEPA Family Entertainment Protection Act Europe
FLOPS Floating Point Operations Per Second J2ME Java 2 Micro Edition
FMV Full Motion Video JRPG Japanese Role-Playing Game
FPU Floating-Point Unit KB Kilobyte
fps Frames Per Second KeSPA Korean e-Sports Association
FPS First-Person Shooter kHz Kilohertz
FSW Full Spectrum Warrior LAN Local Area Network
FTC Federal Trade Commission LCD Liquid Crystal Display
GAA Game After Ambush LED Light-Emitting Diode
GB Gigabyte LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
GBA Game Boy Advance LPCM Linear Pulse Code Modulation
GBC Game Boy Color LTE Long-Term Evolution
GBL Game-Based Learning M ESRB: Mature
GCC General Consumer Corporation MACS Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator
GCN [NGC MB Megabyte
in Japan] GameCube MFLOPS Megaflops
GDC Game Developers Conference MHz Megahertz
GD-ROM Gigabyte Disc MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
GE General Electric MIPS Millions of Ops per Second
GFLOPS Gigaflops MLG Major League Gaming Inc.
GFX Graphics MMC MultiMediaCard
GG Game Gear MMO Massively Multiplayer Online
GHz Gigahertz MMORPG Massively Multiplayer Online
GMod Garry’s Mod Role-Playing Game
GPRS General Packet Radio Service MMOW Massively Multiplayer Online World
GPU Graphics Processing Unit MMS Multimedia Messaging Service
GSM Groupe Spécial Mobile MOBA Multiplayer Online Battle Arena
GTIA Graphic Television Interface Adaptor MOGA Mobile Gaming Controller
GUI Graphical User Interface mono Monaural
GWAP Game with a Purpose MOS
HDD Hard Disk Drive [Technologies] Metal Oxide Semiconductor
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface MRI Motion Reality Inc.
HDTV High Definition Television MS Microsoft
HDV High Definition Video MUD Multi-User Dungeon
HPS high-fidelity patient simulations MVS Multi Video System
HUD Heads Up Display N64 Nintendo 64
Hz Hertz Namco Nakamura Manufacturing Company
I/ITSEC Interservice/Industry Training, NAOMI New Arcade Operation Machine Idea
Simulation and Education Conference NEC Nippon Electric Company
I/O Input and Output NES Nintendo Entertainment System
List of Abbreviations ◾ xvii
NFC Near-Field Communication R.O.B. Robot Operating Buddy

NIS Nippon Ichi Software ROE Rules of Engagement
NPC Non-playable character ROM Read Only Memory
NPD National Purchase Diary RP ESRB: Rating Pending
NTSA National Training Simulation and RPG Role Playing Game
Association RRoD Red Ring of Death
NTSC National Television Standards RTS Real-Time Strategy
Committee RTT Real-Time Tactics
NXE New Xbox Experience SAFE Strategy and Force Evaluation
OLED Organic Light-Emitting Diode SCART Syndicat des Constructeurs d’Appareils
OOE Out of Order Execution Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs
OS Operating System SCE Sony Computer Entertainment
OTS Over-the-Shoulder SD Secure Digital
P2W Pay-to-Win SDT Self Determination Theory
PAL Phase Alternate Line SECAM Séquentiel Couleur À Mémoire
PAX Prime Penny Arcade Expo SECTER Simulated Environment for Counseling,
PC/AT Personal Computer/Advanced Training, Evaluation and Rehabilitation
Technology SEGA Service Games
PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect SFC Super Famicom
PCM Pulse-Code Modulation SGI Silicon Graphics, Inc.
PDA Personal Digital Assistant SHMUP Shoot’em Up
PDP Plasma Display Panel S-3D Stereoscopic
PDP-1 Programmed Data Processor-1 Si International System of Units
PET Personal Electronic Transactor SID Sound Interface Device
PFLOPS Petaflops SMS Sega Master System
PiP Picture-in Picture SNES Super Nintendo Entertainment System
PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of SNK Shin Nihon Kikaku
Sciences SOE Soap Opera Effect
POKEY Pot Keyboard Integrated Circuit S/PDIF Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format
PPS Polygons Per Second SRAM Static Random-Access Memory
PS2 PlayStation 2 SSH Society for Simulation in Healthcare
PS3 PlayStation 3 STEM Science, Technology, Engineering and
PS4 PlayStation 4 Mathematics
PSN PlayStation Network SVP Sega Virtua Processor
PSP PlayStation Portable T ESRB: Teen
PSX PlayStation TB Terabyte
PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder TES Tactical Engagement Simulation
QA Quality Assurance TFLOPS Teraflops
RAM Random Access Memory TG-16 TurboGrafx-16
RAND TGS Tokyo Game Show
or R&D Research and Development THQ Toy Headquarters
RCA Radio Corporation of America THz Terahertz
RCP Reality coprocessor TIA Television Interface Adaptor
RDRAM Rambus Dynamic Random Access TLCTS Tactical Language & Culture Training
Memory System
RF Radio Frequency TRADOC Army Training Doctrine and Command
RGB Red, Green, Blue TRS Tip, Ring, Sleeve
RISC Reduced Instruction Set Computer TRST TrustCo Bank
xviii ◾ List of Abbreviations
TV Television VPU Vector Processing Unit

UI User Interface VR Virtual Reality
UMD Universal Media Disc VRAM Video RAM
USB Universal Serial Bus VRT Virtual Reality Therapy
USMC United States Marine Corps VRU Voice Recognition Unit
VBS Virtual Battlespace WAN Wide Area Network
VCD Video Compact Disc WAP Wireless Application Protocol
VCR Video Cassette Recorder WCG World Cyber Games
VCS Video Computer System WoW World of Warcraft
VGA Video Graphics Array XBL Xbox Live
VGL Video Games Live XMB XrossMediaBar
VMU Visual Memory Unit YLOD Yellow Light of Death
VPD Video Display Processor
Acknowledgments
his book was written first and foremost for my

T students—for supporting the class in which this
textbook was derived from and for keeping me motivated
for this book. To Steve Kent for covering so much video
game history in such great detail from the very beginning
to 2001; to Damien McFerran for your outstanding
with your unwavering support and interest in the pro ect. coverage of so many vintage game consoles and com-
To my family—for your patience and understanding puter systems; to the writers and producers of the TV
throughout the writing process; to my friends and col- show Icons; to Evan Amos for your outstanding pho-
leagues who took the time to review parts of this book and tography of the majority of console pictures in this text;
provide me with feedback, especially Marie Franklin for to Chris Wright for your excellent documentation of
volunteering your valuable time to proofreading every early mobile gaming history; and to Jeremy Reimer
chapter and for your words of encouragement; to the for your amazing coverage of the personal computer
Professional Development Committee and administrators market’s rich history.
of Lasell College for granting my sabbatical in which To all who provided permissions and informa-
nearly half of this book was written; to the wonderful tion pertaining to the figures and tables in this book;
team at Taylor & Francis; and to God, for providing me to all the key game developers, publishers, and other
with the inspiration, patience, and perseverance to see this video game talent who have made contributions to the
through. You made yourself known to me so many times video game business; and to all video game enthusi-
throughout this entire process. Thank you. asts for supporting video games and helping this
I’d also like to acknowledge some of the amazing industry become one of the leading forms of enter-
authors who served as major inspirations and foundations tainment today.
xix
Author
Dr. Brian J. Wardyga has been playing video games Production, Understanding Mass Media, Understanding
since he was a child in the early 1980s, beginning with Video Games, Video Games & Culture, Video Production
the Atari VCS. Since that time, he has collected games (graduate and undergraduate), and Writing for the Media.
for almost every major console, living through most of Brian holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership
what has been written in this book. An expert on the from Liberty University, a Master’s in Television from
subject that is both his passion and hobby, Brian wrote Boston University, and a Bachelor’s in Communication
and designed this textbook to promote student learning from Bridgewater State College. His professional vita
in a visual style that encourages reading and provides includes work for organizations such as Bernie & Phyl’s
vivid examples of each major console, its controllers and Furniture, Borders Books & Music, The Boyds Collec-
accessories, along with examples of the print advertise- tion Ltd., GlaxoSmithKline, and Ty, Inc.
ments, game graphics, and box art that was pertinent to He also worked for 10 collective years in TV pro-
each generation of video games. duction as a Stage Manager and Computer Graphics
Brian began teaching at the college level in 2002 at Technician at WCVB-TV ABC5 for programs such
Boston University and has also taught communication as Chronicle, City Line, Commitment 20XX, The
and production courses at Curry College, Fisher College, Evening News, Eye Opener News, Jerry Lewis Tele-
and University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has been a thon, Midday News, Patriots Pregame Show, Patriots
full-time instructor at Lasell College since 2004 where he 5th Quarter, and the PGA Tour. Prior to WCVB,
began teaching courses on video games in 2009. His Brian worked as an Associate Director for WLVI-
array of courses taught includes Advanced Radio Pro- TV WB56 on programs such as Keller At Large,
duction (II), Advanced Television Production, Advanced New England Stories, Patriots SportZone Kickoff, The
Video Production (II), Communication Research (grad- Sports Zone, and The Ten O’Clock News. He also
uate level), Digital Video Editing, Effective Speaking, served as a Post Production Assistant at WGBH PBS2
Fundamentals of Communication, Interactive Broad- on the Building Big documentary series. Brian is also
band Television, Media Literacy, Oral Communication, the founding General Manager of 102.9FM WLAS –
Public Speaking, Radio Production, Television Studio Lasell College Radio.
xxi
Introduction
W elcome to The Video Games Textbook! I appreciate

your interest in the text and hope that the fol-
lowing chapters teach you all you ever wanted to know
generations served as a major influence on the home
systems that followed. Consoles are then discussed in
detail on their history, key personnel, marketing strat-
and more about video games and the many platforms egy, technical specifications, breakthroughs and trends,
they’ve appeared on. My goal for The Video Games Text- accessories, and important games. Console comparisons
book was to facilitate learning the history, business, and are also made between competing systems, including
technology of video games with visually stimulating, “Head-to-Head” recommendations in comparing game
comprehensive, and chronological chapters that are rele- titles across platforms. Console sections conclude with a
vant and easy to understand for a variety of readers. This review of key games and box art to five of the best titles
book was structured to be a primary textbook for courses on each system.
on the history, technology, and/or business of video games. Images and tables are provided for a deeper
There are two main types of chapters in this textbook: immersion into the subject matter. Tables highlight
(1) “platform chapters,” which cover the major plat- each system’s launch titles, tech specs, and other
forms from each generation of home video game con- information, while images of each console, its con-
soles, as well as PC and mobile gaming; and (2) “special troller, advertisement(s), and screenshots of games
topics” chapters that focus on pertinent aspects of video bring the reader closer to fully understanding each
games such as the technology; video game business; sex, game system. “Pro File” sections with a picture and
violence, gender, and race; and the use of video games in achievement summary of important industry figures
the military, science, and educational communities. highlight the most influential people in the business,
Chapters begin with a clear list of objectives, key terms, and “Did You Know” sections provide additional
and timelines of major releases. historical trivia whenever possible. Each chapter
Each console-based “platform” chapter reviews the concludes with a summary, activity, and chapter quiz
arcade industry for its respective era, which for many to further the learning experience.
CHAPTER 1
The First Video Games
◾ OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
• Describe the types of games found in arcades before video games.

• Discuss the first video games and how they evolved.
• Provide details on video game pioneers such as Ralph Baer and Nolan Bushnell.
• Summarize a brief overview of the history of Magnavox, Atari, and Coleco.
• Describe the Magnavox Odyssey, home Pong system, and Coleco Telstar series.
• Be familiar with the technological differences among first generation systems.
• Review the history of Pong and how it helped pave the way for the home market.
• Have a sense of the graphics quality and general capabilities of first generation video game consoles.
• Discuss how the first video games were received by the public.
• Be familiar with the Nintendo Color TV-Game series.
• List the important innovations brought to gaming during this time period.
• Summarize first-generation market sales and trends.
1
2 ◾ The Video Games Textbook
◾ KEY TERMS AND PEOPLE

AC adapter Control boxes Interchangeable games Prototype
Al Alcorn Copyright infringement Peter Jensen Reset button
Ampex Copyrights Joysticks RF switchbox
Andy Capp’s Tavern Ted Dabney Steve Kordek Royalties
Atari Dedicated Console/ Alan Kotok Bill Rusch
AY-3-8500 Hardware Harold Lee Steve “Slug” Rusell
Ralph Baer Digital displays Light gun Pete Sampson
Baffle Ball Robert Dvorak Gene Lipkin Sanders Associates
Bagatelle EDSAC Magnavox Robert Saunders
Bertie the Brain Dan Edwards Nimrod Scoring reels
Brookhaven National Electrotennis/Epoch Nutting Associates Shooting Gallery
Laboratory English control Odyssey Spacewar!
Brown Box Flipper bumpers Odyssey follow-ups Super Pong
Bob Brown Game cards Oscilloscope Sync generator
Nolan Bushnell Bill Gattis OXO/Noughts and Crosses Syzygy Engineering
Cartridge slot General Electric Patents Tech Model Railroad
Cathode ray tube General Instrument Pay-outs Club
Circuit boards Martin Graetz PDP-1 computer Tele-Games
Coleco Arnold Greenberg Philips Telstar follow-ups
Coleco Telstar Maurice Greenberg Pinball Tennis for Two
Color TV-Game David Gottlieb Plastic overlays Tilt Mechanism
Combat! Bill Harrison Pong Tom Quinn
Computer Space William Higinbotham Pong for Your Home TV Video Game
Conn. Leather Co. Josh Hochberg Edwin Pridham Harry Williams
◾ FIRST GENERATION TIMELINE
Tennis for Two Computer Space Home Pong
October 1958 November 1971 December 1975
February 1962 September 1972 19761977
Spacewar! Magnavox Odyssey Coleco Telstar series

The First Video Games ◾ 3
◾ THE BEGINNING areas such as New York (Kent, 2001, pp. 5–6). It wasn’t
until years later that Gottlieb introduced a new mechanic
Before video games, the arcade business consisted that would revolutionize pinball forever—flipper
mostly of pinball and other mechanical games. The bumpers. Flipper bumpers (later just called “flippers”)
earliest roots of pinball “can be traced back to Bagatelle, first appeared in Gottlieb’s Humpty Dumpty pinball game
a form of billiards in which players used a cue to shoot in 1947. Besides adding more control of the ball, flippers
balls up a sloped table. The goal of the game was to get made pinball into a legitimate game of skill (and less like
the balls into one of nine cups placed along the face of gambling). Steve Kordek further revolutionized the
the table” (Kent, 2001, p. 2). More than a century later game by placing two flippers at the bottom of the table
came David Gottlieb’s coin-operated Baffle Ball in 1931 which were controlled by buttons on the sides.
as seen in Figure 1.1. Players inserted a penny for a Advancements such as electromechanical relays and
handful of balls which they would launch with a scoring reels paved the way for pinball in the 1950s and
plunger. They would then bump the table in an attempt 1960s, followed by circuit boards and digital displays in
to land each ball in a number of pockets. The technique the 1970s—the decade when video games first appeared
of bumping the table would later become known as on the arcade scene.
“tilting.” In 1932 Harry Williams advanced the game
further by installing “tilt mechanisms” which limited
the amount of tilting players could use by penalizing DID YOU KNOW?
them for overdoing it.
Josh Hochberg is credited with opening one of the
Eventually other versions of the game were released
world’s first restaurant/arcades with Philadelphia’s Cav-
such as “pay-outs” that combined pinball with elements alier in 1961 (Kent, 2001, p. 14). Back then arcades
of gambling. When politicians caught wind of these consisted mostly of pinball and other electromechanical
devices, pinball games of all kinds were outlawed in the games—not video games.
United States—with bans lasting nearly 35 years in major
FIGURE 1.1 Evolution of pinball: (a) Bagatelle, (b) Baffle Ball (1931), and (c) Rapid Transit (1935).
(a) (b) (c)

◾ THE FIRST INTERACTIVE COMPUTER improved in 1959 with a larger (10–17 inch) screen in
GAMES addition to several variations of the game, including “tennis
on the moon, with low gravity, or on Jupiter, with high
The earliest interactive computer games premiered in gravity” (Brookhaven National Laboratory, 2016, para. 10).
the 1950s on huge, wall-size computers such as Dr.
Josef Kates’s Bertie the Brain (1950, Toronto) and Dr.
John Bennett and Raymond Stuart-Williams’s Nimrod ◾ SPACEWAR!
(1951, UK). These games were developed out of aca- While attending the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
demic research labs and played games such as tic-tac- nology (MIT), Steve “Slug” Russell began work on an
toe, using light bulbs rather than actual monitors with interactive space combat game with the help of some of
graphics. Dr. Alexander Douglas’s OXO or Noughts his peers, collectively known as the Tech Model Rail-
and Crosses (1952, UK) was a non-animated version of road Club. After months of developing the game for the
tic-tac-toe displayed on a cathode ray tube (CRT) Programmed Data Processor-1 (PDP-1) computer, the
monitor for the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic final version of Spacewar! (Figure 1.3a) was completed
Calculator (EDSAC) computer. Each of these games in the spring of 1962. Russell was the main developer for
provided a level of interactivity with a computer, but it the game which originally featured four switches: (1) rotate
was the additional element of moving graphics that led the spaceship clockwise, (2) rotate counterclockwise,
to what is widely considered a true video game. (3) rocket thrust, and (4) fire torpedoes. To make the
game easier to play, Alan Kotok and Robert Saunders
◾ TENNIS FOR TWO designed separate “control boxes,” which could be con-
sidered the world’s first wired video game controllers.
American nuclear physicist William “Willy” Higinbotham
Colleague Pete Sampson contributed additional
is most often credited with designing the first video game
programming to display stars in the background and
at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Tennis for Two
Dan Edwards added the “influence of gravity on the
(Figure 1.2) premiered on October 18, 1958 at one of
spaceships” (Russell, 2001, p. 19). Martin Graetz helped
BNL’s public exhibitions. Built by Higinotham and Robert
complete the game with his “hyperspace” function
Dvorak, the game displayed on a small, 5-inch oscillo-
which would cause the player’s ship to disappear and
scope (round, monochrome display) and was played with
reappear in desperate situations (Graetz, 1981).
two custom aluminum controllers. Tennis for Two was
Spacewar! appeared in a handful of educational insti-
FIGURE 1.2 Tennis for Two (1958) displayed on a DuMont tutions such as Stanford University and the University
Lab Oscilloscope Type 304-A. of Utah and is therefore credited as the first known video
game to be played in multiple locations.
◾ COMPUTER SPACE
One University of Utah undergraduate who became a

big fan of Spacewar! was Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell
earned part of his tuition money working for Lagoon
Amusement Park in Salt Lake City, soliciting quarter
games on the midway. He soon worked his way up to
maintaining machines in the pinball and electrome-
chanical game arcade (Kent, 2001, p. 29). His work
experience and college education led Bushnell to
create a coin-operated version of Spacewar! called
Computer Space (Figure 1.3b) with colleague Ted
Dabney. Released under their company name Syzygy
Engineering in 1971, players piloted a rocket ship in a
space battle with a pair of computer-controlled flying
FIGURE 1.3 Screenshots of (a) Spacewar! (Steve Russell, 1962) and (b) Computer Space (Nolan Bushnell, 1971).
(a) (b)
saucers. The game featured four buttons including: fire begin tinkering with his idea in 1967. With the help of
missile, thrust, rotate left, and rotate right. Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch, Baer worked on proto-
Since Steve Russell never applied for any copyrights types (early test models) for many years before pitching
or patents for his game, Computer Space never faced any the seventh iteration to manufacturers. It was called the
legal trouble for its similarities to Spacewar! and coin-op “Brown Box,” because of “the amount of adhesive tape
manufacturer Nutting Associates built 1500 machines holding it together, but its crude design didn’t stop it
(Edwards, 2011, p. 3). While it may have been too from causing a stir among the major television manu-
complex for the average consumer, Computer Space is facturers of the late 1960s” (Langshaw, 2014, para. 6).
renowned for being the first arcade video game and the The console was shown to several companies before
first commercially distributed video game. being picked up by electronics manufacturer Magnavox in
January of 1971. Magnavox was formed in 1917 by Edwin
◾ MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY Pridham and moving-coil loudspeaker inventor Peter
Jensen. The company specialized in manufacturing radios,
The concept for a home video game console was first TVs, record players, and other devices (such as the first
envisioned by electronics engineer Ralph Baer. After plasma panel) for the U.S. military. A year after securing
more than a decade of working with Sanders Associates the deal with Ralph Baer, Magnavox also became the
on military projects, Baer was given the green light to manufacturer of the world’s first home video game system.
FIGURE 1.4 Magnavox Odyssey, the first commercial home video game console.
The newly designed Odyssey (Figure 1.4) debuted in TABLE 1.1 Magnavox Odyssey U.S. Launch Titles
the United States in September 1972 for $99.95.
1. Table Tennis
It included 12 games on six different game cards, two
2. Ski (Figure 1.6a) & Simon Says
controllers, a radio frequency (RF) switchbox/cable to
3. Tennis, Analogic, Hockey, & Football Part 1
connect it to a TV, game accessories, an instruction
(for passing and kicking)
manual, and six “C” batteries to power the system, shown
4. Cat and Mouse, Football Part 2 (for running),
in Figure 1.5. An optional AC adapter could be pur-
Haunted House
chased to operate the unit on electricity. Graphic capa-
5. Submarine (Figure 1.6b)
bility was limited to a few white squares and a vertical
6. Roulette, States
line on a black background, so games included plastic
overlays that would cling to the TV screen (via static
electricity) to give each game a unique look and playfield.
The controllers contained flat bottoms that were cost around $6.00 and included screen overlays and game
best suited for placement on a surface such as a coffee instructions. Game cards with multiple titles played
table. Each controller had three knobs, including one on similarly, but provided different instructions to the
the right side and the two on the left side—consisting player which would superficially vary the gameplay.
of a small knob extending from a larger knob. The The game cards were not traditional software like
right knob allowed the player to move the screen dot games for modern consoles, but rather printed circuit
vertically, the left knob moved the dot horizontally, boards that plugged into the console (Table 1.2). The
and the smaller knob allowed the player to exert a game cards modified the internal circuitry which
small amount of “English control” over the console- directed the console to display different components or
controlled dot (such as curving the ping pong ball in react to inputs differently. In other words, “there was no
Table Tennis). memory or game code on these cards, which merely
On the top of the controller was a single “reset” complete[d] different circuit paths within the hardware
button. Unlike the modern interpretation of a reset itself to define the rule set for the current game. All of
function, the Odyssey’s reset button did not actually the game information was contained in the dedicated
reset the games. Instead, it served as a function for hardware, and inserting a new circuit card was really no
resetting particular game functions, such as refreshing different an act from flicking a toggle switch” (Smith,
the placement of the game dot(s). Beyond the control- 2015, para. 18).
lers, “two additional controls are present on the main The Odyssey did not have any sound capability, so
unit: a dial to adjust the position of the center line on the all the games were silent. The system also lacked a
screen and a dial to set the speed of the machine-
controlled dot” (Smith, 2015, para. 22). Even if the
controllers have long since evolved since the Odyssey, its
TABLE 1.2 Magnavox Odyssey Tech Specs
options to adjust screen position and other game set-
Manufacturer: Magnavox
tings are still seen on modern consoles today.
Launch price: $99.95
Release date: September 1972 (US), 1973 (EU)
◾ UNDERSTANDING ODYSSEY GAMES Format: “Game Cards” composed of printed
circuit boards
A total of 28 games were made for the Magnavox
CPU: None (40 transistors and diodes)
Odyssey, appearing on 11 different game cards. Six game
Memory: None
cards containing 12 games were bundled with the console
Resolution: Not applicable
as listed by card number in Table 1.1. The console was
Colors: 2 (black and white)
also manufactured for the European and Japanese
Sound: None
markets with different game bundles. Individual games
FIGURE 1.5 Magazine advertisement for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1973.

FIGURE 1.6 Screenshots of Odyssey launch titles (a) Ski & (b) Submarine with plastic overlays.
(a) (b)
microprocessor, so it could not keep a score or under- screen overlay. If you managed to complete a trail
stand game logic. All scorekeeping and game rules had without veering too far off, you awarded yourself points”
to be tracked separately by the players—often requiring (IGN, 2007, p. 2). Perhaps the most complicated game
a nearby notepad and pencil. The system also included a was Football, which required two game cards. Card one
deck of cards, play money, and a pair of dice for games was programmed for passing and kicking, while card
like Football, Baseball, and Brain Wave. As primitive as two was programmed for running. In addition to
the system was, it did feature an optional light gun switching the game cards regularly, players also needed
accessory called Shooting Gallery. For a handful of to use a game board, scoreboard, and six decks of
games, players could shoot an electronic rifle at the playing cards containing various football plays. Haunted
screen to hit a dot of light that moved around under House (overlay shown in Figure 1.7) was a chase game
overlays of various cutouts. where player one’s dot assumed the role of a detective
Some of the key titles for the Odyssey included trying to collect clue cards without being caught by the
Roulette, which used an overlay of a roulette wheel and a second player’s dot who was a ghost. It was a lot like a
game board for placing bets with play money and board game on TV.
colored chips. Ski “required the player to use the dials on Magnavox was acquired by Dutch electronics
the Odyssey controller to follow trails set out on the company Philips in 1974, which released versions of the
FIGURE 1.7 Plastic screen overlays for Odyssey titles Haunted House and Roulette.
TABLE 1.3 Magnavox Odyssey Series Releases

Unit Name Year Description
Odyssey 100 1975 Used four Texas Instruments chips; played Tennis and Hockey; used AC adapter or 6 “C” batteries
Odyssey 200 1975 Used TI single-chip; played Tennis and Hockey and added a third game called Smash; added a
scoring system; was the first video game console with 2-player or 4-player options
Odyssey 300 1976 Used AY-3-8500 chip; simplified to single knobs; same game as Odyssey 200; added three
difficulty levels (Novice, Intermediate and Expert) and on-screen numerical scoring system
Odyssey 400 1976 Same games as Odyssey 300 with the addition of an automatic serving system; three-knob
controls returned; added extra Texas Instruments chip to display digital on-screen scoring
Odyssey 500 1976 Paddle graphics were changed into simple human figures (i.e., tennis and hockey players);
included a fourth Soccer game which was essentially hockey using squash figures
Odyssey 2000 1977 Added a practice mode of one-player Squah (aka Smash); was programmed to end after a player
reached 15 points; returned to single-knob controls found on Odyssey 300
Odyssey 3000 1977 Added Basketball, Soccer, and Gridball, also contained Smash and Basketball practice modes;
added a handcap switch as well as serve, ball speed, and ball deflection options
Odyssey 4000 1977 Used AY-3-8615 (color) chip; Played Tennis, Hockey, Volleyball, Basketball, Knockout, Tank,
and Helicopter; 24 total selectable game modes; included a pause button detachable joysticks
Odyssey in Europe. After the acquisition, a total of eight first experience in making a video game (Shea, 2008,
subsequent versions of the Magnavox Odyssey were p. 1). The concept was extremely similar to Table Tennis
released in the United States between 1975 and 1977, as on the Magnavox Odyssey, which hadn’t been released
illustrated in Table 1.3. These were all dedicated con- yet—however Bushnell had played it earlier that year at
soles which only contained built-in games. a trade show in Burlingame, CA.
Alcorn went above and beyond Bushnell’s vision,
◾ PONG using less expensive parts, adding deflection angles to
the ball when it hit one of eight sections of the paddles,
Following Computer Space, Bushnell and Dabney and enhancing the game with ball acceleration. This
formed a new company—Atari. Bushnell adopted the feature made the game more challenging, where “after
word “Atari” from the Japanese strategy game Go. The the ball had been hit a certain number of times, it would
term basically means “to hit the target” and is simi- automatically fly faster” (Kent, 2001, p. 41). He even
lar to the term “check” in the classic game of Chess. tinkered with the sync generator where he found sound
Atari’s focus remained on the arcade market where the effects he could use that were already inside the machine.
manufacturing side of the amusement machine business Bushnell and Alcorn installed a Pong prototype at a
consisted of around only five important game manu- local bar in Sunnyvale, CA called Andy Capp’s Tavern
facturers, a handful of pool table manufacturers, and in September 1972. A couple of weeks later, Alcorn
maybe four major jukebox manufacturers (Adlum, received a call from tavern manager Bill Gattis who
2001, p. 37). That landscape would begin to change in claimed the machine had stopped working. When
1972—the year Atari became incorporated and hired Alcorn arrived to fix it, he discovered the problem was
former Ampex employee Al Alcorn to create the that the machine was overflowing with quarters (Kent,
company’s next game, Pong. 2001, pp. 43–45). It was clear that Pong was a success
To convince Alcorn to develop the game, Bushnell and the game was announced for mass production on
fabricated a story that he had a contract with General November 29, 1972.
Electric to design an electronic version of ping pong. Atari did not have a lot of money in the beginn-
The game was supposed to be a practice project to help ing, so Bushnell and Dabney hired anyone they could
familiarize Alcorn with the process of what would be his find to assemble the Pong cabinets (see Figure 1.8).
FIGURE 1.8 Vendor print advertisement for Pong (1972).

FIGURE 1.9 Screenshot comparison: Odyssey Table Tennis (a) versus Pong (b).
(a) (b)
From unemployment office leads to motorcycle gangs, works). Magnavox also made out from Pong’s success,
Atari’s choice of employees brought along drug abuse which helped boost sales of its Odyssey consoles.
and theft. According to Bushnell (2001), “there was about
a six-week period [when employee theft was rampant]” … ◾ PONG FOR YOUR HOME TV
“We fired a lot of people, and there was still a lot of
marijuana use” (p. 52). While initial manufacturing was Designed by Al Alcorn, Harold Lee, and Bob Brown, a
slow, Pong would become one of the first video games to prototype for the home version of Pong was completed
reach mainstream popularity. It grew into an interna- in 1974. “With the price of digital circuits constantly
tional success in 1973 and a home version of the game dropping, Atari’s digital home console ended up
was proposed a year later. costing far less to manufacture than Odyssey” (Kent,
Pong’s success did not come without a price, however. 2001, p. 80). Atari had some difficulty finding a retailer
It was much too similar to Table Tennis on Magnavox for the product until VP of Sales Gene Lipkin saw an
Odyssey as seen in Figure 1.9. Unlike Steve Russell, who advertisement in a Sears catalog for the Magnavox
never applied for copyrights or patents on Spacewar!, Odyssey in the sporting goods section. Sears’ Tom
Ralph Baer was meticulous with his recordkeeping and Quinn helped seal the deal with Sears, Roebuck &
filed numerous patents for his work. “When Atari’s Pong Company to distribute the system under the Sears
debuted just months after the Odyssey went to market, “Tele-Games” label (Winter, 2013, para. 2). The Pong
Sanders and Magnavox sued them for copyright console (Figure 1.10) was released for the holidays in
infringement. The case was settled for $700,000 and Atari December 1975 for $98.95. See Figure 1.11 for the print
became an Odyssey licensee” (Mullis, 2014, para. 6). In advertisement.
the end, the deal turned out to be a win-win for both Pong’s controls were much simpler than Table Tennis
companies. Atari became a licensee for a relatively small on the Odyssey. In Pong, players had one dial that
amount of money and other companies producing similar moved the paddles up and down. The Odyssey featured
ping pong video games would have to pay royalties three dials for moving its square paddles up and down,
(compensation for the use of copyrighted or patented toward and away from the net, in addition to applying
FIGURE 1.10 The Sears Tele-Games Pong (1975) (a) and Atari’s own Pong console (1976) (b).
(a) (b)
user-controlled English on the ball. This may seem TABLE 1.4 Atari Pong Home Console Tech Specs
advantageous on paper—however, it was Pong’s sim-
Manufacturer: Atari
plicity that made this new medium more accessible to Launch Price: $98.95
most consumers who were experiencing video games for Release date: December 1975
the first time. Format: Dedicated console (game built in)
CPU: None (transistor-transistor logic
[TTL] circuits)
DID YOU KNOW? Memory: None
Resolution: Not applicable
Shortly before Pong landed in U.S. homes, Japan received
Colors: 2 (black and white)
its first home video game console when Electrotennis by
Epoch released overseas on September 12, 1975. Another Sound: Built in mono speaker
ping pong-style game, its paddle movement and ball
English were similar to Table Tennis, while its graphics
and sound more closely resembled Pong. It wasn’t the first home console on the market, but
the home version of Pong was a pivotal success for the
early video game industry. Approximately 150,000 Pong
Compared to Table Tennis, Pong had sharper graph- systems were sold that holiday season through Atari’s
ics. The various angles the ball could bounce off the collaboration with Sears. “Atari released its own branded
paddles, coupled with the gradual increase in speed, version of the console [subtitled “Pong For Your Home
resulted in a more challenging and engaging experience. TV”] starting in 1976, just as an explosion of Pong clones
Pong felt more like players were hitting a bouncing ball, saturated the home video game market” (Loguidice,
whereas the English physics in Table Tennis played more 2009, p. 4). Atari released other Pong variations, such as
like a volleying an unpredictable, cartoonlike object. Super Pong, Pong Doubles, and Ultra Pong. These versions
Pong’s inclusion of sound (Table 1.4) also greatly added multiple game modes and/or up to four-player
enhanced players’ engagement. Sound was only emitted simultaneous game play. However, the manufacturer to
from a built-in speaker in the center of the console, which release the most consoles in the late 1970s was a new game
could not be sent through the television speaker. company out of Connecticut.
FIGURE 1.11 Sears Christmas catalog advertisement for Tele-Games Pong system in 1975.
◾ COLECO TELSTAR TABLE 1.5 Coleco Telstar Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Coleco
Connecticut Leather Company was founded in 1932 by
Maurice Greenberg and began as a shoe supply store. Launch price: $49.95
The company shortened its name to Coleco in 1961 Release date: 1976
and expanded to manufacturing plastic molding and Format: Dedicated console (games built in)
wading pools. The leather business was eventually sold CPU: General instruments AY-3-8500 chip
off, and by the end of the 1960s the company became the Memory: None
world’s largest manufacturer of above-ground swim- Resolution: Not applicable
ming pools (Kleinfield, 1985, para. 21). Under CEO Colors: 2 (black and white)
Arnold Greenberg, Coleco entered into the video game Sound: Built in mono speaker
business in 1976 with the Coleco Telstar (Figure 1.12)
which debuted at just $49.95. The console was ini-
tially delayed after failing FCC interference tests and chip was later adopted by other manufactures such as
Coleco hired Ralph Baer to fix the problem (Kent, 2001, Magnavox for its remarkably similar Odyssey 300 system.
pp. 96–97). Like other first-generation systems, the Telstar oper-
The first Telstar system included single control knobs ated on six “C” batteries or an optional power adapter.
for each player and came bundled with three internal ping And just like Magnavox, Coleco developed multiple
pong style games Tennis, Hockey, and Handball. The versions of the Telstar—hastily producing 14 different
center panel of the unit included an on/off switch, toggle models in just two years. Early models ran on the GI AY-
switch for Tennis, Hockey, and Handball, a reset button, 3-8500 chip, such as the Classic, Deluxe, Ranger, and
and a beginner/intermediate/pro toggle switch to change Alpha. The Telstar Ranger (1977) was the first Telstar
the difficulty level of the games. Perhaps the biggest unit to feature a light gun and detachable wired paddles.
innovation for Coleco’s entry system was that it was the It also added three more games (Jai Alai, Target, and
first to use the General Instrument AY-3-8500 chip Skeet), maximizing the AY-3-8500’s six game capacity.
(Table 1.5). The AY-3-8500 was unique in that it could That same year Coleco released the Telstar Colormatic,
play up to six selectable games, including two rifle which allowed up to four on-screen colors with the
shooting games on systems equipped with a light gun. The Texas Instruments SN76499N chip.
FIGURE 1.12 The first Coleco Telstar system, model 6040 (1976).
Other Telstar consoles included variations of fixed and This triangular-shaped console was a three-in-one
detachable controllers, light guns, and updated chips with system, with one side featuring a steering wheel and
color graphics. One standout system was Combat! gear shift section, one side with the Pong-like dual
(1977) (Figure 1.13a), which was the first Coleco system paddles setup, and a third side containing a light gun
to include joysticks. The system contained four fixed and holster. The Telstar Arcade operated on the same
joysticks where up to four players could cram around the MOS chip as the Gemini; however, this system intro-
unit together to play Combat, Night Battle, Robot Battle, duced a triangular cartridge slot for interchangeable
and Camouflage Combat. Another significant varia- games. Similar to the way the original Odyssey used
tion released in 1977 was the Telstar Gemini which was interchangeable circuit-based games, each cartridge
the first Telstar to not include a Pong-style game. The contained “a custom programmed MOS Technology
Gemini ran on the MOS Technology MPS 7600-004 MPS-7600 microcontroller with a mere 512 words of
chip and was built to play pinball and light gun games. program ROM” (Grahame, 2007, para. 3).
The console featured red “flipper” buttons on each side As interesting as it was, only four different cartridges
of the unit and came with a detachable wired light gun. were ever released for the Telstar Arcade—each con-
Perhaps the most unique Telstar system released in 1977 taining multiple games. Cartridge 1 was the pack-in
was the Telstar Arcade (Figure 1.13b). game for the system with three games: Road Race
(Figure 1.14a), Tennis, and Quick Draw. Cartridge 2
came with four games including Hockey, Tennis,
DID YOU KNOW?
Handball, and Target. The third cartridge included two
Coleco Telstar systems were sold partially assembled. In variations of Pinball, Shooting Gallery, and Shoot the
other words, the consumer usually had to attach the Bear. The fourth and final cartridge was bundled with
paddle knobs and apply the decorative stickers onto the
three games: Naval Battle (Figure 1.14b), Speed Ball, and
console. Coleco may have done this to reduce assembly
costs and is the only major console manufacturer known Blast-Away. Coleco released 14 different models of the
to release systems this way (Winter, 2013, para. 7). Telstar. See Table 1.6 for the variations which were
released after the original.
FIGURE 1.13 Two of the most distinctive Coleco systems: (a) Combat! and (b) Telstar Arcade.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 1.14 Screenshots of Telstar Arcade games (a) Road Race and (b) Naval Battle.
(a) (b)
TABLE 1.6 Subsequent Coleco Telstar Series Releases

Unit Name Year Description
Classic 1976 Rectangular model of original system with a wood grain case; played Tennis, Hockey, and
Handball on GI AY-3-8500 chip
Deluxe 1977 Same rounded body as original, with a wood grain finish; same three games; manufactured
for the Canadian market
Ranger 1977 Silver and black unit; first Telstar with a light gun and detachable wired paddles; added three
games: Jai Alis, Target, and Skeet
Alpha 1977 Simpler silver and black unit; fixed paddles and no light gun; played four games: Tennis, Hockey,
Handball, and Jai Alai
Colormatic 1977 Brown with wood grain; added color with extra Texas instruments SN76499N chip; removable
paddles; same games as Alpha
Regent 1977 Silver and black unit; basically identical to Alpha but added detachable wired paddles;
played same four games
Combat! 1977 First Telstar to include joysticks-four of them fixed to the unit; played four games; Combat,
Night Battle, Robot Battle, and Camouflage Combat; used GI AY-3-8700 chip
Galaxy 1977 Used AY-3-8600 games chip and AY-3-8615 for color; included paddle controllers, in addition
to detachable wired joysticks
Gemini 1977 First non-Pong-style telstar; played four pinball and two gun games; unit had red “flipper”
buttons on sides along with detachable gun; ran on MOS Technology MPS 7600-004
Arcade 1977 Triangular-shaped three-in-one system; with steering wheel and shift section, dual paddles
section, and light gun with holster; same color chip as Gemini; four triangular cartridge games
Sportsman 1978 Updated silver and black unit; similar to Regent but added light gun; played the same six
games as Ranger
Colortron 1978 Brown, compact design; used GI AY-3-8510 chip with color; fixed paddles and four games;
Tennis, Hockey, Handball, and Jai Alai
Marksman 1978 Black with silver and red accents; used GI AY-3-8512 chip; wired gun and fixed paddles;
same six games as Sportsman and Ranger. See Figure 1.15 for print advertisement
FIGURE 1.15 Magazine advertisement for the Telstar Marksman (1978).

◾ COLOR TV-GAME SERIES Color TV-Games were only released in Japan and were
manufactured for many years after the Odyssey, Pong,
Nintendo also released a series of five, single-game con- and Telstar systems. The system deserves mention for its
soles known as the Color TV-Game series (Figure 1.16) success overseas and for being the first home console
between 1977 and 1980. See Table 1.7 for descriptions of from Nintendo.
the different units. While technically released during the
second wave of video game consoles, the Color TV-Game
units are commonly categorized as first-generation ◾ FIRST GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY
machines because they were all-in-one “dedicated”
systems that did not contain interchangeable software. The Magnavox Odyssey ultimately sold less units than
Nintendo estimated to have sold approximately 3 million the home version of Pong. It is important to note
total Color TV-Game units. that the Odyssey was released in 1972 and Atari’s Pong
It would be a stretch to compare these sales figures to system was introduced in 1975. Odyssey sales were slow
the other consoles discussed in this chapter, since the early on because a video game system in the home was
a new concept that the general public had not yet
become accustomed to. Sales may have also initially
FIGURE 1.16 Nintendo’s first home video game console, the
suffered by the way the Odyssey was marketed. Because
Color TV-Game 6.
Odyssey “distribution was restricted to the Magnavox
network of dealers that sold the company’s products
exclusively... many consumers may well have been left
with the impression that the system only worked on
Magnavox TVs when they saw it at retail (Smith,
2015). In 1976, “Magnavox sold 100,000 Odysseys.
Atari sold 150,000 Home Pong machines in a single
season” (Kent, 2001, p. 94). The system became an
instant bestseller, earning Atari a Sears Quality Excel-
lence Award. Atari would proceed to become the name
TABLE 1.7 Nintendo Color TV Game Series Releases

Unit Name Released Description
Color TV-Game 6 06/01/77 Pong clone with six versions of Light Tennis (Tennis, Hockey, Volleyball)
Color TV-Game 15 06/08/77 Contained 15 variations of Light Tennis; sold more than 1 million units
Color TV-Game Racing 112 06/08/78 Racing game with steering wheel and gearshift; Shigeru Miyamoto’s
first video game assignment
Color TV-Game Block Breaker 04/23/79 Breakout clone, aka “Karā Terebi-Gēmu Burokku Kuzushi”
Color TV-Game 19791980 Pricey port of Nintendo’s first arcade video game Computer Othello
synonymous with video games with its next home dollars” (Hunter, 2014, p. 1). Coleco may have sold
console in 1977. the highest overall volume of video game systems dur-
A look at the sales figures for the first generation of ing the first generation, but low returns and major price
consoles in Figure 1.17 shows that Coleco dominated drops found Coleco pretty much breaking even with the
the market with its Telstar series, although these Telstar series.
numbers do not tell the whole story. Coleco did As for the pinball industry, it reached a peak of 200,000
dominate the market in 1976 selling “over $100 machine sales and $2.3 billion revenue in 1979. With
million worth of the [Telstar] consoles and rose to the electronic video games gaining popularity in the family
top of the consumer game business” (Kent, 2001, amusement market, the pinball industry would see a
p. 98). However, its financial success with the Telstar decline to 33,000 machines and a value of approximately
series would only last for about a year. $464 million in 1982 (Citron, 1982, p. 13). It was no
By 1978, Coleco nearly went bankrupt as the home coincidence that these years would become known as
video game market progressed “to programmable, car- the Golden Age of video games in the arcades. Mean-
tridge based game units. With Pong-type game manu- while, Atari, Coleco, and Magnavox went on to produce
facturers slashing the price of their dedicated consoles cartridge-based game units for a whole new era of video
up to 75%, Coleco [was] forced to dump over a million game consoles that would eventually become known as
obsolete Telstar machines at a cost of 22.3 million the second generation of video games.
FIGURE 1.17 First-generation console sales graph.
Console Approximate worldwide sales
Odyssey <350,000
Home Pong >550,000
Telstar series >1 million
150,000 250,000 350,000 450,000 550,000 650,000 750,000 850,000 950,000 1,500,000
◾ FIRST GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS

There were many breakthroughs and trends that defined the first generation of video games. Here is a list of the top
10 features that defined the generation:
1. Discrete transistor-based digital game logic

2. Dedicated console games were built in, rather than using removable media
3. Light gun peripheral and paddle style, analog controllers
4. All first-generation playfields occupied a single screen
5. Graphics consisted of basic lines, dots, and/or blocks
6. Mostly monochrome (black and white) or other dichromatic combination
7. Color overlays could be attached to the TV screen for faux color
8. Later games as seen on Coleco Telstar systems could display up to four colors
9. Games were limited to single-channel or no sound at all
10. No microprocessor; logic, flip-screen playfields, and sprite-based graphics
◾ ACTIVITY: GAMER PROFILE
What are your earliest memories of video games? What kind of gamer are you? How do your gaming habits and
interests compare to other students or your friends?
Name: __________________________________ Online Name: ___________________________________
Gamer Since (Year): ___________ Why study video games? ______________________________________
First Video Game Memory: _________________________________________________________________
I consider my interest in video games: Casual | Moderate | Above Average | Obsessed
Weekly game time: 1–5 hours | 6–10 hours | 11–15 hours | 16–20 hours | 20+ hours
Consoles owned (or played a lot) and number of games completed for each:
_________________________________ # _______ _________________________________ # _______
_________________________________ # _______ _________________________________ # _______
_________________________________ # _______ _________________________________ # _______
_________________________________ # _______ _________________________________ # _______
Favorite console of all time and why:
________________________________________________________________________________________
Favorite types of games (circle or check all that apply):
Action Fighting Racing Simulation

Adventure First-Person Shooter Role-Playing Sports
Board Game Gambling Rhythm Strategy
Dance Puzzle Shoot ‘Em Up Trivia
Ten favorite games that come to mind:

1. ________________________________________ 6. ______________________________________
2. ________________________________________ 7. ______________________________________
3. ________________________________________ 8. ______________________________________
4. ________________________________________ 9. ______________________________________
5. ________________________________________ 10. ______________________________________
◾ CHAPTER 1 QUIZ 2. Often credited for developing the first electronic

game called Tennis for Two in 1958:
1. Which of the following was not part of the evolution a. Nolan Bushnell
of games that predated video games? b. Steve “Slug” Russell
a. Bagatelle c. Willy Higinbotham
b. Baffle Ball d. Ralph Baer
c. Pinball
d. Speedball
3. What type of monitor was Tennis for Two originally 9. Which of the following was not a feature of Pong
displayed on? implemented by Al Alorn:
a. CRT television a. Using less expensive parts
b. Oscilloscope b. Adding deflection angles to the ball when it hit
c. Movie screen sections of the paddles
d. Personal computer monitor c. Enhancing the game with ball acceleration
d. Crowd noises such as applause and boos
4. MIT student who developed Spacewar!:
a. Nolan Bushnell 10. Pong led to Atari being sued by ________________
b. Steve “Slug” Russell for copyright infringement.
c. Willy Higinbotham a. Syzygy Engineering
d. Ralph Baer b. Sanders Associates and Magnavox
c. Nutting Associates
5. The “Father of Video Games” whose Brown Box d. Brookhaven National Laboratory
console game system became the Magnavox
Odyssey: 11. Atari’s first home version of Pong was licensed by
a. Ray Kassar retailer _______________ under the Tele-Games
b. Ralph Baer label.
c. Willy Higinbotham a. Sears, Roebuck & Company
d. Steve Russell b. K-Mart
c. J.C. Penney
6. Which product was not developed for the original d. None of the above
Magnavox Odyssey system?
a. Game card 12. Which of the following was not a business Coleco
b. Joystick had a hand in before video games?
c. Light gun a. asphalt roofing
d. Plastic overlay b. leather
c. plastic molding
7. These two gentlemen were the original founders of d. swimming pools
Atari:
a. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak 13. The first home video game system to use the
b. Ray Kassar and Ted Dabney General Instrument AY-3-8500 chip:
c. Trip Hawkins and Ted Russell a. Odyssey
d. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney b. Pong For Your Home TV
c. Telstar
8. What year was the first Pong arcade machine d. Color TV Game
produced?
a. 1960 14. Subsequent consoles such as Ranger, Combat!, and
b. 1972 Gemini were developed by:
c. 1978 a. Magnavox
d. 1987 b. Atari
c. Coleco
d. Nintendo
15. Which of the following was not one of the three True or False
sections of the Telstar Arcade?
a. Joysticks 21. Spacewar! by Nolan Bushnell was the first coin
b. Paddles operated arcade video game in 1971.
c. Light gun
d. Steering wheel and gear shift 22. The original Magnavox Odyssey was not capable of
producing sound in its games.
16. This company’s game systems were sold partially
assembled, where the consumer usually had to 23. The sound on the home version of Pong was
attach the paddle knobs and apply the decorative only emitted from a built-in speaker in the center of
stickers onto the console: the console, which could not be sent through the
a. Magnavox television speaker.
b. Atari
c. Coleco 24. The name “Coleco” was derived from the words
d. Nintendo “California Leather Company.”
17. The first-generation console with removable car- 25. Fourteen different models of the Telstar were
tridges for different games to be played: manufactured between 1976 and 1978.
a. Odyssey
b. Super Pong ◾ FIGURES
c. Telstar Gemini FIGURE 1.1 Evolution of pinball: (a) Bagatelle, (b) Baffle Ball
d. Telstar Arcade (1931), and (c) Rapid Transit (1935). (Bagatelle photo from Hotel-R.
Retrieved from http://www.hotel-r.net/fr/bagatelle; also at http://
18. Nintendo produced a successful series of single- www.jaqueslondon.co.uk/indoor-games/bagatelle.html. Baffle Ball
game home consoles in Japan called: image from Pacific Pinball Museum, 2016, edited by Wardyga.
a. Game and Watch Retrieved from http://pacificpinball.org/articles/baffle-ball. Rapid
b. Color TV-Game Tranist image from Arcade Museum, photo contributed by Clive
c. Game for TV Godwin. Retrieved from http://www.arcade-museum.com/game
d. None of the above _detail.php?game_id=12189)
19. Which first-generation U.S. home console series FIGURE 1.2 Tennis for Two (1958) displayed on a DuMont Lab
sold the most units overall? Oscilloscope Type 304-A. (Tennis For Two come appariva nel 1958,
by Brookhaven National Laboratory - Screenshot, public domain.
a. Odyssey
Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
b. Pong
=27864450 Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis
c. Super Pong
_for_Two#/media/File:Tennis_For_Two_on_a_DuMont_Lab_Oscillo
d. Telstar scope_Type_304-A.jpg)
20. Systems with the game(s) built in, rather than using
FIGURE 1.3 Screenshots of (a) Spacewar! (Steve Russell, 1962) and
removable media are called: (b) Computer Space (Nolan Bushnell, 1971). (Spacewar! and Com-
a. All-in-one consoles puter Space screenshots by Wardyga.)
b. Dedicated consoles
c. Solid state consoles FIGURE 1.4 Magnavox Odyssey, the first commercial home video
d. Stand-alone consoles game console. (“The Magnavox Odyssey, the very first video game
console,” by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at FIGURE 1.11 Sears Christmas catalog advertisement for Tele-
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17168362 Games Pong system in 1975. (The Atari Home Pong Console Is
Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey 40 Years Old, posted August 21, 2015 by Metv Staff. Retrieved from
#/media/File:Magnavox-Odyssey-Console-Set.jpg) http://www.metv.com/stories/the-atari-home-pong-console-is-40
-years-old)
FIGURE 1.5 Magazine advertisement for the Magnavox Odyssey
in 1973. (Screenshots of Odyssey launch titles Ski & Submarine with FIGURE 1.12 The first Coleco Telstar system, model 6040 (1976).
plastic overlays “Magnavox Odyssey,“ by Video Game Console (Courtesy of Wardyga.)
Library. Retrieved from http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com
/pg70-odyssey.htm#page=games) FIGURE 1.13 Two of the more distinctive Coleco systems: (a) Combat!
and (b) Telstar Arcade. (Telstar Combat! image by Wardyga. Telstar
FIGURE 1.6 Screenshots of Odyssey launch titles (a) Ski & (b) Sub- Arcade with cartridge n.1 on top, by Evan-Amos - own work, public
marine with plastic overlays. (“Plastic television overlays,” by Evan-Amos - domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
own work, public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia ?curid=38538814 Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstar
.org/w/index.php?curid=40354387; retrieved from https://en.wikipedia _(game_console)#/media/File:Coleco-Telstar-Arcade-Pongside-L.jpg)
.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey#/media/File:Magnavox-Color-Screen
-Overlays.jpg) FIGURE 1.14 Screenshots of Telstar Arcade games (a) Road Race
and (b) Naval Battle. (Screenshots and edits by Wardyga.)
FIGURE 1.7 Plastic screen overlays for Odyssey titles Haunted
House and Roulette. (From The Magnavox High Reliability magazine, FIGURE 1.15 Magazine advertisement for the Telstar Marksman
1973, p. 45. Image scanned and restored by Wardyga. Magazine (1978). (Scanned and edited by Wardyga.)
advertisement for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1973.)
FIGURE 1.16 Nintendo’s first home video game console, the Color
FIGURE 1.8 Vendor print advertisement for Pong (1972). (Pong, TV-Game 6. (Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at
Atari, 1973. Advertisement for Pong. Posted by Jesper Juul. Available https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18301347.
at https://www.jesperjuul.net/thesis/2-historyofthecomputergame.html. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_TV-Game#/media
Restored by Wardyga.) /File:Nintendo-Color-TV-Game-Blockbreaker-FL.jpg)
FIGURE 1.9 Screenshot comparison: Odyssey Table Tennis FIGURE 1.17 First-generation console sales graph. (Graph designed
(a) versus Pong (b). (Table Tennis image by Wardyga. Pong by Wardyga using public data from Magnavox, Atari, and Coleco.)
screenshot: “The two paddles return the ball back and forth,” by
Bumm13 [2] - originally upload at en.wikipedia.org [1], public Pro File: Ralph Baer Photo credit: Reddit user Nightwheel (4/9/09).
domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php Posted in 2015. Retrieved from http://i156.photobucket.com/albums
?curid=799667. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong /t29/nightwheel/RalphHBaerAutograph.jpg.
#/media/File:Pong.png)
FIGURE 1.10 The Sears Tele-Games Pong (1975) (a) and Atari’s ◾ REFERENCES
own Pong console (1976) (b). (The Sears Tele-Games Atari Pong
console, released in 1975, by Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA Adlum, E. (2001). Interview by Steve Kent from The ultimate
3.0. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid history of video games: The story behind the craze that
touched our lives and changed the world. Roseville, CA:
=18298737. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First
Three Rivers Press.
_generation_of_video_game_consoles#/media/File:TeleGames-Atari
-Pong.png. History of Consoles: Pong, 1975, posted on June 13, Baer, R. (1998). Genesis: How the home video games industry
2012 by Gamester81. Available at http://gamester81.com/history began. R. H. Baer Consultants. Retrieved from http://
-of-consoles-pong-1975/) www.ralphbaer.com/how_video_games.htm.
Bushnell, N. (2001). Interview by Steve Kent from The ultimate www.nytimes.com/1985/07/21/business/coleco-moves

history of video games: The story behind the craze that -out-of-the-cabbage-patch.html?&pagewanted=all.
Three Rivers Press. Langshaw, M. (2014, December 13). Magnavox Odyssey ret-
rospective: How console gaming was born. Retrieved
Citron, A. (1982, December 14). The rise and fall of pinball. from http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/retro-corner
The Pittsburgh Press. p. 13. /feature/a616235/magnavox-odyssey-retrospective-how
-console-gaming-was-born/.
Editorial: Odyssey: 35 years later. (2007, May 31). IGN.
Retrieved from http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/06/01 Loguidice, B. & Barton, M. (2009, January 9). The history of
/odyssey-35-years-later. Pong: Avoid missing game to start industry. Gamasutra.
Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature
Edwards, B. (2011, December 11). Computer Space and the /3900/the_history_of_pong_avoid_missing_.php.
dawn of the arcade video game: How a little-known 1971
machine launched an industry. Retrieved from http:// Mullis, S. (2014, December 8). Inventor Ralph Baer, the “father
www.technologizer.com/2011/12/11/computer-space of video games,” dies at 92. Retrieved from http://www
-and-the-dawn-of-the-arcade-video-game/. .npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/12/08
/369405270/inventor-ralph-baer-the-father-of-video
Graetz, J. (1981, August). The origin of Spacewar. Creative -games-dies-at-92.
Computing. 6(8), 56–67. Retrieved from http://www
.wheels.org/spacewar/creative/SpacewarOrigin.html. Russell, S. (2001). Interview by Steve Kent from The ultimate
history of video games: The story behind the craze that
Grahame, J. (2007, October 29). The terrifically triangular touched our lives and changed the world. Roseville, CA:
Coleco Telstar Arcade. Retrieved from http://www Three Rivers Press.
.retrothing.com/2007/10/the-terrific-tr.html.
Shea, C. (2008, March 10). Al Alcorn interview: The creator of
Hunter, W. (2014). ColecoVision: The arcade in your Pong on the birth of Atari, holographic gaming and
home! Retrieved from http://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory being paid to not show up to work. Retrieved from http://
=colecovision. www.ign.com/articles/2008/03/11/al-alcorn-interview.
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behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the Retrieved from https://videogamehistorian.wordpress
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Kleinfield, N. (1985, July 21). Coleco moves out of the cabbage Winter, D. (2013). Atari Pong: The home systems. Retrieved
patch. The New York Times. Retrieved from http:// from http://www.pong-story.com/atpong2.htm.
CHAPTER 2
Behind the Technology
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Summarize the main internal components of a PC and video game console.

• Translate acronyms such as RAM, ROM, and CPU and explain what each item is.
• Understand the basics on how a PC and video game console work.
• Be familiar with types of networks such as LANs, WANs, and the Internet.
• Differentiate between the video formats NTSC, PAL, and SECAM.
• Describe screen display properties such as hertz, frame rate, resolution, and so on.
• Be familiar with types of graphics such as ASCII, vector, raster, and polygons.
• Describe different characteristics of a game such as perspective, scrolling, and axis.
• Explain how sound and music development have evolved in gaming.
• Be familiar with notable video game music composers and voice actors.
• Summarize Stockburger’s sound objects as they apply to video games.
27

Ambient effects Forced progression Modem Score/Soundtrack
American Standard Code for Frame rate Monaural (Mono) Screen burn-in
Information Interchange Frames per second Monochrome Screen resolution
(ASCII) Free progression Motherboard Scrolling
Aspect ratio Gigabyte (GB) Motion blur Second-person
Audio/Sound card Gigahertz (GHz) Multicore Séquentiel Couleur À
Basic Input/Output System Gottfried Leibniz Music composers Mémoire (SECAM)
(BIOS) Graphics (GFX) Musical Instrument Shaders
Beat’em up Graphics/Video card Digital Interface Shoot’em Up
Binary digit/Bit (b) Graphics Processing Unit National Television Soap Opera Effect
Bitmap (GPU) Standards Committee Sound effects
Bump mapping HDMI Network Adapter Sprites
Bus/System Bus Heads up display Non-Diegetic Sound Stereophonic
Byte (B) Heinrich Hertz Organic Light- (Stereo)
Cache memory Hertz (Hz) Emitting Diode Stereoscopic (S-3D)
Cathode Ray Tube High Definition Television Out of Order Strings (Binary)
Central Processing Unit (HDTV) Execution Surround sound
(CPU) High Definition Video Over-the-shoulder Texture mapping
Chiptune (HDV) Parallax scrolling Third-person
Clock rate High-Definition Multimedia Parallel processing Time-to-Solution
Coaxial digital Interface Peripheral Component Top-Down/Overhead
Color overlays IEEE-1394/Firewire Interconnect (PCI) Toslink/Optical
Component Interface music Phase Alternate Line Ultra HD/4K
Composite Interlaced scan Pixels Universal Serial Bus
Cooling fan International System of Plasma Display Panel Vector graphics
Co-processor Units (Si) Polygon count VGA
Cores Internet Polygon graphics Video Games Live
Diegetic sound Kilobyte (KB) Ports Vocalization
DisplayPort Kilohertz (kHz) Progressive scan Voice actors
DVI Light-emitting diode Pulse-Code Voice synthesis
Effect sound Liquid crystal display Modulation (PCM) Wide area network
Ethernet Local area network Random Access Wifi adapter
Expansion cards Megabyte (MB) Memory (RAM) X Axis
Expansion slots Megahertz (MHz) Raster Graphics XLR
F Connector/Coaxial Memory controller Read-Only Memory Y Axis
First-person shooter Millions of Ops per Second Role-Playing Game Z Axis
FLOPS (MIPS) SCART Zone sound
Behind the Technology ◾ 29
◾ CHAPTER OUTLINE
Basic computer Monitors and Game

terms video formats perspectives
pp. 29–33 pp. 36–37 pp. 40–41
pp. 33–36 pp. 37–40 pp. 42–44
Hertz, frame rate,

Types of graphics Sound and music
and scan types
◾ INTRODUCTION generations in which they were introduced or became

most popular.
Computers and video game consoles share many common
components that allow these devices to play video games. ◾ UNDER THE HOOD
Comparing this book’s “tech specs” charts among con-
soles is one way to observe the hardware progression over Like personal computers (PCs), video game consoles are
each new generation of video games. While it can be made up of various circuits, cards, and other hardware.
interesting to compare these technical specifications, the The main internal component each platform is built on is
figures mean very little without a moderate understanding the motherboard (Figure 2.1). “The motherboard gets its
of the technology behind the numbers. This chapter name because it is like a mother to all of the other circuit
elaborates on much of the technical lingo used throughout boards.” It’s “the largest circuit board and has many
the textbook. It can be revisited whenever a technical term smaller boards plugged into it” (Welch, 2002). Multiple
requires further detail, examples, and/or illustrations. components can be found attached to the motherboard,
Like most of the text, information is presented in a logical including one or more of the following basic parts: CPU,
order and chronologically as often as possible. These terms BIOS, RAM, ROM, graphics card, sound card, disk con-
and technologies are also discussed under the respective troller, expansion card, and modem/network card.
FIGURE 2.1 Motherboards from (a) ColecoVision (1982) and (b) Sega CD 2 (1993).
(a) (b)
◾ CPU ROM stands for read-only memory. It is different

from RAM in that the information it stores cannot be
The central processing unit (CPU) is like the brain of a altered or forgotten. Internally, ROM is primarily used to
computer or console. It makes calculations and processes store the programs required to boot the gaming system.
information that tells the other components what to do. External ROM media includes game software such as
The technical specification for “processing speed” cartridges and optical discs like DVD and Blu-ray. These
usually indicates the speed of the CPU. More powerful ROM media contain information that communicates
CPUs can make decisions more quickly. When starting with the console or computer system, but the content on
up a video game, much of the program (music, levels, them cannot be changed or altered. Much of the game
characters, etc.) is transferred to the RAM (explained information on a ROM disc or cartridge is loaded onto
below). The CPU then loads the program data from its the system’s RAM to play the game.
RAM by a circuit called a memory controller. Finally,
the CPU “processes” the program’s instructions, such as
what information to display on the screen. CPUs can
DID YOU KNOW?
generate a lot of heat and often require a small cooling
fan to bring the temperature down. When CPUs over- The CD-ROM for Ridge Racer (Namco, 1995) loaded the
entire game onto the PlayStation’s RAM, eliminating
heat, it is not uncommon to hear the sound of the fan
loading and allowing players to replace the game disc
intensify as it speeds up to cool the CPU. with a music CD which it would use as the in-game music
◾ RAM AND ROM (GamePro, 1995, p. 37).
RAM stands for random access memory. RAM is like

the short-term memory of a computer, allowing data to ◾ BIOS
be read, written, and stored—but only temporarily (Le
Grange, 2015). RAM chips (Figure 2.2) store and retain Another important computer component is the BIOS
information while the system is running, but will forget chip. BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System and
most of this temporary data when the unit is turned off. By “in very simple terms, the BIOS chip wakes up the
storing information in a system’s RAM, information such computer when you turn it on and reminds it what parts it
as the layout of a game map can be accessed quickly. The has and what they do” (Welch, 2002). The BIOS is usually
more RAM a system has, the more parts of a game it can found on a ROM chip (called the ROM BIOS). It also
load at once. When progressing through a game, the RAM serves as an important diagnostic tool, as it confirms the
is constantly freeing memory and loading more parts of configurations and reliability of the system and allows it to
the game from the hard drive or external ROM media. use features of hardware by managing all inputs and
FIGURE 2.2 Typical RAM cards (a) and Amic erasable programmable ROM (b).
(b)
(a)
FIGURE 2.3 Schematic diagram of a personal computer; note as game cartridges that use software to produce or
how the CPU must go through the system bus to communicate enhance a game’s sound. See Figure 2.4 for examples of
with the other components. each card.
Input and ◾ PORTS

CPU Memory
Output
Ports (also seen in Figure 2.4) are slots and connectors on
the outside of computers and consoles for plugging
in additional hardware such as gamepads, keyboards,
Control bus
mice, monitors, speakers, and other peripheral devices.
“Ports are controlled by their expansion cards which are
System bus
Address bus
plugged into the motherboard and [usually] connected to
other components by cables” (Welch, 2002). There are
too many types of ports to mention in this chapter;
Data bus
however, two popular ports today include High-
Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) and Univer-
outputs. The CPU, memory, and BIOS communicate sal Serial Bus (USB). HDMI ports can transmit video and
across the system bus as illustrated in Figure 2.3. audio simultaneously and are the main port for con-
necting today’s consoles to modern TVs. USB ports are
◾ GRAPHICS AND SOUND CARDS used to connect everything from flash drives to printers,
to game controllers and keyboards. They can even charge
The graphics card (or video card) is responsible for devices with rechargeable batteries. Like ports, many
producing output to the monitor or television. An consoles have featured expansion slots for connecting
important component of a graphics card is the graphics add-on units such as the TurboGrafx-CD and Sega CD.
processing unit (GPU). The GPU is the muscle behind
the image that is displayed on the screen. Modern ◾ MAKING THE CONNECTION
graphics cards also feature power input connectors and
have their own internal cooling solutions. PCI or peripheral component interconnect is a
The sound card (or audio card) contains special cir- common means of connecting peripheral devices by
cuits that allow the system to process sound. Sound cards providing a shared data path (called a “bus”) between the
facilitate both the input and output of audio from the CPU and peripheral controllers like graphics and sound
system. They can also be found in external devices such cards. This is not to be confused with the kernel, which
FIGURE 2.4 AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) Video Card (a) and Turtle Beach Sound Card (b); note how graphics and sound
cards contain external ports for connectors.
(a) (b)
allows software to talk to the hardware. The kernel is a modem is required to connect to the Internet. Inside most
computer program that translates software code into modern PCs and consoles is a network adapter (also
data processing instructions for the CPU. called a network card, network interface controller [NIC],
Modern computers and game consoles can be linked LAN adapter, or WAN card, among other titles). The
for cooperative and competitive play by networking network adapter is a small circuit board that allows the
them together. Common methods of networking com- system to communicate with other devices. For wireless
puters include local area networks (LANs) and wide connections, most devices now contain a WIFI adapter
area networks (WANs). LANs are a network of con- which can provide wireless band connectivity for appli-
nected computers in a small geographical area such as in cations such as multiplayer gaming (Le Grange, 2015).
a home, computer lab, or small campus. WANs, on the
other hand, cover a much larger geographical footprint ◾ BITS AND BYTES
between cities, states, countries, and even between
nations. Figure 2.5 illustrates how numerous LANs can While not a new term for computer techies, it wasn’t until
connect to form a WAN. around the third generation of video games that many
The conglomerate of these technologies is the Inter- gamers began speaking in “bits,” in anticipation of the
net, “a worldwide collection of interconnected networks upcoming “16-bit” consoles. A bit (b) is just an abbre-
(internetworks or the Internet for short), cooperating viated word for binary digit. Every bit is either a 0 or a 1,
with each other to exchange information using common collectively known as binary code. The basis for binary
standards. Through telephone wires, fiber-optic cables, code was discovered by Gottfried Leibniz in 1679,
wireless transmissions, and satellite links, Internet users illustrated in his article Explication de l’Arithmétique
can exchange information in a variety of forms” (Cisco Binaire. Binary code is how all computer processing
Networking Academy, 2013). instructions are written using combinations of the binary
Computers and consoles can be networked in a variety digits 0 and 1. Zeros represent the command “off” or “no,”
of ways. One method for connecting systems is through while ones represent the command “on” or “yes.” By
an expansion card called a modem. “A modem plugs the themselves, these are only two distinct commands. “The
computer into a phone or cable line so that information millions of combinations of those two commands given
can be transferred between computers” (Welch, 2002). A in series are what make a computer work” (Welch, 2002).
FIGURE 2.5 LANs separated by geographic distance connected by a WAN.
Network
LAN LAN services
Gateway
router
Network
LAN users
WAN switch
LAN LAN
TABLE 2.1 Numbers in Binary Code (Welch, 2002). In addition to RAM, hard drive space
0=0 6 = 110 13 = 1101 and software storage capacity are also measured in bytes.
1=1 7 =111 14 = 1110
2 = 10 8 = 1000 15 = 1111 ◾ HERTZ AND FRAME RATE
3 = 11 9 = 1001 16 = 10000
4 = 100 10 = 1010 17 = 10001
5 = 101 11 =1011 18 = 10010 While memory and storage space are measured in bytes,
6 = 110 12 = 1100 19 = 10011 processor speed and TVs/monitor refresh rates are
measured in hertz (Hz). Named after German physicist
Combinations of bits are called strings. Table 2.1 Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) who proved the existence
illustrates the simple formula for writing numbers in of electromagnetic waves, hertz is the unit of frequency
binary code. When a 1 is added to a 1 (as it is to make the in the International System of Units (SI). Quite simply,
number 2), the next bit becomes 0 (i.e., number 2 = 10 in hertz means “cycle per second.” One hertz equals one
binary code). Add another 1 and the next bit becomes a 1 complete cycle per second, 100 hertz means 100 cycles
(i.e., number 3 = 11 in binary code). Note how once all 1s per second, and so forth (Table 2.3). In other words, a
are used in a string, another bit is added (with a string of system with a 4.4 GHz processor has a clock rate of 4.4
zeros) and the sequence continues. billion times per second! Processor speed alone is not the
Eight bits grouped together form a byte (B), and it is only factor in determining how fast a console or com-
this size string that is usually used to represent an puter will operate. Common components that contribute
alphabetic character. The letter “A,” for instance, is an to CPU speed include co-processors, additional cores
8-bit character written like this: 01000001 (Rieman, (processing units), and extra cache memory (a smaller,
1996). “When you type the letter A on your keyboard, faster form of RAM).
electrical signals are sent from the keyboard to the CPU. For TVs and monitors, “a Hertz rating refers to the
The CPU turns the signals into binary code. Then, the number of times per second the pixels [screen dots] used
computer reads the code and sends it on to the monitor to display an image are refreshed” (Emigh, 2009). TVs in
to display the letter A” (Welch, 2002). Larger strings of the United States run at 60 Hz (59.94 Hz), or at a refresh
bytes in metric multiples of 1,000 are given new names. rate of approximately 60 times per second. Newer U.S.
For example, 1,000 bytes is called a kilobyte (KB) and models can run at refresh rates of 120 Hz, 240 Hz, and
1,000 kilobytes equals a megabyte (MB). See Table 2.2 even 480 Hz—although most people don’t notice a major
for these and other common values of bytes. difference once refresh rates reach over 120 Hz. Higher
Bits and bytes can form a lot more than just alphabetic refresh rates were developed for TVs and monitors to
characters. Strings of bits can correspond to a variety reduce motion blur that can occur during fast-moving
of different symbols and processing instructions. For an action as seen in sports and many video games. Screens
8-bit platform, there are 256 possible combinations of with refresh rates of 120 Hz and above typically look
1/0 to work with. For game consoles and computers, great for video games and sports broadcasts; however,
the number of bytes represents the system’s memory such is not always the case when viewing movies shot on
capacity. For instance, “if a computer has 64 MB of film. Coined the “soap opera effect” or SOE, high hertz
RAM, that means that the computer can handle TVs often contain motion smoothing/interpolation or
64,000,000 (64 million) bytes of random access memory” motion estimation/motion compensation (ME/MC)
processing that can make films look like they were shot
TABLE 2.2 Common Multiples of Bytes (B) on a camcorder. Fortunately, these motion features can
Unit Abbreviation Metric Value Binary Value
Kilobyte KB 1 thousand bytes or 1024 bytes
1,000 kilobytes
TABLE 2.3 Common Multiples of Hertz (Hz)
Megabyte MB 1 million bytes or 10242 bytes
1,000 kilobytes Unit SI Symbol Value
Kilohertz kHz 1,000 (103)Hz
Gigabyte GB 1 billion bytes or 10243 bytes
1,000 megabytes Megahertz MHz 1,000,000 (106) Hz
Terabyte TB 1 trillion bytes or 10244 bytes Gigahertz GHz 1,000,000,000 (109) Hz
1,000 gigabytes Terahertz THz 1,000,000,000,000 (1012) Hz
usually be turned off—allowing equal enjoyment for ◾ INTERLACED AND PROGRESSIVE SCAN
gaming, sports, and movie watching.
Frame rate is similar to hertz in that games with Television displays use one of two scanning methods to
higher frame rates usually have less motion blur, but paint the picture on the screen. “Traditional video
frame rate is measured by frames per second (fps). The systems use an interlaced scan, where half the picture
baseline for standard definition video in the United appears on the screen at a time. The other half of the
States is 30 fps (29.97 fps), however modern games picture follows an instant later (1/60th of a second)”
commonly run at 60 fps. So, how does a game running at (Briere and Pat Hurley, 2008). With interlaced scanning,
60 fps or a Blu-ray movie running at 24 fps display each frame is comprised of two fields. The first field is
properly on a television with a refresh rate of 120 Hz? In made up of the screen’s odd horizontal lines, while the
the case of a 24-fps movie, “even with higher refresh second field contains the even horizontal lines. Inter-
rates, there are still only 24 separate frames displayed laced scan was the main scanning system used for analog
every second, but they may need to be displayed multiple video displays before the advent of digital TV. Consoles
times, depending on the refresh rate. To display 24 connected to a TV with the yellow composite cable (and
frames per second on a TV with a 120 Hz refresh rate, earlier analog video cables) can only output games using
each frame is repeated 5 times every 24th of a second” the interlaced scanning display format.
(Silva, 2016). Likewise, to display a 60-fps game on a TV In contrast, a progressive scan system paints the entire
with a 120 Hz refresh rate, each frame is repeated 2 times picture within each field in one pass. See Figure 2.6 for a
every 60th of a second. comparison. Similar to a higher refresh rate, games dis-
played in progressive scan typically move smoother and
look sharper compared to games displayed via interlaced
DID YOU KNOW? scan. Progressive scan capabilities became popular during
the sixth generation of video games when systems like
Refresh rates of TVs in parts of Europe and other countries
using PAL and SECAM formats run at a lower baseline Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube were
50 Hz and 25 fps due to a different electric supply. capable of being connected to TVs with optional red,
green, and blue (RGB) component cables. Note that
FIGURE 2.6 Comparing interlaced and progressive scan on a 60-Hz display.
Interlaced Scan
2 1
1 2
4 3
3 4
=
5
+
5 6
6
7
7 8 8
10 9
9 10
11 12 11
12
13 14 13
14
Odd lines - field 1 Even lines - field 2 Field 1+2=Frame
1/160th sec 1/160th sec 1/30th sec
Progressive Scan
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
8 8
9 9
10 10
11 11
12 12
13 13
14 14
All lines - field 1 All lines - field 2

1/160th sec 1/160th sec
TABLE 2.4 Visual Reference Guide to Common Video Game Connectors

Connector Name(s) Audio Specs Video Specs
720 × 576i @ 50 Hz
F Connector/coaxial Analog, mono/stereo
720 × 480i @ 60 Hz
720 × 576i @ 50 Hz
Composite/RCA/phono Analog, mono/stereo
720 × 480i @ 60 Hz
720 × 576i @ 50 Hz
S-video Video-only
720 × 480i @ 60 Hz
720 × 576i @ 50 Hz
SCART Analog, mono/stereo
720 × 480i @ 60 Hz
up to 1920 × 1080p
Component/YPBPR Video-only
@ 50 or 60 Hz
Balanced/unbalanced Audio-only
TRS (3.5 mm mini or 1/4" phone)
analog, mono/stereo
XLR Balanced analog, mono/stereo Audio-only
Coaxial digital Digital 5.1/7.1 surround Audio-only
Toslink/optical or S/PDIF/digital audio Digital 5.1/7.1 surround Audio-only
Up to 2048×1536p
VGA Video-only
(QXGA) @ 85 Hz
DVI Video-only 2560 × 1600 @ 60 Hz
2560 × 1600p @
Digital, 8 channels of 75 Hz
HDMI 24-bit up to 192 kHz 4096 × 2160p @
60 Hz
2560 × 1600p @
Digital, 8 channels of 75 Hz
Display port 24-bit up to 192 kHz 7680 × 4320p @
60 Hz
USB Data cable/varies Data cable/varies
IEEE-1394/firewire Data cable/varies Data cable/varies
Ethernet Data cable/varies Data cable/varies

games must be programmed to output progressive screens can also lead to glare from reflected light, and
scan, so playing interlaced scan titles through component because of their internal makeup, plasmas are often much
cables will still result in an interlaced picture on screen. See heavier than other flat screen monitors.
Table 2.4 for these and other common connectors. Light-emitting diode (LED) displays are basically
LCD monitors that are backlit with tiny light-emitting
◾ TYPES OF MONITORS diodes instead of fluorescent tube backlights. LED dis-
plays have a more comparable contrast ratio to plasmas,
The round oscilloscope screen that displayed Willy can be thinner, and are usually more energy efficient
Higinbotham’s Tennis for Two (1958) and Steve Russell’s than both plasmas and LCDs. On the horizon is organic
Spacewar! (1962) was a type of CRT monitor. CRT is light-emitting diode (OLED), which uses a film of
short for cathode ray tube and “works by moving an organic compound to emit light and produce an even
electron beam back and forth across the back of the higher quality picture. One concern for OLEDs is the
screen. Each time the beam makes a pass across limited lifespan of its organic materials. Organic or not,
the screen, it lights up phosphor dots on the inside of LED appears to be the key technology for monitors
the glass tube, thereby illuminating the active portions moving forward.
of the screen” (Beal, 2009, p. 1). CRT was the main type
of television and computer monitor throughout the ◾ VIDEO FORMATS
twentieth century until flat panel monitors took over in
the early 2000s. There are three main video formats across the globe. NTSC
Flat panel monitors became popular due to their or National Television Standards Committee is the
substantially thinner depth, lighter weight, higher energy format used in North America, Japan, South Korea, and a
efficiency, and the fact that they emit much lower radi- few other nations (see Figure 2.7). As mentioned earlier,
ation compared to CRTs. The first major flat panel NTSC televisions run at a baseline refresh rate of 60 Hz
monitor to be used for computer and television gaming (59.94 Hz) and a frame rate of 30 fps (29.97). Early NTSC
was the liquid crystal display (LCD). Like the title screens contained 525 scan lines (of which 483 were used to
suggests, LCD contains a liquid crystal substance. “The display the image) and a standard definition aspect ratio
molecules of this substance line up in such a way that the (width × height) of 4 × 3, which translates to a screen
light behind the screens [is] blocked or allowed to create resolution of 720 × 480 rectangular pixels (equivalent to
an image” (Khan, 2013). Early LCDs often suffered from 640 × 480 square pixels on a computer monitor).
a poor viewing angle. In other words, the picture would Phase Alternate Line (PAL) is the format used in most
appear faded from the sides if not viewed from directly in of Europe, Australia, and large portions of Africa and Asia.
front of the screen. PAL televisions run at a baseline refresh rate of 50 Hz and
Plasma display panel (PDP) was the original compet- frame rate of 25 fps. While PAL has a lower refresh rate
itor to LCD in televisions 30 inches and above, with and frame rate compared to NTSC, standard definition
the technology initially allowing for deeper shades of PAL TVs contain 625 scan lines (of which 576 are used to
black and wider viewing angles. “A plasma display is an display the image [582 in the U.K.]). Like NTSC, the
array of tiny gas cells sandwiched between two sheets standard definition aspect ratio for PAL is 4 × 3; however,
of glass. Each cell acts like a mini fluorescent tube, PAL has a higher screen resolution of 720 × 576 pixels.
emitting ultraviolet light which then strikes red, green and Séquentiel Couleur à Mémoire (SECAM) is French
blue spots on the screen. These spots glow to build up for “Sequential Color with Memory.” This was the first
the picture” (Laughlin, 2016). Early generation plasma European color television standard and used predomi-
displays were susceptible to a phenomenon known as nantly in Russia, Eastern Europe, France, and parts of
“screen burn-in,” where the shadow of a stagnant image Africa. This format shares much of the same specifications
could become permanently stuck on the screen if displayed as PAL with a baseline refresh rate of 50 Hz, frame rate of
for extended periods of time. This didn’t bode well for video 25 fps, and a standard definition of 625 scan lines and 720 ×
games, which often contain heads up displays (HUDs) 576 pixel resolution. It differs from PAL in that SECAM
such as time, life bars, score, and other data that remain on uses a different method of color transmission. See Figure 2.7
screen for the duration of the games. A plasma's glass for a breakdown of television encoding systems by nation.
FIGURE 2.7 Television encoding systems by nation.
NTSC
SECAM
PAL or PAL/SECAM
no info
One of the goals with the introduction of High Def- fonts in a word processing program). They can be seen in
inition Television (HDTV) was to unify these formats Steve “Slug” Russell’s Spacewar! (1962) (Figure 2.8a)
and eliminate incompatibility issues between countries. where text character symbols are used for the two
For all three formats, HDTVs have an aspect ratio of dueling spaceships, missiles, and stars. One of the
16 × 9 and a screen resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels. downsides to early graphics like ASCII was that they
Even lower HD resolution formats such as High Defi- could only be displayed in monochrome (single color)
nition Video (HDV) have resolutions of 1440 × 1080 displays.
pixels or 1280 × 720 pixels in every country. Resolution Another form of graphics that became popular
aside, the disparity between hertz remains today, with a around the same times as ASCII is vector graphics.
baseline 60 Hz for NTSC region HDTVs versus 50 Hz for Vector graphics are made up of electron beam images—
PAL and SECAM region HDTVs. Frame rate disparities shapes based on mathematical equations of geometrical
also remain, with NTSC region HDTVs running at a primitives such as points, lines, and curves. Examples of
baseline of 29.97 fps and PAL/SECAM region HDTVs popular vector graphic arcade games include Atari’s
running at a baseline of 25 fps (see Table 2.5). There is Asteroids (1979) and Battlezone (1980). Like ASCII
one universal frame rate though—all three formats graphics, vector graphics are entirely monochrome. And
can display the common “movie/film speed” of 24 fps. like other early arcade games before color, vector-based
Newer Ultra HD or 4K format displays resolutions of games often used color overlays to give the illusion of
3840 × 2160, which is noticeable on larger TV screens. multiple colors on the screen. Battlezone (Figure 2.8)
used a red and green overlay. The Vectrex home video
◾ ASCII AND VECTOR GRAPHICS game console (Western Technologies/Smith Engineer-
ing, 1983) was a completely vector display-based system
Whatever the display format, all video games are made with its own monitor. Vector monitors were another
up of some type of graphics (GFX for short). One of the type of cathode ray tube (CRT) display. Due to their lack
early forms of video game graphics is ASCII (American of color and the fact that they could only display a
Standard Code for Information Interchange). ASCII shape’s outline, vector-based games began to disappear
graphics are essentially just text character symbols (like after around 1985 in favor of raster graphics.
TABLE 2.5 Refreshrates, Frame Rates, and Resolutions Across Formats

Format Refresh Rate Frame Rate Resolution (SD/HD)
NTSC 60 Hz 30 fps 720 × 480/1920 × 1080
PAL/SECAM 50 Hz 25 fps 720 × 576/1920 × 1080
FIGURE 2.8 Screenshots of (a) Spacewar! (ASCII GFX) and (b) Battlezone (vector GFX).
(a) (b)
◾ RASTER AND POLYGON GRAPHICS that they appear to be part of a larger object, such as an
animated character that can move around on the screen.
Raster graphics are “made up of a collection of tiny, Sprite size and the number of sprites that could be dis-
uniformly sized pixels, which are arranged in a two- played on screen became popular tech specs in comparing
dimensional grid made up of columns and rows. Each pixel early generations of video game consoles.
contains one or more bits of information, depending on the
degree of detail in the image” (Encyclopædia Britannica,
2016). Each grid coordinate is called a bitmap—a single-bit
raster that corresponds with a specific color based on the DID YOU KNOW?
number of bits stored in each pixel. To animate bitmaps on
Unlike vector graphics, raster graphics and sprites do not
the screen without altering the data defining the graphics, stretch very well—distorting or becoming “pixilated”
most consoles in the 1980s used sprite technology. Sprites when zoomed upon in like on Pilotwings on SNES.
were invented as a way of combining unrelated bitmaps so
FIGURE 2.9 Screenshots of (a) Super Mario Bros. (raster GFX) and (b) Super Mario 64 (polygons).
(a) (b)
FIGURE 2.10 Texture mapping a checkerboard image onto a wireframe face.
+ =
The fifth generation of video games popularized ◾ SHADERS, FLOPS, AND CORES
polygon graphics. Polygons are geometric shapes that
are “mapped” onto wireframe models to create 3D As 3D graphics technology progressed, more attention
graphics. The term “3D” here refers to graphics having was given to the number of shaders (Table 2.6) a GPU
multiple sides and depth within the screen and should could produce. While a texture is a 2D image, a shader is
not be confused with stereoscopic 3D technology, a program or cluster of instructions for drawing a
which creates the illusion of objects protruding beyond surface. A texture almost always requires a shader, while
the screen. See Figure 2.9 for a comparison between shaders may or may not utilize textures. The greater the
raster and polygon graphics. While all of the fifth- number of shader cores in a GPU, the more levels of
generation consoles emphasized polygonal gaming, it contrast and special effects are available. Older graphics
was Sony that really pressed developers to focus on 3D cards required separate processing units for each shader
polygonal gaming for the PlayStation. This may have type; however, today’s GPUs include “unified” shaders
been because the PS1 was built specifically for 3D games which can execute any type of shader.
and, in turn, very few true 2D titles were released for the In addition to being paired with attributes such as
system. “diffuse,” “glossy,” or “specular,” shaders can be given
When reading the tech specs of fifth generation and properties such as “normal,” “transparent,” “self-
later consoles, polygon count will refer to the number of illuminated,” and “reflective.” as depicted in Figure 2.11.
polygons capable of being rendered per frame. Another Some common shaders include “bumped diffuse (normal
important aspect of polygons is how they are mapped. mapping)” shaders that emulate lighting of bumps
Two common types of mapping include texture without adding any geometry and “parallax specular”
mapping (Figure 2.10)—wrapping a 2D “texture map” for creating displacement (where an object looks dif-
around a 3D object; and bump mapping—adding ferent from different angles and distances) (Hergaarden,
bumps or wrinkly textures that play off light. 2011, p. 9).
TABLE 2.6 Types of Shaders

Name Notes
2D The only shader for adding textures to 2D pixels
3D Including primitive, vertex, geometry, and tessellation
shaders
Compute General purpose; used in graphics pipelines for
extra effects
Unity Can execute any type of shader
FIGURE 2.11 Shader examples from the built-in Unity Shaders Matrix (Unity, 2010).
Simple Bumped Parallax bumped

Vertex Lit
Diffuse Glossy Diffuse Specular Diffuse Specular
Normal
Tramsparent
Self illuminated
Reflective
With more compute units and stream processors to Tri-Core Xenon CPU. With a tri-core processor, each
work from, GPUs took center stage after the turn of the core functions as a separate processor, resulting in faster
century and polygon count became a secondary technical computing and more efficient energy consumption. The
specification to a system’s floating point operations PlayStation 3 was even more complex, with a 3.2 GHz
per second (FLOPS). A “flop” is a basic unit of computa- multicore cell processor that was “essentially seven
tional power that serves as an indicator for graphics microprocessors on one chip, allowing it to perform
processing speeds. For example, GPUs of seventh- several operations at once” (Altizer, 2016, para. 8).
generation consoles were clocked between 12 gigaflops Note that core architecture can vary from one manu-
or “GFLOPS” (Wii) and 240 GFLOPS (Xbox 360). facturer to another, making it difficult to compare them
The subsequent wave of consoles contained even faster directly.
GPUs that could push multiple teraflops or “TFLOPS” With the Wii U, Nintendo chose to go with an
(Table 2.7). enlarged cache and a process called Out of Order Exe-
While FLOPS provide a clearer sense of graphics cution (OOE) (Amas, 2013, para. 3). OOE is a paradigm
processing speeds for comparing consoles, there are used by high-end microprocessors. Unlike older pro-
other numbers such as a system’s MIPS (millions of cessors that executed instructions by their original order
instructions per second) that go into determining how in a program, OOE processors can carry out instructions
efficient a console is at processing data in a specific in a nonlinear fashion based on input data as it becomes
amount of time, often referred to as the “time-to- available. In other words, the processor can preload data
solution.” Then there is technology like parallel pro- in the background (cache), rather than remaining idle
cessing, which allows for more than one calculation or until the system calls for something to be processed.
execution process to be carried out simultaneously—a
type of computation that can be expanded by the ◾ A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE
number of “cores” a processor contains.
Game consoles were introduced with multicore Perspective plays an important part in the manner in
processors starting with the Xbox 360’s 3.2 GHz PC whichs a game is played and experienced. In a first-person
TABLE 2.7 Common Multiples of FLOPS

Unit Abbreviation Value
Megaflops MFLOPS 1,000,000 (106)
Gigaflops GFLOPS 1,000,000,000 (109)
Teraflops TFLOPS 1,000,000,000,000 (1012)
Petaflops PFLOPS 1,000,000,000,000,000 (1015)
perspective game like the Call of Duty series, the action Isometric and overhead games have their roots in 2D
takes place through the eyes of the character being con- gaming; however, modern variations of these game per-
trolled. This is the perspective used in first-person shooter spectives often render such graphics using non-fixed angle
(FPS) titles, which often requires greater accuracy for 3D polygons for a greater sense of depth. And while first-
shooting and a wider field of view. Seeing through the person and third-person perspective games have their roots
character’s viewpoint in FPS games can be immersive; in 3D (utilizing the three-dimensional plane called the
however, the player is often limited to only seeing the Z axis), games are only considered true 3D if objects in
character’s hands and arms, but usually little else. the game appear to extend beyond the boundaries of
Third-person titles take place behind the character the screen, such as in stereoscopic (S-3D) video games.
being controlled, where generally the entire body of the Scrolling is the term used for the direction(s) in which
character appears on screen. This perspective is popular the game plays. Early games such as Pac-man and Space
for many action games where combat and attention to the Invaders do not scroll at all. Games like Super Mario Bros.
environment are of equal importance. Some third-person that typically scroll from left to right (X axis) are called
games can be viewed from a closer, over-the-shoulder “side-scrolling” games. Games that scroll vertically (Y axis,
(OTS) perspective like in Resident Evil 4 and Gears of most often upward) are called “vertically scrolling” games.
War. This is often the case in third-person shooters where Some games (like the shoot’em ups Zaxxon and Viewpoint)
shooting is a priority and shouldn’t be confused with scroll diagonally. Games that move in virtually every
second-person games. Second-person games include direction without constraint are referred to as “free-
titles where you are viewing the action from afar, but scrolling” games. Of course, games can also utilize a com-
not from directly behind the character like in third- bination of scrolling methods.
person games. Examples of second-person perspective To create a sense of depth in 2D sprite-based games,
games include Double Dragon, Final Fight, and other a common technique for fourth-generation developers
beat’em up style games viewed from more of a side angle. was to create separate background (and sometimes
Isometric games such as Baldur’s Gate and Disgaea foreground) layers in games, which scrolled at different
take place from a diagonal overhead view. These types of speeds. This is known as parallax scrolling, where the
games were made popular by early role-playing games furthest background layer scrolls slowest, with each
(RPGs) and strategy titles, giving the games a pseudo-3D subsequent layer scrolling faster. Some late third-
perspective often referred to as 2.5D. Then there are top- generation games like Ninja Gaiden 3 and Mega Man 6
down or overhead games that provide a straight down, also used this technique.
aerial view of the action. This perspective has been a Beyond the direction in which a game scrolls is the
popular choice for early generation RPGs, as well as manner in which it encourages the player to progress.
vertical shoot’em ups like the Raiden and Dodonpachi Games typically contain two styles of progression. Games
series. See Figure 2.12 for some examples of some of with forced progression keep the player moving
these common game perspectives. with time limits or forced-scrolling levels like in most
FIGURE 2.12 Common video game perspectives: (a) First–Person (GoldenEye 007), (b) Third–Person (Tomb Raider), and
(c) Isometric (Popolo Crois).
(a) (b) (c)

TABLE 2.8 Summary of Video Game Perspective Terms

Perspective First-Person Second-Person Third-Person Isometric Top-Down
Dimensions 2D 2.5D 3D True/S-3D
Scrolling Horizontal Vertical Diagonal Multiple None
Axis X (left-right) Y (up-down) Z (in-out)
Progression Forced Free Mixed
arcade-style games. Arcade games make higher profits “the the sound being pumped out of a left speaker or right
more often they’re played, so a moving perspective that speaker in a two-speaker setup. Most early household
literally pushes the player forward quickly became the televisions output mono sound because they were
standard” in the arcades (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Smith, & manufactured with only one speaker. Stereophonic
Tosca, 2012, p. 140). In free progression games, players (stereo) sound allows for two separate audio channels.
can explore and progress through the game at their leisure, With stereo sound, different sounds can be emitted
without the pressure of a time limit or other constraints. between two speakers, which can provide for a sense of
This type of gameplay became more popular as home directionality when used appropriately. For example, in a
console technology advanced and could offer more well-produced stereo video game shooter, one might
exploration-style games like the Tomb Raider and Zelda hear gunshots from the left speaker when an enemy is
series. See Table 2.8 for a summary. firing from the left side of the screen, through both
speakers when the enemy is directly ahead, or from the
◾ SOUND CHANNELS right speaker when an enemy is firing from the right side
of the screen.
Sound and music play an integral part in the video game Surround (multichannel) sound takes this experience
experience, setting the mood, conveying emotion, and even further, allowing game developers to program
often providing the motivation to progress forward sound to appear behind the player for even greater
through a game. Early consoles output monaural immersion. Surround sound uses between four and
(mono) sound, which is a single channel of audio. In seven independent audio channels, which are usually
monaural sound, there would be no difference between identified with a number. For instance, 5.1 surround
FIGURE 2.13 7.1 channel surround sound speaker setup floor plan by Denon.
FL FR
SW C
*1
2
* *3
SL SR
Listening
SBL position SBR
TABLE 2.9 Five Notable Video Game Music Composers

Composer Game Series Contributions
Harry Gregson- Metal Gear Solid, Call of Duty
Williams
Koji Kondo Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Punch-Out!!
Yoko Shimomura Kingdom Hearts, Mario & Luigi, Street Fighter II
Jeremy Soule Elder Scrolls, Guild Wars, Total Annihilation, Harry Potter
Nobuo Uematsu Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Blue Dragon,The Last Story
means five main channels of sound (front left, front as well as changing music when Jumpman obtained a
center, front right, back left, and back right) with the .1 hammer or rescued Pauline.
occupying a sixth channel for the subwoofer (bass). As the medium progressed, more channels of sound
6.1 channel surround sound adds a center rear speaker, could be incorporated into arcade cabinets and home
and 7.1 channel sound (Figure 2.13) adds two additional gaming consoles. The third generation of video games
side speakers. is where many of the first memorable video game
soundtracks were born. The term “chiptune” was
◾ MUSIC AND SOUND created to describe the synthesized electronic music of
this 8-bit generation. Pulse-code modulation (PCM)
In the late 1970s music was stored on physical media eventually allowed for the use of sound sampling, such as
such as compact cassettes and phonograph records. the percussion sounds in Super Mario Bros 3 (1990). This
These components were expensive and fragile, leading to technology led to the sampling of a myriad of instru-
the development of digital sound where computer chips ments to create many memorable game soundtracks
could change electrical impulses from binary code into beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s. Video game com-
analog sound waves. “Some systems could play actual posers such as Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy), Koji
sound recordings while others used MIDI [Musical Kondo (Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda), and
Instrument Digital Interface]-like formats (in the Yuzo Koshiro (Shinobi, ActRaiser, Streets of Rage) began
MIDI format a sound file is simply a series of references to receive worldwide acclaim. See Table 2.9 for some of
to sounds which are then played back by the sound gaming's most notable composers.
card)” (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Smith, & Tosca, 2012, p. 146). Stereo and surround sound would later become
Such early music was usually monaural and looped, or available in video games, creating an even richer sound
used sparingly at the start of the game or between stages. experience. Video game music has now grown to include
Beyond the technology that creates the music is the the same breadth and complexity associated with tele-
fundamental basis of its usage and what kind of vision and movie soundtracks, allowing for much more
impression the video game music makes on the player. creative freedom (Rogers, 2014). Many games have
Some of the earliest notable background music in produced such popular music that a separate soundtrack
a video game can be credited to Taito’s arcade hit CD is often made available to consumers.
Space Invaders (1978). The music consisted of only four As game music progressed, so did the use of voice.
looped bass notes, but the pace of the soundtrack would One of the first arcade games to feature authentic
accelerate as the aliens got closer and faster to invading voice synthesis was Stern Electronics’ Berzerk (1980)
the bottom of the screen—increasing the urgency of the where robots would shout phrases like “Get the hu-
situation (and often the heart rate of the player). As manoid!” and “Intruder alert!” (McDonald, 2004).
video game technology progressed, multiple music tracks Mattel’s Intellivision was the first to market voice syn-
could be programmed for games. Changing musical thesis in a home console with its “Intellivoice” adapter.
themes to accommodate the on-screen action was a major By adding this side-mounted cartridge to the system, a
part of Donkey Kong (1981), which included different handful of games could utilize a voice synthesizer to
melodies for the stage intro, stages, and loss of a life— generate audible speech. Until optical media, however,
FIGURE 2.14 Behind the voices: Faces of five prolific video game voice actors.
Troy Baker Steve Blum Jennifer Hale Mark Hamill Nolan North
speech in video games was sparse since it took up a lot TABLE 2.10 Stockburger’s Sound Objects
of memory. Most early games that featured speech only Sound Definition Examples in Civilization
Objects IV
included short words and phrases. Once this limitation
Inter- Sounds heard • Theme song “Baba Yetu”
was lifted with CD-ROM and laserdisc, vocalization face during set-up or • Music playing while game
(voice acting for video game characters) became much menu options loads
more conventional. Today, it is not uncommon for voice Speech Any spoken text • Narrative by Leonard
Nimoy
actors to deliver thousands of lines of dialogue in a single • Phrases spoken
video game. by military units
There are numerous voice actors who have made a Zone Sounds that reflect • Naturalistic sounds
location (oceans waves, tree
name in the video game industry. Some of gaming’s most branches falling)
prolific voice actors (shown in Figure 2.14) include: Troy • Battle sounds
Baker (BioShock Infinite and The Last of Us), Steve Blum Effect Sounds that reflect • Sounds accompanying
an action or event discovering treasure,
(who holds the Guinness World Record for most religion, etc.
appearances in video games), Jennifer Hale (Mass Effect, • Sounds of declaring war
or peace
Metroid Prime, Metal Gear Solid, and countless others),
Score Soundtracks • Diplomacy themes
Mark Hamill (Batman: Arkham Asylum/City and • Terrain soundtrack
Darksiders), and Nolan North (Assassin’s Creed, God of
War, Infamous, and Uncharted, among others).
◾ SOUND THEORY an action or event, such as discovering a treasure, while

zone sound reflects location, such as sounds in the
There are two main types of sound in games: diegetic environment. Interface music includes themes heard
sound and non-diegetic sound. Diegetic sound comes during game menus or loading screens, while score is the
from within the game world and includes both direct background music that plays during the core of the
sounds (guns firing, swords clashing, character dialog) game. See Table 2.10 for Stockburger’s sound objects as
and ambient sounds (wind, thunder, whistling birds). they apply to the strategy game Civilization IV.
Non-diegetic sound takes place outside the game world,
such as mood music and narrative dialog. Scholars
such as Karen Collins, Rod Munday, Isabella van Elferen, DID YOU KNOW?
and Axel Stockburger have deconstructed these
Game composers Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall
sounds “from a theoretical perspective, helping to form launched Video Games Live (VGL) in 2005. Conducted
vocabularies and modes of investigation that enable by Emmanuel Fratianni, video game scores are performed
discussion of the uses of sound within video games” by a live orchestra, along with video game footage, live
(Donnelly, Gibbons & Lerner, 2014, p. 168). According actors, lighting, and other effects.
to Stockburger, effect sound includes sounds that reflect
◾ ACTIVITY: PITCH A GAME
Publishers and developers are always looking for new ideas for video games. Do you have a concept for a video
game that could revolutionize the industry? Give it a shot!
GUIDELINES
This assignment touches the surface of a full video game proposal, requiring only a pitch and/or logline and a fact
sheet. Typically, this would be used to gauge whether there is interest in your idea, which if the case, would be
followed by a more detailed proposal.
Pitch/logline: In one to two sentences, summarize your game concept as clearly as possible. It often helps to
relate it to familiar ideas or existing games; for example, “Street Fighter meets Final Fantasy in this epic action
RPG where random encounters result in real-time 2D battles between one or more opponents.”
Fact Sheet: Use the format below to construct your fact sheet with some selling points. Each section should
be approximately three sentences each.
What: “What” is the concept and is like the logline
Why: “Why” is the purpose; show the game is original and why it will sell.
Who: “Who” is star(s) of the game. Mention talent or lead voice actors here.
Where: “Where” is the place of distribution, console(s), and/or online network.
When: “When” is the production timeline; milestone schedule, release date, etc.
How: “How” is how it will be funded, developed, and published.
◾ CHAPTER 2 QUIZ 4. Processor speed and TV/monitor refresh rates are

measured in:
1. Acts like the brain of a computer or game console; a. Bytes (b)
makes calculations and processes information that b. Kilobytes (KB)
tells other components what to do: c. Hertz (Hz)
a. CPU d. Frames per second (fps)
b. GPU
c. RAM 5. The baseline frame rate for standard definition video
d. ROM in the United States is:
a. 15 fps
2. Is like the short-term memory of a computer; b. 24 fps
allowing data to be read, written, and stored—but c. 25 fps
only temporarily: d. 30, or 29.97 fps
a. CPU
b. GPU 6. The three video formats used around the world are:
c. RAM a. NTSC, PAL, and SECAM
d. ROM b. NTSC, PAL, and SKYNET
c. UNLV, PAL, and SECAM
3. A network of connected computers in a small area d. NTSC, PAL, and UNLV
such as in a home or computer lab:
a. BIOS 7. What does NTSC stand for?
b. LAN a. North To South Coast
c. WAN b. National Television Stations Collaboration
d. Internet c. National Televisions Standards Committee
d. National Televised Social Club
8. Which television formats use 625 lines at 50 Hz? 15. Early consoles output a single channel of audio
a. PAL & UNLV where there was no difference between the sound
b. PAL & SECAM output of a left speaker or right speaker in a two-
c. SECAM & NTSC speaker setup. This kind of audio output is called:
d. NTSC & UNLV a. Monaural (mono)
b. Stereophonic (stereo)
9. Compared to PAL, analog NTSC video format has a: c. Surround (multichannel)
a. Higher resolution d. None of the above
b. Higher frame rate (fps)
c. Faster refresh rate (Hz) 16. According to Stockburger, __________ includes
d. Both B and C sounds that reflect an action or event, such as dis-
covering a treasure.
10. Atari’s Asteroids (1979) and Battlezone (1980) are a. effect sound
examples of: b. zone sound
a. ASCII graphics c. interface music
b. Vector graphics d. score
c. Raster graphics
d. Polygon graphics True or False
11. These graphics consist of geometric shapes that are 17. A bit (b) is just an abbreviated word for binary digit.
“mapped” onto wireframe models to create 3D
graphics. 18. The television format PAL stands for Photon Alu-
a. ASCII graphics minum Luster.
b. Vector graphics
c. Raster graphics 19. The interlaced scan system paints the entire picture
d. Polygon graphics within each field in one pass and provides smoother
motion and sharper picture compared to games
12. In this field of view, the player sees through the displayed using progressive scan.
perspective of character’s eyes:
20. LED (light-emitting diode) displays are basically
a. First-person
LCD monitors that are backlit with tiny light-
b. Second-person
emitting diodes instead of fluorescent tube
c. Third-person
backlights.
d. Isometric
13. Games like Super Mario Bros. that typically scroll

from left to right predominantly utilize the: ◾ FIGURES
a. X axis
FIGURE 2.1 Motherboards from (a) ColecoVision (1982) and
b. Y axis
(b) Sega CD 2 (1993). (Evan-Amos - own work, public domain.
c. Z axis Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
d. None of the above =34995064. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki
/File:ColecoVision-Motherboard-Top.jpg#/media/File:ColecoVision
14. What effect gives 2D games a sense of depth by the -Motherboard-Top.jpg. Game console‐‐Sega CD‐‐motherboard‐‐171
illusion of a third dimension? -6528C-A, by ZyMOS. Available at http://www.happytrees.org/chips,
a. Large sprites CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
b. High resolution pixels =9809478. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File
c. Parallax scrolling :Game_console‐‐Sega_CD‐‐motherboard‐‐171-6528C-A.jpg#/media
d. 8-bit sound /File:Game_console‐‐Sega_CD‐‐motherboard‐‐171-6528C-A.jpg)
FIGURE 2.2 Typical RAM cards (a) and Amic erasable program- FIGURE 2.8 Screenshots of (a) Spacewar! (ASCII GFX) and
mable ROM (b). ([a] By Utente: Sassospicco - own work, CC BY-SA (b) Battlezone (vector GFX). (Courtesy of Wardyga.)
2.5. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
=860883. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File FIGURE 2.9 Screenshots of (a) Super Mario Bros. (raster GFX) and
:RAM_module_SDRAM_1GiB.jpg. Modified by Wardyga. [b] AMIC Super Mario 64 (polygons). Screenshots of Super Mario Bros.
EEPROM 512KB 8 bit 32-pin memory chip, removed from a DVD (Nintendo, 1985) and Super Mario 64 (Nintendo, 1996).
player, by Yanrayaj - own work, public domain. Available at https://
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7389609)
FIGURE 2.10 Texture mapping a checkerboard image onto a
wireframe face. (From Saboret, L., Alliez, P., & Lévy, B., 2013. Planar
FIGURE 2.3 Schematic diagram of a personal computer; note how parameterization of triangulated surface meshes. Retrieved from
the CPU must go through the system bus to communicate with the http://doc.cgal.org/latest/Surface_mesh_parameterization/index
other components. (Courtesy of W Nowicki - own work, based on a .html)
diagram which seems to in turn be based on page 36 of The Essentials
of Computer Organization and Architecture by Linda Null, Julia
FIGURE 2.11 Shader examples from the built-in Unity Shaders
Lobur, http://books.google.com/books?id=f83XxoBC_8MC&pg=PA36,
Matrix (Unity, 2010). (Materials and shaders, from Documentation
CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index
Unity3D, by the Unity Team on September 16, 2010. Retrieved from
.php?curid=15258936. Simplified diagram of a computer system
http://unity.ogf.su/Documentation/Manual/Materials.html)
implemented with a single system bus. This modular organization was
popular in the 1970s and 1980s.)
FIGURE 2.12 Common video game perspectives. (Screenshots
from GoldenEye 007 (Rare, 1997), Tomb Raider (Core Design, 1996),
FIGURE 2.4 AGP (accelerated graphics port) video card (a) and
and PopoloCrois (G-Artists, 2005).)
Turtle Beach sound card (b); note how graphics and sound cards
contain external ports for connectors. ([a] By Evan-Amos - own
work, public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org FIGURE 2.13 7.1 channel surround sound speaker setup floor plan
/w/index.php?curid=11451358. Retrieved from https://commons by Denon. (Courtesy of Denon. Editorial: Speaker installation, 2014.
.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AGP-Video-Card.jpg#/media/File:AGP D&M Holdings Inc. Retrieved from http://manuals.denon.com
-Video-Card.jpg. [b] By Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. /avrx4100w/na/EN/GFNFSYawzxoxsr.php)
=11960881 Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki FIGURE 2.14 Behind the voices: Faces of five prolific video game
/File:Turtle_Beach_Sound_Card_(Catalina).png#/media/File voice actors. (Headshots of Troy Baker, http://www.behindthevoice
:Turtle_Beach_Sound_Card_(Catalina).png.) actors.com/troy-baker/; Steve Blum, http://www.behindthevoiceactors
.com/steve-blum/; Jennifer Hale, http://www.behindthevoiceactors
FIGURE 2.5 LANs separated by geographic distance connected by a .com/jennifer-hale/; Mark Hamill, http://www.behindthevoice
WAN. (Courtesy of Audit3 - own work, CC BY-SA 4.0. Available at actors.com/mark-hamill/; and Nolan North, http://www.behindthe
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49623752. voiceactors.com/nolan-north/)
Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lanwan.gif.)
◾ TABLE CREDITS
FIGURE 2.6 Comparing interlaced and progressive scan on a
60-Hz display. (From AnchorBayTech. Editorial: Interlaced vs. Pro- TABLE 2.4 Visual reference guide to common video game connectors.
gressive Scan. February 26, 2009. Retrieved from http://www Images adapted from Crane, K. (2016). Home A/V connections glos-
.anchorbaytech.com) sary. Retrieved from https://www.crutchfield.com/S-b7lDiytxYTv
/learn/learningcenter/home/connections_glossary.html.
FIGURE 2.7 Television encoding systems by nation. (By Akomor1 -
own work; derived from File:BlankMap-World6.svg, public domain. TABLE 2.8 Summary of video game perspective terms. Adapted
Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid from table and concepts presented in Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S., Smith, J.,
=2314395. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki & Tosca, S. (2012, July 28). Understanding video games: The essential
/File:PAL-NTSC-SECAM.svg#/media/File:PAL-NTSC-SECAM.svg.) introduction (2nd ed). New York, NY: Routledge.
TABLE 2.10 Stockburger’s Sound Objects table from Donnelly, K., Kaplan, A. (2014). The awesome inner workings of video
Gibbons, W., & Lerner, N. (2014, February 27). “Stockburger’s sound games. Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. Retrieved from
objects” table from Music in video games: Studying play. New York, https://books.google.com/books?id=AqSXAgAAQBAJ.
NY: Routledge. Table based off Stockburger, A. The game environ-
Khan, J. (2013, June 9). Types of monitors. Retrieved from
ment from an auditive perspective. Retrieved from http://www
http://www.byte-notes.com/types-monitors.
.audiogames.net/pics/upload/gameenvironment.htm.
Laughlin, A. (2016). LED vs LCD vs plasma TV. Retrieved from
http://www.which.co.uk/reviews/televisions/article/led
-vs-lcd-vs-plasma-tv.
◾ REFERENCES
Le Grange, L. (2015, April 8). What are the parts found in a
Amas, A. (2013, February 3). Wii U: The power of the fox.
game console? What are their functions? Retrieved from
Retrieved from http://wiiuconcepts.blogspot.com/.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-parts-found-in
-a-game-console-What-are-their-functions.
Beal, V. (2009, August 28). All about monitors: CRT vs.
LCD. Retrieved from http://www.webopedia.com McDonald, G. (2004, March 29). A history of video game music.
/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/all_about_monitors Retrieved from http://www.gamespot.com/articles/a
.asp. -history-of-video-game-music/1100-6092391/.
Briere, D., & Hurley, P. (2008, November 17). Interlaced Rieman, J. (1996, September). Binary numbers. Retrieved from
vs. progressive scanning methods. Home theater for http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/courses/CSCI1200-96/binary
dummies (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc. .html.
Retrieved from http://www.dummies.com/how-to
/content/interlaced-vs-progressive-scanning-methods Rogers, S. (2014, April 16). Level up! The guide to great video
.html. game design. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom:
John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Cisco Networking Academy. (2013, December 19). Exploring
the modern computer network: types, functions, and Sautter, A. (2013). How Do Video Games Work? Capstone
hardware. Retrieved from http://www.ciscopress.com Classroom. Retrieved from https://books.google.com
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Editorial: PlayStation proreview: Ridge Racer. (1995, March). Silva, R. (2016, January 09). Video frame rate vs. screen refresh
GamePro, p. 68. rate: Understanding video frame rates and screen refresh
rates. Retrieved from http://hometheater.about.com/od
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S., Smith, J., & Tosca, S. (2012, July 28). /televisionbasics/qt/framevsrefresh.htm.
Understanding video games: The essential introduction
(2nd ed). New York, NY: Routledge. Welch, C. (2002). Computer connections: Lesson 2 – inner hardware.
Retrieved from http://www.mpsaz.org/academy/staff
Emigh, J. (2009, December 16). HDTVs: Are more ‘hertz’ /kmprocopio/class_21/class_21/files/computer-connections
worth more money? PCWorld. Retrieved from http:// -lesson-2-hardware-on-the-inside.pdf.
www.networkworld.com/article/2239424/hdtvs—are
-more—hertz—worth-more-money-.html. Welch, C. (2002). Computer connections: Lesson 3 – bits and bytes.
Retrieved from http://www.mpsaz.org/academy/staff
Encyclopædia Britannica. (2016). Raster graphics. /kmprocopio/class1/class-20/files/computer-connections
Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www -lesson-3-bits-and-bytes.pdf.
.britannica.com/topic/raster-graphics.
Welch, C. (2002). Computers: Inside & out. Retrieved July 23, 2003
Hergaarden, M. (2011, January). Graphics shaders. VU from http://www.kidsdomain.com/brain/computer/lesson
Amsterdam. Retrieved from http://www.m2h.nl/files .html.
/LiteraturestudyShaders.pdf.
CHAPTER 3
The Second Generation
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Describe the climate of video games in the arcade and in homes during this time.
• Discuss the “Golden Age” of the arcade and identify some key arcade titles.
• Recognize key people who helped pave the way for the top games and consoles.
• Summarize a brief overview of the history of Mattel.
• Be familiar with the technological differences among second-generation systems.
• Have a sense of the graphics quality and general capabilities of second-generation video game consoles.
• Review some of the key video game titles for each console.
• Illustrate how Atari dominated the second-generation market.
• Explain several reasons for the North American video game crash of 1983.
• Summarize second-generation market sales, breakthroughs, and trends.
49

360-degree joystick E.T. Midway Sears Super VideoArcade
ANTIC Easter Egg Jay Miner Sears Video Arcade
Minoru Arakawa Expansion modules Shigeru Miyamoto Mario Segale
Asteroids Fairchild Channel F MOS Technology Shovelware
Atari VCS/2600 Fairchild Namco Sound channels
Atari 5200 Semiconductor NEC Space Invaders
Automatic switchbox Galaxian Nintendo Super Action Controller
Don Bluth Manny Gerard Tomohiro Nishikado Set
Ron Bradford GTIA Numeric keypad Taito
Eric Bromley Elliot Handler Odyssey2 TandyVision
Nolan Bushnell Home port Overlays Tele-Games
Bus Intellivision/II Pac-Man TIA
Chuck E. Cheese’s Intellivoice Philips Texas Instruments
ColecoVision INTV Corporation George Plimpton The Voice
Color palette Toru Iwatani POKEY Trak-Ball controller
Colors on screen Joystick Lyle Rains Terrence Valeski
Computer-controlled Ray Kassar RF switch Vectrex
opponent (AI) Michael Katz RAM Video Entertainment
Console war Keyboard component RCA Studio II System
Controller ports Steve Lehner Warren Robinett Video game crash
Don Daglow Ed Logg Roller controller Videocarts
Digital data pack Master Strategy ROM Warner Communications
Directional disk Series Steve Ross Howard S. Warshaw
Donkey Kong Harold Matson SALLY Yars’ Revenge
Rick Dyer Mattel Kazunori Sawano Gunpei Yokoi
◾ CONSOLE TIMELINE
Atari VCS Mattel Intellivision Atari 5200
October 1977 Early 1980 November 1982
February 1979 August 1982
Magnavox Odyssey2 ColecoVision

The Second Generation ◾ 51
◾ THE GOLDEN AGE mascot—a pop culture icon that spawned an animated
TV series and a hit music single by Buckner & Garcia
The Golden Age of the arcades (Figure 3.1) began with called “Pac-Man Fever,” among countless ancillary items.
the popularity of Taito’s Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani was successful in his goal
lasted into 1983, when the market crashed in North to reach the female audience (Purchese, 2010), helping
America. Part of Space Invaders’ success may have been the title become the highest grossing arcade game of all
from the world’s craze over Star Wars, which designer time. Other hits released in 1980 included Atari’s Missile
Tomohiro Nishikado mentioned to be an influence Command and Battlezone, along with Berzerk by Stern
for the game’s theme (Game Informer, 2008, p. 108). Electronics. See Table 3.1 for some of the best games from
The arcade game was known for its four notes of looped each year during the Golden Age.
music, which sped up as the aliens descended closer to A year after Pac-Man took the world by storm,
the earth (and the player). It also advanced the concept Nintendo visionary Shigeru Miyamoto released his
of a high score, which encouraged gamers to survive first arcade hit with Donkey Kong in 1981. Overseen
for as long as possible. Atari responded with their hit by chief engineer Gunpei Yokoi, Miyamoto’s Donkey
shooter Asteroids (1979) by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg. Kong pioneered the platform game genre, was one of
Soon there would be an explosion of arcade venues such the first to have a substantial narrative, and even pro-
as Nolan Bushnell’s Chuck E. Cheese franchise, opening vided a sense of humor (Latson, 2015, para. 2). It was the
a window of creativity for numerous publishers. first title to feature Nintendo’s iconic Mario character
Once such publisher, Namco (Nakamura Amusement (known then as “Jumpman”) and put Miyamoto on
Machine Manufacturing Company) found early success course to become arguably the most innovative video
as a distribution partner with Atari and Midway. Their game designer of all time. Other hits in 1981 included
hit shooter Galaxian (1979) expanded upon Space Namco/Bally-Midway’s Ms. Pac-Man, Williams Elec-
Invaders with true color graphics and other gameplay tronics’ Defender, Konami/Sega’s Frogger, as well as
enhancements. A year later, Namco released Pac-Man in Atari’s Tempest and Centipede.
1980. Pac-Man became the video game industry’s first
FIGURE 3.1 Screenshots of defining arcade games from the Golden Age: (a) Space Invaders (1978), (b) Galaxian (1979),
(c) Pac-Man (1980), and (d) Donkey Kong (1981).
(a) (b) (c) (d)

TABLE 3.1 A Sampling of the Top Arcade Games from the Golden Age by Year
Year Title Designer Publisher Notes
1978 Space Invaders Tomohiro Nishikado Taito Launched the Golden Age of the Arcades
1979 Galaxian Kazunori Sawano Namco/Midway Progressed the use of color graphics
1980 Pac-Man Toru Iwatani Namco/Midway Top grossing arcade game
1981 Donkey Kong Shigeru Miyamoto Nintendo Narrative, platformer, first appearance of Mario
1982 Pole Position Toru Iwatani Namco/Atari Advanced the arcade racing genre
1983 Dragon’s Lair Don Bluth/Rick Dyer Cinematronics Popularized LaserDisc games
microprocessor. Only around 26 games were developed

DID YOU KNOW? for the system and approximately 250,000 units were
Donkey Kong was made to convert 2000 unsold cabinets sold. Two months later, RCA released its Studio II. The
of Nintendo’s Radar Scope game in America. Jumpman system lacked color support and did not even have
was renamed “Mario” by Nintendo President Minoru control paddles. Only about a dozen games were made
Arakawa after a heated argument with Nintendo of and it was discontinued in 1978.
America’s warehouse landlord Mario Segale over unpaid
rent money (Kent, 2001, pp. 157–159).
◾ ATARI VCS (2600)
Revenue from arcade video game cabinets grew tre- Knowing that Atari needed a successor to its Home Pong
mendously during this time, from $50 million sales in system in order to remain competitive in the home video
1978 to $900 million in 1981 (Wolfe, 2007, p. 105). The game market, Nolan Bushnell consulted his Grass
Golden Age of arcade games continued through 1982 Valley team to design a microprocessor built off of the
with chart toppers like Taito’s Jungle Hunt, Nintendo’s MOS Technology 6502 (Kent, 2001, p. 99). The result
Popeye, Gottlieb’s Q*Bert, Williams Electronics’ was a lower-costing 6507 custom chip named “Stella,”
Robotron: 2084, along with Namco’s Pole Position and coupled with a display and sound chip called the Tele-
Dig Dug. A 1982 Play Magazine study estimated there vision Interface Adaptor (TIA) by Jay Miner.
to be 24,000 full arcade venues and 400,000 street loca- To raise enough money to manufacture and market
tions where video games could be found in America— the console, Bushnell sold Atari to media publisher
consisting of more than 1.5 million arcade machines Warner Communications for $28 million and was
(Kent, 2001, p. 152). Game cabinets could be found allowed to remain on board as chairman. With Warner’s
nearly everywhere—from restaurants and supermarkets, funding, the Atari Video Computer System (VCS)
to gas stations, and even doctors’ offices. How long launched for $199 on September 11, 1977 and landed on
could this momentum last? Let’s first look at what was most store shelves by mid-October. It came bundled
happening in the home console market during this with two controllers and the game cartridge Combat
period. among its 9 launch titles (Table 3.2). A rebranded
version of the VCS called the Sears Video Arcade was
◾ THE SECOND GENERATION sold exclusively through Sears, Roebuck and Company
stores, along with rebranded games with more generic
There were over a dozen consoles released during the looking “Tele-Games” labels.
second generation. This chapter will focus primarily on
the five systems that sold 1 million units or more. The
TABLE 3.2 Atari Video Computer System
system that launched the second generation was the U.S. Launch Titles
Fairchild Channel F in November of 1976. Released • Air-Sea Battle (Figure 3.3a) • Star Ship
by Fairchild Semiconductor for $169.95, the Channel F • Basic Math • Street Racer
is notable for being the first game console with pro- • Blackjack • Surround
grammable ROM cartridges (called “videocarts”). • Combat (Figure 3.3b) • Video Olympics
It was also the first home video game system to use a • Indy 500
FIGURE 3.2 Atari VCS, often called “The Atari,” with standard, digital joystick controller.
The VCS (Figure 3.2) introduced many innovations tional ways Nolan Bushnell had originally run the oper-
to the home video game market. In addition to the ation. Programmers were used to coming to work late,
common paddle controllers, the Atari VCS came with staying late, and partying hard. “Bushnell encouraged
a digital “joystick” controller which was well suited their laid-back attitude and had no problem with them
for multidirectional games. It also came with built- partying after, and sometimes during, work hours” (Kent,
in switches for selecting game variations and difficulty, 2001, p. 180). Owner Steve Ross and Co-Chief Operating
as well as a toggle switch for black and white or Officer Manny Gerard often found themselves at odds
color displays. Another breakthrough for the system with Bushnell, who proposed to discontinue the VCS in
was that many of its games included a computer- favor of new technology in 1978.
controlled opponent, rather than the standard two- In February of that year, Warner hired executive vice-
player or asymmetric challenges of previous console president of Burlington Industries Ray Kassar to oversee
games (Monfort & Bogost, 2014, p. 5). the consumer division of Atari. A Harvard graduate and
One aspect that began to change at Atari under East Coast businessman, Kassar was the exact opposite
Warner Communications was the laid back, unconven- of Bushnell. While Bushnell wanted to discontinue the
FIGURE 3.3 Screenshots from Atari VCS launch titles (a) Air-Sea Battle and (b) Combat.
(a) (b)
VCS, Kassar wanted to position the system as Atari’s #1

product heading into the 1978 holiday season. Further DID YOU KNOW?
conflict between Bushnell and Warner ensued until Designer Howard Scott Warshaw named his 1981 VCS
that November when Bushnell was forced to resign game Yars’ Revenge after Ray Kassar by reversing the
and Kassar became Atari’s CEO. Bushnell bought back letters of his first name. “Yar” = “Ray,” that is, “Ray’s
the rights to his Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant which Revenge” (Campbell, 2015, p. 4). Was this revenge on
became the most successful family arcade chain in the Activision or just an inside joke?
United States.
Kassar admittedly knew nothing about video games ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON
and approached the business more from a marketing
perspective. His high society lifestyle also clashed with The Atari VCS was light years ahead of the other sys-
game designers, who often felt underappreciated by him. tems on the market at the time of its release. While
Despite these conflicts, Kassar achieved what he set out the Magnavox Odyssey and RCA Studio II lacked TV
to do and Atari VCS sales eventually skyrocketed. “The sound output and could only display a monochromatic
year before Kassar became CEO, Atari had $75 million in image, the VCS contained a 2-channel sound chip and
sales. Under Kassar, Atari became the fastest-growing could display multiple colors on screen (Table 3.3). The
company in the history of the United States [for its time], only competition for the VCS early on was the Fairchild
as the company’s sales exceeded $2 billion within three Channel F. The Channel F’s 1.79 MHz processor ran faster
years” (Kent, 2001, p. 185). than Atari’s 1.19 MHz 6507 processor; however, Atari’s
Success did not come without its losses. Kassar’s console displayed a higher resolution of 160 × 192 pixels
underappreciation of Atari’s game designers led to many compared to the Channel F’s resolution of 128 × 64.
of them leaving the company. One such group included The VCS had twice the amount of memory with
some of Atari’s top designers who parted ways after 128 bytes of RAM (random access memory) and 4 KB
unsuccessfully attempting to negotiate for more com- ROM (read-only memory), compared to Channel F’s
pensation. They may have left Atari, but they did not 64 bytes of main RAM and 2 KB of VRAM (video RAM).
abandon the industry. In April of 1980, programmers While both systems were limited to only 4 colors per
David Crane, Alan Miller, Bob Whitehead, and later scan line, Atari had a much larger color palette to choose
Larry Kaplan would form the first independent from—128 possible colors compared to just eight colors
developer and distributor of console video games— on the Channel F. Sound was still primitive at this time,
Activision. Activision went on to produce some of the but the overall audio from the VCS was much more
console’s best titles and eventually became one of the top capable and diverse compared to the beeps and crackles
video game publishers in the world. from the Channel F.
TABLE 3.3 Atari Video Computer System Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Atari
Launch Price: $199.95
Release Date: October 1977 (US), 1978 (EU), 1983 (JP)
Format: Cartridge
CPU: 8-bit MOS Technology 6507 processor (1.19 MHz)
Memory: 128 bytes RAM & 4 KB ROM
Resolution: 160 × 192 pixels
Colors: 4 on-screen colors from a palette of 128
Sound: 2 channel mono
FIGURE 3.4 Magazine advertisement for the Atari Video Computer System in 1981.
FIGURE 3.5 Box art to five of the best VCS titles including from: (a) Adventure, (b) Space Invaders, (c) River Raid,
(d) Yars’ Revenge, and (e) Pitfall II: Lost Caverns.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
and Pac-Man controlled terribly. The port was the

HEAD-TO-HEAD best-selling VCS game of all time, but ultimately disap-
To compare the graphics and sound between the Atari pointed most of the 7 million people who purchased it.
VCS and Fairchild Channel F, play similar games from Later that year Atari struck a deal with Steven Spiel-
each console (or watch video clips of them). Some games berg to produce a game based on the hit movie E.T. Best-
to compare include Desert Fox (Channel F) versus selling game designer Howard Scott Warshaw (Yars’
Combat (VCS), Spitfire (Channel F) versus Time Pilot
Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark) was given the daunting
(VCS), and Pinball Challenge (Channel F) versus Breakout
(VCS). task of completing the game in under six weeks in order
to market the game for the holidays (Kent, 2001, p. 238).
The game was a complete failure. According to Kassar,
◾ KEY ATARI VCS TITLES about 3.5 million of the 4 million games produced were
sent back to Atari as unsold inventory or customer
One of the moves that helped Atari secure its stronghold returns (Bruck, 1995, pp. 179–180). Atari infamously
on the home video game market was when Gerard and buried the unsold games in a New Mexico desert landfill.
Kassar negotiated a deal with arcade rivals Taito and
Midway to develop a home port (conversion) of Space ◾ MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY2
Invaders for the VCS. The success of Space Invaders
(1980) led to Atari licensing many other popular arcade In an attempt to remain relevant in the industry it helped
hits for its home console, which proved to be a winning to create, Magnavox released the Odyssey2 (Figure 3.6)
formula with consumers (Maher, 2012, para. 2). A in the U.S. during February of 1979 for $179. The system
number of these titles can be seen in Figure 3.4 and 3.5. released in Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000 (among
One of the system’s most notable titles was Adventure other names) and in Brazil as the Philips Odyssey. With
(1979) by Warren Robinett. Adventure was the system’s home computers beginning to gain popularity around
first open world, action-adventure style game and is this time, Magnavox chose to market the Odyssey2 as
often credited as the first video game to include an Easter more of a home computer with marketing phrases such
egg—a secret room containing text that credited as “The Ultimate Computer Video Game System” and
Robinett for the game’s creation. Some of the best action- “A Serious Educational Tool.” To expand upon this
adventure games were developed by Activision, such as image, the Odyssey² came with a full, 49-key computer
Pitfall! (1982) and H.E.R.O. (1984). keyboard and released a programming cartridge called
Two titles known mostly for their failure included Computer Intro!. Eleven other cartridges were available at
Pac-Man and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial from 1982. Pac- launch, many of which contained more than one game as
Man was a disastrous port of the arcade classic. The seen in Table 3.4.
maze layout was nothing like the arcade, the ghosts The original build of the system came with silver joy-
flickered and lacked the original game’s vivid colors, sticks that could be plugged and unplugged from the back
FIGURE 3.6 Magnavox Odyssey2 with built-in membrane keyboard and updated joysticks.
of the unit. Later models (such as the ones with black geons & Dragons and followed a storyline reminiscent
controllers) were hardwired into the rear of the unit. The of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
console’s biggest strength may have been its speech syn- Most of the Odyssey2’s first party games were
thesis unit called “The Voice,” released in the United designed and packaged by Ron Bradford and Steve
States in 1982. This add-on peripheral plugged into the Lehner. A lot of these titles were clones of other more
top of the system and added speech, music, and sound popular games. For instance, Armored Encounter! (1978)
effects enhancement for certain games. Phrases such as looked and played almost identically to Combat. Alien
“Ouch! Help!” could be heard in Smithereens and “You Invaders - Plus! (1980) was a blatant clone of Space
blew it!” in P.T. Barnum’s Acrobats (Cassidy, 2008, p. 16). Invaders; and K.C. Munchkin! (1981) led to a lawsuit
Another achievement the Odyssey² should be from Atari because of its similarities to Pac-Man.
remembered for was pioneering the fusion between While the Atari VCS did not start off with indepen-
board games and video games with its Master Strategy dent or third-party developers, it was the support of
trilogy. These games included The Quest for the Rings companies like Activision, Imagic, and Parker Brothers
(1981), Conquest of the World (1981), and The Great that helped the VCS dominate the second generation with
Wall Street Fortune Hunt (1982). Each title was packed an extensive library of games. Parker Brothers and Imagic
with extended memory, a tabletop game board, and eventually released titles for the Odyssey2, although
various accessories. The games played similar to Dun- many of these games never made it to American shores.
TABLE 3.4 Magnavox Odyssey2 U.S. Launch Titles

• Armored • Football! (Figure 3.7a)
Encounter/Sub • Las Vegas Blackjack!
Chase! • Matchmaker!/Buzzword!/Logix!
• Baseball! • Math-a-Magic!/Echo!
• Bowling!/Basketball! • Speedway! (Figure 3.7b)
• Computer Golf! /Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!
• Cosmic Conflict! • Take the Money and Run!
FIGURE 3.7 Screenshots from Odyssey2 U.S. launch titles (a) Football! and (b) Speedway!
(a) (b)
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: ODYSSEY2 the built-in character set, giving the games a similar
VERSUS ATARI VCS appearance” (Cassidy, 2008, p. 9). Another reason for
similar-looking games was a limited color palette.
Like the Fairchild Channel F, the Odyssey2’s 1.79 MHz While the Odyssey2 was capable of 8 colors on screen,
processor ran faster than the VCS’s 1.19 MHz 6507 its color palette of just 16 total colors was no match for
processor (Table 3.5). It also could display a slightly Atari’s 128 colors. Without the Voice peripheral, the
higher resolution at 160 × 200 pixels, compared to 160 × Odyssey²’s 1-channel of sound was also less capable
192 pixels on Atari’s console. On the other hand, its than Atari’s 2-channel sound chip.
64 bytes of internal RAM, coupled with 128 bytes
of audio/video RAM could not compete with Atari’s
128 bytes of RAM and 4 KB of ROM.
HEAD-TO-HEAD
Furthermore, the Odyssey² had a somewhat limi-
ted ability to generate graphics. It was challenging To compare the graphics and sound between the
(although not impossible) for the Odyssey² to produce Odyssey2 and Atari VCS, check out similar games
released on each console (or watch video clips of them).
custom sprite graphics on the fly. The hardware was
Some popular games for comparisons include Atlantis,
designed with a set of 64 built-in characters which Blockout (Odyssey2) versus Breakout (VCS), Demon
could be used freely by the programmers, so “most Attack, Frogger, Popeye, Q*Bert, and Super Cobra.
Odyssey² games—particularly the early titles—utilize
TABLE 3.5 Magnavox Odyssey2 Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Magnavox/Philips
Release Date: Dec. 1978 (EU), Feb. 1979 (US), Sep. 1982 (JP)
Format: Cartridge
CPU: 8-bit Intel 8048 processor (1.79 MHz)
Memory: 64 bytes RAM & 128 bytes Audio/Video RAM
Colors: 8 colors from a palette of 16
FIGURE 3.8 Magazine advertisement for the Magnavox Odyssey2 from 1981 showing The Quest for the Rings title on the TV
screen and its unique game board below the console.
FIGURE 3.9 Box art to five defining Odyssey² titles including from: (a) Killer Bees!, (b) K.C. Munchkin!, (c) K.C.’s Krazy Chase!,
(d) Pick Axe Pete!, and (e) Turtles!.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
◾ KEY MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY2 TITLES ◾ MATTEL INTELLIVISION

Only “49 cartridges were released in the United States Mattel was founded in 1945 by Harold “Matt” Matson
during Odyssey²’s initial production run. Some car- and Elliot Handler as Mattel Creations. A sponsor of
tridges contained more than one game, so the total the Mickey Mouse Club TV series in 1955, the com-
number of distinct, original U.S. games is closer to 60” pany introduced the Barbie doll in 1959, which became
(Cassidy, 2008, p. 9). There were also quite a few games its best-selling toy. The following year Mattel released
that released exclusively in Europe and Brazil, such as the talking doll Chatty Cathy, pioneering the “pull-
Air Battle, Chinese Logic, Depth Charge/Marksman, string talking doll” industry that popularized the 1960s
Frogger, Labyrinth Game/Supermind, Loony Balloon, and 1970s. The company then purchased Ringling
Morse, The Mousing Cat, Neutron Star, Popeye, Q*bert, Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for $40 million in
Secret of the Pharaohs, and Super Cobra among others. 1971 (Langdon, 1980, para. 15) and launched Mattel
Electronics in 1977 to produce electronic handheld
games.
With its strong brand recognition and success in the
DID YOU KNOW?
handheld game business, Mattel entered the home video
In Europe, Odyssey2 “Videopac” games released by game market with the Intellivision (Figure 3.10),
Philips contained a number that preceded each game title
released nationwide in 1980 for $299.99. For its high
(such as 5. Blackjack and 10. Golf ). These numbers were
added to create consistency and reduce confusion for price tag, consumers received the console, two perma-
games that otherwise appeared to have different titles nently attached controllers, and the pack-in game Las
because they were printed in multiple languages. Vegas Poker & Blackjack. Only a handful of titles were
available at launch (see Table 3.6). Like Atari, Mattel
manufactured a rebranded version of the system for
Many of the top titles for the Odyssey² were released Sears called the Sears Super Video Arcade, as well as a
late in the system’s lifespan, between 1981 and 1983. TandyVision model for Radio Shack stores.
Popular multiplatform titles worth checking out include The Intellivision controllers were innovative in that
Atlantis (1982), Frogger (1982), Q*Bert (1983), and they contained a 12-button numeric keypad in which
Turtles! (1983). And although not all entirely original, laminated overlays could be slid over for specific games.
the Odyssey² did have a number of fun exclusives, Its unique directional disk could be pressed as well as
including K.C. Munchkin! (1981), The Quest for the rotated, allowing for 16 directions of movement. Four
Rings (1981) shown in Figure 3.8, K.C.’s Krazy Chase! action buttons completed the controller (two on each
(1982) seen in Figure 3.9, Pick Axe Pete! (1982), and side); however, the top buttons functioned identically, so
Killer Bees! (1983). there were essentially three distinct action buttons.
FIGURE 3.10 Mattel Intellivision with its controllers that could be stored inside the unit.
TABLE 3.6 Mattel Intellivision U.S. Launch Titles first “console war” when it positioned the Intellivision to
• ABPA Backgammon • The Electric Company Math Fun go head to head with the Atari VCS. It began in 1981
• Armor Battle • Las Vegas Poker & when “Mattel invested $6 million in a national ad cam-
(Figure 3.11a) Blackjack (Figure 3.11b) paign in direct competition to Atari that compared the
graphic power of the Intellivision to the 2600. For the
Intellivision was the world’s first 16-bit home video first time in gaming history, the media was whipped into
game system—and the industry would not see another a frenzy, predicting a bitter war between the two giants”
16-bit console until the fourth generation of video games (Slater, 2008, p. 15). Intellivision TV commercials fea-
in the late 1980s. Mattel is often credited for starting the tured well-known sports journalist George Plimpton
FIGURE 3.11 Intellivision launch titles (a) Armor Battle and (b) Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 3.12 Magazine advertisement for Intellivision with George Plimpton in 1981.
FIGURE 3.13 Failed peripherals: (a) Intellivision keyboard component and (b) Intellivoice adapter.
(a) (b)
(shown in Figure 3.12) using side-by-side comparisons cartridge slot of the console and then games plugged into
to demonstrate Intellivision’s superior graphics and the Intellivoice. Only a handful of games ever utilized the
sound capabilities over Atari’s system. One of the slogans Intellivoice peripheral and it was considered a market
used in their ads was “The closest thing to the real thing.” failure. A sleeker-looking Intellivision II was also
Intellivision promotions also promised a keyboard released in 1982 with detachable controllers.
component add-on unit (Figure 3.13a) in early adver-
tisements, convincing many consumers they would be
able to turn their system into a full-functioning home DID YOU KNOW?
computer. Countless delays led to customer complaints The original Intellivision programming teams’ identities
and Mattel Electronics was eventually investigated by the and work location were kept a closely guarded secret to
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for fraud and false avoid the possibility of competitors snatching them away.
advertising. A rumored 4,000 keyboard components Gabriel Baum, Don Daglow, Rick Levine, Mike Minkoff,
and John Sohl went by the alias Blue Sky Rangers, named
were made but never received a national release. The
after their “Blue Sky” brainstorming sessions.
units that were sold in test markets or mail order were
recalled for technical issues and the product was officially
canceled in the fall of 1982.
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: INTELLIVISION
That same year Mattel released its Intellivoice (Figure VERSUS ATARI VCS AND ODYSSEY2
3.13b) add-on peripheral for around $100. Similar to
The Voice peripheral on Odyssey2, the Intellivoice Compared to the VCS and Odyssey2, which ran at
adapter utilized a voice synthesizer to generate audible 1.19 MHz and 1.79 MHz respectively, the Intellivi-
speech in certain games. The adapter plugged into the sion’s 894.89 kHz CPU (Table 3.7) was relatively
TABLE 3.7 Mattel Intellivision Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Mattel Electronics
Release Date: 1980 (US), 1981-82 (EU), 1982 (JP)
Format: Cartridge
CPU: 16-bit General Instrument
CP1610 (894.89 kHz)
Memory: 1456 bytes RAM & 7168 bytes ROM
Colors: 16 from a palette of 16
slow—clocking in at approximately half the speed of ◾ KEY INTELLIVISION TITLES

the Odyssey2. On the other hand, being 16-bit meant
Intellivision could process more information, such as Intellivision may have been best known for its impressive
more on-screen objects. The Intellivision also surpassed lineup of sports titles. Mattel went out of their way to
the competition with its internal memory of 1456 bytes acquire licenses for every sports-related game they
RAM and 7168 bytes (7.168 KB) ROM—compared to manufactured, “from the American Backgammon
Atari’s 128 bytes RAM and 4 KB ROM and Odyssey2’s Players Association to the U.S. Chess Federation, to
4 bytes RAM with 128 bytes A/V RAM. The console’s Major League Baseball” (Nilsen, 2001, p. 195). Beyond
192 × 160 pixels screen resolution was about equal to sports games, Utopia (1981) by Don Daglow is often
Atari’s 160 × 192 pixels and the 160 × 200 resolution of regarded as one of the first city building/god games
the Odyssey2. which helped pave the way for the real-time strategy
Like Odyssey2, Intellivision only had a color palette of genre.
16 colors to work with. However, it could display all 16 For role-playing game fans, Intellivision was the only
colors on screen, compared to 8 on the Odyssey2 and console to offer Advanced Dungeons & Dragons video
only 4 colors per scan line on the Atari VCS. Lastly, games at that time. Several impressive exclusive titles on
Intellivision came up ahead in the sound department the system included Imagic’s Dracula (1982), Activi-
with 3 channels of sound—compared to 2 channels on sion’s Worm Whomper (1983), and a late, unofficial
the VCS and only 1 channel sound on the Odyssey2. sequel to BurgerTime (in Figure 3.14) called Diner in
Between Mattel and Atari, “Intellivision had a newer and 1987.
more powerful CPU than VCS, slightly more memory, While not nearly as deficient as the Odyssey2, the
and played better-looking games” (Kent, 2001, p. 195). Intellivision library did not contain as many licensed
Intellivision may have had better graphics and sound, arcade titles compared to the VCS. Mattel eventually
but the Atari VCS was more adept at handling action obtained arcade ports such as Pac-Man and Donkey
games due to its faster processor. Kong, but these came out many months after they had
already been available on competing systems. Approxi-
mately 125 games were released for the Intellivision
HEAD-TO-HEAD console, compared to well over 400 games on Atari’s
To compare the graphics and sound between the system.
Intellivision and VCS, try similar games released on each
system (or view clips of them). Popular games to compare ◾ COLECOVISION
include Night Stalker (Intellivision) versus Dark Cavern
(VCS), NFL Football (Intellivision) versus Realsports Appearing late in what would eventually be known as the
Football (VCS), River Raid, Demon Attack, and
second generation of video games was Coleco’s follow-
BurgerTime.
up to its Telstar series—ColecoVision (Figure 3.15).
FIGURE 3.14 Box art to five popular Intellivision titles including from (a) Lock ‘N’ Chase, (b) Astrosmash, (c) Night Stalker,
(d) Bump ‘n’ Jump, and (e) BurgerTime.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

FIGURE 3.15 ColecoVision video game console with two joystick controllers.
Released in August of 1982, “ColecoVision generally Mattel’s lead by placing action buttons on each side of
sold for $195. By this time, Atari had cut the price of the controllers.
the VCS to $135” (Kent, 2001, p. 207). To compete with Atari had well over 100 VCS titles when ColecoVision
the pre-established consoles on the market, Coleco launched in 1982. As a way to superficially inflate the
secured exclusive rights to reproduce Nintendo’s arcade number of games the ColecoVision could play (and
classic Donkey Kong game, including a tabletop version possibly to give VCS owners a reason to replace their
and a cartridge which came bundled with every Atari systems with a ColecoVision), Michael Katz and
ColecoVision system. Coleco maintained the rights to a his marketing team developed an adapter known as
home version of Donkey Kong beyond the holiday season Expansion Module #1. This add-on peripheral (shown
and sold an estimated 500,000 by that Christmas in Figure 3.17) allowed the ColecoVision to play almost
(Businessweek, 1983, p. 31). Twelve games were available all of Atari’s VCS games—giving it the largest library of
at launch, including a number of arcade ports such as game titles at that time. Atari was unable to take legal
Exidy’s Venture, along with Turbo and Zaxxon by Sega action against Coleco since the VCS did not contain any
(Table 3.8). patented parts.
If the name “ColecoVision” didn’t sound enough like The second ColecoVision peripheral called Expan-
“Intellivision,” one look at the console and the influence sion Module #2 was a steering wheel (Figure 3.17)
is obvious. Not only did Coleco design the body of the and gas pedal controller. The package came bundled
system with spare room to store two controllers, but with a port for Sega’s popular Turbo arcade game and
the controllers themselves were remarkably similar to was compatible with a few other games. Expansion
Intellivision’s. Aside from reversing the location of the Module #3 was a console that the ColecoVision sys-
directional stick, each controller included a 12-button tem plugged directly into to create a piecemeal version
numeric keypad that (like Intellivision’s controller) of Coleco’s Adam computer. The device included a
could be fitted with plastic overlays. Coleco also followed separate keyboard, digital data pack (DDP) cassette
TABLE 3.8 ColecoVision U.S. Launch Titles

• Carnival • Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel’s Castle
• Cosmic Avenger • Space Fury
• Donkey Kong (Figure 3.16a) • Space Panic
• Ken Uston’s Blackjack/Poker • Turbo
• Lady Bug • Venture
• Mouse Trap • Zaxxon (Figure 3.16b)
FIGURE 3.16 Screenshots from ColecoVision U.S. launch titles (a) Donkey Kong and (b) Zaxxon.
(a) (b)
drives, and a printer. Similar to Intellevision’s computer ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: COLECOVISION

add on, Expansion Module #3 suffered from production VERSUS ATARI VCS AND INTELLIVISION
problems and like the standalone Adam computer—was
considered a commercial failure. By the time ColecoVision was manufactured, “the price of
Other peripherals included the Roller Controller technology had come down so much that Coleco could
trackball which came bundled with a Centipede clone afford a chip with the memory mapping and frame
called Slither, and the Super Action Controller Set buffers that Atari left out of Stella, the processing chip in the
(Figure 3.17) which included two fist-grip joysticks and Video Computer System. These added features gave the
the game Super Action Baseball. The top side of the ColecoVision smoother animation and more arcade-like
Super Action controllers included a 12-function keypad, graphics than the Intellivision and the VCS” (Kent, 2001,
8-direction joystick, and a two-directional dial called p. 206). Engineered by Eric Bromley, its top-of-the-line
the “speed roller.” The handle contained four action graphics could be credited to its 3.58 MHz Zilog Z80A
buttons mounted in the grip (one for each finger). Like the CPU by NEC, in addition to a TMS9928A video display
steering wheel, the Roller Controller and Super Action processor by Texas Instruments (Table 3.9). Its Zilog
Controller Set were only compatible with a small number Z80A ran twice as fast as the Intellivision processor and
of titles. three times faster than the VCS.
FIGURE 3.17 ColecoVision VCS (a) adapter, (b) steering wheel, and (c) Super Action Controller.
(a) (b) (c)

TABLE 3.9 ColecoVision Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Coleco
Launch Price: $195
Release Date: August 1982
Format: Cartridge
CPU: 8-bit NEC Zilog Z80 A (3.58 MHz)
Memory: 1 KB RAM, 16 KB Video RAM &
8 KB ROM
Sound: 4 channel (3-tone, 1-noise)
Texas Instr. SN76489AN
For internal memory, ColecoVision’s 1 KB RAM and altogether, such as in Donkey Kong and Frogger. Perhaps
8 KB ROM was about equal to Intellivision’s 1.46 KB RAM the biggest weakness of the ColecoVision was that most
and 7.17 KB ROM; however, its 16 KB Video RAM gave of its games took about 12 seconds to boot up.
its graphics an instantly recognizable edge. Atari’s 128 bytes
RAM and 4 KB ROM landed the VCS in a distant third
place for memory. ColecoVision also led the pack in HEAD-TO-HEAD
screen resolution with 256 × 192 pixels—compared to To compare the graphics and sound between the
Intellivision’s 192 × 160 and Atari’s 160 × 192 pixels. ColecoVision, Intellivision, and Atari VCS, check out
Color capability was a tie with Intellivision, featuring up games released on all three consoles (or watch video
clips of them). Some popular games for comparisons
to 16 on screen colors from a color palette of 16 colors.
include Centipede, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Pitfall!, River
ColecoVision’s sound was superior to Intellivi- Raid, Q*Bert, and Zaxxon.
sion and the Atari VCS with its Texas Instruments
SN76489AN sound card generating 3 channels of tone
and one for noise. In comparing the consoles’ sound, ◾ KEY COLECOVISION TITLES
ColecoVision games typically sounded richer and fuller,
containing not only better sound—but more of it. Games One of the biggest challenges for ColecoVision in the
that appeared on all three consoles sometimes contained beginning was that it did not have nearly as many games
musical scores that Mattel and Atari’s games lacked as its competitors who had been on the market for years.
FIGURE 3.18 Box art to five defining ColecoVision titles including from (a) Turbo, (b) Antarctic Adventure, (c) Donkey Kong
Junior, (d) Jumpman Junior, and (e) Venture.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

FIGURE 3.19 Two-page magazine advertisement for ColecoVision from 1982.
“Coleco did not have enough money to compete with the system could play with the Expansion Module
Atari for big licenses, but Coleco’s marketers had a knack #1 adapter, which more than doubled that total amount.
for selecting small games with strong followings. Coleco One interesting business strategy by Michael Katz and
secured licenses for Mr. Do, Lady Bug, Cosmic Avenger, Coleco included manufacturing game cartridges for
and Venture” (Kent, 2001, p. 207). Other great arcade both the VCS and Intellivision—including Donkey Kong
games included ports of Sega’s Turbo and Zaxxon, the year after it released on ColecoVision. Atarisoft
Exidy’s Mouse Trap, and Antarctic Adventure from also made a handful of games for the ColecoVision,
Konami to name a few. including Centipede, Defender, Galaxian, and Jungle
In addition to Konami and Sega, Coleco received a Hunt.
healthy amount of third-party support with multiple
games from top publishers such as Activision, Epyx,
Imagic, Parker Brothers, and Sierra Entertainment. One
DID YOU KNOW?
key title not to be overlooked was Jumpman Jr. from
Epyx (in Figure 3.18). “It may not be the most jaw- Motion picture company Universal/MCA demanded
dropping-looking ColecoVision title, but in terms of royalties from Coleco and Nintendo—claiming Donkey
Kong (seen in Figure 3.19) violated copyrights related to
gameplay it’s virtually unmatched and a must for plat-
its King Kong movie. Nintendo disagreed and was sued
form fans” (McFerran, 2010, p. 99). by Universal in 1982. King Kong was over 40 years old,
Approximately 145 cartridges were manufactured so the character was deemed public domain. Nintendo
for the ColecoVision between 1982 and 1984 (Foster, won the case.
2005, p. 50). This did not include all the VCS games
◾ ATARI 5200 TABLE 3.10 Atari 5200 U.S. Launch Titles

• Galaxian • Space Invaders
The Atari 5200 (Figure 3.20) was often marketed as the
• Pac-Man (Figure 3.21a) • Super Breakout (Figure 3.21b)
Atari 5200 “SuperSystem”) released just three months
after the ColecoVision in November of 1982 for a higher
price tag of $269. The system was originally developed to There were several innovations the 5200 introduced
compete with the Intellivision, but ultimately ended up to the home console market in 1982. In place of
in competition with the ColecoVision (Herman, 2003). the manual TV/Game radio frequency (RF) switch of
In retrospect, the systems are considered part of the previous consoles, the 5200 included an automatic
same generation; however, at that time the 5200 and switchbox where the system would automatically
ColecoVision were basically seen as sole competitors in a switch from a regular TV signal to the game system
new phase of the video game market. signal when the console was turned on. The original
Under the hood, “the Atari 5200 had the same pro- 5200 model contained four controller ports (jacks),
cessor as the Atari 400 home computer” (Kent, 2001, along with start, pause, and reset buttons on the
p. 229) but retailed for much less. Around a dozen games controllers. Following in the footsteps of Intelli-
had been produced for the system, but only four were vision and ColecoVision, the 5200 controller also
available at launch, (Table 3.10) including the pack-in came with a 12-button numeric keypad that over-
title Super Breakout. Super Breakout hit the arcades in lays could be snapped on top of for certain games. It
1978 and was ported to the VCS four years earlier, so it also featured four action buttons (two on each side)
appeared quite dated compared to Donkey Kong on similar to the controllers for Intellivison.
ColecoVision. Atari eventually replaced the game with As state-of-the-art as these features were, the controllers
Pac-Man as the title bundled with the console. themselves are often regarded as one of the biggest missteps
Game cartridges were nearly twice the size of of the 5200. The major problem was that the 360-degree
VCS cartridges; however, the 5200 was not backward joystick did not center itself. This made playing most
compatible with 2600 games. Instead, Atari marketed games much more difficult than necessary. Atari’s engi-
both consoles simultaneously, rebranding the VCS as neering team was aware of this and even filed a petition to
the Atari 2600. Atari continued to support and have the system dropped until new controllers were
manufacture games for the 2600, while the 5200 was designed—however Ray Kassar ignored their request and
seen as a more advanced alternative for serious gamers. moved forward with manufacturing (Kent, 2001, p. 229).
A 2600 adapter (shown in Figure 3.22) was eventually An updated version of the console was released in 1983,
released, but it only worked with newer versions of the but it did not address the joystick issue. Instead, the
5200 console and lacked the VCS’s color/black and newer model was reduced to two controller ports instead
white function. of four and replaced the convenient, automatic
FIGURE 3.20 Atari 5200 with its four controller ports and joystick controller.
FIGURE 3.21 Screenshots from Atari 5200 U.S. launch titles (a) Pac-Man and (b) Super Breakout.
(a) (b)
switchbox with a manual RF switch. At least a solid Trak- Instruments SN76489AN sound card inside the
Ball controller was released for games like Missile ColecoVision.
Command and Centipede. Atari’s system had a higher resolution at 320 × 192
pixels, compared to 256 × 192 pixels on ColecoVision.
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: ATARI 5200 Both consoles could display up to 16 colors on screen,
VERSUS COLECOVISION but the 5200 had the superior color palette with
256 colors to choose from, compared to Coleco’s 16 total
Atari’s custom version of the MOS Technology 6502 colors. Each system handled colors and sprites differ-
(known as SALLY) had the ability to be halted in order ently, making a difficult comparison there—but overall
for other devices to control the bus (data path). It also the Atari 5200 was a slightly more powerful machine.
included multiple co-processors to assist the CPU. Two
custom graphics chips included ANTIC (Alphanumeric
Television Interface Controller) and GTIA (Graphic HEAD-TO-HEAD
Television Interface Adaptor) (Table 3.11). The 5200’s To compare the graphics and sound between the Atari
sound was driven by the 4 channel POKEY (Pot Key- 5200 and ColecoVision, check out games released on
board Integrated Circuit) sound chip. each console (or watch clips of them). Some popular
Compared to ColecoVision’s specs, the 5200’s 1.79 MHz games to compare include Congo Bongo, Frogger, Jungle
Hunt, Mr. Do’s Castle, and Pac-Man.
processor appears to be only half as fast as ColecoVision’s
3.58 MHz Zilog Z80A CPU. However, while “the Z80 runs
faster than the 6502,the latter can do more operations
per clock cycle (effectively 2 to 1), so, they are more or less TABLE 3.11 Atari 5200 Tech Specs
equal” (Molyneaux & Horton, 2016, para. 15). Manufacturer: Atari, Inc.
The 5200’s internal memory of 16 KB RAM was Launch Price: $269.99
comparable to ColecoVision’s combined 1 KB and 16 KB Release Date: November 1982
Video RAM, but featured four times the ROM with Format: Cartridge
32 KB versus 8 KB for Coleco’s system. Larger cartridge CPU: 8-bit MOS custom
size didn’t necessarily equal better graphics, but it did SALLY 6502C (1.79 MHz)
allow room for high quality sounds such as digitized Memory: 16 KB RAM, 2 KB BIOS,
speech to be included in Atari 5200 cartridges as heard in 32 KB ROM window for games
Berzerk and RealSports Baseball (1983). The 5200’s Resolution: 320 × 192 pixels
4 channel POKEY sound chip produced excellent Colors: 16 colors from a palette of 256
sound for its time and was about equal to the Texas Sound: 4 channel sound POKEY chip
FIGURE 3.22 Magazine advertisement for the Atari 5200 and its peripherals from 1983.
◾ KEY ATARI 5200 TITLES worth more than $3 billion on its own was estimated to
have fallen to just $100 million” (Lambie, 2013, para. 2).
A lot of the games released on the 5200 were simply One of the main reasons the market crashed in
upgraded versions of 2600 titles with better graphics North America was too many consoles (see Figure 3.24)
and sound. Of course, the 5200 version of Pac-Man was and poorly made games flooding the market. Atari’s
leagues above the abysmal 2600 version, but other games Pac-Man and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial were just
only looked marginally better and many consumers the tip of the iceberg of countless poorly made games
weren’t interested in repurchasing slightly enhanced (often called “shovelware”) by independent devel-
updates of games they already owned. Well over half of opers looking to get a piece of the pie. Third-party
the 69 games officially released for the 5200 were also development was also a fairly new business back then,
available on the 2600. Notable titles that were clearly and hardware manufacturers like Atari had not yet
superior on the 5200 included Missile Command (1982), developed a means for licensing and quality control.
Centipede (1982) (Figure 3.22), Defender (1983), Joust Other reasons for the crash included competition from
(1983), Realsports Baseball (1983), Gyruss (1984), and home computers, as well as inflation.
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (1984).
While the console did not have a lot of exclusive titles,
it did receive the only home port of the Taito arcade DID YOU KNOW?
game Space Dungeon (shown in Figure 3.23) in 1983.
The Fairchild Channel F was originally launched as the
Like many older consoles, the 5200 had many interesting “Video Entertainment System” or VES, but was renamed
titles developed for it long after its initial lifespan. Games the “Fairchild Channel F” when Atari released their
worth checking out that were released after the turn of similarly titled “VCS” the following year. Vectrex was the
the century include Millipede (2002), Koffi: Yellow Kopter last system released in the second generation and came
(2002), BurgerTime clone Beef Drop (2004), Adventure II with its own monochrome vector monitor.
(2007), and Sinistar (2010).
◾ VIDEO GAME CRASH OF 1983 ◾ SECOND-GENERATION

MARKET SUMMARY
The second generation video game market is well known
for what is commonly referred to as the North American As illustrated in Figure 3.25, the Atari VCS/2600 dom-
Video Game Crash of 1983. Total revenues from U.S. inated the second generation by a landslide—eventually
video arcades and the home video game market had grown selling over 30 million units. Its success could be
to around $11.8 billion at its peak. This fell by approxi- attributed to acquiring key arcade titles like Space
mately 97% by 1985 when the “console industry that was Invaders and Missile Command, strong third-party
FIGURE 3.23 Box art to five defining Atari 5200 titles including from (a) Berzerk, (b) Ms. Pac-Man, (c) Montezuma’s Revenge,
(d) Robotron: 2084, and (e) Space Dungeon.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

FIGURE 3.24 A look at the many less-popular consoles of the second generation.
Fair Channel VES/F 1292 Advanced Programmble RCA Studio II

November 1976 Video System 1976 (Europe) January 1977
Bally Astrocade APF Microcomputer System Interton VC 4000

October 1977–1978 (MP1000) January 1978 1978 (Germany)
Epoch Cassette Vision Emerson Arcadia 2001 Vectrex

July 1981 (Japan) 1982 November 1982
support by companies like Activision, Imagic, and it competitive over the long run” (Edwards, 2012, para.
Parker Brothers, as well as plenty of support from 17). As a matter of fact, no third-party game was even
Warner Communications—even after the release of the developed for the Odyssey² in the United States until
5200. Ironically, it was Atari’s poorly made licensed Imagic’s Demon Attack in 1983 (Katz & Kunkel, 1983,
games, too many third-party and independent develop- p. 40). By then the market had begun to crash, but not
ers, along with supporting the 2600 simultaneously with before over 1 million Odyssey² units were sold in the
the 5200 that contributed to the North American video United States alone.
game crash of 1983. At one point, Intellivision captured approximately 20%
The Odyssey2 sold moderately well in the United of the market. And “despite being twice as expensive as the
States and quite well in Europe and Brazil where it was 2600, the Intellivision sold over 850,000 units [in 1981]. In
marketed and branded under parent Dutch electronics what was to be Intellivision’s finest hour in an industry
company Philips. It was among the top three consoles [then] valued at $1.5 billion, Mattel announced a stag-
leading into 1982, although a distant third after the Atari gering $100,000,000 profit in 1982” (Slater, 2008, p. 15).
VCS/2600 and Mattel’s Intellivision. “It boasted more When the market began to crash in 1983, Mattel
CPU intelligence than the Atari 2600, but it lacked the sold Intellivision to Senior Vice President of Market-
licensed arcade titles and third-party developers to make ing Terrence Valeski who formed Intellivision Inc.
FIGURE 3.25 Second generation console sales graph.
Publisher Approximate worldwide sales (in millions)
Atari VCS 30 million
Odyssey2 2 million
Intellivision 3 million
ColecoVision > 2 million
Atari 5200 1 million
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
(later INTV Corporation). While it did not win the The Atari 5200 sold approximately 1 million units,
console war with Atari, Intellivision was the only console but was never officially sold outside of North America.
of the second generation to be continuously manufactured Besides its lack of original titles and abysmal, non-
and supported with new games well after the video game centering joysticks, the console’s failure can also be
crash of 1983 (Robinson, 2003). attributed to Atari splitting its development and marketing
The last major consoles released in 1982 may have been resources between the 2600 and the 5200—rather than
the biggest victims of the video game crash. Mattel’s putting all its eggs in one basket. Between this, its failings
ColecoVision sold well over 1 million units by mid-1983 with Pac-Man and E.T., and an oversaturation of systems
(Johnson, 1983, para. 13) and more than 2 million units by and games on the video game market, “by the end of 1983,
the end of 1984. Between it and the 5200, the ColecoVision Atari had racked up $536 million in losses. Warner
was the better selling system. However, with all its losses Communications sold the company the following year”
from the video game crash, Coleco officially dropped out of (Kent, 2001, p. 240). Stores began liquidating their inven-
the home console market in October 1985. Had the market tory of games and consoles and many retailers discontin-
not crashed, Coleco may have remained a major player in ued the sale of video game systems altogether.
the following generation of video games.
◾ SECOND GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS
There were many breakthroughs and trends that defined the second generation of video games. Here is a list of the
top 10 features that defined the generation:
1. Microprocessor-driven game logic

2. Interchangeable ROM cartridges for an unlimited number of games
3. Computer simulated opponents (artificial intelligence or AI) for single-player games
4. 12-button numeric keypad controllers with game-specific overlays
5. Non-scrolling, single screen playfields (most games)
6. Multi-screen playfields spanning multiple screen areas (some games)
7. Blocky, simple sprites with screen resolutions up to 320 × 192 pixels
8. Color graphics, normally between 2 and 16 simultaneous colors on screen
9. Multiple audio channels (up to four)
10. Digitized speech in games like P.T. Barnum’s Acrobats and Berzerk
◾ ACTIVITY: FAILED CONSOLES REPORT AND PRESENTATION

Choose a second-generation console that sold less than 1 million units and develop a report and presentation on
the history, business, and technology of that system. Be sure to include: (1) the publisher’s goals, (2) how
the system was marketed, (3) technical specifications and notable game titles, (4) why the system failed, and
(5) [conclusion] what might have saved the console from its demise.
The report should contain three main points and a minimum of two quotes which are to be paraphrased or
cited verbally in the speech. The recommended total presentation length is 3:30–4:30 minutes, not to exceed
5 minutes total.
CONSOLE SUGGESTIONS
Suggested consoles to report on include: Fairchild Channel VES/F (November 1976), 1292 Advanced Pro-
grammable Video System (1976, Europe), RCA Studio II (January 1977), Bally Astrocade (October 1977–1978),
APF Microcomputer System [MP1000] (January 1978), Interton VC 4000 (1978, Germany), Epoch Cassette
Vision (July 1981, Japan), Emerson Arcadia 2001 (1982), or Vectrex (November 1982).
◾ CHAPTER 3 QUIZ 5. Who took over as the president & CEO of Atari Inc.
in 1978?
1. Part of the success of Space Invaders can be attrib- a. Ray Kassar
uted to the popularity of: b. Ralph Baer
a. Asteroids c. Willy Higinbotham
b. Star Wars d. Steve Russell
c. Star Trek
d. Roswell 6. Upon leaving Atari, Nolan Bushnell bought back the
rights and grew what franchise?
2. Credited as the first mascot and/or iconic arcade a. Pizza Hut
video game character: b. Ground Round
a. Daisy c. Chuck E. Cheese’s
b. Pac-Man d. Dave and Busters
c. Donkey Kong
d. Marios 7. This company was the first independent developer
and distributor of console games:
3. The lead character in Super Mario Bros. first a. Electronic Arts
appeared in which game? b. Intellivison
a. Popeye c. Activision
b. Mario Bros. d. Nintendo
c. Donkey Kong
d. Defender 8. Often credited as the first video game to include an
“Easter egg”:
4. The Atari 2600 was originally called the VCS, which a. Warren Robinett’s Adventure
stood for: b. Howard Scott Warshaw’s Raiders of the Lost Ark
a. Video Console System c. Kazunori Sawano’s Galaxian
b. Vector Computer System d. Toru Iwatani’s Pole Position
c. Video Computer System
d. Video Cartridge System
9. Two poorly received games produced by Atari that 15. The original Intellivision programming team mem-
damaged the company’s reputation: bers’ whose identities and work location were kept
a. Space Invaders and Asteroids a closely guarded secret became known as the:
b. Asteroids and Pac-Man a. Blue Sky Rangers
c. Defender and E.T. b. Red Hawks
d. E.T. and Pac-Man c. Intellivisionaries
d. Programmers Undercover
10. Which second generation console included a full,
49-key computer keyboard and released a pro- 16. One of this console’s successes was securing exclu-
gramming cartridge called Computer Intro! sive rights to reproduce Nintendo’s arcade classic
a. Fairchild F Donkey Kong game and bundling it with every
b. Atari VCS system:
c. Oddessy² a. Odyssey²
d. Intellivision b. Intellivision
c. ColecoVision
11. These consoles offered add-on peripherals that d. Atari 5200
added speech effects to certain games:
a. Atari VCS and Oddessy² 17. The first console to develop an adapter to play Atari
b. Oddessy² and Intellivision VCS games:
c. Intellivision and ColecoVision a. Odyssey²
d. ColecoVision and Atari 5200 b. Intellivision
c. ColecoVision
12. This second-generation console was the world’s first d. Atari 5200
16-bit home video game system:
a. Atari VCS 18. The original version of this console contained four
b. Odyssey² controller ports (jacks), along with start, pause, and
c. Intellivision reset buttons on its controllers:
d. ColecoVision a. Odyssey²
b. Intellivision
13. Which of the following consoles did not have con- c. ColecoVision
trollers with 12-button numeric keypads? d. Atari 5200
a. Odyssey²
b. Intellivision 19. In what year was the video game crash in the United
c. ColecoVision States?
d. Atari 5200 a. 1978
b. 1980
14. The well-known sports journalist hired for Intel- c. 1983
livision’s advertisements comparing their games to d. 1986
Atari’s VCS games:
a. Harold “Matt” Matson 20. Which one of the following is not a cause of the
b. Elliot Handler video game crash?
c. George Plimpton a. Floods of new consoles
d. George Harrison b. Renewed interest in going to the movies
c. Growing number of home computers
d. Poorly made games by smaller companies
True or False FIGURE 3.6 Magnavox Odyssey2 with built-in membrane key-
board and updated joysticks. (Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
21. Activision was formed by a group of underpaid, Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
underappreciated Apple employees. =17722734. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia
/commons/2/2d/Magnavox-Odyssey-2-Console-Set.jpg. The Magnavox
22. Only 49 cartridges were released in the United Odyssey2, the 1978 follow up to original 1974 release of the Magnavox
States during Odyssey²’s initial production run. Odyssey. The console features two controllers that are wired directly
into the system.)
23. A sleeker version of the Intellivision called

“Intellivision Plus” released in 1982. FIGURE 3.7 Screenshots from Odyssey2 U.S. launch titles (a) Foot-
ball! (Magnavox, 1978) and (b) Speedway! (Courtesy of Magnavox,
1978.)
24. Motion picture company Paramount/MCA
demanded royalties from Coleco and Nintendo—
claiming Popeye violated copyrights related to its FIGURE 3.8 Magazine advertisement for the Magnavox Odyssey2
from 1981 showing The Quest for the Rings (Magnavox, 1981) title
intellectual property.
on the TV monitor and its unique game board below. (From Benj
Edwards, May 11, 2012. Available at http://www.vintagecomputing
25. Vectrex was the last system released in the second
.com/index.php/tag/Magnavox and http://www.vintagecomputing
generation and came with its own monochrome .com/wp-content/images/retroscan/odyssey2_characters_large.jpg.
vector monitor. Retro Scan of the Week. The Magnavox Odyssey 2, from TIME,
November 2, 1981, p.24.)
◾ FIGURES
FIGURE 3.1 Screenshots of defining arcade games from the Golden FIGURE 3.9 Box art to five defining Odyssey² titles including from:
age: (a) Space Invaders (Taito, 1978), (b) Galaxian (Namco, 1979), (a) Killer Bees! (Magnavox, 1983), (b) K.C. Munchkin! (Magnavox,
(c) Pac-Man (Namco, 1980), and (d) Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1981). 1981), (c) K.C.’s Krazy Chase! (Magnavox, 1982), (d) Pick Axe Pete!
(Magnavox, 1982), and (e) Turtles! (Magnavox, 1983). (Killer Bees!,
courtesy of Magnavox, 1983; K.C. Munchkin!, courtesy of Magnavox,
FIGURE 3.2 Atari VCS, often called “The Atari” with standard,
1981; K.C.’s Krazy Chase!, courtesy of Magnavox, 1982; Pick Axe
digital joystick controller. (Evan-Amos - own work, public domain.
Pete!, courtesy of Magnavox, 1982; and Turtles!, courtesy of
Magnavox, 1983.)
=14517499. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia
/commons/b/b9/Atari-2600-Wood-4Sw-Set.jpg. An Atari 2600 four-
switch “wood veneer” version, dating from 1980 to 1982. Shown FIGURE 3.10 Mattel Intellivision with its unique controllers that
with standard joystick.) could be stored on top. (Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
FIGURE 3.3 Screenshots from Atari VCS launch titles (a) Air-Sea =17891257. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia
Battle (Atari, 1977) (b) Combat. (Courtesy of Atari, 1977.) /commons/6/66/Intellivision-Console-Set.jpg. The Intellivision, a
2nd generation video game console released by Mattel in 1979.)
FIGURE 3.4 Magazine advertisement for the Atari Video Computer

System in 1981. (“Ads - Missile Command”. Retrieved from http:// FIGURE 3.11 Intellivision launch titles (a) Armor Battle (Mattel,
www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-missile-command 1979) and (b) Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack (Mattel, 1979). (Courtesy
_s6870.html and http://www.atarimania.com/pubs/hi_res/pub_no of Mattel, 1979. Uploaded by Scott Decker. Retrieved from http://
_comparing_2.jpg) www.scottdecker.com/video_games/intellivision_armor_battle_screen
_2.jpg and http://www.scottdecker.com/video_games/intellivision_las
_vegas_poker_and_blackjack.html)
FIGURE 3.5 Box art to five of the best VCS titles including from:
(a) Adventure (Atari, 1979), (b) Space Invaders (Atari, 1988), (c) River
Raid (Activision, 1982), (d) Yars’ Revenge (Atari, 1982), and (e) Pitfall FIGURE 3.12 Magazine advertisement for Intellivision with George
II: Lost Caverns (Activision, 1983). (Adventure, courtesy of Atari, Plimpton in 1981. (Retrieved from http://www.intellivisionbrasil
1979; Space Invaders, courtesy of Atari, 1988; River Raid, courtesy of .com/.%5Cimagens%5Cadvertising%5CIntellivision-Atari5.jpg)
Activision, 1982; Yars“ Revenge, courtesy of Atari, 1982; and Pitfall II:
Lost Caverns, courtesy of Activision, 1983.)
FIGURE 3.13 Failed peripherals: (a) Intellivision keyboard com- FIGURE 3.20 Atari 5200 with its four controller ports and joystick
ponent and (b) Intellivoice adapter. ((a) “Skel” (Derek McDonald). controller. (Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, public domain.
Sources of research: Wikipedia, The Dot Eaters, Emperor Multimedia Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
Electronic Archives. Retrieved from http://www.old-computers.com =35179017. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia
/museum/description/mattel/intellivision/component-keyboard_s /commons/a/a0/Atari-5200-4-Port-wController-L.jpg)
.jpg. (b) Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid FIGURE 3.21 Screenshots from Atari 5200 U.S. launch titles Pac-
=18874849) Man (Atari, 1982). (Retrieved from http://www.atarimania.com
/5200/screens/super_breakout_3.gif and http://www.atarimania.com
FIGURE 3.14 Box art to five popular Intellivision titles including /5200/screens/pacman_3.gif)
from: (a) Lock ‘N’ Chase (Mattel, 1982), (b) Astrosmash (Mattel,
1981), (c) Night Stalker (Mattel, 1982), (d) Bump ‘n’ Jump (Mattel, FIGURE 3.22 Magazine advertisement for the Atari 5200 and its
1983), and (e) BurgerTime (Mattel, 1982). (Lock ‘N’ Chase courtesy of peripherals from 1983. (Retrieved from http://www.atarimania.com
Mattel, 1982; Astrosmash courtesy of Mattel, 1981; Night Stalker /pubs/hi_res/pub_here_s_what.jpg)
courtesy of Mattel, 1982; Bump ‘n’ Jump courtesy of Mattel, 1983; and
BurgerTime courtesy of Mattel, 1982.)
FIGURE 3.23 Box art to five defining Atari 5200 titles including
from: (a) Berzerk (Atari, 1983), (b) Ms. Pac Man (Atari, 1983),
FIGURE 3.15 ColecoVision video game console with two joystick (c) Montezuma’s Revenge: Featuring Panama Joe (Parker Brothers,
controllers. (Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, public domain, “A 1983), (d) Robotron: 2084 (Atari, 1983), (e) and Space Dungeon
ColecoVision unit”. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w (Atari, 1983). (Berzerk courtesy of Atari, 1983; Ms. Pac Man courtesy
/index.php?curid=11421149. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia of Atari, 1983; Montezuma’s Revenge: Featuring Panama Joe courtesy
.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/ColecoVision-wController-L.jpg) of Parker Brothers, 1983; Robotron: 2084 courtesy of Atari, 1983; and
Space Dungeon courtesy of Atari, 1983.)
FIGURE 3.16 Screenshots from ColecoVision U.S. launch titles
(a) Donkey Kong (Coleco, 1982) and (b) Zaxxon (Coleco, 1982). FIGURE 3.24 A look at the many less-popular consoles of the
(Courtesy of Coleco, 1982.) second generation. (Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA
FIGURE 3.17 ColecoVision VCS (a) adapter, (b) steering wheel, =18291554 Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia
and (c) Super Action controller. ((a) Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own /commons/3/34/Fairchild-Channel-F.jpg “The Acetronic MPU 1000,
work, public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w a video game console that was a part of the 1292 Advanced Pro-
/index.php?curid=34985653. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org grammable Video System family.” By Evan-Amos - Own work,
/wiki/ColecoVision#/media/File:ColecoVision-ExpMod1-Attached CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
.jpg. The Expansion Module #1 allowed the ColecoVision to play any =18312810 Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia
game from the Atari 2600. (b) Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, /commons/8/88/Acetronic-MPU-1000.png “The RCA Studio II, a
public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index video game console by RCA introduced in 1977.” By Evan-Amos -
.php?curid=34986721. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w
/ColecoVision#/media/File:ColecoVision-Expansion2.jpg. The Expan- /index.php?curid=38826714 Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia
sion Module #2 was a steering wheel for racing games. (c) Retrieved .org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/RCA-Studio-II-FL.jpg “The Bally
from http://cvaddict.com/images/articles/colecovision-super-action Professional Arcade, one of the many names of a 2nd generation
-controller.png and modified by Wardyga.) video game console released by Bally in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.”
By Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons
FIGURE 3.18 Box art to five defining ColecoVision titles including .wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18260687 Retrieved from https://
from: (a) Turbo (Coleco, 1982), (b) Antarctic Adventure (Konami, upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Bally-Arcade
1984), (c) Donkey Kong Junior (Coleco, 1983), (d) Jumpman Junior -Console.jpg “The APF MP1000 (some are also labeled the M1000),
(Epyx, 1983), and (e) Venture (Coleco, 1982). (Turbo courtesy of a video game console released by APF Electronics in 1978.” By Evan-
Coleco, 1982; Antarctic Adventure courtesy of Konami, 1984; Donkey Amos - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia
Kong Junior courtesy of Coleco, 1983; Jumpman Junior courtesy of .org/w/index.php?curid=45579767 Retrieved from https://upload
Epyx, 1983; and Venture courtesy of Coleco, 1982.) .wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/APF-MP1000-FL.jpg “The
VC 4000 with controller. A second-generation video game console
FIGURE 3.19 Two-page magazine advertisement for ColecoVision released in Germany by Interton Electronics.” By Evan-Amos - Own
from 1982. (Scanned and touched up by Wardyga.) work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=18298292 Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org Forster, W. (2005). The encyclopedia of consoles, handhelds &
/wikipedia/commons/3/39/VC-4000-Console-Set.jpg “The Epoch home computers 1972 – 2005. Gameplan, p. 50.
Cassette Vision, a second generation video game console released
only in Japan in 1981.” By Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Herman, L. (2003, January 19). TV Interview from Icons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18364041 Episode #19: Atari. G4 Network.
Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d
Johnson, K. (1983, August 1). Coleco strong in marketing.
/db/Epoch-Cassette-Vision-Console.jpg “The Emerson Arcadia
New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes
2001, a 2nd generation video game console released in 1982.” By .com/1983/08/01/business/coleco-strong-in-marketing
Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia .html.
.org/w/index.php?curid=17891484 Retrieved from https://upload
.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Emerson-Arcadia-2001. Katz, A. & Kunkel, B. (1983, June). Programmable Arcade.
jpg “The Vectrex video game console, shown with controller.” By Electronic Games, p. 40. Retrieved from http://www
Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons .archive.org/stream/electronic-games-magazine-1983-06
.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17735830. Retrieved from https:// /Electronic_Games_Issue_16_Vol_02_04_1983_Jun#page
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Vectrex-Console
/n39/mode/2up.
-Set.jpg. The Fairchild Channel F with hard-wired controllers. A
Kent, S. (2001). The ultimate history of video games: The story
second-generation video game console released in 1976.) behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the
world. Roseville, CA: Three Rivers Press.
FIGURE 3.25 Second generation console sales graph. (Designed by
Wardyga using data from various public sources.) Langdon, D. (1980, May 12). Lord of the Rings’ Irvin Feld has
made a fading circus the greatest show on earth again.
Pro File: Nolan Bushnell Photo credit: By Tech Cocktail Flickr: Tech People, 13(19). Retrieved from http://www.people.com
Cocktail Week: Sessions Speaker Series Downtown Vegas sponsored /people/archive/article/0,,20076452,00.html.
by Moveline, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w
Lambie, R. (2013, February 19). The 1983 videogame crash:
/index.php?curid=31557628
what went wrong, and could it happen again? Retrieved
from http://www.denofgeek.com/games/24531/the-1983
-videogame-crash-what-went-wrong-and-could-it-happen
◾ REFERENCES -again#ixzz4IGwiBVV9.
Bruck, C. (1995). Master of the game: Steve Ross and the cre-
ation of Time Warner. Reprint edition. New York, NY: Latson, J. (2015, June 2). How Donkey Kong and Mario
Penguin Books. changed the world. Retrieved from http://time.com
/3901489/donkey-kong-anniversary/.
Campbell, C. (2015, March 19) The story of Yars’ Revenge is a
journey back to a lost world of video games. Polygon. Maher, J. (2012, April 8). This game is over. Digital Anti-
Retrieved from http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/9/8163747 quaria. Retrieved from http://www.filfre.net/2012/04/this
/yars-revenge-is-a-journey-back-to-a-lost-world-of-video -game-is-over/.
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McFerran, D. (2010). Retroinspection: ColecoVision. Video-
Cassidy, W. (2008, January). Odyssey²/Videopac faq: The game Hardware Handbook: 1977 to 2001. London, UK:
essentials - What you need to know about the O2. Imagine Publishing, Ltd.
Retrieved from http://www.the-nextlevel.com/odyssey2
/faq/essentials/. Molyneaux, M. & Horton, K. (2016). Head to head: Coleco-
vision vs. Atari 5200: hardware comparison. Retrieved
Editorial: Classic GI: Space Invaders. (2008, January). Game from http://www.atarihq.com/5200/cv52/.
Informer, 177, p. 108–109.
Monfort, N. & Bogost, I. (2014). A neuroevolution approach to
Editorial: Coleco hits with home video games. (1983, January general Atari game playing. Racing the Beam. Retrieved
24). Businessweek, p. 31. from https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles
/content/9780262012577_sch_0001.pdf.
Edwards, B. (2012, May). Inside the Magnavox Odyssey
(40th anniversary). Retrieved from http://www.vintage Nilsen, A. (2001). Interview by Steve Kent from The ultimate
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Three Rivers Press.
Purchese, R. (2010, May 20). Iwatani: Pac-Man was made Slater, J. (2008). Retroinspection: Intellivision. Videogames
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Episode #23: Intellivision. G4 Network. A history from Pong to PlayStation and beyond. West-
port, CT: Greenwood Press.
CHAPTER 4
Early PC Gaming
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Provide an overview of the history of early Apple, Atari, and Commodore PCs.
• Have a sense of graphics and other capabilities of early home computer games.
• Compare early home computer games across PC platforms and gaming consoles.
• Be familiar with the technological differences among popular home computers.
• List some of the key video game titles and peripherals for each computer.
• Recognize the importance early PC technology had on the video game industry.
• Describe why each PC was unique to the growth of the home computer market.
• Illustrate how each of the early gaming computers evolved with updated models.
• Explain why Commodore 64 was the bestselling early PC for gaming in the United States.
• List several innovations introduced to gaming during this time period.
• Summarize early home computer market sales.
83

Amiga Central Processing Unit Open-ended games
ANTIC Will Crowther Alexey Pajitnov
Apple Computer/I CTIA (later GTIA) POKEY
Apple II/II+ Data Cassette Storage RAM (Random Access Memory)
Apple IIc Disk II Role-playing game (RPG)
Apple IIe Disk Operating System (DOS) Read-Only Memory (ROM)
Apple IIGS Educator 64 SID 6581
Apple III Electronic Arts SimCity series
Apple Lisa Falling block Sound card
ASIC puzzle games Teleprinter
Atari XL series Richard Garriott Tetris series
Atari 400/800 God games Text adventure games
Atari 8-bit family Graphical adventure game Toggle circuit
BASIC Graphical MUD Jack Tramiel
Bell & Howell Trip Hawkins Ultima series
City-building games Rod Holt VIC-20
Civilization series I/O (input and output) VisiCalc
Commodore 128 Steve Jobs Ken and Roberta Williams
Commodore 16 Macintosh 128K Steve “Woz” Wozniak
Commodore 64 Sid Meier Will Wright
Commodore International MMORPG XE Game System
Commodore PET Peter Molyneux (XEGS)
Commodore Plus/4 Mockingboard Bob Yannes
Controller ports Multi-color sprites Zilog Z80
Control Program/Monitor Multi-User Dungeon (MUD)
◾ EARLY COMPUTER TIMELINE (APPLE, ATARI, AND COMMODORE)
Apple II Commodore 64 Apple IIc
1977 1982 1984
1979 1983 1985
Atari 400/800 Atari XL Series Commodore 128

Early PC Gaming ◾ 85
◾ INTRODUCTION an enclosed cabinet casing designed by Jobs, as well as a

keyboard and a power supply developed by Rod Holt.
This chapter reviews the early days of personal computers The cabinet contained user-friendly connection ports for
and the games made popular by the technology. It includes consumers to attach video monitors, cassette tape
detailed coverage of the early three breakthrough home storage, and an eventual 5.25" floppy disk drive.
computers for gaming by Apple, Atari, and Commodore. The newly remodeled Apple Computer was released
The evolution of the technology will also be discussed, as the Apple II (Figures 4.2 and 4.3). Now widely
including the people behind the scenes and the popular recognized as the system that launched the personal
titles synonymous with computer gaming during this computer business (Kent, 2001, p. 71), the Apple II was
period. Coverage of this chapter spans the PC market before one of the first microcomputers to be accessible to the
and throughout the third generation of console gaming. home consumer. It was also the first commercial PC to
include built-in color graphics capabilities with a palette
◾ APPLE I AND II of 16 fixed colors, as well as sound output and paddle
controllers. The computer initially used the then-
While working for Atari, Steve “Woz” Wozniak and popular data cassette storage to save data. A year later,
Steve Jobs formed the Apple Computer Company in Apple introduced an external 5¼-inch floppy disk drive,
1976 to sell Wozniak’s original Apple Computer (later called the Disk II (shown in Figure 4.2). The Disk II
known as the Apple Computer 1, Apple I, or Apple-1). (created by Wozniak) is regarded as an engineering
The Apple I was a well-designed circuit board (see masterpiece for its economic use of electronic compo-
Figure 4.1) that required users to provide their own nents (Freiberger & Swaine, 1985, p. 45).
cabinet, power supply, keyboard, and video monitor Wozniak’s work on the Apple II pioneered many
(Dunfield, 2007, para. 1). This meant added costs to the industry standards for microcomputers, most notably
$666.66 launch price, in addition to its users needing to with its inclusion of standard input and output(I/O)
be fairly tech savvy to assemble everything. While the devices such as its keyboard and connector ports for a
hardware may have been complex, the Apple Computer monitor and storage devices. Prior to the Apple II,
utilized BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic microcomputers either had very limited I/O capability
Instruction Code) computer language which was or no built-in user interface whatsoever. These older
designed to be easy to use. BASIC also allowed computer “mainframes” and “minicomputers” required external
games to be programmed and played on the Apple. teleprinters (electromechanical typewriters), as well as
screens. Together, these external devices could easily
cost more than the price of the actual computer.
DID YOU KNOW? The Apple II did not contain a dedicated sound chip.
“Although the final pricing for the Apple I was $666.66, Instead it used a toggle circuit capable of emitting “clicks”
Jobs originally wanted to sell it for $777.77. Woz insisted through a built-in speaker or line output jack. Sounds
that this price was too high, so he agreed to sell it for were generated exclusively by the software which clicked
$666. When he was asked why he picked this number the speaker at specific times to produce simple beeps and
(the mark of Satan) he answered that he just took a lucky pops—which in succession could produce basic music.
number, 7, and subtracted one” (Mesa, 2016, para. 3–4).
◾ COMPUTER VERSUS CONSOLE

Steve Jobs was responsible for the marketing and sales COMPARISON: APPLE II VERSUS
of the computers and approximately 200 units were ATARI VCS (2600)
produced—with most of them sold during a span of nine
or ten months (Williams & Moore, 1984, p. A67). A low end Apple II cost more than six times the price of
Wozniak handled the customer support side of the an Atari VCS/2600, but could do much more than just
business and it didn’t take long to realize they would play video games. But for the consumer mainly inter-
need to manufacture a more consumer-friendly model ested in video games at that time, how did these two
of the Apple for mass market appeal. During the fol- machines compare? Technically, the Apple II contained
lowing year, the computer received a refined design with the same 1.023 MHz 8-bit MOS Technology 6502 CPU
FIGURE 4.1 Apple Computer advertisement from Interface Age magazine, Oct. 1976.
FIGURE 4.2 The Apple II (1977) with two Disk II floppy disk drives and a 1980s-era Apple Monitor II (a) and the Apple II Plus
(1979) (b) without peripherals.
(a) (b)
(central processing unit) as the Apple I (Table 4.1), (kilobytes) of expandable memory versus the Atari
which launched the same year as the Atari VCS in 1977. VCS’s mere 128 bytes of RAM and 4 KBROM (Read-
The VCS ran on an 8-bit MOS 6507 processor at a Only Memory). The Apple II displayed a higher hori-
slightly faster 1.19 MHz. zontal screen resolution of 280 × 192 pixels (screen
Beyond processor speed, the units were quite different dots) for 6-color games, compared to the VCS’s reso-
when comparing RAM (random access memory) and lution of 160 × 192 pixels for games displaying 4 colors
screen resolution. The Apple II could utilize 4 KB per scan line. See Figure 4.4 for examples of the Apple
II’s graphics and text display capabilities.
While graphically competent for its time, the Apple
TABLE 4.1 Apple II Tech Specs II’s biggest weakness may have been its sound. Its
Manufacturer: Apple Computer, Inc. software-driven sounds were often comparable to the
Launch Price: $1,298 w/4 KB RAM, $2,638 w/48 KB beeps and noises output from Atari’s 2 channel mono
$598 w/4 KB board only sound card. And since the use of sound seriously taxed the
Release Date: April 1977 Apple’s CPU, many games used sound sparingly. Eventu-
ally sound cards were developed for the Apple II, such as
Format: Cassette Tape or 5.25" floppy disk
the Mockingboard by Sweet Micro Systems which could
(launched in 1978)
produce six audio voices and speech synthesis.
CPU: 8-bit MOS technology 6502 (1.023 MHz)
Memory: 4 KB–48 KB (3 banks of 4 KB
or 16 KB RAM) HEAD-TO-HEAD
Resolution: 280 × 192 or 40 × 48 pixels To compare the graphics and sound between the Apple II
(text = 40 characters × 24 lines) and Atari VCS, play games released on both systems (or
Colors: 4–16 onscreen colors from a palette of 16 watch video clips of them). Some games to compare
include Frogger, Jungle Hunt, Ms. Pac-Man, Pitfall II: Lost
Sound: No sound card; software sent “clicks”
Caverns, and Tapper.
to built-in speaker
FIGURE 4.3 Magazine advertisement for the Apple II computer in 1978.

FIGURE 4.4 Screenshots of early Apple II titles: (a) The Oregon Trail (1978), (b) Lemonade Stand (1979), and (c) Zork I:
The Great Underground Empire (1980).
(b) (c)
◾ KEY APPLE II TITLES 2016, p. 5). The company would go on to develop King’s
Quest (Figure 4.5c), further revolutionizing the graphic
Many action and arcade games were developed for the adventure game genre with more detailed illustrations
Apple II, but the games that most differentiated the and animation.
computer from the home console were text adventure Another genre that was conceived during this time
games. Also known as “interactive fiction,” this genre of was the Multi-User Dungeon (MUD). Coined by Roy
games was pioneered by Will Crowther’s Colossal Cave Trubshaw in 1978, early MUDs were text-based adven-
Adventure (1976) (Figure 4.5a) which he programmed tures that took place in a multiplayer, real-time virtual
for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. Early text adven- world. Influenced by the fantasy tabletop role-playing
ture games consisted of just text—where the player game (RPG) Dungeons & Dragons, MUDs combined
would control a character by inputting simple text com- features such as player versus player, interactive fiction,
mands such as “climb” or “take.” Similar games appeared and online chat. Like graphic text adventures, graphical
on the Apple II such as Adventureland (1978) and Zork I MUDs eventually emerged, such as Lucasfilm’s Habitat
(1980). (1985).
The very first graphical adventure game was Mystery
House (1980) (Figure 4.5b) by Ken and Roberta ◾ ELECTRONIC ARTS
Williams of On-Line Systems (now Sierra Entertain-
ment). Ken was a programmer at IBM and Roberta was Trip Hawkins was the Director of Strategy and Mar-
the visionary behind writing and designing pictures to keting at Apple Computer in 1982 when he left the
accompany the text. “While its simple line graphics were company to incorporate video game publisher Elec-
visually primitive in comparison to games released just a tronic Arts (EA). Aside from becoming one of the
few years later on the platform, Mystery House estab- largest video game publishers in the world, EA made
lished an important precedent” (Barton & Loguidice, several important contributions to the business early on.
FIGURE 4.5 Evolution of the adventure game: Screenshots: (a) Colossal Cave Adventure (1976), (b) Mystery House (1980),
and (c) King’s Quest (1984).
FIGURE 4.6 Box art to five defining Apple II titles: (a) The Bard’s Tale, (b) Pinball Construction Set, (c) The Oregon Trail,
(d) Karateka, and (e) Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness.
First, the company was notable for promoting its program Apple III Business BASIC. The computer had
game designers and programmers by including their a rough start when technical problems led to a recall of
name or picture on the box and/or in the game’s lit- the first 14,000 units. Combined with a high price tag of
erature. Second, the artwork for each game was $4,340 to $7,800 USD, the Apple III only sold approxi-
extremely important to Hawkins. He believed the mately 65,000–75,000 units and is generally considered a
packaging for games should be attractive and similar to market failure (Linzmayer, 2004, pp. 41–43).
an album cover. Early Electronic Arts games such as Abandoning all references to the Apple III, the next
Pinball Construction Set (1983) (in Figure 4.6) “were computer by Apple released in 1983 under the title
packaged in unique gatefold sleeves, with the designer’s Apple IIe. The “e” stood for “enhanced,” since the Apple
names on the front and an elegant graphic design IIe came bundled with many features that were previ-
that gave them the hip appearance of rock ously only available as upgrades or add-on peripherals.
albums” (Fleming, 2016, p. 2). A third major achieve- Codenamed “Diana” and “Super II,” the computer
ment by EA was that it was first video game publisher to included 64 KB RAM (upgradable up to 1 MB) and a
license athletes for video games beginning with One on custom ASIC (Application-specific integrated circuit)
One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird (1983). This pioneered the chip, which reduced the size and cost of the mother-
practice of involving celebrities in the business of video board. Debuting at $1,395, the Apple IIe eventually came
games. bundled with DOS (Disk Operating System). DOS
operated by using the command line and was the
◾ APPLE II SUCCESSORS cutting-edge operating system (OS) for its time since it
ran directly from an internal hard disk. The Apple IIe
Two years after the introduction of the Apple II, the was manufactured and sold for over a decade, becoming
Apple II+ was released in 1979. This update “included Apple’s most successful Apple II series computer.
48 KB RAM, six-color display, and a new BASIC from That same year, Apple introduced another business
Microsoft, which established critical base specifications computer known as the Apple Lisa for $9,995. The Lisa
for the computer line” (Barton & Loguidice, 2014, p. 27). included a 5 MB hard drive and a faster processor, but
Apple also authorized electronics company Bell & after several revisions and price drops, the Lisa was a
Howell to manufacture a black Apple II+ which was commercial failure. Part of the Lisa’s downfall may have
targeted toward the education industry. been due to the Macintosh 128 K which released in 1984
A year later came the release of the Apple III which for $2,495. The 128 K was the original Macintosh
was targeted toward businesses. The Apple III utilized branded personal computer, which would eventually
128–512 KB of RAM, enhanced audio, and came with the become the main line of computers from Apple.
Other subsequent models included the 1984 Apple TABLE 4.2 Atari 400/800 Tech Specs
IIc which contained 128 KB RAM, as well as a built-in Manufacturer: Atari, Inc.
5.25" floppy drive. The “c” stood for “compact” as the Launch Price: $549.95 (Atari 400), $999.95 (Atari 800)
Apple IIc was basically a complete system except for the Release Date: November 1979
separate display and power supply. In 1986 “Apple Format: Cassette tape or 5.25" floppy disk +
released the 16-bit Apple IIGS, the true backwards cartridge slot(s)
compatible successor to the original 8-bit II-series of CPU: 8-bit MOS Technology “Rockwell”
computers. Although Apple was built on the back of the 6502 (1.79 MHz)
II-series, within a few years the Macintosh [computer Memory: 8–16 KB RAM (400), 48 KB RAM (800)
line] began to receive most of the company’s attention Resolution: 320 × 192 monochrome or 160 × 96
and resources” (Barton & Loguidice, 2016, p. 5). in color (text = 40 × 24)
Colors: 4–16 onscreen colors from a palette
◾ ATARI 8-BIT FAMILY: 400 AND 800 of 128 or 256
Sound: 4× oscillators with noise mixing
Riding high on the success of the Atari 2600, Atari was well or 2× AM digital
aware that the computer age was coming and its brand was
a natural fit for this growing technology. Known as the
“Atari 8-bit family” computer series, the Atari 400 and Essentially, “the 400 was the little brother to the 800.
Atari 800 (Figure 4.7) launched in November of 1979 for It had a membrane keyboard (to protect against spills
$595 and $999, respectively. Management often called the from the children who were its target market) and less
400 model “Candy” and the 800 model “Colleen,” named expansion capability” (Klein, 2014, p. 1). The 400 was
after two attractive Atari secretaries (Fulton, 2008, p. 4). also more heavily marketed as a game machine. Each
The official numbered titles for the systems were meant to unit had a flip up top that housed a cartridge slot (two
reflect their RAM—with the 400 originally planned to ship slots for the 800) and both computers had four con-
with 4 KB of RAM and the 800 shipping with 8 KB—but troller ports (jacks) that were fully compatible with all
falling memory costs allowed Atari to release both com- Atari VCS/2600 joysticks and paddles. These ports
puters with at least 8 KB of RAM. could be used for a variety of functions, such as hard
drive interfaces, modems, robot arms, and even a
science kit by Atari that could measure light, sound, and
DID YOU KNOW? temperature.
“Atari’s home computers were first to use special custom
processors for graphics and device input/output, which ◾ COMPUTER COMPARISON: ATARI 8-BIT
freed up the main CPU for other tasks, a concept used by VERSUS APPLE II
developers Jay Miner and Joe Decuir” (Retro Gamer,
2010, p. 142). Both the Apple II and Atari 800 could utilize up to
48 KB of RAM and while each computer ran on
FIGURE 4.7 Atari (a) 400 and (b) 800 computer systems.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 4.8 Screenshots of Atari 8-bit family titles: (a) Rainbow Walker (1983), (b) Bounty Bob Strikes Back (1984), and
(c) Rescue on Fractalus! (1984).
a MOS 6502 processor (Table 4.2), the Atari 8-bit

HEAD-TO-HEAD
processor was faster at 1.79 MHz versus Apple II
which ran at 1.023 MHz. “Both Atari 400 and Atari 800 To compare the graphics and sound between the Apple
have multiple purpose co-processors for sound and II and the Atari 8-bit, play (or research video clips) of
games released on both computer systems. Some inter-
graphics to take the load off of the 6502 CPU called
esting titles to compare include B.C.’s Quest for Tires,
ANTIC, CTIA (later GTIA) and POKEY” (Bogdan, Donkey Kong, Galaxian, Karateka, and Pitfall II: Lost
2014 p. 79). The POKEY co-processor handled the Caverns.
computer’s sound and produced the best sound quality
in home computers up to that time. Each system could
run up to 16 colors onscreen; however, Atari com- ◾ KEY ATARI 8-BIT TITLES
puters had a much larger color palette to choose from,
providing a wider variety to the overall look of their Atari computer games were known for their distinct
games as seen in Figures 4.8. The Apple II really only “graphics look” native to Atari software, including
bested the Atari computers in resolution with a color “multiple graphics modes, four directional fine scrolling,
resolution of 280 × 192 versus Atari’s 160 × 96. Being [and] colorful modified character-set backgrounds
graphically superior to the Apple II helped Atari (Stanton, Wells, Rochowansky, Mellid, & Michael, 1984,
computers develop a reputation for games, but there p. 14). Star Raiders (1979) (in Figure 4.9) was one of its
were far fewer business applications compared to the earliest titles and remained one of the reasons many
Apple II. gamers purchased an Atari computer for many years.
FIGURE 4.9 Box art to five defining Atari 8-bit family games: (a) Star Raiders, (b) M.U.L.E., (c) Bounty Bob Strikes Back,
(d) Rescue on Fractalus!, and (e) Boulder Dash.
FIGURE 4.10 Magazine advertisement for the Atari 800 computer in 1981.
Atari 8-bit computers had the definitive version of FIGURE 4.11 Evolution of the Atari 8-bit computers
M.U.L.E. (1983), which utilized all four joystick ports (a) 1200XL, (b) 600XL, (c) 800XL, (d) 130XE, and (e) 65XE
permitting four-player simultaneous play. For those who Game System.
owned extra paddles, up to eight players could play
together in Super Breakout (1979). See Figure 4.10 for
more.
Despite its virtues, the 400 and 800 were complicated
and expensive computers to build and did not prove very
profitable for Atari. The 400 especially had a difficult
time competing with technically superior machines
appearing in the early 1980s, which typically included
(a)
more RAM and improved keyboards. Beginning in 1983,
Atari would roll out a new generation of 8-bit computers
with its XL series.
◾ EXTENDED FAMILY: ATARI 8-BIT

SUCCESSORS (b)
In 1983, Atari launched numerous successors to the 400

and 800 computers (Figure 4.11), beginning with the ill-
fated 1200XL. The 1200XL launched at $899 and fea-
tured 64 KB of RAM. Due to performance issues such as
poor design and backward compatibility problems with
previous Atari systems, the 1200XL was discontinued (c)
after less than six months in June 1983. It was quickly
replaced by the 600XL and 800XL.
Aside from improving the design and functionality of
the units, Atari’s goal for the 600XL and 800XL was to
again offer consumers two options at different price
points. The 600XL launched at $199 with 16 KB of RAM,
(d)
while the 800XL shipped for $299 and 64 KB of memory.
The 800XL would go on to become Atari’s most popular
computer of all time.
Following the “XL series,” Atari released an “XE
series” in 1985 with the 65XE and 130XE. The “XE”
stood for “XL-Expanded” since the computers contained
64 KB and 128 KB of RAM, respectively. Like the 400 (e)
and 800, the XE PCs were given numbers to represent
their memory (e.g., the 130XE contained 130,000 bytes
of RAM). Beyond additional memory, the XE series was keyboard, the XEGS was compatible with practically all
not a substantial improvement over the XL series, with Atari 8-bit software. A basic and deluxe set was offered,
much of its inner technology identical to previous with the deluxe set including a joystick, keyboard, light
iterations of XL computers. On top of that, the key- gun, and two additional games.
boards had a mushy feeling to them and the white keys
would get dirty quickly (RetroIsle, 2015, para. 8). ◾ COMMODORE 64
Atari’s final 8-bit release before moving on to its ST
computer series was the XE Game System (XEGS) in Commodore International was founded in Toronto
1987. Essentially a repackaged 65XE with a detachable by Jack Tramiel (pronounced Tra-mel) in 1954 as a
FIGURE 4.12 Commodore 64 home computer system.
typewriter assembly plant. The company expanded to a $999.95—and those computers only included 48 KB of
calculator manufacturing plant in 1969, and in 1976 RAM. In part from acquiring MOS Technology, Tramiel
Tramiel purchased CPU manufacturer MOS Tech- was able to keep the price of the C64 down by manu-
nology for $800,000 (Kent, 2001, p. 248). MOS Tech- facturing many of the computer’s parts in-house.
nology made the 6502-microprocessor chip used by the Another move that set the Commodore 64 apart from
Apple II, Atari 400 and 800, as well as Commodore’s the competition was following in Atari’s footsteps by
first home computer, the Commodore PET (Personal marketing and selling the C64 in retail stores such as
Electronic Transactor) which launched in 1977. Years Sears, Roebuck and Company.
later Commodore released a “family” version of the
PET, the VIC-20 computer in 1981. The VIC-20 fol- ◾ COMPUTER COMPARISON:
lowed Tramiel’s motto for building computers “for the COMMODORE 64 VERSUS ATARI 8-BIT
masses, not the classes” and retailed for just $299.95. It
was the first computer to retail below $300 and became With 20% more RAM at a fraction of the cost of an
the first computer to sell more than 1 million units. Atari 800, how did the Commodore 64 hold up in other
Tramiel’s business model of producing fully functional technical areas? Its screen resolution of 320 × 200 pixels
computers at an affordable price continued with the (Table 4.3) was progressively higher than the Apple
Commodore 64 (Figure 4.12) which launched in II’s 280 × 192 display and slightly better than the Atari
August 1982 for just $595. 800’s 320 × 192. Its improved processing chip allowed
The Commodore 64 was named after its 64 KB of for multi-color sprites (two colors per screen dot
RAM. Its retail price of $595 (see Figure 4.13) for 64 KB versus one on the other PCs) which made it “easier to
of RAM was a bargain compared to the Apple II’s create fast-moving, flicker-free game graphics” (Reimer,
initial price of $2,638 and Atari 800’s launch price of 2005, p. 4).
TABLE 4.3 Commodore 64 Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Commodore International, Ltd.
Launch Price: $595
Release Date: August 1982
Format: Cassette tape or 5.25" floppy disk
CPU: 8-bit MOS Technology 6510 (1.023 MHz)
Memory: 64 KB RAM + 20 KB ROM
Resolution: 320 × 200 pixels (text = 40 characters × 25 lines)
Colors: 16 onscreen colors from a palette of 16
Sound: 3 channel SID 6581 (Sound Interface Device) chip
FIGURE 4.13 Magazine advertisement for the Commodore 64 computer in 1982.

FIGURE 4.14 Screenshots of early Commodore 64 titles: (a) Choplifter (1982), (b) Spy Hunter (1983), and (c) Impossible
Mission (1984).
(a) (b) (c)
On the flip side, its paltry color palette of 16 colors ◾ KEY COMMODORE 64 TITLES
(see Figure 4.14) paled in comparison to the 8-bit Atari
computers’ hundreds of colors. Furthermore, the Atari Partly due to its hardware capabilities and large game
computers had a faster CPU, which was evident when library, the Commodore 64 developed a reputation as a
comparing games like Dropzone and Rescue on gaming computer more than a business PC. It could play
Fractalus!. Generally speaking, C64 games looked and games on cassette tapes, floppy disks, and cartridges,
played more smoothly, while Atari’s computer games although most of its games were manufactured on tape or
had more vivid color. Sound was another story, however, cartridge. Impressive third-party cartridge-based games
as the C64’s 3 channel SID 6581 (Sound Interface included “Gyruss from Parker Bros, Diamond Mine by
Device) processor by Bob Yannes was superior to all Roklan, Moondust by Creative, Maze Master by HES and
home computer sound chips preceding it. Jumpman Junior by Epyx” (Retro Gamer, 2009, p. 57).
Memorable cassette titles included Mastertronic’s
Master of Magic, One Man and His Droid, and Spell-
HEAD-TO-HEAD bound to name a few. Other hits included Boulder Dash,
To compare the graphics and sound between the Apple The Sentinel, Archon, and Elite; the Ultima and Bard’s
II, Atari 400/800, and the Commodore 64, play (or watch Tale role-playing game series; and graphical adventure
video clips) of games that were released on all three games Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken by
computers. Some games to compare include Choplifter, LucasArts. Microprose and Cinemaware also produced
Spy Hunter, Summer Games, World Karate Champion- classics like Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Defender of the
ship, and Zaxxon.
Crown. Commodore created a few notable first-party
FIGURE 4.15 Box art to five defining Commodore 64 titles: (a) IK+, Zack McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders,
(b) Impossible Mission, Turrican II, and (c) Paradroid.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

titles, including International Soccer and an excellent The $99 Commodore 16 came with 16 KB of RAM
conversion of the arcade hit Wizard of War. The C64 and “was designed to replace the Commodore VIC-20,
had a small number of exclusive titles, but most of its top but it was not compatible with the VIC-20, nor with the
games were multiplatform as seen in Figure 4.15. C64” (Personal Computer Museum. 2016, para. 1). The
Commodore Plus/4 contained mostly the same technical
specifications as the Commodore 16, with four times the
RAM and a price tag of $299. While these PCs could
DID YOU KNOW?
display more onscreen colors than the Commodore 64,
Partly due to their expensive cost (the Commodore 1541 they lacked other features such as hardware sprites and
floppy disk drive debuted at $400), “even at the peak of the SID sound processor. Better suited for office pro-
its popularity, it’s said that only around 10% of all C64
grams like word processing and spreadsheet applica-
owners had a disk drive” (Retro Gamer, 2009, p. 57).
tions, these units did not catch on with gamers and were
considered market failures.
The last of Commodore’s early 8-bit computers was
◾ COMMODORE 64 SUCCESSORS the Commodore 128. Debuting in January 1985 for
$299, the C128 came with 128 KB of RAM and con-
Commodore released several successors to the C64, tained multiple processors. The inclusion of a Zilog Z80
including the Educator 64 in 1983 and the SX-64 in CPU allowed the C128 to run the more powerful
1984. The Educator 64 was targeted toward schools as a Control Program/Monitor (CP/M) operating system. It
replacement for its older PET computers. While it was also nearly completely backward compatible with
looked like a PET on the outside (using PET casing), its C64 games—one of the best computers of the 8-bit
inside contained a C64 motherboard. The Educator 64 generation. However, the 16-bit generation was just
included a green monochromatic monitor. Since most around the corner and gamers would soon be shifting
C64 games were in color, it did not sell very well. their attention to Commodore’s Amiga line of com-
The SX-64 (also known as the Executive 64) was an puters. See Table 4.4 for summary these and other
all-in-one portable version of the Commodore 64 and important computers between 1979 and 1988.
included both a built-in 5-inch monitor and 1541 floppy
disk drive. Released in 1984, this briefcase-size bundle ◾ GENRE PIONEERS
was the first portable color computer on the market and
debuted at $995. A unique feature of the SX-64 was that Many genres emerged on the early PC landscape.
its handle doubled as a stand, which could be rotated to England’s Richard Garriott (known as alter ego “Lord/
position the angle of the monitor. General British” in his games) created the Ultima series
Another pair of computers to be released after the (Figure 4.16a) in the early 1980s, which is heralded as the
Commodore 64 included the Commodore 16 and the first definitive commercial role-playing game and a
Commodore Plus/4 which both released in 1984. major influence on the RPG genre. Garriott is also noted
TABLE 4.4 Notable Early Home Computer Systems from 1979 to 1988
1979 Atari 400/800, Texas Instruments TI-99/4
1980 Commodore VIC-20, Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer
1981 Osborne 1, TI-99/4A, IBM PC, Sinclair ZX81/TS 1000, BBC Micro
1982 Kaypro II, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64
1983 Atari 1200XL/600XL/800XL, Coleco Adam, Microsoft MSX
1984 Apple Macintosh, Amstrad CPC
1985 Atari 65XE/130XE, Atari ST, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga
1986 Compaq Portable II, IBM Convertible, Apple IIGS
1987 Atari XEGS (XE Game System), Acorn Archimedes
1988 Apple IIc Plus, NeXT
FIGURE 4.16 Screenshots from the PC version of (a) Ultima (1981) and (b) Tetris (1986).
for coining the term “Massively Multiplayer Online before almost every major game manufacturer developed
Role-Playing Game” (MMORPG), providing a fresh some kind of spinoff from Tetris, such as Sega’s Columns
identity to graphical Multi-User Dungeon (MUDs) (1990), Taito’s Bust-A-Move/Puzzle Bobble (1994), and
games many years later. Capcom’s Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (1996), among
Another genre that made its debut on personal com- countless others.
puters was the “falling blocks” puzzle game. The pioneer Another pioneer of the early PC generation included
of this type of game was Moscow’s Alexey Pajitnov with Ontario’s Sid Meier—known for his strategy and sim-
his mega hit Tetris (Figure 4.16b) developed in 1984. ulation games, such as Sid Meier’s Pirates! (1987) (Figure
Published by Spectrum HoloByte for both Commodore 4.17a), Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon (1990), and the turn-
64 and IBM PC, Tetris was the first software title to be based Civilization series which began in 1991. Meier
exported from the Soviet Union to the United States. The (with MicroProse co-founder Bill Stealey) redefined the
game involves dropping various puzzle-like shapes called “open-ended” genre. His games fostered features like
“Tetriminos” to form horizontal lines, which disappear character creation, plus a multitude of choices and
and add points to the user’s score. opportunities for players to engage in as they essentially
While Tetris sold well on PC and was ported to the created their own adventures.
arcades in 1988, its popularity skyrocketed when it was The first “city-building” simulation game was
bundled as the pack-in title for Nintendo’s GameBoy SimCity (Figure 4.17b) by Atlanta’s Will Wright in
handheld system which released in 1989. It wasn’t long 1989. Published by Maxis (which became a division of
FIGURE 4.17 Screenshots of (a) Sid Meier’s Pirates! (1987), (b) SimCity (1989), and (c) Populous (1989).
(a) (b) (c)

EA), players are provided with tools to develop a city grew exponentially over its first 5 years—doubling oper-
from an overhead perspective. The gameplay involves ations revenues approximately every 4 months. Between
defining zones (such as residential, commercial, and September 1977 and September 1980, annual Apple sales
industrial) and providing adequate power, transporta- grew from $775,000 to $118 million, an average annual
tion, and other resources to keep the citizens happy growth rate of 533% (Malone, 1999, p. 157).
and within budget. SimCity led to many spinoffs such Atari outsold the Apple II from the beginning, but
as SimFarm, Sim City: The Card Game, SimCopter, Atari’s machines were expensive to produce. By mid-
Streets of SimCity, SimsVille—but the series may be 1981, it had reportedly lost $10 million on sales of
most notable for carving the way for The Sims games, $10 million (Hogan, 1981, pp. 6–7). Then home com-
which pioneered the strategic “life-simulation” genre. puter prices plummeted in 1983. Caught between the
England’s Peter Molyneux created the “god games” video game crash and the low-priced Commodore 64,
genre, where the player uses supernatural powers to Atari and Apple were forced into a price war. Atari
influence a population of simulated worshipers. Unlike dropped the successor to the 400 and 800 computers
in strategy games, players in god games do not have the (the 1200XL) just months after its release and quickly
ability to give direct commands to units of people. replaced it with the 600XL and 800XL which debuted at
Gameplay instead primarily revolves around growing only $199 and $299, respectively, to only modest sales.
and utilizing one’s supernatural powers, such as blessing Even at their peak in 1984, Atari’s 8-bit line sold less
a civilization’s crops or destroying them with natural than half the number of Commodore 64 units, as illus-
disasters (Rollings & Adams, 2006). Notable god games trated in Figure 4.18. According to Commodore, the C64
from Molyneux include Populous (1989) (Figure 4.17c), sold as many as 17 million systems and “the Guinness
Dungeon Keeper (1997), and Black & White (2001). Book of World Records lists the Commodore 64 as the
best-selling single computer model of all time” (Griggs,
◾ MARKET SUMMARY 2011, para. 5). By 1986, however, the market share
shifted to IBM compatible computers, which would soon
The initial market for the Apple II consisted only of dominate more than 75% of the market. Atari and
electronics hobbyists, gamers, and computer enthusiasts. Commodore computers were eventually discontinued in
Sales expanded to the business market when the spread- the 1990s, with only Apple surviving—albeit in a distant
sheet program VisiCalc was released in 1979 and Apple second place.
FIGURE 4.18 Early computer sales in thousands of units by Apple, Atari, and Commodore.
◾ ACTIVITY: GAME DEVELOPER REPORT AND PRESENTATION

Choose a small-to-medium size game developer (avoid large companies like Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and
Microsoft) and write a report and presentation on the following:
1. Company history and key employees

2. Key games the company created
3. Any breakthroughs, catastrophes, or other major happenings with the company
4. The cultural impact of the company’s games (societal trends, influences, lasting appeal, spin-offs)
The report should contain four main points and three quotes which are paraphrased or cited verbally in the
speech. Conclude with where the company is today and whether the trends their games created will continue to
be popular in the future. The recommended total presentation length is 4–5 minutes, not to exceed 6 minutes
total.
◾ CHAPTER 4 QUIZ 4. Coined by Roy Trubshaw in 1978, these text-based

adventures called “MUDs” stood for:
1. This computer programmer went on to form Apple a. Massively Uber Dungeoncrawlers
with Steve Jobs: b. Mind-User Development games
a. Steve Wozniak c. Micro Universe Dungeons
b. Ray Kassar d. Multi-User Dungeons
c. Nolan Bushnell
d. Trip Hawkins 5. Founded Electronic Arts, with a focus on crediting
programmers on its album-like box art; also paved
2. Apple’s first commercially produced computer the way for athlete and celebrity endorsed games:
system for the mainstream home PC market: a. Steve Wozniak
a. Apple I b. Rod Holt
b. Apple II c. Trip Hawkins
c. Macintosh Core d. Jack Tramiel
d. Core Macintosh
6. This computer had a membrane keyboard to protect
3. Sierra Entertainment Inc. (Formerly Sierra On- against spills from the children who were its target
Line and On-Line Systems) was the company in market:
which Ken and Roberta Williams pioneered the a. Apple IIe
______________ genre of games. b. Atari 400
a. Text adventure game c. Atari 800
b. Spoken adventure game d. Atari 1200XL
c. Graphical adventure game
d. None of the above
7. This 1979 exclusive was one of the Atari 8-bit c. Minolta

computer’s earliest titles and remained one of the d. Magnavox
reasons many gamers purchased an Atari computer
for many years: 13. Known as alter ego “Lord British” and “General
a. Star Raiders British” in his games, this programmer created the
b. Asteroids pioneering Ultima RPG series and coined the term
c. Rescue on Fractalus! MMORPG:
d. King’s Quest a. Richard Garriott
b. Sid Meier
8. Founded Commodore International in 1954 as a c. Will Wright
typewriter assembly plant and went on to produce d. Alexey Pazhitnov
computers “for the masses, not the classes”:
a. Steve Wozniak 14. Responsible for developing the “falling blocks”
b. Rod Holt puzzle game Tetris:
c. Trip Hawkins a. Richard Garriott
d. Jack Tramiel b. Sid Meier
c. Will Wright
9. The reason(s) for the success of the Commodore 64: d. Alexey Pazhitnov
a. Low price for a fully-functional PC with 64 KB of
RAM 15. Created the first “city-building” simulation games,
b. Commodore manufactured many of its parts in- which led to the strategic “life-simulation” genre
house with games like The Sims:
c. Marketing and selling the C64 in retail stores like a. Richard Garriott
Sears b. Sid Meier
d. All of the above c. Will Wright
d. Alexey Pazhitnov
10. This computer was known for its improved pro-
cessing chip that allowed for “multi-color sprites” 16. This computer won the early PC market by a wide
which made it easier to create fast-moving, flicker- margin and is regarded as the best-selling single
free game graphics: computer model of all time:
a. Apple II a. Apple II
b. Atari 400/800 b. Atari 400/800
c. Commodore 64 c. Commodore 64
d. VIC-20 d. VIC-20
True or False
11. This computer manufacturer released many ver-
sions of its 8-bit computer lineup, including the XL 17. The Apple II was known for its state of the art SID
series, XE series, and XE Game System (XEGS): 6581 sound processor.
a. Apple
b. Atari 18. Will Crowther’s Colossal Cave Adventure (1976) for
c. Commodore the PDP-10 mainframe computer pioneered the text
d. IBM adventure genre, also known as “interactive fiction.”
12. All three original 8-bit computers by Apple, Atari, 19. The abbreviation RPG stands for “Role-Playing
and Commodore contained a CPU manufactured Game.”
by:
a. Microsoft 20. Most of the games for Commodore 64 were man-
b. MOS Technology ufactured on floppy disk.
◾ FIGURES FIGURE 4.7 Atari 400 and 800 computer systems. (Courtesy of Evan-
Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://commons
FIGURE 4.1 Apple Computer advertisement from Interface Age .wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17758254 Retrieved from https://
magazine, Oct. 1976. (Scanned from page 11 of the October 1976 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_8-bit_family#/media/File:Atari-400
Interface Age magazine by Michael Holley. Author: Apple Computer -Comp.jpg and “The Atari 800, an 8-bit computer released by Atari in
Company, Palo Alto, CA. Permission: This advertisement did not 1979. Based off the MOS 6502 microprocessor and custom video and
have a copyright notice and is in the public domain. From the US sound processors, the Atari 800 was the first in a line of popular home
Copyright Office Circular 3. Page 3, Contributions to Collective computers.” By Evan-Amos - Own work, Public Domain, https://
Works. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53205709. Retrieved from
/commons/4/48/Apple_1_Advertisement_Oct_1976.jpg) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_8-bit_family#/media/File:Atari
-800-Computer-FL.jpg. “Atari 400, 1979. Featuring a membrane key-
FIGURE 4.2 The Apple II (1977) with two Disk II floppy disk board and single-width cartridge slot cover.”)
drives and a 1980s-era Apple Monitor II (left) and the Apple II Plus
(1979) without peripherals. (Courtesy of Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr. FIGURE 4.8 Screenshots of Atari 8-bit family titles (from left to
Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid right): Rainbow Walker (Synapse Software, 1983), Bounty Bob Strikes
=29591429 and “Apple II Plus” By Bilby - Own work, CC BY 3.0. Back (Big Five Software, 1984), and Rescue on Fractalus! (Lucasfilm
Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_Plus#/media Games/Activision, Atari, Epyx, 1984). (Rainbow Walker courtesy of
/File:Apple_II_Plus.jpg) Synapse Software, 1983; Bounty Bob Strikes Back courtesy of Big Five
Software, 1984; and Rescue on Fractalus! courtesy of Lucasfilm
FIGURE 4.3 Magazine advertisement for the Apple II computer. Games/Activision, Atari, Epyx, 1984.)
(“Apple II 1979 Advertisement: How to Buy” from “The 7 Principles
Of Apple” by Mike Cane. December 2, 2009. Retrieved from https:// FIGURE 4.9 Box art to five defining Atari 8-bit family games (left to
ebooktest.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/the-7-principles-of-apple/) right): Star Raiders (Atari, Inc., 1979), M.U.L.E. (Ozark Softscape/
Electronic Arts, 1983), Bounty Bob Strikes Back (Big Five Software,
1984), Rescue on Fractalus! (Lucasfilm Games/Activision, Atari, Epyx,
FIGURE 4.4 Screenshots of early Apple II titles (from left to right):
1984), and Boulder Dash (First Star Software, 1984). (Star Raiders
The Oregon Trail (MECC/Brøderbund, 1978), Lemonade Stand
courtesy of Atari, Inc., 1979; M.U.L.E. courtesy of Ozark Softscape/
(MECC/Apple, 1979), and Zork I: The Great Underground Empire
Electronic Arts, 1983; Bounty Bob Strikes Back courtesy of Big Five
(Infocom, 1980). (The Oregon Trail courtesy of MECC/Brøderbund,
Software, 1984; Rescue on Fractalus! courtesy of Lucasfilm Games/
1978; Lemonade Stand courtesy of MECC/Apple, 1979; and Zork I:
Activision, Atari, Epyx, 1984; and Boulder Dash courtesy of First Star
The Great Underground Empire courtesy of Infocom, 1980.)
Software, 1984.)
FIGURE 4.5 Evolution of the adventure game: Screenshots (from

FIGURE 4.10 Magazine advertisement for the Atari 800 computer
left to right): Colossal Cave Adventure (William Crowther and Don
in 1981. (Atari 800 ad posted in “The Timeless Computer: Remem-
Woods, 1976), Mystery House (On-Line Systems, 1980), and King’s
bering the Atari 800” by John Kenneth Muir on December 7, 2015.
Quest (Sierra On-Line/Sierra Entertainment, 1984). (Colossal Cave
Available at http://flashbak.com/timeless-computer-remembering-
Adventure courtesy of William Crowther and Don Woods, 1976;
atari-800-47864/. Retrieved from: http://flashbak.com/wp-content/
Mystery House courtesy of On-Line Systems, 1980; and King’s Quest
uploads/2015/12/flashbak800b.jpg.)
courtesy of Sierra On-Line/Sierra Entertainment, 1984.)
FIGURE 4.11 Evolution of the Atari 8-bit computers (from top)

FIGURE 4.6 Box art to five defining Apple II titles (left to right): The
1200XL, 600XL, 800XL, 130EX, and XE Game System. (“Atari
Bard’s Tale (Interplay Productions/Electronic Arts, 1985), Pinball
1200XL” by Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://
Construction Set (BudgeCo/Electronic Arts, 1983), The Oregon Trail
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16255854 and “Atari
(MECC/Brøderbund, 1978), Karateka (Jordan Mechner/Brøderbund,
600XL”. “This machine featured a slightly shallower case than the
1984), and Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Richard Garriott/
800XL.” by Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at
Origin Systems, 1981). (The Bard’s Tale courtesy of Interplay Pro-
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17835117. “An
ductions/Electronic Arts, 1985; Pinball Construction Set courtesy of
Atari 800XL,” by Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available
BudgeCo/Electronic Arts, 1983; The Oregon Trail courtesy of MECC/
at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18553927.
Brøderbund, 1978; Karateka courtesy of Jordan Mechner/
“Atari 130XE,” by Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Brøderbund, 1984; and Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness courtesy of
Richard Garriott/Origin Systems, 1981.)
=18548917. “Atari XE Game System,” by Bilby - own work, CC BY ◾ REFERENCES

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FIGURE 4.12 Commodore 64 home computer system. (Courtesy of
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.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17414886. “Commodore 64.”) greatest gaming platforms of all time. New York: Focal
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FIGURE 4.13 Magazine advertisement for the Commodore
64 computer in 1982. (From “Commodore Computers” posted
Barton, M. & Loguidice B. (2016). A history of gaming plat-
forms: The Apple II. Gamasutra. Retrieved from http://
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(Bally Midway, 1983), and Impossible Mission (Epyx, 1984). /anticthennow.html.
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FIGURE 4.15 Box art to five defining Commodore 64 titles (left to Castronova, E. (2006). Synthetic worlds: The business and
right): IK+ (System 3/Epyx, 1987), Zack McKracken and the Alien culture of online games. University of Chicago Press.
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FIGURE 4.16 Screenshots from the PC version of Ultima I: The
.com/computers/8BITS/400800/ATARI800/A800.html.
First Age of Darkness (Richard Garriott/Origin Systems, 1981) and
Tetris (List, 1986). (Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness courtesy of Editorial: Commodore 64. Videogames hardware handbook:
Richard Garriott/Origin Systems, 1981; Tetris courtesy of List, 1986.) 1977–1999. (2009). Retro Gamer. United Kingdom:
Imagine Publishing, Ltd., p. 57.
FIGURE 4.17 Screenshots of Sid Meier’s Pirates! (MicroProse, 1987),
SimCity (Maxis, 1989), and Populous (Bullfrog/Electronic Arts, 1989).
Editorial: Atari 800XL. Videogames hardware handbook:
1977–2001 (2010). Retro Gamer. United Kingdom:
(Sid Meier’s Pirates! courtesy of MicroProse, 1987; SimCity courtesy of
Imagine Publishing, Ltd., p. 142.
Maxis, 1989; and Populous courtesy of Bullfrog/Electronic Arts, 1989.)
Fleming, J. (2016). We see farther: A history of Electronic Arts.
FIGURE 4.18 Early computer sales figures in thousands of units. Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature
(Adapted from data by Reimer, Jeremy. “Personal Computer Market /130129/we_see_farther__a_history_of_.php?print=1.
Share: 1975-2004” 2012. Retrieved from http://www.jeremyreimer
.com/m-item.lsp?i=137)
Freiberger, P. & Swaine, M. (1985, January). Fire in the valley,
part two. A+ Magazine. (Book excerpt). p. 45.
Pro File: Steve Wozniak. Photo credit: Al Luckow. Homepage of Fulton, Steve (2008, August 21). Atari: The golden years: A
Steve Wozniak, Copyrighted free use, https://commons.wikimedia history, 1978–1981. Gamasutra. p. 4.
.org/w/index.php?curid=182507.
Griggs, B. (2011, May 9). The Commodore 64, that ‘80s com- Personal Computer Museum. (2016). Commodore 16. Retrieved
puter icon, lives again. CNN. Retrieved from http://www from http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=287.
.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadgets/05/09/commodore
.64.reborn/. Reimer, J. (2005, December 15). Total share: 30 years of
personal computer market share figures. Ars Technica.
Hogan, T. (1981, August 31). From Zero to a Billion in Five Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12
Years. InfoWorld. pp. 6–7. /total-share/.
Kent, S. (2001). The ultimate history of video games: The story Reimer, J. (2012). Personal computer market share: 1975–2004.
behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the Retrieved from http://www.jeremyreimer.com/m-item
world. Roseville, CA: Three Rivers Press. .lsp?i=137.
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.vintage-computer.com/atari400.shtml. Berkeley, CA: Prentice Hall.
Linzmayer, O. (2004). Apple confidential 2.0: The definitive Safko, R. & Brake D. (2009). The social media bible: Tactics,
history of the world’s most colorful company (2nd ed). tools, and strategies for business success. Hoboken, NJ:
San Francisco, CA: No Starch Press. Wiley.
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Mesa, A. F. (2016). Apple I. Retrieved from http://applemuseum
.bott.org/sections/computers/a1.html.
CHAPTER 5
The 8-bit Era
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Summarize a brief overview of the history of Nintendo and Sega.

• Understand the challenges Nintendo overcame to bring the NES to the United States.
• Explain how names like Famicom, Sega, and 7800 were formed.
• Describe how Japanese consoles were redesigned for the American audience.
• Be familiar with the technological differences among third-generation consoles.
• List some of the key video game titles for each console.
• Recognize the impact Shigeru Miyamoto and Super Mario Bros. had on gaming.
• Illustrate how Nintendo dominated the third-generation market.
• List several innovations Nintendo brought to gaming during this time period.
• Identify the graphics and capabilities of third-generation video game consoles.
• Summarize third-generation market sales, breakthroughs, and trends.
107

10NES Game & Watch Sega Enterprises
Activision General Consumer Corporation Sega Light Phaser
Advanced Video System Japanese role-playing game Sega Mark III
Minoru Arakawa Ray Kassar Sega SG-1000
Atari Games (Division) Konami SegaScope 3D Glasses
Arcade ports Licensing policy (NES) Shigeru Miyamoto
Atari 2600 Jr. Howard Lincoln Side-scrolling platformer
Atari 7800 Proline Controller Master System Super Mario Bros.
Atari 7800 ProSystem Mastertronic Yu Suzuki
Atari Corporation Multicart Taito
Backwards compatibility NES Zapper TechToy
Capcom Nintendo Co., Ltd. Tecmo
Central Processing Unit Nintendo Entertainment System Third-party developer
Coleco POKEY TIA
Color Game-TV series Random access memory Tonka
Commodore Robot Operating Buddy (R.O.B.) Jack Tramiel
Consumer Electronics Show Rosen Enterprises Video cassette recorder
Digital signature SALLY Warner Communications
D-pad controller Screen resolution Worlds of Wonder
Easter Eggs Seal of Quality (NES) Hiroshi Yamauchi
Famicom Sega Card
Famicom Sega Mark III

(Japan) (Japan) NES (US)
July 1983 October 1985 September 1986
July 1983 May 1986 October 1986
Sega SG-1000 Sega Master System

(Japan) Atari 7800 (US) (US)
The 8-bit Era ◾ 109
◾ THE ARCADE SCENE Ninja Gaiden were completely different games on home
consoles and were not considered ports of the arcade
With the end of the Golden Age and the Video Game originals.
Crash of 1983 in North America, the arcade market One game that helped attract gamers back to the
experienced a steady decline during the mid-1980s. arcades was Sega’s Hang-On in 1985. Developed by Yu
The console market would be revived by Nintendo, but Suzuki and his Sega AM2 team, the game utilized
the games that brought players back to their TVs pseudo-3D, “Super Scaler” sprite-scaling and a motion-
during this time were quite different from those in the controlled hydraulic motorbike cabinet where players
arcades. Many console games during the third gener- controlled what looked and felt like real motorcycle
ation were more intricate than their arcade counter- handles. The game even mirrored the angle of the seat,
parts, containing more elaborate stories, secrets to be where players could lean left and right to control the
discovered, and a greater time commitment. Console motorcycle on-screen. This led to other popular
action/adventure games now often took several hours hydraulic titles by Sega such as Space Harrier (1985),
to complete. Role-playing console games could last for OutRun (1986), and After Burner (1987).
10 hours or longer.
Nintendo all but pulled the plug on the arcade ◾ THE THIRD GENERATION:
market to focus on the Nintendo Entertainment Sys- NINTENDO FAMICOM
tem. Capcom entered the arcade market around this
time and large companies such as Atari (Figure 5.1), The third generation of video games (also called the
Sega, Taito, and Konami continued to release enough “8-bit era”), began in Japan with Sega and Nintendo.
titles to keep the arcades afloat. Each of these compa- Nintendo Koppai was founded in 1889 by Fusajiro
nies was also developing console titles, which helped Yamauchi. The company’s original operation was the
them remain profitable. Home ports of arcade hits were manufacturing of Japanese playing cards. It wasn’t until
still common, but many console games that shared the the early 1970s that the newly branded Nintendo Co.,
same title as arcade games were alike in name only. Ltd. began developing electronic games. Its first major
Games like Capcom’s Bionic Commando and Tecmo’s video game success was the Pong-like Color TV-Game
FIGURE 5.1 Atari still delivered defining arcade games after the Video Game Crash of 1983, including (a) Paperboy (1984),
(b) Marble Madness (1984), and (c) Gauntlet (1985).
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 5.2 Nintendo Famicom game system and its unique d-pad controllers.
series in the late 1970s, followed by its Game & Watch ◾ COMING TO AMERICA
LCD handheld games in 1980.
The company reached international success with Despite the recent video game crash in North America,
the arcade hit Donkey Kong, before releasing its debut Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi believed the
third-generation console, the Nintendo Famicom (Figure Famicom could still succeed in the United States.
5.2). The title Famicom was derived from its formal Nintendo of America President Minoru Arakawa and
name “Family Computer.” The system was introduced in Vice President Howard Lincoln offered Atari the chance
Japan on July 15, 1983 for 14,800 yen (around $120 U.S. to distribute the system in the United States (or to use the
dollars). It had three launch titles, including arcade ports Famicom board inside an Atari-built console). Many
of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye (Figure 5.3). meetings with Ray Kassar and Atari ensued, and it
appeared the two companies had a deal. Then at the 1983
Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago, Atari
DID YOU KNOW? learned that Nintendo had licensed Donkey Kong to
Atari’s competitor Coleco for play on the Coleco Adam
The first batch of Famicoms had a bad chip set, causing a
Computer. Kassar claimed this “breached the licensing
massive recall and reissue with all new motherboards.
Once they got over this hurdle, Nintendo went on to sell agreement Atari had made with Nintendo” (Kent, 2001,
“more than 500,000 Famicoms within two months” p. 283) and the deal with Atari was never completed.
(Kent, 2001, p. 279). Kassar was forced to resign from Atari that July from
allegations of insider trading after he sold 5,000 shares of
FIGURE 5.3 Screenshots of Famicom launch titles: (a) Donkey Kong, (b) Donkey Kong Jr., and (c) Popeye.
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 5.4 The first redesign of Famicom, called the Nintendo Advanced Video System.
Warner stock just minutes before the company’s fourth The CES presentations showed that the U.S. market
quarter loss report was released. Besides Atari’s financial was quite skeptical of re-entering the video game arena.
crisis and the declining market in the United States, While the AVS showing was not a huge success, Nintendo
another possible culprit for the fallout was the fact that gathered enough data from focus groups to go back to the
unbeknownst to Nintendo, Atari already had another drawing board.
console in development, the Atari 7800.
The Famicom became the best-selling game console ◾ NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM
in Japan by the end of 1984 with over 3 million units
sold. Yamauchi was ready to give America another shot In attempt to appeal to U.S. consumers, Nintendo rede-
and sent Arakawa to unveil the console at the Las Vegas signed the look of the system a second time and renamed
Consumer Electronics Show in January 1985. The the console the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
console was renamed the Advanced Video System (Figure 5.5). The home computer approach was com-
(AVS) and displayed at a small booth with around 25 pletely abandoned and the top loading cartridge slot was
games. It was bundled with a keyboard, cassette data changed to a front-loading slot with a dust cover door,
recorder, and BASIC interpreter software cartridge. The more closely resembling a Video Cassette Recorder
redesigned system (displayed in Figure 5.4) looked more (VCR) than any game system developed up to that
like a home computer than a video game console. time.
FIGURE 5.5 Nintendo Entertainment System and its restyled d-pad controller.
FIGURE 5.6 Pages from the 1986 CES NES Brochure showing R.O.B., the Zapper, and newly designed Nintendo Entertain-
ment System.
In addition to avoiding the term “video games” in the utilized a joystick to control the on-screen action. Nintendo
eyes of retailers, Nintendo was careful to name and market changed all of that with its + shaped directional pad or
the console as an “entertainment system.” To compliment “d-pad.” The d-pad was developed by Gumpei Yokoi
this marketing campaign, the system included the addition in the late 1970s for Nintendo’s Game & Watch hand-
of an optional NES Zapper light gun accessory and Robot helds. Its comfort and precision helped the d-pad become
Operating Buddy (R.O.B.) (shown in Figure 5.6) devel- the standard method of controlling video games until
oped by Gumpei Yokoi. The Zapper only supported a few Nintendo’s touch sensitive control stick for the Nintendo
initial games such as Wild Gunman, Duck Hunt, and 64 more than a decade later. Even today, most video game
Hogan’s Alley, but would see enough releases on the system controllers still contain a d-pad in one form or another.
to warrant its purchase for shooting fans. R.O.B. on the
other hand, only worked with two games at launch DID YOU KNOW?
(Gyromite and Stack-Up). While the robot gave the system
In addition to designing the Game & Watch handheld,
a unique sense of identity, R.O.B. was unpopular in both
d-pad, and R.O.B., Gumpei Yokoi helped Shigeru
the United States as well as Japan, and never received a Miyamoto on Donkey Kong and was a key developer on
third title before being discontinued. Small software games like Kid Icarus and Metroid before designing the
support aside, these peripherals made the NES appear hugely successful Game Boy in 1989.
quite advanced during its time of release in the mid-1980s.
Beyond these peripheral devices, it was the NES con- With the redesigned Nintendo Entertainment Sys-
troller that truly revolutionized the industry. Prior to the tem ready to go, Nintendo prepared to test the U.S.
launch of the NES, most video game system controllers market. Rather than follow Nintendo of America’s test
market plans to start in small markets, Yamauchi chose to Nintendo remained mindful of the recent video game
go right to New York City for the 1985 holiday season. To crash in the United States and set out to regain the
help convince retailers to carry their product, Arakawa confidence of both consumers and retailers. Game car-
offered a money back guarantee for any unsold mer- tridges were called “game paks” instead of “video
chandise and had Nintendo staff set up all the in-store games.” To avoid the problems Atari had with too many
displays (Kent, 2001, p. 297). Among the 500 retailers poor third-party titles flooding the market, Nintendo
who took a gamble with the system, Nintendo was able to instilled a strict licensing policy. Under the policy,
secure deals with FAO Schwartz and Toys “R” Us. third-party companies had to order at least 10,000 car-
Nintendo sold at least 50,000 units in New York in tridges up front, to be manufactured exclusively by
1985—about half the number of consoles it shipped to the Nintendo (Sheff, 1993, pp. 215–215). Each publisher was
United States. Nintendo’s test launch was a reasonable only allowed to produce five games per year for
success considering Super Mario Bros. had not yet been Nintendo, and these titles were not permitted to appear
released. That game would not reach the United States on other game systems.
until the national launch in September 1986, joining a To avoid piracy issues they encountered with the
whopping 17 other available titles (Table 5.1). That year Famicom in Asia, Nintendo installed a special lock-out
Nintendo also secured former toy giant Worlds of chip in every NES console that had to be paired with a
Wonder (Teddy Ruxpin, Lazer Tag) as a distributor. counterpart chip installed in every officially licensed
cartridge. Known as the 10NES, if the chip could not
detect a cartridge’s counterpart chip, the game would fail
TABLE 5.1 Nintendo Entertainment System U.S. to load (Sheff, 1993, p. 247). In addition to these mea-
Launch Titles sures, Nintendo created a ‘Seal of Quality’ that appeared
• 10-Yard Fight • Ice Climber on the packaging of aptly licensed games and accessories.
• Baseball • Kung Fu (Figure 5.7a)
By 1988, Nintendo cartridges were in higher demand
• Clu Clu Land • Mach Rider
• Donkey Kong Jr. Math • Pinball than all computer software combined (Computer Gaming
• Duck Hunt • Stack-Up World, 1988, p. 50). The marketing phrase “Now You’re
• Excitebike • Super Mario Bros. Playing with Power” became a popular part of their
(Figure 5.7b) advertising; however, it was Nintendo who was in power
• Golf • Tennis now. The NES had singlehandedly revived the once pre-
• Gyromite • Wild Gunman sumed dead video game market in the United States and
• Hogan’s Alley • Wrecking Crew
became the world’s leading game console.
FIGURE 5.7 Screenshots from NES launch titles (a) Kung Fu and (b) Super Mario Bros.
(a) (b)
TABLE 5.2 Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment from a palette of 52, where the 2600 only displayed 4
System Tech Specs colors per scan line. Finally, the NES was able to output 5
Manufacturer: Nintendo channels of mono sound, compared to Atari’s 2 channel
Launch Price: $199.99 mono sound. The difference in sound was as drastic as
Release Date: 7/15/83 (JP), 10/18/85 (US), the improvement in graphics. While the Atari mostly
9/01/86 (EU/US national) outputted beeps and fuzzy noises (save for a few well-
Format: Cartridge programmed, single-track theme songs), the NES could
CPU: 8-bit Ricoh processor (1.79 MHz) produce more intricately arranged music with a separate
Memory: 2 KB RAM, 2 KB VRAM channel devoted entirely to percussion.
Colors: 24 on-screen from palette of 52
HEAD-TO-HEAD
To compare the graphics and sound between the NES
and 2600, play games that were released on both con-
soles (or watch video clips of them). Some games to
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: NES VERSUS compare include Bump ‘n’ Jump, Donkey Kong,
ATARI 2600 (VCS) Ghostbusters, Mario Bros., and Ms. Pac-Man.
Compared to the previous leading game console, the

NES launched for $199.99 shortly after the video game ◾ KEY NES TITLES
crash in the United States, where an Atari VCS/2600
could be picked up for less than $50. As for the CPU, the One of the major reasons for the early success of the
NES’s 1.79 MHz 8-bit Ricoh 6502 processor (Table 5.2) Nintendo Entertainment System in America has to be
did not look much better than Atari’s 1.19 MHz 8-bit attributed to Super Mario Bros., which became the pack-
6507 processor on paper, but technology had come a in title with every NES console when the system was
long way since the VCS was built and Nintendo was able launched nationally. Super Mario Bros. was the brain-
to squeeze a lot more power out of its chip. The NES also child of Donkey Kong designer Shigeru Miyamoto.
had over 15 times more RAM at 2 KB RAM versus Where most of the games that preceded it took place on a
Atari’s 128 bytes RAM, as well as an addition 2 KB single (often black background) screen, SMB transported
VRAM dedicated to graphics. players to a vibrant, scrolling world filled with secrets
The NES displayed a screen resolution of 256 × 240 (i.e., Easter eggs) that gave gamers a sense of exploration
pixels (screen dots), compared to the 2600’s resolution of and discovery. It really distinguished the NES from the
160 × 192 pixels. It could also display 24 on-screen colors previous generation of consoles and showed what the
FIGURE 5.8 Box art to five prestigious NES titles baring the Nintendo Seal of Quality: (a) Super Mario Bros., (b) Contra,
(c) The Legend of Zelda, (d) Mega Man 2, and (e) Metroid.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

system was capable of. While there were several side- bases. Following World War II, the company changed its
scrolling shooter games that came out before it, SMB was name to Service Games and moved to Tokyo, Japan
one of the first side-scrolling “platformer” games and when the U.S. government began outlawing slot
pioneered this genre of gameplay. machines. The company merged with competitor Rosen
The NES gave birth to numerous key titles, many of Enterprises and using the first two letters in “Service”
which are still seeing sequels and reinventions today. and “Games” became Sega Enterprises in 1965.
The three Super Mario Bros. games were the NES’s top With its success in the arcade business, Sega debuted
selling games of all time (not counting Duck Hunt which on the Japanese home console market the same day as
was bundled with Super Mario Bros. and included with the Nintendo Famicom, introducing the Sega SG-1000
the Action and Deluxe sets). Other notable series that (Figure 5.9a) on July 15, 1983. The machine was not a
began on the NES included Miyamoto’s The Legend of huge success, but served as a pivotal stepping stone to
Zelda and Metroid (shown in Figure 5.8) from Gunpei Sega’s second console, the Sega Mark III (Figure 5.7b).
Yokoi. Each of these games placed an emphasis on non- The Mark III was launched in Japan on October 20,
linear exploration and powering up one’s character— 1985 for 15,000 yen (around $120 U.S. dollars). It was
setting new standards for action adventure games. Third- basically an improved version of the SG-1000 that was
party titles such as Capcom’s Mega Man, Konami’s specifically designed to be more powerful than the
Castlevania, Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden, and Dragon Quest Nintendo Famicom (Parkin, 2014). The Mark III could
(Dragon Warrior in the United States) by Enix all saw at play both cartridges and Sega Cards (credit card-shaped
least three titles on the NES. The system was also home to games which could be manufactured and sold for less).
the original console versions of Final Fantasy, Metal Although technically superior to the Famicom, the
Gear, and many others. Over 700 titles were officially Mark III struggled due to Nintendo’s licensing policy
licensed for the NES (with 1000+ games in Japan). with third-party developers that did not allow developers
to port their Famicom games to other consoles. To
◾ SEGA MARK III compensate for the lack of third-party support, Sega had
to obtain rights for many titles and produce the games
Sega Games Co., Ltd. began in 1940 as an American themselves. As difficult as it was to compete with
company called Standard Games. It was formed by Nintendo in Japan, Sega believed they could compete in
businessmen Martin Bromley, Irving Bromberg, and North America and other countries and began planning a
James Humpert in Honolulu, Hawaii to manufacture U.S. release for 1986. Like Nintendo’s Famicom, Sega
coin-operated games such as slot machines for military would redesign the Mark III to appeal to Western gamers.
FIGURE 5.9 Sega’s first console, the SG-1000 (a) and the Sega Mark III (b).
(a) (b)
FIGURE 5.10 Sega Master System “Power Base” and d-pad controller with joystick inserted.
◾ SEGA MASTER SYSTEM Nintendo bundled its “Action Set” with a more popular
multicart featuring Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt.
The Mark III was redesigned and renamed the Sega Similar to the situation in Japan, the Master System
Master System (Figures 5.10). It first appeared in and its meager game library was not nearly as successful
North America at the June CES, but did not officially as the Nintendo Entertainment System. And because of
launch in the United States until October 1986, about a Nintendo’s strict licensing policy, Sega was only able to
month after the NES national launch. The Master obtain Activision and Parker Brothers as consistent
System released with only two games, Hang-On and the third-party developers in the United States. With the
“Light Phaser” gun game Safari Hunt (Figure 5.11), market looking bleak in North America, Sega proceeded
which were included with the console as a multicart to distribute the Master System in Europe under
(multiple games on one cartridge). The control pad was Mastertronic in 1987 and in Brazil under Tectoy in
similar to Nintendo’s, with an optional small joystick 1989. The system sold well in these regions and main-
that could be twisted into the center of the directional tained a reasonable market share in both Europe and
pad. In October 1987 Sega released its “SegaScope 3-D Brazil—even after the release of the more advanced
glasses” for a handful of 3-D games. Around this time, systems in the following generation (McFerran, 2014).
FIGURE 5.11 Screenshots from Sega’s two U.S. launch titles (a) Hang-On (Sega, 1985) and (b) Safari Hunt (Sega, 1986).
(a) (b)
FIGURE 5.12 Magazine advertisement for the Sega Master System in 1990.
TABLE 5.3 Mark III/Sega Master System: Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Sega (Service Games)
Release Date: 10/20/85 (JP), June–Sep. 1986 (US), 1987 (EU), 1989 (BR)
Format: Cartridge (and a few titles on Sega Card)
CPU: 8-bit Zilog Z80 processor (3.57 MHz)
Memory: 8 KB main RAM, 16 KB VRAM
Resolution: 256 × 192 and 256 × 224 pixels
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: MASTER bigger sales figures. Sega’s games often looked better
SYSTEM VERSUS NES than NES titles, but overall, the NES library contained
more innovative games that were arguably more fun to
Most of the Sega Master System’s specs (Table 5.3) play. One of Sega’s popular slogans for the Master
topped the NES on paper. Its 3.57 MHz Zilog Z80 System was “The Challenge Will Always Be There.” In
looked twice as fast as Nintendo’s 1.79 MHz Ricoh retrospect, this slogan was fitting for the company, with
processor, but it was different technology. While it was Nintendo’s market command being the challenge that
faster, it was certainly not twice as fast. For memory, the would always be there for Sega.
SMS contained four times the RAM with 8 KB of RAM
compared to Nintendo’s 2 KB. Its 16 KB of video RAM
HEAD-TO-HEAD
was eight times larger than the NES’s 2 KB of video
RAM. Unlike the NES, however, the SMS could not flip To compare the graphics and sound between the NES
sprite tiles. For instance, a character facing left and right and SMS, check out (or watch video clips of) Double
Dragon, Gauntlet, Paperboy, Rampage, and Shinobi.
had to be drawn twice on Sega, which used up video
RAM. With 32 colors from a palette of 64, Sega’s
machine could also display 25% more on-screen color ◾ KEY SEGA MASTER SYSTEM TITLES
compared to Nintendo’s 24 colors from a palette of 52.
Nintendo’s console had slightly higher resolution and an Sega may not have won the 8-bit console war with
extra sound channel, but overall Sega’s specs were Nintendo, but the Master System did produce a number
superior. of important, often exclusive titles for the video game
Numbers aside—as it was seen in this and other history. The role-playing game Phantasy Star was one of
generations, bigger numbers do not always result in the first of its kind and one of the pioneers of the
FIGURE 5.13 Box art to five standout SMS titles including: (a) Phantasy Star, (b) Shinobi, (c) Wonder Boy in Monster World,
(d) Alex Kidd in Miracle World, and (e) Zillion.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Japanese role-playing game (JRPG). Alex Kidd became Like Nintendo’s 10NES lockout chip, the 7800 also
the de facto mascot of sorts for the Master System, but contained technology to maintain quality control of its
was nowhere near as popular as Nintendo’s Mario. The software. “The solution was a unique and encrypted
Alex Kidd series spawned many decent titles on the SMS, digital signature contained in all cartridges, that when
such as Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Alex Kidd in not present would automatically lock the system into
Shinobi World. The Zillion and Wonder Boy titles were 2600 mode” (Retro Gamer, 2010, p. 229). Unlike Euro-
some of the best side-scrolling action games on the pean games, all 7800 games released in the United States
system. See Figures 5.12 and 5.13 for box artwork. required this digital signature code by Atari to operate.
Tragically, just over a third of the Master System’s 300+ Similar to many of the previous second generation
games were ever released in the United States. consoles, the 7800 Pro System was originally planned to
be upgradable to a home computer. A keyboard was
even developed, but the project never came to fruition.
◾ ATARI 7800 PROSYSTEM
The 7800 had a greater selection of launch titles
Initially called the Atari 3600, the Atari 7800 ProSystem (Table 5.4) compared to the Master System, although it
(Figure 5.14) was developed by General Consumer could never compete with the NES library in terms of
Corporation (GCC) to replace the unsuccessful Atari quality or quantity. Compared to Nintendo’s original line-
5200 before the Nintendo Famicom was ever released. up, most of the 7800 games were just enhanced ports of
The system was delayed when Atari was sold to former arcade games that were already playable on the 2600 and/
Commodore head Jack Tramiel and did not receive a or 5200. The graphics were better than the older Atari
full launch (often called a relaunch) until May 1986 at consoles, but most players were more interested in newer
the competitive price of $139. titles they had not experienced yet. Furthermore, Nintendo
The console looked like a combination of the newly was providing titles that were exclusive to the home
designed Atari 2600 Jr. and the Atari 5200 and was market—games that could not be played in the arcades.
appropriately named the “7800” because of its 5200
graphics power + 2600 backward compatibility (ability
TABLE 5.4 Atari 7800 ProSystem U.S. Launch Titles
to play 2600 games). Even the joystick appeared to be a • Ms. Pac-Man • Galaga
hybrid between the 2600 and 5200 controllers. Gone • Pole Position II (Figure 5.15a) • Xevious
was the confusing number pad from the 5200 controller • Centipede • Food Fight
and the joystick was self-centering again like the 2600’s • Joust (Figure 5.15b) • Ballblazer
stick. The Proline controller (Figures 5.14 and 5.16) had • Dig Dug • Rescue on Fractalus!
just two buttons, as it was designed to be comfortable for • Desert Falcon • Track and Field
• Robotron: 2084
both right-handed and left-handed players.
FIGURE 5.14 Atari 7800 ProSystem with a Proline joystick controller.

FIGURE 5.15 Screenshots from Atari 7800 launch titles (a) Pole Position II and (b) Joust.
(a) (b)
To its credit, the 7800 was one of the first consoles to 7800 utilized 4 KB of RAM and 4 KB of BIOS ROM and
contain backward compatibility with its ability to play its games were capable of being displayed at 160 × 240 or
2600 titles. Interestingly, the 7800 could play Atari 2600 320 × 200 pixels—the latter being higher than the NES’s
games but not Atari 5200 games. This was because the 256 × 240 resolution. Capability aside, most 7800 games
system included the 2600’s TIA (Television Interface were programmed to run at the lower resolution to
Adaptor) graphics and sound chip, but did not include accommodate the processing demands of MARIA.
the chips from the less popular 5200. On-screen colors were about equal to the NES (25 on-
screen colors versus Nintendo’s 24); however, the 7800
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: ATARI 7800 had a much larger color palette to choose from with 256
VERSUS NES total colors versus the NES’s palette of 52 colors. It was
sound limitations that crippled the 7800 from the
The 7800’s 8-bit 6502C “SALLY” processor clocked in at beginning more than anything else. At only two chan-
1.79 MHz Table 5.5 which was identical to the speed of nels of mono sound, Atari 7800 games did not sound
Nintendo’s Ricoh processor. Where it differed most was in much better than 2600 games unless the cartridges
its custom graphics chip called MARIA (combined with included a Pot Keyboard Integrated Circuit (POKEY)
the TIA = TIA-MARIA, named after the Jamaican coffee audio chip, which used software to improve the sound
liqueur). This chip was drastically different from the other of the game. Unfortunately, some of its best games,
consoles of the third generation in that it could display a including Pole Position II, did not contain the POKEY
larger number of sprites on screen—although doing so audio chip and suffered from poor sound quality.
would often halt the CPU. And while it could move large Comparing the technical specifications of all three third-
graphics around on the screen, it was not as adept at generation consoles found the Atari 7800 in a distant
handling side scrolling games like Super Mario Bros. The third place behind the NES and SMS.
TABLE 5.5 Atari 7800 ProSystem Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Atari
Release Date: May 1986 (US), 1987 (EU)
Format: Cartridge (32K)
CPU: 8-bit 6502C “SALLY” processor (1.79 MHz)
Memory: 4 KB RAM, 4 KB BIOS ROM
Resolution: 160 × 240 or 320 × 200 pixels
FIGURE 5.16 Comic book advertisement for the Atari 7800 (1990).
FIGURE 5.17 Box art to five of the top 7800 titles including: (a) Alien Brigade, (b) Dark Chambers, (c) Food Fight, (d) Midnight
Mutants, and (e) Ninja Golf
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
Communications, with Warner maintaining ownership

HEAD-TO-HEAD of the 7800 Pro System. Arguments between Warner and
To compare the graphics and sound between the 7800 Tramiel over who should pay General Consumer Cor-
and NES, try (or watch video clips of) Donkey Kong, poration for their work on the 7800 and its launch titles
Commando, Ikari Warriors, Xenophobe, and Xevious. To
ensued, with Tramiel reluctantly absorbing the bill in
compare the 7800 with both the NES and SMS, check out
Double Dragon and Rampage.
May 1985 (Retro Gamer, 2010, p. 231). The 7800 sold
millions more units than the 5200, but by the end of the
third generation, Atari had clearly lost the video game
◾ KEY ATARI 7800 TITLES market it once dominated.
Sega originally planned to sell between 400,000 and
One of the slogans used by Atari to market the 7800 was,
750,000 Master System consoles (Takiff, 1986), but by
“We Reinvented the Video Game.” Perhaps a more
the end of 1986 the SMS had sold just 125,000 consoles—
appropriate slogan could have been, “We Reinvented
more than the Atari 7800’s 100,000 but far less than
Our Video Games,” as most of the games on the 7800—
Nintendo’s 1.1 million (Computer Entertainer, 1987,
especially in the beginning—were just upgraded versions
p. 13). Unlike in Japan and North America where
of older titles already available on previous systems. Still,
Nintendo focused its efforts, the Master System outsold
some of the updated classics attracted gamers for their
the NES in Europe by a considerable margin (Screen
nostalgic value and improved graphics, such as with
Digest, 1995, p. 61). It also sold well in Brazil when it
notable upgrades of Joust and Centipede. Alien Brigade,
launched in 1989 and lasted for many years in South
Midnight Mutants, and Ninja Golf (shown in Figure
America where it saw many exclusive titles. Success in
5.17) were solid console exclusives. Fewer than 100
other countries combined with a profitable coin-op busi-
games were ever developed for the system, but it did at
ness in the arcades kept Sega afloat. These victories would
least spawn more exclusive titles than the Atari 5200.
help Sega become a major player in the next generation.
◾ THIRD-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY The NES sold the most units in the third generation
due to its earlier initial release, strong first-party titles,
If Atari was in hot water before the release of the 7800, and Nintendo’s strict licensing policy with third party
they were in scorching lava afterward. When the developers. By 1988, Nintendo commanded an 83%
company was sold to Jack Tramiel, rights of patents, share of the North American video game market
licenses, and products were divided between the coin-op (McGill, 1988) and at least 90% of the Japanese video
(arcade) division Atari Games and between Warner game market. That same year, Sega handed the Master
System over to Tonka for distribution until they Famicom and NES signaled a significant market shift in
reacquired distribution rights for the redesigned Master the video game industry. “Much development in the
System II. Nintendo’s effect on American culture was so arcades had switched to Japan, and with Nintendo’s
profound that “a 1990 survey showed that Mario was Famicom the clear market leader there, it had a lock on
more recognized by children than Mickey Mouse” the latest titles” (Retro Gamer, 2010, p. 231). This
(Diskin, 2004, p. 4). market change saw Japan as the dominant force in the
Figure 5.18 illustrates how many millions of consoles video game industry—a crown that the country would
were eventually sold. Nintendo’s success with the hold for generations.
FIGURE 5.18 Third-generation console sales graph.
Console Approximate worldwide sales (in millions)
NES > 60 million
SMS 15 million
7800 < 5 million
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
◾ THIRD-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS
There were many breakthroughs and trends that defined the third generation of video games. Here is a list of the top
10 advancements that defined the generation:
1. D-pad game controllers

2. Tile-based playfields with smooth hardware scrolling
3. The “platformer” style video game
4. Detailed sprite graphics with integer sprite zooming (to double sprite size)
5. Higher screen resolutions (up to 256 × 240 and 320 × 200 pixels)
6. Multi-directional scrolling and diagonal scrolling
7. Enhanced sound (up to 5-channel mono audio)
8. Battery backup save feature (where progress could be saved to the cartridge)
9. Light gun game popularity
10. Active-shutter stereoscopic 3D glasses
◾ ACTIVITY: ARCADE TO HOME PORT COMPARISON

Play or screen gameplay from an arcade title and its home port for at least 30 minutes each. Take notes on the
graphical, aural, and gameplay differences and similarities.
SUGGESTED TITLES
Compare the arcade version with the NES version of Ikari Warriors, Punch-Out!!, or Splatterhouse; the
Sega Maser System version of Space Harrier, Double Dragon, or Shinobi; and/or the Atari 7800 version of
Pole Position II, Joust, or Xevious.
GUIDELINES
Always begin by playing/viewing the arcade version of the game; then discuss how the home port
measures up. Then write a 500- to 1000-word comparison essay comparing the two games in regard to:
• Graphics – include size and scale, color palette, resolution (clarity), animation, effects, and presentation.
• Sound – include the quality and accuracy of the games’ music and sound effects.
• Playability – include how well the games control and how fun they are to play.
QUESTIONS
1. How do these games compare to arcade ports from the previous generation?
2. Did the home console version add anything to or lack anything important from the arcade experience?
3. Do you feel that the console version was close enough to the arcade game that players would rather
purchase the game and play from home?
4. Did the arcade version contain any features that would still attract gamers to an arcade venue to play
the game?
5. What impact do you think this had on the arcade industry, if any?
6. Could the publisher/developer have done anything differently?
7. What are your final thoughts?
◾ CHAPTER 5 QUIZ 3. Nintendo’s Famicom stood for:

a. Family Computer
1. Which company was not a leading arcade game b. Future Computer
publisher in the mid-1980s? c. Family Console
a. Capcom d. Future Console
b. Cave
c. Konami 4. What system launched with a bad chip that
d. Taito caused a product recall and reissue with a new
motherboard?
2. Which third-generation console sold the largest a. Atari 2600
number of units? b. Nintendo Famicom
a. Nintendo Entertainment System c. Sega Master System
b. Sega Master System d. Atari 7800
c. Sega SG-1000
d. Atari 7800
5. Nintendo initially approached _________ to market 12. Which console was technologically superior based
and distribute the NES in the United States. on tech spec numbers?
a. Atari a. Nintendo Entertainment System
b. Coleco b. Sega Master System
c. Mattel c. Sega SG-1000
d. Tonka d. Atari 7800
6. In which U.S. city was the NES first released? 13. The Atari 7800 ultimately failed to obtain long-term
a. Boston market success because of:
b. New York City a. Poor hardware sound
c. Miami b. Dated initial game library
d. Los Angeles c. Divided patents, licenses, and product rights
d. All of the above
7. The original mascot for the NES was a robot named
R.O.B. which stood for: 14. One of Sega’s marketing slogans for the Master
a. Robot Opponent Buddy System was:
b. Robot Operating Buddy a. “The Challenge Will Always Be There”
c. Robot Operating Bus b. “Now You’re Playing With Power”
d. Random Operating Bus c. “We Reinvented the Video Game”
d. All of the above
8. What creation(s) is Shigeru Miyamoto famous for?
a. Donkey Kong 15. The Sega Master System was a commercial failure in
b. Legend of Zelda most countries, except for:
c. Super Mario Bros. a. Japan and Europe
d. All of the above b. Japan and Brazil
c. Brazil and Europe
9. SEGA stands for: d. Brazil and the United States
a. Service Games
b. Sonic Electronic Games of America 16. Which feature was not part of the major three third-
c. Super Electronic Games of America generation consoles?
d. Solid Electronic Games of America a. 16-bit graphics
b. Battery backup save feature (where progress could
10. The typical launch price for an NES or a Master be saved to the cartridge)
System video game console was: c. Light gun game popularity
a. $299.99 d. Active-shutter stereoscopic 3D glasses
b. $249.99
c. $199.99 True or False
d. $99.99
17. The original Nintendo Famicom launch titles were
11. Which console was not redesigned for the American Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt.
audience?
a. Nintendo Famicom 18. The Famicom console was renamed the Advanced
b. Nintendo Advanced Video System Video System (AVS), before being renamed the
c. Sega Mark III Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for the U.S.
d. Atari 7800 market.
19. R.O.B. never saw another game beyond Gyromite and FIGURE 5.6 “The Complete 1986 CES NES Brochure For Your
Stack-Up. The robot was unpopular in both the United Viewing Pleasure.” Posted Mon September 3, 2012 by Damien
States and Japan and was eventually discontinued. McFerran. Retrieved from http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/09
/the_complete_1986_ces_nes_brochure_for_your_viewing_pleasure.
(Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at https://
20. Two of the key video game titles the NES included
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11408666. Retrieved from
were Metroid and Mega Man 2.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NES-Console-Set.png#
/media/File:NES-Console-Set.png. Part of this image was also used on the
◾ FIGURES introductory page of this chapter.)
FIGURE 5.1 Atari still delivered defining arcade games after FIGURE 5.7 Screenshots from NES launch titles (a) Kung Fu
the Video Game Crash of 1983, including (a) Paperboy (1984), (Irem/Nintendo, 1985) and (b) Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1985).
(b) Marble Madness (1984), and (c) Gauntlet (1985). (Marble (Kung Fu courtesy of Irem/Nintendo, 1985; and Super Mario Bros.
Madness courtesy of Atari, 1984; Gauntlet courtesy of Atari, 1985; courtesy of Nintendo, 1985.)
and Out Run courtesy of Sega, 1986.)
FIGURE 5.8 Box art to five prestigious NES titles displaying the
FIGURE 5.2 “Famicom-Console-Set” By Evan Amos. Own
Nintendo Seal of Quality including from left to right: (a) Super Mario
work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
Bros. (Nintendo, 1985), (b) Contra (Konami, 1988), (c) The Legend
?curid=19135654. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org
of Zelda (Nintendo, 1987), (d) Mega Man 2 (Capcom, 1989), and
/wiki/File:Famicom-Console-Set.png#/media/File:Famicom-Console
(e) Metroid (Nintendo, 1987). (Super Mario Bros. courtesy of Nintendo,
-Set.png. (Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available
1985; Contra courtesy of Konami, 1988; The Legend of Zelda courtesy of
Nintendo, 1987; Mega Man 2 courtesy of Capcom, 1989; and Metroid
Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Famicom
courtesy of Nintendo, 1987.)
-Console-Set.png#/media/File:Famicom-Console-Set.png. “Famicom-
Console-Set”).
FIGURE 5.9 (a) “Sega-SG-1000-Console-Set” By Evan Amos. Own
FIGURE 5.3 Screenshots of Famicom launch titles (from left to work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
right): (a) Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1983), (b) Donkey Kong Jr. ?curid=18273359. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki
(Nintendo, 1983), and (c) Popeye (Nintendo, 1983). (Courtesy of /File:Sega-SG-1000-Console-Set.jpg#/media/File:Sega-SG-1000
Nintendo, 1983.) -Console-Set.jpg and (b) “Sega Mark III” By Muband. Own work, CC
BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
FIGURE 5.4 “Nintendo Advanced Video System (retouched)” By =9038926. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File
Russell Bernice and Chris Donlan (“Doonvas”), CC BY 2.0, https:// :Sega_Mark_III.jpg#/media/File:Sega_Mark_III.jpg. (Left: Courtesy of
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31293613. Retrieved Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://commons
from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nintendo_Advanced .wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18273359. Retrieved from https://
_Video_System_(retouched).jpg#/media/File:Nintendo_Advanced commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sega-SG-1000-Console-Set.jpg#
_Video_System_(retouched).jpg. (Courtesy of Russell Bernice and /media/File:Sega-SG-1000-Console-Set.jpg. "Sega-SG-1000-Console-
Chris Donlan ("Doonvas"), CC BY 2.0. Available at https://commons Set". Right: Courtesy of Muband - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at
.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31293613 Retrieved from https:// https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9038926.
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nintendo_Advanced_Video Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sega_Mark
_System_(retouched).jpg#/media/File:Nintendo_Advanced_Video _III.jpg#/media/File:Sega_Mark_III.jpg. "Sega Mark III" )
_System_(retouched).jpg).
FIGURE 5.10 “Sega-Master-System-Set” by By Evan Amos. Own

FIGURE 5.5 “NES-Console-Set” By Evan Amos. Own work, Public
work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11408666
?curid=14249084. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org
Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NES-Console
/wiki/File:Sega-Master-System-Set.jpg#/media/File:Sega-Master
-Set.png#/media/File:NES-Console-Set.png (part of this image was
-System-Set.jpg (part of this image was also used on the introductory
also used on the introductory page of this chapter). ("The Complete 1986
page of this chapter). (“The Sega Master System’s Hot This Summer”
CES NES Brochure For Your Viewing Pleasure” Posted Mon 3 September
posted by Retroist. Retrieved from http://www.retroist.com/2011/01
2012 by Damien McFerran. Retrieved from http://www.nintendolife
/27/the-sega-master-systems-hot-this-summer/)
.com/news/2012/09/the_complete_1986_ces_nes_brochure_for_your
_viewing_pleasure).
FIGURE 5.11 Screenshots from Sega’s two U.S. launch titles 1990; Midnight Mutants courtesy of Radioactive Software/Atari,
(a) Hang-On (Sega, 1985) and (b) Safari Hunt (Sega, 1986). (Courtesy of 1990; and Ninja Golf courtesy of Blue Sky Software/Atari, 1990.)
Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at https://commons
.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14249084. Retrieved from https:// FIGURE 5.18 Third-generation console sales graph. Designed by
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sega-Master-System-Set.jpg# Wardyga using data from Resource Site for Video Game Research,
/media/File:Sega-Master-System-Set.jpg. Part of this image was also used “Console Wars through the Generations.” http://dh101.humanities
on the introductory page of this chapter.) .ucla.edu/DH101Fall12Lab4/graph—console-wars. (Designed by
Wardyga using data from Resource Site for Video Game Research,
FIGURE 5.12 Magazine advertisement for the Sega Master System "Console Wars through the Generations." Available at http://dh101.
in 1990. “The Sega Master System’s Hot This Summer” posted by humanities.ucla.edu/DH101Fall12Lab4/graph—console-wars)
Retroist. Retrieved from http://www.retroist.com/2011/01/27/the
-sega-master-systems-hot-this-summer/. (Hang-On courtesy of Sega, Pro File: Sigeru Miyamoto. Photo credit: Shigeru Miyamoto at E3
1985; and Safari Hunt courtesy of Sega, 1986.) 2013. Photo by Jan Graber via Public Domain CC BY-SA 3.0 de,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57040765.
FIGURE 5.13 Box art to five standout SMS titles including from left
to right: (a) Phantasy Star (Sega, 1988), (b) Shinobi (Sega, 1988),
◾ REFERENCES
(c) Wonder Boy in Monster World (Westo One/Sega, 1993, published
by Sega), (d) Alex Kidd in Miracle World (Sega, 1986), and (e) Zillion Comparing the new videogame systems. (1987, February).
(Sega, 1987). (Phantasy Star courtesy of Sega, 1988; Shinobi courtesy of Computer Entertainer Newsletter, 5:11, p. 13. Retrieved
Sega, 1988; Wonder Boy in Monster World courtesy of Westo One/ from http://www.smspower.org/forums/files/computer-
Sega, 1993, published by Sega; Alex Kidd in Miracle World courtesy of entertai01unse_page_0841_154.jpg.
Sega, 1986; and Zillion courtesy of Sega, 1987.)
Diski, P. (2004, August). Nintendo Entertainment System
documentation. Retrieved from http://nesdev.com
FIGURE 5.14 “Atari-7800-Console-Set” By Evan Amos. Own /NESDoc.pdf.
work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=18312472. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org Editorial: The Nintendo threat? (1988, June). Computer
/wiki/File:Atari-7800-Console-Set.png#/media/File:Atari-7800 Gaming World, 48, p. 50.
-Console-Set.png (part of this image was also used on the intro-
ductory page of this chapter). (Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, Editorial: Total 8-bit and 16-bit cartridge consoles: Active
installed base estimates. (1995, March). Screen Digest, p. 61.
CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w
/index.php?curid=18312472. Retrieved from https://commons.
wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atari-7800-Console-Set.png#/media/File: behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the
Atari-7800-Console-Set.png. Part of this image was also used on the world. Roseville, CA: Three Rivers Press.
introductory page of this chapter.)
McFerran, D. (2014, July). Hardware classics: Sega Master
FIGURE 5.15 Screenshots from Atari 7800 launch titles (a) Pole System. Nintendo Life. Retrieved from http://www
.nintendolife.com/news/2014/07/hardware_classics
Position II (Atari, 1987) and (b) Joust (Atari, 1986). (Pole Position II
_sega_master_system.
courtesy of Atari, 1987; and Joust courtesy of Atari, 1986.)
McFerran, D. (2007, December). Retroinspection: Master
FIGURE 5.16 Comic book advertisement for the Atari 7800 System. Retro Gamer, 44, pp. 48–53. London, UK:
(1990). Retrieved from Atari Age at http://atariage.com/forums/topic Imagine Publishing Ltd.
/168431-a-few-more-vintage-atari-7800-print-ads/.
McGill, D. C. (1988, December). Nintendo scores big. The
New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes
FIGURE 5.17 Box art to five top 7800 titles including from left to .com/1988/12/04/business/nintendo-scores-big.html?
right: (a) Alien Brigade (Sculptured Software/Atari, 1990), (b) Dark pagewanted=all.
Chambers (Sculptured Software/Atari, 1988), (c) Food Fight (Atari,
1990), (d) Midnight Mutants (Radioactive Software/Atari, 1990), and Parkin, S. (2014, June). A history of video game hardware:
(e) Ninja Golf (Blue Sky Software/Atari, 1990). (Alien Brigade Sega Master System. Edge. Retrieved from http://www
courtesy of Sculptured Software/Atari, 1990; Dark Chambers cour- .edge-online.com/features/a-history-of-videogame
tesy of Sculptured Software/Atari, 1988; Food Fight courtesy of Atari, -hardware-sega-master-system/.
CHAPTER 6
The 16-bit Era
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Compare fourth-generation consoles with their 8-bit predecessors.

• Have a sense of graphics and other capabilities of fourth-generation games.
• Be familiar with the technological differences among fourth-generation consoles.
• Describe how Japanese consoles were redesigned for the American audience.
• List some of the key video game titles and peripherals for each console.
• Recognize the importance the new technology had on the video game industry.
• Describe how and when Sega rose above Nintendo during the fourth generation.
• Summarize a brief overview of the history of NEC and SNK.
• Explain why Sega and Nintendo were the dominant 16-bit consoles in the United States.
• Summarize fourth-generation market sales, breakthroughs, and trends.
129

16-bit Yuzo Koshiro Sega CD
3D polygons Konami Sega R&D Team
Atari Lynx Localization Sega Virtua Processor
Lance Barr Mega Drive Shin Nihon Kikaku (SNK)
Blast processing Menacer Shoot’em ups/shmups
Capcom Mode 7 Slowdown
Censorship Mosaic Sonic the Hedgehog
Central Processing Unit Motorola 68000 Street date
Color layering Yuji Naka Street Fighter II
Compile Hayao Nakayama Super Famicom
Console war Neo•Geo Advanced Entertainment Super Nintendo
Digital Signal Processor System Super Scope
Direct Memory Access Neo•Geo CD/CDZ SuperFX chip
Electronic Arts Neo•Geo MVS SuperGrafx
Full Motion Video (FMV) Nippon Electric Company Yu Suzuki
Game Boy Naoto Ohshima TurboDuo
Game Gear Parallax scrolling TurboExpress
Genesis PC Engine TurboPad
Graphics Processing Unit Power Base Converter TurboGrafx-16
Ben Herman Region protection TurboGrafx-CD
HuCards/TurboChips Reprogramming TurboTap
Hudson Soft Rotation Masayuki Uemura
Masami Ishikawa Kent Russell VRAM bandwidth
Tom Kalinske Hideki Sato Western Electric Company
Michael Katz Scaling Zilog Z80
PC Engine Super Famicom

Genesis (US) Super NES (US)
(Japan)
( p ) (Japan)
( p )
October 1987 August 1989

August 1989 November 1990
November 1990 August 1991
August 1991
October 1988 August 1989

August 1989 June 1991
Mega Drive (Japan) TurboGrafx-16 (US) Neo-Geo (US/Japan)

◾ ARCADE REVIVAL the game and one quarter for each continue) to turn a
profit. Similar to the second generation, people wanted
The graphics and sound of arcade games remained to bring the arcade experience home and many of the
superior to home consoles. Sega’s motion-controlled, best-selling home video games in the early 1990s were
hydraulic cabinets by Director/Designer Yu Suzuki led to ports of popular arcade games.
games like OutRun (1986) and After Burner (1987), which
provided a level of immersion that could not be experi- ◾ THE 16-BIT ERA: NEC PC ENGINE
enced in the home. Companies like Sega and Capcom
introduced refined titles to the “beat’em up” genre with Often referred to as the “16-bit era,” the fourth gener-
games like Golden Axe and Final Fight in 1989—and a ation of video games began in Japan with the PC
slew of other similar titles would follow. After a decline in Engine (Figure 6.2) by Nippon Electric Company
the 1980s, the arcade industry began to enter a resurgence (NEC). The company was established by Kunihiko
period after bottoming out around 1991. Iwadare and Takeshiro Maeda on August 31, 1898. On
The game that brought people back to the arcades July 17, 1899 Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. and
more than any other was Capcom’s Street Fighter II: The Western Electric Company became the first Japanese
World Warrior (1991) (Compton, 2004, p. 119). This joint-venture with foreign capital (Mason, 1987, p. 95).
head-to-head fighting game featured six buttons (for The company began as a telephone and switch manu-
light, medium, and heavy punches and kicks) and each facturer and over the decades expanded its business to
character had a number of unique special moves and include radio, telecommunications, and computers.
attack combinations to be learned. As complex as the Success in the computer industry during the 1980s led
game was, it revived the arcade industry during this time to NEC licensing technology from video game manu-
and popularized the fighting game genre (see Figure 6.1). facturer Hudson Soft to create their first video game
Titles like Midway‘s Mortal Kombat (1992) and a console, the PC Engine.
plethora of other fighting series (including Fatal Fury, The PC Engine launched in Japan on October 30,
World Heroes, Samurai Shodown, and The King of 1987 for ¥24,800 (approximately $208 USD). It was
Fighters) would follow its success. initially developed to compete with the Famicom/NES,
3D polygon graphics also started to appear during but found its greatest competition with later fourth-
this time, with games like Atari’s Hard Drivin’ (1989) generation offerings by Sega and Nintendo. The con-
and Sega’s “Virtua” series by Yu Suzuki. On the other sole featured only one controller port and launched with
hand, market inflation and rising manufacturing costs just two titles: Bikkuriman World and Shanghai. Like the
resulted in many arcade cabinets beginning to require rarely seen 8-bit Sega Cards, the PC Engine’s games
two or more quarters/tokens (or multiple coins to start (called HuCards) were similar in size to a credit card.
FIGURE 6.1 Defining arcade fighting games in the fourth generation: (a) Street Fighter II (1991), (b) Mortal Kombat (1992),
and (c) Virtua Fighter (1993).
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 6.2 NEC PC Engine and PI-PD001 controller.
launch, the system was redesigned and launched in the

DID YOU KNOW? United States as the TurboGrafx-16 (Figure 6.3).
The ultra-small PC Engine was the “first console to have a
16-bit graphics chip” (Guinness World Records, 2008, p. 26). ◾ TURBOGRAFX-16
The TurboGrafx-16 debuted in the United States on

The system’s casing was also ultra-compact, “with August 29, 1989 for $199. Its redesign featured the “bigger
dimensions of 135 × 130 × 35 mm [or 5.3 × 5.1 × 1.37 is better” mentality, which was believed to be more
inches], it remains the smallest home console ever made” attractive to U.S. consumers. However, even with a larger
(McFerran, 2012, para. 4). The PC Engine sold quite well casing, the TG-16 was just a PC Engine in disguise and
in Japan during its first year and “more Japanese con- still only contained a single controller port. The HuCards
sumers purchased PC Engines in 1988 than Famicoms” were renamed “TurboChips” and just about every
(Kent, 2001, p. 411). In less than two years after its Japanese peripheral was renamed to include the word “Turbo” in
FIGURE 6.3 NEC TurboGrafx-16 console with TurboPad controller.

TABLE 6.1 NEC TubroGrafx-16 U.S. Launch Titles many respectable launch titles (Table 6.1), which were of
• Alien Crush • Power Golf both high quality and variety. One of the biggest issues
• China Warrior • R-Type (Figure 6.4b) with the TG-16 was localization, adapting its Japanese PC
• Dungeon Explorer • The Legendary Axe Engine games for U.S. release. Whether from licensing/
• Keith Courage in Alpha • Victory Run copyright conflicts or NEC’s focus on the Japanese mar-
Zones (Figure 6.4a) • Vigilante
ket, well over half of the PC Engine’s titles never reached
American shores. Advertising was also not given the same
the title. To play with more than one controller, con- amount of support dollars that Sega and Nintendo would
sumers had to spend an additional $18 to $20 for a eventually dish out for their 16-bit systems.
“TurboTap” peripheral. The TurboTap (a precursor to Shortly after the TurboGrafx-16 was launched in the
the NES’s “Four Score”) allowed up to five controllers to United States, NEC began to release more powerful
be plugged into the system. versions of the console, including a CD add-on (shown
One unique feature of the TurboPad controller was in Figure 6.5). The first new version was an enhanced
the inclusion of turbo switches above the two action PC Engine called the SuperGrafx, which was released
buttons. When switched on, just holding down the exclusively in Japan. The system contained about four
action buttons would simulate rapid button pressing by times the amount of RAM as the regular system, but
the player. This feature (first seen on the NES Advantage only a handful of titles were ever released for it. More
joystick) made certain games (such as space shooters) successful than the SuperGrafx was the PC Engine’s
without rapid fire much less fatiguing to play. Unlike the CD-ROM² (pronounced “CD-ROM-ROM”).
Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master The CD-ROM² was the first CD-ROM add-on
System that came before it, the TurboGrafx-16 did not (expansion) unit for a video game console. It released as
have a light gun peripheral. the TurboGrafx-CD in the United States on August 1,
The TG-16 came bundled with the side-scrolling 1990 for $399 without a pack-in title. TG-CD games were
action game Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. The game capable of full speech dialog and high-quality music since
showcased the console’s high color palette, but was a CD-ROMs “could store nearly 260 times more data than
pretty mediocre title beyond its graphics. The TG-16 had TurboGrafx [TurboChip] cards” (Kent, 2001, p. 413).
FIGURE 6.4 Screenshots of TG-16 launch titles (a) Keith Courage in Alpha Zones and (b) R-Type.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 6.5 The NEC SuperGrafx (Japan), (a) TurboGrafx-CD add-on connected to a TurboGrafx-16 console (b), and the
TurboDuo combo system (c).
(a) (b) (c)
Unlike the HuCards and TurboChips (shown in Figure its graphics a huge advantage. The TG-16 was capable of
6.6), there was no region protection on TurboGrafx-CD displaying a whopping 482 colors on-screen, compared
and CD-ROM² games. This meant that games released to the NES’s paltry 24 on-screen color capacity. Sound
exclusively in Japan could be played on U.S. systems and and music were also much cleaner on the TG-16.
vice versa. Many of the best CD-ROM² import titles Part of the marketing strategy in the fourth genera-
contained all-Japanese text and/or language, however, tion was to differentiate from the previous generation by
making many games difficult or impossible for most U.S. emphasizing the newer consoles’ technical superiority.
consumers to play. The buzz word of the fourth generation was “16-bit.”
NEC later released a portable version of the TG-16 Prior to this generation, most gamers never even spoke
called the TurboExpress for $249, which played all about “bits” or other technical specifications of their
TG-16 games and featured a TV tuner add-on. There consoles. One popular dispute was whether the
was also the TurboDuo, which combined the CD-ROM TurboGrafx-16 was a true 16-bit system. The console
add-on and TurboGrafx-16 into one unit for just $299. was marketed as a 16-bit system, but the TG-16 was
By this point, however, NEC would begin to slip into a really powered by an 8-bit central processing unit
distant third place in the U.S. video game market behind (CPU) with a dual 16-bit graphics processing unit
Sega and Nintendo. (GPU).
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: ◾ KEY TURBOGRAFX-16 TITLES

TURBOGRAFX-16 VERSUS NES
Less than a quarter of the estimated 650 PC Engine titles
The TurboGrafx-16 launched at the same price as the ever made it to U.S. retailers, but the TurboGrafx-16 still
NES nearly four years earlier. While both systems had a number of solid titles worth checking out. Bonk
contained 8-bit CPUs, TG-16’s 8-bit Hu6820 proces- from Bonk’s Adventure became a mascot for the system,
sor (7.6 MHz) (Table 6.2) packed much more speed spawning three side scrolling adventures. Blazing Lazers
compared to the NES’s 8-bit Ricoh 6502 processor was an enjoyable vertical shooter developed by Compile,
(1.79 MHz). who became known for its shooters (known as shoot’em
The TG-16 was capable of displaying games with a ups or “shmups”) during this period.
512 × 224 pixel resolution; however, most of its titles Military Madness helped pave the way for real-time
were programmed at 256 × 239—about the same reso- and turn-based strategy games. Splatterhouse caught
lution as the NES. gamers’ attention with its lead character’s resemblance
Resolution aside, the TG-16’s 16-bit GPU was better to Jason from the Friday the 13th movies, while the
at handling larger sprites and its high color palette gave pinball title Alien Crush had the organic look of the
FIGURE 6.6 Magazine advertisement for the TurboGrafx-16 in November 1992.

FIGURE 6.7 Box art to five defining TurboGrafx-16 titles including: (a) Blazing Lazers, (b) Military Madness, (c) Splatterhouse,
(d) Bonk’s Adventure, and (e) Neutopia.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
movie Alien. Similar to how Electronic Arts designed ◾ SEGA MEGA DRIVE
its computer software packaging after vinyl records,
TG-16 titles (Figure 6.7) were essentially packaged in Shortly after the release of the PC Engine in Japan, Sega
CD jewel cases with a modified interior to hold the released its own 16-bit system on October 29, 1988—the
TurboChip game cards. TG-16 games had plenty of Sega Mega Drive. “Mega” had the subtext of superiority,
style, however, many of them lacked the overall depth while “Drive” suggested both power and speed. To
of NES favorites such as Super Mario Bros., Zelda, and compete with the Famicom and PC Engine, Sega built its
Metroid. new machine “around the Motorola 68000 processing
chip, the same chip that Apple used to power the
Macintosh computer” (Kent, 2001, p. 401). It also had a
HEAD-TO-HEAD separate 8-bit processor for sound. The Zilog Z80 was
To compare the graphics and sound between the used as a secondary CPU to handle the sound to reduce
TurboGrafx-16 and NES, see each system’s version of the load on the main CPU (Sato, 2013).
Adventure Island, Bomberman, and Jackie Chan’s Action
The Mega Drive was developed by Sega’s R&D
Kung Fu.
(Research and Development) team supervised by
Hideki Sato and Masami Ishikawa. It debuted at
¥21,000 (approximately $168 USD), and while techni-
TABLE 6.2 NEC PC Engine/TG-16 Tech Specs
cally superior to the Famicom and PC Engine, it failed to
Manufacturer: NEC & Hudson Soft compete with either console in Japan. The system
Launch Price: $199.99 launched without an initial pack-in title and only Space
Release Date: 10/30/87 (JP), 8/29/89 (US),
Harrier II and Super Thunder Blade were available at
11/22/89 (EU)
launch. It also did not help Sega that Super Mario Bros. 3
Format: TurboChip (called “HuCard” in Japan)
was released on Famicom just one week earlier.
CPU: 8-bit Hu 6820 processor (7.6 MHz)
Like with the Master System, one of Sega’s promises
Memory: 8 KB work RAM, 64 KB video RAM
with the Mega Drive was to bring the arcade experience
Resolution: 256 × 239, 336 × 239, and 512 × 224
home. As the first true 16-bit console, it could now
deliver on that promise. Sega prepared a U.S. launch of
Sound: 6 channel wavetable synthesis
the console for the following year.
HANDHELD SNAPSHOT: GAME BOY FIGURE 6.8 Nintendo Game Boy.

The Game Boy (Figure 6.8) was created by Satoru Okada
and Nintendo R&D1 team led by Gunpei Yokoi. The system
launched in the United States on July 31, 1989 for just
$89.95. The smaller Game Boy Pocket released in 1996.
Even with its monochrome display, Game Boy became the
most popular handheld system with interchangeable car-
tridges, selling tens of millions of units. The system’s success
has been attributed the pack-in title Tetris by Alexey
Pajitnov, its low cost, and excellent battery life (McFerran,
2009, p. 148). See Table 6.3 for specs.
TABLE 6.3 Game Boy Tech Specs

Format: Cartridge/4 AA batteries (up to 30 hours)
CPU: 8-bit Sharp LR35902 processor (4.19 MHz)
Memory: 8 KB SRAM, 8 KB video RAM
Resolution: 160 × 144 pixels/2.6" diagonal LCD screen
Colors: 4-level grayscale
Sound: 4-channel FM mono speaker with a
3.5 mm stereo jack
Its library of more than 1000 games played a major role

in the handheld’s success, with exclusive sequels/spinoffs
from the Castlevania, Mario, Metroid, and Zelda franchises,
along with the introduction of new Nintendo stars such as
Kirby (seen in Figure 6.9) and Wario.
FIGURE 6.9 Box art to five top Game Boy titles: (a) Kirby’s Dream Land, (b) Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins,
(c) Tetris, (d) The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, and (e) Pokémon Yellow.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

‘n Ghosts, Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf, World

◾ SEGA GENESIS
Championship Soccer, and Super Hang-On. To extend the
Where the Mega Drive released a full year after the PC Genesis library, Sega offered a $35 peripheral called the
Engine in Japan, the Sega Genesis (Figure 6.10) beat the Power Base Converter (Figure 6.12a). The Power Base
TurboGrafx-16 to the U.S. market by two weeks. Converter plugged into the Genesis’s cartridge slot and
Released on August 14, 1989 for $189, the Genesis came allowed the console to play Master System games.
bundled with one controller and a port of the arcade
TABLE 6.4 Sega Genesis U.S. Launch Titles
game Altered Beast. The kidney bean-shaped controller
• Alex Kidd in Enchanted • Space Harrier II
may have been attractive to U.S. gamers as it accom-
Castle (Figure 6.11b)
modated larger hands. Its sleek design and action- • Altered Beast • Thunder Force II
oriented game library made the Sega Genesis an (Figure 6.11a) • Tommy Lasorda Baseball
attractive console for the male teenage audience. • Last Battle
Sega’s library of arcade game ports was not enough to

push the Genesis to greatness in North America. It still
DID YOU KNOW?
had to overcome an initial deficit of third-party software
Sega’s 16-bit console was known as the Mega Drive just
support due to Nintendo’s strict licensing policy that
about everywhere else in the world except for the United
States. The name was changed to Genesis due to a pos- kept top developers like Capcom and Konami from
sible trademark dispute with U.S. storage devices man- developing for the system in the beginning. Until such
ufacturer Mega Drive Systems Inc. (Sczepaniak, 2006, third parties could develop games for the Genesis, Sega
p. 45). would often buy the rights to their games and repro-
gram the games for Genesis under the Sega name. Some
examples of this include Capcom arcade hits Forgotten
The Genesis launched with six available titles (Table Worlds, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, and Strider.
6.4), which was the largest selection of games out of Sega Enterprises CEO Hayao Nakayama hired
the three Sega console launches. In about a month or Michael Katz (Intellivision, Coleco) as President of Sega
less, four more titles were available, including Ghouls of America just one month after the console’s U.S.
FIGURE 6.10 Sega Genesis and 3-button controller (U.S.), which was the first console to release outside of Japan with nearly
identical casing to its Japanese sibling (Mega Drive).
FIGURE 6.11 Screenshots from Genesis launch titles (a) Altered Beast and (b) Space Harrier II.
(a) (b)
release. His charge from Nakayama: “Hyakumandai!” Genesis slogan was “We bring the arcade experience
(“One million units!” in Japanese). In an attempt to reach home.” Katz and his team decided to attack Nintendo
this goal, Katz led Sega toward producing a number of head-on and came up with the slogan “Genesis does
games endorsed by popular sports figures such as in what Nintendon’t” (Fahs, 2009, p. 4). After 14 months,
early titles Tommy Lasorda Baseball and Arnold Palmer Katz was only able to help Sega sell a half-million units
Tournament Golf. The result was a number of celebrity- and was replaced by Tom Kalinske from Mattel.
endorsed games such as Pat Riley Basketball, Joe Kalinske’s four-part strategy for the Genesis involved:
Montana Football, James ‘Buster’ Douglas Knockout (1) lowering the price of the console to $149 (and
Boxing, and Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (Figure eventually $99), (2) creating a U.S. development team
6.13). Ironically, it was Electronic Arts games like John to make more U.S.-friendly games, (3) continuing
Madden Football, NHL Hockey, and its own lineup of to push Sega’s aggressive advertising campaign, and
original sports titles that really helped the Genesis gain (4) replacing Altered Beast as the pack-in title with its
momentum. upcoming game, Sonic the Hedgehog (Kent, 2001, p. 427).
The second contribution Katz made was perhaps Probably due to their smaller market appeal, Sega
Sega’s most memorable advertising campaign. The first did not release a light gun for the Genesis until 1992.
FIGURE 6.12 Two of the many Genesis add-ons: (a) Power Base Converter and (b) Sega CD.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 6.13 Magazine advertisement for the Sega Genesis in 1990.

The Menacer light gun peripheral was most likely experience and were popular in the beginning, they
created in response to the Nintendo Super Scope, quickly became nothing more than a fad from their lack
which was released for the SNES the same year. In of gameplay depth. Still, Sega sold more than 2 million
response to the Super Nintendo’s 6-button controller, Sega CD units.
Sega released a 6-button controller of its own in 1993.
Perhaps what the Genesis became known for the most ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: GENESIS
in its latter years (for better or for worse) were its add- VERSUS TURBOGRAFX-16
on units.
In addition to the Power Base Converter, which Comparing the first two fourth-generation consoles,
allowed the Genesis to play 8-bit Master System games, “TurboGrafx clearly lagged behind Genesis in overall
Sega followed in the footsteps of the TurboGrafx-16 and power, though it could display far more colors on the
introduced its own CD-ROM add-on unit (Figure 6.12b) screen” (Kent, 2001, p. 412). It was the Genesis’s 16-
on December 12, 1991 in Japan and on October 15, 1992 bit Motorola 68000 processor and Z80 co-processor
in North America. Simply dubbed the Sega CD, the $299 (Table 6.5) that helped it excel over the TG-16. When
optical disc unit provided hundreds of times the storage comparing similar titles, Genesis games would often
space of regular cartridges and could output CD quality contain many more layers of parallax scrolling (sep-
sound. The add-on also contained the ability to scale and arate background objects moving at different speeds),
rotate graphics—something that could only be done on giving a greater sense of depth perception to the
the standalone Genesis either artificially or with addi- stages.
tional chips like the Sega Virtua Processor (SVP) chip The systems were basically a draw when it came to
in Virtua Racing. cartridge storage capacity. “No HuCard was larger than
Because it worked in tandem with the Genesis, Sega 8 MegaBits, except for Street Fighter [II] which was 20.
CD games were limited to the console’s 64 on-screen By comparison, the MegaDrive/Genesis version of the
color limitation. This made many of the Full Motion same game was 24 MegaBits” (NFG Games, 2015).
Video (FMV) style games that utilized live actors (such Sound quality for both systems was often a matter of the
as Sewer Shark and Night Trap) appear washed out developer’s effort and/or mastery of the sound hardware
compared to the millions of colors displayed on standard for each machine. Yuzo Koshiro was a master video
television programs. While FMV games offered a new game music composer who produced many memorable
TABLE 6.5 Sega Mega Drive/Genesis Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Sega
Release Date: 10/29/88 (JP), 8/14/89 (US), 11/30/90 (EU)
Format: Cartridge
CPU: 16-Bit Motorola 68000 (7.67 MHz)
Zilog Z80 co-processor (3.58 MHz)
Memory: 1 MB (8 Mbit) ROM/64 KB RAM
Sound: 6 channel stereo
soundtracks for the Genesis, including The Revenge of The game released in the United States on June 23,
Shinobi and Streets of Rage series among others. 1991—more than a month before Sonic’s Japanese
Responsible for the powerful score of ActRaiser on the release and two months before Super Nintendo would
Super Nintendo, Koshiro has been regarded as “arguably reach U.S. shores. Sonic’s graphics and sound were some
the greatest game-music composer of the 16-bit age” of the best on the Genesis at that time. Naka and his
(Nintendo Power, 2006, p. 102). team were able to squeeze sound and graphic quality out
of the system like nothing seen before it. Controlling the
hedgehog as he blazed across the screen, bounced off of
HEAD-TO-HEAD
springboards, and ran 360-degree loops was a refresh-
To distinguish the graphics and sound between Genesis ingly new experience for gamers.
and TurboGrafx-16, compare the following TG-16 games Other defining titles could be found throughout each
that were later ported to Genesis: Cadash, Devil’s Crush
phase of the Genesis’s history. Phantasy Star II was the
(TG-16) to Dragon’s Fury (Genesis) and Aero Blasters
(TG-16) to Air Buster (Genesis).
sequel to the Master System classic and spawned two
sequels on the Genesis. Sonic the Hedgehog also received
two sequels on the system, as well as several spinoffs like
◾ KEY GENESIS TITLES Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball.
Genesis was also a choice system for “beat’em up”
The key title to Sega’s success with Genesis was Sonic the games with its three Streets of Rage titles. Once Nintendo’s
Hedgehog (seen in Figure 6.14), programmed by Yuji third-party licensing limitations were lifted, the Genesis
Naka (Phantasy Star, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts). Developed received some excellent games from Capcom and Konami
directly for the U.S. market, Sonic’s designer Naoto such as Street Fighter II’: Special Champion Edition, Rocket
Ohshima explained, “his shoes were inspired by the Knight Adventures, Castlevania: Bloodlines, and Contra
cover to Michael Jackson’s Bad [album], which con- Hard Corps. One of the most regarded action games on the
trasted heavily between white and red [which] went well system was Treasure’s Gunstar Heroes, a platform shooter
for a character who can run really fast, when his legs are that had many special effects once thought impossible on
spinning” (Ohshima, 2009, p. 2). Sonic’s bad attitude the Genesis. Well over 700 games were released for the
and blue color perfectly symbolized Sega’s image at that system, with most of its best titles landing on American
time. store shelves.
FIGURE 6.14 Box art to five defining Genesis titles including: (a) Phantasy Star II, (b) Sonic the Hedgehog, (c) Streets of Rage 2,
(d) Shinobi III, and (e) Gunstar Heroes.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

HANDHELD SNAPSHOT: ATARI LYNX

FIGURE 6.15 Atari Lynx.
The Atari Lynx (Figure 6.15) launched on September 1, were officially licensed and an estimated 3 million Lynx
1989 for $189.95—about a month after Nintendo’s systems picks) were sold. Despite its successes, its popu-
Game Boy. It was the first handheld system with a larity paled in comparison to the Nintendo Game Boy.
color, backlit LCD screen, sported 16-bit graphics, and
could be flipped upside down to accommodate left or TABLE 6.6 Atari Lynx Tech Specs
right-handed play. See Table 6.6. The Lynx had the Format: Cartridge/6 AA batteries (4–6 hours)
ability to scale sprites, as the well as the capability of CPU: 8-bit WDC 65SC02 (4 MHz); 2 × 16-bit
networking several units together for multiplayer CMOS (16 MHz)
action with Comlynx cables. Memory: 64 KB RAM
An updated “Lynx II” was released in July 1991,
Colors: 16 from a palette of 4096 colors
featuring better battery life, a sleeker design, and an
Sound: 4 channel, 8 bits per channel, with 3.5 mm
improved headphones jack that added stereo sound.
headphones jack
Approximately 72 games (see Figure 6.16 for top picks)
FIGURE 6.16 Box art to five defining Lynx titles: (a) Blue Lightning, (b) S.T.U.N. Runner, (c) Chip’s Challenge, (d) Todd’s
Adventure in Slime World, and (e) California Games.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

FIGURE 6.17 Nintendo Super Famicom console and 6-button controller.
◾ SUPER FAMICOM stores the night before” its release—leading to all of

Tokyo being slowed down in the process (p. 431). The
The Famicom remained a strong competitor to the PC Super Famicom quickly became the leading 16-bit
Engine and the Mega Drive was not selling well in Japan. system in Japan, followed by the NEC PC Engine in
Similarly, the NES continued to perform well after the second, and Sega’s Mega Drive in a distant third place.
release of the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 in the west.
Nintendo had dominated the last generation by such a ◾ SUPER NINTENDO
wide margin, they weren’t in a real hurry to enter the 16-
bit market compared to their competition. Nintendo A year after its debut in Japan, Nintendo released the
finally launched the Super Famicom (SFC) (Figure Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) (Figure
6.17) in Japan on November 21, 1990—more than three 6.18) in the United States on August 23, 1991 for $199.
years after PC Engine and over two years after the Mega The system was redesigned by Lance Barr—the same
Drive launched. The system was created by Famicom designer who remodeled the NES for the U.S. market.
designer Masayuki Uemura. Like the Super Famicom, its controller featured four
Its debut price was ¥25,000 yen (about $210) and like main action buttons, two unique shoulder buttons, and
its predecessors, only two games were available on was more ergonomic than the NES pad. The button
launch day—F-Zero and Super Mario World. According colors were changed from green, blue, red, and yellow to
to Steve Kent (2001), “nearly 1.5 million people [in shades of purple and Barr “changed the controller’s X
Japan] ordered the console” and “tens of thousands of and Y buttons so they had a concave curvature, which
people lined up in front of department and electronics offered a better haptic distinction between all four face
FIGURE 6.18 The Super Nintendo Entertainment System with a 6-button controller.
buttons” (Reeves, 2017, p. 95). The North American reigned fierce during this time. Sega coined the term
system came bundled with the classic hit Super Mario “blast processing” in their advertisements to emphasize
World and despite only a handful of launch titles (Table the systems faster processing speed. The SNES became
6.7), more than 30 games were available by the end of known for its “Mode 7” special effects that allowed for
December—including ActRaiser, Final Fantasy II, Super the scaling (zooming) and rotation of graphics. In short,
Castlevania IV, and Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. the SNES contained many graphics modes, labeled zero
through seven. The seventh mode [Mode 7] allowed for
TABLE 6.7 Super Nintendo U.S. Launch Titles programmers to scale and rotate background graphics
• F-Zero (Figure 6.19a) • SimCity (Ritz, 2013). To complement its hardware strengths,
• Gradius III • Super Mario World Nintendo’s new slogan became “Now You’re Playing
• Pilotwings (Figure 6.19b) with Power—Super Power.”
Unlike the consumer loyalty it embraced in Japan, the

◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: SNES VERSUS
video game market was a bit different in North America GENESIS AND TURBOGRAFX-16
and many gamers had hopped on the Sega bandwagon.
By the time the Super NES was released, the Sega Mode 7 was one of the biggest features that set the SNES
Genesis was selling for $149 and had established itself apart from Genesis and TurboGrafx-16. Its capabilities
as the next generation market leader in the United allowed for unique level design and shifting “camera
States (Sheff, 1993, pp. 353–356). Nintendo also had to angles” as immediately noticeable in games like F-Zero
compete with Sega’s aggressive marketing campaign. and Pilotwings. The effects were used in a multitude of
Following the “Genesis does what Nintendon’t” adver- ways (often coming across like developers experiment-
tisements (Figure 6.20), Sega started a line of commer- ing with the technology) such as warping the title on the
cials that depicted Mario as a slow game for children, introductory screen of ActRaiser, rotating levels in Super
with Sonic the Hedgehog portrayed as the game that cool Castlevania IV, and the 3D flying overview maps in
people (especially teens) should be playing. Secret of Mana. The system was also capable of mosaic
When competition between the Super Nintendo and (scrambling blocks) effects and true color layering
Sega Genesis heated up, the TurboGrafx-16 was out of (where translucent sprites could be seen through and
the race and became a clearance item on most store blend with background colors). Konami’s The Legend
shelves. In what became known as the most prominent of the Mystical Ninja (Figure 6.21) used all of these
“console war,” the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo effects.
FIGURE 6.19 Screenshots from SNES launch titles (a) F-Zero and (b) Super Mario World.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 6.20 Magazine advertisement for Super Nintendo in 1992.

FIGURE 6.21 Screenshots from Konami’s The Legend of the Mystical Ninja showcasing the Super Nintendo’s color layering
and Mode 7 scaling and rotation effects.
Another feature that gave the Super Nintendo an edge and Genesis’s 64; however, some SNES games (like
over its competitors was its S-SMP audio processing unit Donkey Kong Country) were rumored to display
(Table 6.8). The unit consisted of a Sony SPC700 8-bit thousands of on-screen colors using scale line blending
processing core, a 16-bit digital signal processor (DSP), tricks. A number of enhancement chips were produced
64 K of static random-access memory (SRAM) shared for SNES software, such as the SuperFX chip, for ren-
by the two chips, and a 64-byte boot ROM. The sound dering 3D polygon graphics in games like Star Fox and
system operated almost entirely independent of the rest Stunt Race-FX.
of the console and could produce much more realistic The one feature that Super Nintendo lacked was
sound samples when compared to the Genesis or processing speed. Sega’s Motorola 68000 clocked at
TurboGrafx-16. 7.67 MHz, more than twice the speed of the SNES’s
Its highest resolution edged out the TG-16’s 512 × Ricoh 5A22. However, it was Sega’s Yamaha VDP
224, but like that console (perhaps to accommodate its graphics chip which provided quicker Direct Memory
slower processor), most SNES games ran at its lower Access (DMA) transfer speeds and VRAM bandwidth
256 × 224 resolution. TG-16 led in on-screen color that really made it faster. Many SNES titles (especially in
capacity with 482, compared to Super Nintendo’s 256 the beginning) were plagued with slowdown, where the
graphics and gameplay slowed down below regular
speed. Slowdown did not affect a game’s music but was
TABLE 6.8 Super Famicom/SNES Tech Specs nonetheless distracting. While Sonic the Hedgehog was
Manufacturer: Nintendo blazing through levels on the Genesis, SNES games like
Launch Price: $199.99 Gradius III would slow down to a crawl when there were
Release Date: 11/21/90 (JP), 8/23/91 (US), spring
1992 (EU) too many simultaneous objects moving on the screen.
Format: Cartridge
CPU: 16-bit Ricoh 5A22 processor
HEAD-TO-HEAD
(3.58 MHz)
Memory: 128 KB RAM There were a vast number of games that were released on
Resolution: 256 × 224 to 512 × 478 pixels both the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. To compare
Colors: 256 (more with blending) from a the gameplay, graphics, and sound between them, see
palette of 32,768 each system’s version of Aero the Acrobat, Earthworm
Sound: 8-channel stereo S-SMP audio Jim, Mortal Kombat II, and Thunder Force III (Genesis)
processing unit versus Thunder Spirits (SNES).
◾ KEY SUPER NINTENDO TITLES ◾ NO CD-ROM?

The Super Nintendo released a long line of defining titles Nintendo had originally planned on a CD-ROM add-on
over its lifespan. It became the console of choice for RPG unit for the Super Nintendo, to be developed by Sony
fans with hits like Final Fantasy II and III (IV and VI in Corporation. By the time a prototype (sample model)
Japan) Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and others. had been developed by Sony, Nintendo began fearing
Nintendo’s popular exclusives from the previous gen- business conflicts with the company—that giving Sony
eration returned with enhanced sequels such as Super access to their technology could be a risk. “Nintendo
Metroid, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (shown executives allowed Sony to announce plans for the drive
in Figure 6.22), plus a late sequel to Super Mario World at the Consumer Electronics Show, then appeared the
titled Yoshi’s Island. next day to say they had struck a deal with Philips N.V.”
New franchises such as Super Mario Kart and Star Fox (Kent, 2001, p. 452). Neither add-on unit was ever
were also introduced on the SNES. And just when gamers released for the console, and the SNES would become
thought they had seen everything the system had to offer, the only fourth-generation competitor without a CD-
Donkey Kong Country emerged utilizing pre-rendered 3D ROM system.
graphics (i.e., advanced computer modeling) and other
new techniques to produce one of the best-looking games
on the console. Donkey Kong Country sold out of its DID YOU KNOW?
initial shipment of 500,000 units in less than a week The Genesis outsold the SNES in the United States by
(Kent, 2001, p. 497) and spawned two SNES sequels. almost two to one during the 1991 holiday season, making
More than 700 games were released for the Super Sega the 16-bit console leader with a 55% market share
Nintendo in the United States, with approximately double in January 1992 (Game Informer, 2002, p. 117).
the amount of titles on the Super Famicom in Japan.
FIGURE 6.22 Box art to five defining SNES titles including: (a) Chrono Trigger, (b) Super Metroid, (c) Final Fantasy III, (d) The
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and (d) Donkey Kong Country.
(a) (b) (c)
(d) (e)
HANDHELD SNAPSHOT: SEGA GAME GEAR

FIGURE 6.23 Game Gear.
The Game Gear (Figure 6.23) was Sega’s answer to officially licensed and about 10 million Game Gears were
Nintendo’s Game Boy. It launched on October 6, 1990 in sold globally.
Japan and in the West on April 26, 1991 for $149.99.
While less powerful than the Atari Lynx, Game Gear’s TABLE 6.9 Game Gear Tech Specs
backlit screen supported twice the number of on-screen Format: Cartridge/6 AA batteries (3–5 hours)
colors. To expedite development of the handheld, Sega
CPU: 8-bit Zilog Z80 processor (3.57 MHz)
used much of the same technology from the 8-bit Master
System (Wild, 2009, p. 161). See Table 6.9 for specs. Memory: 24 KB (8 KB RAM and 16 KB video RAM)
In addition to a TV Tuner, a Master Gear Converter Resolution: 160 × 146 pixels/3.25" diagonal LCD
allowed Master System games to be plugged into the screen
Game Gear. Beyond its many Master System ports, Sega Colors: 32 from a palette of 4096
produced numerous spinoffs of its popular franchises Sound: 4-channel mono speaker with 3.5 mm
on the system (Figure 6.24). More than 300 games were stereo jack
FIGURE 6.24 (a) Sonic The Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, (b) Shinobi II: The Silent Fury, (c) Shining Force: The Sword of
Hajya, (d) Ax Battler: A Legend of Golden Axe, and (e) Super Columns.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

FIGURE 6.25 Neo•Geo Advanced Entertainment System with its large joystick controller.
◾ SNK NEO•GEO AES memory card slot that allowed console owners to save
their progress on certain arcade games and continue
One more fourth-generation console to reach the market them at home (or vice versa) if they owned the respective
was created by Shin Nihon Kikaku (“New Japan cartridge.
Project”), shortened to SNK Corporation in 1986. SNK
was founded by Eikichi Kawasaki as a Japanese coin-op
arcade developer in 1978. The company gained popu- DID YOU KNOW?
larity from its arcade titles Vanguard (1981) and Ikari “The Neo•Geo AES was originally only intended as
Warriors (1986), as well as its NES games Baseball Stars a rental console for commercial establishments, but
(1989) and Crystalis (1990). became popular enough among consumers to warrant a
SNK knew that one of the biggest chores for arcade release as a home console” (Yang & Slaven, 2002,
p. 338).
operators was the practice of swapping out entire arcade
cabinets every time old games were replaced with new
titles. To alleviate this issue, the company developed the The AES released with a decent number of launch titles
Neo•Geo MVS (Multi Video System) in 1990. The (Table 6.10), but the price tag held back the average con-
MVS was a single arcade cabinet that featured multiple, sumer from even considering the system. Most Neo•Geo
selectable titles (usually between two and four games), cartridges cost between $199 and $249 since they were
which could be easily changed by swapping internal both physically large and could hold over 100 times more
cartridges and changing illustrations on the exterior of data than other fourth-generation cartridges.
the cabinet. In addition to relieving arcade operators
from replacing entire cabinets, having four titles in one TABLE 6.10 Neo•Geo AES U.S. Launch Titles
cabinet saved floor space and proved to be quite prof- • Alpha Mission II • League Bowling
itable. That same year, SNK developed a home version of • Baseball Stars Professional • Magician Lord
the MVS called the Neo•Geo AES (Advanced Enter- (Figure 6.26a) (Figure 6.26b)
tainment System) (Figure 6.25). • Cyber-Lip • NAM-1975
The Neo•Geo AES kept its original name and released • Ghost Pilots • Ninja Combat
• King of the Monsters • Top Player’s Golf
in the United States on June 18, 1991 for $649. It’s “Gold
System” came bundled with two joystick controllers and
one game: Baseball Stars Professional or NAM-1975. To help move the system, VP of marketing Kent
What made the Neo•Geo unlike any console before it Russell launched an aggressive marketing campaign that
was that the AES was technologically identical to its was often more controversial than Sega’s. One memo-
MVS arcade counterpart, meaning its games were exact rable ad claimed, “YOU NEED A SET OF THESE” (with
copies of the arcade games. Neo•Geo AES truly brought a picture of two steel balls) “TO PLAY ONE OF THESE”
the arcade experience home. The system even featured a (with a picture of a Neo•Geo console). Another ad
FIGURE 6.26 Screenshots from AES launch titles (a) Baseball Stars Professional and (b) Magician Lord.
(a) (b)
depicted a woman in lingerie with the caption “I ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: NEO•GEO AES
Remember When He Couldn’t Keep His Hands Off Me!” VERSUS THE REST
as her man appeared in the background deeply dis-
tracted by the Neo•Geo title Cyber Lip. The print The Neo•Geo AES was in a league of its own from its
advertisement in Figure 6.27 further illustrates this high price tag and from being the most powerful
aggressive marketing campaign. console of the fourth generation. Some of the adver-
One game that shaped the future for Neo•Geo was tisements for the Neo•Geo marketed the console as 24-
Capcom’s arcade hit Street Fighter II: The World Warrior bit, although it was technically a 16-bit system powered
(1991). SFII is credited for launching the fighting boom by a 16-bit Motorola 68000, which ran parallel to an 8-
in the early 1990s, which revived the arcade scene for a bit Zilog Z80 co-processor (Table 6.11). On paper, this
while (June 2013). SNK jumped on the bandwagon is similar to the specs of the Sega Genesis; however,
and became one of the most prolific fighting game Neo-Geo’s processor was much faster. The AES’s 65,536
publishers, with titles like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, color palette and 4096 on-screen color capacity was
Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters, and many more. leagues ahead of other fourth-gen systems. With more
memory to work with and nearly double the number of
sound channels, most Neo•Geo games looked and
TABLE 6.11 Neo•Geo AES Tech Specs sounded far better than all other fourth-generation
Manufacturer: SNK
console games.
Release Date: 4/26/90 (JP rental), 6/18/91 (U.S.),
7/01/91 (national) HEAD-TO-HEAD
Format: Cartridge
CPU: Motorola 68000 (12 MHz) A great way to compare Neo•Geo games with Super
and Zilog Z80 (4 MHz) NES and Genesis titles is to compare AES games that
Memory: 64 KB main, 84 KB (total) video, were ported to Nintendo and Sega’s consoles. To com-
2 KB audio pare the gameplay, graphics, and sound between them,
Resolution: 304 × 224 pixels check out all three systems’ versions of Fatal Fury, Fatal
Colors: 4096 from a palette of 65,536 Fury II, Art of Fighting, 2020 Super Baseball, and Samurai
Sound: 15 channel stereo Shodown.
FIGURE 6.27 Magazine advertisement for Neo•Geo in 1991.

FIGURE 6.28 Box art to five defining Neo•Geo titles including: (a) Samurai Shodown, (b) Fatal Fury Special, (c) The Last Blade,
(d) Metal Slug X, and (e) The King of Fighters ‘98.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
◾ KEY NEO•GEO TITLES ◾ FOURTH-GENERATION MARKET

SUMMARY
Since the Neo•Geo AES library was based off its MVS
arcade machine, most of the games were very action The PC Engine was quite successful in Japan, at one
oriented. The console didn’t really have any deep role- point becoming the country’s top-selling video game
playing games and most titles could be finished in console (Electronic Gaming Monthly, 1995, p. 15).
under an hour by a seasoned player. A large part of the However, it took a distant third place as the TurboGrafx-
AES library consisted of fighting/beat’em up games 16 in the United States, lagging behind the Sega Genesis
(Figure 6.28) like Garou: Mark of the Wolves and and Super Nintendo. The opposite was true of the
Sengoku, followed by shooter/shmup style games such as Sega Mega Drive, which took third place in Japan,
Blazing Star and Metal Slug. Beyond these types of but did quite well in the United States. “Sega ultimately
games, the system had a handful of sports titles like sold roughly 40 million Genesis consoles around the
Baseball Stars Professional and Football Frenzy, along world, but less than a tenth of those were to Japanese
with a few puzzle games like Magical Drop. Approxi- customers. Meanwhile, the PC Engine moved merely
mately 148 games were released for Neo•Geo, with most 10 million units during its lifetime—but roughly eight
titles appearing on AES. million of those sales happened in Japan” (Parish, 2014).
Sega surpassed Nintendo with a 55% share of the
◾ NEO•GEO CD market in 1992 for a number of reasons. The Mega Drive
and Genesis released two years before the Super Famicom
SNK eventually released a standalone, CD-based version and Super Nintendo. Its larger library of games (including
of Neo•Geo called Neo•Geo CD. The system was Sonic the Hedgehog), lower price tag, and aggressive
created to play more affordable “CD versions” of its marketing campaign provided further leverage. To add to
popular cartridges but also had a few exclusive titles. his legacy, Sega of America President Tom Kalinske is
Neo•Geo CD games retailed for $49 to $79, compared to credited for pioneering the “street date” for video game
the $300 AES cartridges (GamePro, 1995, p. 30). The releases with Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Called “Sonic
console released in Japan during September of 1994 and Tuesday,” Sega air shipped the game to all its retailers in
October of 1995 in the United States for $399. While the United States and Europe for a simultaneous, multi-
it sold more than a half-million units, the system’s 1X national release day (Harris, 2014). That year, Nintendo
drive speed suffered from extremely slow load times released a stripped down “Super NES Control Set” for
(where players would often have to wait 30–60 seconds $99.99 (Figure 6.20), which removed Super Mario World
for games to start up). SNK released an updated 2X and included only one controller.
version of the unit in Japan called the Neo•Geo CDZ, With Sega marketing the Genesis as the more mature
but the system would quickly become overshadowed by system and the SNES as a child’s toy, it did not help that
the wave of fifth-generation consoles.
Nintendo also developed a reputation for censoring been outsold in the end because of Sega’s focus on the next
their early titles. In games like the U.S. version of generation of 32-bit hardware, leaving the true winner of
beat’em up Final Fight (1991), Nintendo had Capcom the 16-bit console war up for debate—at least in the
replace blood with flashes and remove all references to United States. In the end, Sega sold close to 20 million
alcohol. Among other changes, Capcom completely Genesis units compared to approximately 23 million
redrew the sprites of the sexy female characters to Super Nintendo systems in North America. Globally, the
heavily-clothed, somewhat androgynous street punks. margin was even wider as shown in Figure 6.29.
When Mortal Kombat (1993) released on both consoles, Starting as a rental console for commercial estab-
Nintendo’s version replaced the blood with sweat and lishments, the Neo•Geo AES was never planned to be a
had several of the game’s fatalities (finishing death mass market console. SNK USA President Ben Herman
moves) changed to less-violent depictions. claimed his goal for the system was a 10% market share;
One turning point in the console war was when however, the console only reached a 2% share (Herman,
Nintendo secured the first home console port of the 2004). In the end, the Neo•Geo AES would never selL
popular arcade hit Street Fighter II. The Genesis would more than a million units and the fourth generation
not see a version of the game until well over a year later. will most likely be remembered by the notable “console
Nintendo also eventually revoked its high level of cen- war” rivalry between Nintendo and Sega. Two lesser-
sorship and the SNES version of Mortal Kombat II (1994) known, multifunctional consoles from this generation
released with all the blood and fatalities intact. As the included the Philips CD-i launched on December 3,
system matured and its library grew, the Super Nintendo 1991 and Pioneer LaserActive, which released on
would go on to outsell the Sega Genesis before the end of September 13, 1993.
the fourth generation. The Genesis may have ultimately
FIGURE 6.29 Fourth-generation console sales graph.
TG-16 Approx. 10 million
Genesis Over 35 million
SNES Over 49 million
Neo•Geo Under 1 million
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
◾ FOURTH-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS

There were many breakthroughs and trends that defined the fourth generation of video games. Here is a list of the
top 10 advancements that defined the generation:
1. 16-bit microprocessors
2. Expanded multi-button game controllers (between 3 and 8 buttons)
3. Parallax (multi-layer background) scrolling
4. True and pseudo-3D sprite scaling and rotation
5. Larger sprites (up to 64 × 64 [SNES] or 16 × 512 pixels [Neo•Geo])
6. More color (64 to 4096 on-screen colors from palettes of 512 to 65,536 colors)
7. Color layering
8. Flat-shaded 3D polygon graphics
9. CD-ROM add-ons for larger storage space and FMV (full motion video)
10. Stereo sound with digital audio playback and advanced music synthesis (FM synthesis and “wavetable”
sample-based synthesis)
◾ ACTIVITY: ARCADE TO HOME PORT COMPARISON II

To see how 16-bit home console ports became closer to the arcade games they were based on, play or screen
gameplay from an arcade title and its home port for at least 30 minutes each. Take notes on the graphical, aural,
and gameplay differences and similarities.
SUGGESTED TITLES
Compare the arcade version with its home console port of: the TurboGrafx-16 version of Ninja Spirit, Raiden,
or Splatterhouse; the Sega Genesis version of Altered Beast, Golden Axe, or OutRun; and/or the Super
Nintendo version of Final Fight, Mortal Kombat, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV–Turtles in Time.
GUIDELINES
Always begin by playing/viewing the arcade version of the game; then discuss how the home port measures
up. Then write a 500- to 1000-word comparison essay comparing the two games in regard to:
• Graphics – include size and scale, color palette, resolution (clarity), animation, effects, and presentation.
• Sound – include the quality and accuracy of the games’ music and sound effects.
• Playability – include how well the games control and how fun they are to play.
QUESTIONS
1. How do these games compare to arcade ports from the previous generation?
2. Did the home console version add anything to or lack anything important from the arcade experience?
3. Do you feel that the console version was close enough to the arcade game that players would rather
purchase the game and play from home?
4. Did the arcade version contain any features that would still attract gamers to an arcade venue to play the
game?
5. What impact do you think this had on the arcade industry, if any?
6. Could the publisher/developer have done anything differently?
7. What are your final thoughts?
◾ CHAPTER 6 QUIZ 2. The 1991 game that helped revive the arcade
industry and popularized the fighting game genre:
1. Sega’s motion-controlled, hydraulic cabinets by a. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
Director/Designer _________ led to games like b. Mortal Kombat
OutRun (1986) and After Burner (1987): c. Virtua Fighter
a. Yuji Naka d. The King of Fighters
b. Yu Suzuki
c. Yuzo Koshiro
d. Hayao Nakayama
3. During its peak success in 1992, this game console 9. Neo-Geo was known for being the first system to:
gained a 55% share of the U.S. video game market: a. have four controller ports built into the console
a. Super Nintendo b. offer a CD add-on unit to the console
b. Sega Genesis c. play perfect ports of arcade games in the home
c. TurboGrafx-16 d. feature controllers with more than 2 buttons
d. Neo•Geo
10. Which console was technologically superior based
4. Known as the TurboGrafx-16 in the United States, on tech spec numbers?
this system fared much better in Europe and Japan a. Neo•Geo
than in North America: b. Super Nintendo
a. Mega Drive c. Sega Genesis
b. PC Engine d. TurboGrafx-16
c. Super Famicom
d. Neo•Geo 11. What video game is Yuji Naka famous for?
a. Super Mario World
5. The PC Engine was known for being the first system b. Bonk’s Adventure
to: c. Sonic the Hedgehog
a. have four controller ports built into the console d. All of the above
b. offer a CD add-on unit to the console
c. play perfect ports of arcade games in the home 12. Which console sold the largest number of units by
d. feature controllers with more than 2 buttons the end of the fourth generation?
a. Super Nintendo Entertainment System
6. This was the only fourth-generation system that b. Sega Genesis
came with large joysticks instead of traditional var- c. TurboGrafx-16
iants of the d-pad (+) controller: d. Neo•Geo
a. Neo•Geo
b. Sega Genesis 13. Which console was not renamed or redesigned for
c. Super Nintendo the U.S. market?
d. TurboGrafx-16 a. Neo-Geo
b. Super Nintendo
7. Which of these peripherals was not developed for c. Sega Genesis
Sega Genesis? d. TurboGrafx-16
a. Power Base Converter
b. SuperScope 14. SNK stands for:
c. CD add-on a. Shin Nihon Kikaku
d. 32X b. Shinto Nippon Kyoto
c. Super Nintendo Kart
8. Early on, __________ developed a reputation for d. System Network Keyframing
censoring blood and sexuality from its games:
a. TurboGrafx-16 15. This fourth-generation console was built with only
b. Super Nintendo one controller port and was not considered a true
c. Neo•Geo 16-bit system:
d. Sega Genesis a. Neo•Geo
b. Super Nintendo
c. Sega Genesis
d. TurboGrafx-16
16. This fourth-generation console was unique for its FIGURE 6.5 The NEC SuperGrafx (Japan), (a) TurboGrafx-CD add-
Mode 7 scaling and rotation graphics effects and on connected to a TurboGrafx-16 console (b), and the TurboDuo combo
Sony sound chip: system (c). (Left: “The SuperGrafx” by Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-
a. Neo•Geo SA 3.0. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
?curid=18300104. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC
b. Super Nintendo
_Engine_SuperGrafx#/media/File:SuperGrafx-Console-Set.jpg, Center:
c. Sega Genesis
“NEC-TurboGrafx-16-CD-FL” by Evan-Amos - own work, public
d. TurboGrafx-16 domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
?curid=18874804. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo
True or False Grafx-16#/media/File:NEC-TurboGrafx-16-CD-FL.jpg. Right: “NEC-
TurboDuo-Console-wController-L” by Evan-Amos - own work, public
17. With dimensions of 135 × 130 × 35 mm [or 5.3 × domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
5.1 × 1.37 inches], the Sega Mega Drive remains the ?curid=34581517. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo
smallest home console ever made. Grafx-16#/media/File:NEC-TurboDuo-Console-wController-L.jpg
18. Altered Beast was the original pack-in title for the FIGURE 6.6 Magazine advertisement for the TurboGrafx-16 in
Sega Genesis. November 1992. (From “Too Little, Too Late?”, VintageComputing.com
April 21st, 2008 by Benj Edwards. Retrieved from http://www
19. The CD-ROM² was the first CD-ROM add-on .vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/images/retroscan/tg16_three
(expansion) unit for a video game console. _large.jpg)
20. Nintendo coined the term “blast processing” in FIGURE 6.7 Box art to five defining TurboGrafx-16 titles including:
their advertisements to emphasize the Super (a) Blazing Lazers, (b) Military Madness, (c) Splatterhouse, (d) Bonk’s
Nintendo’s faster processing speed. Adventure, and Neutopia. (Blazing Lazers courtesy of Compile/NEC,
1989; Military Madness courtesy of Hudson Soft, 1989; Splatterhouse
courtesy of Namco/NEC, 1990; Bonk’s Adventure courtesy of Hudson
Soft/NEC, 1990; and Neutopia courtesy of Hudson Soft/NEC, 1990.)
◾ FIGURES
FIGURE 6.1 Defining arcade fighting games in the fourth gener- FIGURE 6.8 Nintendo Game Boy. (Courtesy of Evan-Amos. -
ation: (a) Street Fighter II (1991), (b) Mortal Kombat (1992), and Media:Game-Boy-FL.jpg, public domain. Available at https://
(c) Virtua Fighter (1993). (Street Fighter II courtesy of Capcom, 1991; commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? curid=37808150. Retrieved
Mortal Kombat courtesy of Midway, 1992; and Virtua Fighter from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy#/media/ File:Game
courtesy of Sega, 1993.) -Boy-FL.png)
FIGURE 6.2 NEC PC Engine and PI-PD001 controller. (Courtesy of FIGURE 6.9 Box art to five top Game Boy titles: (a) Kirby’s Dream
Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at https://commons Land, (b) Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, (c) Tetris, (d) The Legend
.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18269320. Retrieved from https:// of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, and (e) Pokémon Yellow. (Kirby’s Dream
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboGrafx-16#/media/File:PC-Engine Land courtesy of HAL Laboratory/Nintendo, 1992; Super Mario Land 2:
-Console-Set.jpg.) 6 Golden Coins courtesy of Nintendo, 1992; Tetris courtesy of Nintendo,
1989; The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening courtesy of Nintendo, 1993;
and Pokémon Yellow courtesy of Game Freak/Nintendo, 1999.)
FIGURE 6.3 NEC Turbo Grafx-16 console with TurboPad
controller. (Courtesy Evan-Amos - own work, public domain.
Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid FIGURE 6.10 Sega Genesis and 3-button controller (U.S.), which
=17385690. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo was the first console to release outside of Japan with nearly identical
Grafx-16#/media/File:TurboGrafx16-Console-Set.jpg) casing to its Japanese sibling (Mega Drive). (Retrieved from http://
ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512iSU24CdL._SL1280_.jpg)
FIGURE 6.4 Screenshots from TurboGrafx-16 launch titles (a) Keith
Courage in Alpha Zones and (b) R-Type. (Keith Courage in Alpha Zones FIGURE 6.11 Screenshots from Genesis launch titles (a) Altered
courtesy of Hudson Soft/NEC, 1989; and R-Type courtesy of Irem/ Beast and (b) Space Harrier II. (Courtesy of Sega, 1989.)
NEC, 1989.)
FIGURE 6.12 Two of the many Genesis add-ons: (a) Power Base FIGURE 6.20 Magazine advertisement for Super Nintendo in
Converter and (b) Sega CD. ((a) “Sega-Genesis-Power-Base-Converter” 1992. (Posted by Tanooki’s Stuff on August 16, 2011. Retrieved from
by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at https:// https://www.flickr.com/photos/65846913@N02/6052166222)
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14230616. Retrieved
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis#/media/File:Sega FIGURE 6.21 Screenshots from Konami’s The Legend of the
-Genesis-Power-Base-Converter.jpg. (b) “Sega-CD-Model1-Set” by Mystical Ninja showcasing the Super Nintendo’s color layering and
Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at https://commons Mode 7 scaling and rotation effects. (Courtesy of Konami, 1992.)
.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14400186. Retrieved from https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_CD#/media/File:Sega-CD-Model1-Set.jpg) FIGURE 6.22 Box art to five defining SNES titles including:
(a) Chrono Trigger, (b) Super Metroid, (c) Final Fantasy III, (d) The
FIGURE 6.13 Magazine advertisement for the Sega Genesis in Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and (d) Donkey Kong Country.
1990. (Posted on The Requiem, August 14, 2014. “The Genesis (Chrono Trigger courtesy of SquareSoft, 1995; Super Metroid courtesy
launches its ad campaign.” Retrieved from http://www.seganerds of Intelligent Systems/Nintendo, 1994; Final Fantasy III courtesy of
.com/2014/08/14/the-genesis-launches-its-ad-campaign/) SquareSoft, 1994; The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past courtesy of
Nintendo, 1992; and Donkey Kong Country courtesy of Rare Ltd./
Nintendo, 1994.)
FIGURE 6.14 Box art to five defining Genesis titles including:
(a) Phantasy Star II, (b) Sonic the Hedgehog, (c) Streets of Rage 2,
FIGURE 6.23 Game Gear. (“A Sega Game Gear handheld video
(d) Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, and (e) Gunstar Heroes.
game system.” by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available
(Phantasy Star II courtesy of Sega, 1990; Sonic the Hedgehog courtesy
of Sonic Team/Sega, 1991; Streets of Rage 2 courtesy of Sega, 1992;
Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Gear#/media
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master courtesy of Megasoft/Sega,
/File:Game-Gear-Handheld.jpg)
1993; and Gunstar Heroes courtesy of Treasure/Sega, 1993.)
FIGURE 6.24 (a) Sonic The Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, (b) Shinobi
FIGURE 6.15 Atari Lynx. (Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, CC II: The Silent Fury, (c) Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya, (d) Ax
BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? Battler: A Legend of Golden Axe, and (e) Super Columns. (Sonic The
curid=19709905. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ Hedgehog: Triple Trouble courtesy of Aspect/Sega, 1994; Shinobi II:
Lynx#/media/File:Atari-Lynx-I-Handheld.jpg) The Silent Fury courtesy of Sega, 1992; Shining Force: The Sword of
Hajya courtesy of Sonic! Software Planning/Sega, 1994; Ax Battler: A
FIGURE 6.16 Box art to five defining Lynx titles: (a) Blue Light- Legend of Golden Axe courtesy of Aspect/Sega, 1991; and Super
ning, (b) S.T.U.N. Runner, (c) Chip’s Challenge, (d) Todd’s Adventure Columns courtesy of Sega, 1995.)
in Slime World, and (e) California Games. (Blue Lightning courtesy of
Epyx/Atari, 1989; S.T.U.N. Runner courtesy of Atari Games, 1989; FIGURE 6.25 Neo•Geo Advanced Entertainment System with its
Chip’s Challenge courtesy of Epyx/Atari, 1989; Todd’s Adventure in large joystick controller. (“Neo-Geo-AES-Console-Set” by Evan-
Slime World courtesy of Epyx/Atari, 1992; and California Games Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://commons.
courtesy of Epyx/Atari, 1989.) wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18260466. Retrieved from https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo_Geo_(system)#/media/File:Neo-Geo
FIGURE 6.17 Nintendo Super Famicom console and 6-button -AES-Console-Set.png)
controller. (Courtesy of Evan-Amos - own work, public domain.
Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid FIGURE 6.26 Screenshots from AES launch titles (a) Baseball Stars
=17748368. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super Professional and (b) Magician Lord. (Baseball Stars Professional cour-
_Nintendo_Entertainment_System#/media/File:Nintendo-Super tesy of SNK, 1991; and Magician Lord courtesy of ADK/SNK, 1991.)
-Famicom-Set-FL.jpg)
FIGURE 6.27 Magazine advertisement for Neo•Geo in 1991.
FIGURE 6.18 The Super Nintendo Entertainment System with a (Posted by Sebastian Mihai on January 2, 2016. Retrieved from http://
6-button controller. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki sebastianmihai.com/downloads/ngscans/Neo-Geo-Hotdog.jpg)
/Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System#/media/File:SNES-Mod1
-Console-Set.jpg FIGURE 6.28 Box art to five defining Neo•Geo titles including:
(a) Samurai Shodown, (b) Fatal Fury Special, (c) The Last Blade,
FIGURE 6.19 Screenshots from SNES launch titles (a) F-Zero and (d) Metal Slug X, and (e) The King of Fighters ‘98. (Samurai Shodown
(b) Super Mario World. (Courtesy of Nintendo, 1991.) courtesy of SNK, 1993; Fatal Fury Special courtesy of SNK, 1993;
The Last Blade courtesy of SNK, 1998; Metal Slug X courtesy of SNK, Mason, M. (1987). “Foreign direct investment and Japanese
1999; and The King of Fighters ’98: The Slugfest courtesy of SNK, 1998.) economic development, 1899–1931.” Business and Eco-
nomic History, 2:16, p. 95.
FIGURE 6.29 Fourth-generation console sales graph. (Designed by
Wardyga using data from Resource Site for Video Game Research, McFerran, D. (2009). “Retroinspection: Game Boy.”
“Console Wars through the Generations”. Available at http:// Videogames hardware handbook: 1977-1999. United
dh101.humanities.ucla.edu/DH101Fall12Lab4/graph—console-wars Kingdom: Imagine Publishing, Ltd., p. 148.
and GamePro. “The 10 Worst-Selling Consoles of All Time.”
Retrieved from http://www.gamepro.com/gamepro/domestic/games McFerran, D. (2012, November 2). The making of the PC Engine:
/features/111822.shtml and Consoles +, issue 73.) With NEC’s machine turning 25, we take a look back at the
history of the Famicom’s biggest rival. Retrieved from
Pro File: Yu Suzuki: Photo by Yu Suzuki, Game Developers Con- http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/11/feature_the
ference 2011, Day 3 (2).jpg: Official GDCderivative work: Masem. _making_of_the_pc_engine.
This file was derived from: Yu Suzuki, Game Developers Conference
2011, Day 3 (2).jpg, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w Neo Geo CD: The new kid in town. (1995, October).
/index.php?curid=14496549. GamePro, (IDG) 85: 30.
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behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the
CHAPTER 7
Sex and Violence Take Center Stage
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Present basic demographic data on who plays video games.

• Review the history of sex, nudity, and adult themes in video games.
• Discuss popular titles known for nudity and/or explicit sexual situations.
• Summarize public reactions to sexual situations and adult themes in gaming.
• Elaborate on gender, race, and LGBT portrayals in video games.
• List possible reasons for gender and race inequities in video games in the United States.
• Compare portrayals of sexuality and violence with Japanese and European markets.
• Review the history of violence, gore, and controversies in video games.
• Summarize major court hearings, bills, and outcomes from explicit games.
• Provide details on regulatory organizations such as the ESA (IDSA) and ESRB.
• Decipher the various icons and specific content descriptors of ESRB ratings.
• Be familiar with popular video game titles known for explicit violence and gore.
• Reflect on recent studies about the effects of video game content on society.
161

3DO Interactive Demographic data Hacks/mods/patches Phantasmagoria
Multiplayer Desensitization Hot Coffee Arthur Pober
Action Replay Digitized graphics Hyper-masculine Poison
American Psychological Doom id Software Polygons
Association Entertainment Software Inequities Postal
Joe Baca Association (ESA) Interactive component Prosocial motive
Charles “Chuck” Benton Entertainment Software Interactive Digital Software Protagonist
Birdo Rating Board (ESRB) Association Rockstar Games
Ed Boon Eroge Games Henry Jenkins John Romero
Sam Brownback ESRB Ratings Herb Kohl Sandbox game
Brown V. Ent. Family Entertainment Joseph Lieberman Arnold Schwarzenegger
Merchants Ass’n Christopher Ferguson Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Short term aggression
Ca Law Ab 1793 Protection Act (FEPA) Transgender (LGBT) Softporn Adventure
California Bill Ab1179 Fatalities Al Lowe Soldier of Fortune
John Carmack Federal Trade Douglas Lowenstein Stereotypical
Catharsis theory Commission (FTC) Leisure Suit Larry The Guy Game
Hillary Clinton First-Person Shooter (FPS) Manhunt Jack Thompson
Columbine High School Full Motion Video/FMV Minigame John Tobias
CompUSA GameStop Mortal Kombat Video compact disc
Correlation Grand Theft Auto Mystique Vivid Interactive
Custer’s Revenge Andrew Grizzard Night Trap Ronald M. Whyte
Customizable character Dave Grossman Non-playable character (NPC) Roberta Williams
Death Race Hack/mod/patch On-Line Systems/Sierra Wolfenstein 3D
Whitney Decamp Grand Theft Auto Oversexualized Leland Yee
◾ HIGHLIGHTED GAMES TIMELINE
Death Race Leisure Suit Larry Doom Manhunt
1976 1987 1993 2003
1982 1992 1997 2004
Mortal Kombat and The Guy Game and

Custer’s Revenge Postal
Night Trap GTA: San Andreas
Sex and Violence Take Center Stage ◾ 163
◾ INTRODUCTION
DID YOU KNOW?
The early 1990s was the time period that video game
About half of all female game players are over 35 years
graphics became more realistic—and along with many old and the most frequent female gamer is an average of
gamers, video games matured. Sexual themes and vio- 44 years old (ESA, 2016, p. 3).
lence began to take center stage in certain games,
attracting the attention of lawmakers, the media,
parents, and other social institutions. This chapter ◾ SEX AND SOFTPORN ADVENTURE
reviews this history of sex and violence in video games,
in addition to portrayals of gender and race. Major Sex, nudity, and adult themes in video games have always
legislation and regulation as “games grew up” will also be been more common in Eastern, Asian markets when
covered, including subsequent controversy and media compared to the United States—however, North America
coverage, as well as theories and scientific research on has matured since the early years of gaming. Sexual themes
the effects of video games on society. in video games became more popular in the United States
when CD-ROM technology emerged in the 1990s. With
◾ WHO PLAYS VIDEO GAMES? improved graphics, live actors, and full motion video
(FMV) capability, it was inevitable that more adult themes
Video games have come a long way since the early days would begin infiltrating the gaming landscape. Prior to
of 8-bit graphics and primitive sound. Once primarily CD-ROM games, sexuality in games was kept at a
seen as a kids’ hobby, those children have grown up and minimum—particularly on the home console market.
video games are now enjoyed by people of all ages. With a larger adult user base, the PC market was exposed
According to a recent report by the Entertainment to adult themes in video games much earlier.
Software Association (ESA), the age of the average One of the first titles known for strong sexual content
video game player in the United States is 35 years old was Softporn Adventure in 1981 by On-Line Systems.
(ESA, 2016, p. 3). The average age was 30 years old just Developed by Charles “Chuck” Benton and released for
three years prior, indicating that dedicated gamers PC, this text-only adventure starts off in a sleazy bar with
continue to play well into their older years. When the objective to win the affections of three women.
divided by age group, this figure breaks down into a Players enter numerous actions and collect items (such
relatively balanced 27% of gamers under 18 years old, as a condom at a drugstore) in attempt to get eventually
29% between 18 and 35 years old, 18% between 36 and lucky. The game was soon featured in a Time magazine
49 years old, and 26% ages 50 and over. article by Kenneth M. Pierce on October 5, 1981 (Maher,
Another change in recent generations has to do with 2012). One of the title’s biggest criticisms was that there
gender. While early generations of video games were was no female protagonist version of the game.
primarily played by and marketed to males, females now
represent more than 40% of the gaming population. ◾ CUSTER’S REVENGE
Today, U.S. video gamers consist of approximately
59% male and 41% female. As a matter of fact, “women One of the first graphically explicit games released in the
age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion United States was Custer’s Revenge (1982) by Mystique
of the game-playing population (31%) than boys age (Figure 7.1). Developed for the Atari 2600, its graphics
18 or younger (17%) (ESA, 2016, p. 3). These gender were primitive, but the game was no less controversial.
percentages are similar to demographic data in other The player assumed the role of a naked General George
countries as well. These are important figures for the Armstrong Custer (a historical figure known for his
industry to take note of, as the market and types of defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn). The object of
games that cater to this audience must evolve with it for the game is “to navigate a battlefield to have sex with
video games to remain relevant. an Indian maiden who was tied to a post. Although
FIGURE 7.1 Box art to Custer’s Revenge (1982). ◾ LEISURE SUIT LARRY
During the early 1980s, most of the adult games fea-
turing sexual content were only released in Japan. Com-
panies such as Koei, Enix, Square, and Nihon Falcom
“helped create the early demand for what are now known
as ‘eroge’ games, or Japanese erotic games (Ellison, 2014,
para. 14). The U.S. PC market had a handful of adult card
games such as Samantha Fox Strip Poker by Martech in
1986. That same year, On-line Systems approached
designer Al Lowe to develop an adult graphical adventure
game similar to their popular King’s Quest series. The
result was an expanded, visual version of Softporn
Adventure, released in 1987 as Leisure Suit Larry in the
Land of the Lounge Lizards (Figure 7.2).
The game follows a similar story of a 38-year-old
virgin named Larry Laffer who is on a quest to get lucky
in the fictional city of Lost Wages. Larry encounters four
main women along the way, who he’ll try to win over by
purchasing gifts that can be bought from money won at
a casino. The game was not initially advertised by Sierra,
but word-of-mouth led to it becoming a sleeper hit,
selling an estimated 250,000 copies.
While some retailers refused to carry the game,
reception of the title was favorable. Perhaps because it
wasn’t overly graphic (sex scenes were covered with a
Mystique claimed the sex was just a consensual bondage “censored” bar), the game did not lead to any major
escapade and not rape, Native American groups as well public controversies. In fact, it spawned a number of
as the National Organization for Women believed the sequels and remakes on various platforms—including a
game promoted sexual violence and staged national home console version called Leisure Suit Larry: Magna
protests against it” (Gamespy, 2011, p. 1). Mystique Cum Laude in 2004. In 2012, Time magazine listed it as
went on to develop two other adult 2600 titles including one of the 100 greatest video games of all time, calling it
Beat ‘Em & Eat ‘Em and Bachelor Party. “a humor-filled adventure game that wasn’t bashful
FIGURE 7.2 Screenshots and box art to the Amiga version of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (1987).
about showing some skin [and that] the world hadn’t Another controversial title on CD-ROM was Roberta
seen anything like it” (Aamoth, 2012, p. 34). Williams’ Phantasmagoria (1995) by Sierra On-Line
(formerly Online Systems). Like Night Trap, it contained
◾ NIGHT TRAP AND FMV GAMES live action footage but was more explicit in its sexual and
violent content—which included a rape scene. As a PC-
CD-ROM games allowed for more memory, which only title in the United States, the game received less
meant the ability for full motion video (FMV), more public attention—however, CompUSA (the largest U.S.
animation, and in many cases, more realistic graphics. PC retailer at the time) refused to stock the game.
One of the first CD games to garner public attention in Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins’s 3DO Inter-
the United States was Night Trap (1992) developed by active Multiplayer released a year after Night Trap on
Digital Pictures for Sega CD (Figure 7.3). The game October 4, 1993. By the following year, adult entertain-
plays like an interactive B-movie about a group of ment company Vivid Interactive began publishing
females having a slumber party who are under attack “Adult Only” video compact discs (VCDs) for the
by vampire-like beings called “Augers.” The player is system. These were not games, but rather edited adult
charged with monitoring a video surveillance system films compressed into MPEG-1 video data similar to the
and activating traps at the right moment to catch the resolution of VHS. While less explicit than the films they
Augers before they attack the women. were adapted from, the presence of such adult content
While the game did not contain any nudity or sex on a home video game console was a new concept and
scenes, its mature content was enough to catch the may have helped push mature video games forward.
attention of Congressional leaders. In the eyes of certain
politicians, “Night Trap was believed to be a simulator ◾ THE GUY GAME
for would-be stalkers, murderers and rapists. This
stemmed from the misconception that the object was to One of the last FMV games to cause a stir was The Guy
trap and kill the girls—the exact opposite of what [the Game, developed for PC, PS2 (Figure 7.4), and Xbox by
player] actually did” (Robertson, 2013, para. 10). This Topheavy Studios and published by Gathering in 2004.
perception of the game led it to being removed from The game plays like a trivia game show on spring break,
store shelves at Toys “R” Us and Kay•Bee Toys just where every question is followed by live-action video
two weeks before Christmas of 1993 (GamePro, 1994, footage of host Matt Sadler giving the same question to
p. 184). The game’s spotlight in the media may have young women in bikinis. If the women get the question
actually helped the title, as Night Trap was ported with wrong, they have to flash their breasts. Initially these
better graphics to the Sega 32X, 3DO, MS-DOS, and scenes are censored, but successfully guessing the girls’
Macintosh the following year. answers eventually leads to full frontal nudity. The game’s
FIGURE 7.3 Screenshots and box art to the original Sega CD version of Night Trap (1992).
FIGURE 7.4 Box art to the PS2 version of The Guy Game. Duke Nukem achieved a certain amount of infamy thanks
to its scantily clad strippers and hookers; Fear Effect’s
promotion push made no bones about its lesbian protag-
onists; and the Dead or Alive series, and its adjustable boob
bounce, took its titillatory tendencies to their logical con-
clusion with the [Dead or Alive Xtreme] Beach Volleyball
series (p. 2). See Table 7.1 for some other popular video
games known for nudity and sexuality.”
◾ GRAND THEFT AUTO AND MODS

One of the most notorious polygonal games to bring sex
and violence in gaming to the mainstream audience was
the Grand Theft Auto series—especially when Rockstar
Games transformed the series from a top-down per-
spective, to a more realistic, third-person “sandbox”
[open world] game with Grand Theft Auto III in 2001.
GTA III became instantly controversial by placing the
player in the role of a criminal—introducing the ability
to pay prostitutes for “services” to recover the player’s
health, in addition to killing civilians, police officers, and
military personnel where players become “Wanted.”
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) received criticism
for ethnic discrimination, where a scenario in the game
pits the player in a gang war between gangs referred to
as the “Haitians” and “Cubans.” It was Grand Theft
Auto: San Andreas (2004) that drew global attention
when a group of professional coders modified the game
biggest controversy, however, came from a lawsuit from to unveil a disabled, partially complete, interactive sex
one of the contestants—claiming she was not informed minigame that was embedded in the game’s code. The
the footage would be used for a video game and that she minigame could be accessed by altering the game’s code
was only 17 years old when the footage was recorded or by using a third-party device such as the Action
(Topheavy Studios, Inc. v. Jane Doe, 2005, pp. 2–3). Replay. Triggered by accepting a female character’s
Full motion video may have advanced sexual and invitation for coffee—the mod became known as “Hot
mature themes in video games—however, as Eurogamer’s Coffee” (Figure 7.5).
Dave McCarthy (2007) pointed out: When news of the minigame broke, the ESRB retroac-
“It was the introduction of polygons [3D graphics] that tively rerated the game with an AO (Adults Only) sticker
really enhanced the possibilities for depicting sexy until an updated version (which removed the minigame)
videogame characters, and since the dawn of the was released. Despite the ESRB’s confirmation that no
PlayStation era, the industry has been peppered with them. violation had occurred, this led to a class action lawsuit
TABLE 7.1 FiveVideo Game Series Known for Nudity and/or Explicit Sexuality
Series Debuted Developer Publisher(s)
Dead or Alive 1996 Team Ninja Tecmo
God of War 2005 Sony Computer Entertainment Santa Monica Studio Sony Computer Entertainment
Grand Theft Auto 1997 Rockstar Games Rockstar Games
Mass Effect 2007 BioWare Microsoft/Electronic Arts
The Witcher 2007 CD Projekt RED CD Projekt and Atari
FIGURE 7.5 Screenshots before a Hot Coffee minigame in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
against distributor Take-Two. Under the terms of the even when they occupy the role of a hero, are often
settlement, Take-Two provided a replacement disc with the depicted as subordinate to male characters or are pre-
sex scenes removed or a $5 to $35 refund to qualifying sented in terms of their sexuality” (p. 438).
consumers (Hatfield, 2007, p. 1). Only $27,000 in settle- While female game characters have often been
ments was claimed, compared to more than $1 million in oversexualized, male characters have commonly been
attorney fees absorbed by Take-Two. portrayed as “hyper-masculine” (Figure 7.6). A hyper-
Modifications to a game’s code like in the Grand Theft masculine character is one who “has an extremely impos-
Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee minigame are known as ing physical body; someone who is very muscular; someone
“mods.” Mods were first made popular in the PC world who is certainly very aggressive. An effect of this hyper-
and can come in the form of a patch (code from the masculine characterization can also be to link being male
developer to fix or add content to a game)—to a hack with being violent” (Scharrer, 2000). While many modern
(unauthorized and/or illegal code by a skilled programmer games are making efforts to avoid these clichés, hyper-
which can alter certain graphics or other features of a masculine characters are still common in game series such
game). Art mods alter a game’s graphics and have been as Gears of War and God of War, along with fighting games
used to add sexual themes to games, such as nude or sexier such as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.
skins (texture maps) to characters like Laura Croft from The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT)
Tomb Raider. These types of skin mod hacks have become a community has been commonly underrepresented in
common part of gaming culture and eventually turn up in video games. Early games hinted at LGBT themes such
just about every major PC release today. as the Birdo character from the U.S. version of Super
Mario Bros. 2 (1988) on the NES. In the first-edition
◾ GENDER AND RACE manual for the game, Birdo is referred to as a “male who
believes that he is a female” who would rather be called
Early video games have been typically presented through “Birdetta” (Loguidice, 2009, p. 280). Capcom’s Final
the Caucasian, male perspective, with the majority of Fight (1989) featured a character named Poison who
game protagonists being white, male characters. Female was rumored to be a trans woman. LGBT characters
characters have been commonly depicted as damsels in have continued to appear in games ever since, but have
distress (Super Mario Bros., Zelda), oversexualized usually been limited to non-playable characters (NPCs).
(early Tomb Raider games, Dead or Alive series), or as Characters of color have also been presented in ste-
sex objects (Grand Theft Auto, Duke Nukem). A 1998 reotypical or subordinate roles over generations of video
study by Tracy Dietz found the portrayal of female games. A 2009 survey by Williams, Martins, Consalvo,
characters in video games to be “overwhelmingly ste- and Ivory found that in more than 150 games across
reotypical” and that “females portrayed in these games, nine platforms, “white characters account for 84.95
FIGURE 7.6 Images of an oversexualized woman (Ivy from Soul Calibur IV) (a) and a hyper-masculine man (Marcus from
Gears of War) (b).
(a) (b)
percent of all primary characters, black 9.67 percent, player to customize their character’s appearance, gender
biracial 3.69 percent and Asian 1.69 percent. Hispanics and ethnicity have added to this diversity—and many
and Native Americans did not appear as a primary of those games (such as Fable, Mass Effect [Figure 7.7],
character in any game, they existed solely as secondary and Dragon Age) allow the player to engage in same-sex
characters” (p. 825). relationships with other characters.
Modern games have done a better job with ethnic While improvements have been made to include a
diversity, avoiding hyper-masculine stereotypes, and more diverse ethnic pool of characters and protagonists
depicting female characters in a less sexualized manner. in video games, there continues to be a lean toward the
Blockbuster titles such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Caucasian, male perspective. A 2013 study by Stein,
and GTA V, Prototype 2, and The Walking Dead feature Mitgush, and Consalvo revealed that “sports video
black characters as lead protagonists. Games like games are one of the few places that racial minorities are
Shadows of the Damned, Guacamelee, and the Just Cause present as primary characters, in contrast with most other
series feature Hispanic lead characters. Female characters genres of video games” (pp. 346–347). More male video
such as Laura Croft have been redesigned to be less game protagonists are avoiding the hyper-masculine
sexualized and more realistic-looking. Gay and lesbian stereotype, but white male characters continue to be the
characters are seeing more prominent roles in games, usual heroes—and female game characters still com-
such as in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! and the GTA IV monly find themselves in at least one sexual situation
expansion, The Ballad of Gay Tony. Games that allow the before the end of the game.
FIGURE 7.7 Games like Mass Effect allow players to fully customize their characters.
Possible reasons of gender and race inequities in the their violence. In 1984, J. R. Dominick reported that
United States include consumer demand, the idea that “videogame violence is abstract and generally consists of
games are mere reflections of real inequalities in society, and blasting spaceships or stylized aliens into smithereens.
the fact that most game developers are white males. In a Rarely does it involve one human being doing violence
game developer survey by Adam Gourdin (2005), 88.5 to another” (p. 138). One early arcade game that did
percent of game respondents identified as male and only attract the attention of the media was Death Race (1976)
11.5 percent of respondents identified as female (p. 11). Of by Exidy (Figure 7.10). Inspired by the 1975 cult film
the respondents, 92 percent of the game developers iden- Death Race 2000, the object of game is to run over stick
tified their sexual orientation as heterosexual (p. 15). Data figure beings called “gremlins” using a steering wheel
from Williams, Martins, Consalvo, and Ivory (2009) sug- and acceleration pedal.
gests that “ethnically, [developers] are 83.3 percent white, Viewed from an aerial perspective, the gremlins look
7.5 percent Asian, 2.5 percent Hispanic and 2.0 percent very similar to humans and this got the attention of
black” (p. 830). Creating characters and scenarios outside of national news programs such as 60 Minutes. Only
their own paradigms adds an additional layer of research around 500 units were manufactured before the game
and effort for developers, who are already on tight deadlines. was banned and pulled from the arcades (Gonzales,
While the oversexualization of female heroines may 2007, para. 11). Game violence was not a hot topic after
have declined in the United States (see Figure 7.8), these this for about a decade, until Exidy released its next
over-exaggerations continue to be prevalent in Japanese- violent arcade game Chiller in 1986. Chiller was a light
developed games such as in Dragon’s Crown, the Dead or gun game that included two levels of shooting and
Alive and Soul Calibur series, among others. An ongoing mutilating characters bound in torture chambers.
effort has been made to tone this content down in the
United States, with game graphics (or at least the box ◾ MORTAL KOMBAT
art) being modified before the titles appear on North
Midway Games released Mortal Kombat (Figure 7.11) to
American retail shelves as seen in Figures 7.9 and 7.15.
the arcades on October 7, 1992—exactly one week before
◾ VIOLENCE AND DEATH RACE Night Trap hit store shelves. Produced to compete with
Capcom’s popular Street Fighter II fighting game, devel-
Partly due to their primitive graphics and sound, most opers Ed Boon and John Tobias chose to use digitized
early video games did not create a lot of controversy for graphics of real actors to help their game stand out from
FIGURE 7.8 The average sexualization of female characters by year of release shows an overall decline in recent years (Lynch
et al., 2016, p. 574).
2.5
2.0
Sexualization index
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Year of release
FIGURE 7.9 Censored for sexuality: Japanese game covers (a) FIGURE 7.10 Screenshot of Death Race.
versus U.S. game covers (b) for Dead or Alive: Dimensions
(2011), Shadows of the Damned (2011), and Nitroplus Blasterz:
Heroines Infinite Duel (2015).
the crowd. They initially approached famous martial arts

actors Steven Segal and Jean Claude van Damme to appear
in the game; however, each of them were busy with other
projects (Kent, 2001, p. 462). Without a famous name
attached to the game, Boon and Tobias turned to excessive
violence to capture the attention of gamers.
Blood was programmed to fly from most hits to a
character’s face—and being hit with an uppercut and
certain special moves results in ridiculous amounts of
blood spurting from the character and hitting the
pavement. Even more violent than the battle rounds are
the game’s unique finishing moves called “fatalities.”
With the correct button combination and distance to the
losing character, the winner of each match has a brief
amount of time to assassinate his or her opponent. Like
much of the game’s blood, these fatalities aren’t very
realistic, but are extremely violent. For example, the
fatality for character Sub-Zero sees him tear his oppo-
nent’s head off with one punch, surgically ripping out
(a) (b) the opponent’s still-attached spine in the process.
FIGURE 7.11 Screenshots depicting the violence and gore from Mortal Kombat (1992).
TABLE 7.2 Modern ESRB Video Game Ratings and Their Meanings
Icon Stands For Description
RP Rating Pending Game has not been assigned a final rating by the ESRB
EC Early Suitable for children ages three and older
Childhood
E Everyone Originally known as Kids to Adults(K-A); for all ages
E10+ Everyone 10+ Suitable for everyone 10 years of age and older
T Teen Generally suitable for those aged 13 years and older
M Mature Ages 17+ for violence, blood/gore, sexual content,
or language
AO Adults Only 18+ for stronger sexual content, nudity, violence,
language, etc.
It wasn’t long before Mortal Kombat’s violence industry settled on the ESRB as the industry’s self-
and Night Trap’s mature themes caught the attention regulatory body for interactive software. See Table 7.2
of Senator Joseph Lieberman (Democrat, CT). for ratings and descriptions.
Lieberman, along with Senator Herb Kohl (Democrat, To streamline the rating process, publishers submit a
WI), held a number of hearings with video game detailed questionnaire and footage of the game’s most
companies (particularly Nintendo and Sega) on the graphic and mature content, in addition to its proposed
marketing of such video games. packaging. Everything from its context, storyline, reward
system, unlockable content, and other elements are
factored into the game’s final rating. The ratings then are
DID YOU KNOW? developed to include an icon on the front of the game’s
When Mortal Kombat released on home consoles (Sega box art (depicting the suggested age group), followed by
Genesis and Super Nintendo), Nintendo insisted that more detailed information on the backside of the
publisher Acclaim release a less-violent version for the packaging (see Figure 7.12 for examples).
SNES. As such, developer Sculptured Software made
numerous modifications to the game—changing the
blood to sweat, and altering most of the fatalities. ◾ DOOM AND FPS GAMES
About a year before the ESRB rating system was completed,

◾ REGULATION AND THE ESRB another controversial game emerged on the PC landscape
with id Software’s Doom (Figure 7.13) in December of
The hearings led by Lieberman and Kohl resulted in the 1993. Doom was primarily the product of programmers
formation of two organizations in 1994. First, the John Carmack and John Romero—who quickly became
Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) was rock stars of the computer gaming community. It was the
formed to represent the video game industry in areas company’s second major first-person shooter (FPS), fol-
such as “a global content protection program, business lowing Wolfenstein 3D (1992) which was played through
and consumer research, government relations and the eyes of a commando shooting Nazi soldiers. Doom was
intellectual property protection efforts” (ESA, 2015). even bloodier, with gore galore from blasting demons in
Douglas Lowenstein was elected as the founding pres- satanic environments.
ident and the IDSA became the Entertainment Software Unlike Night Trap and Mortal Kombat, Doom didn’t
Association (ESA) in 2003. receive much attention from lawmakers until years later,
The second group to be formed was the Entertain- when a number of school shootings began to arise
ment Software Rating Board (ESRB) with Dr. Arthur starting in 1997. The incident that put Doom in the
Pober. The ESRB became the industry standard for spotlight was the massacre at Columbine High School
enforcing video game ratings, advertising guidelines, and in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999. After smug-
privacy principles. Although Sega had developed and gling weapons into the school, 18-year-old Eric Harris
offered a ratings system of its own years prior, the and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold went on to kill 12 students
FIGURE 7.12 Some backside ESRB rating labels with icon and specific content descriptors.
and a teacher, injuring 23 others. The investigation on from the slang term “going postal” which became a
the boys revealed that they were obsessed with Doom phrase following a string of incidents between 1986 and
and they often referenced the game when planning their 1997 where United States Postal Service (USPS) workers
massacre (Kent, 2001, p. 545). engaged in acts of mass murder against their superiors
This led to congressional hearings led by Senator Sam and others. While extremely violent, Postal was a poorly
Brownback (Republican, KS) as early as May 4, 1999. reviewed title that did not have strong sales—and
Much of the discussion was based on the interactive com- Lowenstein pointed this out in his discussion.
ponent of violent video games versus the more passive Nothing really came about from Senator Brownback’s
consumption of other violent media. Particularly harsh 1999 hearings, and then in 2000 one of the most violent
on the video game industry was retired Lieutenant FPS games hit store shelves with Soldier of Fortune.
Colonel Dave Grossman, psychology and military science Developed by Raven Software and published by
professor (West Point and Arkansas State University). Activision, the game was ranked the number one most
Grossman claimed that Doom has been used by the mil- violent video game by Rolling Stone magazine. As
itary as a training simulator and that the home version was Donald Deane (2013) described, “this stunningly violent
no different in training kids to kill. He often referred to the first-person shooter uses an aptly-named proprietary
game a “mass murder simulator” (Chalmers, 2009, p. 75). damage engine called GHOUL, which breaks character
Representing the video games industry was Interac- models down into 26 discrete ‘gore zones.’ In other
tive Digital Software Association president Douglas words, enemies can literally be shot to pieces” (para. 13).
Lowenstein. Lowenstein presented IDSA data which Table 7.3 summarizes this and some other video games
showed that “70 percent of people playing PC games and known for explicit violence and gore.
60 percent of people playing video games were over
18 years of age” (Kent, 2001, p. 553). He also referenced ◾ ROCKSTAR GAMES AND
ESRB data showing that the majority of published video CONGRESSIONAL BILLS
games were not extremely violent and that there was a
lack of research linking violent video games to violent A number of other violent titles reached the market in the
behavior. Director of the Comparative Media Studies following years, such as Rockstar Games’ Manhunt in
program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2003 (Figure 7.14). Manhunt puts the player in the shoes
Dr. Henry Jenkins supported the gaming industry, of a death row prisoner saved from lethal injection and
claiming that “abolishing violent video games doesn’t get ordered to execute gang members on closed-circuit tele-
us anywhere. These are the symbols of youth alienation vision (CCTV) in an attempt to save his family. Stars are
and rage—not the causes” (Jenkins, 1999). awarded to the player for the speed and brutality of the
Another first-person shooter used as an example on executions. The game caught the attention of U.S. Rep-
multiple occasions during the hearings was Postal, resentative Joe Baca (Democrat, CA), who claimed “it’s
developed by Running With Scissors and published by telling kids how to kill someone, and it uses vicious,
Ripcord Games in 1997. The game’s title was derived sadistic and cruel methods to kill” (Gwinn, 2003, para. 8).
FIGURE 7.13 Screenshots from Doom (1993).
TABLE 7.3 Five Video Game Series Known for Their Explicit Violence and Gore
Series Debuted Developer(s) Publisher(s)
Dead Space 2008 Visceral Games Electronic Arts
Manhunt 2003 Rockstar North Rockstar Games
Mortal Kombat 1992 Midway Games (and more) Midway Games, Williams Ent., WarnerBros. Interactive Ent.
Postal 1997 Running With Scissors Ripcord, Loki Ent., Whiptail Interactive, Akella, RWS
Soldier of Fortune 2000 Raven, Cauldron, Activision Activision and Activision Value
A year later, Rockstar Games released Grand Theft include shooting police officers, running over pedestri-
Auto: San Andreas, based on South Central L.A. in the ans with vehicles, as well as hijacking a train, among
1990s. Along with its hackable “Hot Coffee” sex scenes, other acts. By March 2005, the game had sold more than
the game contained realistic violence in an open world 12 million copies, making it the highest selling title for
setting. Examples of violence in GTA: San Andreas the PlayStation 2.
FIGURE 7.14 Screenshots of (a) Manhunt (2003) and (b) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).
(a) (b)
The popularity of violent, M-rated games motivated Jerry Brown (Democrat, CA) succeeded Schwarzenegger
Senator Hillary Clinton (Democrat, NY) to introduce a as California governor in 2010 and the case was
bill called the Family Entertainment Protection Act renamed “Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass’n”
(FEPA) on December 16, 2005, which called for a federal after the hearings (Clements, 2012, p. 680). Once again
mandate to enforce the ESRB ratings system for video the ESA was there to defend its case, along with the
games. Major proposals of the bill included the prohi- support of industry giants such as Microsoft, Activi-
bition on selling mature and adult-only video games to sion Blizzard, the National Association of Broadcasters,
minors, an annual analysis of the ESRB rating system, Motion Picture Association of America, and Recording
the authority for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Industry Association of America, among others. Fol-
to investigate misleading ratings, the authority to regis- lowing the deliberations, the Supreme Court struck
ter complaints, and annual retailer audits. This and down the California law as unconstitutional with a 7–2
similar bills never became laws and eventually expired decision on June 27, 2011. The ruling claimed that
with no further action. video games were protected under the First and Four-
teenth Amendments.
Video games have a solid track record of being pro-
DID YOU KNOW? tected by the U.S. Constitution. While there remains no
In addition to its numerous “best-selling” records, Guin- federal law prohibiting the sale of M-rated video games
ness World Records (2009) lists Grand Theft Auto as the to minors, most retailers strictly adhere to the ratings set
most controversial video game series in history, where forth by the ESRB. At GameStop, “if an hourly employee
more than 4,000 articles have been published on the sells an M-rated game to a minor, not only will he or she
series (pp. 108–109).
lose their job, but the salaried store manager will be
terminated as well” (Chester, 2007, para. 2).
Another attempt to enforce the ESRB ratings and FIGURE 7.15 Censored for violence: European game covers
prevent the sale of violent videogames to children was (a) versus U.S. covers (b) for Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy
California bill AB1179. Introduced by Senator Leland (2005) and Dead Rising 2 (2010).
Yee (Democrat, CA) and approved by Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger (Republican, CA) in October 2005, the
bill banned the sale of violent video games to children
under 18 and asked for clearer labeling of ratings than
what was currently being used by the ESRB. A maximum
$1,000 fine would be imposed on retailers for each
infraction. The bill passed as CA Law AB 1793 in
January 2006, but only resulted in stores being required
to display the ESRB ratings system and to provide
parents with information on the ratings.
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
challenged the law in the United States District Court for
the Northern District of California. U.S. District Judge
Ronald M. Whyte ruled that the law was a violation
of the First Amendment. Insufficient evidence that video
games were different from other media or caused violent
behavior was also part of the decision (Video Soft-
ware Dealers Ass’n et al. v. Schwarzenegger et al., 2007).
Schwarzenegger appealed, but the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals affirmed Whyte’s decision in 2009. Finally,
Schwarzenegger appealed to the Supreme Court and
hearings were held on November 2, 2010. (a) (b)
◾ EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAME VIOLENCE A 2014 study from Ferguson examined the best-
selling games from 1996 to 2011 and ranked each game
Many scientific studies have been conducted on the for violent content based on ESRB ratings. For the study,
effects of video games, particularly on the effects of young “youth violence was charted over the same time period
people who play violent video games. A 2015 policy using a government database of per capita youth vio-
statement by the American Psychological Association lence in ages 12–17. With these two data sets in hand,
claimed that “scientific research has demonstrated an Ferguson correlated the numbers to see if any trend
association between violent video game use and both would emerge. It did. It was negative” (Hill, 2014, para.
increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive affect, 5). In other words, youth violence rates dropped while
aggressive cognitions and decreases in prosocial behav- the consumption of violent video games increased over
ior, empathy, and moral engagement” (p. 3). Former the 15 years observed in the study (Figure 7.16).
attorney Jack Thompson and studies by Barbara J. Ferguson’s findings were consistent with data
Wilson of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne assembled by Nicholas Lovell of GAMESbrief in 2010.
(2008) and Psychologist Craig A. Anderson (2010) Lovell plotted North American software sales figures
support the assertion that exposure to violent video between 1990 and 2008 and then compared them to the
games can contribute to aggressive behavior. Most of FBI’s official violent crime statistics for the United States
these studies revealed short-term aggression during or during that same period. His data showed that during
immediately after playing a violent game—similar to a this time software sales grew by 461 percent, while
moviegoer feeling sad or depressed during and/or after violent crime in the United States had fallen by 25
viewing an emotionally heartbreaking film. percent (Lovell, 2010, p. 1). These correlational studies
Other social scientists argue that there is no sig- do not prove that playing violent video games decreases
nificant correlation, such as Associate Professor of violence in society, although they may provide an
Sociology at Western Michigan University, Whitney argument against the claim that violent video game
DeCamp. DeCamp acknowledges that some studies consumption increases youth violence. Ferguson does
have shown a connection between children playing suggest that “violent video games may help reduce
violent video games and violent behavior, but argues that societal violence rather than increase it” (Scutti, 2016,
the two variables have been observed “in a vacuum” and p. 2). The assumption is that by occupying young people
that children who are attracted to violent video games with activities they enjoy—including video games—they
likely have a predisposition toward aggression. DeCamp will stay off the streets and potentially away from
claims, “the evidence points to either no relationship trouble.
between playing video games and violent behavior or an
‘insignificant’ link between the two” (Scutti, 2016, p. 2).
His study showed that playing violent video games was DID YOU KNOW?
not a predictor of violent behavior among 6567 eighth- Studies by Gitter et al. (2013) found a significant decrease
graders. in aggression of participants who played violent video
Associate Professor and Co-Chairman of the Depart- games with an explicit prosocial motive (pp. 346–354).
ment of Psychology at Stetson University Christopher
Ferguson claims that “data in studies linking video There is a hypothesis known as catharsis theory,
games and violence have been improperly analyzed … which is the belief that “playing violent video games
that this research ignores important social factors—such or watching violent TV/movies allows people to ‘vent’
as mental health status and family environment—that their aggressive inclinations and therefore behave less
can trigger violence, while pinning all the blame on aggressively after playing/watching” (Gentile, 2013,
gaming” (Pellissier, 2016, p. 2). Ferguson suggests that p. 492). Rather than becoming more violent, it is possible
rather than video games, it is factors such as antisocial that many individuals seek violent video games as a form
personality traits, depression, family, and peer influence of stress release. This theory is supported by a number
that are more likely to trigger aggressive behavior. of researchers, including Dr. Henry Jenkins (MIT/USC),
FIGURE 7.16 Data from Ferguson (2015) showing a decline in youth violence and increase in video game violence con-
sumption from 1996 to 2011.
9000 40
8000 35
7000
30
6000
25
5000
20
4000
15
3000
10
2000
1000 5
0 0
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Video game violence Youth violence
consumption
as well as Nottingham Trent University’s Professor and society. For instance, several “studies on gender
Mark D. Griffiths (1999) who explains that “it might be stereotyping suggest that negative representations of
precisely the fantasy aggression that releases the energy female characters in many video games can lead players
that would otherwise be expressed as aggressive behavior” to learn, emulate, and internalize the values and norms
(p. 206). associated with stereotypes of women as sexual objects
Another concern about video game violence—like and victims of violence, who are vulnerable and inef-
other media violence—is desensitization, where gamers fective (Yang, 2012, p. 72; Brenick, Henning, Killen,
develop a diminished emotional response to video game O’Connor, & Collins, 2007; Dietz, 1998; Harrison &
violence after repeated exposure to it. A longitudinal Cantor, 1997). Likewise, stereotypical representations of
study by University of Buffalo’s Dr. Andrew Grizzard male or minority characters in games may also influence
et al. found that repeatedly playing the same violent players’ perceptions regarding masculinity, race and
game reduces emotional responses (such as guilt) both ethnicity, or aspects of sexuality.
in the original game and in other violent video games as The added interactive component of video games
well (2016). The study did not identify how or why the may give this form of media even more influential power
phenomenon occurred, or whether such desensitization on consumers. While there is still much debate over how
could be transferred into real life violent situations. much of an influence video games have on players, it can
be said with certainty that a vulnerable audience exists—
◾ OTHER EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAMES particularly children. The gaming industry and retailers
have raised the bar in adopting the ESRB rating system
Like other forms of media, the oversexualization and regulating the sale of video games to minors.
of women, hyper-masculinization of men, or under- Moreover, it is parents who must play the pivotal role in
representation of minority groups in video games can mentoring and monitoring children’s consumption of
most certainly influence a gamer’s perception of people video games—as well as any other form of media.
◾ ACTIVITY: VIDEO GAMES DEBATE
Working in groups of two, choose one of the following topics to debate for and against:
1. Video games contain too much violence and gore.

2. Video games contain too much sex and nudity.
3. The majority of today’s video games tend to oversexualize women.
4. The majority of today’s video games tend to hyper-masculinize men.
5. Most (choose one race) people are underrepresented in today’s video games.
6. Most (gay, lesbian, or LGBT) people are underrepresented in today’s video games.
7. Violent video games lead to long-term aggressive behavior in game players.
8. Violent video games lead to real life desensitization in game players.
9. (One ethnic or gender group) is presented as a stereotype in most video games.
10. Playing violent video games can relax or help people vent their aggression.
STRUCTURE
The introduction should (1) gain attention through shock, question, humor, example or anecdote, (2) preview
the main points of the speech, and (3) cite the hypothesis of the speech.
The body of the debate should contain three main points and two quotes of supporting research from peer
reviewed journals that can be paraphrased or cited verbally in the presentation. Sources should be cited in APA
format, mentioning both the author(s) and the year of their studies.
The conclusion should close with a memorable summary of your main points. The total length of each debate
should be 3–4 minutes, not to exceed 5 minutes total.
GUIDELINES
• The outline must be typed and is due the first day of the debates.
• The outline must include a references page of all cited sources from the presentation.
• The presentation must include a visual aid (such as PowerPoint) that is easy to view.
• Video clips should not exceed more than 20% of the total length of each debate.
◾ CHAPTER 7 QUIZ 2. U.S. video gamers consist of approximately:

a. 59% male and 41% female
1. According to the ESA, the age of the average U.S. b. 69% male and 31% female
video game player in 2016 was: c. 50% male and 50% female
a. 25 years old d. none of the above
b. 30 years old
c. 35 years old 3. Which of the following was not a reason that sexual
d. 40 years old themes in video games became more popular in the
United States during the 1990s?
a. Improved graphics 9. This 2004 trivia game hosted by Matt Sadler was
b. CD-ROM technology controversial for nudity and a lawsuit from one of
c. Revocation of the IDSA the contestants who was only 17 years old when the
d. Advancements in FMV footage was recorded:
a. Dead or Alive
4. One of the first titles known for strong sexual b. The Guy Game
content was this text-only adventure in 1981 by On- c. Softporn Adventure
Line Systems where the player is out to win the d. You Don’t Know Jack
affections of three women:
a. Custer’s Revenge 10. This “sandbox” style series game became instantly
b. The Guy Game controversial by placing the player in the role of a
c. Leisure Suit Larry criminal—with the ability to pay prostitutes for “ser-
d. Softporn Adventure vices” to recover health, in addition to killing innocent
civilians, police officers, and military personnel:
5. This company created three adult video games for a. Dead or Alive
the Atari 2600, including Custer’s Revenge, Beat ‘Em b. Duke Nukem
& Eat ‘Em, and Bachelor Party: c. Fear Effect
a. On-Line Systems d. Grand Theft Auto
b. Mystique
c. Martech 11. Female video game characters have been commonly
d. Vivid Interactive depicted as:
a. Damsels in distress
6. Companies such as Koei, Enix, Square, and Nihon b. Oversexualized
Falcom helped create the early demand for Japanese c. Sex objects
erotic games known as __________ games: d. All of the above
a. eroge
b. mahjong 12. Characters of color and LGBT have often been
c. pachinko ________________ in video games:
d. none of the above a. excluded
b. underrepresented
7. This graphical adventure series was first released in c. limited to non-playable characters
1987 and follows a story of a 38-year-old virgin on d. all of the above
a quest to get lucky in the fictional city of Lost
Wages: 13. The vast numbers of video games on the market
a. Custer’s Revenge tend to be presented through the:
b. The Guy Game a. Asian, male perspective
c. Leisure Suit Larry b. Black, male perspective
d. Softporn Adventure c. Caucasian, female perspective
d. Caucasian, male perspective
8. One of the first CD-ROM games to garner public
attention in the United States about a group of 14. An early arcade game that attracted the attention of
females having a slumber party who are under attack the media where the object of game is to run over
by vampire-like beings: stick figure beings called “gremlins” using a steering
a. Duke Nukem wheel and gas pedal:
b. Fear Effect a. Death Race
c. Night Trap b. Outrun
d. Phantasmagoria c. Nitro
d. X-terminator
15. Midway’s Mortal Kombat was developed by: c. Joe Baca and Arnold Schwarzenegger
a. John Carmack and John Romero d. None of the above
b. Ed Boon and John Tobias
c. Doug Lowenstein and Arthur Pober 22. The hypothesis known as _____________ is the belief
d. Joseph Lieberman and Herb Kohl that playing violent video games is a form of stress
release that allows people to vent their aggression.
16. Mortal Kombat and Night Trap led to hearings on a. catharsis theory
video game marketing by Senators: b. desensitization
a. John Carmack and John Romero c. prosocial motive
b. Ed Boon and John Tobias d. short-term aggression theory
c. Doug Lowenstein and Arthur Pober
d. Joseph Lieberman and Herb Kohl True or False
17. ESRB stands for the: 23. In the video game business, FMV stands for “Fre-
a. Entertainment Software Rating Board quently Modded Video Game.”
b. Entertainment Software Reconciliation Board
c. Electronic Software Reconciliation Bureau 24. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) was relabeled
d. Electronic Software Ruling Bureau with an AO (Adults Only) until its “Hot Coffee”
minigame mod could be removed from the game's
18. These id Software developers made the first-person code.
shooter genre popular with Wolfenstein 3D and
Doom: 25. While the oversexualization of female heroines may
a. John Carmack and John Romero have declined in the United States, these over-
b. Ed Boon and John Tobias exaggerations continue to be prevalent in many
c. Doug Lowenstein and Arthur Pober Japanese-developed games.
d. Joseph Lieberman and Herb Kohl
◾ FIGURES
19. Of the following, who has not blamed violent video
games for influencing real acts of violence in society? FIGURE 7.1 Box art to Custer’s Revenge (Mystique, 1982).
a. American Psychological Association
b. Dave Grossman FIGURE 7.2 Screenshots and box art to the Amiga version of
c. Henry Jenkins Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (1987). (On-line
d. Jack Thompson Systems, 1987. Courtesy of Wardyga.)
20. Introduced a bill called the Family Entertainment FIGURE 7.3 Screenshots and box art to the original Sega CD version
Protection Act (FEPA) in 2005, which called for a of Night Trap (Digital Pictures/Sega, 1992). (Courtesy of Wardyga.)
federal mandate to enforce the ESRB ratings system
for video games: FIGURE 7.4 Box art to the PS2 version of The Guy Game.
a. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Courtesy of Topheavy Studios/Gathering, 2004.)
b. Hillary Clinton
c. Joe Baca FIGURE 7.5 Screenshots before a Hot Coffee minigame in Grand
d. Leland Yee Theft Auto: San Andreas. (Rockstar North/Rockstar Games, 2004.
Courtesy of by Wardyga.)
21. California bill AB1179 was introduced by Senator

______________ and approved by Governor FIGURE 7.6 Images of an oversexualized woman (Ivy from Soul
Calibur IV) (a) and a hyper-masculine man (Marcus from Gears of
______________ in October of 2005.
War) (b). (Ivy from Soul Calibur IV courtesy of Project Soul/Namco
a. Leland Yee and Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bandai, 2008; and Marcus from Gears of War courtesy of Epic
b. Hillary Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger
Games/Microsoft Studios, 2006.)
FIGURE 7.7 Games like Mass Effect allow players to fully cus- Pro File: Doug Lowenstein. Photo courtesy of Doug Lowenstein,
tomize their characters. (Courtesy of BioWare/Electronic Arts, 2012.) 2017. Retrieved from https://convergencyus.com/who-we-are/douglas
-lowenstein/.
FIGURE 7.8 The average sexualization of female characters by year
of release shows an overall decline in recent years (Lynch et al., 2016,
p. 574). (From Lynch, T., Tompkins, J., van Driel, I., & Fritz, N., ◾ REFERENCES
2016, August, Journal of Communication, 66(4), 564–584.)
Aamoth, D. (2012, November 15). All-TIME 100 video games.
Time Magazine, p. 34. Retrieved from http://techland
FIGURE 7.9 Censored for sexuality: Japanese game covers (a) .time.com/2012/11/15/all-time-100-video-games/slide
versus U.S. game covers (b) for Dead or Alive: Dimensions (2011), /leisure-suit-larry-1987/.
Shadows of the Damned (2011), and Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines
Infinite Duel (2015). (Dead or Alive: Dimensions courtesy of Team American Psychological Association. (2015, August). Resolu-
Ninja/Tecmo Koei, 2011; Shadows of the Damned courtesy of tion on violent video games. Retrieved from http://www
Grasshopper Manufacture/Electronic Arts, 2011; and Nitroplus .apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/08/violent-video
Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel courtesy of Examu/Nitroplus and
-games.pdf.
Marvelous Inc., 2015.)
Brenick, A., Henning, A., Killen, M., O’Connor, A., & Collins
M. (2007). Social reasoning about stereotypic images in
FIGURE 7.10 Screenshot of Death Race. (Courtesy of Wardyga.) video games: Unfair, legitimate, or “just entertainment”?
Youth and Society, 38, 395–419.
FIGURE 7.11 Screenshots depicting the violence and gore from
Chalmers, P. (2009). Inside the mind of a teen killer. Nashville,
Mortal Kombat (1992). (Midway Games, 1992. Courtesy of by
TN: Thomas Nelson Inc., p. 75.
Wardyga.)
Chester, N. (2007, February 2). GameStop: Sell an M-rated
FIGURE 7.12 Some backside ESRB rating labels with icon and game to a minor, enjoy unemployment. Retrieved from
specific content descriptors. (E10+ ESRB rating by ESRB. Retrieved https://www.destructoid.com/gamestop-sell-an-m-rated
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CHAPTER 8
The 3D Era
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Describe the move to 3D and its influence on arcades and home video games.
• Discuss why the first wave of next generation consoles (3DO and Jaguar) failed.
• Summarize a brief overview of the history of Panasonic and Sony.
• Recognize key people who helped pave the way for the top games and consoles.
• Explain why the Sega Saturn was less successful in North America.
• Provide reasons for how Sony dominated the fifth-generation market.
• Discuss why Nintendo stayed with cartridge format and its impact on the N64.
• Account for why the Nintendo 64 was less successful in Japan versus the United States.
• Be familiar with the technological differences among fifth-generation systems.
• Have a sense of the graphics and general capabilities of fifth-generation consoles.
• Review some of the key video game titles for each console.
• Summarize fifth-generation market sales, breakthroughs, and trends.
185

3D Pad Glove controller Multiplayer Adaptor Sega 32X
3D polygon graphics Goldstar Multitap Sega Netlink
3DO Company Gouraud shading Yuji Naka Sega Saturn
3DO (Console) Guncon NEC VR4300 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Acclaim Phil Harrison Dave Needle Sonic Team
American Laser Games Hitachi SH2 CPU Hayao Nakayama Sony Computer
Anti-Aliasing Home Arcade Nintendo 64 (N64) Entertainment.
Arcade Racer (Wheel) Systems Nintendo 64DD Sony Corporation
Atari Jaguar Masaru Ibuka Norio Ohga Sony PlayStation
Atari Panther Jaglink Panasonic Sprite-generated polygons
Martin Brennan Jaguar CD Pirated games Squaresoft
Compact Disc (CD) Tom Kalinske Play Cable Steven Spielberg
Control Stick Konami PlayStation Bernie Stolar
Controller Pak Ken Kutaragi Underground Stunner light gun
Copy protection Licensed Soundtracks ProController Taito
Daisy chain Local area network PSone Team Tap
Demo disc Logitech Psygnosis Transfer Pak
Draw distance John Mathieson R&D3 Team Transparency
Dreamworks Konosuke Matsushita Rareware/Rare Treasure
DualShock controller Memory card Reality coprocessor Universal Studios
E3 Memory Track Real-time lighting Video compact disc
Electronic Arts Midway Redbook audio Video display processor (VPD)
Expansion Pak R. J. Mical Regional lockout Virtual Boy
Flare Technology Joe Miller Region-free Voice recognition unit
Martz Franz Jay Miner David Rosen Walkman
Game Boy Color MK-80100 Rumble Pak Andrew Whitaker
Gamegun Akio Morita Sanyo Gunpei Yokoi
GameWorks Motorola MC68000 Hideki Sato Yuji Naka
3DO Interactive
Multiplayer Sega Saturn Nintendo 64
October 1993 May 1995 September 1996
November 1993 September 1995 November 1998
Atari Jaguar Sony PlayStation Game Boy Color

The 3D Era ◾ 187
◾ ARCADES IN FLUX With revenues on the decline again, the arcade industry
would see another small resurgence in 1996 when motion
The arcade scene in the mid-1990s was popularized by picture companies DreamWorks (Steven Spielberg) and
games utilizing 3D polygon graphics. Sega pioneered Universal Studios teamed up with Sega to form the
the genre with games such as Virtua Racing (1992) arcade mega complex GameWorks. The first location had
(shown in Figure 8.1), Virtua Fighter (1993), and Virtua over “35,000 square feet of floor space [and] opened in
Cop (1994). Namco went head-to-head with Sega, downtown Seattle in March of 1997. The opening was
releasing Ridge Racer (1993), Tekken (1994), and Time treated more like a movie premier, with stars such as Will
Crisis (1995). Racing, fighting, and light gun shooting Smith, Gillian Anderson, and Weird Al Yankovic in
games were the main draw and most of these games attendance” (Kent, 2001, pp. 528–529). Openings of
were now costing 50 cents or more to play. According GameWorks in other major U.S. cities soon followed.
to Businessweek, by 1994 Americans were pouring
$7 billion into arcade games each year—approximately ◾ THE 3D ERA
$1 billion more than they were spending on the
home console market at that time (Armstrong, 1994, Following in the footsteps of the arcades, the fifth gen-
p. 58). eration was driven by 32- and 64-bit technology, with an
This renaissance period would only last for so long. emphasis on 3D polygonal graphics. Every console could
Taito closed its U.S. offices in 1995 (Kent, 2001, p. 500) now display millions of colors on screen, shifting the
and in addition to arcade games becoming more tech specs focus from colors to polygon count. Not since
expensive, home video game rentals became more the second generation were so many home consoles
popular and 32-bit home consoles were right around the released to the public, with many systems only being
corner. The new systems were built around 3D polygo- available in Japan with a limited library of games. There
nal technology and would be able to match the graphics were close to a dozen consoles released during the fifth
and sound of the arcades more closely than ever before. generation, with five key systems reaching U.S. shores.
While arcade hardware continued to be one step ahead This generation also saw the largest release of handheld
and more advanced than home consoles, the gap was systems, many of which were complete market failures.
beginning to narrow. The average consumer could no This chapter will focus primarily on the major five
longer notice a significant difference between home home consoles that were released and marketed in the
ports and the original arcade games. United States, Europe, and Japan.
FIGURE 8.1 Screenshots of defining arcade games from the mid-1990s: (a) Virtua Racing (Sega, 1992), (b) Tekken (Namco,
1994), and (c) Area 51 (Mesa Logic/Atari 1995).
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 8.2 The Panasonic R•E•A•L 3DO Interactive Multiplayer with standard controller.
◾ 3DO INTERACTIVE MULTIPLAYER The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles
Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, and
The first major system console in the fifth generation of Businessweek, among others (Mathews, 2013, p. 21). The
game consoles was the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer 3DO was even awarded Time magazine’s “1993 Product
(Figure 8.2), developed by Amiga computer and Atari of the Year.”
Lynx designers Dave Needle and R. J. Mical and backed The first manufacturer to release the system was
by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins. The name Panasonic on October 4, 1993, followed by a 1994
“3DO” had really no significance. Hawkins told Retro release in Japan and Europe. Founded in 1918 by
Gamer Magazine that he simply wanted the name Konosuke Matsushita, Panasonic became one of Japan’s
of the system to end with an “o” like “radio” or “video” largest electronics producers. Many consumers referred
and that someone had suggested adding “3D” to the title to the system as the “Panasonic 3DO” when the console
(Retro Gamer, 2009, p. 189). It was subtitled “Multi- debuted, however, because of Hawkins’s licensing
player” because the system could play video games, structure, two other companies would go on to manu-
music CDs, photo discs, and video compact discs facture versions of the 3DO, including GoldStar and
(or VCDs). Sanyo (see Figure 8.6).
The business model for the system was unlike The initial challenge for the 3DO was cost. The tech-
any other console. Hawkins derived a plan for his new nology at that time was costly and for it to be profitable,
3DO Company to profit by licensing the hardware the 3DO launched at the suggested retail price of $699.99.
to multiple electronics manufacturers. Another part of Games were also sparse. When the 3DO first hit store
Hawkins’s business plan to attract developers was to shelves, the only game available was the pack-in title Crash
only collect a small, $3 royalty for every game sold. ‘N Burn—however as Table 8.1 illustrates, 13 more titles
This was significantly lower than the royalty fees col- were released by the end of the year. Panasonic eventually
lected by Nintendo and Sega. Thanks to Hawkins’s lowered the price of the system to $399.95 in 1994, but the
wide network of industry contacts, the system received excitement for the 3DO had worn off and sales remained
a lot of media coverage initially, including articles in low (Kent, 2001, p. 487).
TABLE 8.1 3DO Interactive Multiplayer 1993 U.S. Titles

• 20th Century Video Almanac • The Life Stage: Virtual House
• The Animals! • Star Control II
• Battle Chess • Stellar 7: Draxon’s Revenge
• Crash ‘N Burn (Figure 8.3a) • Total Eclipse (Figure 8.3b and 8.4)
• Crime Patrol • Twisted: The Game Show
• Escape from Monster Manor • Fatty Bear’s Birthday Surprise
• Lemmings • Guardian War
The 3D Era ◾ 189
FIGURE 8.3 Screenshots from early 3DO titles (a) Crash ‘N Burn and (b) Total Eclipse.
(a) (b)
Despite its slow sales, the 3DO introduced a number of This daisy chain concept allowed up to eight controllers to
innovations to the home video game market. While its be linked together and eliminated the need for more than
controller design was essentially just a mix between the one controller port on the system or any extra multi-
Genesis and Super Nintendo controller, each additional port peripheral. The controllers even included a 3.5 mm
controller could be plugged into the top of the previous one. headphones jack and volume control on the bottom side.
FIGURE 8.4 Typical two-page magazine advertisement for the Panasonic 3DO in 1993.
The 3D Era ◾ 191
TABLE 8.2 3DO Interactive Multiplayer Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Panasonic (then GoldStar and Sanyo)
Release Date: 10/04/93 (US), 3/20/94 (JP), 1994 (EU)
Format: CD-ROM
Processor: 32-bit ARM 60 RISC CPU (12.5 MHz and 32 KB SRAM)
Performance: 20,000 polygons per second (15,000 textured)
Memory: 2 MB DRAM and 1 MB VRAM
Resolution: 640 × 480 (interpolated), 320 × 240 (actual)
Sound: 17 channel, 16-bit stereo (44.1 KHz)
Another innovative feature of the 3DO was that it was ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON
one of the first region-free systems. In other words, the
console did not contain any regional lockout compo- Compared to its 16-bit predecessors, the 3DO was unlike
nents, allowing most international games to be played on any other home console on the market at the time of its
domestic systems and vice versa. Unfortunately, 3DO release. The system was a standalone, CD-ROM system
software lacked any copy protection, leaving the door capable of playing more than just video games. A single
wide open for pirated games (i.e., illegal copies). The 3DO CD-ROM could contain up to 650 to 700 MB of
system also became a popular platform for adult film data, compared to just 4 MB of the average Genesis or
companies like Vivid Interactive to release abridged, Super Nintendo cartridge. Where the 16-bit consoles
erotic VCDs on. relied on passwords and cartridge batteries to save game
Third-party developer American Laser Games data, the 3DO had 32 KB of internal memory to save
designed the “Gamegun” light gun for the system to play games and other data.
its popular ports of arcade shooters such as Mad Dog Its 12.5 MHz, 32-bit ARM60 RISC processor (Table
McCree. Panasonic and Logitech also released a mouse 8.2) was both faster and much more capable—delivering
to make it easier to play games such as Myst and Lem- tens of thousands of polygons per second. Add textured
mings. The last popular peripheral was a steering wheel polygons into the equation and its 3D games looked
developed by Home Arcade Systems for racing games light years ahead of anything the Super NES could render
such as Crash ‘N Burn and The Need For Speed. with its Super FX chip. The 3DO used interpolation, a
FIGURE 8.5 Box art to five defining 3DO titles including: (a) Star Control II, (b) Road Rash, (c) Gex, (d) The Need For Speed,
and (e) Super Street Fighter II Turbo.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

FIGURE 8.6 Other 3DO Interactive Multiplayer systems, including the redesigned (a) Panasonic FZ-10, (b) GoldStar (LG)
model, and (c) the Japan-exclusive Sanyo 3DO TRY.
(a) (b) (c)
computer algorithm that essentially upscaled its graphics

to 640 × 480 resolution. Finally, its CD quality sound and DID YOU KNOW?
higher storage capacity allowed for licensed soundtracks, More than 150 games were released for the 3DO in the
as heard with music from White Zombie in Way of the United States, however, more consoles were sold in Asia
Warrior and Soundgarden in Road Rash. than in the United States (Kent, 2001, p. 487). Well over
100 additional games were released exclusively in Japan,
including titles such as Doctor Hauzer, Yu Yu Hakusho,
HEAD-TO-HEAD and Hideo Kojima’s Policenauts (Retro Gamer, 2009,
p. 192).
Compare the 3DO to its 16-bit predecessors. Try Starfox
(SNES) versus Total Eclipse (3DO), Super Street Fighter II
(SNES/Genesis) versus Super Street Fighter II Turbo
(3DO), Road Rash (Genesis vs. 3DO version), and FIFA ◾ ATARI JAGUAR
International Soccer (SNES/Genesis vs. 3DO).
Atari began work with U.K. computer hardware
company Flare Technology on its next system around
◾ KEY 3DO TITLES 1989. Flare ended up working on two consoles: a 32-bit
system known as the Atari Panther to compete in what
More than 150 games were released for the 3DO in the would become the fourth generation, in addition to its
United States. The system benefitted from an impressive successor—a 64-bit system called Atari Jaguar (Figure
lineup of games published by Electronic Arts, such as 8.7). Rapid progress on the Jaguar by Flare engineers
Immercenary, John Madden Football, FIFA International Martin Brennan and John Mathieson resulted in the
Soccer, Road Rash, The Need For Speed, and others. Panther system being cancelled. After totally missing the
Crystal Dynamics made a name for itself on 3DO with last home console market, Atari launched the Jaguar on
games like Total Eclipse, Star Control II, and Gex (seen in November 23, 1993 for $249.99. It released in Japan and
Figure 8.5). Interplay published a number of big titles on Europe in 1994.
the system including Alone in the Dark, Battle Chess, The Jaguar was built with a total offive main processors
Wolfenstein 3D, and Out of This World. contained within three chips. Similar to the TurboGrafx-
American Laser Games released around 10 shooter 16 which was called a 16-bit system (even though it only
games to support its light gun peripheral, while popular contained an 8-bit CPU), the Jaguar (which contained two
Digital Pictures games such as Sewer Shark and Night 32-bit processors nicknamed “Tom” and “Jerry”) was
Trap were ported from Sega-CD. These games looked marketed as a 64-bit system. This created some contro-
twice as good on the 3DO, with enhanced color and versy in the gaming world on whether the Jaguar was a
higher screen resolution. Ports of popular arcade fight- true 64-bit system. Atari may have contributed to this
ing games including Capcom’s Super Street Fighter II ongoing discussion with their advertising, which included
Turbo and SNK’s Samurai Shodown were also well done, the slogan “Do The Math.” The system did contain some
however, the two publishers did not really support the 64-bit components, however, its third Motorola
system beyond those games. MC68000 RISC chip (which acted as a coprocessor) was
The 3D Era ◾ 193
FIGURE 8.7 Atari Jaguar and a standard controller with its numeric keypad.
“barely superior to past consoles” (Szczepaniak, 2009, however, it was quite wide, with curved edges and
p. 197). These processors, along with incomplete devel- rounded rolls along the bottom to create an ergonomic
oper instructions, and other architecture issues made feel (Kent, 2001, p. 489). The bottom half of the controller
it difficult to program games for the Jaguar, ultimately contained a numeric keypad not seen on a game controller
resulting in sparse third-party support. since the Atari 5200. This gave the gamepad a unique
The system was bundled with one controller and a function that—just like the older consoles—allowed for
mediocre 3D shooter called Cybermorph (Figures 8.8a game-specific overlays to be clipped onto the keypads.
and 8.9), which seemed more like an prototype. The game While interesting in theory, most gamers found the con-
contained no in-game music, very basic polygons, and a trollers to be cumbersome and argued they were inferior
very short draw distance where polygonal structures (like to the older, Super NES pads (Szczepaniak, 2009, p. 198).
mountains) would abruptly pop up in front of the player’s Atari later released the “ProController” which added
space ship. Other than Cybermorph, the only other title three more action buttons, but was just as bulky.
available at launch was the side-scrolling shooter Trevor
McFur in the Crescent Galaxy (Figure 8.8b). This game ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: JAGUAR
also contained no in-game background music and no VERSUS 3DO
other titles were released for the system until after the
holidays, when a handful of decent titles finally started While each system tried to be innovative, neither the
reaching the market in 1994. Jaguar nor the 3DO had a great controller. On paper,
The Jaguar controller contained three main action the Jaguar was technically more powerful, with its two
buttons and two shoulder buttons like the 3DO pad; 32-bit processors (Table 8.3), each running more than
FIGURE 8.8 Screenshots from the two Jaguar U.S. launch titles (a) Cybermorph and (b) Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 8.9 Page two of a multipage magazine advertisement for Atari Jaguar in 1994.
The 3D Era ◾ 195
TABLE 8.3 Atari JaguarTech Specs

Manufacturer: Atari
Release Date: 11/23/93 (US), 6/27/94 (EU), 11/21/94 (JP)
Format: Cartridge (w/CD add-on)
Processors: 32-bit Custom RISC processor (“Tom”) (26.59 MHz)
32-bit GFX Processing Unit (“Jerry”) (26.59 MHz)
Motorola MC68000 RISC chip (13.295 MHz)
Performance: 10,000 polygons per second
Memory: 2 MB main RAM
Resolution: 720 × 576
Sound: 16-bit Stereo
double the speed of the 3DO’s single RISC processor. Its for local area network (LAN) gaming between two
full, 720 × 576 resolution was also greater than the consoles. Just two licensed games utilized the JagLink,
3DO’s 640 × 480 interpolated display. However, besides including Doom and the lesser-known Aircars.
being difficult for programmers to take full advantage of
the Jaguar’s capabilities, this was the dawn of the 3D ◾ KEY ATARI JAGUAR TITLES
generation and the 3DO could push twice the amount
of polygons on screen. While its CD-ROM drive may Only around 67 licensed titles were released during the
have added additional loading times to its games, 3DO initial lifespan of the Jaguar. Among those games were an
discs could hold over 100 times more data compared to a even smaller number of standout titles. One of the first
6 MB Jaguar cartridge. Furthermore, the 3DO’s CD key titles was an update to arcade classic Tempest.
quality soundtracks from licensed artists gave it a major Tempest 2000 was developed by Jay Miner and released
edge in the sound department. on April 1, 1994. October 20th of that year saw the release
After talking about it for years, Atari released a CD of Alien vs. Predator by Andrew Whitaker. This first-
console add-on called the Jaguar CD (along with a person shooter was unique because it “could be played
Memory Track cartridge for saving CD game data) on from the perspective of the space parasites from the movie
September 21, 1995. Priced $149.95, the Jaguar CD never Alien, the intergalactic hunter from the movie Predator,
caught on and only a dozen games were officially or a space marine” (Kent, 2001, p. 489).
released for it. Beyond this, the other main peripherals The system also received excellent ports of id Soft-
for the system included a Team Tap adapter to connect ware’s Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, however, like many
up to four controllers, and a link cable called the JagLink other Jaguar titles, Doom lacked background music.
FIGURE 8.10 Box art to five defining Jaguar titles including: (a) Alien vs. Predator, (b) Wolfenstein 3D, (c) Rayman, (d) Doom,
and (e) Tempest 2000.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

FIGURE 8.11 The Sega 32X on the top of a Model II Sega the United States for $159. Like the Power Base Con-
Genesis, on top of a Sega CD II. verter, the 32X plugged into the cartridge slot of the
Genesis and had its own slot to insert 32X games. It
contained two Hitachi SH2 32-bit RISC CPUs and a 3D
graphics processor that allowed up to 32,768 on-screen
colors and could render 50,000 polygons per second.
Its main purpose was to give American consumers a
low-cost, 32-bit experience until its next original system
launched. What was not known during the time of its
development was that the 32X would release in the
United States on November 21, 1994—just one day
before the 32-bit standalone Sega Saturn system (Figure
8.12) launched in Japan. The unit sold out during the
holiday season, but sales plummeted once it was learned
that 32X games would not be compatible with Saturn—
Ubisoft’s Rayman began as a Jaguar exclusive (Retro which was right around the corner.
Gamer Team, 2014, para. 10) and is one of the best side- While the 32X failed to make a lasting impression on
scrolling titles on the system—albeit weaker sound U.S. consumers, the Saturn launch was a huge success in
compared to its CD siblings. In addition to the titles Japan. Developed by a team supervised by Hideki Sato
depicted in Figure 8.10, Eclipse Software’s Iron Soldier and debuting at 44,800 yen (approximately $469), Sega
games were also notable first-person mech shooters. sold its entire first shipment of 200,000 units thanks to
the popularity of launch title Virtua Fighter (Kent, 2001,
p. 201). Naturally, Sega wanted to carry its momentum
HEAD-TO-HEAD
with the Saturn to the United States as soon as possible.
To compare the graphics and sound between the Jaguar Saturn had planned a “Saturnday” launch in the United
and 3DO, check out Total Eclipse (3DO) versus
States for Saturday, September 2, 1995. However, about
Cybermorph (Jaguar), Killing Time (3DO) versus Alien vs.
Predator (Jaguar), plus Flashback, Soccer Kid, and four months earlier on May 11th at the Electronic
Wolfenstein 3D released on both systems. Entertainment Expo (E3) video games conference in
Los Angeles, Sega president Tom Kalinske revealed that
the console had secretly released that very same day
◾ SEGA 32X AND SATURN (Buchanan, 2008, para. 2).
The surprise announcement caught many off guard,
Sega’s first entry into the 32-bit arena was the cartridge- including third-party publishers who were still devel-
based Sega 32X (Figure 8.11) by Joe Miller and Martz oping games for the September launch—as well as
Franz—an add-on unit for the Sega Genesis released in retailers who were not included in the early release.
FIGURE 8.12 Sega Saturn with the original U.S./European MK-80100 controller.
The 3D Era ◾ 197
FIGURE 8.13 Sega Saturn launch titles Panzer Dragoon (a) and Virtua Fighter (b).
(a) (b)
Sega shipped 30,000 systems to four major retailers For the U.S. version of Saturn, Sega changed the color
including Toys “R” Us, Electronics Boutique, Software of the system from gray (with blue and dark gray high-
Etc., and Babbage’s. This resulted in Sega losing Kay*Bee lights) to all black. The controller looked a lot like the
Toys, who responded by dropping the Saturn from its six-button Genesis game pad, with the inclusion of two
catalog all together (Kent, 2001, pp. 516–157). No third- shoulder buttons. It was redesigned for North America
party developed games were available for the launch, and Europe, most likely as an attempt to accommodate
resulting in just five launch titles developed and pub- the larger hands of western consumers. Known only by
lished by Sega (Table 8.4). The launch price was set to its model number, the MK-80100 controller “is func-
$399, which while lower than its initial cost in Japan, was tionally identical to its Japanese cousin, but is slightly
still considered a high price tag for a video game system larger and has a peculiar concave D-Pad, not seen in a
in the United States during that time period. Sega console since. This particular model is often
A lot of the decisions Sega made for the Saturn may regarded to be worse than the Japanese variant, and was
have been influenced by news of the upcoming game replaced entirely during the summer of 1996, cutting
console by Sony. The Saturn was initially designed to be costs as the console was redesigned” (Sega Retro, 2016,
a powerful 2D console with secondary 3D abilities, para. 3). The second controller was essentially a black
capable of emulating Sega’s top arcade games of that version of the original Japanese Saturn controller, with a
time. However, news of Sony’s 3D architecture sent Sega traditional D-pad and a smaller casing. Also like in
back to the drawing board and the Saturn was com- Japan, the controller came in several colors, including
pletely redesigned with “two RISC processors, along black, gray, white, and clear.
with dual VPDs [video display processors]” (McFerran, For peripherals, Sega released the Stunner light
2009, pp. 204–206). It also contained 32 KB of internal gun (known as the “Virtua Gun” in Japan), a 3D pad
memory for saving games and a cartridge slot for designed to work with NiGHTS into Dreams, as well as
additional storage. However, like the Jaguar before it, its an Arcade Racer steering wheel. Sega also introduced a
complex architecture (including its rectangular, 2D Play Cable that (like Jaguar’s Jag Link) could connect
sprite-generated polygons) made the system difficult to two Saturn consoles for multiplayer LAN gaming. Its
program for. Multiplayer Adaptor allowed up to six controllers to be
TABLE 8.4 Sega Saturn U.S. Launch Titles

• Clockwork Knight • Virtua Fighter (Figure 8.13b)
• Daytona USA • Worldwide Soccer: Sega
• Panzer Dragoon (Figure 8.13a) International Victory Goal Edition
TABLE 8.5 Sega Saturn Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Sega Electronics
Form at: CD-ROM(2× speed)
Processors: 2 Hitachi SH2 32-bit CPUs (28.63 MHz) + 2 VPDs
Memory: 5 MB total RAM
Resolution: 320 × 224, 640 × 224, and 704 × 480 pixels
Sound: Motorola 68EC000–32 channel, 16-bit stereo at 44.1 KHz
plugged into each main controller port, while the Sega polated) resolution on the 3DO. The Saturn could display
NetLink 28.8k modem allowed for online capabilities 13–25 times more polygons per second; however, most
such as email. The system also received a joystick, games released on both systems looked relatively similar.
memory cartridges, keyboard, and mouse, among other Both 3DO and Saturn had CD quality sound, but the
devices. Saturn had nearly twice the number of sound channels,
with 32 channels of sound for programmers to work with.
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: SATURN
VERSUS 3DO AND JAGUAR HEAD-TO-HEAD
Compared to the first wave of fifth-generation consoles, To compare the graphics and sound between the Saturn
the Saturn was a faster system with its dual Hitachi and 3DO, try (or watch video clips of) Road Rash, The
processors (28.63 MHz) and two video display processors Need For Speed, Primal Rage, and Gex. Compare Saturn
to Jaguar with each console’s version of Rayman, NBA
(Table 8.5). The VDP1 handled sprites, polygons, and Jam, Worms, and Tempest 2000.
geometry, while the VDP2 managed games’ backgrounds
(Base Media, 2016, p. 2). Its games often displayed higher
frames per second (FPS) compared to 3DO and Jaguar ◾ KEY SATURN TITLES
games. With dismal sales of the Atari Jaguar, Saturn’s
main competitor at the time of its release was the 3DO. Saturn became known for a number of exclusive
Saturn games typically looked sharper, with displays up titles such as its Panzer Dragoon and Virtua series
to 704 × 480 pixels, compared to the 640 × 480 (inter- (Figure 8.15), as well as strong RPGs like Shining Force III
FIGURE 8.14 Box art to five popular Saturn titles including: (a) Shining Force III, (b) NiGHTS into Dreams, (c) Virtua Fighter 2,
(d) Panzer Dragoon Saga, and (e) Guardian Heroes.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

The 3D Era ◾ 199
FIGURE 8.15 Magazine advertisement for the Sega Saturn in 1996.

(shown in Figure 8.14), Magic Knight RayEarth, and July 15, 1996 (Kent, 2001, p. 535). His announcement
Dragon Force. It was the strongest console for 2D was soon followed by the resignation of Sega co-founder
platformers such as Astal and numerous 2D shoot ‘em David Rosen that same year.
ups, along with being the best platform to play 2D fighters
such as Marvel Super Heroes and Street Fighter Alpha 3.
Furthermore, Saturn was the only system in which DID YOU KNOW?
gamers could play NiGHTS into Dreams, the new title by Of the more than 600 total titles released for the Sega
Sonic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka and Sonic Team. Saturn, only around 250 of these games were released in
Unfortunately, the Saturn also became known for the the United States. Even fewer titles made it to Europe.
games it did not receive. After many development
struggles, Sega ended up cancelling Sonic X-treme, leaving
the Saturn without an exclusive Sonic the Hedgehog ◾ SONY PLAYSTATION
platformer, other than a graphically enhanced port of the
Sony Corporation was founded in 1946 by Akio Morita
Genesis game Sonic 3D Blast, a compilation game called
and Masaru Ibuka. Similar to “Sega” and “Famicom,” the
Sonic Jam, and the racing title Sonic R (McFerran, 2009,
name “Sony” was derived from a combination of two
p. 208). And because the Saturn wasn’t as popular in the
words: “sonus,” which is Latin for sonic and sound, and
West, many excellent titles such as Radiant Silvergun,
“sonny,” which was a slang word for “boy” in the United
Keio Flying Squadron 2, Princess Crown, and X-Men vs.
States (Sony Japan, 2011, p. 1). Sony became a leading
Street Fighter never reached U.S. shores.
electronics manufacturer from its many innovations and
◾ CHANGES AT SEGA diversified business ventures. After its success with man-
ufacturing transistor radios, Sony invented the world’s
While Saturn sales remained strong in Japan, the system first portable music player with its Walkman in 1979. The
struggled in the United States and Sega of Japan officials company went on to pioneer video formats Betamax and
blamed Sega of America for its problems. In America, Video8, its own line of computers, 3.5" floppy disks, as
Sega sold over 2 million Genesis systems in 1995 and did well as Digital Audio Tape (DAT) in the 1980s. Sony was
not have enough units to meet the holiday demand. also one of the leading developers of Compact Disc (CD)
According to Sega of America president and CEO Tom and later Blu-ray Disc optical disc formats. Sony had a
Kalinske, Sega could have sold an additional 300,000 foot in just about all consumer electronics by the late
Genesis systems between November and December, if 1980s and the home video game market was next.
the company not been so focused on the Saturn (Busi- The Sony PlayStation (Figure 8.16) began as a CD-
ness Wire, 1996, p. 1). Kalinske reportedly began to feel ROM expansion unit for the Super Nintendo in 1988.
powerless after long-standing disagreements like this Designed by engineer Ken Kutaragi (who developed the
with Sega of Japan and announced his resignation on SNES sound chip), “Sony made sure that it held the sole
FIGURE 8.16 The Sony PlayStation video game console with original d-pad controller.
The 3D Era ◾ 201
TABLE 8.6 Sony PlayStation U.S. Launch Titles

• Battle Arena Toshinden (Figure 8.17a) • Raiden Project
• ESPN Extreme Games • Rayman
• Kileak: The DNA Imperative • Ridge Racer (Figure 8.17b)
• NBA Jam Tournament Edition • Street Fighter: The Movie
• Power Serve 3D Tennis • Total Eclipse Turbo
international licensing rights—in other words, it would 3D powerhouse. Its single processing chip contained a
profit handsomely from every single SNES CD-ROM 3D geometry engine in its CPU which made PlayStation
title that was sold” (McFerran, 2010, p. 47). Nintendo an easy system to program games for, and a liberal $10
had second thoughts about the deal and “allowed per game licensing fee helped Sony attract nearly 100
Sony to announce plans for the drive at the [1991] game companies by the time the system launched in the
Consumer Electronics Show, then appeared the next day United States (Kent, 2001, p. 504). Sony aggressively
to say that they had struck up a deal with Philips … pursued third-party developers, obtaining the sup-
instead” (Kent, 2001, p. 452). The embarrassment from port of Sega rival Namco (Tekken, Ridge Racer) and
Nintendo’s announcement, coupled with the time and acquiring the Liverpool-based developer Psygnosis
money Sony had invested in the PlayStation provoked (Destruction Derby, WipEout). Executive VP of SCE of
Sony president Norio Ohga and Kutaragi to continue America Bernie Stolar also helped secure key third-
developing the project as a standalone system. party deals.
After years of further development and the newly Another part of Sony’s marketing strategy was to
formed Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) division, appeal to the specific age of 19 (see Figure 8.18). Exec-
the Sony PlayStation was released on December 3, 1994 in utive VP of SCE Europe Phil Harrison (2005) explained
Japan and in the United States on September 9, 1995 for that the idea behind the strategy was that younger
$299. The system was not initially bundled with a launch teenagers wished they were 19, while older adults often
title, but did include a demo disc containing samples of wished they were 19 (again) as well. Early marketing
several games. Due to the low cost of CD-ROMs, these slogans were clever secret messages created to get gamers
demo discs became a popular medium for advertising, talking about the system. For example, “ENOS Lives”
leading to Sony’s PlayStation Underground disc series was almost SONY written backwards. It could also be
featuring demos, articles, interviews, game trailers, and interpreted as “Ready Ninth of September,” with the red
more. Other publications on CDs soon followed. E meaning ‘ready’ and ‘NOS’ standing for ‘Ninth of
While its 10 launch titles included a handful of 2D September’ (Oravasaari, 2012, para. 2). Another slogan
games (see Table 8.6), the PlayStation was built to be a “U R NOT E” was a lot easier to decode.
FIGURE 8.17 Screenshots from PS launch titles (a) Battle Arena Toshinden and (b) Ridge Racer.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 8.18 1995 PlayStation magazine ad featuring Sofia from Battle Arena Toshinden.
The 3D Era ◾ 203
Aesthetically, the system was sleek and simplistic. Its storage, making the purchase of a memory card man-
light gray color was reminiscent of previous Nintendo datory for players to save game data. True to the nature
consoles and helped it stand out where all the other new of how the machines were conceived, Saturn was the
systems were shades of black (save for the Japanese more powerful system for 2D games (such as Marvel vs.
version of Saturn). Even its controller looked like an Capcom), while the PlayStation typically delivered better
enhanced SNES controller with its face buttons layout 3D games (as seen in WipEout). Technically, Saturn was
and shoulder triggers—adding two additional shoulder the more powerful system with more total RAM, higher
buttons, comfortable handles, and a unique d-pad which screen resolutions, greater polygon counts, and 25%
was comprised of four separate directional buttons. more sound channels to work with. However, its
Above the controller ports on the system were two complex, dual processor architecture made the Saturn
memory card slots where separate memory cards could difficult to program for and much of its power often
be inserted for saving game data. Like its CD-based went underutilized.
predecessors, the PlayStation could also play music CDs
in addition to games.
The PlayStation received the standard array of DID YOU KNOW?
peripherals, including memory cards, light guns like Many PlayStation and Saturn games (plus a few other
Namco’s GunCon, joysticks, steering wheels, and other CD-ROM systems) used standard redbook audio tracks
third-party controllers, dance pads for games like Dance for sound. Specifically, audio tracks (often the game’s
Dance Revolution, Multitap adaptors, link cables, and so soundtrack) could be played by inserting the game disc
into a standard CD player.
forth. Eventually, Sony unveiled its DualShock control-
ler, which added touch sensitive control and a vibration
feature made popular by Nintendo’s fifth-generation What really gave the PlayStation the edge was that it
system discussed next in this chapter. Later, a more contained a built-in special effects processor. For
compact version of the console was released as the instance, effects like transparency and Gouraud shading
PSone (Figure 8.19), including a portable version with its (which gave graphics a smoother, more detailed look)
own LCD screen. could be generated by the PlayStation with minimal
impact on the system’s performance. For Saturn to
emulate similar effects, the system had to pull extra pro-
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: SONY
PLAYSTATION VERSUS SEGA SATURN cessing power, which often meant programmers had to
lower their games’ resolution to 320 × 224 or abandon
Table 8.7 summarizes the major technical specifications such effects altogether. Lastly, Sony’s single processor ran
of the Sony PlayStation. Unlike the Sega Saturn (and at 33.8688 MHz—slightly faster than either of Saturn’s
even 3DO), the PlayStation did not contain internal processors.
FIGURE 8.19 The smaller “PSone” with matching DualShock controller and memory card.
TABLE 8.7 Sony PlayStation Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Sony Computer Entertainment
Format: CD-ROM (2× speed)
Processor: 32-bit MIPS R3000A RISC CPU (33.8688 MHz)
Memory: 2 MB main RAM, 1 MB video RAM, 512 KB sound RAM
×
Resolution: 256 × 224 to 640 × 480
Sound: 24 channel, 16-bit stereo at 44.1 KHz
selecting the PlayStation as the sole console for its epic

HEAD-TO-HEAD
Final Fantasy VII game because it was so massive that it
Compare the graphics and sound between PlayStation required the use of three CDs. This was followed by
and Saturn, check out (or watch video clips of ) Marvel vs. other Squaresoft exclusives including Final Fantasy VIII
Capcom, WipEout, Tomb Raider, and Dead or Alive.
and IX, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Einhänder, Parasite
Eve, and many other highly regarded titles. To top it off,
Konami chose the system for its hit titles Metal Gear
◾ KEY PLAYSTATION TITLES Solid and Silent Hill, while Sony Computer Entertain-
ment’s Gran Turismo racing games became the
Ease of programming and aggressive marketing helped
company’s best-selling series of all time, shipping more
Sony lock down a number of quality titles. Around 2000
than 20 million units combined.
games were developed for the PlayStation worldwide.
Many series were born on and/or exclusive to the system
and spawned numerous sequels, such as Tekken, Crash
Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, and Twisted Metal. Tomb DID YOU KNOW?
Raider helped revolutionize 3D platformers and Laura
The first models of the PlayStation used plastic parts in
Croft (shown in Figure 8.20) became synonymous with the laser unit that wore out over time, leading to skipping
the system, with many of the Tomb Raider sequels FMV, audio dropouts, and other issues. Gamers discov-
exclusive to PlayStation on the home console market. ered they could alleviate these problems by flipping the
One of the most pivotal acquisitions for Sony was system upside down.
when RPG developer Squaresoft abandoned Nintendo,
FIGURE 8.20 Box art to five defining PlayStation titles including: (a) Resident Evil, (b) Final Fantasy VII, (c) Tomb Raider,
(d) Metal Gear Solid, and (e) Tekken 3.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

The 3D Era ◾ 205
◾ NINTENDO 64 FIGURE 8.21 Virtual Boy.
A year before Nintendo’s next home console launch, the

company released its Virtual Boy (Figure 8.21), a por-
table, 32-bit table-top console capable of displaying
monochrome 3D graphics using red LED technology.
The system was developed by Gunpei Yokoi (Metroid,
Game Boy) who “looked into making a color version of
the technology but found that it would have to retail
for over $500, far too expensive” (Kent, 2001, p. 514).
The resulting red and black head-mounted display
became notorious for causing dizziness, nausea, and
headaches. The system was a commercial failure and
discontinued in less than a year.
Nintendo’s next home console would go through a
couple of name changes over the course of its develop-
ment. Originally called “Project Reality” (based on the
name of its co-processor), the system became known as
“Ultra 64” for quite some time before being changed to
Nintendo 64 (N64) (Figure 8.22) shortly before its
launch in Japan on June 23, 1996. Despite the Virtual
Boy’s failure, the N64 sold its entire launch inventory of
300,000 units in Japan, and all 500,000 launch units in slogans used for the console included “Change the
the United States the following fall. System” and “Get N, or get Out!”
Originally scheduled to release in North America on The system’s 64-bit CPU was developed by TurboGrafx-
September 30, 1996 (see Figure 8.24) for $249.99, the 16 and PC manufacturer NEC, along with its “Reality”
system released one to three days earlier for just $199.99. co-processor (RCP) by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). Its
The price drop was most likely in response to Sony, who 93.75 MHz main processor was the fastest on the home
had recently dropped the price of the PlayStation to console market. The Reality co-processor consisted of a
$199. Only two launch titles were available for the U.S. Reality Signal Processor (RSP) and Reality Display
release, including Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 Processor (RDP), providing many enhancements not
(Figure 8.23)—but both were strong titles. Marketing seen on other consoles such as real-time lighting effects
FIGURE 8.22 The Nintendo 64 with its unique, three-handle controller.

FIGURE 8.23 Screenshots from N64 U.S. launch titles (a) Super Mario 64 and (b) Pilotwings 64.
(a) (b)
and anti-aliasing (edge smoothening). The system also the time, the N64 would become the last major home
included four controller ports—something not seen on console to use cartridges as its primary media format.
the home console market since the Atari 5200. A One of the most distinguishing features of the N64
memory expansion slot was included between the power was its three-pronged, M shape controller designed by
and reset buttons where an Expansion Pak could be Nintendo’s R&D3 team. The left handle housed a tra-
inserted to increase the console’s RAM from 4 MB to ditional d-pad and left should trigger; the center handle
8 MB. provided access to the digital “control stick” and center
A game cartridge slot was located in the expansion “Z” trigger; while the right handle housed the “A” and
slot and Nintendo’s decision to stay with the cartridge “B” buttons, four smaller “C” buttons, and a right
format for the N64 was not without controversy. It was shoulder trigger. The underside of the controller included
the main reason Squaresoft moved to the PlayStation for an expansion slot where a number of accessories could be
Final Fantasy VII and other titles. Many gamers saw inserted, such as the Controller Pak for saving data, the
CD-ROM technology as the future, with its 700 MB Rumble Pak which provided force feedback, as well as
storage capacity, superb audio, and full motion video the Transfer Pak for moving game data between Game
capabilities. The average N64 cartridge was only 8 to Boy and N64. The controller was designed to be held in
24 MB, with its largest game pack being Capcom’s multiple ways and may have been a bit intimidating for
Resident Evil 2 which was 64 MB. some gamers. However, its touch sensitive (analog-style)
An ideal format for younger gamers, cartridges could control stick and force feedback revolutionized the way
not be scratched like CDs, did not contain long loading all future game controllers would be designed.
times, and could save data internally, without the need
for an external memory card. While more expensive to
DID YOU KNOW?
manufacture, “Nintendo still controlled their produc-
tion, [and] profited directly from every one made. Car- While the Nintendo 64’s digital control stick revolu-
tridges were also harder to pirate, which is likely to be tionized video game controllers and developed the
standard in which 3D games would be played, it was not
another reason for sticking with that format” (Retro
the first console with a touch sensitive control stick. That
Gamer, 2009, p. 221). While it may have made sense at credit goes to the Atari 5200.
The 3D Era ◾ 207
FIGURE 8.24 Magazine advertisement for the Nintendo 64 gaming console from 1996.
Aside from the numerous “Pak” add-ons, the N64 did Nintendo’s system ran at 4.26 times the bus speed and its
not have a ton of peripherals other than a cleaning kit, 64-bit graphics processing unit (GPU) was also more
Glove Controller (similar to the NES Power Glove), powerful. Sticking with cartridge format meant that N64
Voice Recognition Unit (VRU), which was only com- games benefitted from next to no loading times versus
patible with two games, a mouse (available as a pack-in CD-ROM games; however, their smaller storage space
with Mario Artist), and the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive meant less quality sound and full motion video. Many
(64DD) add-on that only received around 10 games and titles appearing on both systems had lower quality
was never released outside of Japan. music, less dialog, and/or lower quality/missing FMV on
the N64 version.
For internal memory, the N64 only had 4 KB of
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: NINTENDO 64
VERSUS PLAYSTATION texture memory, compared to the PlayStation’s 1 MB of
dedicated video memory. “This meant that developers
The Nintendo 64 controller was innovative for its time had to make serious concessions in texture design.
with its M-shape configuration and its touch sensitive Two common solutions were to either tile small textures
digital control stick. However, the control stick tended to across a surface or resort to Gouraud shading of
loosen over time—something that wasn’t much of a polygons instead of proper textures” (White, 2014, para.
problem with the PlayStation’s Dual Shock controller 10). Comparing similar titles on each system, Play-
sticks. Furthermore, the N64 controller required the Station games often ran at smoother frame rates and
separate Rumble Pak accessory to be inserted into the looked sharper but more pixilated, while N64 games had
controller’s memory cartridge slot for vibration feed- a lower frame rate, with a smoother (sometimes blurry)
back, where the PlayStation’s Dual Shock had the force look.
feedback feature built in. On the contrary, the N64 had Both consoles could run games at low and high res-
four controller ports, where Sony’s system only con- olutions (up to 640 × 480), but the PlayStation could
tained two. push far more polygons at 360,000 polygons per second,
Nintendo 64’s NEC VR4300 processor (Table 8.8) compared to roughly 100,000 maximum polygons in
made it the fastest system on the market at 93.75 MHz— most N64 games. On the other hand, the N64 contained
2.77 times the clock rate of the PlayStation. The N64 better texture filters such as anti-aliasing, which
had more memory, with 4 MB versus Sony’s 2 MB. smoothened the edges of otherwise jagged graphics. For
TABLE 8.8 Nintendo 64 Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Nintendo
Release Date: 6/23/96 (JP), 9/29/96 (US), 3/01/97 (EU & AU), 12/10/97 (BR)
Format: Cartridge
Processors: 64-bit NEC VR4300 CPU (93.75 MHz)
Reality co-processor (RCP) for GFX and sound (62.5 MHz)
Performance: 100,000 polygons per second (up to 160,000 PPS)
Memory: 4 MB RDRAM (expandable to 8 MB with Expansion Pak)
Resolution: 256 × 224, 320 × 240, and 640 × 480 pixels
Sound: 100 channel, 16-bitstereo at 44.1 KHz (up to 48 KHz)
The 3D Era ◾ 209
FIGURE 8.25 Box art to five defining Nintendo 64 titles: (a) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, (b) Perfect Dark, (c) Super
Mario 64, (d) Goldeneye 007, and (e) Banjo-Kazooie.
(a) (b) (c)
(d) (e)
many gamers, the debate on which system had better responsible for the hit fighting game Killer Instinct Gold,
graphics was a matter of personal preference. the hilariously mature 3D platformer Conker’s Bad Fur
Day, in addition to two of the best first-person shooters
HEAD-TO-HEAD on the system with Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark (in
Figure 8.25).
Compare the graphics and sound between the N64 and
Other major third-party support came from compa-
PlayStation by playing (or watching video clips of ) A
Bug’s Life, Mortal Kombat 4, Quake II, Rayman 2, Resi-
nies like Acclaim (Turok, Extreme-G), Electronic
dent Evil 2, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, and Toy Story 2. Arts (Madden, FIFA), Konami (International Superstar
Soccer, Castlevania), and Midway (Mortal Kombat, NFL
Blitz). Treasure only produced a few titles, but each
◾ KEY NINTENDO 64 TITLES one was superb, such as Mischief Makers and Sin and
Punishment (Japan).
Around 380 titles were released for the N64, with the Nintendo developed many first-party classics for the
majority of titles reaching U.S. shores. Some of the best system, with Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda:
games on the system were made by the British developer Ocarina of Time—two of the highest rated video games
of Battletoads and Donkey Kong Country, Rareware of all time. Other first-party hits included The Legend of
(Rare). “From the regal beauty and genius of the Banjo- Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Wave Race 64, 1080: TenEighty
Kazooie games, the addictiveness of Diddy Kong Racing, Snowboarding, Star Fox 64, F-Zero X, Pilotwings 64, and
to the offbeat destructive nature of Blast Corps, and the Mario Kart 64. Nintendo also published Excitebike 64 by
frantic bug blast of Jet Force Gemini, Rare games were Left Field Productions, Super Smash Bros. and several
held in high esteem and rivaled the releases of Nintendo Pokémon games by HAL Laboratory, along with
itself” (Retro Gamer, 2009, p. 222). The company was Hudson’s Mario Party series.
HANDHELD SNAPSHOT: GAME BOY COLOR FIGURE 8.26 Game Boy Color.
The Game Boy Color (GBC) (Figure 8.26) was released in
the United States on November 18, 1998 for just $79.99. It
was the first backward compatible handheld system, able to
play all of the original Game Boy games. While the system
did not contain a back light or enhanced resolution, it could
display up to 56 colors on screen (Table 8.9). Its CPU could
run twice as fast and contained three times more RAM than
the original Game Boy. It also included a feature that
allowed players to create their own color palettes (up to 10
colors) for older, monochrome GB games.
TABLE 8.9 Game Boy Color Tech Specs

Format: Cartridge/2 AA batteries (20 hours)
Processor: 8-bit Sharp LR35902 CPU (4.194 or 8.338
MHz)
Memory: 32 KB RAM, 16 KB Video RAM
Colors: 10, 32, or 56 from a palette of 32,768 colors
Sound: 4 channel stereo/3.5 mm headphones jack
Well over 500 games were officially released for the

GBC, with tens of millions of systems sold. Its strong library
of games (see Figure 8.27) totally eclipsed the rest of the
portable market, burying Sega’s Genesis-based Nomad,
Tiger’s R-Zone and Game.com handhelds, as well as the
Neo•Geo Pocket, Bandai’s Japan-only WonderSwan, and
Nintendo’s own Virtual Boy.
FIGURE 8.27 Five defining Game Boy Color titles: (a) Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, (b) Bionic Commando: Elite
Forces, (c) Pokémon Crystal, (d) Metal Gear Solid, and (e) Wario Land 3.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

The 3D Era ◾ 211
◾ FIFTH-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY 1995 fiscal year-end report, Atari (1995) attributed the
poor performance of Jaguar to extensive delays in game
Not since the second generation of video games has the development, consumer concern as to when titles would
market seen so many console releases—many of which be made available, and “the introduction of competing
never reached American shores (see Figure 8.28). products by Sega and Sony in May 1995 and September
Among those examined in this chapter, 3DO’s unique 1995, respectively” (p. 3). Ultimately, market success in
business model may have been its biggest downfall. the video game industry usually comes down to great
While the $3 royalty fee for each game sold benefited games, and the Jaguar had very few.
software manufacturers, it was not high enough to In retrospect, “concentrating on Saturn proved to be a
compensate for the high price of the console’s manu- tactical mistake that cost Sega millions, if not billions, of
facturing costs. The small royalties collected also did not dollars at the end of 1995. According to TRST data
provide enough funding for strong marketing (Retro released in 1997, 32-bit products made up less than
Gamer, 2009, p. 190). Furthermore, having several 20 percent of 1995 video game sales, while 16-bit
manufacturers producing the same console essentially sales accounted for approximately 64 percent of the
put them in competition with each other for the same market” (Kent, 2001, p. 531). Following the departure of
product, which did not make a lot of sense to either Kalinske and Rosen, Sega reached out to executive
consumers or retailers. vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment of
The Atari Jaguar outsold the 3DO initially, but ulti- America, Bernie Stolar, who would become Sega of
mately ended up being a complete market failure, selling America’s next president and chief operating officer.
only around 250,000 units worldwide. Beyond its Stolar did not hesitate to point out “major mistakes
architectural complexity, which made it difficult to [that] had been made by Sega with the Saturn’s
program games for, everything from the Tramiel design and the subsequently fragmented marketing of
family’s business choices, to Atari just not being a large platforms and sub-platforms” (Fahs, 2009, p. 8). His
enough force anymore to compete have been blamed for mission was to discontinue the system as smoothly as
the console’s demise (Szczepaniak, 2009, p. 200). In its possible.
FIGURE 8.28 A look at less-popular fifth-generation consoles released outside of the United States.
Fujitsu FM Town Marty Commodore Amiga CD32 Bandai Playdia

February 1993 (Japan) September 1993 (Europe+) September 1994 (Japan)
Casio Loopy Apple Bandai Pippin

NEC PC-FX
October 1995 (Japan) March 1996 (Japan)
December 1994 (Japan)
The millions of dollars Sony spent on acquiring duction” (Business Wire, 1997). It was most popular in
developers and on marketing paid off. Within just two the United States, selling more than 20 million of its 30+
days of its launch in North America, the PlayStation sold million total units sold. Still, Nintendo found itself in a
more units than the Saturn had in the five months fol- distant second place to Sony after being a market leader
lowing its surprise launch, completely selling out its initial the previous two generations. Much of Nintendo’s
shipment of 100,000 units (Kent 2001, pp. 519–520). struggle was likely due to its cartridge format, which led
Within its first year, the PlayStation secured over 20% of to the loss of Squaresoft, sparse support from Capcom
the entire U.S. video game market (Finn, 2002, p. 50). For and Namco, and lower number of quality role-playing
its first system, Sony’s PlayStation completely dominated games. N64 cartridges also typically cost around $10
the industry, eventually making Sony the new leader of the more than CD games. “By August 1997, Nintendo
home console market (see Figure 8.29). controlled 40 percent of the next-generation console
The Nintendo 64 was “the top-selling system in market and Sony controlled 47 percent, leaving Sega
America for each of the eight months since its intro- with a mere 12 percent” (Kent, 2001, p. 558).
FIGURE 8.29 Fifth-generation console sales graph.
Console Approximate worldwide sales
3DO 2 million
Jaguar < 250 thousand
Saturn > 9 million
PlayStation > 102 million
Nintendo 64 > 32 million
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
◾ FIFTH-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS
There were many breakthroughs and trends that defined the fifth generation of video games. Here is a list of the top
10 features that defined the generation:
1. 32-bit and 64-bit microprocessors

2. Higher display resolution (typically 640 × 480 pixels, i.e., 480i)
3. 3D polygon graphics with texture mapping
4. Optical disc (CD-ROM) game media (leading to “demo disc” marketing)
5. Full motion video (FMV) animation and live action footage
6. CD quality audio (16-bit, 44.1 kHz)
7. Color depth up to 16,777,216 colors (24-bit true color)
8. Texture lighting and Gouraud (continuous, interpolated) shading
9. Graphics smoothening methods such as anti-aliasing and texture filtering
10. Analog stick (touch sensitive) controllers
The 3D Era ◾ 213
◾ ACTIVITY: FAILED CONSOLES REPORT AND PRESENTATION II
Choose a fifth-generation home console or handheld system that is considered a market failure and develop a
report and presentation on the history, business, and technology of that system. Be sure to include: (1) the
publisher’s goals, (2) how the system was marketed, (3) technical specifications and notable game titles, (4) why
the system failed, and (5) [conclusion] what might have saved the console from its demise.
The report should contain three main points and a minimum of two quotes which are to be paraphrased or
cited verbally in the speech. The recommended total presentation length is 3:30–4:30 minutes, not to exceed
5 minutes total.
CONSOLE SUGGESTIONS
Suggested consoles to report on include: Fujitsu FM Towns Marty (February 1993, Japan),Commodore Amiga
CD32 (September 1993, Europe+), Bandai Playdia (September 1994, Japan), NEC PC-FX (December 1994,
Japan), Casio Loopy (October 1995, Japan), and Apple Bandai Pippin (March 1996, Japan). You may also
consider the Atari Jaguar CD (September 1995); however, that was an add-on peripheral and not a standalone
console.
HANDHELD SUGGESTIONS
Suggested handheld systems to report on include: Genesis Nomad (October 1995),R-Zone (1995), Virtual Boy
(August 1995), Game.com (September 1997), Neo•Geo Pocket (October 1998, Japan), and WonderSwan
(March 1999, Japan).
◾ CHAPTER 8 QUIZ 4. Which of the following was not a trait of the 3DO
Interactive Multiplayer system?
1. Sega’s first polygonal racing and fighting arcade a. The first fifth-generation, 32-bit console
games that helped pioneer the genre: b. Original launch price of $299.99
a. Hard Drivin’ and Pit Fighter c. 3DO did not manufacture its own hardware
b. Ridge Racer and Tekken d. No regional copy protection on its games
c. Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter
d. Mario Kart and Smash Bros. 5. In addition to the 64-bit Jaguar, Atari was initially
planning a 32-bit console called:
2. The arcade mega complex GameWorks was formed a. Leopard
by three companies, except: b. Lynx
a. Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks c. Panther
b. Sega Enterprises d. Tiger
c. Sony Pictures
d. Universal Studios 6. Which of these reasons have been blamed for
Jaguar’s sparse third-party support?
3. Who was not directly responsible for creating the a. Complex, multiple processor architecture
3DO Interactive Multiplayer? b. Incomplete developer instructions
a. Atari Lynx designer Dave Needle c. Both a and b
b. Atari Lynx designer R. J. Mical d. None of the above
c. Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins.
d. Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita
7. To give North American gamers a 32-bit experience 13. Had exclusive titles NiGHTS into Dreams, Panzer
before the U.S. launch of Saturn, Sega introduced an Dragoon Saga, and Guardian Heroes:
add-on to the Sega Genesis called the: a. 3DO
a. 32X b. Saturn
b. Nomad c. PlayStation
c. Power Base Converter d. Nintendo 64
14. Which two consoles included internal storage
8. Due to Saturn’s early launch in the United States, memory for saving game data?
which store did not carry the system? a. 3DO and Jaguar
a. Toys “R” Us b. Jaguar and Saturn
b. KayBee Toys c. Saturn and 3DO
c. Electronics Boutique d. PlayStation and Nintendo 64
d. Software Etc.
15. Based its marketing campaign on targeting gamers
9. Who was the main designer of the Sony around the age of 19:
PlayStation? a. Panasonic REAL 3DO
a. Konosuke Matsushita b. Sega Saturn
b. Akio Morita c. Sony PlayStation
c. Masaru Ibuka d. Nintendo 64
d. Ken Kutaragi
16. This console’s controllers included 3.5 mm head-
10. Which game publisher produced Final Fantasy VII phones jacks and could also be “daisychained” for
as a PlayStation exclusive? multiplayer gaming:
a. Namco a. Sega Saturn
b. Squaresoft b. Nintendo 64
c. Psygnosis c. Sony PlayStation
d. Rareware d. Panasonic REAL 3DO
11. Prior to launching the N64, Nintendo released a 17. The only fifth-generation system to only use car-
portable, 32-bit table-top console capable of dis- tridges as the sole format for its games:
playing monochrome 3D graphics using red LED a. Sega Saturn
technology called: b. Nintendo 64
a. Game Boy Color c. Sony PlayStation
b. Project Reality d. Panasonic REAL 3DO
c. Ultra 32
d. Virtual Boy 18. This system dominated the fifth generation in
worldwide console sales:
12. Why did Nintendo likely stay with a cartridge a. Panasonic REAL 3DO
format for the N64? b. Nintendo 64
a. Cartridges were harder to copy/pirate c. Sony PlayStation
b. Faster to boot up/with little to no load times d. Atari Jaguar
c. Production control/profit
d. All of the above
The 3D Era ◾ 215
19. Sega Saturn’s demise in the United States was pri- =18370417. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3DO_Interactive
marily because of: _Multiplayer#/media/File:3DO-FZ1-Console-Set.jpg)
a. Entering the fifth-generation market too late
b. Fragmented marketing of platforms and sub- FIGURE 8.3 Screenshots from early 3DO titles (a) Crash ‘N Burn
platforms like 32X and (b) Total Eclipse. (Crash ‘N Burn courtesy of Crystal Dynamics,
c. Too many product recalls due to bad chip sets 1993; and Total Eclipse courtesy of Crystal Dynamics, 1993.)
d. Direct competition from the N64 at its launch
FIGURE 8.4 Typical two-page magazine advertisement for
20. This console’s “control stick” and force feedback the Panasonic 3DO in 1993. (Retrieved from Electronic Gaming
(rumble) pioneered the way future video game Monthly Issue 53, December 1993, pp. 70-71.)
controllers would be made:

a. Panasonic REAL 3DO FIGURE 8.5 Box art to five defining 3DO titles including:
b. Sega Saturn (a) Star Control II, (b) Road Rash, (c) Gex (d) The Need for Speed, and
(e) Super Street Fighter II Turbo. (Star Control II courtesy of Toys for
c. Sony PlayStation
Bob/Crystal Dynamics, 1993; Road Rash courtesy of Monkey Do
d. Nintendo 64
Productions/Electronic Arts, 1994; Gex courtesy of Crystal Dynamics
/BMG Interactive Entertainment, 1994; Road & Track Presents:
True or False
The Need for Speed courtesy of Pioneer Productions/Electronic Arts
Victor, 1994; and Super Street Fighter II Turbo courtesy of Capcom,
21. The 3DO used interpolation, a computer algorithm
1994.)
that essentially upscaled its graphics to 640 × 480
resolution.
FIGURE 8.6 Other 3DO Interactive Multiplayer systems, including
the redesigned (a) Panasonic FZ-10, (b) GoldStar (LG) model, and
22. Around 200 games were released for the Atari
(c) the Japan-exclusive Sanyo 3DO TRY. (Left: “Panasonic FZ-10
Jaguar in the United States, with more than 100
R•E•A•L 3DO Interactive Multiplayer” by Evan-Amos - own work,
additional games that were released exclusively in public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index
Japan. .php?curid=36701232. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/3DO_Interactive_Multiplayer#/media/File:3DO-FZ-10-Console
23. With its two Hitachi SH2 32-bit RISC CPUs, the -FL.jpg. Center: “GoldStar (LG) 3DO Interactive Multiplayer” by
Sega Saturn was the first self-proclaimed 64-bit Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://commons.
home console. wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19709831. Retrieved from https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3DO_Interactive_Multiplayer#/media
24. The PlayStation initially began as a Super Nintendo /File:3DO-GDO-101M-Console-Set.jpg. Right: “The Sanyo 3DO
CD add-on unit that was being developed by Sony. TRY (Japan only)” by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain.
=36699908. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3DO
25. Compared to game cartridges, CD-ROMs are
_Interactive_Multiplayer#/media/File:3DO-TRY-Console-FL.jpg)
cheaper to manufacture.
FIGURE 8.7 Atari Jaguar and a standard controller with its

◾ FIGURES
numeric keypad. (“The Atari Jaguar console shown with the standard
FIGURE 8.1 Screenshots of defining arcade games from the mid- controller” by Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at
1990s: (a) Virtua Racing (Sega, 1992), (b) Tekken (Namco, 1994), and https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18269034.
(c) Area 51 (Mesa Logic/Atari 1995). (Virtua Racing courtesy of Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Jaguar#/media
Sega, 1993; Tekken courtesy of Namco, 1994; and Area 51 courtesy of /File:Atari-Jaguar-Console-Set.jpg)
Mesa Logic/Atari 1995.)
FIGURE 8.8 Screenshots from the two Jaguar U.S. launch titles
FIGURE 8.2 The Panasonic R•E•A•L 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (a) Cybermorph and (b) Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy.
with standard controller. (“The Panasonic 3DO FZ-1, a video game (Cybermorph courtesy of Attention To Detail/Atari Corporation,
console released in 1993” by Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. 1993; and Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy courtesy of Atari
Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid Corporation, 1993.)
FIGURE 8.9 Page two of a multipage magazine advertisement for https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31719221.

Atari Jaguar in 1994. (Retrieved from Electronic Gaming Monthly, Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_models#
Issue 54, January 1994, p. 18) /media/File:PlayStation-SCPH-1000-with-Controller.jpg)
FIGURE 8.10 Box art to five defining Jaguar titles including: FIGURE 8.17 Screenshots from PS launch titles (a) Battle Arena
(a) Alien vs. Predator, (b) Wolfenstein 3D, (c) Rayman, (d) Doom, and Toshinden and (b) Ridge Racer. (Ridge Racer courtesy of Namco/
(e) Tempest 2000. (Alien vs. Predator courtesy of Rebellion/Atari SCEA, 1995; and Battle Arena Toshinden courtesy of Tamsoft
Corporation, 1994; Wolfenstein 3D courtesy of id Software/Atari /SCEA, 1995.)
Corporation, 1994; Rayman courtesy of Ubisoft, 1995; Doom cour-
tesy of id Software/Atari Corporation, 1994; and Tempest 2000 FIGURE 8.18 1995 PlayStation magazine ad featuring Sofia
courtesy of Llamasoft /Atari Corporation, 1994.) from Battle Arena Toshinden. (From GamePro 74, September 1995,
p. 101. IDG Publishing.)
FIGURE 8.11 The Sega 32X on the top of a Model II Sega Genesis,
on top of a Sega CD II. (“Sega-CD II with a Genesis II and a 32X FIGURE 8.19 The smaller “PSone” with matching DualShock
attached. Each device requires its own power supply.” by Evan-Amos controller and memory card. (“A PSone game console shown with
- own work, public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia. matching controller and memory card” by Evan-Amos - own work,
org/w/index.php?curid=14303771. Retrieved from https://en CC BY-SA 3.0. Available t https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_CD#/media/File:Sega-Genesis-Model-2 .php?curid=17670847. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
-Monster-Bare.jpg) /PlayStation_(console)#/media/File:PSone-Console-Set-NoLCD.jpg)
FIGURE 8.12 Sega Saturn with the original U.S./European MK- FIGURE 8.20 Box art to five defining PlayStation titles including:
80100 controller. (“The original NA Sega Saturn” by Evan-Amos - (a) Resident Evil, (b) Final Fantasy VII, (c) Tomb Raider, (d) Metal
own work, public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia. Gear Solid, and (e) Tekken 3. (Resident Evil courtesy of Capcom,
org/w/index.php?curid=17351615. Retrieved from https://en 1996; Final Fantasy VII courtesy of SquareSoft/SCEA, 1997; Tomb
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn#/media/File:Sega-Saturn-Console Raider courtesy of Core Design Ltd./Eidos Interactive, 1996; Metal
-Set-Mk1.png) Gear Solid courtesy of KCEJ/Konami, 1998; and Tekken 3 courtesy of
Namco, 1998.)
FIGURE 8.13 Sega Saturn launch titles Panzer Dragoon (a) and
Virtua Fighter (b). (Panzer Dragoon courtesy of Team Andromeda/ FIGURE 8.21 Virtual Boy. (“A North American Virtual Boy game
Sega, 1995; and Virtua Fighter courtesy of Sega AM2/Sega, 1995.) console, made by Nintendo” by Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA
FIGURE 8.14 Box art to five popular Saturn titles including: =19135757. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual
(a) Shining Force III, (b) NiGHTS into Dreams, (c) Virtua Fighter 2, _Boy#/media/File:Virtual-Boy-Set.jpg)
(d) Panzer Dragoon Saga, and (e) Guardian Heroes. (Shining Force III
courtesy of Camelot Software Planning/Sega, 1998; NiGHTS into FIGURE 8.22 The Nintendo 64 with its unique, three-handle con-
Dreams courtesy of Sonic Team/Sega, 1996; Virtua Fighter 2 courtesy troller. (“The Nintendo 64, a fifth generation gaming console released by
of Sega AM2/Sega, 1996; Panzer Dragoon Saga courtesy of Team Nintendo in 1996, over a year later than its rivals the Sega Saturn and Sony
Andromeda/Sega, 1998; and Guardian Heroes courtesy of Treasure/ PlayStation” by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at
Sega, 1996.) https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36531250.
Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64#/media/File:
FIGURE 8.15 Magazine advertisement for the Sega Saturn in 1996. Nintendo-64-wController-L.jpg)
GamePro: The Cutting Edge, Spring 1996, p. 47. IDG Publishing.
(From GamePro: The Cutting Edge, Spring 1996, p. 47.) FIGURE 8.23 Screenshots from N64 U.S. launch titles (a) Super
Mario 64 and (b) Pilotwings 64. (Courtesy of Nintendo, 1996.)
FIGURE 8.16 The Sony PlayStation video game console with original
d-pad controller. (“The original PlayStation. "The very first PlayStation FIGURE 8.24 Magazine advertisement for the Nintendo 64
model, the Japanese SCPH-1000, shown with original controller and gaming console from 1996. (From GamePro 91 April, 1996, p. 15.
memory card” by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at IDG Publishing.)
The 3D Era ◾ 217
FIGURE 8.25 Box art to five defining Nintendo 64 titles: (a) The that was marketed to girls and could print stickers” by Evan-Amos - own
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, (b) Perfect Dark, (c) Super Mario work, public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w
64, (d) Goldeneye 007, and (e) Banjo-Kazooie. (The Legend of Zelda: /index.php?curid=18341210. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org
Ocarina of Time courtesy of Nintendo, 1998; Perfect Dark courtesy of /wiki/Casio_Loopy#/media/File:Casio-Loopy-Console-Set.png)
Rare Ltd./Nintendo, 2000; Super Mario 64 courtesy of Nintendo,
1996; Goldeneye 007 courtesy of Rare Ltd./Nintendo, 1997; and FIGURE 8.29 Fifth-generation console sales graph. (Designed by
Banjo-Kazooie courtesy of Rare Ltd./Nintendo, 1998.) Wardyga using data from Resource Site for Video Game Research,
“Console Wars through the Generations” http://dh101.humanities.
FIGURE 8.26 Game Boy Color. (“The Game Boy Color, a hand- ucla.edu/DH101Fall12Lab4/graph—console-wars and GamePro.
held gaming console released by Nintendo in 1998” by Evan-Amos - “The 10 Worst-Selling Consoles of All Time.” Retrieved from http://
own work, public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia. www.gamepro.com/gamepro/domestic/games/features/111822
org/w/index.php?curid=38957124 Retrieved from https://en .shtml and Consoles +, issue 73. Retrieved from http://i.imgur.com
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Color#/media/File:Nintendo-Game /wQPBhdL.jpg)
-Boy-Color-FL.jpg)
Pro File: Trip Hawkins. Photo by Christopher Michel. https://www.flickr.
FIGURE 8.27 Five defining Game Boy Color titles: (a) Legend of com/photos/cmichel67/18972740201/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.
Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, (b) Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41635723. Retrieved from https://
(c) Pokémon Crystal Version, (d) Metal Gear Solid, and (e) Wario commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trip_Hawkins_(18972740201)
Land 3. (Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons courtesy of Flagship/ .jpg#/media/File:Trip_Hawkins_(18972740201).jpg.
Nintendo, 2001; Bionic Commando: Elite Forces courtesy of
Nintendo Software Technology/Nintendo, 2000; Pokémon Crystal
Version courtesy of Game Freak/Nintendo, 2001; Metal Gear Solid ◾ REFERENCES
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CHAPTER 9
Video Games Become Big Business
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Summarize the process and traditional value chain of producing a video game.
• Describe the common milestones in a video game development cycle.
• Define the major roles and job positions in a video game development studio.
• Understand the basics of how a video game is made.
• Discuss well-known market rush problems with both consoles and software.
• Be familiar with types of intellectual properties and licensed video games.
• Describe sales curves and compare physical and digital distribution methods.
• Summarize some of the top publishers and best-selling video game franchises.
• Reflect on market trends using data from the NPD Group and other services.
• Explain video game bugs and patches and why they have become more common.
• Discuss major video game conventions such as CES, E3, and PAX Prime.
• Provide a summary of eSports and its rapid growth in recent years.
219

Alpha stage Electronic Arts (EA) LAN party Production and tools
Analytics Electronic Entertainment League of Legends layer
Artificial intelligence Expo (E3) Level designer Programmer
Artist Electronic Sports League (ESL) Licenses/licensing Publisher
Battle.Net World End User Localization QuakeCon
Championship Series Enterbrain Longbox Quality assurance
Beta stage Entertainment Software Doug Lowenstein Red Ring of Death
BlizzCon Association (ESA) eSports Jarid Lukin Retailer
Bugs Evolution Championship Major League Gaming Royalty fees
Tom Cannon Series (EVO) Inc. (MLG) Ben Sawyer
Capital and publishing Expansion packs Manufacturer Second-party
layer First playable stage Massively Multiplayer developer
Circuits First-party developer Online (MMO) Mike Sepso
Code freeze stage Flurry Analytics Microtransactions Sound engineer
Code release Franchise Milestones Steam
Community Management Freemium MineCon Studio
Consumer Electronics Free-To-Play (F2P) Monetization SuperData Research
Show (CES) Game engine Multiplayer Online Battle Tester
Crowdfunding Gamestop Arena (MOBA) The Gathering
Crunch time Gartner Newzoo The International
Cyberathlete Gold Master stage NPD Group, Inc. Third-party developer
Designer Hardware layer Open world game Turtle Entertainment
Developer Indie fund Packaging line Twitch
Sundance Digiovanni In-House developer Patch User Interface (UI)
Digital distribution Intel Extreme Masters Pay-To-Win (P2W) Value chain
Distribution layer Intellectual property Penny Arcade Expo Valve
Distributor Interactive Software Federation (PAX Prime) VGChartz
Downloadable content of Europe PlayStation Store Brett Walton
(DLC) Jewel case Polycarbonates World Cyber Games
DreamHack Kickstarter Keep case/Poly-box (WCG)
Eco-Box Korean e-Sports Association Pro gaming Xbox Games Store
EEDAR (KeSPA) Product and talent layer
◾ CHAPTER OUTLINE
Publishing and Distribution and
developing retail Big business
pp. 219–222 pp. 224–226 pp. 228–230
pp. 223–224 pp. 226–228 pp. 230–233
Data research and Conventions and

Manufacturing end users eSports
Video Games Become Big Business ◾ 221
◾ INTRODUCTION end users. The following sections will examine each of

these participants in detail.
The video game industry is also known as the “interactive
entertainment industry.” As the economic sector respon- ◾ FUNDING
sible for the development, marketing, and sales of video
games, it encompasses dozens of job disciplines and Video game publishers are responsible for the capital,
employs thousands of professionals from across the globe marketing, legal, and licensing aspects of a video game
(Zackariasson and Wilson, 2012). This chapter elaborates production. A major part of this capital and publishing
on the people and process of making a video game, layer includes the process of funding of the game—
including the many hurdles and considerations that must which today can cost tens of millions of dollars for a
be made along the way. Gamer demographics, top single big-budget title. Traditional ways publishers fund
publishers, and best-selling video game franchises will be the development of a game is through milestones
examined—in addition to major video game events such (development stages). A milestone schedule is drawn up
as E3, eSports, and other video game attractions. during the negotiation phase of a publishing agreement
which outlines the milestones the developer must meet
◾ GAME INDUSTRY VALUE CHAIN to continue receiving revenue advances from the pub-
lisher (Victory Media, 2014, p. 16). Since milestones vary
At the FuturePlay 2009 conference, Ben Sawyer of depending on the publisher and project, there is no
Digitalmill described the value chain (set of processes) industry standard for defining them. There are however,
of the video game industry as consisting of six connected many common milestones for video game development
layers. These six layers include: (1) Capital and Pub- as illustrated in Table 9.1.
lishing, (2) Product and Talent, (3) Production and While not exactly a milestone, crunch time is the
Tools, (4) Distribution, (5) Hardware, and (6) End-users name of the overtime phase that can happen before
(Sawyer, 2009). Each of these layers is discussed within any of the above milestones when development is
the “value chain” sections presented in this chapter. For behind schedule. During crunch time, workers put in
instance, the capital and publishing layer is discussed in many extra (often unpaid) hours to bring the project up
the next two sections about development funding and to speed. These extra hours are typically reimbursed with
publishing priorities. The product and talent layer, as additional (sometimes paid) time-off, which is gran-
well as the production and tools layer are discussed in ted after the milestone is reached or when the game is
the section on development—on so on. completed.
Traditionally, the process begins with either the A less-traditional but growing means of financing the
publisher seeking a developer to create a game the pub- development of a video game is through crowdfunding
lisher is interested in funding. Sometimes the developer (fundraising through Internet donations on websites like
may seek out a publisher to fund a game the developer Kickstarter and other collection methods). This method
is interested in creating, as seen in Figure 9.1. Once of raising money for game development is one way
the game is completed, the physical cartridge or disc developers can sidestep a publisher who may be unwill-
(along with its case and often instruction manual) is ing to invest in a game they see as too niche or risky for
produced in volume by the manufacturer. The dis- traditional funding. Developer “Double Fine’s Tim
tributor then delivers the game to retailers, who stock Schafer shattered Kickstarter records when his campaign
their stores to sell the game to consumers—referred to as for Broken Age—previously known as Double Fine
FIGURE 9.1 Traditional value chain of the video game industry.
Publisher
Manufacturer Distributor Retailer End User
Developer
TABLE 9.1 Common Milestones in a Video Game Development Cycle

First playable The first functional version of the game. First playable and Alpha can
refer to a single milestone in smaller projects (Bethke, 2003, p. 293).
Alpha By this phase, all fundamental gameplay is functioning, and major

game features are finalized.
Code freeze At the code freeze stage, no new code is added. Here developers are
largely working on debugging the game.
Beta The game appears complete and should contain no evident bugs. No changes
are made to the game features, assets, or code (Chandler 2009, p. 245).
Code release Final bugs are fixed and game is ready to be shipped or reviewed by
the manufacturer and tested for quality assurance.
Gold master The final game’s build that is used as the master version for production
of the game (Bethke 2003, p. 295).
Adventure—raised $3.3 million. Like Broken Sword, have been attained, the next step for the publisher is to
Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure game, a niche market the game. Today, publishers can spend more on
genre not typically backed by major publishers” (Hiscott, marketing than on the actual development of a big-
2014, para. 10). budget title. The returns on such investments can be
significant, with the highest grossing video game com-
◾ PUBLISHING panies earning billions of dollars (Figure 9.2).
Beyond financing development, other publisher func-
tions include paying for localization (adapting the
game’s text, symbols, and language for other cultures), as DID YOU KNOW?
well as covering design, layout, and printing costs (of Nintendo holds the record for some of the best-selling
box art and/or instruction manuals) for physical video game franchises of all time. Among these fran-
releases. It is also common practice for publishers to pay chises are Mario, Pokémon, and Wii Sports (Gammon,
royalty fees for physically manufactured games. Unlike 2015, p. 2).
most industries where royalties are paid on actual sales
of a product, video game publishers typically pay royalty
fees upfront at the time of manufacturing. This adds an ◾ DEVELOPMENT
obvious risk, where the publisher (not the manufacturer)
absorbs the loss for any games that are unsold. The developer includes the product and talent layer of
Another consideration of publishing includes whether writers, producers, designers, programmers, artists,
any party will be seeking returns through licensing the animators, and other talent responsible for the design
title—granting permission to use certain logos, charac- phase of the game. See Table 9.2 for some of the most
ters, and/or other intellectual properties (IPs). Intellec- influential video game developers. These professionals
tual property rights are the legally recognized exclusive work under individual contracts or as part of in-house
rights to intangible assets, such as musical scores, video development teams, and often under one roof called a
game characters, words, phrases, symbols, and other studio. “Studios are mostly local companies with staffs
game design attributes. Often, a game series or character from a handful of persons up to several hundred,
is part of a franchised IP. “A franchise is the licensing of depending on the types of games developed and progress
intellectual property from an original work, to other of the company” (Zackariasson and Wilson, 2014, p. 3).
parties or partners for commercial exploitation” (Victory Development studios can be found all over the world,
Media, 2014, p. 20). Once all legal rights and copyrights with some of the largest development markets coming
FIGURE 9.2 Top five highest grossing video game companies by game revenue.
Publisher Approximate worldwide game revenue (in billions USD 2016)
Tencent 10.28 billion
Sony Computer Ent. 7.88 billion
Activision Blizzard Inc. 6.68 billion
Microsoft 6.58 billion
Apple 5.98 billion
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
from the United States, Japan, and Canada, respectively

(Rudden, 2010). DID YOU KNOW?
There are three main types of developers: third-party, The term second-party developer is sometimes used for
in-house, and independent. Third-party developers are an independent studio or subsidiary developer who
external teams who provide outsourced work for accepts a development contract from a publisher or
platform holder like Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft.
publishers. In-house developers (also called first-party
developers) are owned by the publisher and commonly
share a building or campus with them. Independent Typically, three licenses must be obtained before a
developers are the smallest—usually consisting of one developer begins work on a game: (1) a license to develop
person to a small group of people. Like third-party the game for a specific console, (2) a license to publish
developers, they are not owned by a publisher and the game for the console (obtained by the publisher), and
usually publish their games themselves. Because they do (3) a license for the specific game to be developed. This
not operate under the constraints of publisher demands, falls under Sawyer’s hardware (or virtual machine/
independent developers typically have the most creative software platform) layer. Will the game be PC
freedom of the three. or console-based, or multiplatform—and on which
TABLE 9.2 Ten of the Most Influential Video Game Developers

Developer Founded Key Game Series
10 id Software 1990 Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D
9 Maxis 1987 The Sims, SimCity, Spore
8 Blizzard Ent. 1991 World of Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft
7 Valve 1996 Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead
6 Squaresoft 1986 Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears
5 Atari 1972 Asteroids, Gauntlet, Centipede
4 Konami 1969 Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania, Silent Hill
3 Rockstar North 2002 Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt
2 Capcom 1983 Street Fighter, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Mega Man
1 Nintendo 1889 Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid
console(s)? Will content for the game be accessible developer in the digital age now include analytics,
online, or available on mobile devices? This layer now monetization, and community management (Llamas,
includes network infrastructure and non-hardware plat- 2014, p. 23). With analytics, developers collect and
forms such as virtual machines (e.g., Java or Flash), or analyze data about players to create a more custom-
software platforms such as browsers or even further tailored experience for them. Monetization includes
Facebook, and so on (Sawyer, 2009). Sometimes a game the various methods of collecting returns on a game,
is designed for a specific platform and later ported which includes but is not limited to: (1) retail sales of
(translated/reprogrammed) to another system. There are physical copies, (2) digital downloads, and (3) in-game
even development companies whose specific function is microtransactions (additional game content that can be
porting titles to different platforms. bought after the initial purchase of the game—such as
This leads to the production and tools layer, which new costumes, weapons, characters, maps, etc.). Com-
involves the programming phase of the game. This layer munity management includes maintaining relations
involves the creation of content production tools, as well with a game’s community players, strategic planning,
as customizable game engines and production manage- customer service, and execution and reporting of all
ment tools for developers to work with. A game engine community activity.
(such as RenderWare, Unity, and Unreal) provides Many of these roles also exist under the publisher—
many prebuilt, reusable game components that the further blurring the lines of responsibility as the market
developer can use to build a game more efficiently. The evolves. As the traditional value chain dissolves, devel-
components may include “loading, displaying, and ani- opers may find themselves with more leverage than ever
mating models, collision detection between objects, before. For example, “developers who self-fund a game,
physics, input, graphical user interfaces [UI], and even either through investors, crowdfunding or partnerships
portions of a game’s artificial intelligence [AI]” (Ward, like Indie Fund, can publish their games on [a console
2008, para. 4). Testing, debugging, and localization may or other device] without having to fork over their IP or
also fall under this layer of development. sign an exclusivity agreement, says Adam Boyes, Sony’s
Table 9.3 lists some common roles of a video game VP of developer and publisher relations” (Hiscott, 2014,
development team. The many roles of a developer con- para. 18). Because of the massive amount of work that
tinue to expand as the video game market changes and goes into games today, many development studios
becomes more of an online medium. New roles of the consist of hundreds of employees.
TABLE 9.3 Common Roles of a Video Game Development Team

Designer Designs the gameplay, rules, and structure of a game; may also work
on the game’s narrative (Moore and Novak, 2010, pp. 74, 94).
Artist Often overseen by an art director or art lead, responsible for

conceptual designs and/or the actual game graphics.
Programmer The software engineer who works on the game’s codebase,

including but not limited to: physics, AI, graphics, sound, gameplay,
scripting, UI, input processing, network communications, and other
game tools.
Level The level designer creates the game’s stages, maps, and environments.
Designer
Sound Responsible for sound effects and sound positioning; may oversee
Engineer voice acting and other sound asset creation (Moore and Novak,
2010, p. 91).
Tester Extensively analyzes the game for bugs; provides quality assurance
that the game both works and is entertaining (Bates, 2004, p. 177).
◾ MANUFACTURING In late 2009, Hong Kong-based case manufacturer

Viva Group introduced a more economically and envi-
Console manufacturers consist of the platform holders ronmentally friendly keep case called the ‘Eco-Box’
such as Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft and the pro- (shown in Figure 9.4). This lighter, hollow keep case was
duction of their consoles and video games takes place in first adopted by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 and Nintendo
manufacturing plants. Many raw materials are needed for the Wii. The cases use around 20% less plastic com-
to manufacture video games, including plastics such as pared to traditional keep cases and significantly reduce
polycarbonates and aluminum to create today’s optical CO2 production emissions. “Kyle Sheppard, Manager of
discs. Even more materials are required to produce the Business Development at Viva […] says this initiative to
intricate circuits of a cartridge. There is also the plastic, reduce packaging was actually driven by retailers and
paper, and ink needed to produce the keep case (also not game publishers” (Reilly, 2009, para. 3), however,
called a poly-box) and instruction manual. Once man- publishers are seeing small savings from the cases.
ufactured, the game’s components are transported to the Manufacturing has not been without its flaws. Over the
packaging line where the game is placed in its protective years there have been several well-documented instances
case, conveyored to a shrink-wrap machine, and boxed of video game products being pushed to manufacturing
for shipment (Romanowski, 2006, para. 18). before they met acceptable quality assurance (QA)
Because of the cost and resources required to produce standards. The initial shipment of Nintendo Famicoms
a game, manufacturers have been working toward had to be recalled due to a bad chip set (Kent, 2001,
reducing the amount of materials needed to make p. 279). Years later, consumers complained about their
them. Early cost-saving changes in the game industry original Sony PlayStation overheating, which would often
included the shift from cartridge-based games to optical lead to video and sound skipping during full motion video
disc games. Keep cases have also gotten smaller and sequences. A 2009 Game Informer survey estimated that
lighter over the years. A prime example of this is when more than 54% of every Microsoft Xbox 360 suffered
Sony changed its initial “longbox” keep case to the CD- from hardware failure (p. 12). Commonly referred to as
style jewel case for all of its PlayStation games in 1996 the “Red Ring of Death,” systems that encountered
(Figure 9.3). In 2010, Ubisoft declared they would no internal problems would display flashing red lights
longer be including a physical instruction manual with around the console’s power button, indicating the con-
their games. Sony and Electronic Arts, among others, sole would need servicing. Ever since consoles have been
have followed suit and this trend is growing thanks to able to connect to the Internet, the market has seen a
digital manuals that can be downloaded from the games, dramatic increase in the number of games that are
as well as in-game tutorials. shipped with bugs (glitches and other problems)
FIGURE 9.3 Twisted Metal (1995) original “longbox” versus the smaller jewel case packaging.
Original “longbox” Jewel case version Game disc for context

FIGURE 9.4 Traditional keep case (a) versus “Eco-Box” as shown for Wii U games (b).
(a) (b)
that often require a downloadable patch (software the games themselves, while smaller publishers often
update). Bugs have turned up in a variety of games, but hire an independent distribution company to deliver
seem to be most common in large open world games, the games to retailers. Such external distributors serve as
where there is more room for something to be missed by the middleman between the publisher and retailer,
game testers. adding yet another cost onto the publishing layer. This
cost is being cut in recent generations with a reduction in
◾ DISTRIBUTION physical distribution from the steady growth of instant
home delivery known as digital distribution.
The distribution layer is the true “publishing” part of the With faster broadband and greater hard drive space,
process, which involves generating and marketing cata- digital, downloadable versions of games are becoming
logs of games for retail and online distribution (Sawyer, more popular than ever. Sony’s PlayStation Store and
2009). Large video game publishers typically distribute Microsoft’s Xbox Games Store (formerly Xbox Live
FIGURE 9.5 Digital and retail console game trends, seventh and eighth generation (EEDAR, 2015).
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Physical only Digital only Physical and digital

FIGURE 9.6 Growth of digital sales and retail holiday spikes (SuperData Research, 2014).
Retail
Revenue ($M)
Digital
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
2010 2011 2012 2013
Marketplace) are setting new standards for online dis- preorder bonuses for customers who put a deposit down
tribution, where users can purchase and instantly on a game to reserve a copy before it is released. As Figure
download digital versions of games on their consoles. 9.6 shows, digital sales have been on a slow but steady rise,
“Third-party companies are also providing the possi- however, it is the retail outlets that see the largest spikes
bilities of buying games online. The company Valve, for between the third and fourth quarters when a large portion
example, has developed a software package called Steam of video games are released for the holiday season.
where customers can download games directly to their Retailers might also argue that “how a game is pack-
PC” (Zackariasson and Wilson, 2014, p. 4). Digital aged does still matter: its cover, instructional folders and
downloads are the future of video games (see Figure additional content. As a physical product, this combi-
9.5), since they save tremendous publishing costs. With nation is what meets the customer’s eye at a retailer. The
digital downloads, there is no middleman distributor, no importance of shelf space thus continues to be important
physical game, box, or instruction manual to manufac- because of the visibility importance to the consumer and
ture, and no retail shelves to stock. its attraction power” (Zackariasson and Wilson, 2014,
p. 4). To maintain this retail visibility as games make the
◾ RETAIL shift to digital, retailers like GameStop have begun
selling digital download codes for games since signing
One member of the value chain who may not be as a deal with Blizzard back in 2012. Diablo III was the
enthusiastic about video games shifting to the digital first game sold through download codes in the stores
download market is the brick and mortar retailer. Tradi- (Crecente, 2012). Will such new strategies be enough for
tional retailer roles include providing shelf space for games, brick and mortar retailers to survive the trend toward
initiating customer loyalty programs, and offerings such as digital distribution (Figure 9.7)?
FIGURE 9.7 Digital distribution chain: Is this the future value chain for all video games?
Publisher
Manufacturer Distributor Retailer End User
Developer
FIGURE 9.8 PlayStation and Xbox 12-month game sales curve (EEDAR and NPD, 2015).
Ave. [Unit sales] of [US] [Retail] [Action, fighting, RPG, shooter, strategy] Games [Nov 2005] to [Dec 2013]
$350,000
$300,000
$250,000
$200,000
$150,000
$100,000
$50,000
$0
Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6 Month 7 Month 8 Month 9 Month 10 Month 11 Month 12
Whatever the format, retailers often have a very short industry market research, such as sales data, industry
window to sell new releases. As Figure 9.8 indicates, trends, market predictions, and review score forecasts,
most new video game sales typically occur within the among other services. SuperData Research, Inc. was
first 2 ½ months of a game’s retail debut, leveling off founded in 2009 by veteran games industry researchers.
after about 5 months on the market. Since the highest The group provides market intelligence on free-to-play
volume of sales happens within the first month, it’s no and digital games, as well as key trends, revenue esti-
wonder publishers and developers work so hard to meet mates, and market change analysis for all major types of
each game’s publicized release date. video game platforms. Other leading video game market
intelligence providers include Newzoo, Gartner, and
◾ DATA RESEARCH Flurry Analytics.
There are many research organizations that track the sales ◾ END-USERS
and trends of video games. The NPD Group,
Inc. (formerly National Purchase Diary) began its retail “End-users” is the industry term for the consumers who
tracking service for toys in 1984. It is now a global company play video games. They make up the final layer of the
that monitors consumer purchase data from over 165,000 video game value chain and are the lifeblood of the
stores. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA, industry. Whether they purchase the games themselves
formerly the Interactive Digital Software Association) was or receive their games as gifts, their desire to play
founded by Doug Lowenstein in 1994. The ESA “conducts the latest, cutting edge games is what keeps the industry
business and consumer research, and provides analysis and moving forward. So, who are these “end-users” that
advocacy on issues like global content protection, intel- play video games? According to recent Entertainment
lectual property, technology, e-commerce and the First Software Association (ESA) reports, 42% of Americans
Amendment in support of interactive software publishers” play at least three hours of video games per week.
(ESA, 2015, p. 16). Among this gamer population, approximately 56% are
VGChartz is a video game sales tracking website male and 44% female (ESA, 2015, pp. 3–4). These
launched in 2005 by Brett Walton. The website provides numbers are fairly consistent around the world, with
weekly sales figures of both console software and hard- Japanese publisher Enterbrain and the Interactive
ware by region (North America, Europe, Japan, and Software Federation of Europe (ISFE) showing very
globally). See Table 9.4 for console sales figures. Elec- similar numbers for Japan and Europe.
tronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) The average age of today’s gamer is around 35 years
was founded in 2006 by a team of interactive software old. The gaming population’s age breakdown is roughly
veterans. Their focus is specifically on video game one third under 18 years old, one third between 18 and
TABLE 9.4 Total Worldwide Sales (millions of units) per Platform (VGChartz, 2017)
Pos Platform N. America Europe Japan Other Total
1 PlayStation 2 (PS2) 53.65 55.28 23.18 25.57 157.68
2 Nintendo DS (DS) 57.39 52.07 33.01 12.43 154.90
3 Game Boy (GB) 43.18 40.05 32.47 2.99 118.69
4 PlayStation (PS) 38.94 36.91 19.36 9.04 104.25
5 Wii (Wii) 45.51 33.88 12.77 9.48 101.64
6 PlayStation 3 (PS3) 29.42 34.55 10.47 12.46 86.90
7 Xbox 360 (X360) 49.11 25.87 1.66 9.16 85.80
8 Game Boy Advance (GBA) 40.39 21.31 16.96 2.85 81.51
9 PlayStation Portable (PSP) 21.41 24.14 20.01 15.26 80.82
10 PlayStation 4 (PS4) 25.04 29.22 5.81 13.05 73.12
11 Nintendo 3DS (3DS) 22.88 19.57 23.79 3.96 70.20
12 Nintendo Entertainment System 33.49 8.30 19.35 0.77 61.91
13 Super Nintendo Ent. System 22.88 8.15 17.17 0.90 49.10
14 Xbox One (XOne) 22.10 9.83 0.09 4.12 36.14
15 Nintendo 64 (N64) 20.11 6.35 5.54 0.93 32.93
16 Sega Genesis (GEN) 16.98 8.39 3.58 0.59 29.54
17 Atari 2600 (2600) 23.54 3.35 0.00 0.75 27.64
18 Xbox (XB) 15.77 7.17 0.53 1.18 24.65
19 GameCube (GC) 12.55 4.44 4.04 0.71 21.74
20 PlayStation Vita(PSV) 2.55 5.22 5.70 2.39 15.86
21 Wii U (WiiU) 6.23 3.54 3.33 0.87 13.97
22 Nintendo Switch (NS) 5.11 2.94 3.19 0.97 12.19
23 GameGear (GG) 5.40 3.23 1.78 0.21 10.62
24 Atari 7800 (7800) 1.83 1.12 5.80 0.07 8.82
25 Dreamcast (DC) 3.90 1.91 2.25 0.17 8.20
35 years old, and one third over 35 years old (ESA, 2015, strategy games, casual, and role-playing games—which
p. 3). These figures indicate that gamers continue make up more than 82% of the best-selling games on
with their hobby well into their adult years, and longi- personal computers.
tudinal data shows that the average age of gamers is on Best-selling titles for each platform further reflect the
the rise. differences between console and PC gaming (Tables 9.6
Also on the rise is mobile, casual, and social gaming, and 9.7). The top console games often come from a
which is leading to market growth in regions such as variety of publishers, while the best-selling PC titles
China, MENA (Middle East and North Africa), and tend to be dominated by a small number of large
South America. As for the types of games played, the publishers. Taking a look at the top 10 best-selling
numbers on home console and PC couldn’t be further PC games of 2014, the entire list is dominated by
apart. NPD data shown in Table 9.5 suggests that Electronic Arts, Blizzard Entertainment, and Bethesda
console gamers favor action games, shooters and sports, Softworks—and many of these entries are only
and are more likely to try other genres of games. PC expansion packs (add-on levels, quests, storylines, etc.)
gamers, on the other hand, are mostly interested in to existing games.
TABLE 9.5 Best-Selling Video Game Genres by Units Sold (NPD, 2016)
Action Casual Shooter Sports Strategy RPG Other
Console 22.9% 0.9% 24.5% 13.2% 3.8% 11.6% 23.1%
PC 4.1% 25.8% 6.3% 0.2% 36.4% 18.7% 8.5%
TABLE 9.6 Top 10 Best-Selling Console Games of 2015 (NPD, 2016)

Rank Title Publisher Platform(s)
1 Call of Duty: Black Ops III Activision Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3,
PC
2 Madden NFL 16 EA Sports PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3
3 Fallout 4 Bethesda PS4, Xbox One, PC
4 Star Wars: Battlefront Electronic Arts Xbox One, PS4, PC
5 Grand Theft Auto V Rockstar PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3,
Games PC
6 NBA 2K16 2K Sports PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3
7 Minecraft Various 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4
8 FIFA 16 EA Sports PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3
9 Mortal Kombat X Warner Bros. PS4, Xbox One
10 Call of Duty: Advanced Activision Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3,
Warfare PC
◾ BIG BUSINESS left out of the equation. Figure 9.9 paints a picture of how
a video game’s earnings are distributed.
Since 2007 the video game industry has been outper- The following estimates are based off data from
forming box office and music sales in overall returns. Alex Pham of The Los Angeles Times (2010), Unreality
While that may be comparing apples to oranges, video Magazine (2011), and Director of Research and Con-
games have become big business with total worldwide sumer Insights Stephanie Llamas at SuperData Research
hardware and software sales in 2015 exceeding $91 billion (2014).
(Sinclair, 2015, para. 1). Growth is predicted in just about
every video game market in the world over the next Business Earnings Percent
several years. The average cost of a new video game in the Developer $6–$9 approx. 12%
1990s was $50. That price rose to $60 during the seventh Publisher $24–$27 approx. 42%
generation of gaming in the 2000s. Of course, it takes a lot Manufacturer $7–$12 approx. 17%
more people and money to make a blockbuster title Distributor $3–$4 approx. 6%
Retailer $12–$15 approx. 23%
compared to earlier generations, and inflation cannot be
TABLE 9.7 Top 10 Best-Selling PC Games of 2014 (NPD, 2015)

Rank Title Publisher ESRB
1 The Sims 4 Electronic Arts Teen
2 The Sims 3: Starter Pack Electronic Arts Teen
3 Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Bethesda Mature
4 The Elder Scrolls Online Electronic Arts Mature
5 World of Warcraft: Warlords Blizzard Ent. Teen
of Draenor Expansion Pack
6 Diablo III Blizzard Ent. Mature
and Square Enix
7 Titanfall Electronic Arts Mature
8 The Sims 3: Island Paradise Electronic Arts Teen
Expansion Pack
9 The Sims 3: Seasons Expansion Pack Electronic Arts Teen
10 Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Bethesda Mature
FIGURE 9.9 Estimated dollar distribution of an end-user’s Controversy has developed in many gaming com-
$60 retail video game purchase. munities in games where players can purchase virtual
goods to level up their character and gain an advan-
tage over other players—especially if the purchased
Developer items cannot be acquired by non-monetary means.
Retailer
12% The derogatory phrase “pay-to-win” (P2W) has been
23% commonly used by gamers to describe these types of
microtransactions. This practice has led to an entirely
new video game business model where games marketed
as “free-to-play” (F2P) can actually end up costing
gamers who are willing to pay to progress after investing
Distributor
6% a reasonable amount of time in a game. This has become
a common source of revenue in mobile games as Table
9.8 illustrates.
Publisher
Manufacturer
42%
This strategy of offering a game free to play, only to
17%
charge players for certain features or functionality was
coined as “freemium” by Jarid Lukin in 2006 (Schenck,
2011, para. 2). It has been the primary model for suc-
cessful mobile games like Clash of Clans, Game of War,
and Candy Crush Saga. Other successful free-to-play
models have been with massively multiplayer online
(MMO) games like World of Warcraft and the multi-
One of today’s big trends in gaming is inventing ways player online battle arena (MOBA) game League of
for the consumer to invest more money into a game, Legends (Figure 9.10).
beyond the initial purchase price via downloadable The free-to-play or freemium model may be most
content (DLC). The concept of selling new campaigns popular in mobile and PC gaming; however, the amount
with expansion packs (a long time PC practice) began of dollars spent on microtransactions by console owners
making its way onto consoles through online gaming. continues to rise. Stephanie Llamas of SuperData
Once gamers were wired to the Internet, a whole new Research, Inc. provides information on the types of
form of revenue was born through digital downloads. microtransactions that console gamers are spending
The most common “extra” purchases in games today are their money on. According to Llamas (2014), 55% of
called microtransactions. Microtransactions are virtual spenders purchase weapons or weapon upgrades, 36%
goods that can be purchased by the player to enhance spend money on vanity items, 33% on vehicles or
their gaming experience. They can be simple aes- upgrades, 32% on expansion packs, 26% on map packs,
thetic items, such as retro uniforms for a sports team, to 26% on songs, 19% on class unlocks, and 10% on side
game-changing items like super powerful armor and stories (p. 68). There are also many games (as well as
weaponry. consoles) that require a monthly fee to play—adding to
TABLE 9.8 Top Grossing “Free-To-Play” Mobile Games by Revenue (Super Data, 2017)
Rank Title Publisher
1 Honor of Kings Tencent Games (China)
2 Fantasy Westward Journey NetEase (China)
3 Lineage M NCSoft (South Korea)
4 Clash of Clans Supercell (Finland)
5 Pokémon GO Niantic, Inc. (San Francisco)
FIGURE 9.10 Revenue from “free-to-play” MOBA League of Legends (SuperData, 2014).
League of legends
Average monthly
revenue in 2013
Average monthly
revenue in 2011
J FM AM J J A S O N D J FM AM J J A S ON D J FM AM J J A S O N D J FM AM J J
2011 2012 2013 2014
the hundreds of dollars spent upfront to purchase the showcase of all the latest electronic technology—TVs,
console. sound systems, appliances, and eventually video games.
From 1978 to 1994, CES held both a winter (January)
◾ VIDEO GAME CONVENTIONS show in Las Vegas and a summer (June) show in
Chicago. While CES certainly brought positive exposure
Conventions where game publishers can showcase their to the video game business, veterans like former Sega of
latest titles and technology have always been an America CEO Tom Kalinske felt that video games
important part of the video game business. The first weren’t always given the same treatment as other
major convention to display the latest in gaming tech- industries—often delegated floor space in the far back of
nology was the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the building or in some cases, in an outdoor tent (Dring,
(Figure 9.11a). Debuting in New York City in 1967 by 2013).
the Consumer Technology Association (formerly Con- Tired of competing for CES floor space with other
sumer Electronics Association [CEA]), CES was a electronics industries and “with the creation of the
FIGURE 9.11 A spectacle of lights, displays, and people: CES 2012 (a) and E3 2011 (b).
(a) (b)
Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) [now own regular gaming events. Some popular conventions
the ESA], the video game industry had its own trade from publishers and developers include BlizzCon, for
organization and was large enough and prosperous Blizzard Entertainment to promote their major fran-
enough to run its own show” (Kent, 2001, p. 503). The chises, QuakeCon by ZeniMax Media, which celebrates
Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) held its first and promotes the games of developer id Software,
video game industry-only convention May 11–13, 1995 and MineCon for the video game Minecraft—hosted by
at the Los Angeles Convention Center (GamePro, 1995, developer Mojang. Gamers across the world have come
p. 211). Rumored to have attracted over 50,000 together to create LAN parties where systems are
attendees, E3 (seen in Figure 9.11b) quickly became one linked over a local area network for a shared gaming
of the largest conferences in the word for video game experience. Norway’s The Gathering and Sweden’s
publishers and manufacturers to market upcoming DreamHack (shown in Figure 9.12) are some of the
games and video game-related merchandise. It remained largest festivals of this type—many of which have been
closed to the public, however, until 2017. paving the way for major video game tournaments, now
With access to E3 originally being limited to indi- commonly referred to as eSports.
viduals with a professional connection to the video game
industry, the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX Prime) was ◾ eSPORTS
launched in 2004 in Bellevue, Washington and became
the largest public video game convention in North eSports (electronic sports) is the term used for profes-
America. The main conference quickly grew to being sional competitive video gaming, also known as “pro
held twice a year with “PAX West” held annually in gaming.” Unlike most other sports which are predomi-
Seattle and “PAX East” in Boston since 2010. More nantly athletic-based, eSports are facilitated by electronic
recent conferences have been introduced in Melbourne, means—screens and monitors, consoles and computers,
Australia (“PAX Australia”) since 2013 and “PAX controllers and keyboards. “In more practical terms,
South” in San Antonio, Texas since 2015. Similar to E3, eSports commonly refer to competitive (pro and amateur)
PAX offers attendants hands-on exhibits of upcoming video gaming that is often coordinated by different
titles, video game presentations, and other entertain- leagues, ladders and tournaments, and where players
ment. Further notable video game conventions are listed customarily belong to teams or other ‘sporting’ organi-
in Table 9.9. zations who are sponsored by various business organiza-
In addition to the industry-wide conventions, many tions” (Hamari, 2015, p. 2). The most popular eSports
publishers, developers and gamers have created their games include real-time strategy games like StarCraft,
TABLE 9.9 Notable Video Game Conventions Around the World

Convention Recent Location Inaugurated
Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Las Vegas, NV 1967
Game Developers Conference (GDC) Various 1988
Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) Los Angeles, CA 1995
Tokyo Game Show (TGS) Chiba, Japan 1996
Asia Game Show (AGS) Hong Kong, China 2002
Penny Arcade Expo (PAX Prime) Various 2004
ChinaJoy Shanghai, China 2004
IgroMir Moscow, Russia 2006
Dubai World Game Expo (DWGE) Dubai, UAE 2007
Brasil Game Show (BGS) São Paulo, Brazil 2009
Gamescom Cologne, Germany 2009
EB Games Expo Sydney, Australia 2011
FIGURE 9.12 Winter 2004 DreamHack LAN party and first-person shooters (FPS) like Call of Duty, multiplayer
eSports at The International 2014. online battle arena (MOBA) games such as League of
Legends, and fighting games like the Street Fighter series.
Video game tournaments have existed since the ear-
liest days of gaming; however, it wasn’t seen as a lucrative
profession for top gamers until the early 2000s with
the help of World Cyber Games (WCG) and the Korean
e-Sports Association (KeSPA) in South Korea. Founded
in 2000, KeSPA was created by South Korea’s Ministry of
Culture, Sports and Tourism to promote and regulate
eSports as a big-ticket industry for their country. Teams
wear uniforms similar to NASCAR racers, bearing the
logos of South Korean sponsors such as CJ Entus, KT
Rolster, Samsung Galaxy, and SK Telecom T1. As the
leagues gained popularity, many of the top players have
gained celebrity status, selling out large arenas and sta-
diums. Today, eSports is growing rapidly across the globe,
with prize pools literally doubling from 2013 to 2014
according to 2015 EEDAR reports (Figure 9.13).
One of the first major tournaments focused exclusively
on fighting games was the Evolution Championship
Series (EVO). EVO (formerly Battle by the Bay) was
started by Tom Cannon in 1996 as a Super Street Fighter
II Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2 tournament. In 1997,
the Electronic Sports League (ESL, formerly ESPL) was
established by Turtle Entertainment in Cologne,
Germany. The ESL has held Intel Extreme Masters
(IEM) tournaments around the world for games such as
FIGURE 9.13 Worldwide eSports prize pool and tournament growth (EEDAR, 2015).
$40 1,600
Millions
$35 1,400
$30 1,200
$25 1,000
$20 800
$15 600
$10 400
$5 200
$0 0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Prize pool Tournament count

Starcraft II, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Quake Live, designed and programmed by one to a small handful of
League of Legends, and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. people on a moderate budget. Today’s blockbuster titles
Today it has more than 6,100,000 registered members are built from teams of hundreds of people, costing tens
and consists of over 1,000,000 teams, which have played of millions of dollars. Funding for video game devel-
over 12.1 million games (ESL, 2016). opment once dominated by wealthy publishers is now
Other eSports organizations include Major League being challenged with crowdfunding initiatives like
Gaming Inc. (MLG), which was founded in 2002 by Kickstarter and partnerships like Indie Fund. The role of
Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso and acquired by video game developers is expanding from just creating a
Activision Blizzard in 2016. Notable eSports organiza- game, to being responsible for data analytics, moneti-
tions headed by major publishers and developers include zation, as well as community management.
The International (hosted by Valve since 2011), the The format of games has been changing from car-
League of Legends World Championship (held by Riot tridges and floppy disks, to CD, DVD, Blu-ray and other
Games), and the Battle.net World Championship optical media (with smaller and/or flimsier keep cases)—
Series (hosted by Blizzard Entertainment). Like eSports to digital downloads that require no manufacturing or
in South Korea, many of these organizations provide live material costs at all. With the growth of digital
broadcasts of the competition, in addition to the large downloads, the traditional video game value chain is
pools of prize money and salaries for its competitors. shrinking—often eliminating the manufacturing and
Credit for the explosive growth of eSports can be retail components of delivering games to end users.
given to the developers behind the games, the organi- Online, mobile, and social gaming now commonly adopt
zations supporting the business, the players (or the free-to-play model, hoping players will pay later on
cyberathletes), and of course the fans. The emergence of to unlock levels, power up their characters, and so forth.
live streaming webcasts has greatly contributed to the Video game conferences were once only for profes-
growth of eSports and may be the most common sionals in the business. Today, conventions like PAX
method of watching tournaments. SuperData Research Prime offer consumers access to the latest news and
estimates that the average eSports fan spends an average exhibits of upcoming video game releases. Video game
of 2.2 hours viewing an eSports session 19 times per tournaments have been around since the beginning of
month (Llamas, 2014, p. 55). Online streaming platform gaming; however, skilled players can now earn a healthy
Twitch (launched in 2011) routinely streams popular salary with success in eSports. The industry is growing
eSports competitions. In 2013, “45 million users watched and evolving in many ways. It will certainly be inter-
12 billion minutes of video on Twitch from six million esting to see where it all goes from here.
total videos broadcast. That’s over a 100 percent increase
in each of those metrics from 2012, when 20 million
users watched six billion minutes from three million DID YOU KNOW?
broadcasts” (O’Neill, 2014, para. 3).
Many scholars and journalists have begun to theorize
that the video game industry has entered a renaissance
◾ SUMMARY period—revisiting what made the classic games suc-
cessful and attempting to incorporate many of those
There have been a number of major changes in the video elements into modern titles.
game industry over the years. Video games were once
◾ ACTIVITY: INTO THE FUTURE

The video game industry is constantly evolving. Here is an opportunity to share your predictions on where the
business is headed in the next 20 years.
GUIDELINES
Write a 1,000- to 1,500-word essay on the future of the video game industry. Be sure to cover each area of the traditional
video game value chain including publishing, development, manufacturing, distribution, retail, and the end users that play
the games.
QUESTIONS
1. Will publishers continue to dish out tens of millions of dollars on triple A titles?
2. Will “indie” ever become mainstream?
3. Do you foresee any new methods of video game funding taking off?
4. Will brick and mortar retailers still exist or will gaming go “all digital?”
5. What about used games? Will digital rights management end used game sales?
6. Will end users even still be playing games on consoles and/or computers?
7. What about virtual reality? Will this technology replace gaming on monitors?
8. What other predictions do you have on how video games will change?
◾ CHAPTER 9 QUIZ 4. By this development phase, the game appears

complete and should contain no evident bugs. No
1. Which of the following was not part of Ben Sawyer’s changes are made to the game features, assets, or
video game industry value chain? code.
a. Capital and Publishing a. First Playable
b. Product and Talent b. Alpha
c. Brainstorming and Negotiation c. Code Freeze
d. Production and Tools d. Beta
2. The traditional value chain of the video game 5. At this development phase, no new code is added.
industry begins with the: Here developers are largely working on debugging
a. Publisher or Developer the game.
b. Manufacturer a. First Playable
c. Distributor b. Alpha
d. Retailer c. Code Freeze
d. Beta
3. Traditional ways publishers fund the development
of a game is through: 6. The licensing of an IP from an original work, to
a. Keystones other parties for commercial exploitation:
b. Coldstones a. Crowdfunding
c. Milestones b. Royalty fee
d. Publishers never fund the development of a game c. Localization
d. Franchise
7. In-house developers that are owned by the publisher 13. Estimated dollar distribution of a $60 retail video
and commonly share a building or campus are also game purchase shows the largest percentage of
known as: revenue goes to the:
a. First-party developers a. Developer
b. Second-party developers b. Publisher
c. Third-party developers c. Manufacturer
d. Independent developers d. Retailer
8. Which of the following licenses is not commonly 14. These types of games can actually end up costing
obtained before a developer begins work on a game? gamers who are willing to pay money to progress
a. A license to develop the game for a specific after investing a reasonable amount of time in a
console game:
b. A license to develop a game for a specific country a. Pay-to-win (P2W)
c. A license to publish the game for the console b. Free-to-play (F2P)
(obtained by the publisher) c. Freemium
d. A license for the specific game to be developed d. All of the above
9. This video game development team member plans 15. This video game console had the highest total
the gameplay, rules, and structure of a game; may worldwide sales as of 2016:
also work on the game’s narrative: a. PlayStation 2 (PS2)
a. Designer b. PlayStation (PS)
b. Artist c. Wii (Wii)
c. Programmer d. Xbox 360 (X360)
d. Level Designer
16. The first major convention to display the latest
10. Monetization includes the following methods of in gaming technology was the:
collecting returns on a game, except: a. Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
a. New retail sales of physical copies b. Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)
b. Used (pre-owned) game sales data c. Penny Arcade Expo (PAX Prime)
c. Digital downloads d. Tokyo Game Show (TGS)
d. In-game microtransactions
True or False
11. The rush to release games to the market sometimes
results in games with bugs. Once a bug is found, 17. Publishing costs are being cut with a reduction in
developers often release a software update called a physical distribution from the steady growth of
________ to alleviate the problem. instant home delivery known as digital distribution.
a. band-aid
b. repair kit 18. Founded by Doug Lowenstein, the ESA stands for
c. gold master “Electronics Sales Assessment.”
d. patch
19. “Front-users” is the industry term for the consumers
12. Traditional roles of a brick and mortar retailer who play video games.
include:
a. Providing shelf space for games 20. eSports (electronic sports) is the term used for
b. Customer loyalty programs professional competitive video gaming, also known
c. Product offerings such as preorder bonuses as “pro gaming.”
d. All of the above
◾ FIGURES FIGURE 9.10 Revenue from “free-to-play” MOBA League of

Legends (SuperData, 2014). (Stephanie Llamas of Super Data for
FIGURE 9.1 Traditional value chain of the video game industry. Digital Games. “Free-to-play MMOs: League of Legends.” p. 42.
(Courtesy of Wardyga.) Published on Aug 18, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.
net/StephanieLlamas/gdc-europe-super-data-for-digital-games)
FIGURE 9.2 Top five highest grossing video game companies by
game revenue. (From Takashi, D., 2017, March 23. Tencent leads FIGURE 9.11 A spectacle of lights, displays, and people: CES 2012
the top 25 public game companies with $10.2 billion in revenues. (a) and E3 2011 (b). (CES 2012 central hall floor photo 2012 Pop
Retrieved from https://venturebeat.com/2017/03/23/tencent-leads Culture Geek taken by Doug Kline. January 10, 2012. CC BY 2.0.
-the-top-25-public-game-companies-with-10-2-billion-in-revenues/) Available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wiki-
media Commons “https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACES
FIGURE 9.3 Twisted Metal (SingleTrac, 1995) original “longbox” _2012_central_hall_floor_(6764012529).jpg”. The Community - Pop
versus the smaller jewel case packaging. Culture Geek from Los Angeles, CA, USA. E3 2011 - the South Hall
floor photo 2011 PopCultureGeek.com taken by Doug Kline. June 8,
FIGURE 9.4 Traditional keep case (a) versus “Eco-Box” as shown 2011. E3 2011 - the South Hall floor https://commons.wikimedia.org
for Wii U games (b). /wiki/File:E3_2011_-_the_South_Hall_floor_(5831111978).jpg. The
Conmunity - Pop Culture Geek from Los Angeles, CA, USA.)
FIGURE 9.5 Digital and retail console game trends, seventh and
eighth generation (EEDAR, 2015). (Published on Jun 7, 2015 from FIGURE 9.12 Winter 2004 DreamHack LAN party and eSports at
the Game Developers Conference. PowerPoint slides by Geoffrey The International 2014. (“Winter 2004 DreamHack LAN Party”
Zatkin. EEDAR PC F2P Report. “Retail Console Games Over Time” July 24, 2009, by en:User:Toffelginkgo. CC BY-SA 3.0, Retrieved from
p. 66. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/AleixRisco/gdc2015 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7380926. “The
-awesome-video-game-data) stage and crowd at KeyArena for The International,” July 18, 2014,
72157645379601078 by Jakob Wells. Retrieved from https://www
FIGURE 9.6 Growth of digital sales and retail holiday spikes .flickr.com/photos/jakobwells/14516251507/in/set-)
(SuperData Research, 2014). (Stephanie Llamas of Super Data for
Digital Games. “Digital vs. retail revenues from quarterly filings and
FIGURE 9.13 Worldwide eSports prize pool and tournament
estimates for: Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Square Enix,
growth (EEDAR, 2015). (Published on Jun 7, 2015 from the Game
Konami, Capcom, Disney, THQ.” p. 24. Published on Aug 18, 2014.
Developers Conference. PowerPoint slides by Geoffrey Zatkin.
Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/StephanieLlamas/gdc
EEDAR PC F2P Report. “eSports Tournaments: eSports Prize Pool
-europe-super-data-for-digital-games)
And Tournaments.” p. 100. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare
.net/AleixRisco/gdc2015-awesome-video-game-data)
FIGURE 9.7 Could this become the future value chain for digital
video games? by Wardyga.
Title page image: Tokyo_Game_Show_2004_2 by No machine-
readable author provided. Calton assumed (based on copyright
FIGURE 9.8 PlayStation and Xbox 12-month game sales curve
claims). No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed
(EEDAR and NPD, 2015). (Published on Jun 7, 2015 from the Game
(based on copyright claims), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons
Developers Conference. PowerPoint slides by Geoffrey Zatkin.
.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=311928.
EEDAR PC F2P Report. “Sales Curve: All PlayStation and Xbox
Games.” p. 52. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/AleixRisco
/gdc2015-awesome-video-game-data). ◾ TABLE CREDITS
FIGURE 9.9 Estimated dollar distribution of an end-user’s $60 TABLE 9.2 Ten of the most influential video game developers.
retail video game purchase. (Unreality Magazine, 2011. How your Adapted from the ING Editorial, “Top 50 Video Game Makers” July
$60 video game is chopped up. Editorial. Retrieved from http:// 2012. Retrieved from http://www.ign.com/top/video-game-makers.
unrealitymag.com/video-games/how-your-60-video-game-is
-chopped-up/ and from FeedVibe http://feedvibe.com/2011 TABLE 9.4 Best-selling video game genres by units sold (NPD,
/videogame-revenue-split/ and Pham, A. (2010, February 19). 2014). From page 10 of ESA Essential Facts about the computer and
Anatomy of a $60 video game. Retrieved from http://latimesblogs video game industry, “2015 sales, demographic and usage data.”
.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/anatomy-of-a-60 Retrieved from http://essentialfacts.theesa.com/Essential-Facts-2016
-dollar-video-game.html) .pdf.
TABLE 9.5 Top 10 best-selling console games of 2015 (NPD, 2016). Entertainment Software Association. (2015). Essential facts
From page 11 of ESA Essential Facts about the computer and about the computer and video game industry: 2015 sales,
video game industry, “2015 sales, demographic and usage data.” demographic and usage data. Retrieved from http://
Retrieved from http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015 www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA
/04/ESA-Essential-Facts-2015.pdf. -Essential-Facts-2015.pdf.
ESL Play. (2016, March 4). Homepage. Retrieved from http://

TABLE 9.6 Top 10 best-selling PC games of 2014 (NPD, 2015). play.eslgaming.com/global.
From page 11 of ESA Essential Facts about the computer and
video game industry, “2015 sales, demographic and usage data.” Gammon, Q. (2015, April 15). The 10 best selling video game
Retrieved from http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015 franchises of all time. p. 2. Retrieved from http://
/04/ESA-Essential-Facts-2015.pdf. overmental.com/content/the-10-best-selling-video
-game-franchises-of-all-time-13907/2.
TABLE 9.7 Top grossing “free-to-play” mobile games by revenue Hiscott, R. (2014, March 08). Why indie game devs thrive
(Superdata, 2017, October 13). Retrieved from https://www without big publishers. Retrieved from http://mashable.
.superdataresearch.com/blog/us-digital-games-market/. com/2014/03/08/indie-developers-self-publishing
/#pRjx5jNqCPqE.
TABLE 9.8 Total worldwide sales (in millions of units) per plat-
form (VGChartz, 2017). Retrieved from http://www.vgchartz.com behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the
/analysis/platform_totals/. world. Roseville, CA: Three Rivers Press.
Llamas, S. (2014, August 18). Digital vs. retail revenues from

quarterly filings and estimates for: Activision, EA, Ubisoft,
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Bethke, E. (2003). Game development and production. Texas:
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Delmar: Cengage Learning.
Chandler, H. (2009). The game production handbook (2nd
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2013, and here are the numbers to prove it. The Daily
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/game-industry-trends. Routledge.
CHAPTER 10
The Sixth Generation
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Have a sense of graphics and other capabilities of sixth-generation games.

• Be familiar with the technological differences among sixth-generation consoles.
• Summarize a brief overview of Microsoft and its Xbox video game console.
• Provide reasons for why Sega bowed out of the home console market.
• Explain why Sony dominated the fifth-generation market.
• Account for why the Xbox was less successful in Japan versus the United States.
• Be familiar with people who helped pave the way for these games and consoles.
• Summarize sixth-generation market sales, breakthroughs, and trends.
241

3dfx Duke controller Isao Okawa Retro Studios, Inc.
Acclaim DVD Jump Pak Rhythm game
J Allard Ed Fries Hideo Kojima Rockstar Games
Paul Allen Electronic Arts Ken Lobb Sammy
AMD Emotion Engine Logitech Sandbox game
ArtX Ethernet Horace Luke Hideki Sato
ASCII keyboard controller EyeToy Richard Marks Brian Schmidt
Kenichiro Ashida Factor 5 Matsushita EI Second level cache
Atari Cameron Ferroni Microsoft Corporation Silicon Knights
ATI Firmware Microsoft Office Bernie Stolar
Kevin Bachus Flipper GPU Shigeru Miyamoto System Link
BASIC Floating-point unit Modem Tecmo
Otto Berkes Game Boy Advance Peter Moore Toshiba
BioWare Game Boy Player MS-DOS VGA Box
Seamus Blackley GameCube Multitap VideoLogic PowerVR2
Broadband Bill Gates NAOMI Visual Concepts
Bungie Studios GCN-GBA cable Network Adapter VMU
Chuck E. Cheese’s GD-ROM Network Play Voodoo 3
Cordless Action Controller Gekko CPU Leonard Nimoy VPU0 and VPU1
Dave & Buster’s Gigaflops Nvidia WaveBird
DirectX GunCon 2 Isao Okawa Windows/95
DK Bongos Ted Hase Pentium III Xbox
Dream Blaster Hitachi SH4 PlayStation 2/Slim Xbox Live
Dreamcast IBM Polygons per second Tatsuo Yamamoto
Dreameye IEEE 1394 Progressive scan Hiroshi Yamauchi
Driving Force GT Intel Rare Wei Yen
DualShock 2 Satoru Iwata Redemption game
Dreamcast PlayStation 2 GameCube

(Japan) (Japan) (Japan) GameCube (US)
November 1998 March 2000 September 2001 November 2001
September 1999 October 2000 November 2001

Dreamcast (US) PlayStation 2 (US) Xbox (US)
The Sixth Generation ◾ 243
◾ ARCADE DECLINE AND RESTRUCTURING FIGURE 10.1 Dance Dance Revolution (1999).
With the rising cost of arcade games and near-identical

graphics and sound on home consoles, many gamers
began to choose the convenience of playing games
at home. Video game rentals became increasingly
more popular and retail sales continued to rise. This
shift boosted the home console market, but resulted
in a sharp decline in arcade gaming revenue through-
out the end of the decade. The Wall Street Journal
reported that arcade revenues in the United States
dropped all the way down to $1.33 billion in 1999
(Henry, 2001, p. 3). Consequently, many small arcade
venues (such as those found in malls) began to gradually
disappear.
With better graphics and sound no longer being
motives for gamers to go the arcades, other reasons
people traveled to the arcades were for the social expe-
rience, cooperative gaming, or head-to-head competi-
tion of fighting and other competitive games. Eventually
broadband (high speed) Internet and online gaming
would allow gamers to play cooperatively or competi-
tively online, reducing many people’s desire to leave
their homes and TVs. The industry had to evolve to stay
relevant. Revenue from arcade machines was no longer
enough to support most venues, so a greater emphasis Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution (Figure 10.1)
on food and beverage service became necessary. popularized the rhythm game genre, becoming a hit for
Venues like Chuck E. Cheese’s and Dave & Buster’s its unique competitive play, as well as a spot for skilled
are prime examples of this strategy. They also provide gamers to show off their dance moves. Other arcade
experiences that consumers cannot always duplicate in the trends included the return to more physical-style games
home—such as super large screens, unique game con- such as Skee-Ball and Whack-A-Mole, and a plethora of
trollers, and motion-controlled cabinets. Shooting similar redemption games where players could accu-
and racing games have remained popular for these very mulate tickets or points for prizes. See Figure 10.2 for
reasons. other popular arcade games during this time period.
FIGURE 10.2 Screenshots of arcade hits from 2000: (a) Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette (Konami), (b) Marvel vs. Capcom 2
(Capcom), and (c) 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker (Sega).
(a) (b) (c)

◾ THE SIXTH GENERATION: it not been (ironically) for manufacturing problems

SEGA DREAMCAST which prevented NEC from producing enough graphics
cards (Kent, 2001, p. 563). Further challenge arose when
The sixth generation gave birth to the 128-bit systems on March 2, 1999 Sony announced the specs for its
and would be the last era where bits were discussed when mighty new system that would be ready the following
comparing consoles. From this generation forward, the year—leading many to hold onto their wallets.
focal point changed from bits to CPU/GPU power and It was up to Sega of America president Bernie Stolar
RAM. Eventually features like progressive scan output and his team to ensure a more successful U.S. launch.
and the ability to play titles online became priorities. The They did a lot of good, such as repairing relationships
generation kicked off with a new console from Sega, in with American retailers and securing a better lineup of
attempt to reestablish retailer and consumer confidence games. While the Japanese debut only had four launch
in the company and to reach a broader audience. titles, a record-breaking 19 titles were available for the
Sega’s new system began as two separate projects, U.S. U.S. release (Table 10.1)—including a long-awaited
based project “Blackbelt” led by IBM veteran Tatsuo Sonic game. The American console maintained the look
Yamamoto followed by internal development from of the Japanese system, focusing more on the name
longtime Sega console designer Hideki Sato. Sato’s pro- “Dreamcast” than “Sega.” Other clever marketing
ject, which would become codenamed “Katana” after the included the memorable U.S. launch date “9.9.99” (see
Japanese sword, proceeded unbeknownst to the U.S. Figure 10.5) and lower retail price of $199. However,
development team. Both designs used “off the shelf” with all the cards lined up, an argument with Sega
(commercially produced) parts, such as the Hitachi SH4 chairman Isao Okawa led to Stolar’s termination from
processor, however they differed in their choice of the company just a month before the system’s launch.
graphics cards (GPUs). Yamamoto’s team went with U.S. Despite the abrupt loss of its president, Sega’s U.S.
company 3dfx for a custom version of its Voodoo 3 card, Dreamcast debut was a success, with more presales than
while Sato’s team chose the VideoLogic PowerVR2 card Sony had with the PlayStation during its entrance into
by Japanese manufacturer NEC In 1997, 3dfx went public the market.
and “revealed Sega’s blueprint for a new, unannounced The Dreamcast had a lot of things going for it when it
console, and angered executives at Sega Japan” (Perry, was released. It was the most powerful home console at
2009, p. 2). Even though the 3dfx chip was more powerful, the time. It used its own GD-ROM (Gigabyte Disc)
Sega ultimately chose Sato’s design with the NEC format for its media, which cost about the same as a CD-
graphics card. ROM to manufacture, but could hold up to 1.2 GB of
The Dreamcast (Figure 10.3) debuted in Japan on data. While CD-ROMs were easy to copy, the higher
November 27, 1998 for ¥329,800 (approximately $260). capacity of GD-ROMs made Dreamcast games more
Sega sold out of its initial shipment of 150,000 units but difficult to pirate. The console also included four con-
may have been able to sell up to twice as many units had troller ports. The Dreamcast controller featured an
FIGURE 10.3 Sega Dreamcast console and controller with LCD screen memory card.
TABLE 10.1 Sega Dreamcast U.S. Launch Titles

• AeroWings • NFL Blitz 2000
• AirForce Delta • Pen Pen TriIcelon
• Blue Stinger • Power Stone
• Expendable • Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
• Flag to Flag • Sonic Adventure (Figure 10.4a)
• The House of the Dead 2 • SoulCalibur (Figure 10.4b)
• Hydro Thunder • TNN Motorsports Hard core Heat
• Monaco Grand Prix • Tokyo Xtreme Racer
• Mortal Kombat Gold • TrickStyle
• NFL 2K
analog stick, d-pad, and four action buttons, in addition and a subscription to SegaNet cost $21.95 per month.
to two touch-sensitive shoulder triggers. The center of Still, Sega was able to obtain more than a million sub-
the controller housed a slot for the 128 KB VMU (Visual scribers within its first month of service (Sega Enter-
Memory Unit) memory that contained both a small prises, Ltd., 2000, p. 2). Free one-year subscriptions were
LCD screen, as well as single channel audio output. Since soon offered with the purchase of every new Dreamcast.
the console was not built with a reset button, players Following a price drop to $149, Sega even offered a
needed to reset games with the controller by pressing rebate for the full price of the system, where consumers
the Start button and the four face buttons (A+B+X+Y) could literally receive a “free” Dreamcast with the pur-
simultaneously. chase of an 18-month SegaNet subscription.
Another unique feature of the Dreamcast was that
it included a built-in modem for connecting to the
DID YOU KNOW?
Internet for online play. However, it wasn’t until a
full year after its North American release when the Over 5000 names were considered for the Dreamcast For
its logo, “in Japan and the U.S. the Dreamcast swirl is
Dreamcast’s Internet gaming service SegaNet became
orange, but it had to be changed to blue in Europe due
available on September 7, 2000 under new Sega of to a German company using the exact same logo”
America president Peter Moore. Most consumers at this (McFerran, 209, pp. 239–240).
time connected to the Internet with a slow 56 K modem
FIGURE 10.4 Screenshots of Dreamcast launch titles (a) Sonic Adventure and (b) SoulCalibur.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 10.5 Magazine advertisement for the Dreamcast in 1999.

For peripherals, the Dreamcast received the typical the previous generation was The N64’s NEC VR4300
arcade joystick variants, steering wheel, fishing con- processor, which ran at 93.75 MHz. By contrast, the
troller for games like Sega Bass Fishing, and a keyboard Dreamcast’s Hitachi SH-4 32-bit RISC clocked at
and mouse for games like The Typing of the Dead Sega’s 200 MHz with additional bells and whistles outlined in
VMU was much more than just a memory card Its Table 10.2.
interactive LCD display allowed for each player to have The Dreamcast was theoretically capable of rendering
their own private screen, which could be used in new 7 million raw polygons per second, but a more realistic
ways such as for calling plays in NFL 2K The controller figure is about 3 million PPS since “game logic and
slot for the VMU could also be used to insert a Jump physics reduce peak graphic performance” (Hagiwara,
Pak for force feedback. The slot was even used to plug in 1999). Still, this was nearly 10 times the polygon count
a microphone that was required for the bizarre Seaman of Sony PlayStation and more than 30 times that of
title, narrated by Leonard Nimoy in the English- Nintendo 64.
language version. The game involved caring for and Its GD-ROM format could hold nearly twice the
talking to virtual fish-like creatures with human faces— amount of game data as a CD-ROM and the Dreamcast’s
who also spoke! 16 MB of RAM was eight times the memory of
Possibly due to the Columbine High School massacre, PlayStation and four times the N64 without an Expansion
Sega never released a light gun in the United States— Pak By this generation, all new game systems used optical
however, third-party manufacturer Mad Catz did release media and contained comparable stereo sound. Surround
their Dream Blaster light gun for the system. Sega’s sound would be the next step for home consoles;
Dreameye was a digital camera accessory that could be however, its quality and usage was up to each developer.
connected to the system for exchanging pictures or used
like a webcam for video chat. Perhaps the most unique
accessories for the system were a pair of maracas ◾ KEY DREAMCAST TITLES
that gamers would actually shake to the music of Samba
More than 600 titles were officially published for the
de Amigo. Finally, the VGA Box adapter allowed the
Dreamcast, of which about 250 were released in the
Dreamcast to output progressive scan (480p) on capable
United States. Sega’s $10 million purchase of NFL 2K
displays.
developers Visual Concepts led to Madden developer
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON Electronic Arts abandoning support of the Dreamcast
altogether (Fahs, 2009, p. 9). While not having any
Unlike the Saturn, the Dreamcast was built to be easy EA titles on Dreamcast may have hurt the system,
to program games for. Retro Gamer’s Damien the 2K series matured into a notable sports franchise
McFerran praised the system’s motherboard as being “a and became the biggest competitor to EA Sports
masterpiece of clean, uncluttered design and compati- Capcom, on the other hand, attracted the attention
bility” including development tools for Microsoft of action/adventure enthusiasts when Resident Evil –
Windows CE, in addition to Sega’s own development Code: Veronica (shown in Figure 10.6) debuted on
kits (McFerran, 2009, p. 240). The fastest processor in the system.
TABLE 10.2 Sega Dreamcast Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Sega Electronics
Launch price: $199.99
Release date: 11/27/98 (JP), 9/09/99 (US), 10/14/99 (EU), 11/30/99 (AU)
Format: 12× speed GD-ROM “Giga Disc” (1.2 GB)
Processors: 128-bit HitachiSH-4 CPU (200 MHz), PowerVR2 CLX2 GPU
Performance: 100 MHz GPU/3+ million PPS (2+ million w/effects)
Memory: 16 MB RAM, 8 MB video RAM, 2 MB audio RAM
Sound: Yamaha AICA –64 channel, 32-bit stereo, at 48 KHz
FIGURE 10.6 Box art to five popular Dreamcast titles including: (a) Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, (b) NFL 2K1,
(c) SoulCalibur, (d) Jet Grind Radio, and (e) Sonic Adventure.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
Because the Dreamcast was built from the same FIGURE 10.7 Sony PlayStation 2 with DualShock 2.
technology as Sega’s NAOMI (New Arcade Operation
Machine Idea) arcade hardware, “home conversions
were more often than not exact replicas of what was seen
in the arcade” (McFerran, 2009, p. 241). Consequently
the system received ports of just about every NAOMI-
based arcade game at that time, including fighting games
like Dead or Alive 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and driving
games like 18 Wheeler and Crazy Taxi Arcade guru Yu
Suzuki’s “interactive novel” style game Shenmue cost
upward of $50 million to make, but was a commercial
failure (Kent, 2001, p. 578) despite positive reviews.
Notwithstanding its losses, a sequel was released a year
later although Shenmue II was never released for the U.S.
Dreamcast.
HEAD-TO-HEAD
To compare the graphics and sound between the
Dreamcast and PlayStation or N64, check out each
system’s version of Gauntlet Legends, Hydro Thunder,
NFL Blitz, Rayman 2: The Great Escape, and Ready 2
Rumble Boxing.
◾ SONY PLAYSTATION 2 assets was its ability to play DVDs (Digital Versatile
Discs) and a PS2 cost about the same or less than a
After a year of being the promise that kept many gamers regular DVD player at the time.
from buying a Dreamcast, Sony released the PlayStation In addition to playing CDs and DVDs, the PS2
2 (PS2) (Figure 10.7) in Japan on March 4, 2000 for was backward compatible with just about all original
¥39,800 yen ($364). All 600,000 available units sold out PlayStation games. Its memory card slots and controller
in just three hours (Kent, 2001, p. 570). The PS2’s unique ports supported PS1 peripherals, although the 1 MB
design abandoned the circle-heavy look of the PS1 in PS1 memory cards could only be used for PS1 games
favor of a simpler, more sophisticated look. The console and PS1 controllers were not always fully compatible
could rest either flat or vertically, more similar to a small with PS2 games. Technological advances allowed PS2
PC than the typical video game console. One of its major memory cards to hold 8 MB or more data and the
new DualShock 2 controller included pressure World, Play in Ours.” It was difficult for Sony to target a
sensitive buttons. The PS2 also added a USB (Universal specific audience for the PS2 Much of the gaming world
Serial Bus) and IEEE 1394 (Firewire) expansion port had grown up, and “players who became captivated as
for peripherals. children [were] now buying more advanced hardware
The American version (with upgraded firmware) and more sophisticated software” which led to a target
made its U.S. debut on October 26, 2000 for $299.99 market age range as wide as 16–26 years old (Marketing
(Figure 10.9). A parts shortage resulted in only 500,000 Papers, 2017, p. 3). Many consumers may have initially
units being available on launch day, “with an additional purchased the system because it was an affordable
100,000 consoles being shipped into the United States DVD player and only later decided to purchase games
every week for the remainder of the year” (Kent, 2001, for it.
pp. 585–586). Even with its delays, the PS2 continued to Early PS2 games were manufactured on either
outsell the Dreamcast, in part due to its own record- CD-ROM or DVD-ROM format. CD-ROM games
breaking 28 titles available at launch (Table 10.3), DVD- could be identified by their blue bottom side, while
player capability, and sheer processing power. DVD-ROMs were silver. Among the system’s 28 launch
The PS2 was powered by a custom 128-bit CPU titles were a handful of standout games to help the
developed by Sony and Toshiba Dubbed the “Emotion system compete with the Dreamcast’s established
Engine” by Ken Kutaragi, the processor was hyped for library. Key introductory titles included DOA2: Hard-
being capable of producing graphics realistic enough to core, SSX, Tekken Tag Tournament, TimeSplitters, and
both convey and provoke human emotion. According to Unreal Tournament.
Steve Kent (2001), “its graphics processor had 1,000 times
more bandwidth than current PC graphics processors at
the time and its floating-point calculation performance DID YOU KNOW?
was rated at 6.2 gigaflops (billion) per second, making it With the Dreamcast failing to reach its sales goals to keep
as fast as most super computers” (p. 561). the company afloat, Sega discontinued production of the
Since the system could also be used as a CD and DVD system on March 31, 2001, opening up the field for
Sony’s PlayStation 2 to become the only active piece of
player, much of the marketing around the PS2 focused
hardware in the sixth generation for a period of six
on its value as a home entertainment machine. Its main months (Briers, 2016, para. 6).
slogan (which began on the PS1) was “Live in Your
TABLE 10.3 Sony PlayStation 2 U.S. Launch Titles

• Armored Core 2 • Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2
• DOA2: Hardcore • Ridge Racer V
• Dynasty Warriors 2 • Silent Scope
• ESPN International Track & Field • Smuggler’s Run
• ESPN Winter X Games Snowboarding • SSX (Figure 10.8a)
• Eternal Ring • Street Fighter EX3
• Evergrace • Summoner
• FantaVision • Surfing H3O
• Gungriffon Blaze • Swing Away Golf
• Madden NFL 2001 • Tekken Tag Tournament (Figure 10.8b)
• Midnight Club: Street Racing • TimeSplitters
• NHL 2001 • Unreal Tournament
• Orphen: Scion of Sorcery • Wild Wild Racing
• Q-Ball: Billiards Master • X-Squad
FIGURE 10.8 Screenshots from PS2 launch titles (a) SSX and (b) Tekken Tag Tournament.
(a) (b)
Sony released an optional infra-red DVD remote ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: PLAYSTATION 2

control to accompany its DVD playback functionality. VERSUS DREAMCAST
Other common accessories included the Multitap
adapter (for connecting four controllers and memory In contrast to Dreamcast’s 1.2 GB Giga Discs, PS2’s
cards), component cables, GunCon 2 (light gun), guitars DVD-5 (single layer) discs could hold up to 4.7 GB of
and dance pads for rhythm games, a USB keyboard and data, while a number of DVD-9 (dual layer) games were
mouse, and a headset for communicating in multi- manufactured with a capacity of 8.5 GB (Table 10.4). At
player games or for voice commands in certain titles. first glance, the PS2 blew away the competition, with a
A hard disk drive (HDD) was also made available but claim of 75 million raw polygons per second versus
only around 35 titles were compatible. around 3 million PPS on the Dreamcast. However, when
The PlayStation Network Adapter hit store shelves in using textures, lighting, and other effects, the PS2’s true
late 2002, allowing gamers to play online via the PS2 polygon count “could be as low as three million polygons,
Network Play service. In October 2003 Sony released its as seen in games like Ridge Racer V and as high as 20
EyeToy color digital camera conceived by Richard million” (IGN, 2000a, para. 6). Still, the PS2 was the most
Marks and manufactured by Logitech The webcam-like powerful system on the market at the time of its release.
device would become a major influence on the next The PS2’s CPU took some time for programmers
generation of consoles with its focus on controlling to grasp, since it operated best in tandem with its vector
games with motion. Other peripherals by Logitech processing units VPU0 and VPU1), its graphics syn-
included the Driving Force GT steering wheel kit and thesizer GPU, and its floating-point unit (FPU) math
the Cordless Action Controller. A smaller, quieter PS2 co-processor to render 3D graphics. While first-gener-
called the PlayStation 2 Slim launched on November 1, ation PS2 software was certainly comparable to
2004. The new model included a top-loading disc tray Dreamcast games, it wasn’t until developers mastered
(like PS1) and a built-in Network Adapter. use of the CPU’s vector units where a substantial
FIGURE 10.9 Target Stores magazine advertisement for the Sony PlayStation 2 in 2000.
TABLE 10.4 PlayStation 2 Tech Specs

Release Date: 3/04/00 (JP), 10/26/00 (US), 11/24/00 (EU), 11/30/00 (AU)
Format: CD-ROM and DVD-ROM (up to 8.5GB)
Processors: 128-bit “Emotion” RISCCPU (295–299 MHz), GFX Synthesizer
Performance: “GS” GPU (147 MHz) 75 million PPS (20 million with effects)
Memory: 32 MB main RAM, 4 MB video RAM
Resolution: 720 × 480i, 720 × 480p, 1920 × 1080i (upscaled)
Sound: 48-channel, Dolby Digital Surround, at 44.1 or 48 KHz
difference in graphics could be realized. Like the late exclusive console for its follow-up, Metal Gear Solid 3:
Dreamcast Broadband Adapter, the PS2’s Network Snake Eater.
Adapter was capable of connecting via Ethernet for high Lucrative Sony-published titles included two epic God
speed Internet gaming. of War action/adventure games, as well as dual entries
from the Gran Turismo racing series and Dark Cloud
RPG franchise. Other games released by Sony included
Twisted Metal Black, the emotional Ico and Shadow of
HEAD-TO-HEAD
the Colossus titles, as well as the Sly Cooper trilogy to
To compare gameplay between early PS2 and Dreamcast name a few.
games, check out these titles released on both systems:
Speaking of trilogies, the system received numerous
4×4 Evolution, Dead or Alive 2 (DOA2), MDK2, Ready 2
Rumble Boxing: Round 2, Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, trifectas from a variety of game publishers, with no less
and Unreal Tournament. than three titles from the Jak series by Crash Bandicoot
developers Naughty Dog, the Devil May Cry and
Onimusha games by Capcom, survival horror hits Fatal
◾ KEY PLAYSTATION 2 TITLES Frame (Tecmo) and Silent Hill (Konami), along with
role-playing trilogies from Final Fantasy (Squaresoft/
Around 1850 different titles were released for the PS2 A Square Enix), Shadow Hearts (Midway/Xseed), and
big part of the PS2’s success was its plethora of high- Xenosaga (Namco).
profile, often exclusive titles (Figure 10.10). The system Even Sega published several exclusive titles on the
was first to receive the groundbreaking “sandbox” (open system, such as Virtua Fighter 4, Shinobi, Nightshade, and
world) games Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: the first two games in the Yakuza series. The PS2 attracted
Vice City, and Bully by Rockstar Games. The PS2 was more third-party support than any other system that
also first to receive Hideo Kojima’s story-driven, motion generation, reinforcing the golden rule that distinguished
picture-like Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and the and exclusive software ultimately drives console sales.
FIGURE 10.10 Five defining PS2 titles: (a) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, (b) Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando,
(c) Grand Theft Auto III, (d) God of War, and (e) Shadow of the Colossus.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

FIGURE 10.11 Game Boy Advanc.

HANDHELD SNAPSHOT: GAME BOY ADVANCE
Designed by Gwénaël Nicolas and Curiosity Inc., Nintendo’s
32-bit Game Boy Advance (Figure 10.11) released in the United
States on June 11, 2001 for $99.99. See Table 10.5 for specs.
Similar to a portable SNES, it added two shoulder buttons and
was also backward compatible with Game Boy and Game Boy
Color. Like those systems, GBA lacked a backlit screen until
the updated Game Boy Advance SP model debuted in 2003.
That same year, the Game Boy Player dock was released
for Game Cube, allowing GBA (as well as Game Boy and Game
Boy Color) games to be played on a TV. A third handheld
model called Game Boy Micro was released in 2005. Over 1000
games were published for the GBA (see Figure 10.12 for top
picks), with more than 81 million systems sold (Nintendo,
2010). Nintendo continued its dominance over the handheld
market, leaving the NeoGeo leaving the NeoGeo Pocket
Color and Nokia N-Gage (which doubled as a cell phone)
unable to compete.
TABLE 10.5 Game Boy Advance Tech Specs

Format: Cartridge/2 AA batteries (approximately 15 hours)
Processor: 32-bit ARM7TDMI (16.8 MHz) with 8-bit Z80 co-processor
Memory: 32 KB RAM, 96 KB VRAM + 256 KB DRAM (outside CPU)
Colors: 512 from a palette of 32,768
Sound: 6-channel (two 8-bit) with 3.5 mm stereo headphones jack
FIGURE 10.12 Box art to GBA hits (a) Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, (b) Metroid: Zero Mission, (c) WarioWare: Twisted!,
(d) Pokémon Emerald, and (e) The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap.
(a) (b) (c)
(d) (e)
◾ NINTENDO GAMECUBE the MiniDVD-based discs were developed with enhanced

copy protection as a priority (Hara, 1999, para. 7).
Nintendo’s next home console was internally known as
“Project Dolphin.” It’s “Flipper” graphics processor was
developed by ArtX, an electronics company comprised
DID YOU KNOW?
of former Silicon Graphics, Inc. engineers and founded
up by N64 graphics chip developer Dr. Wei Yen. ArtX Only the original indigo and jet black GameCube con-
soles included an output for component (progressive
was acquired by ATI (Array Technology Inc.) in April
scan) display. Nintendo removed the output on the
2000 after most of the work on the chip had been platinum model and eventually discontinued it on later
completed (Parker, 2001, para. 4). The console’s CPU models (presumably to save money).
was code-named “Gekko” and was developed by com-
puter giant IBM (International Business Machines).
Before the system’s release, longtime Nintendo of The smaller (8 cm) GameCube game discs could only
America Chairman Howard Lincoln would retire to hold up to 1.5 GB of data and, as such, there were a
become owner of the Seattle Mariners baseball team. number of titles that required two discs. The system was
The system was officially named GameCube (Figure not capable of playing standard DVDs or audio CDs. On
10.13) due to its box-like shape. The casing was designed the other hand, the system was created “to attract third-
by Kenichiro Ashida and his team, who sought a party developers by offering more power at a cheaper
compact, portable, friendly-looking system (Rogers, price” (IGN Staff, 1999, para. 17). See Table 10.6 for a list
2014, pp. 13–14). It even had a curved handle attached to of launch titles.
the rear of the unit for easy carrying. The system was The GameCube debuted in Japan on September 14,
first available in two colors (indigo and jet black) and a 2001, shipping approximately 500,000 units—followed
platinum color “limited edition” GameCube would be by another 700,000 units launched in the United States
released a year later. on November 18th. It was another launch record for
Other design considerations for the system included Nintendo and the company reportedly spent an esti-
four controller ports, two memory card slots, as well as mated $75 million dollars on its launch campaign,
being the first Nintendo console to use optical media. including “a celebrity-studded Hollywood party featur-
Designed by Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic), ing celebrities such as Ryan Reynolds, Paris Hilton,
FIGURE 10.13 Nintendo GameCube console, controller, and one black memory card.
TABLE 10.6 Nintendo GameCube U.S. Launch Titles

• All-Star Baseball 2002 • NHL Hitz 20-02
• Batman: Vengeance • Star Wars Rogue Squadron II:
• Crazy Taxi Rogue Leader (Figure 10.14b)
• Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 • Super Monkey Ball
• Disney’s Tarzan Untamed • Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3
• Luigi’s Mansion (Figure 10.14a) • Wave Race: Blue Storm
• Madden NFL 2002
Tara Reid, Christina Aguilera, Michelle Rodriguez, and buttons on the N64 controller. The top of the game
Lil’ Kim” (Rogers, 2014, p. 40). Priced at just $199, it was pad housed two pressure-sensitive (clickable) “L” and
the most affordable new console (not counting the dis- “R” trigger buttons, along with a smaller, purple “Z”
continued Dreamcast) going into the holiday season. shoulder button on the right side. The only part of
Advertisements soon included the slogan “Born to Play,” the controller that seemed like an afterthought was
along with television commercials ending with a voice the d-pad, which was smaller and less responsive than
whispering “GameCube.” d-pads from previous Nintendo controllers. In 2002,
As with previous Nintendo consoles, its unique Nintendo introduced the earliest first-party wireless
controller was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, who set controller with the WaveBird. The WaveBird ran on
out to create a more optimal game pad after mixed just two AA batteries but lacked the vibration feature
reactions to the N64 controller. Miyamoto designed of the standard controller.
four to five versions before settling on the final product. Other peripherals included memory cards that could
The controller put an emphasis on the main “A” hold between 4 MB and 64 MB of game data, DK Bongos
button, being surrounded by smaller buttons—all with for rhythm games like Donkey Konga, a microphone,
varying shapes and sizes, which Miyamoto felt “help racing wheel, and an ASCII keyboard controller (which
players identify each button’s level of importance on looked like a standard GameCube controller with a full-
the controller’s layout” (Rogers, 2014, p. 21). The size computer keyboard in the middle of it).
GameCube controller also included built in vibration The GameCube also featured accessories for inter-
feedback, along with two analog sticks—the right stick acting with the Game Boy Advance handheld. The
being labeled the “C-stick,” which was predominantly GameCube-Game Boy Advance (GCN-GBA) cable was
used for camera control like the four yellow “C” a link cable developed for players to access exclusive
FIGURE 10.14 Screens of (a) Luigi’s Mansion and (b) Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II.
(a) (b)
content in certain GC games (such as The Legend of Looking beyond the somewhat inflated raw polygon
Zelda Four Swords Adventures and Final Fantasy Crystal counts to polygons per second with effects, the systems’
Chronicles) by using the GBA as a second screen and polygon counts were about equal. On the other hand,
controller. The Game Boy Player dock allowed gamers the GameCube was capable of rendering “up to eight
to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and GBA games on effects layers to a polygon in a single pass, whereas
their TV. the PS2 features a multi-pass rendering system … so
What the console severely lacked was online gaming essentially PS2 [had] to render 1,000 polygons eight
support. While a broadband and modem adapter were times over whereas GameCube only [had] to render
developed for the system, just a handful of games utilized 1,000 polygons once for the same effect” (IGN Staff,
a LAN connection and only Sega’s Phantasy Star Online 2000a, para. 19).
games (and a game called Homeland in Japan) could be While GameCube had many clear advantages, expe-
played online. rienced programmers were eventually able to develop
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: GAMECUBE techniques to conquer many of the PS2’s shortcomings.
VERSUS PLAYSTATION 2 Beyond pure performance, the GameCube’s small disc
capacity and lack of multimedia options (such as DVD
The GameCube and PS2 were very different animals playback and significant online gaming) gave PS2 a
indeed. The GameCube was designed to be easier to market edge.
program for, avoiding the more complex architecture of
the PS2 where tasks were divided between its CPU and ◾ KEY GAMECUBE TITLES
two Vector Units. “Whereas PlayStation 2’s CPU and
two Vector Units split up the tasks of various graphic More than 600 games were released for the GameCube
procedures, like transformation and lighting, for Returning first-party favorites included Super Mario
example, all of this is handled singularly by Gamecube’s Sunshine (Figure 10.15), The Legend of Zelda: The Wind
Flipper chip, which also decompresses textures at a 6:1 Waker and Twilight Princess, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!,
ratio” (IGN Staff, 2000a, para. 17). and the console’s best-selling game, Super Smash Bros.
By itself, the GameCube’s 485 MHz Gekko CPU Melee (shown in Figure 10.16) Nintendo also introduced
(Table 10.7) was much faster than PS2’s 299 MHz pro- new franchises on the system such as Pikmin and Animal
cessor. And while its floating-point calculation per- Crossing, while in-house Retro Studios, Inc. brought the
formance was rated at just 1.9 gigaflops compared to Metroid franchise to 3D with two Metroid Prime releases.
6.2 GFLOPS on the PS2, the GC’s 162 MHz Flipper Initially criticized for even attempting to evolve the series
graphics processor was rated at 9.4 GFLOPS. Further- to 3D, the Metroid Prime games exceeded all expectations
more, the GameCube CPU’s 256 KB of second level and became two of the best titles on the system. Key N64
cache (which determines the speed of general game developer Rare released its last Nintendo exclusive with
code) was leagues ahead of the 16 KB of second level Starfox Adventures before being sold to Microsoft in 2002
cache used by the PS2. (McFerran, 2016, p. 171).
TABLE 10.7 Nintendo GameCube Tech Specs

Release Date: 9/14/01 (JP), 11/18/01 (US), 5/03/02 (EU), 5/17/02 (AU)
Format: 8 cm optical disc (1.5 GB)
Processors: IBM Power PC “Gekko” processor (485 MHz)
ATI “Flipper” GPU (162 MHz)
Performance: 90 million polygons per second (6 to 20 PPS with effects)
Memory: 24 MB main RAM, 3 MB video RAM, 16 MB audio RAM
Resolution: 640 × 480i, 640 × 480p
Sound: 64-channel, Pro Logic Surround Stereo at 48 kHz
FIGURE 10.15 Magazine advertisement for GameCube title Super Mario Sunshine in 2002.
FIGURE 10.16 Five defining GameCube titles: (a) Super Smash Bros. Melee, (b) Metroid Prime, (c) The Legend of Zelda:
The Wind Waker, (d) Eternal Darkness, and (e) Resident Evil 4.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
Third-party support included Factor 5’s Star Wars ‘Capcom Five’ to remain GameCube exclusive was
Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader and its sequel Rebel P.N.03—the fifth game, Dead Phoenix was cancelled in
Strike. Canadian developer Silicon Knights worked on 2003 and Suda51’s Killer7 launched on the GameCube
just two GameCube games but both Metal Gear Solid: and PlayStation 2 at the same time” (McFerran, 2016,
Twin Snakes (published by Konami) and Eternal Dark- p. 172). To its credit, Capcom did maintain other amaz-
ness (published by Nintendo) were Triple-A titles. Atari ing exclusives for the system, including the remake
ported the Japanese Dreamcast exclusive shoot ‘em up of the original Resident Evil and its prequel, Resident
Ikaruga to the system as a U.S. exclusive and Sega ported Evil Zero.
many of its own Dreamcast hits like Crazy Taxi, Skies of
Arcadia Legends, Phantasy Star Online, and its Sonic
Adventure games. Sega’s Super Monkey Ball franchise HEAD-TO-HEAD
began as GameCube exclusives, but would later appear There were a number of games that were released on
on competing consoles. Furthermore, in early 2003 Sega both the GameCube and PS2. Compare the gameplay
announced that it would be discontinuing all of its sports and graphics to each system’s version of Extreme-G 3,
Killer7, Resident Evil 4, Sonic Heroes, TimeSplitters 2,
titles on the GameCube in favor of other platforms
and Viewtiful Joe 1 & 2.
(Berghammer, 2003, p. 1). That same year, longtime
developer Acclaim dropped support for GameCube
altogether.
◾ CHANGES AT NINTENDO
Similar to how the previous generation saw a multitude of
DID YOU KNOW?
personnel changes at Sega, 2002 would become a major
“Out of the top 25 best-selling games for the GameCube, turning point for much of the leadership at Nintendo.
19 of them were published by Nintendo” (Coulter, 2011,
It began in January, when Nintendo of America pres-
para. 16). The company’s last official title for the system
was its swan song, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
ident Minoru Arakawa retired from the company.
Two months later, Nintendo of America’s Ken Lobb
(producer/supervisor on projects such as Star Wars Rogue
Similar third-party issues came from Capcom, who Squadron II: Rogue Leader and Metroid Prime) left the
also started off as a strong supporter for GameCube. company to join Microsoft in March.
Capcom initially announced five exclusive titles for the After more than 5 decades of running the company
system, including survival horror shooters Resident Evil he inherited from his great grandfather, Nintendo
4 and Killer7, sci-fi shooter P.N.03, side-scrolling action- president Hiroshi Yamauchi decided it was time to
platformer Viewtiful Joe, and a shoot ‘em up called Dead retire—although he would remain a board member for
Phoenix. “In the end, the only title out of the fabled three more years. Head of Nintendo’s Corporate
Planning Division, Satoru Iwata, replaced Yamauchi as (Takahashi, 2011, p. 2). Shortly thereafter, head of
the new president of Nintendo Co., Ltd that summer. Microsoft’s game publishing division Ed Fries joined the
Finally, on September 24, 2002 Nintendo sold Rareware team and the group set out to construct a home console
to Microsoft “for 100% ownership for $375 million” based off of Microsoft’s DirectX technology that was
(Rogers, 2014, p. 56). initially known as the “DirectX Box.” Despite its
unpopularity with Microsoft’s marketing team, the
◾ MICROSOFT XBOX name “Xbox” (Figure 10.17) outscored all other titles in
focus tests and become the official name of the system
Microsoft Corporation was founded by Paul Allen and (Alexander, 2009, para. 16).
Bill Gates on April 4, 1975. Headquartered in Redmond, J. Allard and Cameron Ferroni were put in charge of
Washington, the company quickly developed a reputa- creating the Xbox’s operating system, which was origi-
tion for its computer software and operating systems nally planned to run the Windows OS. After removing
(OS). Starting with BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose everything it didn’t need, it became apparent that the
Symbolic Instruction Code) interpreters for the Altair system would not run Windows and it more or less
8800, the company would begin to revolutionize personal became a DirectX operating system (Takahashi, 2011,
computers with its MS-DOS operating system for IBM in p. 3). Still, the system’s inner components more closely
the mid-1980s. The company developed a graphical resembled a PC than any video game system before it.
extension for MS-DOS in 1985 called Windows, followed Similar to Sony’s surprise when Nintendo announced
by its Microsoft Office suite in 1990. It was on August 24, that Philips would be manufacturing a CD drive for the
1995 when Microsoft released its Windows 95 OS, SNES, “the Xbox was originally built using AMD
solidifying its dominance in the personal computer world [Advanced Micro Devices] hardware. At the last second,
and skyrocketing past Apple in annual revenue. right before a major conference, the technology stack
Being the leader in PC operating systems, Bill Gates shifted to Intel” (White, 2015, para. 2).
naturally felt threatened when early announcements In addition to using the PC-popular Intel Pentium III
of the PS2 positioned the system as a competitor to processor and an Nvidia graphics chip, the console also
both the home entertainment and personal computer contained an 8 GB internal hard drive and a broadband
industries. His strategy was to build a better game Ethernet port. Although it wasn’t the first home console
console and compete directly with Sony. Develop- to include internal storage, its 8 GB hard drive was much
ment for Microsoft’s first home console began with larger and more capable than the internal storage of the
four engineers from Microsoft’s DirectX (multi- 3DO or Sega Saturn. In addition to game data storage,
media programming interfaces) team including Kevin users could download game patches and even rip entire
Bachus, Seamus Blackley, Otto Berkes, and Ted Hase music CDs to the hard drive. The decision to make
FIGURE 10.17 Microsoft Xbox console with a “Controller S” model controller.

TABLE 10.8 Microsoft Xbox U.S. Launch Titles

• 4×4 EVO2 • NASCAR Heat 2002
• AirForce Delta Storm • NASCAR Thunder 2002
• Arctic Thunder • NFL Fever 2002
• Cel Damage • NHL Hitz 20-02
• Dark Summit • Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee
• Dead or Alive 3 • Project Gotham Racing
• Fuzion Frenzy • Shrek
• Halo: Combat Evolved (Figure 10.18a) • Test Drive Off-Road Wide Open
• Mad Dash Racing • Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2x
• Madden NFL 2002 (Figure 10.18b) • TransWorld Surf
the system broadband-only (with no dial-up modem) released first in North America on November 15, 2001
seemed controversial at first; however, it raised the bar for $299.99—just two months after the 9/11 terrorist
for online gaming and the absence of a dial-up modem attacks on U.S. soil. Microsoft chose Toys “R” Us in the
saved Microsoft around $5.18 per unit sold (Takahashi, heart of Times Square for its launch party. Thousands of
2011, p. 3). That added up to an overall savings of New Yorkers came out for the event, which was “bathed
$100 million. in acid green search lights. Microsoft gave them Krispy
Kreme donuts with green sprinkles. Bill Gates walked up
and down the line and shook hands with all of the fans”
DID YOU KNOW? (Takahashi, 2011, p. 6). Compared to Nintendo’s $75
Seamus Blackley explained that the system’s trademark million launch campaign for GameCube, Microsoft
green color was a product of the console’s designer spent $500 million on the launch campaign for Xbox,
Horace Luke. Apparently, Luke had a fancy set of paint including television and print ads, as well as “national
markers that everyone in the office would take except for promotions with companies such as Taco Bell, SoBe and
the green ones, so all his artist renderings were done with
Vans” (Rogers, 2014, p. 41).
green markers and the color stuck (McCaffrey, 2015).
More than a million Xbox consoles sold in its first
three weeks on the market. Its popular first-person
The Xbox would be the first home game console made shooter (FPS) Halo: Combat Evolved would see similar
by an American company since the Atari Jaguar. It success in its first few months on store shelves. Halo was
FIGURE 10.18 Screens of Xbox launch titles (a) Halo: Combat Evolved and (b) Madden NFL 2002.
(a) (b)
the definitive system-seller for the Xbox, thanks to The system’s online network “Xbox Live arrived in
Microsoft’s acquiring of the game’s developer Bungie November 2002 with a starter kit to get users into
Studios in June 2000. “Xbox release dates in Japan multiplayer games. More than 150,000 people signed up
(February 22, 2002) and Europe (March 14, 2002) soon in the first week” (Griffith, 2013, para. 7). Like the PS2,
followed, though the system failed to catch fire in either the Xbox offered DVD playback but required a separate
of the two regions with the same energy that fueled its remote and adapter. In addition to its external hard
arrival in North America” (Marshall, 2013, para. 10). drive, users could store data on memory cards which
Its launch titles (Table 10.8) consisted primarily of plugged into the back of the controllers like N64.
sports and action games, which were not the style of The system received the standard line of peripherals
games that attracted Japanese gamers. Its original con- including light guns, steering wheels, System Link cables
troller (nicknamed the “Duke”) was so large that (for LAN gaming), headsets, component cables, micro-
Microsoft designed a smaller “Controller S” model for the phones, third-party wireless controllers, rhythm game
Japanese market. The Duke (shown in Figure 10.19) accessories, keyboard and mouse. Perhaps its most
received plenty of criticism for its cumbersome shape and unique accessory was the controller Capcom bundled
oval face buttons and within a year was replaced by the with its Steel Battalion mech game. The $200 multi-
Controller S in all regions. section unit measured nearly three feet wide and
FIGURE 10.19 2001 Xbox ad featuring characters from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, Abe from Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee, and
the original “Duke” controller.
contained approximately 40 different buttons, multiple included the ability for Xbox gamers to mod their system
control sticks, and three foot petals. and download game patches via its built-in hard drive.
Online gaming only became a major feature of the
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: XBOX Xbox and PS2. The original PS2 required an external
VERSUS THE REST network adaptor but accommodated both dial-up and
broadband users. Xbox only supported broadband, but it
The Intel Pentium III CPU ran at an impressive 733 MHz was built into the system from the beginning. Gaming
(Table 10.9)—more than twice the speed of the PS2 Emo- online with Xbox required a paid monthly subscription
tion Engine, but about on par with the Gamecube’s Gekko to Xbox Live, whereas online gaming with PS2 was
when considering all components. While GameCube’s managed by each game publisher and on their own
485 MHz processor appears inferior on paper, its 256 K of servers. Ultimately, Xbox set the standard for online
second level cache made the Gekko and Pentium III gaming on home consoles.
comparable. This is because “the size of a CPU’s second
level cache determines how fast general game-code runs”
(IGN, 2010a, para. 22). The PS2 included only 16 K of HEAD-TO-HEAD
second level cache, while the Xbox had 128 K. The Xbox’s Many Xbox games released on both GameCube and PS2.
Nvidia NV2A GPU ran at 233 MHz—a faster clock speed Compare all three systems by checking out each con-
than the GameCube’s Flipper, but at a lower floating- sole’s version of 007: Nightfire, Beyond Good and Evil,
BloodRayne, Metal Arms: Glitch in the System, and any
point performance of 7.3 GFLOPS.
of the Prince of Persia titles.
Processing speed aside, the Xbox could push more
polygons than either the GameCube or PS2, both raw or
with various effects. On the other hand, its GPU could ◾ KEY XBOX TITLES
only run half of the number of effects layers to a polygon
compared to GameCube, with four effects layers in a More than a thousand games were released for the Xbox.
single pass. Overall, however, Xbox games typically Halo: Combat Evolved quickly took the crown for best-
looked the best when comparing the same titles on each selling launch title and its sequel Halo 2 became the best-
console. In almost every case, the Xbox version of cross- selling Xbox game of all time. For shooter fans, the Halo
platform games looked sharper—often containing extra franchise was reason enough to buy the system. Other
details such as lighting and bump mapping effects not home console exclusives published by Microsoft Game
always included on the other consoles. The Tom Clancy’s Studios included Peter Molyneux’s action-RPG Fable,
Splinter Cell series was a prime example of this. two MechAssault games, and several racing series
Xbox also had an advantage in sound for gamers with including Project Gotham Racing, RalliSport Challenge,
the proper setup. Audio expert Brian Schmidt was able to and Forza Motorsport.
integrate Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound into the The system received exclusive support from Tecmo
system—a first for home video game consoles. Other firsts with its Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden franchises,
TABLE 10.9 Microsoft Xbox Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Microsoft
Release Date: 11/15/01 (US), 2/22/02 (JP), 3/14/02 (EU & AU)
Format: CD-ROM & DVD-ROM (up to 8.5 GB)
Processors: Intel Pentium III CPU (733 MHz)
Nvidia NV2A GPU (233 MHz)
Performance: 125 million polygons per second (29 million PPS w/effects)
Memory: 64 MB RAM with 8 GB hard drive
Resolution: 720 × 480i plus 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, & 1080i
Sound: 64 3D channel, Dolby Digital 5.1 (plus DTS for movies)
FIGURE 10.20 Xbox hits: (a) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, (b) Burnout 3: Takedown, (c) Halo: Combat Evolved,
(d) Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and (e) Ninja Gaiden Black.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
including a number of exclusive Sega titles such as than three months later, the company would lose co-
Panzer Dragoon Orta, The House of the Dead III, and Jet founder and chairman Isao Okawa to congestive heart
Set Radio Future. Developer BioWare made a name for failure after a battle with cancer—but not before he
itself on the console with its renowned Jade Empire and gifted his entire $695 million worth of Sega and CSK
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (in Figure 10.20) stock to help the company survive its third-party tran-
RPGs. The acquisition of Rare on the other hand, only sition (Kent, 2001, pp. 588–589). The Dreamcast would
led to the mediocre Grabbed by the Ghoulies and become Sega’s last home video game system, ending its
updated N64 game Conker: Live & Reloaded. 18-year-run as a console manufacturer.
Sony’s PS2 was the debut console for the first two The company repositioned itself as a sole software
Grand Theft Auto games, but the games looked far publisher and continued to manufacture Dreamcast
superior when they were later released on the Xbox. games for about a year, in addition to releasing many
Sports games (especially the 2K series) also looked the third-party (often exclusive) titles for PlayStation 2,
best on Xbox—often containing scenes and features not GameCube, and Xbox. In 2004, pachinko manufacturer
seen on competing consoles. Such was the case with Sammy acquired Sega for $1.4 billion, becoming Sega
most cross-platform games, with the Xbox version of Sammy Holdings Inc. The restructuring would result in
titles often featuring additional special effects and pro- nearly one-third of Sega’s Tokyo workforce being laid
gressive scan support. While only around a quarter of all off, as well as the departure of Sonic Team leader Yuji
PS2 games featured progressive scan support, 480p was Naka who left in 2006, followed by significantly reduced
pretty much a standard option in most Xbox games. contributions by Sega’s arcade pioneer Yu Suzuki a few
Unfortunately, most gamers did not have enhanced or years later (Fahs, 2009, p. 11). Despite its many losses,
high definition TVs during this time to take full Sega maintained its status as a leading manufacturer of
advantage of these features. arcade games and continues to be a reputable name on
arcade cabinets today.
◾ SIXTH-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY More than half a million PS2 consoles were sold the
day of its Japanese launch, exceeding $250 million in sales
Despite a successful launch, the Dreamcast’s 3 million when combined with software and peripherals—“more
units sold in America fell far short of Sega’s goals and the than double that of the Dreamcast’s first-day total of
company was incurring major financial losses. Several $97 million” (IGN Staff, 2000b, p. 1). By 2005, Sony
price cuts later, including the rebate offer where con- solidified its market dominance when the PS2 became the
sumers could obtain a free Dreamcast with an 18-month fastest game system to ship 100 million units worldwide.
SegaNet subscription, were simply not enough to keep To date, the PlayStation 2 is the bestselling video game
the company afloat. On January 24, 2001, Sega console of all time, with more than 155 million units sold
announced it would be discounting the Dreamcast. Less (Figure 10.21).
By June 2003, both the GameCube and Xbox had a 13% The Xbox broke launch records in the United States
market share—far behind the 60% market share of the when it sold 1.53 million units just three months after its
PlayStation 2 (Frederick and Sekiguchi, 2003, para. 4). North American debut (Orland, 2013, para. 9). By May
However even after a price drop to $99 that September, 2006, the console had sold approximately 2 million more
Nintendo would eventually land in a close third place in units than GameCube, but was a distant second place to
global console sales, just behind Xbox. the record-breaking PlayStation 2. While Microsoft may
Beyond its lack of DVD playback, smaller game disc size, have sold more game consoles than Nintendo, it did so at
and next to no online gaming, other reasons for the a hefty cost. While it is not unusual for console manu-
GameCube’s lower sales included less third-party support facturers to sell their game systems at a loss (to recuperate
from certain developers and its image of being a system for later in software sales), “for every machine that Microsoft
younger gamers that was difficult for Nintendo to shake— sold at $299 at the outset, it was losing about $126, thanks
even with its exclusive lineup of Resident Evil games. Fur- to the $425 cost of the machine” (Takahashi, 2011, p. 6).
thermore, “CNN reported that Nintendo was charging a The Xbox may have been a huge financial loss for
much higher licensing fee for GameCube ($11) while Microsoft—about $4 billion—however, it would it prove
Microsoft and Sony charged ($7–$9)” (Rogers, 2014, p. 33). to be a valuable investment in the generations to come.
FIGURE 10.21 Sixth-generation console sales graph.
Dreamcast < 9 million
PlayStation 2 > 155 million
GameCube < 22 million
Xbox > 24 million
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155
◾ SIXTH-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS

There were many breakthroughs and trends that defined the sixth generation of video games. Here is a list of
the top 10 features that defined the generation:
1. 128-bit microprocessors
2. Faster, more powerful CPUs (up to 733 MHz) and GPUs (up to 233 MHz)
3. Progressive scan and higher display resolutions (up to 720p and 1080i)
4. Greater RAM (up to 64 MB) and tens of millions of polygons per second
5. Digital versatile disc (DVD) format with DVD movie playback
6. Surround sound with higher audio sampling frequency (48 kHz)
7. Broadband Internet speed and online, multiplayer gaming on home consoles
8. Open world “sandbox” style games and first-person shooters break new ground
9. Cross-platform releases on both home console and PC
10. Game publisher mergers (such as Square Enix, Sega Sammy, and Bandai Namco)
◾ ACTIVITY: PERFORMANCE OPTIONS

There were many new options made available for gamers during the sixth generation of home video game
consoles. Many games could be played via LAN (local area network), online, or 2-player and even 4-player via
split screen. For users with ED or HDTVs, numerous games could be played in progressive scan mode, which
resulted in crisper, more colorful graphics and less screen blurring.
GUIDELINES
Obtain two HDTVs, two of the same sixth-generation consoles, system link cables, component cables, and some games
that include: (1) progressive scan support and (2) multiplayer modes both via LAN and split screen. Since the online
networks for these consoles have been discontinued, the LAN-supported games will offer a similar experience.
QUESTIONS
1. How do the graphics compare playing in progressive versus interlaced scan?

2. Describe the experience playing multiplayer games via split screen mode on one television versus playing on a LAN
where each player has his or her own screen.
◾ CHAPTER 10 QUIZ 4. Which format did Dreamcast use for its game
media?
1. Arcades declined in the United States for all of the a. CD-ROM (700 MB)
following reasons, except: b. GD-ROM (Gigabyte Disc, 1.2 GB)
a. Arcade games became more expensive c. MiniDVD (1.5 GB)
b. Console games became nearly equal in quality d. DVD (up to 8.5 GB)
c. Not enough arcade games were being made
d. Game rentals became more popular 5. This third-party developer decided not to develop
games for the Dreamcast:
2. Venues like Chuck E. Cheese’s and Dave & Buster’s a. Electronic Arts
have been successful from their: b. Capcom
a. emphasis on food and beverage service c. Namco
b. inclusion of various redemption games d. Visual Concepts
c. super large screens, unique game controllers, and
motion-controlled cabinets 6. The central processing unit for the PlayStation 2:
d. all of the above a. 128-bit Hitachi SH-4 processor
b. Intel Pentium III processor
3. Sega’s Dreamcast began as two separate projects. In c. 128-bit “Emotion” RISC processor
the end, the company went with: d. IBM Power PC “Gekko” processor
a. U.S. based project “Blackbelt” led by IBM veteran
Tatsuo Yamamoto 7. The PS2’s CPU took some time for programmers
b. the internal “Katana” project by longtime Sega to grasp, since it operated best in tandem with the
console designer Hideki Sato console’s:
c. the “Emotion Engine” by Ken Kutaragi a. Nvidia NV2A GPU
d. the “Gekko” CPU developed by computer giant b. Flipper GPU
IBM c. Vector processing units (VPU0 and VPU1)
8. This compact, portable, friendly-looking system 14. Which systems were incapable of DVD playback?
included a curved handle for easy carrying: a. PlayStation 2 and GameCube
a. Xbox b. GameCube and Dreamcast
b. GameCube c. Xbox and GameCube
c. PlayStation 2 Slim d. Dreamcast and PlayStation 2
d. Dreamcast
15. This company acquired game developer Bungie
9. Introduced the earliest first-party wireless controller Studios in June 2000.
with the WaveBird: a. Sega
a. Xbox b. Sony
b. GameCube c. Microsoft
c. PlayStation 2 Slim d. Nintendo
d. Dreamcast
16. Which game console totally dominated the genera-
10. Chose Toys “R” Us in the heart of Times Square for tion in total number of units sold?
its launch party, handing out Krispy Kreme donuts a. Sega Dreamcast
as customers waited in line: b. Microsoft Xbox
a. Sega c. Sony PlayStation 2
b. Sony d. Nintendo GameCube
c. Microsoft
d. Nintendo True or False
11. This console’s version of cross-platform games 17. An argument with Sega chairman Isao Okawa led to
typically looked sharper—often containing extra Sega of America president Bernie Stolar’s termina-
details such as lighting and bump mapping effects tion from the company just a month before the
not included on the other systems: Dreamcast’s launch.
a. Sega Dreamcast
b. Sony PlayStation 2 18. The Dreamcast included a built-in modem for
c. Nintendo GameCube connecting to the Internet.
d. Microsoft Xbox
19. One of the drawbacks of the PlayStation 2 was its
12. Which of the following features was not a charac- inability to play DVD movies without an adapter.
teristic of the Microsoft Xbox?
a. Most powerful sixth-generation console powered 20. The original Xbox suffered from poor initial sales
by an Intel Pentium III processor because its original, first-party controller was far too
b. Its GPU could run eight simultaneous effects small for the average gamer’s hands.
layers to a polygon
c. Built-in broadband port; set the standard for ◾ FIGURES
online gaming on home consoles FIGURE 10.1 Dance Dance Revolution (Konami, 1999). (“Dance
d. Could download game patches and rip music Dance Revolution.” Vintage Arcade Superstore, 2017. Retrieved from
CDs to its built-in hard drive https://www.vintagearcade.net/shop/arcade-games/dance-dance
-revolution-arcade-game/)
13. This console never fully realized the importance of
online gaming: FIGURE 10.2 Screenshots of popular arcade games from 2000:
a. Nintendo GameCube (a) Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette (KCET/Konami, 2000), (b) Marvel
b. Sega Dreamcast vs. Capcom 2 (Capcom, 2000), and (c) 18 Wheeler: American Pro
c. Sony PlayStation 2 Trucker (Sega, 2000). (Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette courtesy of
d. Microsoft Xbox KCET/Konami, 2000; Marvel vs. Capcom 2 courtesy of Capcom,
2000; and 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker courtesy of Sega, (c) Grand Theft Auto III (courtesy of DMA Design/Rockstar Games,
2000.) 2001), (d) God of War (courtesy of SCE Santa Monica/SCEA, 2005),
and (e) Shadow of the Colossus (courtesy of SCE Japan Studio/SCEA,
2005).
FIGURE 10.3 Sega Dreamcast console and controller with LCD
screen memory card. (“A North American Sega Dreamcast video game
console,” by Evan-Amos - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at FIGURE 10.11 Game Boy Advance. (“The Game Boy Advance
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20590083. (GBA), a 32-bit handheld gaming system made by Nintendo
Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast#/media/File and released in 2001.” By Evan-Amos - own work, public domain.
:Dreamcast-Console-Set.png) Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
=18970777. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game
_Boy_Advance#/media/File:Nintendo-Game-Boy-Advance
FIGURE 10.4 Screenshots of Dreamcast launch titles (a) Sonic
-Purple-FL.jpg)
Adventure (Sonic Team/Sega, 1999) and (b) SoulCalibur (Namco,
1999). (Sonic Adventure courtesy of Sonic Team/Sega, 1999; and
SoulCalibur courtesy of Namco, 1999.) FIGURE 10.12 Box art to GBA hits (a) Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
(KCET/Konami, 2003), (b) Metroid: Zero Mission (Nintendo, 2004),
(c) WarioWare: Twisted! (Nintendo, 2005), (d) Pokémon Emerald
FIGURE 10.5 Magazine advertisement for the Dreamcast in 1999.
Version (Game Fream/Nintendo, 2005), and (e) The Legend of Zelda:
(From “Sega Dreamcast (9.9.99)” GamePro 120, July 1999, p. 95. IDG
The Minish Cap (Flagship/Nintendo, 2005). (Aria of Sorrow courtesy
Publishing.)
of KCET/Konami, 2003; Metroid: Zero Mission courtesy of
Nintendo, 2004; WarioWare: Twisted! courtesy of Nintendo, 2005;
FIGURE 10.6 Box art to five popular Dreamcast titles including: Pokémon Emerald Version courtesy of Game Fream/Nintendo, 2005;
(a) to Resident Evil – Code: Veronica (NexTech/Capcom, 2000), (b) and The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap courtesy of Flagship/
NFL 2K1 (Visual Concepts/Sega, 2000), (b) SoulCalibur (Namco, Nintendo, 2005.)
1999), (d) Jet Grind Radio (Smilebit/Sega, 2000), and (e) Sonic
Adventure (Sonic Team/Sega, 1999). (Resident Evil – Code: Veronica
FIGURE 10.13 Nintendo GameCube console, controller, and one
courtesy of NexTech/Capcom, 2000; NFL 2K1 courtesy of Visual
black memory card. (“A Nintendo GameCube console shown with
Concepts/Sega, 2000; SoulCalibur courtesy of Namco, 1999; Jet
memory card and a standard controller.” By Evan-Amos - own work,
Grind Radio courtesy of Smilebit/Sega, 2000; and Sonic Adventure
public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w
courtesy of Sonic Team/Sega, 1999.)
/index.php?curid=12836518. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/GameCube#/media/File:GameCube-Console-Set.png)
FIGURE 10.7 Sony PlayStation 2 with DualShock 2. (“An SCPH-
30000 model with DualShock 2” by Evan-Amos - own work, public
FIGURE 10.14 Screens of (a) Luigi’s Mansion (Nintendo, 2001)
domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
and (b) Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II (Factor 5/
?curid=12826957. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
LucasArts, 2001) by Wardyga. (Luigi’s Mansion courtesy of
/PlayStation_2_models#/media/File:PS2-Fat-Console-Set.jpg)
Nintendo, 2001; and Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II
courtesy of Factor 5/LucasArts, 2001.)
Figure 10.8 Screenshots from PS2 launch titles (a) SSX (EA Sports
Big, 2000) and Tekken Tag Tournament (Namco, 2000). (SSX courtesy FIGURE 10.15 Magazine advertisement for GameCube title Super
of EA Sports Big, 2000; and Tekken Tag Tournament courtesy of Mario Sunshine in 2002. (“Super Mario Sunshine PRINT AD video
Namco, 2000.) game Nintendo GameCube advertisement 2002” posted by Rick
Obee on November 22, 2016. Retrieved from http://addio.ecrater
FIGURE 10.9 Target Stores magazine advertisement for the Sony .com/p/13765408/super-mario-sunshine-print-ad)
PlayStation 2 in 2000. (From Electronic Gaming Monthly, Issue 136,
November 2000, page 13.) Figure 10.16 Box art to five defining GameCube titles including:
(a) Super Smash Bros. Melee (HAL Labs/Nintendo, 2001), (b) Metroid
FIGURE 10.10 Five defining PS2 titles: (a) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Prime (Retro Studios/Nintendo, 2002), (c) The Legend of Zelda:
of Liberty (courtesy of KCEJ/Konami, 2001), (b) Ratchet & Clank: The Wind Waker (Nintendo, 2003), (d) Eternal Darkness (Silicon
Going Commando (courtesy of Insomniac Games/SCEA, 2003), Knights/Nintendo, 2002), and (e) Resident Evil 4 (Capcom, 2005).
Super Smash Bros. Melee courtesy of HAL Labs/Nintendo, 2001; ◾ REFERENCES

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FIGURE 10.17 Microsoft Xbox console with a “Controller S” model GameCube sports development. Retrieved from
controller. (“Xbox console with ‘Controller S’” by Evan-Amos - own http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/8261/sega
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Evolved and (b) Madden NFL 2002 (Bungie/Microsoft Game Studios, /#MO7X8HPODdApUQGE.99.
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/2011/11/18/gamecube-10th-anniversary-fun-facts/.
FIGURE 10.19 2001 Xbox ad featuring characters from Tony
Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, Abe from Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee, and the
Fahs, Travis (2009, April 21). IGN presents the history of Sega.
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Frederick, J. & Sekiguchi T. (2003). The console wars: Game
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.ebscohost.com.lasproxy.minlib.net/eds/detail/detail?sid
(Criterion Games/Electronic Arts, 2004), (a) Halo: Combat Evolved
=9ab10a5c-9a29-408c-8eb4-6e0656b35cb8@sessionmgr
(Bungie/Microsoft Game Studios, 2001), (b) Tom Clancy’s Splinter
4009&vid=4&hid=4208&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxp
Cell: Chaos Theory (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft, 2005), and (c) Ninja dmU=#AN=23510940&db=buh.
Gaiden Black (Team Ninja/Tecmo, 2005). (Star Wars: Knights of the
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Takedown courtesy of Criterion Games/Electronic Arts, 2004; Halo: Retrieved from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817
Combat Evolved courtesy of Bungie/Microsoft Game Studios, 2001; ,2427358,00.aspa.
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory courtesy of Ubisoft
Montreal/Ubisoft, 2005; and Ninja Gaiden Black courtesy of Team Hagiwara, S. & Oliver, I. (1999, November–December). Sega
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IEEE Micro: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engi-
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FIGURE 10.21 Sixth-generation console sales graph. (Designed by
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#/media/File:Ken_Kutaragi_-_Game_Developers_Choice_Awards
_2014_(cropped).jpg.
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ArtX-designed 128-bit console. (1999, March 12). IGN. bad January, sells about 50,000 units in US. Retrieved
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_e1603.pdf.
CHAPTER 11
The Rise of PC Gaming
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Provide an overview Apple, Atari, and Commodore’s evolution into the 1990s.
• Explain how IBM revolutionized the personal computer business.
• Talk about Microsoft and the contribution Windows made to gaming.
• Be familiar with key technological breakthroughs in personal computers.
• Have a sense of graphics and capabilities of PC games as they evolved up to now.
• Discuss online gaming and its influence on the style or direction of certain games.
• Review the history of Steam and its developments leading up to today.
• Recognize how PC gaming is different from home console gaming.
• List some of the key video game titles by genre released on personal computer.
• Describe the influence of PC gaming on the rest of the video game market.
• Explain several innovations introduced to gaming by the computer platform.
• Reflect on the positive and negative aspects of virtual online worlds.
• Summarize key personal computer gaming market sales and trends.
271

3D accelerator EGA Jon Jacobs PC/AT
3dfx Craig Eisler Java PC-compatible
Achievements Eric Engstrom Steve Jobs PCjr
Adobe Flash Epic Games JTS Personal Computer
AGA Episodic gaming Minh Le Radeon
Daisuke Amaya eSports Linden Lab RTS
Amiga series F2P Linux Samsung Gear VR
API Farming Lotus 1-2-3 Shareware
Apple Charles R. Flint Macintosh Sony Online Entertainment
Atari ST series Full motion video Matchmaking Sound Card
ATI First-person shooter Micro-transactions SoundBlaster
Avatar Freemium MIDI Alex St. John
Bethesda Richard Garriot Jay Miner Steam
BioWare Garry’s Mod MMORPG Telltale Games
Blizzard Entertainment GeForce 256 MMOW Twitch
Bugs Genlock Modding Unreal Engine
CAD GPU Mojang Valve
Anshe Chung Ailin Graef Multiplayer Virtual item
Jess Cliffe GUI NCsoft Virtual worlds
Cloud gaming HTC Vive Neverdie Virtual Reality
Commodore IBM clones Nvidia Voodoo
Compaq IBM/5150 Oculus Rift Windows OS
Deathmatch id Software OpenGL Workbench
Direct3D iMac OS X & OS/2 Will Wright
DirectX Indie games Hewlett Packard Yamaha YM3812
DOS/MS-DOS Internet Patches YouTube
◾ COMPUTER MILESTONES TIMELINE
Atari ST and Amiga Windows 95 Steam
Summer 1985 August 1995 September 2003
April 1987 August 1999 2011 to present
IBM PS/2 and VGA graphics Nvidia GeForce 256 Indie games take off
The Rise of PC Gaming ◾ 273
◾ INTRODUCTION 1989, para. 2). Following on the footsteps of the ST was

the launch of Commodore’s Amiga (Figure 11.1b)
This chapter reviews the rise of PC gaming and the many family of personal computers in July 1985; however, the
technological developments that helped shape the com- system was not widely available until early 1986 due to
puter gaming landscape to what it is today. Coverage production problems. Like the Atari ST computers, the
includes the end of computer offerings from Atari and Amiga also ran on the 16- and 32-bit Motorola 68000
Commodore, to changes at Apple and the rise of the PC- series of microprocessors. Atari and Amiga’s systems
compatibles, to recent developments in PC gaming today. retailed for over $1,000 with color monitors, while the
Breakthroughs throughout the evolution of PC gaming Macintosh home computer cost twice as much.
are also discussed, as well as the people behind the scenes It was around this time that the term “personal
and the popular game titles synonymous with each era. computer” became popular and most computer com-
panies began avoiding the term “home computer.” An
◾ END OF AN ERA article by Compute! Magazine explained that home
computers had developed a connotation of being low-
The 8-bit line of computers by Apple, Atari, and Com- end machines primarily used for playing video games.
modore were succeeded by more powerful offerings Apple’s John Sculley flat out denied that his company
from each company in the mid-1980s. Apple led the way was selling home computers, instead referring to them as
with its monochrome, 32-bit Macintosh home computer “computers for use in the home” (Halfhill, 1986, p. 38).
in January 1984. It was the company’s first mass-market Apple’s stance on being a more costly, sophisticated
PC to include a graphical user interface (GUI) and machine may have contributed to the Atari ST and
mouse (Polsson, 2009). The GUI provided users with Commodore Amiga becoming the dominant gaming
graphical icons and other visual information they could computers throughout the end of the 1980s.
interact with more easily by using a mouse—as opposed While the ST and Amiga began a new era of computer
to being limited to a strictly text-based user interface and gaming, their high price tags held many gamers and
keyboard commands. On the other hand, the first three developers back on the older 8-bit systems until prices
Macintosh computers lacked color graphics. came down later in the decade. Aside from gaming, the
The Atari ST (Figure 11.1a) line of home computers Atari ST became the popular platform for audio pro-
debuted around June 1985. It contained both 16- and 32- duction due to its built-in MIDI (Musical Instrument
bit architecture where the “ST” stood for “Sixteen/ Digital Interface) ports, while Amiga became a prom-
Thirty-two” since its Motorola 68000 was a 32-bit pro- inent computer for video production applications like
cessor that communicated through a 16-bit bus (Reese, Video Toaster. Its genlock ability allowed the Amiga to
FIGURE 11.1 Atari ST (a) and Commodore Amiga 500 (b) with peripherals.
(a) (b)
match the refresh rate of incoming video signals, while Amiga CD32 in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Brazil in
the computer’s transparency setting provided the ability 1993. Even though the Amiga consistently outsold the
to display graphics over video. Popular games around ST, the CD32 was a market failure and the company
this time included action platformers such as Turrican went bankrupt in April 1994.
and Zool, RPG and adventure games (see Figure 11.2),
space shooters like Battle Squadron and Xenon 2:
HEAD-TO-HEAD
Megablast, and strategy games such as Lemmings.
After co-founding the company and helping pioneer To compare the graphics and sound between the Atari ST
and Commodore Amiga, try some games released on
the home computer market, “Steve Jobs [was] exiled
both systems. Some games to compare include Shadow
from Apple in 1985 because of poor sales of the original of the Beast, Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe, and The Secret
Macintosh” (Reimer, 2005, p. 7). Apple released subse- of Monkey Island.
quent systems in the Macintosh family, including the
Macintosh Plus in 1986 and a return to color graphics
with the $5,500 Macintosh II in 1987. These systems ◾ IBM AND THE RISE OF THE CLONES
were followed by the Macintosh “Classic” series in the
early 1990s, with the original Classic being the first Mac In 1985, Bill Gates predicted “the advent of inexpensive,
under $1,000. 100%-compatible clone computers that was propelling
The ST was followed by the Atari STE (E for the PC ahead, and that any defects in the design of the
“enhanced”) in 1989, the Atari TT (“Thirty-two/Thirty- computer would eventually be remedied by the com-
two”) in 1990, with the final ST computer being the bined force of the many companies selling PCs and PC
Atari MEGA STE in 1991. Atari would release one last add-on products, such as new graphics cards” (Reimer,
computer with the Falcon in 1992, before focusing its 2005, p. 6). As an early supporter of the Macintosh
efforts back on the home console market with its Jaguar computer, Gates even reached out to Apple with a plan
console in 1993. to license their technology to other companies—a pro-
The original Amiga 1000 would be succeeded by no posal that Apple would reject. Gates’ prediction came
less than 10 subsequent models and/or upgrades, from true and a different company would lead the evolution of
the best-selling Amiga 500 in 1987 (Figure 11.3), to the personal computers into the next decade.
A1200 and A4000 released in late 1992 (see Table 11.1). IBM (International Business Machines Corporation)
Like Atari, Commodore would make a last-ditch effort began operation in Endicott, NY as the Computing-
on the home console market when it released the 32-bit Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) when Charles
FIGURE 11.2 Screenshots of popular computer titles: Dungeon Master (a, on the Atari ST) and The Secret of Monkey Island
(b, on the Amiga 500).
(a) (b)
FIGURE 11.3 Print advertisement for the Commodore Amiga 500 in 1987.
TABLE 11.1 Commodore Amiga Computer Series Releases

Model Release Description
A1000 1985 By Atari 800 creator Jay Miner; Motorola MC68000 (7.16 MHz)
CPU and3 co-processors; 256kB RAM (to 512kB);
separate keyboard
A2000 1987 High-end 512kB–1Mb RAM; UK-only A1500 with extra floppy
drive; A2000/HD had built-in hard disk and controller;
also A2500 model
A500 1987 Most popular Amiga; debuted at $699; 512kB expandable RAM;
keyboard/computer were a single unit; had CDTV and 500+ model
A3000 1990 Second generation Amiga; high-end workstation with 16–25 MHz
Motorola MC68030; 2 Mb RAM (upgradable to 18 Mb);
Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) and Kickstart/Workbench 2OS
A600 1992 Smallest Amiga made; redesign of A500+ but had incompatibility
problems; was replaced by the equally priced A1200 the same year
A4000 1992 Third-generation Amiga; Motorola MC68EC030 (25 MHz);

2 Mb–16 Mb RAM; Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA)
chipset allowed 256,000 out of 16.8 million colors on-screen;
Workbench 3 OS
A1200 1992 Priced at $599; a stronger A500 successor than the A600 with AGA
chipset; Motorola MC68EC020 (14.32 MHz) + FPU; 2–10 Mb RAM
Ranlett Flint led the consolidation of four major com- on-screen colors (16 from a palette of 64) and higher
panies in 1911. The merger included companies by graphics resolution (up to 640 × 350 pixels); however,
Alexander Dey (inventor of the dial recorder), Herman early IBM PCs lacked the graphics and sound power of
Hollerith (who patented the Electric Tabulating the Atari ST and Amiga systems. Additionally, the high
Machine), Julius E. Pitrat (who patented the computing cost of IBM and PC-compatible systems (known as
scale in 1885), and Bundy Manufacturing Company IBM clones) deterred many gamers through much of
whose co-founder Willard Bundy invented the the 1980s. It was IBM’s spreadsheet application Lotus
employee time clock. IBM began as a machinery man- 1-2-3 that helped drive initial sales of the computers in
ufacturer and in 1937 the company was hired by the U.S. the business sector.
government for its tabulating equipment to maintain
26 million employment records in accordance with the
Social Security Act. As the company (eventually nick- DID YOU KNOW?
named “Big Blue”) continued to grow, IBM’s support Compaq (Compatibility And Quality) was first to legally
extended from mainframe computers to space explora- reverse engineer the IBM PC and “by the late 1990s and
tion and even nanotechnology. early 2000s, Compaq was the largest PC manufacturer in
The company entered the PC market with the IBM the world, before it was absorbed by Hewlett Packard”
(McCullough, 2014).
5150 (Figure 11.4) in 1981 and the home market with
PCjr in 1984. IBMs did not become a viable gaming
platform until the 16-bit PC/AT (“Advanced Technol- As its market share increased and IBM became the
ogy”) computers in 1984. Advancements such as EGA dominant name in personal computers, the price of IBM
(Enhanced Graphics Adapter) display allowed for more PCs and clones became more affordable. The immense
FIGURE 11.4 IBM PC 5150 magazine advertisement from 1982.

market share of the PC attracted game developers one of the most influential turn-based strategy games;
around 1987, which was the year that much-improved and then Dune II revolutionized real-time strategy
VGA (Video Graphics Array) displays on the new IBM (RTS) games in 1992. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian
PS/2 and FM synthesis sound cards (like Ad Lib’s Abyss (1992) is regarded for its 3D world and sloped
Yamaha YM3812) became widely available. surfaces. Its “complex levels and the immersion of its
dungeon environment were both unparalleled in any
◾ GAMING IN DOS game” (PC Gamer, 2016, p. 4). Also that year, Alone in
the Dark’s puzzles and camera views would influence the
PC games at this time ran on DOS (disk operating yet unnamed “survival horror” genre.
system). There were many types of DOS, but it was id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D (1992) advanced first-
Microsoft’s MS-DOS (Figure 11.5) that dominated IBM person shooter (FPS) games with its super smooth
and PC-compatible systems. After booting up the movement, paving the way for the genre-defining Doom
computer, a DOS command prompt would appear on in 1993. In addition to promoting networked multi-
the screen. The user then had to enter a series of com- player gaming, Doom introduced the concept of the
mands to launch a program—and only one program “deathmatch” where the object is to kill or “frag” as
could be launched at a time, which took up the entire many other players as possible until a time limit or other
screen. condition is reached. id Software also popularized the
Games typically had to be configured (for resolution, shareware distribution method (i.e., giving away the first
sound, etc.) prior to playing to allow DOS programs level[s] of a game to entice gamers into purchasing the
direct access to the computer’s hardware. For a DOS full release), as well as modding (slang for “modifying”)
game to use Creative Technology’s SoundBlaster card where users could change entire attributes of the game
(released in 1989) to output sound, it had to support such as textures and characters.
that hardware directly. In other words, the game That same year Frontier: Elite 2 provided an entire
developer would need to program support for every universe to explore, while the gorgeous environments
major sound card so the user could select their card on and sounds of bestsellers Myst and The 7th Guest
the configuration screen (Hoffman, 2014, para. 14). (Figure 11.6) showcased what the newer CD-ROM
This same scenario applied to peripheral devices such media was truly capable of delivering. Notable titles
as game controllers. Microsoft’s popular Windows from 1994 included Wing Commander III: Heart of the
3.0 (1990) made playing games like Solitaire easier Tiger, known for its narrative and full motion video
to open; however, more complex games still required (FMV); X-COM: UFO Defense, which transformed the
MS-DOS. strategy genre with its turn-based tactical action; and
first-person, action RPG System Shock, which broke new
◾ GENRE PIONEERS: EARLY 1990s ground with its 3D engine, physics simulation, and
multifaceted gameplay.
The early 1990s brought about a number of revolu- Even with these revolutionary titles being born on
tionary games that began on the personal computer. the PC platform, the enormous success of the home
The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) set the standard for console market (particularly the Nintendo Entertain-
graphical adventure games; Civilization (1991) became ment System) was believed to have taken a toll on the PC
FIGURE 11.5 A look at the MS-DOS prompt screen.

FIGURE 11.6 Screenshots from popular early 1990s PC titles: (a) Myst and (b) The 7th Guest.
(a) (b)
gaming industry by the early 1990s. In 1993, ASCII high-quality Windows 95 games could be played “without
Entertainment Software’s Alan Chaplin reported that the leaving the Windows environment, making computer
market for home console games had reached $5.9 billion game installation suddenly easier” (Kent, 2001, p. 519).
in revenue—12 times that of the computer gaming Use of the Internet became increasingly popular with
market’s $430 million (Wilson, 1993, p. 98). The com- consumers during this time and the popularity of online
puter gaming industry needed a boost, and it would find it gaming would quickly follow. 3D accelerator cards such
with the next operating system from Microsoft. as 3dfx Interactive’s Voodoo chipset (1996) became
more affordable, resulting in more detailed 3D graphics.
◾ WINDOWS 95 AND THE MID-1990s That year Tomb Raider (Figure 11.7) revolutionized
third-person 3D exploration and introduced the world to
Two major PC operating systems introduced to compete
Laura Croft; Quake (Figure 11.8a) pioneered online
with MS-DOS included the free and open-source Linux
FPS multiplayer with its “Quakeworld” update; and
in 1991 and IBM’s OS/2 2.0 released in 1992. While
Diablo took action RPGs to new heights with its ran-
these platforms were adopted by millions of users, it was
domly generated dungeons, fast action, items variety, and
Microsoft’s Windows 95 that would become the main-
immersive atmosphere. In 1997, Origin Systems released
stream OS that both the general public, as well as game
Ultima Online, which provided an entire virtual world to
developers, would crown king. The launch of Windows
explore for a monthly fee. Creator Richard Garriott
95 on August 24, 1995 was a huge media event where
coined the term “Massively Multiplayer Online Role-
people lined up in droves to be among the first to receive
Playing Game” (MMORPG) and a new genre was born.
the new software at midnight. “Tonight Show host Jay
Leno emceed the launch party, with ‘Start Me Up’ by ◾ LATE 1990s
The Rolling Stones playing as the official theme song of
the event” (Reimer, 2005, p. 8). By the late 1990s, APIs like DirectX, OpenGL by Silicon
Where DOS allowed direct access to hardware and Graphics, and later Microsoft’s Direct3D, would mature
system components, Windows 95 used a more protec- and eliminate the need for proprietary interfaces. This,
ted memory model that restricted user access to these in turn, led to rapid development of 3D gaming tech-
areas. To provide a solution for programmers to develop nology over the next few years. MS-DOS would be dis-
great games and other multimedia on the OS, Micro- continued shortly after the decade and online gaming
soft included a set of application programming inter- became increasingly popular. Other developments like
faces (APIs) known as DirectX. DirectX was created web browser plug-ins such as Sun Microsystems’ Java
by development lead Craig Eisler, Alex St. John, and Adobe Flash became common platforms for simple
and program manager Eric Engstrom. Unlike in DOS, browser-based games.
FIGURE 11.7 Two-page magazine advertisement for Tomb Raider in 1996.
FIGURE 11.8 Screenshots from popular mid-1990s PC titles: (a) Quake and (b) Ultima Online.
(a) (b)
One genre that saw explosive growth in the late and Baldur’s Gate put Canadian developer BioWare on
1990s was real-time strategy (see Table 11.2). Unlike in the map—who would become one of the most renowned
early turn-based strategy games, RTS games take place in action RPG developers in the industry.
real time, requiring the player to perform numerous, Many popular MMORPGs soon followed, and 1999
often complex functions where speed is a major factor. was an exceptional year with Sony Online Entertain-
The frantic gameplay in titles such as Age of Empires ment’s EverQuest (Figure 11.9b) in March and Turbine’s
(1997) and StarCraft (1998) made these games especially Asheron’s Call in November. Both games offered 3D
fun to watch, with the latter helping establish the eSports worlds which many considered even more immersive
industry beginning in South Korea. The genre became than the isometric view in Ultima Online (Figure 11.8b).
synonymous with PC gaming due to its multitude of Like Ultima Online, these games were “pay-to-play”
commands requiring a keyboard and the precision although EverQuest also used the “freemium” strategy of
needed from a mouse. offering the game free-to-play [F2P], but charging players
Another pivotal PC title included Half-Life (1998) for particular features or functionality (Schenck, 2011,
(Figure 11.9a) with its “then-revolutionary use of para. 2). Ultima Online, EverQuest, and Asheron’s Call
scripted events that propelled the action forward without have collectively been referred to as the “Big Three”
ever removing [the player] from the game. It was the first MMORPGs of the early era due to their influence on
shooter with a completely seamless presentation from popularizing the genre in the West (Ivory, 2012, p. 15).
beginning to end: No levels, no loading screens, no Before the decade ended, the Unreal first-person
cutscenes—just one long take from beginning to end” shooter franchise would make a name for itself with
(PC Gamer, 2016, p. 7). Also that year Starsiege: Tribes Unreal in 1998 and Unreal Tournament in 1999. The
was among the first multiplayer-only games; Thief: The game’s Unreal Engine gained prominence when U.S.
Dark Project advanced the “stealth game” genre on PC; developer Epic Games began licensing it to other com-
TABLE 11.2 Real-Time Strategy Pioneers

Developer Country Game Series
Blizzard Entertainment United States (CA) Warcraft, StarCraft
The Creative Assembly United Kingdom Total War
Ensemble Studios United States (TX) Age of Empires
Relic Entertainment Canada (Vancouver) Homeworld, Company of Heroes
Westwood Studios United States (NV) Command and Conquer
FIGURE 11.9 Screenshots of late 1990s hit titles: (a) Half-Life (1998) and (b) EverQuest (1999).
(a) (b)
panies to build games on. Then Minh Le and Jess Cliffe [Operating System X] on the horizon, the Macintosh
released a first-person multiplayer mod for Half-Life enjoyed a bump in sales to 3.8 million units in both 1999
called Counter-Strike. Half-Life developer Valve hired the and 2000” (Reimer, 2005, p. 8).
two men and acquired the game’s intellectual property,
resulting in numerous sequels and spinoffs. The decade ◾ THE NEW MILLENNIUM OF PC GAMING
ended with FPS hits System Shock 2 and Quake III Arena.
PC technology took a step further when Nvidia Microsoft released Windows XP in 2001, which com-
released the GeForce 256 near the turn of the century. bined the solid performance of its corporate Windows
Called the world’s first GPU or graphics processing NT with the user-friendliness of Microsoft’s home ver-
unit, this 256-bit 3D processor offered innovations in sions. Apple released its tenth operating system that year
geometric polygons, dynamic lighting effects, as well as with OS X. Sales remained flat for Macintosh computers,
advanced textures and blending abilities (Nvida, 1999, until “the release and overwhelming sales success of the
p. 1). The integrated features of the GeForce 256 dis- iPod in 2001, [when] positive buzz began surrounding
tinguished it from older 3D accelerators that took Apple again and Macintosh sales started to creep up
power from the main processor, freeing up the com- again in late 2004 … despite the PC and Windows
puter’s CPU and making 3D development easier than gaining a completely dominant 97% market share”
older computer-aided design (CAD). GPUs also (Reimer, 2005, p. 9).
helped make PC hardware more affordable. The fol- The popularity of PC gaming continued into the new
lowing year, Vooodoo graphics chip manufacturer 3dfx millennium, although many developers began shifting
filed for bankruptcy and was acquired by Nvidia. A new their focus to home consoles which had a larger user
rivalry would ensue between Nvidia with its GeForce base and were arguably easier to develop for. One of the
product line and ATI Technologies with its Radeon factors that can make PC game development more
graphics chips. complex is that a PC game’s performance depends on
Apple began to decline during the mid 1990s and in the graphic capabilities of a player’s hardware. To make
December 1996 Steve Jobs reacquired the company for a computer game that is compatible on as many
$400 million. The company’s financial losses allowed systems as possible, developers have to program com-
Jobs to regain control of the company as CEO where he puter games to run at numerous resolutions and
would achieve some of his greatest goals. In addition to qualities. By contrast, home consoles have traditionally
saving the company, the colorful line of all-in-one iMac provided a level of standardization where developers
computers (monitors with built-in hard drives, etc.) in basically only have to program one version of the game
1998 “revived Apple’s fortunes, and with Mac OS X per platform.
TABLE 11.3 Popular MMORPGs in the New Millennium by Year

Year Game (Developer and Location) Type
2001 RuneScape (Jagex, England) Free-to-Play; Freemium
2002 Ragnarok Online (Gravity, Korea) Freemium; and Pay-to-play
2003 EVE Online (CCP Games, Iceland) Freemium
2004 World of Warcraft (Blizzard, CA) Pay-to-play; Free to level 20
2005 Guild Wars (ArenaNet, WA) Free-to-play with purchase
2006 Dungeons & Dragons Online (Turbine, MA) Freemium
2007 Lord of the Rings Online (Turbine, MA) Freemium
2008 Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (EA, CA) Freemium
2009 Champions Online (Cryptic Studios, CA) Free-to-play; Freemium
2010 Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix, Japan) Pay-to-play; 30-day trial
Furthermore, it is highly impracticable to test a PC MMORPG of all time, obtaining more than 12 million
game on every possible combination of hardware and subscriptions by 2010 (McDougall, 2010, para. 1). See
configuration, meaning that game bugs (glitches) are Table 11.3 for other popular MMORPGs released before
inevitable. This leads to the further work of developing and after WoW.
downloadable patches (fixes) for PC games. On the flip
side, playing a PC game 3 feet away from a computer ◾ STEAM AND INDIE GAMES
monitor (often with a keyboard and mouse) provides a
very different (somewhat more intimate) experience On September 12, 2003, Half-Life developer Valve
than playing on a home console and the PC has released a new digital distribution platform called
remained the central platform for strategy, simulation, Steam. Steam is unique in that it provides both large
and online role-playing games for this reason. and small game companies a central platform to sell
Important games in the early part of the twenty-first games and for users to download updates and patches.
century included Deus Ex (2000) for combining action Developers have free access to the “Steamworks” API,
role-playing with an emphasis on the freedom of choice, which they can use to integrate a variety of features—
along with first-person shooting and elements of stealth. from networking and matchmaking (pairing gamers
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002) also provided with similar skill sets to play together)—to
the player with an unprecedented amount of choice in microtransactions (collecting additional money for
its open world and established Rockville, Maryland’s game features or items) and parameters for in-game
Bethesda as a leader in these types of games. The year achievements (trophies, awards).
2003 saw the release of DotA (Defense of the Ancients), Another key feature of Steam is its digital rights
which began as a mod for Warcraft III and pioneered management (DRM), which “is access-control tech-
what would be known as the Multiplayer Online Battle nology used by manufacturers, publishers, and copyright
Arena (MOBA) genre years later. That same year saw holders to limit usage of digital devices or information”
the release of Icelandic developer CCP Games’ EVE (EC-Council, 2010, pp. 9–26). In other words, DRM
Online, an unscripted MMORPG universe with 7800 prevents unauthorized use or distribution of video
star systems for players to visit as they essentially create games with a payment gateway used for collecting user
their own experience. fees and/or verifying user credentials before players can
One publisher/developer who would become legen- access all or parts of a game.
dary in the PC community throughout the 2000s was Along with Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network
the California-based Blizzard Entertainment. In addi- on home consoles, Steam has become an important
tion to successful sequels to its classic Diablo and Star contributor to the rise of independent video game
Craft franchises, the company broke new records development which began to take off in the late 2000s.
with the release of World of Warcraft (WoW) in 2004. Known as “indie games,” independent video games are
WoW grew to become the world’s most-subscribed-to typically developed by individuals or small teams who
are free from the influence of big publisher budgets hosting service that encourages the development of user-
and time constraints. Many creative games have come created content or mods. Game mods are now a popular
from the indie scene, beginning with the NES-style 2D part of PC gaming culture and popular titles are seeing
platformer Cave Story in 2004 by Japan’s Daisuke them often.
Amaya. The game was “developed in his free time over Another common PC trend that began in the mid-
the course of five years. Amaya wrote, developed, 2000s was episodic gaming, where games are released in
designed, composed, and everything else imaginable in smaller segments over a period of time and players
this game himself” (Watlington, 2015, para. 5). essentially pay for each new chapter of the game. This
It would be several years before the indie gaming more modern take on the previous concept of expansion
scene would really gain momentum with 2D platformers packs can be seen in NCsoft’s Guild Wars (2005) and
Braid (Figure 11.10a) by Jonathan Blow (2008) and Valve’s own Half-Life series with Half-Life 2: Episode
Spelunky by Derek Yu (2009). The indie game move- One (2006) and Half-Life 2: Episode Two (2007). Some
ment continued into 2010 with Limbo by Danish companies such as Telltale Games (California) have
developer Playdead and Super Meat Boy by American built their entire development cycle around this struc-
designers Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes. ture. This can lead to extra publicity when each new
These and many other indie games homed in on the 2D chapter of a game is released, versus the single release of
platformer style of gaming that was both easier to standalone title.
program for and a style of game that most large Lastly, Steam has become a huge social network for
publishers had long since abandoned in favor of 3D. The gamers. Each gamer has his or her own page (public or
year 2011 was particularly big for indie games with private) which lists the player’s achievements, game wish
Terraria by Re-Logic (Floyds Knobs, IN) and Minecraft lists, and other information. The platform includes
(Figure 11.10b) by Mojang (Stockholm, Sweden) which community features such as friend lists and groups, as
emphasized exploration and construction. Successful well as in-game voice and chat functionality where users
indie role-playing titles that year included Bastion by can communicate freely. Gamers can identify when their
Supergiant Games (San Jose, CA) and To the Moon by friends are online and what games they are playing, in
Canadian developer Freebird Games. The indie market addition to inviting friends to their groups and joining
would see more success in 2012 with games like Fez, other groups for multiplayer interactions.
FTL: Faster than Light, and Journey.
In addition to the indie scene, Steam has been a big
DID YOU KNOW?
supporter of mods, such as Garry’s Mod (or GMod) in
2006. The sandbox physics game was created by Garry A Steam app was released for iOS and Android in 2012,
Newman as a mod for Valve’s Half-Life 2, and like and Windows Phone in 2016. The app allows users to
manage games, browse the storefront, and chat with
Counterstrike, was later made into a standalone release. friends.
There is even the “Steam Workshop,” an account-based
FIGURE 11.10 Screenshots from popular indie titles: (a) Braid (2009) and (b) Minecraft (2011).
(a) (b)
◾ VIRTUAL ONLINE WORLDS massively multiplayer online with The Sims Online
(Figure 11.11a) in 2002.
Beyond Steam and MMORPGs, another type of game The following year a new virtual online world
(if it can be called that) has become a common form of emerged from Linden Lab with Second Life in 2003.
social interaction in the twenty-first century—virtual “Second Life pioneered the idea of a virtual world built
online worlds, sometimes referred to as massively by its users, and the freedom to build anything from a
multiplayer online worlds (MMOWs). Dr. Carina fully interactive Neverland to a functional virtual uni-
Girvan (2013) has defined such a world as “a persistent, versity” (PC Gamer, 2016, p. 4). The use of real currency
simulated and immersive environment, facilitated by exchange in virtual worlds like Second Life (called
networked computers, providing multiple users with “Linden Dollars”) has led many of its million or so users
avatars and communication tools with which to act to a focus on using the platform to design and sell virtual
and interact in-world and in real-time” (p. 4). An items, from virtual clothing and accessories, to the
avatar is the user’s virtual representation of him or her, construction and sales of virtual real estate.
also regarded as the user’s “alter ego” or his or her Users like Anshe Chung, Second Life (Figure 11.11b)
“character.” avatar of real-life Ailin Graef have made a living
The game that popularized the genre was “life simu- “farming” such virtual goods and selling them in the
lation” game The Sims (2000) by Will Wright. virtual community. Graef became the first virtual mil-
According to John Seabrook from The New Yorker lionaire in 2006 from buying and developing virtual land
(2006), “while he was at home with his daughter, Wright and then renting or reselling the plots to other users
began to turn over the idea for a new game, a kind of (Parloff, 2005, para. 3). Chung is rumored to have earned
interactive doll house that adults would like as much as $2 million over a period of just 30 months.
children” (pp. 15–16). A similar success story can be found with the real-life,
The avatars players create in The Sims are referred to British actor/entreprenuer Jon Jacobs and his avatar
as “sims” and the gameplay revolves around the Neverdie in the virtual Project Entropia (now Entropia
sandbox-style game where players are free to roam about Universe) (Figure 11.11c). Jacobs mortgaged his home in
and interact with objects and characters. “Each sim also 2005 to buy a virtual asteroid for $100,000. He then
has six learnable skills (cooking, mechanical, charisma, constructed a virtual space resort called “Club Neverdie”
body, logic, and creativity), which not only affect the way which attracted players with “more than a dozen bio-
a sim interacts with his fellow sims but also how well he domes, a night club, stadium and a mall, where other
can make use of the objects in his house and how well he players flocked to spend real cash on virtual goods and
can perform his job” (Park, 2000, para. 4). The Sims went services” (Chiang, 2010). Jacobs sold Club Neverdie in
on to sell more than 16 million copies and holds 2010 for a total of $635,000.
numerous records, including “Best-Selling PC Game” in Interacting in massively multiplayer online games
the Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2016 and virtual worlds can be a great escape from reality for
(Guinness World Records, 2015, p. 185). The series went many people, as well as a safe environment to let go of
FIGURE 11.11 Screenshots of (a) The Sims Online, (b) Second Life, and (c) Entropia Universe.
(a) (b) (c)

TABLE 11.4 Memorable Virtual Worlds (Listed Alphabetically)

Title/Country/Launched Title/Country/Launched
Active Worlds (USA, 1995) PlayStation Home (England, 2008)
Blue Mars (USA, 2009) Second Life (USA, 2003)
Entropia Universe (Sweden, 2003) SmallWorlds (New Zealand, 2008)
Habbo (Finland, 2000) There Inc. (USA, 2003)
IMVU (USA, 2004) Twinity (Germany, 2008)
Onverse (USA, 2009) Whyville (USA, 1999)
inhibitions and release a side of the personality that next couple of years and many of these titles were ported
may otherwise be suppressed (see Table 11.4). These to mobile gaming platforms.
worlds may also be beneficial to the disabled or The popularity of social gaming peeked in 2012 and
chronically ill, where they can create an avatar free of then saw a steady decline as “revenue from social gaming
their disabilities or illnesses and temporarily engage in apps fell 10 percent year over year” through 2015
activities they may not be capable of in real life. Virtual (DiChristopher, 2015, para. 2). Zynga’s stock price
worlds can also provide people with social disorders plummeted from $14.69 to less than $3 per share and
a more comfortable environment to socialize and form Electronic Arts shut down its Facebook-based social
friendships. It is not uncommon to hear stories of games SimCity Social, The Sims Social, and Pet Society in
cyber-dating and even virtual marriages that have June 2013. While fewer consumers were playing these
occurred in these worlds—including people who have games on social networks, social gaming remained
taken such relationships into the real world. Precau- popular on mobile devices. Social capabilities in games
tions should always be taken since avatars may not continue to be integrated in games today, where games
accurately portray their users. like World of Warcraft and GTA V allow players to
interact in a personal capacity.
Strategy, RPG, and casual games remained the dom-
DID YOU KNOW? inant platforms on PC. Other genres that remained
strong on PC included simulation, adventure, first-
Researchers at Syracuse University studied 375 people
playing World of Warcraft and found that 23% of male person shooters, and MOBAs. MOBAs such as Riot
players chose female avatars, while 7% of female par- Games’ League of Legends (2009), Valve’s DotA 2 (2013),
ticipants played as male characters (Duntley, 2014, p. 1). Hi-Rez Studios’ Smite (2014), and Blizzard Entertain-
ment’s Heroes of the Storm (2015) continue to be
popular among gamers and eSports fans.
◾ RECENT TRENDS Viewing video games online has become a prevalent
trend, not only through eSports, but also from modern
The year 2009 saw an emergence of online social games technology that allows gamers to record or stream their
that permit or require social interaction between players. gameplay live. YouTube remains the world’s largest
Some of the most popular social games are actually video streaming website, while Amazon subsidiary
“social network games” played through social networks Twitch (twitch.tv) has become a phenomenon in the
such as Facebook. It was farming games like Zynga’s gaming world. Twitch is host to over 1.5 million
Farmville (2009) [influenced by Happy Farm in China broadcasters and a place for 100 million fans to watch
(2008)] that helped the genre gain mainstream popu- and chat about their favorite video games every month
larity (Kohler, 2009, para. 6). Other Zynga titles that (Needleman, 2015).
helped lead the social gaming revolution included Mafia Watching video games has become so popular that
Wars (2008) and the top-ranking Words with Friends according to the Guinness World Records (2015), “more
(2009). Social gaming would continue to grow over the than 27 million unique viewers tuned in to the Season 4
League of Legends World Championship finals [on October provides a smoother multiplayer experience, while also
19, 2014] with a peak audience figure of 11.2 million” helping counter video game piracy.
(p. 29). Compare that to the 10.3 million viewers for the Virtual reality (VR) made its mainstream debut with
season finale of the hit TV show Breaking Bad in 2013. a series of VR headsets released for Windows in 2016.
Indie games are garnering more attention than ever Oculus Rift was released for PC on March 28, 2016 by
before. Minecraft (2011) became the best-selling indie Oculus VR (purchased by Facebook in 2014). The fol-
game of all time with 60 million copies sold before lowing week HTC and Valve Corporation released the
Swedish developer Mojang was acquired by Microsoft in HTC Vive VR headset on April 5, 2016. Oculus Rift
2014 (Guinness World Records, 2015, p. 103). The indie launched at $599 and HTC Vive for $799, however, the
scene has continued to deliver consistent hit titles price of a powerful PC must be added to that cost for a
including Guacamelee! by DrinkBox Studios (Toronto) more accurate total of around $2,000. Sony released its
and Gone Home by Fullbright (Portland) in 2013; as own PlayStation VR for the PS4 for just $399 on
well as Monument Valley by Ustwo Games (London) October 13, 2016. For more information on PlayStation
and Shovel Knight by Yacht Club Games (Valencia, CA) VR, see Chapter 15: Modern Console Gaming.
in 2014. Then there are the mobile VR headsets like the
Subsequent years saw the indie scene grow even more Samsung Gear VR ($99), which is used in tandem with
prominent with games such as Axiom Verge by Thomas a compatible mobile device such as the Samsung Galaxy.
Happ Games (Las Vegas) and Undertale by Toby Fox Early VR titles have wowed those who have experienced
(Boston) in 2015; Owlboy by D-Pad Studio (Norway) their head-tracking immersion, however, most of these
and Hyper Light Drifter by Heart Machine (Los Angeles) games have felt more like tech demos rather than fully
in 2016; as well as Night in the Woods by Infinite Fall realized video games. The potential is certainly there,
(Manitboa/Pittsburgh) and Pyre by Supergiant Games but initial sales have been relatively slow.
(San Jose, CA) in 2017.
Another current trend includes cloud gaming by ◾ MARKET SUMMARY
companies such as Crytek’s Gface, Nvidia’s GeForce
Now, and OnLive (which was acquired by Sony Com- Reviewing the numbers behind the events in this
puter Entertainment in 2015). With cloud gaming (also chapter, PCs and clones “went from a 55[%] market
called “gaming on demand”), the rendering of the game share in 1986 to an 84% share in 1990. The Macintosh
takes place on an external “cloud” server which streams stabilized at about 6% market share and the Amiga and
game video or game files to the players. Cloud gaming Atari ST at around 3% each” (Reimer, 2005, p. 6). By
FIGURE 11.12 Computer sales in thousands of units in the early 1990s (Reimer, 2012).
50,000
40,000
Atari ST
30,000 Amiga
Macintosh
IBM PC + clones
20,000
10,000
0
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
December of 1992, Computer Gaming World (1992) rates of 100 million units per year, while Macintosh sales
reported that MS-DOS software accounted for 82% of fell from 4.5 million in 1995 to just 2.7 million in 1998”
computer game sales, while Macintosh held an 8% (Reimer, 2005, p. 8). Windows 95 was a major con-
share, leaving Amiga with 5% (p. 156) (Figure 11.12). tributor to the PC industry boom and Microsoft con-
Apple would reach an average 9% market share for a tinued to release prominent successors such as Windows
couple of years before dropping down to around 3% XP in 2001 and Windows 7 in 2009.
toward the end of the decade. Traditional, retail packaged software sales declined
The end of the Atari ST was in sight when only 30,000 while digital and free-to-play revenues continued to
units were sold in 1993. This would be followed by the grow. A key pioneer of this shift from PC retail to digital
commercial failure of its Jaguar home console, leading retail and F2P is Steam. Steam really took off between
to the 1996 merger of Atari and hard drive manufacturer 2012 and 2015 (see Figure 11.13), with the quantity of
JTS (named after co-founders Jugi Tandon and Tom Steam games released per year rising from just over 500
Mitchell from Seagate). Not long after the merger, the new games in 2013, to over 1500 titles in 2014, and
company ran out of money and the Atari intellectual nearly 3500 new titles in 2015. Concurrently, active
property was sold to Hasbro in 1998. Finally, Hasbro was Steam users rose from more than 60 million in October
purchased by Infogrames Entertainment (IESA) in 2001, 2013 to over 150 million users by March 2016 (EEDAR,
where Atari, Inc. has remained a wholly owned subsidiary. 2016, pp. 33–47). “What’s more, the overall revenue for
Even with its best-selling Amiga 500 and moderate paid games on the platform [was] estimated at a stag-
success with the A1200, Commodore would not be able gering $3.5 billion for 2015” (Clayton, 2016, p. 1).
to keep up with the explosive sales of IBM and PC According to SuperData Research (2016), “interac-
compatibles. Poor decisions such as its release of the tive entertainment generated $91 billion in revenues in
inferior A600 further complicated matters. “Stuck with 2016” with $40.6 billion spent on mobile gaming (up
tons of old machines that couldn’t sell and unable to 18%) and $35.8 billion on PC gaming (up 6.7%). Retail
build enough new machines for the Christmas ‘93 games generated $6.6 billion on digital downloads and
season, the company fell into a downward financial another $2.7 billion on virtual reality. The video game
spiral which led inevitably to its bankruptcy in April industry is bigger than ever with more platforms than
1994” (Reimer, 2005, p. 7). ever before. With so many options, the most difficult
PC compatible sales continued to rise while “Macin- question for many gamers might be: “What game
tosh sales slumped. By 1998, PCs were closing in on sales should I play next?”
FIGURE 11.13 PC market video game revenues in North America (EEDAR, 2016, p. 47).
$4,000
$3,500
$3,000
$2,500
Revenue (Millions)
$2,000
$1,500
$1,000
$500
$0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
PC retail Digital retail F2P

◾ ACTIVITY: LET’S NETWORK

There are many ways gamers and game fans can get together and share an online gaming experience. Let’s get
together in one of these capacities and experience it firsthand.
GUIDELINES
A computer will be necessary for each person in this activity. Discuss what platform (MMORPG, virtual
world, Twitch, etc.) everyone would like to collaborate in and proceed to the appropriate website. Note that most
of these platforms require a user account, so participants must be willing to create an account to proceed. When
applicable, one user should create a group and share the name of that group for everyone else to locate and join.
Spend 30 minutes or so engaged in the online collaboration, communicating only through the computer and not
verbally in the room. Then take an additional 20–30 minutes to conduct a group SWOT analysis of the
experience.
◾ CHAPTER 11 QUIZ 5. Developer of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom known for

promoting networked multiplayer gaming, the
1. The last two major gaming computers by Atari and concept of the “deathmatch,” the shareware distri-
Commodore included the: bution method, and game modding:
a. ST and Amiga a. Ad Lib
b. ST and Macintosh b. BioWare
c. Amiga and PCJr c. Creative Technology
d. Amiga and PC-compatible d. id Software
2. Became prominent for video applications like Video

Toaster with its genlock ability: 6. Became the mainstream operating system of both
a. ST the general public and game developers in 1995:
b. Amiga a. Linux
c. Macintosh b. OS/2
d. PCJr c. OS X
d. Windows 95
3. Who was not affiliated with Charles Ranlett Flint’s
consolidation to form IBM? 7. Which of the following is an application program-
a. Willard Bundy ming interface (API)?
b. Alexander Dey a. DirectX
c. Bill Gates b. OpenGL
d. Julius E. Pitrat c. Direct3D
d. All of the above
4. Many early PC games ran on ___________ in which
a command prompt would appear on the screen 8. Which game title was not one of the “big three”
requiring the user to enter a series of commands to Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
launch the program: (MMORPG) pioneers of the late 1990s?
a. DOS a. Asheron’s Call
b. Linux b. EverQuest
c. OS X c. Ultima Online
d. Windows d. World of Warcraft
9. Which of the following titles is not considered a a. 23% of males and 7% of females
real-time strategy (RTS) game? b. 53% of males and 27% of females
a. Age of Empires c. 17% of males and 23% of females
b. Command & Conquer d. None of the above
c. Guild Wars
d. StarCraft 16. A _________ gamer could be defined as a person
who is willing to build his or her schedule around
10. 3D accelerator cards like 3dfx Voodoo were even- gaming, whereas a __________ gamer simply fits in
tually outmuscled by GPUs such as: gaming when they have time:
a. Microsoft’s Direct3D a. hardcore | casual
b. Nvidia’s GeForce 256 b. casual | hardcore
c. Silicon Graphics’s OpenGL c. MOBA | MMOW
d. None of the above d. MMOW | MOBA
11. In September 2003, a new digital distribution plat- 17. Became wealthy by selling virtual real estate as alter
form called Steam was released by: egos Anshe Chung and Neverdie:
a. Apple a. Ailin Graef and Jon Jacobs
b. Bethedsa b. Daisuke Amaya and Jon Jacobs
c. Microsoft c. Ailin Graef and Daisuke Amaya
d. Valve d. Minh Le and Jess Cliffe
12. Games that are typically developed by individuals or True or False

small teams who are free from the influence of big
publisher budgets and time constraints: 18. PC-compatible systems were essentially IBM-style
a. Freemium computers built by other companies and also
b. Indie games referred to as “IBM clones.”
c. MMORPGs
d. None of the above 19. The abbreviation MMORPG stands for “Mass
Multimedia Role-Playing Game.”
13. A virtual representation of a user, also called the
user’s “alter ego” or “character”: 20. Purchasable downloads such as extra maps (stages),
a. Alias costumes, sports teams, and other bonus content are
b. Avatar known as “macro-transactions.”
c. Bug
d. Mod ◾ FIGURES
Title page image: Myst (Cyan Worlds/Broderbund, 1995), The Sims
14. Popularized virtual life simulation games with the
Online (Maxis/EA Games, 2002), World of Warcraft (Blizzard
best-selling game The Sims in 2000: Entertainment, 2004), and League of Legends (Riot Games, 2009).
a. Gary Newman
b. Daisuke Amaya
FIGURE 11.1 Atari ST (a) and Commodore Amiga 500 (b) with
c. Jon Jacobs peripherals. (Right: “Commodore Amiga 500, 16-bit computer
d. Will Wright (1987) Post Processing: BG, B/C, spot, composite picture.” By Bill
Bertram - own work, CC BY-SA 2.5. Available at https://commons
15. Researchers at Syracuse University studied 375 .wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=350965. Retrieved from https://
people playing World of Warcraft and found that en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga#/media/File:Amiga500_system.jpg.
___ % of male players chose female avatars, while Left: “Atari 1040STf” CC BY-SA 2.5. Available at https://commons
___ % of female participants played as male char- .wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=500910. Retrieved from https://
acters: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST#/media/File:Atari_1040STf.jpg)
FIGURE 11.2 Screenshots of popular computer titles: Dungeon FIGURE 11.12 Computer sales in thousands of units in the early
Master (FTL Games, 1987 [a] on the Atari ST) and The Secret of Monkey 1990s. (Adapted from data by Reimer, Jeremy. “Personal Computer
Island (Lucasfilm Games, 1990 [b] on the Amiga 500) by Wardyga. Market Share: 1975-2004” 2012. Retrieved from http://www
(The Secret of Monkey Island courtesy of Lucasfilm Games, 1990; and .jeremyreimer.com/m-item.lsp?i=137)
Dungeon Master courtesy of FTL Games, 1987.)
FIGURE 11.13 PC Market Video Game Revenues in North
America (EEDAR, 2016, p. 47). (“EEDAR - GDC2016 -Awesome
FIGURE 11.3 Print advertisement for the Commodore Amiga 500
Video Game Data Distribute” by Geoffrey Zatkin 2016. Retrieved
in 1987. (“Commodore Computers” posted by Bill and Renee
from http://www.eedar.com/Pres/EEDAR%20-%20GDC2016%20
Sanguinetti. Retrieved from http://www.magazine-advertisements
-Awesome%20Video%20Game%20Data%20Distribute%20[Geoffrey
.com/uploads/2/1/8/4/21844100/commodore-computers-2-1.jpg)
%20Zatkin]%20v2.7.pdf)
FIGURE 11.4 IBM PC 5150 magazine advertisement from 1982. Pro File: Will Wright. Photo credit: “Will Wright speaks at South by
(My Own IBM Computer Ad for the IBM PC 5150 from 1982. Byte Southwest,” March 13, 2007 by Nathan Borror. Retrieved from
Magazine, January 1982, p.61. UBM.) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Will_Wright_at_SXSW
.jpg dia.org/w/index.php?curid=31557628.
FIGURE 11.5 A look at the MS-DOS prompt screen. Screenshot by
Wardyga. ◾ REFERENCES
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FIGURE 11.6 Screenshots from popular early 1990s PC titles:
classification. Dublin, Ireland: School of Computer
(a) Myst (Cyan Worlds/Broderbund, 1995) and (b) The 7th Guest
Science and Statistics (SCSS) at Trinity College Dublin.
(Trilobyte/Virgin Interactive, 1993) by Wardyga. (Myst courtesy Retrieved from https://www.scss.tcd.ie/publications
of Cyan Worlds/Broderbund, 1995; and The 7th Guest courtesy of /tech-reports/reports.13/TCD-CS-2013-10.pdf.
Trilobyte/Virgin Interactive, 1993.)
Chiang, O. (2010, November 13). Meet the man who just
made a half million from the sale of virtual property.
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-made-a-cool-half-million-from-the-sale-of-virtual
-property/.
FIGURE 11.8 Screenshots from popular mid-1990s PC titles:
(a) Quake (id Software, 1996) and (b) Ultima Online (Origin/Electronic Clayton, D. (2016, January 26). The history of pc gaming.
Arts, 1997) by Wardyga. (Quake courtesy of id Software, 1996; and Retrieved from http://www.geeksquad.co.uk/articles
Ultima Online courtesy of Origin/Electronic Arts, 1997.) /gaming/2012/07/the_history_of_pc_gaming.
DeWitt, L. (2000, April). Research note #6: Early automation

FIGURE 11.9 Screenshots of late hit 1990s titles: (a) Half-Life challenges for SSA. Retrieved from https://www.ssa.gov
(Valve Software/Sierra Entertainment, 1998) and (b) EverQuest /history/ibm.html.
(Sony Online Entertainment, 1999) by Wardyga. (Half-Life courtesy
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www.cnbc.com/2015/04/16/zynga-and-mark-pincus
-face-declining-social-games-sales.html.
FIGURE 11.10 Screenshots from popular indie titles: (a) Braid
(Number None Inc., 2009) and (b) Minecraft (Mojang AB, 2011) by Duntley, S. M. (2014, May 12). Syracuse University researchers
Wardyga. (Braid courtesy of Number None Inc., 2009; and Minecraft help figure out whether that female avatar player is really
courtesy of Mojang AB, 2011.) a woman. Retrieved from http://www.syracuse.com
/news/index.ssf/2014/05/how_to_tell_if_that_female
_avatar_player_is_really_a_woman.html.
FIGURE 11.11 Screenshots of (a) The Sims Online (Maxis/EA
Games, 2002), (b) Second Life (Linden Lab, 2003), and (c) Entropia EC-Council (International Council of E-Commerce Consult-
Universe (MindArk, 2003) by Wardyga. (The Sims Online courtesy of ants). (2010). Computer forensics: Investigating network
Maxis/EA Games, 2002; Second Life courtesy of Linden Lab, 2003; intrusions and cybercrime. Clifton Park, NY: Cengage
and Entropia Universe courtesy of MindArk, 2003.) Learning. pp. 9–26.
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from http://www.computerhope.com/history/game.htm. million active subscribers. Retrieved from http://www
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-compute-magazine/Compute_Issue_079_1986_Dec personal computer market share figures. Ars Technica.
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Hoffman, C. (2014, May 11). PCs before windows: What using
MS-DOS was actually like. Retrieved from http://www Seabrook, J. (2006, November 6). Game master: Will Wright
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-using-ms-dos-was-actually-like/. he do it again with Spore? The New Yorker. Retrieved
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Schenck, B. (2011, February 7). Freemium: Is the price right
for your company? Entrepreneur. Retrieved from http://
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Kohler, C. (2009, December 4). The 15 most influential games
of the decade. Wired. Retrieved from https://www.wired Super Data Research. (2016). Market brief: Year in review
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Ivory, J. D. (2015, September). History of video games. In Watlington, W. (2015, March 17). A short history of indie
Kowert, R. & Quandt, T. (Eds.), The video game debate: games, and a look into the future. Retrieved from https://
Unravelling the physical, social, and psychological effects of updownright.com/2015/03/07/a-short-history-of-indie
video games. (p. 1-15). New York and London: Routledge. -games-and-a-look-into-the-future/.
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Compaq’s rise to pc domination. Retrieved from http:// tion Spring Symposium 1993. Computer Gaming World,
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-compaq/#faDEVcxERsqy. /galleries/issues/cgw_107.pdf.
CHAPTER 12
The Seventh Generation
◾ OBJECTIVES

• Have a sense of graphics and other capabilities of seventh-generation games.
• Be familiar with the technological differences among seventh-generation consoles.
• Summarize a brief overview of what made each video game console unique.
• Review the main video game contributions of Hideo Kojima.
• Be familiar with the handheld systems released during this time period.
• Summarize seventh-generation market sales.
• Explain why Nintendo dominated the seventh-generation market.
• Recognize the people who helped pave the way for these games and consoles.
• Describe the breakthroughs and trends in gaming during this era.
295

Accelerometer Gyroscope Nintendo DS/Lite/DSi Toshiba
Achievements HDMI NIS America Touchscreen
J Allard Hers Experimental Design Nunchuk Trophy system
Amazon Prime Laboratory Nvidia Ubisoft
Analog Devices Hulu Operation Rainfall Universal Media Disc
Apple IBM Optical audio output Vertex shaders
Kenichiro Ashida Insomniac Pack-in title Virtual Console
ATI Technologies Kinect Pipelines WebTV team
BD-ROM Hideo Kojima Pixel shaders Wi-Fi
BioWare Ken Kutaragi PlayStation 3 Wii
Blades/NXE/Metro Jerry Lambert PlayStation Home Wii Balance Board
Bluetooth Leap year bug PlayStation Move Wii Menu
Blu-ray Life with PlayStation PlayStation Network Wii MotionPlus
Kevin Butler Linux PlayStation Plus Wii Speak
Cell Processor LPCM PlayStation Store Wii Wheel
Mark Cerny Memory Card Adaptor Pro Controller Wii Zapper
Classic Controller Memory Stick PSP Wiimote
CompactFlash Memory Unit slot Red Ring of Death Wireless Gaming Receiver
Component cable Messenger Kit Ring of light Wireless Keypad
Dashboard Microtransactions Hironobu Sakaguchi Wireless Network Adapter
Dolby Digital 7.1 Mii SD/Mini SD Xbox 360
Dual screen Shigeru Miyamoto Sensor Bar Xbox Live
DualShock 3 Motion controller Shader architecture Xenon
Gamer card Multicore Sixaxis Xenos
Teiyu Goto Naughty Dog Skins XrossMediaBar
GUI Navigation controller Stylus Xseed Games
Guide button Netflix Tag YouTube
Nintendo DS Xbox 360 Nintendo Wii
November 2004 November 2005 November 2006
March 2005 November 2006
PlayStation Portable PlayStation 3

The Seventh Generation ◾ 297
◾ ARCADE UPDATE Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova and later Guitar

Hero Arcade. A handful of pinball tables, fighting games,
NPD figures showed that the decline of the U.S. arcade and shoot ‘em ups could still be found—along with
industry in the late 1990s continued into the early to mid retro cabinets like Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man—but these
2000s (Ivanovs, 2016, p. 12). The number of traditional kinds of games were no longer prevalent in most U.S.
arcade venues plummeted from 10,000 to fewer than arcades.
3,000 and “according to Vending Times’ latest Census
of the Industry, the number of arcade game units ◾ THE SEVENTH GENERATION
nationwide—at locations ranging from mini golf spots to
movie theaters—sank from 860,000 in 1994 to 333,000 The seventh generation of video games began with
in 2004. Revenue from the games dropped from the North American release of the handheld Nintendo
$2.3 billion to $866 million in that period” (East Valley DS on November 21, 2004, followed by the Play-
Tribune, 2006, p. 1). Many considered the arcades dead. Station Portable (PSP) the following month. It would
By maintaining their focus on experiences unique be another year until Microsoft released the earliest
from gaming at home and repositioning themselves as seventh-generation home console, followed by offerings
“family entertainment centers,” North American arcades by Sony and Nintendo in late 2006. Home video games
rebounded from a 2003 low of 2500 game venues to 3500 would see many breakthroughs and changes during this
in 2008 (Hurley, 2008, para. 13). The resurgence of era, with influences from the mass adoption of HDTVs
arcades in the United States was helped in part by their and smart phones, to larger internal storage, a rise in
focus on food and drink service, party catering, and a online, indie, and casual gaming, as well as new ways of
variety of niche games and prizes. While still a far cry playing games using motion technology. A number of
from the “Golden Age,” arcades proved that they still these game changers came from Microsoft.
had a place in America as a social activity for both
younger and older gamers. By this time, most video ◾ XBOX 360
arcade game hardware was based on the exact same
technology as home consoles, such as the Dreamcast- The first console of the seventh generation was
compatible NAOMI and Atomiswave, the PlayStation Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (Figure 12.2) which released on
2-compatible System 246, and many others. Using the November 22, 2005 in the United States and the fol-
same technology greatly reduced development costs, lowing month in Japan and Europe. The extravagant
making it easy for developers to port arcade games to launch party involved a competition for tickets to “an
home systems and vice versa. undisclosed location in the Mojave desert,” which
Sega led the way with an accumulated 60 percent turned out to be “a retired military hangar in Palmdale,
share of the arcade market in 2006 (Kikizo, 2006, p. 2). Calif., that once housed the Space Shuttle. The massive
Rail shooters (Figure 12.1) and racing games remained set-up treated gamers to the first available consoles,
most popular, followed by rhythm games like Konami’s as well as demo stations and cryptic viral marketing
FIGURE 12.1 Screenshots of top arcade rail shooters from 2006: (a) Aliens: Extermination (Global VR), (b) Big Buck Hunter:
Call of the Wild (Raw Thrills), and (c) House of the Dead 4 (Sega).
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 12.2 Xbox 360 with controller. The original “Pro/Premium” package was bundled
with one wireless controller, a component (HD-
capable) AV cable, Ethernet cable, headset, and a
removable 20 GB hard drive. Early versions also
included a DVD remote control (Valdes, 2006, p. 2).
See Table 12.1 for launch titles.
Where Microsoft sold the original Xbox at a loss, the
360 was designed to be more cost-effective and easier to
program—although developers would have to learn how
to program for a more complex multicore chip. The
Xbox 360 was originally called “Project Xenon” after its
main CPU by IBM. Microsoft’s WebTV team worked
closely with major chip vendor ATI Technologies on
the development of its Xenos graphics chip.
Beyond its processors, the Xbox 360 advanced many
features from the previous generation, such as improv-
ing its Xbox Live online gaming service. Xbox Live
provided two membership options. The free “Xbox Live
Silver” option allowed for the creation of a gamer tag
(username) and a new ID type called a gamer card. “The
gamer card is a profile that displays a gamer’s interests,
skill level, competitiveness and gaming accomplish-
ments” (Valdes, 2006, p. 7). Silver plans also included
system and game updates, chat functionality, and other
downloadable content. For $59.99 per year, “Xbox Live
Gold” added the ability to participate in multiplayer
games online.
The original model required a separate Wireless
Network Adapter to connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi;
set-ups” (Huffman, 2013, para. 3). Two options were however, updates for Xbox Live “continuously trans-
initially available, including the core system for $299 formed the service and gave a new look or functionality
and the 20 GB hard drive version for $399. The system to the aging Xbox 360 hardware. It was a live service that
shipped 1.5 million units by year’s end, selling out of changed with a simple update of its software. By 2007,
900,000 systems in North America and 500,000 con- Microsoft had more than 8 million subscribers to Xbox
soles in Europe—although it struggled with just Live. By 2011, that number had climbed past 35 million”
100,000 units sold in Japan (Microsoft, 2006, p. 14). (Takashi, 2011, p. 3).
TABLE 12.1 Xbox 360 U.S. Launch Titles

• Amped 3 • Need for Speed: Most Wanted
• Call of Duty 2 (Figure 12.3a) • NHL 2K6
• Condemned: Criminal Origins • Perfect DarkZero
• FIFA ‘06: Road to FIFA World Cup • Peter Jackson’s King Kong
• GUN • Project Gotham Racing 3 (Figure 12.3b)
• Kameo: Elements of Power • Quake 4
• MaddenNFL 06 • Ridge Racer6
• NBA 2K6 • Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006
• NBA Live 06 • Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
FIGURE 12.3 Xbox 360 launch titles (a) Call of Duty 2 and (b) Project Gotham Racing 3.
(a) (b)
The original Xbox 360 design was created by Astro

DID YOU KNOW? Studios in San Francisco and manufactured by Hers
According to J Allard, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Experimental Design Laboratory in Japan. “While the
and Chief XNA Architect, rather than naming it “Xbox 2,” original Xbox looked like it was about to explode, the
Microsoft chose “Xbox 360” to represent a focus on Xbox 360 looked like it was inhaling” (Takashi, 2011,
“putting the gamer at the center of the experience” p. 4). Like the lights around the controller’s Guide
(Torres & Thorsen, 2005, para. 21).
button, the ring of light around the console’s power
button had four glowing green lights that provided
The Xbox 360 received a more comfortable, wireless information such as which wireless controllers were
standard controller that operated on either two AA active. Other messages the ring could display included
batteries or a rechargeable battery pack. It also included the overheating code where the left half of the ring would
backward compatibility with many original Xbox titles flash red—and the dreaded “General Hardware Failure”
such as Halo 2. Its emphasis on digital media distribution error indicated by three flashing red quadrants around
and social networking helped promote the indie game the power button. Known as the “Red Ring of Death,”
revolution and console games became a lot more like PC such hardware failures required users to ship their
games with updates as bugs were found and/or new game consoles to Microsoft for repairs.
content released and in-game microtransactions. Fur- The Red Ring of Death was a big problem and a
thermore, it was Microsoft and the Xbox 360 that 2009 reader poll by Game Informer showed a console
introduced the world to the concept of achievements— failure rate of 54.2% from nearly 5,000 respondents
digital rewards unlocked by completing various mile- (p. 11). Microsoft addressed the issue in an open letter
stones in a game. from then Vice-President of Microsoft’s Interactive
The 360 established a greater focus on the home Entertainment Business division Peter Moore. The
console’s GUI (graphical user interface), which like the letter was addressed to the Xbox Community and
original Xbox was called the Dashboard. The Xbox 360 stated, “if a customer has an issue indicated by the
Dashboard could be quickly accessed by pressing the three flashing red lights, Microsoft will repair the
Guide button in the center of the controller. The Guide console free of charge—including shipping—for three
button was “divided into four quadrants that light up to years from the console’s purchase date” (Moore, 2007).
provide gamers with different types of information The decision to repair every console with the Red Ring
during game play. For instance, during a split screen of Death cost Microsoft an estimated 1.1 billion dollars
multiplayer match, a particular quadrant will light up to (Crossley, 2016, p. 9). The problem was fixed for
indicate to a player which part of the screen he or she is subsequent versions of the system, including the Xbox
playing on at that time” (Valdes, 2006, p. 5). The console 360 S (Slim) released in 2010 and the Xbox 360 E in
also featured a ring indicator around the power button 2013. Table 12.2 summarizes the many different ver-
called the “ring of light.” sions if the console.
TABLE 12.2 The Many Versions of the Xbox 360 (not including special editions)
Model Debut Internal Storage Notes
Core 2005 None Bundled with a standard-definition
composite video cable and a wired
controller
Original 2005 20 and 60 GB Called “Pro” or “Premium,” with a
component cable, optional optical audio
output, and hard drive; 2007 version had
HDMI output
Arcade 2007 265 and 512 MB Replaced core system with a small amount
of internal memory and a wireless
controller
Elite 2007 120 GB Matte black finish and redesigned power
connector with a 175 W power supply
Super Elite 2009 250 GB More than double the hard drive space and
bundled with two wireless controllers
S (Slim) 2010 4, 250, and Slim design, built in WiFi, no Memory
320 GB Unit slots, 2 extra rear USB ports,
proprietary port for Kinect sensor; new,
quieter “Valhalla” motherboard; 50% less
power consumption
E 2013 4, 250, and Xbox One-inspired design, one less USB
500 GB port and no optical audio or S/PDIF
connections
Along with new shapes and sizes of its console, Numerous accessories were released for the Xbox 360,
Microsoft also reinvented the Xbox 360 Dashboard including various headsets, remote controls, removable
several times (Figure 12.4). The original Dashboard hard drives, force-feedback steering wheels, keyboard
(known as “Blades”) was the standard interface between and mouse, rhythm game controllers, microphones,
2005 and 2008. The second version was “NXE (New Xbox console skins (stickers), cooling systems, rechargeable
Experience)” in 2008, which could install full games onto batteries, and even a Messenger Kit featuring a minia-
the hard drive. The final Dashboard was the multimedia ture keyboard called the “Chatpad” that attached to the
rich, Windows Phone-inspired “Metro” design in 2011. standard controller. Gamers could even play compatible
FIGURE 12.4 Evolution of Xbox 360 Dashboard: (a) Blades, (b) NXE, and (c) Metro.
(a) (b) (c)

Xbox 360 games on a Windows computer with the ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON

Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows. Its Live Vision
Camera was like Sony’s EyeToy, allowing “players to At first glance, the casual consumer might assume that
create an in-game version of themselves in select games” the Xbox 360’s 3.2 GHz PC Tri-Core Xenon CPU
(Valdes, 2006, p. 5). (Table 12.3) is a little more than 10 times faster than the
Perhaps the console’s best-known peripheral was the 295 MHz “Emotion” CPU of the PS2. However, with a
Kinect, shown in Figure 12.5. Formerly known as tri-core processor, each core functions as a separate
“Project Natal,” the Kinect debuted on November 4, processor, resulting in faster computing and more effi-
2010 at Toys “R” Us in Times Square. The unique sensor cient energy consumption. And “because the Xbox 360
device was built with the ability of detecting full-body cores can each handle two threads at a time, the 360
3D motion, facial recognition, as well as recognizing user CPU is the equivalent of having six conventional pro-
voice commands. The “controller-free” experience cessors in one machine (Valdes, 2006, p. 3). Likewise, its
offered by Kinect was much more advanced than the 500 MHz GPU may appear just over twice the speed of
EyeToy and quickly earned the Guinness World Record the original Xbox and GameCube GPUs, but its dedi-
for “fastest selling consumer electronics device” with cated 10 MB of eDRAM makes the Xbox 360 chip much
8 million units sold in its first 60 days on the market—an faster than the raw numbers suggest.
average of 133,333 units per day between November 4 ATI built the Xbox 360 GPU on unified shader archi-
and January 3 (Guinness World Records, 2010). tecture, utilizing pixel shaders that alter the lighting,
FIGURE 12.5 2010 Ingram Micro ad featuring Xbox 360S, Kinect and Kinect Adventures!
TABLE 12.3 Xbox 360 Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Microsoft
Launch Price: $299.99 (Core) and $399.99
Release Date: 11/22/05 (US), 12/02/05 (EU), 12/10/05 (JP), 3/23/06 (AU)
Format: 12x speed DVD, CD, and HD DVD with add-on
Processors: Power PC Tri-Core Xenon CPU (3.2 GHz)
ATI Xenos GPU (500 MHz) with 10 MB of eDRAM
Performance: Up to 1080p HD/500 million raw PPS/240 GFLOPS
Memory: 512 MB GDDR RAM (700 MHz)
Sound: 256-channel, 48 kHz 16-bit audio with Dolby 5.1 support
color, and surface of each pixel to help smoothen out 3D ◾ KEY XBOX 360 TITLES
objects, giving them a more organic texture—as well as
vertex shaders that manipulate an object’s position in 3-D Close to 1200 games were released for the Xbox 360,
space, resulting in more realistic animation and special not including downloadable titles. Because it beat the
effects such as “morphing” (Valdes, 2006, p. 4). These competition by a full year, many multiplatform games
computations must be processed through the pipelines of were released on the 360 first. Being the lead platform
the chip. However, unlike last-generation consoles that (particularly in the first few years) meant that the Xbox
required several pipelines for multiple effects, the ATI card 360 versions of games were often superior. Such was
in the Xbox 360 was designed to process both types of the case with games like Assassin’s Creed, Bayonetta,
shaders over just one pipeline, making it much more Bioshock, F.E.A.R., and Fallout 3. It was the earliest
efficient. Other advantages included more RAM, polygon console to receive BioWare’s Mass Effect and had a
count, and its many multimedia features. number of RPG exclusives including multiple Fable
games, Blue Dragon, Tales of Vesperia, and Lost
HEAD-TO-HEAD
Odyssey (co-written by Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator
of Final Fantasy). Some of the biggest titles were war
To compare the graphics and sound between the Xbox
games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, along with its
360 and sixth-generation systems, check out each con-
sole’s version of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Tomb Raider:
best-selling Halo and Gears of War franchises shown in
Legend, Hitman: Blood Money, Burnout: Revenge, Figure 12.6.
Madden NFL 07, and NBA 2K7.
FIGURE 12.6 Box art to five popular 360 titles including: (a) Halo 3, (b) The Orange Box, (c) Mass Effect 3, (d) Grand Theft
Auto IV, and (e) Gears of War 2.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

HANDHELD SNAPSHOT: PSP FIGURE 12.7 PlayStation Portable.
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) (Figure 12.7) was released

in the United States on March 24, 2005 for $249. It was
the most powerful handheld for its time (see Table 12.4),
featuring optical UMD (Universal Media Disc) format for
both games and movies and an optional TV tuner.
The different PSP models were known by their series
code, that is, the original PSP was the PSP-1000, followed
by the slimmer PSP-2000 in 2007 (called “Slim” and
“Lite” in Europe), the mic-enabled PSP-3000 in 2008, and
the PSP Go (2009) which replaced the UMD drive with
16 GB of internal flash memory. The PSP-2000 and
3000 models could output video and stereo audio to a
television via component cable. More than 850 games
were officially released for the PSP, with 80+ million
systems sold. See Figure 12.8 for some of the best titles.
TABLE 12.4 PlayStation Portable Tech Specs

Format: UMD/3.7 V lithium-ion battery (4.5 to 7 hours)
Processors: 32-bit Sony CPU (333 MHz)/166 MHz 512-bit GFX core
Performance: 16.77 million 16 or 24-bit colors/33 million PPS
Memory: 32 MB RAM + 4 MB combined eDRAM
Resolution: 480 × 272 pixels/4.3" diagonal backlit LCD screen
Sound: Multichannel 3D sound, stereo speakers with 3.5 mm jack
FIGURE 12.8 Five defining PSP titles: (a) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, (b) Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories,
(c) Lumines, (d) WipEout Pure, and (e) God of War: Ghost of Sparta.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

◾ SONY PLAYSTATION 3 The PS3 released in Japan on November 11 and in the

United States on November 17, 2006. Europe and other
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) (Figure 12.9) was the most areas would not see the console until March 23, 2007,
powerful seventh-generation system. It was the first due to “problems in mass producing elements of the
Blu-ray console and its multicore Cell Processor (by high-definition Blu-ray disc drives in the machines”
IBM, Toshiba, and Sony) was “essentially seven micro- (BBC News, 2006, para. 3). Sony had initially planned to
processors on one chip, allowing it to perform several have 400,000 PS3 units ready for launch day, however
operations at once. In order to provide the sharpest research analyst Paul-Jon McNealy estimated that less
graphics of any game system, Sony turned to Nvidia to than 200,000 were available for its North American
build its graphics card” (Altizer, 2016, para. 8). debut (Baertlein, 2006, para. 3–4). Despite a successful,
star-studded launch party (see Table 12.5 for launch
FIGURE 12.9 PlayStation 3 with DualShock 3. titles), the shortage led to many empty-handed con-
sumers and resellers making a hefty profit on eBay, with
consoles selling for upward of $2,000.
The suggested retail price for the system was still a
whopping $599 for a 60 GB hard drive, built-in Wi-Fi
capability, and a flash card reader beneath a compart-
ment next to the disc slot (for CompactFlash (CF), SD/
Mini SD, and Memory Stick formats). A stripped-down
20 GB version was available for $499, but that model
lacked all the aforementioned features. “Sony had
essentially painted itself into a corner with the PS3’s
design. Between the system’s highly touted Cell proces-
sor and its inclusion of a Blu-ray drive before that
standard had established itself as the future ahead of
HD-DVD … as high as the U.S. retail price of the PS3
was, Sony was still losing up to $300 on every system”
(Sinclair, 2016, para. 5). Blu-ray ultimately won the
battle over HD-DVD as the next generation optical disc
and the PlayStation 3 was one of the most affordable
Blu-ray players at the time of its release—similar to the
PS2 as a DVD player 6 years earlier.
For its logo, PS3 console designer Teiyu Goto fol-
lowed SCEI president Ken Kutaragi’s wishes of using
the font from the then-current Spider-Man movies
which Sony had the rights to (Ogden, 2007, p. 1). The
original boomerang-shaped prototype controller was
TABLE 12.5 Sony PlayStation 3 U.S. Launch Titles

• Call of Duty 3 • NBA 2K7 (Figure 12.10a)
• Genji: Days of the Blade • NHL 2K7
• Madden NFL 07 • Resistance: Fall of Man (Figure 12.10b)
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance • Ridge Racer 7
• Mobile Suit Gundam: CF • Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07
• Need for Speed: Carbon • Tony Hawk’s Project 8
• NBA 07 • Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom
FIGURE 12.10 Screenshots from PS3 launch titles (a) NBA 2K7 and (b) Resistance: Fall of Man.
(a) (b)
replaced by a new Sixaxis controller than looked nearly Slim, coupled with a brand new logo and complete
identical to the PS2’s DualShock 2 controller. The Sixaxis redesign of its games’ packaging (see Figure 12.11).
pad contained a built-in, rechargeable lithium-ion The PS3 didn’t experience a failure rate epidemic like
battery, as well as motion sensing ability along the X, Y, Xbox 360’s Red Ring of Death; however, a 2009 study by
and Z axes for “six degrees of freedom.” The original warranty provider SquareTrade showed a 2-year failure
Sixaxis did not feature force feedback vibration until it rate for the original PlayStation 3 to be around 10%.
was upgraded and replaced by the DualShock 3 in 2008. Called the “yellow light of death” (YLOD) by the BBC’s
The PS3 contained numerous innovative features, such Watchdog program, Sony refuted the figure to be “less
as remote connectivity with PlayStation Portable and than half a percent of the 2.5 million consoles it has sold”
Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity with other devices. Its Cell (BBC News, 2009, para. 14).
processor contained eight cores (six accessible to devel- Other challenges the system faced included a leap
opers, one for the operating system and one for backup year bug on March 1, 2010, when numerous original
purposes). The CPU was so powerful that the U.S. military PS3 systems experienced problems with their internal
purchased a couple thousand PS3 consoles to cluster system clock, followed by a complete shutdown of the
together to form a giant PS3-based supercomputer PlayStation Network due to a massive external intrusion
(Stokes, 2009, p. 1). The original console even included (hack) on April 20, 2011. While the leap year bug was
the ability to install operating systems such as Linux, solved in about a day, the PSN outage lasted over three
although that feature would be removed with firmware weeks. CBS News reported that the security breach
update 3.21 in April 2010 due to security concerns. For affected more than 100 million online accounts and cost
game creation, the Core was such new and complex tech- Sony roughly $171 million in damages (Martinez, 2011).
nology that developers struggled with the chip early on. The network was restored on May 15 with no sign of
In addition to longer early development cycles, the credit card fraud and Sony offered users a section of free
new PlayStation Network (PSN) experienced a number digital perks as an apology.
of growing pains before it reached a comparable level Like the system’s inclusion and then removal of fea-
with Xbox Live. PSN could be accessed through the PS3 tures like Linux support and backward compatibility
GUI called the XrossMediaBar (XMB)—pronounced with PS2 games, the PSN saw a number of features come
“Cross Media Bar”—along with other services such as and go. Folding@home (March 2007–November 2012)
Photo, Music, Video, TV/Video Services, and Friends. It was an initiative with Stanford University where PS3
wouldn’t be until 2008 when Sony introduced its trophy users could share some of their console’s computing
system, PS3’s answer to Xbox 360’s achievements. power for disease research when the console was idle.
“Trophy support became mandatory for all new games Life with PlayStation (September 2008–November
in January 2009” (Hutchings, 2013, para. 5). The year 2012) provided users with weather forecasts and other
2009 would be a pivotal one for the console, with the news headlines. Then there was PlayStation Home
release of the smaller, lighter, and more efficient PS3 (December 2008–March 2015) which was a beta virtual
FIGURE 12.11 Old cover art and spine (a) and new style (b) for LittleBigPlanet: GOTY ed.
(a) (b)
TABLE 12.6 The Many Versions of the PS3 (not including special editions)
Internal
Model Debut Storage Notes
CECHAxx 2006 40 or 60 GB Also called “Fat,” had HDMI output,
CECHBxx Six axis controller, 4 USB2.0 ports, PS2
backward compatibile, Linux support
until update 3.21
CECHCxx 2007 60 and 80 GB 60 GB was PAL only; 80 GB was NTSC
CECHExx only, Wi-Fi and flash card readers now
standard; no Emotion chip = less
backward compatible
CECHGxx 2007– 40, 80, and Reduced to two USB 2.0 ports; no longer
through 2008 160 GB PS2 backward compatibile; added
CECHQxx DualShock3 controller in 2008; more
efficient Cell chip
CECH-20 2009– 120 and 250, Slim model; 33% smaller, 36% lighter
through 2010 then 160 and and consumes 34–45% less power
CECH-30 320 GB (Miller, 2009); cooler and quieter;
remote control with HDMI
CECH-40 2012 12, 250, and Super Slim model; approximately 25%
through 500 GB smaller and 20% lighter than PS3 Slim;
CECH-43 replaced motorized disc-loading slot
with a manual sliding cover
3D social networking service similar to Second Life, download movies to the PSP, and the PS3’s ability to
where users created an avatar to communicate, shop, create unique experiences” (Oravasaari, 2012, para. 8).
and engage in other virtual activities. The next 3 years featured the fictional PlayStation rep
Advantages to PSN included free multiplayer gaming Kevin Butler portrayed by actor Jerry Lambert (Figure
for all users and access to the PlayStation Store among 12.12b). The character had a different (humorous) sub-
other services. For an annual cost of $49.99, users could title for each commercial such as “Chief Weaponologist”
subscribe to PlayStation Plus—a premium PSN mem- and “VP of Fanboy Relations.” Dozens of these com-
bership that provided users with early or exclusive access to mercials were produced, featuring the popular “It Only
betas, game demos, and even complete games with its Does [fill in blank]” slogans.
“Instant Game Collection.” On par with Xbox 360, the Numerous accessories were released over the PS3’s
PS3 was also a popular platform for watching movies and lifespan. Controller peripherals included charging
TV shows with apps like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon stands, Blu-ray disc remotes, rhythm game peripherals
Prime. Also like the 360, the PlayStation 3 saw numerous like mics, guitars, and drum kits, as well as Buzz—a
different models over the years, with varying hard drive “buzzer” controller for game show titles featuring extra-
capacities and other changing features. Three years after large buttons in the same vein as Xbox 360’s Big Button
the remodeled PS3 Slim, Sony released an even smaller PS3 Pad controller. The Wireless Keypad featured a mini-
system called the Super Slim in late 2012. Table 12.6 ature keyboard that clipped onto the standard controller
summarizes the many different versions if the system. just like Xbox 360’s Messenger Kit. Logitech produced
For better or for worse, the PlayStation 3 had some several accessories such as the Driving Force GT steering
unforgettable television ads. The first series of ads took wheel/pedal combo and the Cordless Precision. Other
place in a white room, featuring all kinds of paranormal peripherals included headsets, a Memory Card Adaptor
activity and ending with the caption “PLAY B3YOND.” for previous generation game saves, an updated version
One ad featured a floating Rubik’s Cube that explodes in of the EyeToy called PlayStation Eye, and the PlayTV
the middle of the room, painting the walls blue, red, and digital video broadcasting (DVB-T) tuner peripheral
green, and the floor yellow. Another showed a floating with digital video recorder (DVR) functionality.
Sixaxis controller possessing a dozen eggs which roll Sony saw further development in the motion game
toward it before flying backward and crashing into the controller arena with the PlayStation Move in response
wall—turning into a horde of crows. Perhaps the to Microsoft’s Kinect and Nintendo’s seventh-generation
creepiest ad involved a deranged crying baby doll, whose controllers. The Move consisted of two different con-
tears suddenly retract before saying “ma ma” to a PS3 trollers: the motion controller was a wand that con-
console on the floor (Figure 12.12a). tained an orb at the end that glowed in various colors.
For the 2008 holidays, Sony released a series of It contained internal sensors in which the player’s
“Entertainment Unleashed” spots “that focused on movements could be tracked by PlayStation Eye or
creating a portrait of the PSN’s unrivaled ability to PlayStation Camera. The handle featured a large
FIGURE 12.12 Screenshots from PS3 (a) “baby” commercial and (b) a “Kevin Butler” spot.
(a) (b)
“Move” button in the center, surrounded by the four (Scammell, 2013, para. 1–2). It took most developers
action buttons, with the start and select buttons posi- years to master the Cell to finally get the most out of the
tioned on the sides. The underside of the controller chip, resulting in many of the best PS3 titles releasing
housed one analog trigger, while the base of the unit during the latter half of the console’s lifespan.
contained a USB port, extension port, and a wrist strap. As for their GPUs, the Xbox Xenos shared its 512 MB
The second controller was the navigation controller with its system RAM, while the PS3 had 256 MB of
which contained the left analog control stick, d-pad, and dedicated video RAM and could share another 224 MB
two trigger buttons (L1 and L2). Each controller con- from the system RAM. “The Xbox had an advantage
tained the PS button on the topside. with its 10 MB of eDRAM, however, the PS3’s 3.2 GHz
XDR RAM was much faster and more efficient than the
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: PS3 VERSUS Xbox 360’s 700 MHz GDDR3 RAM, giving the PS3 the
XBOX 360 performance edge” (Schedeen, 2010). Originally both
systems were backward compatible with last generation
Both the Xbox 360 Xenon and PS3 Cell Processor run at software (albeit far from perfect), however, Sony
3.2 GHz (see Table 12.7); however, the Cell contained more removed its Emotion Engine (PS2) chip in later models
than twice as many cores and a maximum of 230 Gflops and discontinued backward compatibility altogether by
(Floating Point Operations Per Second)—versus 240 2008.
Gflops of the 360’s CPU. Despite its core size advantage, While each system supported full high definition and
“the Cell Processor, for all its sophistication, had its plus- stereoscopic 3D games, being a Blu-ray drive allowed
ses and minuses. It was designed to support complex PS3 owners to also watch 3D Blu-ray movies on com-
programming—and, at the same time, to resist hacking. patible displays. Compared to Xbox 360’s dual layer
Unfortunately, the complexity of the system made it (DVD-9) discs that had an 8.5 GB capacity, PS3’s Blu-
so different from typical CPUs that developers became ray Disc ROM (BD-ROM) format could hold between
frustrated” (Altizer, 2016, para. 9). 25 and 33.4 GB of data. Games like Final Fantasy XIII,
Early cross-platform games on PS3 were commonly L.A. Noire, and Rage required three discs for the Xbox
inferior to Xbox 360 versions, featuring lower framerates 360 but only one disc for the PS3. The Xbox 360 had
and/or resolutions, as well as longer load times. PS4 stronger analog sound with Dolby Pro-Logic II support,
system architect Mark Cerny “admitted that PlayStation while the PS3 was the clear choice for players with digital
3 had a ‘weak lineup’ of titles available at launch … setups—offering DolbyDigital 5.1 (like Xbox 360), in
describing Cell as a ‘Rubik’s cube’ which made it difficult addition to supporting Dolby Digital 7.1 and LPCM
for developers to perform ‘the most basic tasks’” (linear pulse code modulation) output.

Launch Price: $499.99 & $599.99
Released Date: 11/11/06 (JP), 11/17/06 (US), 3/23/07 (EU)
Format: 2x Blu-Ray, 8x DVD, CD, and Super Audio CD
Processors: Cell Broadband Engine CPU (3.2 GHz)
Nvidia-based SCEI RSX “Reality Synthesizer” (550 MHz)
Performance: Up to 1080p HD/275 million PPS/228.8 GFLOPS
Memory: 256 MB XDR DRAM (system) and 256 MB GDDR3 (video)
Sound: 320-channel, Dolby 5.1 & DTS Surround
Wi-Fi speeds were the same for both consoles, but the of Man and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruc-
PS3 could connect to the Internet via Ethernet at 1 GB tion. Naughty Dog pioneered a new hit franchise with
per second, 10 times faster than the 360’s 100 MBps Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Hideo Kojima pro-
Ethernet speed. Furthermore, the PS3 supported duced another PlayStation exclusive with Metal Gear
Bluetooth 2.0 for connecting to various devices. Com- Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. A steady release of games
paring online networks, Xbox Live pioneered many followed with exclusive hits LittleBigPlanet, Resistance 2,
features that Sony often replicated afterward. Microsoft Valkyria Chronicles, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
led in this area most of the way, although the PSN was (shown in Figure 12.13). Cross-platform hits included
free and PlayStation Plus offered a lot of great exclusive Batman: Arkham Asylum/City and sequels to Assassin’s
content for paying members. By the end of the genera- Creed and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Starting with
tion both platforms’ online networks were fairly com- God of War: Collection in 2009, each year the PS3 would
parable. Likewise, neither the Kinect nor Move see more “HD Collection” bundles of popular PS2 series
peripherals advanced the consoles as much as initially on one Blue-Ray disc such as The Sly Collection in 2010.
expected, with each platform being limited to mostly
casual games.
DID YOU KNOW?
Up to this point, with each new generation, blockbuster

HEAD-TO-HEAD
titles have required more money and manpower to
To compare gameplay and graphics between the PS3 and produce and develop. “One Electronic Arts executive
Xbox 360, check out games released on both systems. For estimated that it took 20 employees to make a PlayStation
games superior on PS3, compare Darksiders, GTA V, L.A. game, 80 to make a PS2 game, and 150 to make a PS3
Noire, Tomb Raider, and Vanquish. For games superior on game” (Takashi, 2011, p. 1).
Xbox 360, compare Bioshock, DmC: Devil May Cry,
Ghostbusters, GTA IV, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Must-have titles really picked up after 2010 with
Heavy Rain and God of War III, and by 2011 most cross-
◾ KEY PLAYSTATION 3 TITLES platform games were equal to or better than their Xbox
360 counterparts. Sony’s last hurrah was in 2013 with a
Not counting its plethora of digital downloads, more slew of PS3 exclusives including Ni no Kuni: Wrath of
than 1400 titles were released for the PS3 on disc. Early the White Witch, The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, and
blockbuster titles included Insomniac’s Resistance: Fall Dragon’s Crown.
FIGURE 12.13 Five defining PS3 titles including: (a) Batman: Arkham City, (b) Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, (c) Grand Theft
Auto V, (d) The Last of Us, and (e) BioShock Infinite.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

HANDHELD SNAPSHOT: NINTENDO DS FIGURE 12.14 Nintendo DS.

The Nintendo DS (Figure 12.14) was the first seventh-
generation handheld, releasing before the PSP and first in
the United States on November 21, 2004 for $149. See
Table 12.8 for specs. While most gamers know the “DS” to
stand for the system’s dual screen display, Nintendo (2017)
claims it also stands for “Developers’ System” since “it gives
game creators brand new tools which will lead to more
innovative games for the world’s players” (p. 1).
Among those tools is a lower touchscreen which can be
used with fingers or a stylus. The original DS and the
slimmer DS Lite are backward compatible with GBA
games. The DSi models cannot play GBA games but add
digital cameras and other features. Over 1800 games were
published for the DS (see Figure 12.15 for top picks) and all
but Chinese-version games are region free. Altogether more
than 154 million DS systems have been sold, making it the
best-selling handheld video game system of all time
(Nintendo, 2016).
TABLE 12.8 Nintendo DS Tech Specs

Format: Mask ROM card/3.7 V lithium-ion battery (10 h)
Processors: 32-bit ARM946E-S CPU (67 MHz)/33 MHz co-processor
Performance: 262,144 colors/120,000 polygons per second
Memory: 4 MB (expandable via the Game Boy Advance slot)
Resolution: 256 × 192 pixels/dual backlit LCD screens (3" diagonal)
Sound: 16-channel, 8 and 16-bit PCM virtual surround/3.5 mm jack
FIGURE 12.15 Box art to DS hits (a) New Super Mario Bros., (b) Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, (c) The Legend of Zelda:
Phantom Hourglass, (d) GTA: Chinatown Wars, and (e) Mario Kart DS.
(a) (b) (c)
(d) (e)
◾ NINTENDO WII FIGURE 12.16 Nintendo Wii with Wiimote.
Originally known as the “Revolution” for its promise to

revolutionize video games, Nintendo’s Wii (Figure
12.16) became the company’s first home console to
release in the United States before Japan, launching in
New York’s Times Square on November 19, 2006 for
$249—less than half the cost of a PS3 at the time. The
system reached other countries in the following weeks
and would sell more than 1 million units during its
launch, with more than 600,000 of those systems sold in
the United States (Goldstein, 2006, para. 1).
In addition to being the most affordable new console
on the market, its Wii Remote (also called “Wiimote”)
set it apart from the competition from the very beginning.
Its simplistic design reduced the vast amount of action
buttons that had become mainstream on other consoles,
making it more accessible to non-gamers. Its resemblance
to a remote control gave it a familiar appearance, but it
also contained a built-in speaker and an accelerometer
(by Analog Devices) that could sense motion (Takashi,
2011, p. 6). Arriving roughly four full years before
Microsoft Kinect and PlayStation Move, the motion
controls offered by the Wii were one of a kind for a home
console and attracted gamers and non-gamers of all ages.
Nintendo took the complete opposite approach than
the competition, using less advanced but more estab- GameCube, Nintendo went with IBM for its main CPU
lished technology that was much more affordable (ren- and with ATI for its graphics processor—each of which
dering profits from day one). The system even featured were only a third faster than the chips in GameCube.
full backward compatibility with all 8 cm GameCube Other than added Wi-Fi capability and the capacity for
games and included four GameCube controller ports full-size 12 cm optical discs, the Wii’s RAM and polygon
and two memory card slots beneath its top panel. Like performance were also not huge leaps forward from the
TABLE 12.9 Nintendo

NintendoWii
WiiLaunch
LaunchTitles
Titles
• Avatar: The Last • Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
• Airbender • Monster 4×4: World Circuit
• Call of Duty 3 • Need for Speed: Carbon
• Cars • Rampage: Total Destruction
• Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 • Rayman
• Excite Truck • Red Steel
• Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy • SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature
• GT Pro Series from the Krusty Krab
• Happy Feet • Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
• Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess • Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam
(Figure 12.17a) • Trauma Center: Second Opinion
• Madden NFL 07 • Wii Sports (Figure 12.17b)
FIGURE 12.17 Screenshots of (a) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and (b) Wii Sports.
(a) (b)
previous system. This led to arguments by some jour- Like avatars on Xbox 360, users could create a “Mii”
nalists and gamers that the Wii was just an upgraded character of themselves (as shown in Figure 12.18). As
GameCube with motion controls. Further rumors have simplistic as the Mii characters looked, their style gave
indicated that motion controls were originally developed the console a unique personality of its own. Taking the
for the struggling GameCube. concept one step further, each Mii could be used as a
Regardless of its processing power or history, the playable character in games such as Wii Sports and over
Wii’s extensive launch lineup had something for every- 60 other titles.
one (Table 12.9). And just when the concept of a pack-in The main graphical interface for the Wii was the
title with a launch edition console seemed like a concept Wii Menu, which included various “channels” such as
of the past, Nintendo went against the grain even more the Disc Channel (which was where users opened disc-
by bundling Wii Sports with every console. The decision based Wii or GameCube games), the Mii Channel (for
to bundle such an accessible “killer app” game with the Mii creation), the Photo Channel (for loading picture
Wii was a remarkable strategy by Nintendo and most slideshows from an SD card), as well as weather
certainly played a major role in the console’s instant forecast and news channels. The Wii Shop Channel
success. provided online access to other Wii channels,
The console was created by GameCube designer including WiiWare and Virtual Console where users
Kenichiro Ashida along with Shigeru Miyamoto. Its could purchase downloadable versions of popular
disc slot produced a stylish blue glow and its simplistic titles from previous Nintendo consoles, as well as
design complimented the easy-to-grasp controls, resem- games from the Sega Master System and Genesis,
bling the look of many Apple products at the time. TurboGrafx-16, Neo•Geo, and many new, exclusive
Similar to how Sega removed their name from the fore- Wii titles. Like the other seventh-generation consoles,
front when marketing the Dreamcast, Nintendo’s name the Wii featured a web browser and downloadable
and logo took a backseat in the marketing of the Wii. channels such as YouTube, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and
The console was simply referred to as “Wii,” which was Amazon Video.
always written much larger and more pronounced than Along with the console, the original Wii package
“Nintendo” in its marketing and packaging. included Wii Sports, system manual, an external power
Its advertising featured players of all ages engaging in adapter, composite AV cable, a plastic gray stand (for
a shared Wii experience, as seen in Figures 12.18 and positioning the system vertically) with a clear round
12.19. Early advertising slogans included “Experience a base, Sensor Bar, one Wii Remote with batteries, and
new way to play” and “Wii would like to play.” one Nunchuk attachment used for controlling certain
FIGURE 12.18 Early Wii ad featuring Wii Sports.
games with an analog stick (featuring two action buttons Countless accessories were released for the Wii, with
labeled “C” and “Z”). many borderline gimmicks such as hollow plastic golf
clubs and rackets built to hold the Wiimote. While rel-
atively inexpensive, these often did very little to enhance
DID YOU KNOW? a person’s performance in the games they were designed
The term Wii is not an acronym or a previous word. for—although the Wii Wheel and Wii Zapper made
According to Nintendo, “Wii sounds like ‘we,’ which driving and shooting games more entertaining. For
emphasizes this console is for everyone. Wii can easily many of its retro and non-motion games, a Classic
be remembered by people around the world, no matter
Controller was released, resembling the Super Nintendo
what language they speak... Wii has a distinctive ‘ii’
spelling that symbolizes both the unique controllers and
controller with an additional two shoulder buttons and
the image of people gathering to play” (Carless, 2006, twin analog sticks. A Pro version was later released
para. 2). Also, it cannot be abbreviated. which featured more comfortable handles similar to the
PlayStation controller.
FIGURE 12.19 Nintendo Wii ad for Complex (2006) featuring Tim Leong and Jared Ryder.
The Wii MotionPlus adapter used gyroscope tech- controller ports and memory card slots used to be. The
nology to enhance the Wiimote’s accuracy in games such Wii Mini released a little over a year later. It was
as Wii Sports Resort, Red Steel 2, and The Legend of Zelda: Nintendo’s first major redesign of a console since the
Skyward Sword. The feature was later built into the Wii Super Nintendo SNS-101 in 1997, although beyond its
Remote Plus. Other accessories included a Wii Speak stylish, smaller size the Mini also removed GameCube
microphone, headsets, sensor bars, and popular rhythm compatibility. Furthermore, this model omitted all
game products (such as microphones, guitars, and networking abilities and was only capable of composite
drums). One of the most popular products was the Wii video output.
Balance Board for games like Wii Fit and We Ski. The
Balance Board earned a Guinness World Record for the ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: WII VERSUS
“Best-selling Personal Weighing Device” in November PLAYSTATION 3 AND XBOX 360
2010 when it sold over 32 million units (Whitehead,
2012, para. 1). It was never Nintendo’s intention to go head-to-head
Two variations of the Wii appeared late in the with Microsoft and Sony, and unlike those giants, the
console’s lifespan—neither of which were released in Wii was the only major seventh-generation console that
Japan and both of which were inferior to the original did not feature high definition resolution or HDMI
model. The first was the Wii Family Edition in 2011 support. Nintendo firmly believed that an affordable
which removed backward compatibility GameCube system with unique, motion control gameplay would
games and accessories. Its casing was identical to the help it standalone in this console war. As Miyamoto
original Wii, however, Nintendo haphazardly left explained, “power isn’t everything for a console. Too
empty holes under the top cover where the GameCube many powerful consoles can’t coexist. It’s like having
TABLE 12.10 Nintendo Wii Tech Specs

Release Date: 11/19/06 (US), 12/02/06 (JP), 12/07/06 (AU), 12/08/06 (EU)
Format: 6× speed 8 cm and 12 cm Optical Discs
Processors: IBM Power PC “Broadway” CPU (729 MHz)
ATI “Hollywood” GPU (243 MHz)/12 GFLOPS
Res/Perform: 720 × 480p, 16:9/49.5 million PPS (up to 30 million with effects)
Memory: 88 MB (24 int. + 64 ext.), 3 MB texture
Sound: 64-channel, Dolby Pro Logic II
only ferocious dinosaurs. They might fight and hasten four years on the market, the Wii was the only console to
their own extinction” (Cios, 2015, para. 9). feature such unique motion controls.
Comparing the Wii to the technical specs of the PS3
or Xbox 360 finds the Wii inferior in practically every
category (Table 12.10). Its network offerings were not as HEAD-TO-HEAD
robust as Xbox Live or PlayStation Network, but it was a
There were a number of games that were released on all
step in the right direction for Nintendo after the three seventh-generation consoles. Compare the
network-lacking GameCube. While Microsoft and gameplay and graphics to each system’s version of Call of
Sony’s machines contained internal hard drives up to Duty: Black Ops, Rock Band 2, Sonic & Sega All-Stars
hundreds of gigabytes in size, the Wii only contained Racing, and Tomb Raider: Underworld.
12 megabytes of internal flash memory and an SD card
slot for external storage. It shared certain features such
as wireless controllers, Wi-Fi connectivity, and the ◾ KEY WII TITLES
ability to stream Netflix—however, it lacked high defi-
nition resolution. More than 1500 games were officially released for the
Besides HDMI, the Wii also lacked optical audio Wii, not including download-only titles. More than 80%
output and was “physically unable to output audio in of these games reached U.S. retail shelves and, not unlike
Dolby Digital surround sound” (Casamassina, 2006, GameCube, the top 10 best-selling games on the Wii
para. 1). While it could accept full-size 12 cm optical were all from Nintendo (Hill, 2012, para. 9). Many Mario
discs, it was not programmed for DVD movie playback. titles were produced for the console, including the four-
It did feature Bluetooth capability, including wireless player New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Paper Mario,
connectivity with the Nintendo DS—something that was and two Super Mario Galaxy games. Other key titles
sorely lacking on Microsoft’s system. published by Nintendo included two new Zelda and
Like the Xbox 360 controller, the Wiimote required Kirby games, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Metroid Prime 3:
two AA batteries or a lithium-ion battery pack but Corruption (and Trilogy), Donkey Kong Country Returns,
lacked a built-in rechargeable battery like the PS3 con- Punch-Out!!, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, and Mario
troller. On the other hand, the Wiimote was the only Kart Wii.
seventh-generation controller to feature a built-in The system received decent third-party support from
speaker, which made for some unique gameplay expe- companies such as Capcom who published numerous
riences. For example, when shooting an arrow in The exclusives such as Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros,
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the sound of the Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, Monster
released arrow travels from the Wiimote to the television Hunter Tri, and two Resident Evil rail shooters. Sega also
speaker, creating a sense of depth. Moreover, for its first published several exclusive hits for the system such as
FIGURE 12.20 Five Wii hits: (a) Super Mario Galaxy, (b) Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, (c) Xenoblade Chronicles, (d) Super
Smash Bros. Brawl, and (e) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, The House of the Dead: generation thanks to the company’s commitment to
Overkill (later ported to PS3), MadWorld, and Sonic Xbox Live. The console was less-expensive to produce
Colors. Notable releases published by Ubisoft included its than PS3 although not as lucrative as Nintendo’s Wii,
Red Steel, Rayman, Rabbids, and Just Dance games, along taking around a year before the units began to turn a
with Grasshopper Manufacture’s No More Heroes 1 and 2. profit.
A few lesser-known titles that deserve mention While Microsoft was able to survive the Red Ring of
include Treasure’s Sin and Punishment: Star Successor, Death epidemic with its first model systems, it struggled
Vanilla Ware’s Muramasa: The Demon Blade, to make a dent in the Japanese market, selling even fewer
WayForward’s A Boy and His Blob, and Hudson units than the original Xbox with only 1.5 million sold
Entertainment’s Marble Saga: Kororinpa. In addition to after nearly 6 years on the market (Phillips, 2011, para. 1).
third-party support from Activision Blizzard, Electronic In comparison, Microsoft Corporation (2008) reported
Arts and Square Enix, the Wii was a popular platform that Xbox 360 had “sold over ten million units in the
for Japanese role-playing games during this genera- United States, making it the first [seventh] generation
tion. Numerous JRPGs were released by companies like gaming console to break the ten million mark in the
Xseed Games and NIS America. Some of the most U.S., and contributing to global sales of over 19 million”
cherished titles were among the Operation Rainfall (para. 1). In the end, the 360 sold more than three times
campaign which led to the Western localization of three as many units as the original Xbox, breaking 85 million
titles including Xenoblade Chronicles (2011) (shown units sold.
in Figure 12.20), The Last Story (2012), and Pandora’s Sony had a rough start with the PS3, with its high
Tower (2013). price tag that lost the company approximately $300 per
unit, along with some negative press to go with it.
“Sony’s Game division recorded a JPY 232.3 billion
◾ SEVENTH-GENERATION MARKET
SUMMARY [$1.97 billion USD] loss, primarily due to selling the PS3
lower than the manufacturing price, as well as the
Microsoft got off to an early lead by releasing the Xbox associated costs of the worldwide launch” (Martin, 2007,
360 a full year before Nintendo and Sony’s new consoles. para. 5). The following month, President of Sony
For the first few years, cross-platform games typically Computer Entertainment Ken Kutaragi announced his
looked and/or ran better on Xbox 360 because devel- plans to retire.
opers were more familiar with the hardware, which was It took most developers a couple of years to gain a
much easier to program for than the PS3. It was also the solid grasp on the Cell Processor and begin produc-
leading system for online gaming through much of the ing games that utilized more of the chip’s potential.
During that learning curve, the console suffered from a Wii surpassed the Xbox 360 in number of consoles sold
number of subpar ports compared to Xbox 360 ver- with 10.9 million units sold (Keiser, 2008). It was the
sions of the same games. Furthermore, games that used first time Nintendo led the home console market in
to be exclusives (or timed exclusives) on Sony consoles overall units sold since the Super NES three generations
(such as Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, and Resi- prior. More than 57 million Wii systems had been sold
dent Evil) began appearing on Microsoft’s system by December 2010, which at the time was nearly
simultaneously. equivalent to the total sales of Xbox 360 and PS3 con-
Falling manufacturing costs and the omission of soles combined (VGChartz, 2010, p. 1).
the Emotion Engine helped Sony become profitable; On top of becoming the generation leader in con-
however, the company continued to lose money on each soles sold, Nintendo was also enjoying a greater profit
console sold until around a year after the release of the margin since the Wii cost much less to manufacture.
PS3 Slim in 2010 (Reilly, 2010, para. 2). After domi- The company attained its goal of reaching a broader
nating the previous two generations with the PlayStation audience with the system, capturing the interest of
and PlayStation 2, Sony found itself in unfamiliar ter- gamers and non-gamers, young and old. It was not
ritory. For the larger part of the console’s lifespan, Sony uncommon at that time to hear stories of the Wii
was playing catch-up in North America where the “Xbox being played in nursing homes and retirement com-
360 outsold the PS3 in the U.S. for 32 consecutive munities, and other medical centers as a form of
months” (Metz, 2013, para. 1). rehabilitation.
It took Sony 6 years to catch up to Microsoft, tying the The Wii maintained the largest market share
number of units sold with Xbox 360 in November 2012 throughout the generation and by the end of 2011
at approximately 70 million (Gera, 2012, p. 1). Like Nintendo had sold 89.5 million Wii consoles for a
Microsoft’s console, the PlayStation 3 would go on to sell 44% market share. The Wii would go on to sell more
over 85 million systems—an exceptional comeback, but than 100 million units (Figure 12.21)—more than
still a far cry from the 155 million PS2 consoles it was four times the number of GameCube consoles sold in
able to move in the prior generation. The missteps of the the previous generation. On top of that, Nintendo’s
PS3 taught Sony many lessons and it would be careful portable DS system went on to sell over 150 million
not to repeat those mistakes with its next console. units—the best-selling handheld system of all time
Nintendo struck gold with the Wii, generally out- and second overall only to the PS2 which holds the
selling both Sony and Microsoft for numerous years record for best-selling home video game console of all
after its release. After just 20 months on the market, the time.
FIGURE 12.21 Seventh-generation console sales graph.
Xbox 360 > 85 million
PlayStation 3 > 85 million
Nintendo Wii > 100 million
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
◾ SEVENTH-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS

There were many breakthroughs and trends that defined the seventh generation of video games. Here is a list of the
top 10 features that defined the generation:
1. Higher definition display resolutions via HDMI (up to 1080p, PS3/Xbox 360)
2. Blu ray capability (PS3) and HD-DVD add-on (Xbox 360)
3. More advanced online capabilities (microtransactions, games, movies, social)
4. Standard wireless controllers and rechargeable lithium-ion battery packs
5. Motion controls with Wiimote, PS3 Move, and Xbox Kinect
6. Console games became more like PC games with patches and updates
7. Rise of casual and indie, and episodic games
8. Powerful multicore processors and more RAM to work with
9. Higher efficiency GPUs and hundreds of millions of polygons per second
10. Multitude of console versions with various hard drive capacities, and so on
◾ ACTIVITY: A VIRTUAL WORKOUT

In addition to entertainment-based games, a number of fitness titles were released during the seventh generation
to take advantage of each console’s motion control abilities.
GUIDELINES
Obtain a seventh-generation console with motion controls and other required accessories, along with one or two
compatible fitness titles, some comfortable clothing and sneakers. Also obtain one or two regular fitness DVDs
that do not contain any video game interactivity. Spend 10–15 minutes following the exercise routine from one
of the regular fitness DVDs, followed by 10–15 minutes of a similar exercise routine from one of the fitness video
game titles. Note that you may require additional time to enter personal information into the video game title
before proceeding to the workout.
QUESTIONS
1. How do the experiences compare exercising to a regular DVD versus a fitness game?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages to working out with each medium?
3. Do you think video game fitness titles will become more popular? Explain.
◾ CHAPTER 12 QUIZ 7. This system featured an optical UMD (Universal

Media Disc) drive for both games and movies and
1. This seventh-generation home console released an optional TV tuner:
approximately one year before the rest: a. PlayStation 3
a. PlayStation 3 b. Xbox 360
b. Xbox 360 c. Wii
c. Wii d. None of the above
8. A “General Hardware Failure” on Xbox 360 indi-
2. Introduced world to the concept of “achievements”— cated by three flashing red quadrants around the
digital rewards unlocked by completing various power button:
milestones in a game: a. Ring of Light
a. PlayStation 3 b. Red Ring of Death
b. Xbox 360 c. Overheating Warning
c. Wii d. None of the above
9. The initial cost to manufacture the PS3 was so high
3. Earned the Guinness World Record for “fastest that Sony lost approximately ______ on each system
selling consumer electronics device” with 8 million sold:
units sold in its first 60 days on the market: a. $100
a. Microsoft Kinect b. $200
b. Nintendo Wii c. $300
c. PlayStation Move d. $400
d. Wii Fit
10. Which motion control device allowed for a
4. One trait that sets the Sony PS3 apart from the Xbox “controller-free” experience?
360 and Wii is its ability to play: a. Wiimote
a. Sega Dreamcast discs b. Sixaxis
b. PSP discs c. Move
c. Blu-ray discs d. Kinect
d. All of the above
11. This system’s multicore Cell Processor was essen-
5. The Xbox 360’s Dashboard, PlayStation 3’s tially seven microprocessors on one chip, allowing it
XrossMediaBar, and the Wii Menu are all examples to perform several operations at once:
of a: a. PlayStation 3
a. CPU b. Xbox 360
b. GPU c. Wii
c. GUI d. None of the above
d. HUD
12. Which of the following features was not a charac-
6. Its Xenon CPU was built by IBM and its Xenos teristic of the Nintendo Wii?
graphics chip made with ATI Technologies: a. Wiimote required two AA batteries or a lithium-
a. PlayStation 3 ion battery pack
b. Xbox 360 b. Was the only seventh generation controller to
c. Wii feature a built-in speaker
c. Supported Dolby Digital 7.1 and LPCM (linear 19. The Nintendo Wii launched at a lower price than
pulse code modulation) output both the Xbox 360 and PS3.
d. While it could accept full-size 12cm optical discs,
it was not programmed for DVD movie playback 20. In almost every generation of video game consoles,
the most powerful console had the highest sales
13. In shader architecture, __________ shaders alter the figures and won the console war for that time
lighting, color, and surface of each pixel to help period.
smoothen out 3D objects, while __________ shaders
manipulate an object’s position in 3-D space, resulting ◾ FIGURES
in more realistic animation and special effects such as
FIGURE 12.1 Screenshots of top arcade rail shooters from 2006:
morphing. (a) Aliens: Extermination (Global VR), (b) Big Buck Hunter: Call of
a. pixel (shaders) and vertex (shaders) the Wild (Raw Thrills), and (c) House of the Dead 4 (Sega). (Aliens:
b. pixel (shaders) and axis (shaders) Extermination courtesy of Play Mechanix/Global VR, 2006; Big
c. spectra (shaders) and axis (shaders) Buck Hunter: Call of the Wild courtesy of Incredible Technologies/
d. spectra (shaders) and vertex (shaders) Raw Thrills, 2006; and House of the Dead 4 courtesy of Sega,
2006.)
14. Each of these systems saw multiple models, includ-
ing three different console designs: FIGURE 12.2 Xbox 360 with controller. “The Xbox 360, a video
a. PlayStation 3 and Wii game console released by Microsoft in 2005. This is the “Pro” model
b. Wii and Xbox 360 from the launch line-up, which featured a 20GB hard drive, wireless
c. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 controller and a silver DVD bezel.” By Evan Amos. Own work, Public
d. All of the above Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=
33220305. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#/
media/File:Xbox-360-Pro-wController.jpg.
15. This network suffered a complete shutdown for
three weeks due to a massive external intrusion
(hack) on April 20, 2011, which affected more than FIGURE 12.3 Xbox 360 launch titles (a) Call of Duty 2 and
(b) Project Gotham Racing 3. (Call of Duty 2 courtesy of Infinity
100 million online accounts and cost roughly
Ward/Activision, 2005; and Project Gotham Racing 3 courtesy of
$171 million in damages:
Bizarre Creations/Microsoft Game Studios, 2005.)
a. Virtual Console
b. PlayStation Network
FIGURE 12.4 Evolution of Xbox 360 Dashboard: (a) Blades,
c. WiiWare
(b) NXE, and (c) Metro. (“The new Xbox dashboard
d. Xbox Live
arrives tomorrow – Let’s look at how it’s evolved” by Joey Davidson,
November 11, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.technobuffalo.com
16. Which game console dominated the seventh- /2015/11/11/xbox-dashboard-history/)
generation in terms of overall units sold?
a. Sega Dreamcast FIGURE 12.5 2010 Ingram Micro ad featuring Xbox 360S, Kinect
b. Microsoft Xbox 360 and Kinect Adventures! (“Xbox Kinect Adventures,” Posted March 22,
c. Sony PlayStation 3 2011. Available at http://rwee406rib.blogspot.com/2011/05/xbox
d. Nintendo Wii -kinect-adventures.html).
True or False FIGURE 12.6 Box art to five popular 360 titles including: (a) Halo
3, (b) The Orange Box, (c) Mass Effect 3, (d) Grand Theft Auto IV, and
17. North American arcades rebounded from a 2003 low (e) Gears of War 2. (Halo 3 courtesy of Bungie/Microsoft Game
of 2500 game venues to an increase of 3500 in 2008. Studios, 2007; The Orange Box courtesy of Valve Software/EA
Games, 2007; Mass Effect 3 courtesy of BioWare/Electronic Arts,
18. The original Xbox 360 model required a separate 2012; Grand Theft Auto IV courtesy of Rockstar North/Rockstar
Wireless Network Adapter to connect to the Inter- Games, 2008; and Gears of War 2 courtesy of Epic Games/Microsoft
net via Ethernet. Game Studios, 2008.)
FIGURE 12.7 PlayStation Portable. (“Original Model PSP (PSP- FIGURE 12.15 Box art to DS hits (a) New Super Mario Bros.,
1000)” by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at (b) Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, (c) The Legend of Zelda: Phantom
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11337256. Hourglass, (d) GTA: Chinatown Wars, and (e) Mario Kart DS. (New
Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable# Super Mario Bros. courtesy of Nintendo, 2006; Castlevania: Dawn of
/media/File:Psp-1000.jpg Sorrow courtesy of Konami, 2005; The Legend of Zelda: Phantom
Hourglass courtesy of Nintendo, 2007; GTA: Chinatown Wars
FIGURE 12.8 Five defining PSP titles: (a) Metal Gear Solid: Peace courtesy of Rockstar Leeds/Rockstar Games, 2009; and Mario Kart
Walker, (b) Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, (c) Lumines, DS courtesy of Nintendo 2005.)
(d) WipEout Pure, and (e) God of War: Ghost of Sparta. (Metal Gear
Solid: Peace Walker courtesy of Kojima Productions/Konami, 2010; FIGURE 12.16 Nintendo Wii with Wiimote. (“Wii with Wii
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories courtesy of Rockstar Leeds/ Remote” by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at
Rockstar Games, 2006; Lumines courtesy of Q Entertainment/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11477211.
Ubisoft, 2005; Wipeout Pure courtesy of Studio Liverpool/SCEA, Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii#/media/File:Wii
2005; and God of War: Ghost of Sparta courtesy of Ready at Dawn/ -Console.png Wrist strap graphics modified by Wardyga.)
SCEA, 2010.)
FIGURE 12.17 Screenshots of (a) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight
FIGURE 12.9 PlayStation 3 with DualShock 3. (“Original Princess and (b) Wii Sports. (Courtesy of Nintendo, 2006.)
PlayStation 3 model” by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain.
Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid FIGURE 12.18 Early Wii ad featuring Wii Sports. (From Stars and
=11346934. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011 Avatars: Final Project by Samantha Seath, December 13, 2012.
_PlayStation_Network_outage#/media/File:Ps3-fat-console.png). Retrieved from https://samanthaseath.wordpress.com/2012/12/13
/wii-advertisement/)
FIGURE 12.10 Screenshots from PS3 launch titles (a) NBA 2K7
and (b) Resistance: Fall of Man. (NBA 2K7 courtesy of Visual Con- FIGURE 12.19 Nintendo Wii ad for Complex (2006) featuring Tim
cepts and Kush Games/2K Sports, 2006; and Resistance: Fall of Man Leong and Jared Ryder. (“Nintendo Wii Gives Back To Africa” Photo
courtesy of Insomniac Games/SCEA, 2006.) by Jared Ryder, September 3, 2009. Retrieved from https://djtreats
.com/2009/09/03/nintendo-wii-gives-back-to-africa/)
FIGURE 12.11 Old cover art and spine (a) and new style (b) for
LittleBigPlanet: GOTY ed. (Courtesy of Media Molecule/SCEA, 2009.) FIGURE 12.20 Five Wii hits: (a) Super Mario Galaxy, (b) Metroid
Prime 3: Corruption, (c) Xenoblade Chronicles, (d) Super Smash Bros.
FIGURE 12.12 Screenshots from PS3 (a) “baby” commercial and Brawl, and (e) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. (Super Mario
(b) a “Kevin Butler” spot. (Courtesy of TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Galaxy courtesy of Nintendo, 2007; Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Angeles.) courtesy of Retro Studios/Nintendo, 2007; Xenoblade Chronicles
courtesy of Monolith Soft/Nintendo, 2012; Super Smash Bros. Brawl
FIGURE 12.13 Five defining PS3 titles including: (a) Batman: courtesy of Game Arts/Nintendo, 2008; and The Legend of Zelda:
Arkham City, (b) Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, (c) Grand Theft Auto Twilight Princess courtesy of Nintendo, 2006.)
V, (d) The Last of Us, and (e) BioShock Infinite. (Batman: Arkham
City courtesy of Rocksteady Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive FIGURE 12.21 Seventh-generation console sales graph. (Designed
Entertainment, 2011; Uncharted 2: Among Thieves courtesy of by Wardyga using data from VGChartz. (2017). Global Hardware
Naughty Dog/SCEA, 2009; Grand Theft Auto V courtesy of Rockstar Totals. Retrieved from http://www.vgchartz.com/)
North/Rockstar Games, 2013; The Last of Uscourtesy of Naughty
Dog/SCEA, 2013; and BioShock Infinite courtesy of Irrational Games/ Pro File: Hideo Kojima. Hideo Kojima at E3 2006 with Gameplay
2K Games, 2013.) (magazine) award for Best story of the year 2005. Posted June 28, 2007.
By Sergey Galyonkin from Kyiv, Ukraine - Hideo Kojima Uploaded by
FIGURE 12.14 Nintendo DS. (“An original Nintendo DS “Fat” in Yakiv Gluck, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index
blue” by Evan-Amos - own work, public domain. Available at https:// .php?curid=27482064. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14501145. Retrieved /wiki/File:Hideo_Kojima_at_E3_2006.jpg
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS#/media/File:
Nintendo-DS-Fat-Blue.png)
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/01/wii_balance_board_enters_record_books.
CHAPTER 13
Military, Science, and Education

Climb Aboard
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Describe some classic military-themed board games used for war preparation.
• Explain the difference between field exercises and virtual-based simulations.
• List several Tactical Engagement Simulations used by police and the military.
• Summarize military training simulators and what makes each program unique.
• Elaborate on the DARWARS project, including DARWARS Ambush! and TLCTS.
• Describe the features of the Virtual Battlespace series and how it progressed.
• Illustrate how simulation software can help with PTSD and other disorders.
• Review serious games and GWAPs used by scientists and medical professionals.
• List some commercially available medical simulation titles.
• Be familiar with the Serious Games Showcase and Challenge and recent winners.
• Discuss the significance of “games with a purpose” and how they help scientists.
• Reflect on the potential positive and negative effects of video games on people.
• Explain how video games are being used in education today.
• Provide examples of educational game titles and educational video game websites.
• Be familiar with Quest schools and The Princeton Review’s top schools list.
325

Advanced Squad Leader Field exercises Life simulation David Sheff
After Action Review First-person shooter M2 Bradley SIMNET
Alelo Inc. Flight simulator Military exercises Simulation
America’s Army Foldit Minecraft Smart Board
Mark Appelbaum Full Spectrum Warrior Motion Reality Inc. Dan Snyder
Atomic Games Alessandro Gabbiadini Multipurpose Arcade Society for Simulation
Avalon Hill Game After Ambush Combat Simulator in Healthcare
Avatar Game with a purpose NeuroRacer Software Toolworks
Scott Barnett Game-based learning Nick Jr. William Henry Stahl
Battlezone Gamification Nintendo DS Steam
Daphne Bavelier Adam Gazzaley NTSA Stroop Effect test
Vikranth Bejjanki GCompris Maressa Hecht Orzack Tactical Iraqi
BBN Technologies Berni Good Outerra Team Orlando
Bohemia Interactive Google Image Labeler Pandemic Studios TES
Brad Bushman Hexgrids PBS Kids THQ
CICS ChicagoQuest High-fidelity patient Princeton Review TitanIM
Citizen science simulations PTSD TLCTS
Clinical Skills and Human dimension Quest to Learn Total Immersion
Simulations Centers modeling RAND Corporation Software
Close Combat I/ITSEC Raytheon Company TRADOC
Crowd-sourced science Information Systems for Real Virtuality 2 Bradley Trainer
DARPA Medicine Real-time tactics Unreal Engine
DARWARS/Ambush! Institute of Play Charles Roberts VBS1, 2, 3, & Blue
Desensitization iPad Chen Rong-Yu Video game addiction
Disney Interactive Kahoot! James Rosser Jr. VIRTSIM
Disney Junior Knowledge Adventure SAFE Virtual battlefield
Marine Doom Königsspiel Savage Entertainment Virtual Battlespace
Edutainment Kriegsspiel Sculptured Software Virtual reality/therapy
Electrographic sensor Charles C. Krulak Second Life Virtual worlds
EST Simone Kühn SECTER Luis von Ahn
Epic Games David Lagettie Self Determination Georg Leopold von
ESP Game LeapFrog Enterprises Theory Reiswitz
EteRNA LeapPad Serious games War games
Exposure therapy Leapster SG Showcase and Casey Wardynski
F.A.T.S Learning Company Challenge Christopher Weikmann
Military, Science, and Education Climb Aboard ◾ 327
◾ CHAPTER OUTLINE
Military sims to Serious games Video game

FSW and simulators research
pp. 327−331 pp. 334−336 pp. 337−339
pp. 331−334 pp. 336−337 pp. 339−344
DARWARS and Games with a Educational use

virtual battlefields purpose
◾ INTRODUCTION tion of the player’s movements and actions on a game

board where the behavior offorces could be better analyzed.
As technology has matured, interactive media has
More than a century would pass until the next sig-
received more and more attention and usage by the U.S.
nificant, German-developed war game Kriegsspiel was
military, scientists, and educators. Computer programs
produced in 1811 by Baron Georg Leopold von
are now being utilized in capacities from training sim-
Reiswitz. Kriegsspiels was “a more detailed board game
ulators for combat and rescue operations, to studies on
using contoured terrain and porcelain soldiers, which
motor skill development, stress relief, and social devel-
introduced the concept of a starting scenario with a
opment. Educators are now exploring virtual learning as
stated military objective” (McLeroy, 2008, para. 5). War
a safe place for students to develop perceptual, atten-
games of the 1950s added hexagonal overlays (hexgrids)
tional, and cognitive abilities—and the number of col-
for tracking movement and engagement, later used in
leges and universities offering degrees in and related to
strategy video games such as Nobunaga’s Ambition
game development continues to grow. This chapter will
(1983) and Military Madness (1989), among others.
review how the technology has been used by military,
Major developments came from Avalon Hill by
scientific, and educational communities.
entrepreneur Charles Roberts and Douglas Aircraft
◾ EARLY WAR GAMES Company’s RAND Corporation (Research and Devel-
opment). Soon theater-level warfare games like SAFE
The U.S. military has a long history of using games as a (Strategy and Force Evaluation) introduced combat-
part of combat training. Even “before video games, troops results tables and the use of dice to randomize the events
were encouraged to play military-themed board games” and outcomes of each battle, allowing for “more mathe-
(Romaniuk and Burgers, 2017, para. 3). One of the earliest matically accurate actions than those found on sand tables
games used for war preparation was Königsspiel, or “the and board games of earlier centuries” (McLeroy, 2008,
King’s Game” developed in 1664 by Germany’s Christo- para. 7). In addition to planning and training tools for the
pher Weikmann. This extension of the classic game of military, war games eventually became popular forms of
Chess was a breakthrough in that it provided a visualiza- entertainment for the general public. When video games
FIGURE 13.1 The simulation spectrum.
Operational realism Increased abstraction
Major Minor
Map War Computer Analytical
field field
exercises games simulations models
exercises exercises
Increased cost Convenience and accessibility

FIGURE 13.2 Firearms training simulator (a) and engagement skills trainer (b).
(a) (b)
became the next big thing in the late 1970s, the popularity cate the real-life battlefield, they are also costlier and so a
of electronic war games and simulations followed. combination of field exercises and virtual training is
often necessary.
◾ MILITARY SIMULATION A Tactical Engagement Simulation (TES) is a train-
ing system involving the use of weapons. Some common
War games used by the military are commonly referred to TES systems include the F.A.T.S (Firearms Training
as military exercises. These exercises provide insightful Simulator) used by the police and military and the EST
training for military operations, such as testing various (Engagement Skills Trainer) used by the U.S. Army
strategies without actual combat and the assessment of (Figure 13.2). These simulations involve the use of various
warfare effects. These simulations can range from the full- weapons and interactive screens displaying multiple sce-
scale rehearsal of military maneuvers known as field narios in various environments. The systems provide
exercises, to more virtual-based simulations such as marksmanship training, the simulation of police calls and
computer simulations and analytical models (see Figure stops, judgmental force continuum scenarios, rehearsal in
13.1). While full-scale field exercises more closely repli- calibrating weapons, and weapons qualification.
FIGURE 13.3 Screenshot of (a) Bradley Trainer (1980) and (b) an M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 13.4 A close-up look at the (a) MACS rifle and generically labeled (b) MACS cartridge.
(a) (b)
◾ THE BRADLEY TRAINER could be used to provide training on a variety of weapons

systems” (AusRetroGamer, 2016, para. 3). Three cartridge
One of the earliest attempts to create a military training versions are thought to exist, and game/rifle bundles
simulator based off a popular video game was based off of have sold online for upwards of $3,000.
Atari’s first-person tank combat arcade hit Battlezone in
1980. The U.S. Army Training Doctrine and Command ◾ MARINE DOOM
(TRADOC) approached Atari “to turn its sci-fi shooter
With the growing popularity of the first-person shooter
into a training simulator for the Army’s latest infantry
(FPS), the Marine Corps assigned Lieutenant Scott
fighting vehicle, the M2 Bradley. Two Army Battlezone
Barnett of its Modeling and Simulation Management
prototypes [also known as Military Battlezone] were even-
Office with researching various PC games that could
tually produced, but no Bradley crewman ever trained on
possibly be modified for Marine training purposes.
the system” (Beekman, 2014, para. 3). Nothing became of
Barnett settled on id Software’s Doom II (1994) and
the Bradley Trainer (Figure 13.3) prototypes, but the
“enlisted the help of Sgt. Dan Snyder to modify the
effort showed the military’s interest in using video games
game from its sci-fi Mars terrain to small desert village,
for training and a WAN simulator called SIMNET would
and replace the game’s demon enemies with more real-
be later used for training in 1987 and into the 1990s.
world adversaries” (Beekman, 2014, para. 4). The game
focused on aggressive combat and cooperative teamwork
◾ MULTIPURPOSE ARCADE COMBAT
SIMULATOR and in 1996 Marine Doom (Figure 13.5) was authorized
to be installed on government PCs. Marines were
Another military training device that used video game encouraged to play it, but the game never became an
hardware and software was the Multipurpose Arcade official military training instrument.
Combat Simulator (MACS). Patented in 1986, a version Following the Marine Doom initiative, in 1997
of the MACS was developed for Super Nintendo around Marine Corps General Charles C. Krulak issued a
1993 and remained a secret from the general public for directive supporting the use of computer games for
over a decade until units began appearing for sale on the ‘Military Thinking and Decision Making Exercises’ and
Internet. A complete set includes a replica Jäger AP 74 “the stage was set for the Marine Corps and other
rifle and a cartridge by Sculptured Software (Figure 13.4). branches of the military to work hand in hand with game
The rifle (which plugs into the SNES) includes a scope and developers” (Beekman, 2014, para. 5). Part of the
has the look and feel of a real weapon. “While interest was rationale for simulated training includes availability of
primarily focused on its use as a rifle marksmanship resources, financing, convenience, and accessibility.
trainer, MACS was designed so that the basic hardware Beyond supplementary training, the purpose behind
FIGURE 13.5 Screenshots from Marine Doom (1996).
using video games has extended to include the recruit- training. The title “quickly became the subject of criti-
ment of soldiers, and “most recently, to treat their psy- cism for targeting teenagers in its recruiting strategy; the
chological disorders, such as PTSD [post-traumatic game aimed to get high schoolers thinking about a career
stress disorder]” (Shaban, 2013, para. 5). in the Army long before they turned 18. This controversy
did not impact the game’s massive popularity, and the
◾ AMERICA’S ARMY project has continued, receiving 41 updates as of January
2014” (Beekman, 2014, para. 7). Tens of millions of users
The principal title for recruiting soldiers is the online
have registered America’s Army accounts, which can be
multiplayer, first-person shooter game America’s Army
downloaded now on Steam.
(Figure 13.6), which was conceived by U.S. Army Chief
Economist and Professor Colonel Casey Wardynski in ◾ FULL SPECTRUM WARRIOR
1999. The game was financed and developed by the
United States Army using the Unreal Engine from Epic Another title commissioned by the U.S. military for
Games and the first iteration, subtitled Recon, was training troops in four-person, squad-based fireteam
released for PC on July 4, 2002. Since its inception, the scenarios was Full Spectrum Warrior (FSW) (Figure
game has been available as a free download or can be 13.7). This real-time tactics (RTT) game was created by
installed from a free CD-ROM. the U.S. Army-funded Institute for Creative Technol-
Following a virtual boot camp and marksmanship test, ogies (ICT) in 2000 in collaboration with developer
the game allows players to assume the role of various Pandemic Studios under the direction of William
infantry-related jobs in the U.S. Army. Roles such as Henry Stahl. It was published by THQ (Toy Head-
medic or sniper can be unlocked through multiple tiers of quarters) on June 1, 2004. Gameplay revolves around the
FIGURE 13.6 Screenshots from the original America’s Army (2002).

FIGURE 13.7 Screenshots from Full Spectrum Warrior (2004).
player issuing commands to Alpha and Bravo fireteams as a low-cost, mobile research program to aid in the
consisting of a team leader, rifleman, automatic rifle- advancement and usage of military training systems.
man, and grenadier. Because the game is not a first- DARWARS itself is not a game, but rather a scalable
person shooter, the player cannot directly control the (adjustable) architectural framework for military
fireteam members and first-person view is limited to instructors, which supports individual and team training
issuing orders to squad members. on a virtual battlefield. This includes numerous tools,
Both a commercial and an Army version of the game web services, and system interface definitions that allow
was produced; however, the Army only required around for customized network training systems. These training
2,000 copies when the minimum order for an Xbox systems track user progress and provide both individual
game at that time was around 50,000 (Smith, 2016, para. and group feedback on performance.
25). The solution was to bundle the initial Army version Two widely used PC-based trainers of the DARWARS
with the commercial version of the game which can be project include DARWARS Ambush! and the Tactical
accessed by inputting a code on the Extras menu. A Language & Culture Training System. DARWARS
heavily modified version of the game is being used by the Ambush! (2004) (Figure 13.8) was a convoy simulator
U.S. Army today “as a tool to help determine, in troops based off the commercial FPS game Operation Flashpoint
returning from war, the presence and severity of post- (2001). It was developed by BBN Technologies, Total
traumatic stress disorder” (Smith, 2016, para. 31). Immersion Software, and Savage Entertainment. The
Another real-time tactics game made specifically for fully networked, multiplayer training simulator provided
military training purposes was Close Combat: Marines military training that could be customized to accom-
by Atomic Games in 2004. This computer game was modate various experience levels. Lessons ranged from
based on the much-admired Avalon Hill board game road-convoy-operations training, platoon-level mounted
Advanced Squad Leader (ASL). Like FSW, a com- and dismounted infantry tactics, rules of engagement
mercial version of the game (The Road to Baghdad) was (ROE) training, and cross-cultural communications
also released, in addition to multiple commercial releases training. For example, one lesson might demonstrate
over the years in the Close Combat series. how to anticipate and react to an ambush or how to
handle an IED (improvised explosive device, i.e., bomb).
◾ DARWARS The key feature of DARWARS Ambush! was its user-
authorability. Soldiers stationed around the world have
Long after SIMNET, another project sponsored by the been taught how to customize and add modifications to
U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency the game to simulate various scenarios that best fit their
(DARPA) was DARWARS. The project started in 2003 current location and mission. These modifications could
FIGURE 13.8 Screenshots of DARWARS Ambush! (2004).
include situations beyond combat, such as medical sce- Tactical Iraqi by Alelo Inc. (Figure 13.9), which
narios and cultural interaction (Crawford, 2009, p. 3). “brought scenario-based PC gameplay to the 3rd Bat-
The game “continued to be enhanced, deployed, and talion, 7th Marines before their Surge deployment to
utilized until a successor Army program, known as Iraq in 2007. The game was developed to teach Iraqi
Game After Ambush [GAA], was deployed in 2009. situational language and gestures as well as cultural
Between 2004 and 2009, more than four thousand nuances in a virtual world that could be applied to real-
copies of the game were distributed, with Army, Air world deployments” (Stilwell, 2016, para. 5).
Force, and Marine units using the system at hundreds These simulated TLCTS missions often run around
of installations” (Hussain and Coleman, 2014, p. 465). 80 to 100 hours, reducing what could normally amount
The Tactical Language & Culture Training System to several months of real-life cultural training. Numer-
(TLCTS) is still used today to teach both foreign lan- ous language and cultural programs are available free of
guages and cultural knowledge for soldiers to effectively charge to any member of the U.S. Armed Forces,
and safely conduct operations abroad. These self-paced including Pashto, French, and Dari. Both DARWARS
courses include fully interactive 3D environments not Ambush! and the Tactical Language & Culture tutors
unlike those in a video game. Students not only learn have dramatically decreased the need for human train-
what to say, but also how and when such words and ers. However, to be completely effective, much of this
phrases are appropriate. An example of a TLCTS is training software must be properly administered by a
FIGURE 13.9 Screenshots of Tactical Iraqi (2007).

trained instructor, in the appropriate setting, with both Real Virtuality 2 engine, VBS2 instructors can construct
training goals and AARs (After Action Reviews) virtual battlefields over 10,000 square kilometers (3,900
(Chatham, 2006, p. 7). sq mi) in size (Robson, 2008, para. 22) and then populate
the terrain area with millions of texture-mapped objects
◾ VIRTUAL BATTLEFIELDS built from real satellite imagery and/or aerial photog-
raphy. View distances were improved to produce draw
The term “virtual battlefield” represents the digital sim- distances up to five times greater than VBS1.
ulation of a war environment, which is typically accom- Another prominent virtual battlefield system used
plished by combining several different features (such as today is the VIRTSIM system (Figure 13.10a) by Raytheon
weapons, screens, and vehicles) into the training area. Company and Motion Reality Inc. (MRI) in 2012. The
One of the most prevalent virtual battlefield systems program uses virtual immersion simulation technology
developed is the Virtual Battlespace series created by that uses reflective markers for full-motion body capture,
David Lagettie and Operation Flashpoint developer including virtual reality (VR) headsets, weapon props,
Bohemia Interactive. The original VBS1 (Virtual Battle- and even shock-feedback when a user gets hit (Lang, 2012,
space 1) was released to the United States Marine Corps para. 1). Engagement takes place along a basketball court-
(USMC) in 2001, followed by usage from the Australian sized game space with up to 13 participants.
Defence Force (ADF) in 2003 and a public release in 2004. The third iteration of Virtual Battlespace, VBS3, was
The system offered training for land, sea, and air released to the U.S. Army in 2014. Terrain size increased
vehicles and could even be customized to include the to up to 4,000,000 square kilometers and the program uses
simulation of weather effects such as wind, rain, and fog. a “human dimension modeling” system to create an
Instructors could create both lethal and non-lethal sce- avatar based on the soldier’s actual appearance and
narios from multiple viewpoints, including the time of abilities. In other words, the user’s “avatar looks, shoots,
day, with sunrise, midday, or sunset lighting, and even moves through terrain and gets fatigued just like its
customize high or low tides for ocean settings. VBS1 operating soldier. It takes a soldier’s fitness rating and
even included data collection systems such as After factors it into the system to affect the avatar’s perfor-
Action Review (AAR) and Observer, as well as mission mance. It mirrors not only height and weight, but things
playback capability. like marksmanship and PT scores” (Barrie, 2014, para. 2).
Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) released Newer simulators include TitanIM by Outerra
VBS2 in 2007 following close collaboration with the (December 2014) which “is capable of recreating planet-
USMC, ADF, and other military users. It was this sim- wide environments from ocean floors to Earth’s orbit at
ulator that became the foundation for the DARWARS equally high fidelity for any point between. Using the
Ambush! successor Game After Ambush in 2009 powerful Outerra rendering engine, blades of grass and
(Shephard Press, 2013, p. 1). Based off the company’s dirt roads are as eye-pleasing as in any major video game,
FIGURE 13.10 Players using (a) VIRTSIM and (b) BISim Co-CEO Pete Morrison on VBS Blue.
(a) (b)
yet the view from 50,000 feet altitude is suitable for a high- ◾ VIDEO GAMES IN SCIENCE
end simulator” (TitanIM Pty Ltd., 2017). Unlike older
platforms with limited map space, TitanIM integrates air, Like the military, more scientists and doctors are using
land, sea, and space into one seamless, uninterrupted interactive technology each day for training and research
experience. Likewise, BISim’s VBS Blue (2015) (Figure initiatives. With motion technology, many games are
13.10b) features whole-earth rendering technology rep- now being used as physical fitness applications, such as
resenting the entire planet and a VR-based F/A-18 Hornet with rehabilitation programs in hospitals and nursing
flight simulator created under contract for the U.S. Navy. homes. There are also countless studies being done on
the physical and psychological effects of video games on
the brain. This section focuses on the numerous ways
◾ AT EASE
video games have been used by the scientific and medical
Thanks in part to the popularity of video games, computer communities. It will also look at some of the recent
technology has become an integral part of military train- studies on the effects of playing video games.
ing and operations today. As defense budgets dwindle,
virtual simulation technology will progressively allow ◾ SERIOUS GAMES
military units to train at a significantly reduced cost, along
with a reduction in the physical exhaustion of its real-life Serious games, also known as “applied games,” are
equipment and vehicles, including the soldiers themselves. games designed with a purpose other than to simply
After the battle, simulation software can also be used entertain. These are typically simulation-style games like
to help soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder those used by the military, which can also be used for
(PTSD). By immersing soldiers in an interactive virtual training individuals in the medical and science profes-
environment “with the help of clinicians in controlled sions. With the improved graphics and functionality of
settings, soldiers are able to confront traumatic memo- computers in the 1980s, medically oriented simulation
ries in a process called exposure therapy. By recalling software began to appear.
distressing episodes from their past, soldiers learn to Information Systems for Medicine developed a
habituate themselves to those fearful experiences. Games game in 1986 called The Surgeon (Figure 13.11a) for
help them manage their negative emotions and troubled Macintosh and Amiga which accurately simulated pro-
thoughts” (Shaban, 2013, para. 15). Such therapy can cedures such as operating on an aortic aneurysm
help soldiers with self-reflection and the development of (Boosman, 1986, p. 42). Another commercial release on
a more positive outlook on life. Recent studies have also multiple computer platforms was Life & Death by The
shown positive results in the treatment of mental illness. Software Toolworks in 1988 (Figure 13.11b). Players
FIGURE 13.11 Screenshots of the The Surgeon (a) and Life & Death (b).
(a) (b)
FIGURE 13.12 Types of simulation used in medical education (AAMC, 2011, p. 28).
Medical school Teaching hospitals

100%
94% 95% 93%
90% 87% 88% 90%
84% 81%
80%
70% 65%
60% 60% 57%
55% 52%
50%
39%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
nts ns ers es / ers
atie qui tion typ nts
nne rain ula All atie s rain
ze dp a t a sk t sim e d p rainer t a sk t
rdi le m ial se d z
rdi sk t ins
/
nda l- sc a pat -b a nda /ta equ
Sta Ful t or e en Sta quins ann
Par S cr e m
nn ale
ma l-sc
- sc
ale Ful
full
assumed the role of a resident abdominal surgeon at the student training and clinical experience and has proven
fictional “Toolworks General Hospital” and gameplay to be an effective tool for assessing technical skills, critical
involved diagnosing and treating everything from thinking, and team-orientated behavior throughout
kidney stones, to arthritis and appendicitis, in addition medical training” (Tufts University School of Medicine,
to performing virtual surgery. 2016, para. 1). Figure 13.12 shows simulation usage from
High-fidelity programs emerged in the 1990s and by 2011. Today these percentages are even greater.
the end of the century a number of noncommercial Similar to how the military combines modified artillery
simulation products were being developed for the and vehicular components with computer software in the
medical community. In 2004, the Society for Simulation creation of their simulation products, medical simulation
in Healthcare (SSH) (formerly known as the Society for typically employs a combination computer application
Medical Simulation) was created to advance medical with full-scale computerized mannequins and smaller
simulation technology in healthcare. Today both medical partial task trainers called high-fidelity patient simula-
schools and teaching hospitals are using medical simu- tions (HPS). As early as 2011, nearly all medical schools
lation for training healthcare professionals. Known as and teaching hospitals were using full-scale mannequins,
Clinical Skills and Simulations Centers (CSSCs), “their and more than half contained screen-based simulation as
simulation training is an essential link between medical part of their training operations. Examples of screen-
FIGURE 13.13 Ultrasound Simulator.

TABLE 13.1 Commercially Available Medical Simulation Titles

Ben’s Game Life & Death II: The Brain Surgeon
Big Pharma LifeSigns: Surgical Unit Science Sleuths
Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus Microsurgeon SimHealth
Captain Novolin Packy and Marlon Sneeze
The Gekai Plague Inc. Surgeon Simulator 2013
Hospital Hustle Plague Inc: Evolved Theme Hospital
Hospital Tycoon Plaque Attack Trauma Center (series)
Immune Attack Playnormous Trauma Team
Life & Death Rex Ronan: Experimental
based medical simulations include ACLS Simulator, Simulation and Association (NTSA) and the Inter-
Anatomy Module, Anesthesia SimSTAT, CardioSim, service/Industry Training, Simulation and Education
MicroEKG, Neonatal Simulator, Ultrasound Simulator Conference (I/ITSEC). Their goal was “to stimulate
(Figure 13.13), and Virtual Dental Implant Trainer. industry creativity and generate institutional interest
There is also evidence that suggests gamers may make toward the use of digital game technology and
better surgeons. A study in 2007 by Dr. James Rosser Jr. approaches for training and education” (Serious Games
and colleagues showed a positive correlation between Showcase & Challenge, 2012, para. 1). The event made
surgical residents and medical students who played video its debut in 2006 and each year the group awards the best
games and their laparoscopic surgery skills. In fact, “Dr. serious games in the categories such as business, gov-
Rosser’s study found that surgeons who had played video ernment, mobile, and social media (Table 13.2).
games in the past for more than three hours per week
made 37 percent fewer errors, were 27 percent faster, and ◾ GAMES WITH A PURPOSE
scored 42 percent better on laparoscopic surgery and
suturing drills than surgeons who never played video Another genre of video games used in the scientific
games” (Hampton, 2013, para. 5). See Table 13.1 for a list community is known as the human-based computation
of commercially available medical simulation titles. game or “game with a purpose” (GWAP). Based on the
“human computation” concept of Dr. Luis von Ahn, the
◾ SERIOUS GAMES SHOWCASE idea behind these games is to harness human brain-
AND CHALLENGE power with computer programs to find solutions that
neither may have been able to discover separately. The
The Serious Games Showcase and Challenge is a concept of amateur scientists working on such solutions
competition and showcase event created to encourage is known as citizen science or crowd-sourced science.
the development of serious games. The organization was Vo Ahn’s first game to utilize this idea was the ESP
founded in 2005 when military coalition Team Orlando Game (short for Extra Sensory Perception) (Figure
formed a partnership with the National Training 13.14a). The game created to improve the World Wide
TABLE 13.2 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge 2015 Award Winners (SGSC, 2016)
Category Game Title, Developer
Best Business Game Project Desal, Monkeystack (also SimTecT winner)
Best Government Game MUM-T Strikeforce, U.S. Army PdM –TUAS
Best Student Game Healthx, University of Utah
Best Mobile Serious Game Project Desal, Monkeystack
Best SM Crowdsourcing Game Unsavory, University of Miami
Students’ Choice Particle in a Box: The Quantum Mechanics Game,
Georgia Institute of Technology
People’s Choice MUM-T Strikeforce,U.S. Army PdM –TUAS
FIGURE 13.14 Screenshots of the ESP Game (a) and Foldit (b).
(a) (b)
Web “reveals the same image to two players and asks generate a more accurate algorithm for predicting RNA
each to guess what the other person has written to folding (Olena, 2014, para. 1).
describe it. If they agree, that word or phrase is then used Other popular GWAP titles include Eyewire, which
to annotate the picture. Repeating the same image with combines coloring and treasure hunting to assist
other pairs of players, the computer eventually builds up scientists in deciphering how the brain is wired; Phylo,
a detailed label” (Saini, 2008, para. 5). The program was where arranging colored blocks to swinging jazz music
licensed to Google who developed its own version of the can help with genetic disease research in animals; and
program called Google Image Labeler in 2006. NASA’s Be a Martian, where players participate as
A second example of how GWAPs can lead to scientific citizen scientists to assist real science teams in studying
discovery was the 2011 breakthrough on the Mason-Pfizer data about planet Mars. See Table 13.3 for even more
AIDS-causing monkey virus (M-PMV). An unsolved influential “Games With a Purpose.”
problem for approximately 15 years was solved after just
10 days of concentrated effort by a group predominantly ◾ VIDEO GAME RESEARCH
consisting of gamers playing the title Foldit (2008) (Figure
Beyond using video game technology for medical
13.14b). In the game, “players have to manipulate 3D
training and scientific research, a number of scientists
shapes to create a solution to a pre-identified problem.
and researchers have been studying the effects and
The 3D shapes are in fact proteins and the potential solu-
benefits of video games on its players. This section will
tions are ones that science is seeking in real life” (Rawlings,
review current research that looks at video game effects
2016, para. 1). Foldit is estimated to have reached over a
on the human brain, in addition to ways this interactive
quarter million players by 2013 and continues to be an
medium is being used for physical, social, and mental
important contributor in protein folding research for the
development. For more coverage on the effects of ste-
treatment of AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimer’s Disease.
reotypes and video game violence, see Chapter 7: Sex and
In EteRNA (2011), players “are given a real-world
Violence Take Center Stage.
RNA [ribonucleic acid] shape and asked to manipulate a
chain of nucleotides to fit that shape, by observing how ◾ NEGATIVE SIDE EFFECTS
different patterns of nucleotides form certain structures,
like loops or tails. Then, every week, a few molecules are For the first couple of decades since the early 1990s, the
selected for synthesis in a lab at Stanford to see how majority of studies being conducted on the effects of
closely they match the desired shape” (Dunning, 2012, video games were focused on their possible negative side
para. 2). In just 3 years and with the help of more than effects. Researchers have sought to discover whether
37,000 citizen scientists, EteRNA has already helped video games could lead to violent and/or antisocial
TABLE 13.3 Thirty of the Most Influential “Games with a Purpose”

• Apetopia • Galaxy Zoo • Play to Cure: Genes in Space
• Artigo • Happy Match • Quantum Moves
• Be a Martian • JeuxDeMots • Reverse The Odds
• Cropland Capture • MalariaSpot • Sea Hero Quest
• ESP game • Mark With Friends • Smorball
• EteRNA • Nanocrafter • Tag a Tune
• Eyewire • Nanodoc • Train Robots
• Foldit • OnToGalaxy • Verbosity
• Forgotten Island • Phrase Detectives • Whale FM
• Fraxinus • Phylo • Worm Watch Lab
behavior, and whether extensive game playing could lead any other activity) can certainly disrupt a person’s social
to other negative effects on one’s health or psyche. life, school and/or work priorities, along with one’s
In 2015, Dr. Mark Appelbaum of the American physical health. Too many hours in front of any screen
Psychological Association (APA) concluded that data without enough physical activity can result in serious
from over 300 studies between 2005 and 2013 showed a health problems, such as obesity and even death in some
consistent relationship between playing violent video instances. While small in number, there have been
games and an increase in aggressive behavior, “but reports of gamers such as Chen Rong-Yu of New Taipei
insufficient evidence exists about whether the link (2012) who were found dead after playing video games
extends to criminal violence or delinquency” (APA, for more than 20 consecutive hours. The cause of death
2015). In contrast, Dr. Cheryl Olson and her team at on these occasions is often cardiac arrest.
Harvard/Mass General Hospital have found violent
games to be an outlet for stress and aggression. ◾ POSITIVE IMPACT
Another possible negative side effect of video games is
desensitization. A study by Dr. Alessandro Gabbiadini Aside from the possible negative side effects of violent
from the University of Milano Bicocca with The Ohio games or simply playing too much, many recent studies
State University professor Dr. Brad Bushman and have uncovered a number of hidden benefits to playing
others suggested that “young male gamers who strongly video games. From improved reaction times and better
identify with male characters in sexist, violent video hand-eye coordination, motor skill development with
games show less empathy than others toward female motion games, to problem solving skills and emotional
violence victims” (Grabmeier, 2016, para. 1). fulfillment, playing video games might be more benefi-
Video game addiction has also become a reality for cial than many people have ever considered.
certain individuals, particularly for players of games that One study in Proceedings of the National Academy of
never end, such as in massively multiplayer online Sciences (PNAS) by research associate at Princeton
(MMO) titles. Researchers at Stanford University School University Dr. Vikranth Bejjanki, et al. (2014) found
of Medicine have found evidence that video games that “action video game play results in enhanced per-
possess addictive characteristics. Clinical psychologist ceptual templates and does so by facilitating the rapid
and founder of Computer Addiction Service Dr. Maressa learning of task relevant statistics” (p. 16964). In other
Hecht Orzack has claimed that as many as 40% of words, playing fast-paced, action-oriented games may
gamers playing World of Warcraft have been addicted to improve gamers’ performance in real-world perception,
the game (Dale and Lewis, 2016, p. 495). Numerous attention, and cognition.
countries such as South Korea, China, the Netherlands, Another study involved University of Geneva
Canada, Australia, and the United States have established professor Dr. Daphne Bavelier comparing the visual
addiction centers specializing in video game addition. tracking abilities between gamers and non-gamers. One
While further research is necessary to determine all of the tests challenged subjects to keep track of the
the risk factors for video games to cause aggressive positions of multiple moving objects. The results found
behavior or addition, excessive video game playing (like that individuals who played action video games
performed markedly better than those participants who to study the brains of subjects as they played Super Mario
did not (BBC News, 2015, p. 2). Bavelier’s work has also 64 DS, over a period of two months. Remarkably, she found
shown gamers to be much more proficient than non- that three areas of the brain had grown—the prefrontal
gamers at the Stroop Effect test where subjects are shown cortex, right hippocampus and cerebellum—all involved
colors written as words such as RED, BLUE, YELLOW, in navigation and fine motor control” (BBC News, 2015).
and asked to quickly identify the color of each word The combination of navigating the 3D world on the top
without confusing the color with the written word. screen with a 2D map on the lower screen is thought to be
Cyberpsychologist Berni Good has synthesized a key facilitator of the stimulated brain growth.
research from across the globe in studying video games’ University of California, San Francisco, professor
effects on personal well-being. Good’s research has shown Dr. Adam Gazzaley and a team of video game designers
a positive correlation with gaming and Self Determina- developed a game called NeuroRacer (Figure 13.15) that
tion Theory (SDT) whereby players can address three has shown to be able to improve older players’ ability to
psychological needs through playing games: the need to multitask. The game “requires individuals to steer a car
feel competent, the need to relate to others in a meanwhile at the same time performing other tasks. After
ingful way, and the need for autonomy—being in control playing the game for 12 hours, Prof. Gazzaley found
of one’s destiny (Wells, 2016, para. 15–20). pensioners had improved their performance so much
Virtual reality therapy (VRT) like the customizable they were beating 20-year-olds playing it for the first
SECTER (Simulated Environment for Counseling, time. He also measured improvements in their working
Training, Evaluation and Rehabilitation) program is memory and attention span” (BBC News, 2015). Even
now being used to treat everything from anxiety, to more importantly, there is evidence that skills developed
eating disorders and Asperger’s syndrome (Frenkel, from the game can be utilized in the real world.
2009, p. 1). In place of traditional therapy, patients log
into these programs to communicate with therapists in a ◾ FROM SCIENCE TO EDUCATION
3D virtual space using avatars. SECTER avatars can
As far back as 1994, New York Times best-selling author
assume various human postures and facial expressions,
David Sheff claimed that “by playing video games
and sessions often involve role-playing as part of
children gain problem solving abilities, perseverance,
therapy. Such programs have proved quite successful for
pattern recognition, hypothesis testing, estimating skills,
patients who would otherwise have difficulty working
inductive skills, resources management, logistics map-
with a counselor in a face-to-face environment.
ping, memory, quick thinking and reasonable judgments”
◾ BRAIN DEVELOPMENT (Sheff, 1994, p. 33). With the many recent positive studies
showing the potential of interactive media for improving
Max-Planck Institute of Human Development instructor mental tasks and brain development, video games and
Simone Kühn has researched the effects of video games on computer simulations are being used in a variety of ways
the human brain using “fMRI (functional MRI) technology today to educate both children and adults.
FIGURE 13.15 Dr. Gazzaley with Ann Stewart (67) (a) playing NeuroRacer and screenshot (b).
(a) (b)
FIGURE 13.16 Strategix bus simulator for pre-employment driving assessment (a) and CAE full-flight simulator of an Airbus
A320 cockpit (b).
(a) (b)
Like the military and medical community, industries replicates real-world scenarios like the New York stock
from ground transportation to aviation training are also exchange and other forms of competition.
using interactive technology for training employees. There Life simulation applications or virtual worlds like
is “the opportunity to develop transferable skills, or practice Second Life have been used for numerous educational
challenging or extraordinary activities, such as flight sim- purposes, from the University of San Martin de Porres of
ulators, or [other] simulated operations” (Griffiths, 2014, Peru’s prototypes of Peruvian archeological buildings, to
para. 9). These virtual environments can provide a safe American Chemical Society’s ACS Island, and Nature
place to make mistakes and learn from failure, and can Publishing Group’s Elucian Islands Village populated
often be more engaging or entertaining than traditional with labs for scientists and educators to conduct their
training methods. Figure 13.16 illustrates some examples own work free of charge. Other spaces have been used
of how interactive technology is being used in educational for virtual classrooms and museums, as well as interac-
training with simulation software programs. tive maps as shown in Table 13.4.
Interactive media provides the experience of novelty, Educational games can also be an effective moti-
curiosity, and challenge that can stimulate learning and vational tool in the classroom. As Michigan State
the educational possibilities of this medium are only University professor Dr. John L. Sherry explains, “the
beginning to be explored. For instance, simulation right video games help children master everything from
games are now being used in economics courses to basic grammar to complex math without the drudgery of
provide an assortment of chance, skill, and strategy that old-school flash cards. Many games require kids to anti-
TABLE 13.4 Five Science Education Areas in Second Life (Knop, 2008)
Area Description
Weather Map An interactive weather map from National Oceanic and
at the Science School Atmospheric Administration at the University of Denver
The ‘splo A virtual extension of San Francisco’s Exploratorium science
museum with displays and exhibits on observing the world
Genome Island Texas Wesleyan University’s exhibits on genetics, inheritance,
and molecular and cell biology
The International Scale models of rockets from countries around the world, such
Spaceflight Museum as the Apollo lunar command and lander modules
History of Earth A walking tour through 4.6 billion years of Earth’s history,
Walking Exhibit designed by students from the University of Arizona
FIGURE 13.17 Notable educational titles on the Nintendo DS: (a) Art Academy, (b) Big Brain Academy, (c) Brain Age2: More
Training in Minutes a Day, and (d) My Word Coach.
(a) (b) (c) (d)
cipate movements and, in the case of three-dimensional which launched in 1998. Knowledge Adventure was
video games, require players to manipulate objects popular for its JumpStart franchise and Blaster Learning
through a three-dimensional place” (Weber, 2017, para. 4). System (originally by Davidson) series, which both
These 3D environments more closely replicate real-world debuted in 1994. Other big names in educational software
scenarios and can improve spacial-relationship skills. from the 1990s included GCompris, Disney Interactive,
Gameplay that has defined learning outcomes is known and PBS Kids which was introduced in 1999.
as game-based learning (GBL). Game-based learning is The new millennium saw a flood of educational
generally “designed to balance subject matter with games such as LeapFrog Enterprises’ LeapPad which
gameplay and the ability of the player to retain and apply first released in 1999. The children’s tablet contained an
said subject matter to the real world” (EdTechReview, 2013, electrographic sensor for interactive, touch-sensitive
para. 1). This form of learning is typically facilitated books. This was followed by a cartridge-based handheld
by a teacher who adds depth and perspective to the expe- game system called Leapster in 2003 and the Nintendo
rience. This is different from gamification, which borrows DS handheld in 2004. The Apple iPad released six years
incentives from video games (like points, achievements, later in 2010 and mobile devices quickly became popular
and other rewards) and uses them in a non-game setting platforms for commercial off-the-shelf educational titles.
such as the classroom or for research and crowdsourcing Often referred to as “edutainment” games, titles like
purposes like how the science community gamified Foldit. Brain Age (2006) and Art Academy (2011) (shown in
For educational video games, most teachers use commer- Figure 13.17) have ranked particularly well—attracting
cial off-the-shelf (COTS) titles. both young and older gamers alike.
More schools are replacing traditional blackboards
◾ POPULAR COTS EDUCATIONAL GAMES for Smart Boards and almost all schools provide some
kind of curriculum on computer literacy. A nationwide
Educational video games have been around since video study from NYU and University of Michigan researchers
games became popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. found that over half of 488 K–12 teachers in the United
The Learning Company was known for its Reader States were using digital games in class on a weekly basis
Rabbit series which began in 1983, in addition to its (The A-Games Project, 2016). Most of these teachers
Zoombinis (1996) franchise and The ClueFinders series were from grades K through five, with 40% or more of
FIGURE 13.18 Percentage of digital game use by grade.
K-2 teachers
(weekly or more often) 66%
Grade 35 teachers 79%

TABLE 13.5 Popular Educational Video Game Websites

Resource Description Website
ABCya Pre-K to grade 5 www.abcya.com
Education.com Over 300 games https://www.education.com/games
FunBrain K through grade 8 https://www.funbrain.com
Learning Games For Kids Games by subject www.learninggamesforkids.com
PBS Kids Cartoon-based games pbskids.org/games
teachers in grades 6–12 reporting video game usage in from courses on the arts to STEM (science, technology,
the classroom as shown in Figure 13.18. engineering and mathematics) programs. Minecraft:
Educational video games provide more immediate Education Edition (formerly MinecraftEdu) was released
feedback to both the student and teacher, while teaching in 2016, adding a camera and portfolio for students to
a systematic way of thinking as well as an understanding take screenshots and document their work, in addition
for how different variables affect each other (Tannahill, to allowing them to download the software outside of
Tissington, and Senior, 2012, pp. 1–2). Many of these school to continue their class work free of charge.
games are available for free from online platforms such as While the current research on video games and
Norway’s Kahoot! launched in 2013. Kahoot!, which has learning has been generally positive, there have not been
over 50 million users, “enables anyone to create their own enough studies to conclusively determine whether edu-
game-based educational content, and helps to found new cational video games (Table 13.6) actually improve
types of classrooms in which to best exploit it” (Collins, academic performance. Video games have proven to be
2015, para. 1–2). Disney Junior and Nick Jr. also feature an effective motivational tool to stimulate learning and
educational games on their websites featuring popular students can certainly develop game-specific skills, but
cartoon characters. See Table 13.5 for more. how much these abilities transfer into the classroom or
One of the most commercially successful COTS titles real-world remains in the hands of future studies.
to have been applied in classrooms across the globe is
Mojang’s Minecraft which debuted in 2011. The ◾ SCHOOLS SPECIALIZING IN GAMING
sandbox title involves constructing virtually anything
out of textured cubes in a 3D world. Players mine Designed by Institute of Play, the New York-based
resources and then use them to build anything from Quest to Learn is a middle school and high school
cabins to castles—and from islands to entire continents. launched in 2009 that bases its curriculum on game
More than 7,000 classrooms around the world are esti- theory and game mechanics. “Students create virtual
mated to have used Minecraft in one form or another, worlds in the online game Minecraft, communicate over
TABLE 13.6 Top Educational Video Games Over the Decades from A to Z
Art Academy History of Biology game Oregon Trail
Big Brain Academy (series) I.M. Meen PlaceSpotting
Bot Colony Immune Attack Quest Atlantis
Brain Age (series) InLiving Reader Rabbit
Carmen Sandiego (series) JumpStart (series) Reading Blaster
The ClueFinders Ko’s Journey Storybook Weaver
EcoQuest (series) Magic School Bus (series) Swamp Gas Visits the USA
Food Force Math Blaster (series) Tuxmath
GCompris Meister Cody The Typing of the Dead
Genomics Digital Lab Minecraft Urban Jungle
Get Water! My Word Coach WolfQuest
Gizmos & Gadgets NoteBlaster Word Munchers
Gus Goes to Cybertown Number Munchers Zoombinis
an in-house social network, and learn about Pi by compiles annual rankings of colleges, business and law
stepping into an immersive digital environment that is schools in dozens of categories that it reports on its
controlled by a dozen or so infrared cameras that are website and in print publications. Since 2010, the
tacked to the classroom walls” (Sutter, 2012, p. 2). The company has published ranking lists for the top schools
school is so immersed in gaming that letter grades have for studying game design as shown in Table 13.7.
been replaced by ranking terms such as “novice” and
“expert” and final exams are referred to as “boss levels.” ◾ FINAL EXAMINATION
A second “Quest” high school, CICS ChicagoQuest,
Interactive technology has come a long way in a rela-
opened in Chicago in 2011.
tively short amount of time. From their earliest years,
As for video game-specific curriculums, the ESA
computer games have been examined and eventually
reported that during the 2015–16 academic year, a
utilized by the military, science and medical communi-
record 406 American colleges, universities, and technical
ties, and educational institutions across the globe. While
schools offered “programs in video game-related topics”
more research is needed to fully comprehend the effects
(Entertainment Software Association, 2017). Further-
and benefits of this technology, one thing is for certain: it
more, The Princeton Review (also known for its test
is being used right now by all of these industries and
preparation programs for the SAT and other exams)
shows no signs of slowing down.
TABLE 13.7 The Princeton Review’s “Top 25 Schools to Study Game Design” (2017)
Rank Undergraduate Programs Graduate Programs
1 University of Southern California (Los Angeles) Southern Methodist University (Plano, TX)
2 Rochester Institute of Technology (NY) University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL)
3 University of Utah (Salt Lake City) University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
4 DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, WA) Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY)
5 Becker College (Worcester, MA) University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
6 Hampshire College (Amherst, MA) New York University (Brooklyn, NY)
7 New York University (Brooklyn, NY) DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, WA)
8 The Art Institute of Vancouver (British Columbia) Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA)
9 Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA) Abertay University (Dundee, Scotland)
10 Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) DePaul University (Chicago, IL)
11 Vancouver Film School (British Columbia) Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)
12 Bradley University (Peoria, IL) Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA)
13 Northeastern University (Boston, MA) University of California at Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz)
14 Champlain College (Burlington, VT) The University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson, TX)
15 University of Wisconsin-Stout (Menomonie, WI) Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, GA)
16 Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA) American University (Washington, DC)
17 The University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson, TX) Texas A&M University (College Station, TX)
18 DePaul University (Chicago, IL) Sacred Heart University (Fairfield, CT)
19 Abertay University (Dundee, Scotland) The Ohio State University—Columbus
20 Ferris State University (Big Rapids, MI) University of Wisconsin - Stout (Menomonie, WI)
21 University of California - Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz) Full Sail University (Winter Park, FL)
22 Shawnee State University (Portsmouth, OH) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge)
23 Cogswell College (San Jose, CA) University of Malta (Msida, Malta)
24 Savannah College of Art and Design (GA) University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA)
25 Miami University (Oxford, OH) University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL)
◾ ACTIVITY: FURTHER RESEARCH
Option 1: Research and conduct a SWOT analysis on one of the following military simulation programs that
were not discussed in this chapter:
• Cubic I-MILES - https://www.cubic.com/Global-Defense/Training-Solutions

• JANUS - http://www.janusresearch.com/Virtual-Environment-Training
• Laser Shot - https://www.lasershot.com/
• VirTra: Firearms Training Simulator - http://www.virtra.com/
Option 2: Play and conduct a SWOT analysis on one of the medical simulation games or educational titles listed
in Tables 13.1 through 13.6:
• Table 13.1 Commercially Available Medical Simulation Titles

• Table 13.2 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge 2015 Award Winners
• Table 13.3 Thirty of the Most Influential “Games With A Purpose”
• Table 13.4 Five Science Education Areas in Second Life
• Table 13.5 Popular Educational Video Game Websites
• Table 13.6 Top Educational Video Games Over the Decades from A to Z
◾ CHAPTER 13 QUIZ c. America’s Army

d. Full Spectrum Warrior
1. Which of the following military simulations is more
on the end of operational realism (rather than 4. This four-person, squad-based real-time tactics
increased abstraction)? (RTT) game is still used today for troops returning
a. Field exercises from war to help determine the presence and
b. Map exercises severity of PTSD:
c. Computer simulations a. Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator
d. Analytical models b. Marine Doom
c. America’s Army
2. Two military training simulators that never became d. Full Spectrum Warrior
official military training instruments:
a. Battlezone and SIMNET 5. Two widely used PC-based trainers of the
b. SIMNET and Military Doom DARWARS project included:
c. Military Doom and Battlezone a. DARWARS Ambush! and Tactical Language &
d. None of the above Culture Training System
b. SIMNET and DARWARS Ambush!
3. The principal title that the U.S. Army has used for c. Tactical Language & Culture Training System
recruiting soldiers is the online multiplayer, first- and SIMNET
person shooter game: d. DARWARS Ambush! and Multipurpose Arcade
a. Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator Combat Simulator
b. Marine Doom
6. Virtual Battlespace (VBS1) offered training for land, computer programs to find solutions to scientific
sea, and air vehicles and could even be customized to problems:
include the simulation of: a. Games for Life
a. Weather effects such as wind, rain, and fog b. Games with Goals
b. Lethal and non-lethal scenarios c. Games with a Mission
c. Time of day, with sunrise, midday or sunset lighting d. Games with a Purpose
d. All of the above
12. The concept of amateur scientists working on solu-
7. This program uses virtual immersion simulation tions to real scientific problems is known as “citizen
technology that uses reflective markers for full-motion science” or “crowd-sourced science.” Which of the
body capture, including virtual reality (VR) headsets, following games does not fit into this category?
weapon props, and even shock-feedback when a user a. ESP Game
gets hit: b. EteRNA
a. DARWARS Ambush! c. Foldit
b. Real Virtuality 2 d. The Surgeon
c. VIRTSIM
d. Virtual Battlespace 3 (VBS3) 13. This game was licensed to Google who developed its
own version of the program called Google Image
8. Immersion in an interactive virtual environment Labeler in 2006:
where soldiers can confront traumatic memories with a. ESP Game
the help of clinicians in controlled settings is called: b. EteRNA
a. High-fidelity patient simulation c. Foldit
b. Exposure therapy d. The Surgeon
c. Desensitization
d. Stroop effect 14. This title led to a scientific breakthrough on the
Mason-Pfizer AIDS-causing monkey virus (M-PMV)
9. These games are designed with a purpose other than in 2011:
to simply entertain: a. ESP Game
a. Serious games b. EteRNA
b. Human-based computation games c. Foldit
c. Games with a purpose (GWAP) d. The Surgeon
d. All of the above
15. Negative side effect(s) linked to violent or excessive
10. High-fidelity patient simulations (HPS): gaming:
a. employ a combination computer applications a. Desensitization
with high tech mannequins b. Video game addiction
b. use full-scale computerized mannequins but not c. Death
screen-based simulation d. All of the above
c. are solely screen-based computer simulation
programs 16. Princeton University’s Dr. Vikranth Bejjanki found
d. do not include smaller partial task trainers such that playing fast-paced, action-oriented games may
as specific body parts improve gamers’ performance in the real world:
a. Perception
11. Video games used in the scientific community b. Attention
known as “human-based computation” games or c. Cognition
“__________” harness human brainpower with d. All of the above
17. Gamers were found to be much more proficient than 24. Today both medical schools and teaching hospitals
non-gamers at this test where subjects are shown are using medical simulation in facilities known as
written as words such as RED, BLUE, YELLOW in Clinical Skills and Simulations Centers (CSSCs).
various colors and asked to quickly identify the color
of each word without confusing the color with the 25. Dr. Mark Appelbaum of the American Psychologi-
written word: cal Association concluded that data from over 300
a. NeuroRacer studies between 2005 and 2013 showed no consis-
b. SECTER test tent relationship between playing violent video
c. Stroop effect test games and an increase in aggressive behavior.
d. Color autonomy test
◾ FIGURES
18. Gameplay that has defined learning outcomes is
Title page image: “Marksmanship simulator trains soldiers without
known as:
spending ammunition.” By Airman 1st Class R. Alex Durbin | 633rd
a. Curricular off-the-shelf (COTS)
Air Base Wing Public Affairs. March 25, 2013. Retrieved from http://
b. Edutainment www.jble.af.mil/News/Features/Display/Article/260507/marksman
c. Game-based learning (GBL) ship-simulator-trains-soldiers-without-spending-ammunition.
d. Gamification Image 2: “EA Sports Active More Workouts video game review: EA’s
new fitness game builds on the solid foundations of its predecessor to
19. Which of the following games does not fit into the offer a more well-rounded home exercise experience.” By Nick
educational video game category? Cowen for The Telegraph. December 2, 2009. Retrieved from http://
a. Art Academy www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6702486/EA-Sports
b. Frequency -Active-More-Workouts-video-game-review.html. Image 3: “Strategix
c. Minecraft Bus Simulator.” By Strategix, 2014. Retrieved from http://www
d. Reader Rabbit .strategix.com.au/news/strategix-bus-simulator.php.
FIGURE 13.1 The simulation spectrum. (“Military Simulations

20. Designed by Institute of Play, this New York-based
range from field exercises through computer simulations to analy-
middle school and high school launched in 2009 and
tical models; the realism of live manoeuvres is countered by the
bases its curriculum on game theory and game economy of abstract simulations.” By Ordoon - own work, public
mechanics: domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
a. House of Pi ?curid=3401402. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military
b. Minecraft Technical Institute _simulation#/media/File:MilSim_Spectrum.svg)
c. Outerra
d. Quest to Learn FIGURE 13.2 Firearms training simulator (a) and engagement skills
trainer (b). (“FATS: English: 8th SFS hosts Korean National Police.”
True or False August 10, 2012. From The Official Web Site of Kunsan Air Base (direct
link). United States Air Force Senior Airman Jessica Hines. - Media
21. Königsspiel and Kriegsspiel were war games designed Gallery, page 1, The Official Web Site of Kunsan Air Base (direct link).
by Douglas Aircraft Company’s RAND Corporation Public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index
in the 1950s. .php?curid=23854217. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia
.org/wiki/File:Airmen_from_the_8th_Security_Forces_Squadron
22. F.A.T.S (FireArms Training Simulator) and the EST _complete_a_training_scenario_using_a_firearms_training_simulator
(Engagement Skills Trainer) are examples of Tactical _on_Kunsan_Air_Base.JPG. “Engagement Skills Trainer.” Public
domain. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid
Engagement Simulation (TES) training systems.
=19243134. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement
_Skills_Trainer#/media/File:Engagement_skills_trainer.jpg)
23. An example of a TLCTS is Tactical Iraqi by Alelo
Inc., which brought scenario-based PC gameplay to FIGURE 13.3 Screenshot of (a) Bradley Trainer (1980) and (b) an
the Marines before their Surge deployment to Iraq M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. (“A standard enemy tank in the
in 2007. player’s sights in the military training version The Bradley Trainer.”
By US Army - http://www.atariage.com/news/Bradley/, public FIGURE 13.12 Types of simulation used in medical education
domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php (AAMC, 2011, p. 28). (“Medical Simulation in Medical Education:
?curid=29061823. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Results of an AAMC Survey.” By Association of American Medical
/Battlezone_(1980_video_game)#/media/File:Bradley_Trainer Colleges, September 2011. Retrieved from https://www.aamc.org
_screenshot.png. “An M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle kicks /download/259760/data)
up plumes of dust as it leaves Forward Operating Base
MacKenzie in Iraq for a mission on Oct. 30, 2004.” By Shane FIGURE 13.13 Ultrasound Simulator. (Screenshot from promo-
A. Cuomo, U.S. Air Force - http://www.defenselink.mil/photos tional video, “SonoSim transforms medical education by placing
/newsphoto.aspx?newsphotoid=5657. Public domain. Available at virtual ultrasound devices, patients, and teachers into lab coat
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=224. Retrieved from pockets.” By SonoSim, Inc. April 18, 2013. Retrieved from http://
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Bradley#/media/File:M2a3-bradley07 www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sonosim-transforms-medical
.jpg4980) -education-by-placing-virtual-ultrasound-devices-patients-and
-teachers-into-lab-coat-pockets-203540851.html)
FIGURE 13.4 A close-up look at the (a) MACS rifle and generically
labeled (b) MACS cartridge. (MACS rifle image from Amazon.com,
FIGURE 13.14 Screenshots of the ESP Game (a) and Foldit (b) by
Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UYCF2W0
Wardyga.
/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325
&creativeASIN=B00UYCF2W0&linkCode=as2&tag=austretrgame
FIGURE 13.15 Dr. Gazzaley with Ann Stewart (67) (a) playing
-20&linkId=STDYSVM2MXFM7XWF. Cartridge image posted by
GAMESOGRE on October 7, 2010 in “Rare Game Showcase: Atari NeuroRacer and screenshot (b). (“Dr. Adam Gazzaley looks on as Ann
Jaguar Developer’s Cart, 3 SNES M.A.C.S., and a Mario Pipe Phone”. Stewart plays his NeuroRacer game.” from “Can brain games keep
aging minds young? There’s an app for that, says scientists.” By
Retrieved from http://www.videogamemuseum.com/2010/10/07/rare
Cynthia McFadden, Jake Whitman, and Tracy Connor for NBC News.
-game-showcase-atari-jaguar-developers-cart-3-snes-m-a-c-s-and-a
-mario-pipe-phone/) February 17, 2016. Retrieved from http://www.today.com/health
/can-brain-games-keep-aging-minds-young-there-s-app-t73811)
FIGURE 13.5 Screenshots from Marine Doom (1996) by Wardyga.

FIGURE 13.16 Strategix bus simulator for pre-employment
driving assessment (a) and CAE full-flight simulator of an Airbus
FIGURE 13.6 Screenshots from the original America’s Army
A320 cockpit (b). ((a) “Strategix Bus Simulator.” By Strategix, 2014.
(2002) by Wardyga.
Retrieved from http://www.strategix.com.au/news/strategix-bus-
simulator.php. (b) “CAE Expands Its Training Footprint in Asia
FIGURE 13.7 Screenshots from Full Spectrum Warrior (2004) by Pacific.” By Nigel Moll. February 13, 2012. Retrieved from http://
Wardyga. www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/singapore-air-show/2012-02-13
/cae-expands-its-training-footprint-asia-pacific)
FIGURE 13.8 Screenshots of DARWARS Ambush! (2004).
(“DARWARS Ambush.” By soldiersmediacenter - Flickr, CC BY FIGURE 13.17 Notable educational titles on the Nintendo DS:
2.0. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid (a) Art Academy, (b) Big Brain Academy, (c) Brain Age2: More
=3729705. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARWARS# Training in Minutes a Day, and (d) My Word Coach. (Art Academy
/media/File:ArmyDARWARS.jpg) courtesy of Headstrong Games/Nintendo, 2010; Big Brain Academy
courtesy of Nintendo, 2006; Brain Age2: More Training in Minutes a
FIGURE 13.9 Screenshots of Tactical Iraqi (2007) by Wardyga. Day courtesy of Nintendo, 2007; and My Word Coach courtesy of
Ubisoft, 2007.)
FIGURE 13.10 Players using (a) VIRTSIM and (b) BISim Co-CEO
Pete Morrison on VBS Blue. (“VIRTSIM is the Virtual Reality Plat- FIGURE 13.18 Percentage of digital game use by grade. (From
form That Gamers Crave but Can’t Have.” By Ben Lang - Nov 4, Fishman, B., Riconscente, M., Snider, R., Tsai, T., & Plass, J., 2014.
2012. Retrieved from http://www.roadtovr.com/virtsim-virtual Empowering Educators: Supporting Student Progress in the Class-
-reality-platform/. Photograph VBS3 © 2007-2017 Bohemia Inter- room with Digital Games (Part 1: A National Survey Examining
active Simulations, k.s. All rights reserved.) Teachers’ Digital Game Use and Formative Assessment Practices).
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. http://gamesandlearning.umich
FIGURE 13.11 Screenshots of the The Surgeon (a) and Life & .edu/agames)
Death (b) by Wardyga.
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CHAPTER 14
Mobile and Casual Change the Game
◾ OBJECTIVES
• Provide an overview of early smart devices released in the 1980s and 1990s.
• Review the early days of mobile and casual games, from Snake to modern games.
• Recognize the contributions and failures of devices like N-Gage and Gizmondo.
• Explain how Apple revolutionized the mobile gaming business.
• Discuss how touchscreens and accelerometers influenced casual games.
• Be familiar with key breakthroughs and milestones in mobile technology.
• Have a sense of the graphics and capabilities of mobile games as they evolved.
• Recognize how mobile gaming is different from PC and home console gaming.
• List some key casual game titles and genres made popular on mobile devices.
• Describe the influence of casual and mobile gaming on the video game market.
• Be familiar with key mergers and acquisitions of large mobile game companies.
• Discuss how mobile games make money through advertisements and freemium.
• Summarize key mobile/casual gaming market trends and financial developments.
351

3G Feature phone Jackbox Games Psion
4G LTE Firemint JAMDAT Mobile Quad HD
4K resolution Flurry Analytics Steve Jobs Qualcomm
Accelerometer Fragmentation King RedLynx
Activision Blizzard Freemium Mascot Capsule Rovio Ent.
Ancillary products Carl Freer Match three game Samsung
Android Game Dev. Joel McDonald Samsung Galaxy Tab
Android Market Choice Awards Barry Meade Samsung Gear VR
App Store Gameloft MMS Eric Schmidt
Apple Gamevil Mobile game Sidetalking
Apple A5 Gartner Mobile VR Simogo
Taneli Armanto Giant Interactive MOGA Smartphone
ASA Gizmondo Moppin Social gaming
AT&T Glu Mobile Motorola RAZR Sony Ericsson
Augmented reality (AR) Google Play MultiMediaCard Steam app
Sam Barlow GPRS Multi-touch Supercell
Big Fish Games GSM N-Gage platform SuperData
BlackBerry/850 Hagenuk Corp. N-Gage QD Supermassive
Bluetooth HandCircus Shane Neville Symbian/OS 6.1
BREW Trip Hawkins Nintendo Tencent
Casual game HTC Dream Nokia Corp. THQ Wireless
Terry Cavanagh IBM Simon Nokia N-Gage Tiger Telematics
Scott Cawthon Ideaworks3D NTT DoCoMo Touchscreen
Convergence Fredrik Idestam Nvidia GoForce Unity Tech.
Dell Streak i-mode Organiser Unwired Planet
Digital Bridges Iomo Palm/PalmPilot WAP
Digital Chocolate iOS PDA Windows 10 Mobile
EA Mobile iPad pdQ smartphone Windows Phone
EEDAR iPhone Playdead Windows Phone
Endless runner iPod Touch PlayLink Store
Stefan Eriksson Satoru Iwata Playtika Xperia Z5 Premium
eSports J2ME PopCap Zynga
◾ MOBILE PLATFORMS TIMELINE
Nokia N-Gage Tiger Gizmondo Google Android
2003 2005 2008
2004 2007 2010
Motorolla RAZR Apple iPhone iPad/Windows Phone

Mobile and Casual Change the Game ◾ 353
◾ INTRODUCTION This trend was reversed in part by former Nintendo

president Satoru Iwata, who is often credited for lead-
This chapter reviews the history and technological ing the casual games revival with Nintendo’s DS touch-
developments of mobile and casual gaming, which have screen and Wii’s motion control games (Takenaka,
played a major role in shaping the video game market of 2008). Mobile games have since cemented the casual
today. Coverage includes the companies that have fos- genre as a staple of modern gaming and its mass
tered these platforms of gaming and the major break- appeal has attracted a whole new audience of gamers—
throughs throughout the evolution of mobile games many of whom do not even consider themselves gamers
from the late 1990s to today. Key people will also be at all.
discussed, as well as the popular mobile and casual titles
that have helped shape today’s video game landscape. ◾ PHONES GET SMART
◾ MOBILE AND CASUAL GAMES DEFINED Smartphones evolved from PDAs by utilizing their
computer-like, multimedia functionality. The first PDAs
A mobile game is a video game that is typically played were the Organiser series released by the British
on an older feature phone (multi-function cell phone), company Psion in the mid-1980s. A breakthrough for its
smartphone, or tablet—however, such games can also time, the Organiser was unfortunately never released
be played on a number of personal digital assistants outside of Europe.
(PDAs), graphing calculators, smartwatches, and other The IBM Simon (1994) (Figure 14.1a) is considered
portable media players. Video games are not necessarily the first smartphone (Connelly, 2014, p. 1). The Simon
the primary function of most mobile gaming devices, featured a monochrome touchscreen display, address
which is a key characteristic that separates this platform book, appointment scheduler, calculator, calendar,
from dedicated “handheld systems” like the Nintendo notepad, and world time clock. Priced at $899, most
3DS and PlayStation Vita. consumers requiring this type of technology elected to
Another feature that separates popular mobile games purchase a PDA instead. PDAs gained popularity in the
from traditional handheld games is gameplay. Since late 1990s with offerings from companies like Palm, Inc.
most smartphones and tablets do not have dedicated (U.S.). The PalmPilot (Figure 14.1b) debuted on March
action buttons, d-pads, or analog sticks built into them, 10, 1997 and was the first PDA to be successfully mar-
gameplay is usually limited to the use of the device’s keted across the globe.
touchscreen (control by one or more fingers) and/or Canada’s BlackBerry became an early leader of
accelerometer (motion sensor that detects titling). While smartphones, with the BlackBerry OS debuting in
limiting in some ways, such controls are also unique January 1999 on the BlackBerry 850 pager (Figure
compared to conventional PC and console games, 14.1c). Qualcomm’s pdQ smartphone released that
leading to new and innovative gaming experiences that June, which was the first “smartphone to offer the Palm
have facilitated a market boom of casual games. Computing platform and support full-time access to the
While too broad of a term for a single definition, Internet based upon standard Internet protocols”
casual games typically: (1) can be designed around vir- (Qualcomm, 1999, para. 1).
tually any theme, (2) are easy to learn, with relatively few Palm and BlackBerry were early leaders in mobile
rules, (3) involve simple gameplay (often requiring just technology and the most common operating system
one finger), (4) can be played in short bursts of time, and for smartphones during that time was Psion’s Symbian.
(5) are targeted toward a wide audience, from children to As the century came to a close, mass adoption of the
adults. Casual video games have been around since the first smartphones was first achieved in Japan thanks
dawn of gaming but were gradually overshadowed as the to backing from the country’s three major telecom
industry matured and games became more complex or companies “NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank (for-
“hardcore.” Extra buttons and longer adventures became merly Vodafone Japan)” (Budmar, 2012, para. 3). While
routine with each new generation. PDAs and smart/feature phones were praised for their
FIGURE 14.1 “Smart” devices: (a) IBM Simon, (b) PalmPilot with stylus, and (c) BlackBerry 850 pager.
(a) (b) (c)
multimedia capabilities, most of these devices in the multiplayer mobile game, where two people could play
1990s lacked a reasonable selection of games. together via infrared ports on their Nokia phones.
◾ MOBILE GAMING ORIGINS

DID YOU KNOW?
A major reason for the success of mobile and casual Since the debut of Snake in 1997, “it has been estimated
gaming was accessibility, as more and more consumers that over 400 million copies have been shipped since and
adopted feature phones which included the ability to it’s now in its eighth version” (Wright, 2016A, para. 4).
play video games. The first game to appear on a mobile
phone was a preinstalled version of Tetris on the FIGURE 14.2 Snapshot of Snake (1997).
Hagenuk MT-2000 cell phone by Danish manufacturer
Hagenuk Corporation in 1994 (Microsoft Devices
Team, 2013, para. 3). Three years would pass before the
mainstream mobile market would receive its first big hit
with Snake in 1997 (Figure 14.2).
Programmed by Finnish developer Taneli Armanto
for the Nokia 6110, Snake was based off of the 1976
arcade game Blockade by Gremlin. The object of the one-
player game is to navigate a perpetually moving snake
toward a dot (food) which increases the length of the
snake. The goal is to grow as long as possible and the
game ends when the snake crashes into a wall or itself
when the snake is long enough. Snake was also the first
TABLE 14.1 Notable Early WAPGames from 2000–2001

Game Developer Country
Alien Fish Exchange nGame United Kingdom
DataClash nGame United Kingdom
Gladiator JAMDAT Mobile United States
Lifestylers Picofun Sweden
Picofun Football Picofun Sweden
Sorcery Digital Bridges United Kingdom
The Lord of the Rings Riot-E Finland
Void Raider Unplugged Games United States
WAP Tanks Handy Games Germany
Wireless Pets The Games Kitchen United Kingdom
Aside from Snake in 1997, mobile games weren’t a (Sweden), and Riot-E (Finland). See Table 14.1 for key
major platform until the early 2000s when feature early WAP titles from these and other companies.
phones became more sophisticated and began offering The early 2000s was a pivotal time for mobile gaming.
greater multimedia functions. Games remained primi- Simple monochrome, dot matrix displays and single-
tive during this time, using Wireless Application Pro- channel tones would soon be replaced by color screens
tocol (WAP) as the standard technology for connecting with higher resolution graphics and multichannel sound.
to the Internet. One of the pioneers of WAP was Games became faster and more sophisticated with new
Unwired Planet who developed a microbrowser for mobile programming languages such as Java 2 Micro
mobile phones—yet WAP was most commonly used for Edition (J2ME) and Qualcomm’s Binary Runtime
accessing email or text-based newsfeeds. It was most Environment for Wireless (BREW). “J2ME proved to
successful in Europe due to standardization across be a massive success in Europe, while BREW was more
companies and was also popular in Japan, although popular in North and South America and Asia” (Phone
market leader NTT DoCoMo used its own online system Arena, 2011, para. 4). Sega and Sonic Team produced an
called i-mode (Wright, 2016A, para. 8). Adoption of impressive port of Sonic the Hedgehog on i-mode in
WAP in the United States was slow, however, since each Japan, and in 2003 the game would be released in other
cell phone provider had its own data support and fee countries on a new platform by Nokia.
structures.
◾ NOKIA N-GAGE
◾ THE NEW MILLENNIUM OF MOBILE
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish company founded in
Subscription-based gaming began in Japan through 1865 by Fredrik Idestam as a wood pulp mill for man-
NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode in 1999. Soon an infrastructure ufacturing paper. The company expanded in the early
was developed for WAP users to purchase mobile games 1900s to manufacturing cables and electronics, and
over the network. With the technology advancing, what eventually gas masks for the Finnish Defence Forces
the mobile industry needed were some innovative soft- (Hahn, 2013, para. 2 & 8). After acquiring many tele-
ware companies to push the envelope with quality game communications companies in the late 1980s, Nokia went
titles. One of the first key publishers formed around this on to become the world’s largest mobile phone manu-
time was JAMDAT Mobile, founded by Activision game facturer in 1998 (Nokia, 1998, para. 2). The company has
execs Scott Lahman, Zachary Norman, and Austin also played a major role in the development of wireless
Murray. The other key company was French developer/ communication standards including Global System for
publisher Gameloft, formed by a joint venture between Mobile Communications (GSM), 3G (third genera-
Guillemot Corporation and Ubisoft (Wright, 2016B, tion), and Long-Term Evolution (LTE).
para. 4 & 7). Other notable early mobile developers With its strong reputation in the mobile phone
included Digital Bridges (U.K.), Hands-On Mobile industry, Nokia announced in 2002 that it was working
(U.S.), Handy Games (Germany), IOMO (U.K.), Picofun on a PDA that was both a phone and video game system,
FIGURE 14.3 Nokia N-Gage handheld game console and mobile phone.
among other things. Codenamed “Starship,” the com- In addition to its access to WAP over GPRS, N-Gage
pleted device was officially titled “N-Gage” (Figure 14.3) featured full email support, an XHTML browser, Blue-
and released on October 7, 2003 for $299. See Table 14.2 tooth connectivity for wireless multiplayer gaming, and
for launch titles. The unit ran on the then-popular a USB port for downloading data from a PC. For sound,
Symbian OS 6.1 (Series 60) operating system and used the original model tripled as an MP3 music player,
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) for data trans- digital audio recorder, and an FM radio. Along with
mission. “GRPS is considered a ‘2.5G’ technology, video playback and PDA features, Nokia bundled the
meaning it is more advanced than standard 2G digital system with just about everything except a digital
technology, but does not meet the requirements of a full- camera. Of course, the N-Gage was built to be a powerful
fledged 3G technology” (Phone Scoop, 2001, para. 8). mobile video game system and could handle complex 3D
games that looked similar in quality to PS1 titles. Games
were controlled with the directional pad on the left of the
controller and the main action buttons consisted of
TABLE 14.2 Nokia N-Gage Launch Titles numbers five (5) and seven (7) on its numerical keypad.
• Pandemonium • SonicN (Figure 14.4b) Games came in the form of MultiMediaCards (MMCs)
• Puyo Pop (Figure 14.4a) • Super Monkey Ball which looked just like SD cards. The game card slot
• Puzzle Bobble VS • Tomb Raider: Starring however was inconveniently located inside its battery
Laura Croft (Figure 14.4c)
compartment.
FIGURE 14.4 Screenshots of N-Gage launch titles (a) Puyo Pop, (b) SonicN, and (c) Tomb Raider: Starring Laura Croft.
(a) (b) (c)

FIGURE 14.5 Screenshots from one of the banned Nokia commercials from 2003.
The original N-Gage was bundled with a cell phone look small” and “This is where I left Kate, Lucy and
battery and charger, hands-free headset, USB cable, Michelle begging for more” (shown in Figure 14.5).
3.5 mm adapter cables, music transfer software, and a Nokia claimed, “the ads were just promoting the wireless-
141-page user’s guide. There was no memory card or gaming aspect of the phone … by showing unique
physical pack-in game included. Speaking of games, the environments where users wouldn’t expect to play their
packaging for N-Gage games was quite unique. The small games and highlighting the competitive nature of
plastic cases are horizontally oriented and “included a gaming” (Best, 2004, para. 3).
mini game card case in which players can transport up to
four games in. The plastic case is smaller in length and ◾ THE COMPETITION
width than a standard business card, and is roughly a
The N-Gage’s biggest competition at the time of its
quarter of an inch thick” (IGN Staff, 2003, para. 6–7).
release was Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance, which could
Nokia’s target market for N-Gage was consumers
be purchased for a third of the price at around $99 in
between the ages of 18 and 35 and the slogan for the
2003. Despite its more powerful processor (Table 14.3),
device was “N-Gage – Anyone Anywhere.” While most of
N-Gage paled in comparison to the GBA’s popularity,
its advertising for the system was relatively standard for
which eventually reached more than 81 million units
the time, one print and television campaign ended up
sold. The real adversity came just over a year after
being banned by the Advertising Standards Authority
reaching the market, when the fate of N-Gage was sealed
(ASA) in the U.K. The ads featured desolate environ-
with the release of even more powerful handhelds by
ments with messages such as “This is where I made Kev
Nintendo and Sony with the Nintendo DS and
PlayStation Portable.
TABLE 14.3 Nokia N-Gage Tech Specs The N-Gage also faced competition among mobile
Manufacturer: Nokia|October 7, 2003 phones like the slim and stylish Motorola RAZR released
Format: MultiMedia Card/850 mAh during the third quarter of 2004. “Some classic RAZR
lithium-ion battery (3–4 hours) games include Spyro – Ripto Quest, Space Invaders, and
Processor: 32-bit ARM920T CPU (104 MHz) Grid Runner++” (Purewal, 2011, para. 8). The RAZR was a
Memory: 3.4 MB internal storage (up to 64 MB huge success primarily due to its much-lauded, ultra-slim
with memory card) design, selling “over 50 million units by July 2006 and
Resolution: 176 × 208 pixels (2.1" backlit display) Motorola’s top-shelf brand pushed 130 million units in
Colors: 4096 four years” (Hachman, 2012, para. 3).
Sound: Built-in speaker with 2.5 mm stereo Perhaps the N-Gage’s greatest competitor was itself.
jack and Bluetooth 1.1
Along with some missteps in its advertising, the original
FIGURE 14.6 Print advertisement for the N-Gage QD in 2005.

system’s high price, lack of original games, and design ◾ KEY N-GAGE TITLES
flaws (such as the cramped action buttons on the key pad
and having to power off the system and remove the battery Only around 58 titles were released for N-Gage. Its early
to change games) led to early criticism of the system lineup featured many games that, while impressive to see
among gamers and journalists (Snow, 2007, para. 2). on the small screen of a phone, were older titles that had
One of the more unusual criticisms of the N-Gage was been available on home consoles for years. Games from
how it became infamously known for its “taco-like” shape. the PS1 era included Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Tomb
The speaker and microphone were located on the upper, Raider, and Pandemonium, while games like Puyo Pop,
flat side of the phone and it just looked plain silly when Puzzle Bobble, and Sonic dated back to the 16-bit era.
users held it up to their head to communicate with a Stronger titles began to appear in 2004 including the
caller—almost like a giant ear. This led to the Internet turn-based strategy game Pathway to Glory by RedLynx
meme known as “sidetalking” (Giant Bomb, 2017, para. 2). and The Sims Bustin’ Out (Ideaworks3D/EA Games)
Nokia introduced a redesigned N-Gage QD (Figure (shown in Figure 14.7). Other hits from 2004 included
14.6) in May 2004, which improved upon many of the Colin McRae Rally 2005 (Ideaworks3D), Sega’s Pocket
first model’s shortcomings but removed features like Kingdom: Own the World, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon:
MP3 playback, FM radio reception, and USB connec- Jungle Storm by Gameloft, a few soccer titles, and Tiger
tivity to reduce costs. Sales remained slow and all N- Woods PGA Tour 2004 from Backbone Emeryville and
Gage hardware was discontinued in November 2005. EA Sports.
Prior to its discontinuation, Nokia explained at their E3 The year 2005 was the system’s strongest, albeit last
presentation that the N-Gage name would survive as a year for software releases. Top games from this year
gaming service platform that would be accessible to a included another exclusive turn-based strategy game by
variety of qualifying phone models. RedLynx called High Seize, as well as two excellent 3D
The N-Gage platform (also called “N-Gage 2.0”) was racing games with Glimmerati (Bugbear) and System
released to the public on April 3, 2008 through the N- Rush (Ideaworks3D). One of the best games of the year
Gage official website but was compatible with only five was Iomo’s free download of Snakes, which was a 3D
Nokia phones. With only 49 games released on the reimagining of the classic Snake. Other notable titles
online platform, Nokia ceased production of new titles from 2005 were Mile High Pinball by Bonus Mobile
on October 30, 2009 and all N-Gage services were ter- Entertainment, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
minated at the end of 2010 (Duncan, 2009, para. 2). by Gameloft, Worms World Party from Paragon 5, along
with fighting games King of Fighters Extreme by Hudson
and ONE from Digital Legends.
DID YOU KNOW?
The majority of these and other games released for the
N-Gage were intricate titles that provided console-like
Market analysts from Arcadia Research estimated that
gaming experiences, requiring time and dedication to
Nokia‘s U.S. launch for N-Gage “sold under 5000 units
across both videogame and mobile phone retailers,”
play. In an interview with Jonathan Keane (2015), Nokia
placing it among the weakest console releases of all time producer and indie games developer Shane Neville
(Fahey, 2003, para. 1 & 3). explained; “If you look at mobile games now, it was never
core gamers that made gaming work on mobile. It’s casual
FIGURE 14.7 Five of the best N-Gage titles: (a) Rayman 3, (b) Pathway to Glory, (c) The Sims Bustin’ Out, (d) Glimmerati, and
(e) Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

FIGURE 14.8 Early mid-2000s mobile hits: (a) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Gameloft), (b) The Fast and the Furious,
(Digital Bridges), and (c) Tower Bloxx (Sumea/Digital Chocolate).
(a) (b) (c)
gamers. Nokia wasn’t going for that audience at all,” he Time (in Figure 14.8), plus sports titles Tony Hawk’s
says. “I think that’s the opportunity that Nokia missed Pro Skater (Ideaworks3D), MotoGP 2 (THQ Wireless),
(para. 13). In the end, Nokia’s N-Gage served as a prime and JAMDAT Bowling. JAMDAT would have further
example of a game system that was ahead of its time in success with Neverwinter Nights and Bejeweled Multi-
many regards, but completely missed the mark in others.” player, while Sony Online Entertainment developed the
mobile RPG EverQuest: Hero’s Call (Harz, 2004, para. 7).
◾ OTHER MOBILE DEVELOPMENTS Duke Nukem Mobile (MachineWorks Northwest)
“was a scrolling shooter designed for the Motorola
In addition to N-Gage, color displays on other mobile
T720, the LG VX4400, the LG VX4500, the LG
phones became more affordable in 2003 and casual
VX6000, and the Samsung SCH-A530. The title proved
puzzle games like PopCap’s Bejeweled reached millions
to be popular enough that Duke Nukem Mobile II:
of users as a popular game bundled on many phones. In
Bikini Project was released a year later” (Purewal, 2011,
May of that year, Electronic Arts and 3DO founder Trip
para. 10).
Hawkins “invested $405,000 of his own cash to buy back
some of the company’s patents and brands and set about ◾ GIZMONDO
launching Digital Chocolate,” a mobile game publisher
whose titles “would be based on original ideas, not The same year that software development ceased for the
expensive brands licensed from other media” (Wright, Nokia N-Gage, Europe’s Tiger Telematics launched
2008D, para. 6). Notable mobile titles from this period Gizmondo (Figure 14.9) in the U.K. on March 19, 2005
included Space Invaders (Distinctive Developments) and for £229. The device was later released in the United
Siberian Strike (Gameloft), followed by Ridge Racer 3D States and mainland Europe. While it wasn’t a mobile
(Namco) and Nom (Gamevil). phone, “it did have a slot for a SIM card and supported
The year 2004 marked the year that large publishers the likes of WAP, GPRS and SMS/MMS, so despite not
like EA Mobile and JAMDAT Mobile dominated the having a number pad or voice capacity, it was near
cellular market and ports of popular console games enough” (Wright, 2008, para. 3).
became more commonplace. Popular mobile games at Gizmondo was a technically superior game machine to
this time included Gameloft titles Asphalt Urban GT, N-Gage with a 400 MHz Samsung ARM9 processor,
Might and Magic, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Nvidia GoForce 3D 4500 GPU, and 320 × 240 resolution.
FIGURE 14.9 Gizmondo (2005). ◾ STILL GROWING

Despite commercial failures like N-Gage and Gizmondo,
mobile gaming revenue continued to climb during 2005
and in 2006. In June 2005, Sorrent (California) merged
with Macrospace (London) to form Glu Mobile.
Numerous other buyouts and mergers took place around
this time, including EA Mobile’s purchase of JAMDAT
for $680 million in February 2006. The mobile gaming
business was expanding, but fragmentation in the
technology remained an issue.
While Nokia and Motorola supported Java for its
devices, Sony Ericsson used Mascot Capsule for its
phones. This fragmentation resulted in most game
However, critics panned the system with its $400 price tag publishers focusing “on porting games to as many
and limited game library. Soon after its release, company handsets as possible rather than making as many great
execs including Tiger CEO Carl Freer and Director of games as possible” (Wright, 2009, para. 8). Furthermore,
Gizmondo Europe Stefan Eriksson were linked to with the business structure of mobile games being dis-
criminal activity with Sweden’s Uppsala Mafia. Records tributed by the network operators and publisher portals,
showed that Tiger “lost more than $300 million between small developers needed a more effective way of making
January 2004 and July 2005” (Sullivan, 2006, para. 25 & money on their games.
39) and the system was ordered into liquidation. Fewer
than 25,000 units were sold and “only eight of the ◾ APPLE IPHONE
14 planned games were ever released” in the United States The mobile world would change dramatically after
(Snow, 2007B, para. 5). Apple launched its iPhone (shown in Figure 14.10) on
FIGURE 14.10 Advertisement for the original Apple iPhone in 2007.

June 29, 2007. Mobile gaming, as well as Apple, would By cleverly using the first letters of “Apple” and
see a tremendous surge in popularity and revenue. The “application,” Apple coined the term “app” for all
iPhone was built in collaboration with AT&T (then programs—including games that would run on its
Cingular Wireless) for an estimated $150 million iPhone operating system (iOS). Launched during the
(Vogelstein, 2008). Essentially a handheld computer, the summer of 2008, the App Store digital storefront was a
iPhone replaced the complex keypads and tiny buttons key factor behind the iPhone’s success as a gaming
of older smartphone models with an easy-to-use platform (Langshaw, 2011, para. 7–8). “Suddenly, here
touchscreen. It also included accelerometer support was a platform that enabled consumers to buy games
where games could be programmed to react to tilting the as easily as they had bought MP3s via iTunes. It also
phone in different directions, as well as “a proximity enabled developers to sell their games directly to con-
sensor that could automatically turn off the screen when sumers without having to deal with publishers and
close to the face, and an ambient light sensor that could operators” (Wright, 2009B, para. 11). This opened the
automatically adjust brightness” (Ritchie, 2017, para. 8). door for a wealth of independent developers.
The original two iPhone models included 4 GB of It was relatively easy for developers to upload games
memory for $499 and an 8 GB model for $599. See Table to the App Store. “All software developers had to do was
14.4 for specs. The first-generation iPhones were quickly code an interesting app, submit it to the App Store for
followed by the less expensive iPod Touch on September approval and market the app however they wished.
5, 2007. The Touch included most of the iPhone’s Then, Apple gives developers 70 percent of each app
multimedia functionality such as a Safari browser, digital sale, keeping 30 percent to cover credit-processing fees”
camera, music and video playback, typical PDA features, (Chen, 2009, para. 16). End users are provided with the
and the ability to play video games. The most noticeable ability to rate their apps in the App Store, helping quality
difference was that the Touch lacked phone capabilities. games stand out over weaker titles.
It was not a smartphone and could not access cellular This user- and developer-friendly platform leveled
network data—however, users were able to connect to the playing field between the large publishers and
the Internet via Wi-Fi. smaller developers, helping to facilitate an independent
While it generated plenty of hype, the original iPhone gaming boom that saw its principal audience on mobile
did not take off right away and Apple dropped the price of devices. Early iOS titles could be purchased from $0.99
the 8 GB model by $200 during the release of the Touch. to $9.99. Games also used monetization methods like
The first model managed to sell more than 6 million units those on PC, where games could be downloaded for free
“but it wasn’t until 2008—when Apple unveiled the iPhone using ad support as a means of revenue, or played via
3G with a new $200 price tag and access to the faster 3G freemium with limited free features such as restricted
network—that the smartphone exploded in popularity” game time or lives.
with Apple selling more than 10 million iPhone 3G units
worldwide in only five months (Chen, 2009, para. 4).
DID YOU KNOW?
TABLE 14.4 Original iPhone Tech Specs The first generation of iPhones did not include Multi-
Manufacturer: Apple, Inc.|June 29, 2007 media Messaging Service (MMS) support for sending or
receiving multimedia messages.
Format: 4 GB or 8 GB flash memory
Internal battery (3 gaming hours)
Processors: Samsung 32-bit ARM 1176JZ (F)-S
v1.0 CPU (412MHz) PowerVR MBX ◾ EARLY IPHONE GAMES
Lite 3D GPU
Memory: 128 MB eDRAM
With no App Store or 3G access in 2007, early iPhone
Resolution: 320 × 480 pixels (3.5" touchscreen display)
adopters had to wait until 2008 to get their hands on a
Colors: 262,144
library of quality video games. Among the most mem-
Sound: Stereo speaker with 3.5 mm stereo jack
orable titles from 2008 was Rolando by HandCircus
and Bluetooth capability
(Figure 14.11a), released on December 18. At $9.99,
Rolando was one of the more expensive games but one of
FIGURE 14.11 Screenshots of early iOS games: (a) Rolando (2008) and (b) Angry Birds (2009).
(a) (b)
the first to utilize the iPhone’s accelerometer, as well as kernel and the first phone to use the operating sys-
its multi-touch technology. Multi-touch enabled the tem was the HTC Dream (also called the T-Mobile
touchscreen’s surface to sense the presence of more than G1) on September 23, 2008. The platform was quickly
one finger, providing functionality such as panning the adopted by other manufacturers like Samsung, LG, and
screen. Rolando’s interactive environments, intuitive Motorola, who became leading producers of Android
controls, and catchy soundtrack made the game a hit for smartphones. Like the App Store, Google launched its
both critics and gamers alike. own Android Market (now Google Play) store on
While a handful of memorable game titles came out October 22, 2008.
on iPhone during the first two years, it was 2009 when
the mobile gaming boom really took off. The year 2009
saw an explosion of highly rated titles including Rolando DID YOU KNOW?
2: Quest for the Golden Orchid (HandCircus) and Zen
Bound (Secret Exit), along with best-selling titles Doodle Similar to how the World Meteorological Organization
gives short, distinctive names to hurricanes in alphabet-
Jump (Lima Sky) and Angry Birds by Rovio Entertain- ical order, each version Android OS is named alphabet-
ment (Figure 14.11b)—each game breaking 10 million ically after desserts and sweets (e.g., Cupcake [v. 1.5],
units sold. Other notable titles included Real Racing and Donut [v. 1.6], and Eclair [v. 2.0]).
Flight Control by Firemint and Gameloft’s N.O.V.A.—
Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance. With the iPhone and
App Store’s success, it would only be a matter of time Apple’s next platform for the mobile gaming market
before other major companies would follow in Apple’s was its iPad line of tablet computers released on April 3,
footsteps with platform offerings from Google and 2010. Like the iPhone, the iPad ran on iOS and was
Microsoft. bundled with multimedia capabilities. It wasn’t a phone,
but its larger, 9.7-inch screen size made it easier to play
◾ MORE PLATFORMS THAN EVER certain games. Android tablets emerged soon after in
2010, with releases such as the Dell Streak and Samsung
Before the iPhone, Google acquired Android, Inc. in Galaxy Tab. Like with smartphones, Android tablets
2005 and was poised to compete with Windows Mobile eventually outsold the iPad due to the vast amount of
and BlackBerry-style phones. This all changed after companies manufacturing them and their lower price
attending the iPhone launch event, when Google’s then- tag. Microsoft followed with Windows Phone in 2010
CEO, Eric Schmidt refocused the company’s Android followed by the Windows Phone Store. Amazon
technology to compete with the iPhone (Ritchie, 2017, became a popular digital distribution platform for
para. 33). Google’s Android OS was based on the Linux Android apps soon after.
These platforms offered “more flexibility than Apple’s render graphics seven times faster, according to Apple.
store since developers could distribute their games via Titles like Infinity Blade 2, Real Racing 2 and The Dark
any platform they desired” (Langshaw, 2011, para. 9). Meadow showed how the additional power could be
Multiple storefronts, smartphone platforms, and tablets used to change the conception of what a mobile game
made titles easier to obtain, leading to tremendous can look like” (Savitz, 2012, para. 4). One major acqui-
growth and greater competition. The year 2010 also saw sition that year included Electronic Arts buying PopCap
the end of AT&T’s exclusivity deal with iPhone. Soon, Games for $750 million.
other service providers (beginning with Verizon) would Three years after its launch on the Wii and Windows,
obtain the rights to carry the phone. The iPhone con- 2D Boy’s World of Goo was finally ported to iPhone and
tinued to evolve and “the iPhone 4 was named the Android. Another late but important port was Words
fastest-selling portable gaming system by Guinness after With Friends by Zynga, when it brought its social
selling an estimated 1.5 million handsets on the first day gaming hit to Android. The year 2011 also saw the
it was released on June 24, 2010” (Los Angeles Times, release of “endless runner” (forced progression) games
2011, para. 3). Jetpack Joyride (Halfbrick Studios) and Tiny Wings
While the technology had been in development for (Andreas Illiger). The adventure game Superbrothers:
many years, 2010 marked the year that 100 mbps 4G Sword & Sworcery EP (Capy Games/Superbrothers)
LTE wireless networks started gaining ground, making would follow Cut the Rope as the Game Developers
downloading apps and online gaming faster than ever. Choice Awards winner for Best Mobile/Handheld
Popular multiplatform games that debuted on iOS in Game. On a sadder note, 2011 was also the year that the
2010 included casual hit Fruit Ninja by Halfbrick Studios world said good-bye to Apple’s visionary CEO Steve
(Figure 14.12a), Cut the Rope (ZeptoLab/Chillingo), Real Jobs, when he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer on
Racing 2 (Firemint), and Plants vs. Zombies by PopCap October 5.
(Figure 14.12b), among many more. iOS also remained
the exclusive platform for titles such as the graphically ◾ MOBILE MILESTONES
intensive Infinity Blade, Helsing’s Fire, and Space Miner:
Space Ore Bust. By 2012, there were more than 500 million mobile
The year 2011 was the year that smartphones finally gamers across the globe and mobile game revenue sur-
outsold standard feature phones and the growing passed $9 billion with an annual growth rate of 32%
popularity of Android led to the platform receiving (Nouch, 2013, para. 1 & 3). While casual games con-
numerous ports of games that were once exclusive to tinued to dominate the medium, a number of hardcore-
iOS. Android users even saw a handful of decent style games like Horn (Phosphor Games Studio, LLC/
exclusive titles of their own. iOS games received a major Zynga) and The Walking Dead (Telltale Games) showed
boost in performance with the release of the 32-bit that mobile was capable of delivering more console-like
Apple A5 chip which “allowed the iPad (and iPhone) to experiences. Bluetooth gamepads such as the MOGA
FIGURE 14.12 Screens of multiplatform hits (a) Fruit Ninja and (b) Plants vs. Zombies (2010).
(a) (b)
FIGURE 14.13 Screenshots of (a) Clash of Clans and (b) Candy Crush Saga (2012).
(a) (b)
(Mobile Gaming) controller by PowerA began to technology. Android, on the other hand, can take longer
emerge, allowing compatible mobile games to be played to develop for due to the vast amount of devices on the
with analog sticks, face buttons, and shoulder triggers. market using different versions of the Android OS, at
Top games from 2012 included Bastion (Supergiant numerous resolutions, with an assortment of processors.
Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment), The This mobile fragmentation is less of a problem for
Room (Fireproof Games), Angry Birds Star Wars (Rovio large developers. Furthermore, “improved development
Entertainment), Rayman Jungle Run (Pasta Games/ tools are making porting easier, and there’s more data
Ubisoft), and Super Hexagon (Terry Cavanagh). Two of (including Google’s own) to help developers decide
the highest grossing games included the freemium which Android devices to focus their energies on first”
strategy game Clash of Clans by Supercell (Figure (Dredge, 2013, para. 12). Also, by the time games that
14.13a) and King’s free-to-play casual puzzler Candy premiere on iOS are ported to Android, most of the bugs
Crush Saga (Figure 14.13b). Essentially a touchscreen have been worked out. As Fireproof Games developer
reimagining of Bejeweled, Candy Crush Saga popular- Barry Meade explained; “What Android users forget is
ized the tile-matching genre on mobile, often referred to that because their versions come later they get the least
as “match three” games. buggy, higher performance version of the game because
Technology research firm Gartner reported that 79% of iOS users are, in an indirect way, guinea pigs for the
all smartphones sold between April and June 2013 were other releases” (Kuchera, 2015, para. 10).
running on Android—that’s 177.9 million Android As Table 14.5 indicates, mobile ports times are
handsets compared to 31.9 million iPhones (Dredge, 2013, improving. For example, The Room (2012) took Fire-
para. 1). Yet the trend of games being developed for iOS proof Games 6 months to port to Android, while The
before Android would continue. The main reason for this is Room Two took just over 2 months. Along with The
that it has been easier to program an app for a small Room Two, other creepy, atmospheric titles to launch in
number of iOS platforms that use relatively similar 2013 included LIMBO Game (Playdead), along with
TABLE 14.5 iOS versus Android Release Dates for Popular Games by Year
Game Title iOS Date Android Date Port Time
Real Racing 2 12/16/10 12/22/11 >1 year
Words With Friends 09/01/11 09/28/12 >1 year
Super Hexagon 08/31/12 01/19/13 >4 months
The Room Two 12/12/13 02/13/14 >2 months
Monument Valley 04/03/14 05/14/14 >1 month
Lara Croft GO 08/27/15 08/27/15 None
Clash Royale 03/02/16 03/02/16 None
FIGURE 14.14 Screenshots of mobile hits: (a) Ridiculous Fishing: A Tale of Redemption (2013), (b) Monument Valley (2014),
and (c) Prune (2015).
(a) (b) (c)
Year Walk and the modern-day, text-based adventure by Ustwo Games (Figure 14.14b), Framed (Loveshack),
DEVICE 6, both by Swedish developer Simogo. Strategy and Threes! (Sirvo). Other notable titles from 2014
games continued to be popular with chart toppers such included the casual Freeway/Frogger-inspired Crossy
as XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Rymdkapsel, and 17-Bit’s Road: Endless Arcade Hopper (Hipster Whale), a unique
Skulls of the Shogun. Frogmind’s Badland satisfied visual novel adventure called 80 Days by Inkle, and Scott
endless runner fans, while one of the best casual titles of Cawthon’s debut of what would become a major sur-
the year was the hilariously fun Ridiculous Fishing: A vival horror franchise—Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Tale of Redemption by Dutch development studio The year 2014 saw the most mobile developer acqui-
Vlambeer (Figure 14.14a). sitions to date, such as China’s Zhongji Holding buying
By 2014, the number of global Android users had DianDian Interactive for $960 million, Kentucky-based
reached double that of the total number of Apple’s iOS Churchill Downs Incorporated acquiring Seattle’s Big
users (Vining, 2014, p. 1). High end smartphones began Fish Games for $885 million, and social gaming guru
to be released with 2560 × 1440 “Quad HD” resolutions Zynga purchasing NaturalMotion for $527 million.
and the following year Sony revealed the Xperia Z5 These major buyouts slowed down in 2015, but not
Premium which featured 3840 × 2160 “4K” resolution. before Activision Blizzard announced it would be
Before the end of 2015, Microsoft released its Windows purchasing Candy Crush developer King for a whopping
10 Mobile operating system, which like on Xbox One, $5.9 billion.
helped to unify the Windows OS across multiple device The year 2015 was another strong year, especially for
platforms. These innovations were accompanied by independent developers with inventive titles such as
many ground-breaking game releases. Prune by Joel McDonald (Figure 14.14c), Her Story by
Popular platformers from 2014 included Traps n’ Sam Barlow, and Downwell by Moppin. Square Enix
Gemstones, Leo’s Fortune, Thomas Was Alone, and Terry continued its “GO” series with Laura Croft GO and
Cavanagh’s VVVVVV. Strategy fans received titles from Bastion developer Supergiant Games finally returned
major publishers such as Hitman GO (Square Enix with action RPG Transistor. Alto’s Adventure and Bad-
Montreal) and the card-based Hearthstone: Heroes of lands 2 were solid endless runners, Fireproof completed
Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment), while the puzzle a trilogy with The Room Three, and Call of Champions
game genre received the innovative Monument Valley showed that MOBAs could be played in short bursts.
◾ RECENT TRENDS The game brought augmented reality (AR) to

mainstream audiences by superimposing the cartoon
The year 2016 will be remembered as the time that Pokémon monsters over real-life locations seen through
Nintendo finally entered the mobile market with the the cameras of players’ phones. The game’s social ele-
Miitomo social app, the breakthrough success of the year, ment led to a phenomenon of gamers going on
Pokémon GO (developed by Niantic Labs) (Figure 14.15), “Pokémon walks” together and/or meeting other players
and the endless runner game, Super Mario Run. While in the physical world. The success of Pokémon GO
Super Mario Run and Miitomo provided decent helped mobile games earn six out of the last seven Game
Nintendo experiences on mobile devices, it was Pokémon Developers Choice Awards for Best Mobile/Handheld
GO that took the world by storm. “The game—in which Games—beating out dedicated handheld offerings on
players try to capture exotic monsters from Pokémon, the the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita as shown in
Japanese cartoon franchise—uses a combination of Table 14.6.
ordinary technologies built into smartphones, including
location tracking and cameras, to encourage people to
visit public landmarks, seeking virtual loot and collectible DID YOU KNOW?
characters that they try to nab” (Wingfield and Isaac,
Pokémon GO set five Guinness World Records for a
2016, para. 2). mobile game in its first month, including “Most revenue
grossed,” “Most downloaded,” “Most international charts
FIGURE 14.15 Screenshot of Pokémon GO. topped simultaneously for a mobile game” (for both
downloads and revenue), and “Fastest time to gross $100
million by a mobile game” (Swatman, 2016).
Other notable titles from 2016 included the action

adventure game Severed (DrinkBox Studios), RPG
Crashlands (Butterscotch Shenanigans), medieval strat-
egy card game Reigns (Nerial/Devolver Digital), and
Supercell’s real-time strategy blockbuster, Clash Royale.
“Clash Royale topped the grossing charts for games
released in 2016 in the U.S., generating $277.1 million.
Pokémon GO was close behind with $270.2 million”
(Cowley, 2017, para. 5). These games were international
bestsellers as well. Speaking of which, the rise of mobile
gaming tournaments in China, coupled with “the success
of the first Clash Royale tournament in Helsinki in April
2016 both indicate that mobile games could be very well
placed for eSports” (Newzoo, 2016, p. 7).
In addition to augmented reality making its way into
mobile games, mobile VR (virtual reality) gained ground in
2016, with mobile VR headsets like the Samsung Gear VR
(released at the end of 2015 for $99.99). Sales have been
strong, with Samsung announcing that the company had
sold 5 million Gear VR headsets to date at the 2017 Con-
sumer Electronics Show (CES) (Takashi, 2017A, para. 1).
The year 2016 set new financial records with China
investing $1.9 billion in game technology and research,
along with more than $20 billion spent in mobile
game company mergers and acquisitions (Minotti, 2017,
para. 2). Two major acquisitions included China’s Tencent
TABLE 14.6 Game Developers Choice Awards: Best Mobile/Handheld Games

Year Game Title Platform
2010 Cut the Rope iOS, Android (2011), & more
2011 Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP iOS, Android/Windows
2012 The Room iOS, Android
2013 The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds Nintendo 3DS
2014 Monument Valley iOS, Android, Windows
2015 Her Story iOS, Android
2016 Pokémon GO iOS, Android
2017 Gorogoa iOS, Android, Switch, Xbox One
purchasing Finnish developer Supercell for $8.6 billion, in the popular Singstar karaoke series” (Byford, 2017,
followed by China’s Giant Interactive buying Israeli para. 3).
developer Playtika for $4.4 billion. As for who plays mobile games, casual puzzle and
Convergence continues to be a common trend in word games like Candy Crush Saga and Words with
mobile technology, with the Steam app (released on iOS Friends skew toward females over the age of 45, while
and Android in 2012) finally landing on Windows strategy games like Clash of Clans attract a younger male
Phones in 2016. The Steam app allows users to manage audience with “a significant proportion (about 40%) of
games, browse the storefront, and chat with friends. As players over the age of 35” (Hwong, 2016, para. 3). As for
for convergence with televisions and home consoles, the when mobile gamers play, a 2017 report by Flurry
Party Pack series from Jackbox Games was among the Analytics showed that smartphone and tablet gamers
first to allow participants to play using their phones or alike follow a similar gaming pattern of playing more
tablets as controllers. In 2017, Sony introduced a series often as the day goes on, with peak playtime between
of PlayLink titles which allow players to use iOS or 6pm and 9pm (Figure 14.16).
Android devices as controllers. Among the first titles to A North American report from EEDAR indicated
utilize this feature is the crime thriller Hidden Agenda by why, where, and how mobile gamers typically play.
Supermassive Games. Other PlayLink titles to look for Among the top five reasons adult mobile gamers play,
“include a party game called That’s You and a new entry 83% said it was an “easy way to pass the time,” while 65%
FIGURE 14.16 Mobile gaming usage trends (Flurry Analytics, 2017).
Phones
Tablets
12 AM 3 AM 6 AM 9 AM 12 AM 3 PM 6 PM 9 PM
play because it is “cheap or free entertainment.” About best quarterly earnings ever, taking in more than $46
63% enjoy mobile games because they are “playable billion over three months. 53% of that revenue was from
anywhere,” 53% reported they are “easy to pick up and the sale of 37 million iPhones, at an average selling price
put down,” while 49% play mobile games because they of nearly $660” (Golson, 2012, para. 1). Android tablet
are “playable on a convenient device.” As for where sales grew from a 45.8% worldwide market share in 2012
or how mobile gamers play, the top three responses to a 61.9% share in 2013 (Gartner, 2014, p. 1). Today,
included “relaxing at home (other than bathroom, bed, Android “commands over 80 percent of the mobile OS
or watching TV),” “in bed, before sleep,” and “while market share globally, and just under 60 percent in the
watching TV/movies” (EEDAR, 2016, p. 25–26). U.S.” (Heiman, 2016, para. 1).
Another current trend is what platform people are Similar to Pac-Man in the 1980s, the casual Angry
choosing to play mobile games on. A report from Gartner Birds became a huge intellectual property, becoming the
showed that 99.6% of all smartphone sales in the fourth first mobile game to receive a full-length feature film
quarter of 2016 were Android and iOS devices, with when Columbia Pictures and Rovio Animation released
Samsung leading the Android hardware market (Gartner, The Angry Birds Movie on May 20, 2016. Even before the
2017). A report from Flurry indicated that larger screen movie, stores were flooded with Angry Birds stuffed
size correlated with longer playing times, with game animals and other ancillary products—from toys and
sessions on large tablets lasting roughly 61% longer than board games, to backpacks and other school supplies.
sessions on medium-sized phones (Perez, 2017). Five Nights at Freddy’s was another mobile franchise that
saw numerous dolls and products based off its game
◾ MARKET SUMMARY characters.
Research by SuperData Research and Unity Tech-
Mobile and casual gaming have seen tremendous growth nologies revealed that mobile games set a new record in
since the turn of the century. It was big news in 2002 for 2016, generating more than $40.6 billion in worldwide
WAP gaming when “Digital Bridges announced it had revenue—an 18% increase from 2015. “That money is
clocked up its 10 millionth session, which accounted for equal to all global movie box office sales during the same
over 70 million minutes of airtime” (Wright, 2016C, time” (Takashi, 2017B, para. 1). Furthermore, Newzoo
para. 12). Then 2003’s N-Gage was called a commercial estimated “that mobile gaming generated 37% of total
failure but still sold 3 million units (Snow, 2007, para. 2) global video game revenue in 2016, rising 21.3% year
and was still profitable for Nokia. over year and surpassing PC revenue for the first time
Apple made tremendous strides with its iPhone and ever” (Tenebruso, 2017, para. 15). See Table 14.7 for the
other iOS products. In January 2012, “Apple reported its top mobile games of 2017.
TABLE 14.7 Top U.S. Mobile Games as of Fall 2017 (Think Gaming, 2017)
Top Free Games Top Grossing Games
1 Homescapes (Playrix Games) 1 Candy Crush Saga(King)
2 Super Mario Run (Nintendo Co., Ltd.) 2 Clash of Clans (Supercell)
3 Snake VS Block (Voodoo) 3 Candy Crush Soda Saga (King)
4 Flip Master (Miniclip Com) 4 Pokémon GO (Niantic Inc.)
5 Rolly Vortex (Voodoo) 5 Crash Royale (SuperCell)
◾ ACTIVITY: MOBILE MULTIPLAYER

There are many ways gamers and game fans can get together and share a mobile gaming experience. Let’s play
one of these games together and discuss the experience.
GUIDELINES
A smartphone will be necessary for each person in this activity. Choose what game everyone would like to
participate in and download the appropriate app. Note that most of these online platforms require a user
account, so participants must be willing to create an account to proceed. Spend 30 minutes or so engaged in the
mobile game, communicating only through mobile devices and not verbally in the room. Then take an addi-
tional 20–30 minutes to conduct a group SWOT analysis of the experience.
◾ CHAPTER 14 QUIZ 5. The original Nokia N-Gage featured a game card

slot that was located:
1. Which of the following is not a common charac- a. On the top of the device, near the speaker
teristic of a casual game? b. Inside of its pop-out video screen
a. Easy to learn, with relatively few rules c. Inside its battery compartment
b. Simple gameplay (often requiring just one finger) d. None of the above
c. Can be played in short bursts of time
d. Targeted towards a narrow audience 6. Which of the following was not true of the Tiger
Telematics Gizmondo?
2. Considered the first smartphone, with features like a. Featured a slot for a SIM card
an address book, appointment scheduler, calcula- b. Supported WAP, GPRS, and SMS/MMS
tor, calendar, notepad, and world time clock: c. Was a technically superior game machine to
a. Psion Organiser N-Gage
b. IBM Simon d. Sold more than 50,000 units worldwide
c. PalmPilot
d. BlackBerry 850 7. Pioneered the smartphone revolution with its
multimedia features and App Store:
3. Helped lead the mass adoption of the first a. Apple iPhone
smartphones in Japan with its subscription-based b. Samsung Galaxy
online gaming platform called i-mode in 1999: c. Windows Phone
a. NTT DoCoMo d. None of the above
b. KDDI
c. Softbank 8. The first mobile service provider used by Apple for
d. Hagenuk Corporation the iPhone:
a. AT&T (then Cingular Wireless)
4. Aside from ports of Tetris, this game programmed b. Sprint
by Finnish developer Taneli Armanto for the Nokia c. T-Mobile
6110 was one of the first mainstream mobile games: d. Verizon
a. Bejeweled
b. Sorcery
c. Snake
d. Void Raider
9. A common monetization method used by modern 15. Today, Android commands more than
mobile games: __________ of the mobile OS market share across
a. Pay once/non-freemium the globe, with just below a 60% market share in
b. Free with ad support, a.k.a. Free-to-play (F2P) the United States.
c. Freemium a. 40%
d. All of the above b. 50%
c. 70%
10. Popularized the tile-matching genre on mobile, d. 80%
often called “match three” games:
a. Candy Crush Saga True or False
b. Clash of Clans
c. Fruit Ninja 16. Early mobile games used the primitive Wireless
d. Words With Friends Application Protocol (WAP) as the standard tech-
nology for connecting to the Internet.
11. Which of the following titles is not an “endless
runner” style of game? 17. The N-Gage Platform (also called “N-Gage 2.0”)
a. Alto’s Adventure was a flip phone version of the original, dedicated
b. Jetpack Joyride N-Gage gaming phone.
c. Laura Croft GO
d. Super Mario Run 18. In the mobile gaming world, “fragmentation” is the
result of different platforms using different oper-
12. By this year, high end smartphones began to be ating systems, which results in more work for
released with 2560 × 1440 “Quad HD” resolutions developers to port games.
and there were more than double the number of
Android users compared to iOS users: 19. The first generation of iPhones did not include
a. 2010 Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) support for
b. 2012 sending or receiving multimedia messages.
c. 2014
d. None of the above 20. A common trend with early mobile games was to
develop games first on Android and then port them
13. One of the biggest mobile releases of 2016, bringing over to iOS after the bugs were worked out.
augmented reality (AR) to mainstream audiences
and its social element led to a phenomenon of ◾ FIGURES
players going for walks together and/or meeting
Figure 14.1 “Smart” devices: (a) IBM Simon, (b) PalmPilot
other players in the physical world:
with stylus, and (c) BlackBerry 850 pager. (Blackberry_850 1999
a. Clash Royale
ᖺⓎ኎࣭ึ௦ࣔࢹࣝ) _2014-01-30_17-54.jpg, by Lutra98railway -
b. Mini Metro [1], CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org
c. Pokémon GO /w/index.php?curid=30883500. Retrieved from https://commons
d. Super Mario Run .wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blackberry_850%EF%BC%881999%E5%B9
%B4%E7%99%BA%E5%A3%B2%E3%83%BB%E5%88%9D%E4%BB
14. In 2017, Sony introduced a series of __________ %A3%E3%83%A2%E3%83%87%E3%83%AB%EF%BC%89_2014-01
titles (such as Hidden Agenda by Supermassive -30_17-54.jpg)
Games) allowing players to use iOS or Android
devices as controllers. FIGURE 14.2 Snapshot of Snake (1997) by Wardyga.
a. PlayLink
b. PlayMobile FIGURE 14.3 Nokia N-Gage handheld game console and mobile
c. Kickstarter phone. (“The Nokia N-Gage, a device that combined gaming, mobile
d. RedTooth phones and tacos. This mobile phone and handheld gaming hybrid
came out in 2003 and was followed by the N-Gage QD a year later. It FIGURE 14.11 Screenshots of early iOS games: (a) Rolando (2008)
was not successful as a phone or a gaming platform.” By Evan-Amos and (b) Angry Birds (2009). (Rolando courtesy of HandCircus/
- own work, public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia ngmoco, 2008; and Angry Birds courtesy of Rovio Entertainment,
.org/w/index.php?curid=33692791. Retrieved from https://en 2009.)
.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Gage_(device)#/media/File:Nokia-NGage-LL
.jpg) FIGURE 14.12 Screens of multiplatform hits (a) Fruit Ninja and
(b) Plants vs. Zombies (2010). (Fruit Ninja courtesy of Halfbrick,
FIGURE 14.4 Screenshots of N-Gage launch titles (a) Puyo Pop, 2010; and Plants vs. Zombies courtesy of PopCap Games/Electronic
(b) SonicN, and (c) Tomb Raider: Starring Laura Croft. (Puyo Pop Arts 2010.)
courtesy of Sega, 2003; SonicN courtesy of Sonic Team/Sega, 2003;
and Tomb Raider courtesy of Ideaworks3D/Nokia, 2003.) FIGURE 14.13 Screenshots of (a) Clash of Clans and (b) Candy
Crush Saga (2012). (Candy Crush Saga courtesy of King, 2012; and
FIGURE 14.5 Screenshots from one of the banned Nokia commer- Clash of Clans courtesy of Supercell, 2012.)
cials from 2003 by Wardyga.
FIGURE 14.14 Screenshots of mobile hits: (a) Ridiculous Fishing:
FIGURE 14.6 Print advertisement for the N-Gage QD in 2005. A Tale of Redemption (2013), (b) Monument Valley (2014), and
(Retrieved from Maximum PC, December 2005, page 113.) (c) Prune (2015). (Ridiculous Fishing: A Tale of Redemption courtesy
of Vlambeer, 2013; Monument Valley courtesy of Ustwo Games,
FIGURE 14.7 Five of the best N-Gage titles: (a) Rayman 3, 2014; and Prune courtesy of Joel McDonald, 2015.)
(b) Pathway to Glory, (c) The Sims Bustin’ Out, (d) Glimmerati,
and (e) Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. (Rayman 3 cour- FIGURE 14.15 Screenshot of Pokémon GO (Niantic/Nintendo,
tesy of Gameloft, 2003; Pathway to Glory courtesy of RedLynx/ 2016) by Wardyga.
Nokia, 2004; The Sims Bustin’ Out courtesy of Ideaworks3D/EA
Games; Glimmerati courtesy of Bugbear/Nokia, 2005; and Tom FIGURE 14.16 Mobile gaming usage trends (Flurry Analytics,
Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory courtesy of Gameloft/Nokia, 2017). (“Mobile gaming sessions down 10 percent year-over-year, but
2005.) revenue climbs.” Posted Jun 21, 2017 by Sarah Perez. Retrieved from
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/21/mobile-gaming-sessions-down
FIGURE 14.8 Early mid-2000s mobile hits: (a) Prince of Persia: -10-percent-year-over-year-but-revenue-climbs/)
The Sands of Time (Gameloft), (b) The Fast and the Furious, (Digital
Bridges), and (c) Tower Bloxx (Sumea/Digital Chocolate). (Prince of Pro File: Steve Jobs. Photo credit: “Steve Jobs holding a MacBook Air
Persia: The Sands of Time courtesy of Gameloft, 2004; The Fast and (at MacWorld Conference & Expo 2008. Moscone Center, San
the Furious courtesy of Digital Bridges, 2004. “A Brief History of Mobile Francisco, CA)” by Matthew Yohe. Own work (Original text: self-
Games: 2005 - Making a big splash” by Chris Wright December 31st, made), CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
2008. The Fast and the Furious (Digital Bridges). Retrieved from http:// ?curid=6022486. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve
www.pocketgamer.biz/feature/10710/a-brief-history-of-mobile-games _Jobs#/media/File:Steve_Jobs.jpg.
-2004-money-for-nothing/; and Tower Bloxx courtesy of Sumea/Digital
Chocolate, 2005. Tower Bloxx (Digital Chocolate). Retrieved from
http://www.pocketgamer.biz/feature/10719/a-brief-history-of-mobile
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2006 - squaring the 3D circle. Retrieved from http://www -the-coffee.
CHAPTER 15
Modern Console Gaming
◾ OBJECTIVES

• Have a sense of graphics and other capabilities of modern video games.
• Be familiar with the technological differences among recent game systems.
• Summarize a brief overview of what made each video game console unique.
• Be familiar with the handheld systems released during this time period.
• Acknowledge the people who helped pave the way for these games and consoles.
• Explain why virtual reality failed to become as popular as traditional gaming.
• Summarize modern video game market sales.
• Account for fluctuations in market positions among leading manufacturers.
• Describe the breakthroughs and trends in gaming during this era.
377

343 Industries Digital-only Miiverse PS Vita/Card/2000
3DS series DeNA Mojang Raw Thrills
4K DirectX Bandai Namco Region-locked
Alexa & Siri DLNA NetFront Remedy Ent.
amiibo DRM New Xbox One Exp. Remote Play
API DualShock 4 NFC Sega
APU Durango Nintendo 3DS Share Play
Asymmetrical Dynamic Menu Nintendo eShop Snap
AT&T E3 conference Nintendo Network Specular Interactive
Attach rate Elite controller Nintendo Switch SpotPass & StreetPass
Augmented reality Espresso CPU Nintendo World Stream processors
Autostereoscopic Reggie Fils-Aime Off-TV Play Tetsu Sumii
Beam Flash ROM cartridges OLED SuperData Research
Bonaire GPU FLOPS OneGuide John Taylor
Bungie GameDVR OOE The Coalition
Jason Camberis Graphics Core Next Orbis TV Control
Capacitive touchpad Hair Trigger Locks Picture-in picture Twitch
Casual games HDR10 high-dynamic- Pitcairn Ultra HD Blu-ray
Mad Catz range color Play Anywhere Ustream
Mark Cerny Impulse triggers Play Mechanix Videmption
Chat Headset Intellectual property Playdead Virtual Console
Cloud gaming Satoru Iwata PlayStation 4 Wii U/GamePad
Club Nintendo Jaguar CPU PlayStation Camera Wii U Pro Controller
Clubs (on XBL) Joy-Con PlayStation Move Xbox App/Smartglass
Compute units Tatsumi Kimishima PlayStation Now Xbox Live Gold
Cortana Kinect 2.0 PlayStation Plus Xbox One
Dashboard Latte GPU PlayStation VR Mike Ybarra
Dave & Buster’s Carl Ledbetter Project Café Shuhei Yoshida
Day one patch Don Mattrick Project Scorpio Zynga
March 2011 November 2012 November 2013
Nintendo 3DS Nintendo Wii U Xbox One
PlayStation Vita PlayStation 4 Nintendo Switch
February 2012 November 2013 March 2017

Modern Console Gaming ◾ 379
◾ THE MODERN ARCADE Larger companies like Dave & Buster’s operated
more than 80 venues as of 2016. Unlike other arcade/
The U.S. arcade scene remained steady into 2010 and restaurant or bar combos whose primary source of
saw a number of titles by Illinois-based newcomer Raw revenue has been from food and drinks, dining and
Thrills. The developer/publisher of The Fast and the beverage income for Dave & Buster’s typically makes up
Furious (2004) game partnered up with other U.S. around 46.8% of all revenues—with amusement and
developers such as Play Mechanix and Specular Inter- other revenues taking in 53.2% of earnings. Upon
active to release hit arcade games such as Big Buck Safari further analysis, 78.3% of this “amusement and other
(2008), H2Overdrive (2009), and Terminator Salvation revenues” figure came from redemption games, while
(2010) (Figure 15.1a) among other movie-based titles. only 18% of these earnings came from simulation and
Sega continued to turn out hit machines and Bandai video games (Dave & Busters, 2016, p. 5). Arcades in the
Namco saw the bulk of its earnings from arcade games United States may not be dead, but it is no longer video
such as Deadstorm Pirates (2010), Tekken Tag Tourna- games that are keeping them alive.
ment 2 (2011) and Dark Escape 4D (2012). Subsequent
arcade successes included Mario Kart Arcade GP DX
(2013), Star Wars: Battle Pod (2014) (Figure 15.1b), and
Tekken 7 (2015). DID YOU KNOW?
Except for fighting games, the modern era of arcades Arcade Deluxe created by Jason Camberis holds the
implemented the business strategy of not porting arcade Guinness World Record for “Largest Arcade Machine”
games to home consoles. Maintaining many of these games standing over 14 feet tall and nearly 6 1/2 feet wide
as exclusives in the arcades has given many gamers a reason (Guinness World Records, 2015, p. 176). It can play
more than 250 classic arcade games from Atari, Capcom,
to return to them. Another trend that may have helped
Midway, Namco, Sega, SNK, Taito, and Tecmo.
attract people back to the arcade scene was the rise of casual
games made popular by online and mobile gaming, as well
as indie games and the Nintendo Wii. The style of these
casual games was not unlike the arcade hits of yesteryear, ◾ MODERN CONSOLE GAMING
leading to retro game revivals such as the 108-inch World’s
Largest Pac-Man and Galaga Assault in 2016. Most coin After a longer than usual life cycle for the seventh gen-
slots changed to card readers and a number of games eration of video games, the modern gaming era began—
began to combine video gaming with redemption (for like before—with the release of handheld systems by
tickets or points), creating hybrid machines known as video Nintendo and Sony. The Nintendo 3DS launched on
redemption or “videmption” games. February 26, 2011 in Japan and late March in most other
FIGURE 15.1 Screenshots of arcade hits (a) Terminator Salvation and (b) Star Wars: Battle Pod.
(a) (b)
countries. The PlayStation Vita was released in Japan a black controller and console, plus “32 GB of local
on December 17, 2011 and in mid-to-late February in storage, a Wii U controller charging cradle, Wii U
other regions. Likely due to greater competition by console stand and a copy of Nintendo Land” (Burns,
mobile devices, handheld sales were initially slow but 2012, para. 4). Early press from sources like The Wall
eventually gained momentum. For home consoles, this Street Journal indicated that Nintendo aimed to attract
era marked the first time that all major video game both casual and hardcore gamers alike with its new
systems debuted in North America either before or system (Lejacq, 2012).
simultaneous to their Japanese and European launches. As for the name, Nintendo of America president
As for tech specs, FLOPS (floating point operations Reggie Fils-Aime announced; “It’s a system we will all
per second) became more important than polygon enjoy together but also one that’s tailor-made for you…
counts as indicators for processor speeds and console Is it unique, unifying, maybe even utopian? The answer
comparisons. is also yes to all of this” (Sutter and Gross, 2011, para. 8).
Along with this perplexing description, naming it “Wii
◾ WII U U” was kind of a paradox. It capitalized on the successful
Wii brand but in doing so may have turned off hardcore
Codenamed “Project Café” and sometimes called “Wii gamers who were already disconnected from the original
HD” by journalists, Nintendo’s Wii U (Figure 15.2) was Wii. Its slogan was “How U will play next,” written as a
introduced in the United States on November 18, 2012 at question “How will U play next?” in PAL regions.
the Nintendo World store in Times Square. It was Early promotional videos showed the Wii U being
Nintendo’s second console to debut in North America used with the traditional Wiimote, leading many con-
along with the original Wii, and the company’s first high sumers to believe the Wii U was only an upgrade from
definition system. Two versions of the console were the original Wii. This was not helped by Nintendo’s
made available including the $299 Basic set bundled emphasis on its tablet-style GamePad, which was the
with a white controller and console with 8 GB of internal focal point in most Wii U advertising. For consum-
flash storage, along with a sensor bar, stylus, AC cables ers who understood the new concept, the Gamepad’s
and an HDMI cable. The $349 Deluxe set (Figure 15.3) 6.2-inch, 854 × 480 resolution touch screen brought
(called “Premium” outside of the United States) featured many innovations to gaming. Key features included its
FIGURE 15.2 Nintendo’s Wii U console with touchscreen-enabled Wii U GamePad.

FIGURE 15.3 Wii U print advertisement showing Deluxe set with black hardware (2012).
ability to stream games and movies from the console compatible cards and figurines, as well as a TV Control
without a TV (called Off-TV Play), easier web brows- button which allowed the GamePad to control most TVs
ing, and serving as a second screen for asymmetrical, and set-top boxes. On the downside, the GamePad only
multiplayer gaming. The GamePad could also be used worked within about 15 feet of the console, reducing the
as a secondary screen for maps, similar to how the dual portability potential many gamers had anticipated.
screens have been used on the Nintendo DS. The Wii U was built to be fully backward compatible
Beyond the touchscreen and a camera, the GamePad with all Wii software and accessories. And even without
featured motion controls and a familiar button/control counting the five digital-only games, the system’s 34
stick layout. New features included an NFC (near-field launch titles (Table 15.1) were the most ever for a home
communication) reader/writer which could interact with console. This fact may have gone unnoticed because
TABLE 15.1 Wii U U.S. Launch Titles (*digital-only)

∙ Assassin’s Creed III ∙ NBA 2K13
∙ Batman: Arkham City Armored Ed. ∙ New Super Mario Bros. U (Figure 15.4a)
∙ Ben 10: Omniverse ∙ Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
∙ Call of Duty: Black Ops II ∙ Nintendo Land (Figure 15.4b)
∙ Chasing Aurora* ∙ Rabbids Land
∙ Darksiders II ∙ Scribblenauts Unlimited
∙ Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two ∙ SING Party
∙ ESPN Sports Connection ∙ Skylanders: Giants
∙ FIFA Soccer 13 ∙ Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
∙ Funky Barn ∙ Tank! Tank! Tank!
∙ Game Party Champions ∙ Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii UEd.
∙ Just Dance 4 ∙ Transformers Prime: The Game
∙ Little Inferno* ∙ Trine 2: Director’s Cut*
∙ Madden NFL 13 ∙ Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper
∙ Mass Effect 3: Special Edition ∙ Wipeout 3
∙ Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Ed.* ∙ Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013
∙ Nano Assault Neo* ∙ ZombiU
more than half of those games had been released on technological powerhouse. It was superior to preexisting
other consoles prior to or simultaneously with the Wii hardware by Microsoft or Sony, but those companies
U’s launch. While exclusives like Nintendo Land and would be releasing successors to the Xbox 360 and PS3
ZombiU demonstrated the system’s potential, many the following year. While its internal flash memory may
other launch titles did not. have seemed small, the Wii U was built with an SD card
More than 400,000 units were sold during the first slot and four USB ports capable of expanding its capacity
week of the Wii U launch (Matthews, 2012). Like the to 2 terabytes (TB). For software, its slot-loading optical
original Wii, Nintendo’s strategy with the Wii U was disc drive supported 25 GB proprietary Wii U discs, as
focused on innovative gameplay rather than being a well as original Wii discs.
FIGURE 15.4 Screens of Wii U launch titles (a) New Super Mario Bros. U and (b)Nintendo Land.
(a) (b)
and protector sets, and amiibo carrying cases. Like

DID YOU KNOW? Activision’s Skylanders series, Nintendo developed its
The Wii U was the first home console by Nintendo to be own series of figurines called “amiibo” to play with
physically larger than its predecessor but used less energy games like Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Once pur-
than the Wii (at 37 kWh/year vs. Wii’s 40 kWh/year). chased, the player would scan the base of the figurine on
the GamePad’s NFC reader (marked with a rectangle
below the d-pad), register and name the amiibo—thus
The console’s online features could be accessed through
importing a virtual, playable version of that figurine into
the Nintendo Network, which did not charge players a
the game.
monthly subscription fee. Key network apps included
Virtual Console for downloading games; Nintendo
eShop where players could utilize Nintendo TVii to HEAD-TO-HEAD
search for programs on local TV, as well as video In addition to the Skylanders games, there were many
streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Video; and cross-platform titles released on the Wii U and its com-
the social networking service Miiverse, where gamers petitors. To compare the performance of the Wii U, Xbox
360, and PS3, check out each system’s version of Assassin’s
could share content or use their GamePad’s inner-
Creed IV, Batman: Arkham City, Call of Duty: Black Ops II,
facing camera to video chat with friends. The Nintendo Darksiders II, Rayman Legends, and Watchdogs.
Network also included access to the Club Nintendo
loyalty program and an Internet browser, which was
one of the best console web browsers and extremely
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: WII U VERSUS
easy to use with the GamePad’s tablet-style design. XBOX 360 AND PS3
Possibly because of the system’s backward compati-
bility with all original Wii accessories, the Wii U did not The Wii U was the dominant machine compared to the
have as many original controllers and peripherals of its PS3 and Xbox 360; however, these consoles were already 6
own. Aside from the GamePad, the Wii U Pro Controller and 7 years old. Powering the Wii U was the coffee-
was a more traditional game pad with a similar shape to themed IBM PowerPC Tri-Core “Espresso” CPU
the Xbox 360 controller. Other notable Wii U controllers running at 1.24 GHz, along with the 550 MHz AMD
included the Nintendo GameCube controller Super Smash Radeon “Latte” GPU capable of 320 shaders (Table
Bros. Edition and the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Arcade 15.2). While the CPU may seem a lot slower compared to
Stick by Mad Catz. Controller accessories included the the 3.2 GHz processors found in the PS3 and Xbox 360,
Mad Catz Wii U GamePad Grip & Guard, NERF Armor the Espresso was the first home console CPU to utilize
for Wii U GamePad, GameCube Controller Adapter, and OOE (Out of Order Execution) (Albert, 2013, para. 8).
Wii U GamePad Stand/Cradle Set. This process allowed it to carry out instructions in a
Beyond controller-related peripherals, the Wii U had nonlinear fashion (preloading data in the background),
its share of headsets, battery packs, styluses, screen filter making it much more efficient than previous consoles.
TABLE 15.2 Wii U Tech Specs

Manufacturer: Nintendo, Foxconn, and Mitsumi
Launch Price: $299.99 (4 GB) and $349.99 (32 GB, NNP, and Nintendo Land)
Release Date: 11/18/12 (NA), 11/30/12 (EU), 12/08/12 (JP)
Format: 5x proprietary Wii U optical disc (25 GB) + Wii discs
Processors: IBM PowerPC Tri-Core “Espresso” CPU (1.24 GHz)
AMD Radeon “Latte” GPU (550 MHz with 320 shaders)
Performance: Up to 1080p HD and 352 GFLOPS | GamePad = 3–5 h battery
Memory: 2 GB DDR3 RAM + 8 or 32 GB internal flash storage
Sound: 5.1 Linear PCM surround or analog stereo via HDMI
The CPU was also heavily supported by its Latte graphics manufactured titles by third-party developers (Plunkett,
processor, which carried the bulk of the load. 2016, para. 7). Among the first-party releases were the
On paper, the Latte appears to be barely superior to return of longtime franchises like Super Mario, Donkey
the 500 MHz ATI Xenos in the Xbox 360 and equal to Kong, and Zelda—along with sequels to Wii games
the 550 MHz Nvidia-based SCEI RSX Reality Synthe- such as Wii Fit U, Wii Party U, and Wii Sports Club.
sizer in the PS3. However, with nearly double the Mario remained the biggest star, with the console’s
amount of accessible RAM to work with, the Latte could best-selling titles being Mario Kart 8, New Super
push approximately 352 GFLOPS—compared to Mario Bros. U, and Super Mario 3D World (shown in
around 230 on PS3 and 240 on the 360. To look at it Figure 15.5).
from another angle, the Wii U’s GPU contained 320 The console’s more unique experiences were found in
shaders and stream processors (responsible for tradi- titles that used the GamePad in creative ways. For
tional graphics rendering tasks and general-purpose example, in Call of Duty: Black Ops, gamers could engage
number crunching), giving it approximately 1.5 times in asymmetrical gameplay with one player using the
the raw shader power compared to the Xbox 360 GamePad screen and one player using the TV, which
(Leadbetter, 2013, para. 5–6). eliminated having to play the game in split screen mode
For software, the Wii U used proprietary optical discs on a single screen. Another interesting use of the
that could store up to 25 GB of data—comparable to GamePad was how the tablet could be used as a drawing
the Blu-ray discs of the PS3. Its faster optical drive pad in Art Academy: SketchPad or as a canvas for
could “read discs at a 22 MB/s compared to the 360’s designing level layouts in Super Mario Maker. Similar to
15.85 MB/s (DVD) and the PS3’s 9 MB/s (Blu-ray) Sony’s LittleBigPlanet, players could create their own
speeds” which meant faster load times (Wong, 2012, levels in Super Mario Maker and then share them online
para. 1). On the other hand, the Wii U lacked many its with the rest of the world.
competitor’s features, including no trophy/achievement Last, the Wii U was home to a number of exceptional
system, no optical audio output, and no DVD or Blu-ray exclusive titles including Bayonetta 2, Super Smash Bros.
support. for Wii U, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Pikmin 3, Donkey
Kong Country: Tropic Freeze, and Splatoon. It was also
◾ KEY WII U TITLES the only home console featuring downloadable/indie
gems like Shantae: Risky’s Revenge – Director’s Cut,
The Wii U had hundreds of games available on its FAST Racing NEO, Runbow, Year Walk, Affordable
eShop but was severely lacking when it came to phys- Space Adventures, and Little Inferno—and was the
ical releases. By late 2016, Nintendo had only released exclusive console for Shovel Knight during the game’s
39 games in the United States, along with just 118 first 10 months on the market.
FIGURE 15.5 Box art to five Wii U hits including from: (a) Super Mario 3D World, (b) Rayman Legends, (c) Super Smash Bros.
for Wii U, (d) Bayonetta 2, and (e) Mario Kart 8.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

HANDHELD SNAPSHOT: NINTENDO 3DS FIGURE 15.6 Nintendo 3DS.
The 3DS (Figure 15.6) was released in the United

States on March 27, 2011 for $249. While the PSP
won out in some areas, the 3DS was technically
superior overall (Table 15.3). Its key feature was an
autostereoscopic upper screen that could display
stereoscopic 3D effects without 3D glasses. Other
new features included an analog “C-Stick,“ StreetPass
and SpotPass data systems, augmented reality (AR), plus
apps such as Virtual Console, Nintendo eShop, YouTube,
and Netflix. It was also backward compatible with DS
video game cards.
A larger 3DS XL was released after one year, increas-
ing each screen size by more than a full inch. Over
the next few years, Nintendo introduced a 2DS, New
Nintendo 3DS, and “new” XL model—the latter two
featuring 804 MHz quad-core ARM11 processors and
twice the amount of memory. After a slow start, Nintendo
went on to dominate the handheld market yet again with
more than 64 million 3DS systems sold for an 80%
market share (VGChartz, 2017). See Figure 15.7 for some
of the best titles.
TABLE 15.3 Nintendo 3DS Tech Specs

Format: Game Card (1–8 GB)/mAh lithium-ion battery (3–5 h)
Processors: Dual-Core ARM11 (268 MHz) + Single-Core ARM9 (134 MHz)
Digital Media Professionals PICA200 GPU (268 MHz)
Performance: 16.77 million colors, 15.3 million PPS at 200 MHz, 4.8 GFLOPS
Memory: 128 MB FCRAM, 6 MB VRAM, and 1 GB internal flash memory
Resolution: 800 × 240 (3.53" 3D LCD) and 320 × 240 (3.00" touchscreen LCD)
Sound: Stereo speakers (pseudo-surround)/3.5 mm mic/phones jacks
FIGURE 15.7 Five 3DS hits: (a) Super Mario 3D Land, (b)Pokémon Sun, (c)The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds,
(d)Fire Emblem: Awakening, and (e)Metroid: Samus Returns.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

◾ PLAYSTATION 4 TABLE 15.4 Sony PlayStation 4 U.S. Launch Titles

(*digital-only)
Codenamed “Orbis” after its operating system, the ∙ Angry Birds Star Wars ∙ Knack
PlayStation 4 (PS4) (Figure 15.8) debuted on November ∙ Assassin’s Creed IV: ∙ Lego Marvel Super
15, 2014 in North America for $399 and over the following Black Flag Heroes
weeks in other countries. For the launch party, “Sony’s PR ∙ Battlefield 4 ∙ Madden NFL 25
team rented out New York’s Standard High Line Hotel, ∙ Blacklight: Retribution* ∙ NBA 2K14
filling every room [including the showers] with PlayStation ∙ Call of Duty: Ghosts ∙ Need for Speed: Rivals
∙ Contrast* ∙ The Playroom*
branded regalia. Around 500 gamers showed up to receive
∙ DC Universe Online* (preinstalled)
their preordered consoles and were given free food, T- ∙ Resogun* (Figure 15.9b)
∙ FIFA 14 (Figure 15.9a)
shirts, and time with game demos while they waited” ∙ Flower* ∙ Skylanders: Swap Force
(Huffman, 2013, para. 3). The launch would earn Sony a ∙ Injustice: Gods Among ∙ Sound Shapes*
new record for fastest-selling game console with 1 million Us -Ultimate Ed. ∙ Super Motherload*
units sold in the United States in its first 24 hours, in ∙ Just Dance 2014 ∙ Trine 2: Complete Story*
addition to 250,000 systems sold within 48 hours in the ∙ Killzone: Shadow Fall ∙ Warframe*
United Kingdom (Guinness World Records, 2015, p. 178).
Bundled with the original console was a DualShock 4
controller, power cable, HDMI cable (a first for Sony), built to date with its number of cores and teraflops
Micro-USB cable, savings voucher, and a small, mono (Moss, 2013, para. 3).
earbud headset with a microphone and shirt clip. As for its initial games (Table 15.4), 10 of the con-
Fronted by lead architect and producer Mark Cerny sole’s 24 launch titles were digital-only, including The
(Crash Bandicoot/Ratchet & Clank), the technology in Playroom which came preinstalled on every PS4 system
the PS4 was a refreshing change from the complex to show off its optional camera and DualShock 4
microarchitecture of PS3’s Cell Processor. Behind its gamepad capabilities. The game consists of three aug-
power was an AMD Accelerated Processing Unit mented reality mini-games which could project the
(APU), which included an 8-Core x86-64 “Jaguar” CPU player(s) onto the TV screen to interact with superim-
and Radeon Graphics Core Next GPU on a single chip. posed robots or engage in a game of virtual air hockey.
AMD’s head of marketing John Taylor claimed the Sony added a number of new features to the
PS4’s chip was the most powerful APU the company had DualShock 4 controller, which was designed with input
FIGURE 15.8 Sony PlayStation 4 with DualShock 4 controller.

FIGURE 15.9 Screenshots from PlayStation 4 launch titles (a) FIFA 14 and (b) Resogun.
(a) (b)
from former Halo/Destiny developer Bungie (Rougeau, installation to the hard drive of all disc-based games,
2014, para. 7). The gamepad includes a clickable, two- which often run 30 to 50 GB in size. This allows
point capacitive touchpad for gameplay mechanics such the system to run games more efficiently with shorter
as navigating the map on Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag load times, and gamers can play the early stages of a
or calling “quick plays” in NBA 2K14. The top of the game while the rest of the game downloads in the back-
controller adds a light bar (shown in Figure 15.10) with ground. The console can also be set up to download
three LEDs that displays different colors to provide the updates while in standby mode.
player with certain information. For example, when four PS4’s Orbis operating system is a modified version of
controllers are active, player one is illuminated in blue, the open source FreeBSD 9 which is similar to Linux,
player two is red, player three is green, and player four is and includes a NetFront browser. While similar in
pink. Another use of the light bar is in Grand Theft Auto appearance to the PS3’s XrossMediaBar, the PS4’s new
V where it flashes red and blue when the player is being Dynamic Menu is more visually oriented and much
pursued by police. more intuitive. For example, when a game is inserted
Other features include a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack into the system, the menu places the game’s icon to the
(like Xbox 360’s controller), a mono speaker (like on the front of the list for easier access. Returning features
Wiimote), and a merged Start/Select button called include the PlayStation Store and PlayStation Plus
“Options” to make room for a new “Share” button for subscription service (now required for online gaming).
players to upload screenshots and videos of their last 15 In 2014 Sony introduced a cloud gaming service called
minutes of gameplay on social networking sites (Hsu, PlayStation Now where players can pay to download
2013, p. 2). The redesigned analog sticks feature convex and play various PS3 games on PS4.
dome caps and the L2 and R2 triggers (which are the Social interaction and interconnectivity are also pri-
only two buttons to retain pressure sensitivity) were orities for the system. In addition to allowing players
curved inward like on Xbox controllers. Everything from to stream out gameplay online, its “Share Play” func-
the d-pad, to the spacing around the face buttons, to the tionality allows PlayStation Plus members to invite other
curvature of the handles, was rethought and updated for members to play their games remotely or join them in
the DualShock 4. multiplayer games for 60 minute sessions—whether the
The casing for the PS4 was designed by Tetsu Sumii remote members own a copy of the game or not (SIEE
who aimed to create “a simple object in the living room” Ltd., 2017). While not a widely used feature on the PS3,
that was “beautiful from all sides” (Codd, 2013, p. 2). Sony Sony president Shuhei Yoshida mandated all PS4 “to
stayed with Blu-ray as its primary optical media, and offer ‘Remote Play’ on the PS Vita—that is, allow for
while the PS4 can also play DVDs, it is not backward PS4 games to be played on the Vita via a live video
compatible with PS3 discs and cannot play music CDs. As stream” (Rose, 2013, para. 2). This provides Vita owners
a first for home consoles, the PS4 requires mandatory with a feature similar to Off-TV Play on Wii U.
FIGURE 15.10 PS4 newspaper advertisement (2013) sponsoring the UEFA (soccer league).
itself 90 times per second) or at 120 Hz depending on the

DID YOU KNOW? VR game or application” (Pino, 2017, p. 4).
PS4 was the first console with built-in game broadcast- It is important to note that the PlayStation Camera is
ing, allowing gamers to broadcast their own gameplay or also necessary for the unit to play VR games—and while
watch live gameplay from others on platforms such as it is compatible with the DualShock 4, most PlayStation
Twitch and Ustream (Guinness World Records, 2015, VR owners will likely desire a pair of PlayStation Move
p. 179). controllers for a more immersive experience. Recogniz-
ing this, Sony released a bundle with these accessories for
Beyond the typical peripherals such as alternative con- $499, which was still the most affordable VR system of
trollers, steering wheels, headsets, and charging docks— its time. Game development and early sales for the
the two most innovative accessories for PlayStation 4 PlayStation VR have been slow. While the PS4 sold more
include the PlayStation Camera and PlayStation VR. than a million units in its first day, the PSVR took
The PlayStation Camera looks more like the Microsoft approximately 6 months to reach a million sold.
Kinect than a successor to the PlayStation Eye on PS3. Other major releases by Sony before the end of 2016
The optional motion-sensing camera includes two 1280 × included the 40% smaller PS4 Slim which debuted on
800 pixel lenses with an 85-degree field of view, which can September 15, and the larger PlayStation 4 Pro that
precisely judge depth of space, sense the colors of the launched worldwide on November 10. The PS4 Slim
DualShock 4’s light bar and PlayStation Move motion retained most of the original system’s features minus the
controller, as well as allowing users to login to their PS4 optical audio output. Among other improvements, the
using face recognition technology (Sony Computer PS4 Pro (codenamed “Neo”) can output 4K resolution
Entertainment Inc., 2013, para. 7). The camera also (3840 × 2160p) on compatible displays and includes a
includes a four-channel microphone array which can be more powerful 911 MHz GPU capable of 4.2 TFLOPS
used for voice commands in certain games and hands- (Porter, 2017).
free navigation on the Dynamic Menu. ◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: PLAYSTATION 4
Formerly named “Project Morpheus” after The VERSUS WII U
Matrix movie character, Sony joined the virtual reality
movement with the PlayStation VR which launched on As far as raw power goes, there is little to discuss
October 13, 2016. For the introductory price of $399, the between the PlayStation 4 and Wii U with the PS4’s 8-
basic package included a VR Headset, Processor Unit, Core AMD x86-64 Jaguar CPU (Table 15.5) being
stereo headphones, and five required cables. The leagues above the Wii U’s Tri-Core Espresso chip. Sony’s
“PlayStation VR can handle 1080p games on its 920 × AMD GPU (codenamed “Pitcairn”) is more than 30%
RGB × 1080 OLED [organic light-emitting diode] faster at 800 MHz, can process more than three times as
display at either 90 Hz (meaning that the image refreshes many shaders, and can perform 1.84 TFLOPS versus

Manufacturer: Sony Computer Entertainment and Foxconn
Release Date: 11/15/13 (NA), 11/29/13 (JP), 11/22/14 (EU)
Format: Blu-ray Disc (up to 50 GB) and DVD
Processors: 8-Core AMD x86-64 “Jaguar” CPU (1.6 GHz)
AMD Radeon Graphics Core Next (800 MHz) with 1152 shaders
Performance: Up to 1080p and 1.84 TFLOPS
Memory: 8 GB GDDR5 + 256 MB DDR3 RAM and 500 GB hard drive
Sound: 7.1 Linear PCM and Bitstream (Dolby+DTS) with HDMI+Optical
just 352 GFLOPS on the Wii U. While neither system were available for the PS4 by early 2017. Sony’s consoles
can play audio CDs, only the PS4 doubles as a DVD and have always had an excellent number of elite titles and
Blu-ray player. Sony’s system also features HDR10 the PlayStation 4 is no exception. Some of the best early
high-dynamic-range color, four times the amount of retail releases included Bloodborne by Dark Souls
RAM, larger internal storage with its 500 GB hard drive, developer FromSoftware, inFAMOUS: Second Son by
and more audio output options. Sucker Punch, and Supermassive Games’ Until Dawn.
While it isn’t a technical powerhouse like the Console exclusives continued to roll out each year, such
PlayStation 4, the Wii U does have a few advantages, as Capcom’s Street Fighter V, Insomniac’s reboot of
including free online play, backward compatibility with Ratchet & Clank, and SCE Japan Studio’s long-awaited
all Wii games, in addition to being a lot more energy The Last Guardian—each released in 2016.
efficient. On the other hand, Wii U games are region- As if the system didn’t already encompass enough
locked, meaning that NTSC consoles cannot play PAL must-have Sony console exclusives, 2017 saw the releases
games and vice versa like the PS4. Another disadvantage of Gravity Rush 2, NieR: Automata (also released on PC),
is that the Wii U does not support cloud storage. Lastly, Nioh, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Yakuza 0, and Persona 5
in what is basically a draw, the PS4 was built with a user- (also on PS3) (see Figure 15.11)—just to name a handful
replaceable, non-proprietary SATA hard drive but does of titles introduced that year. Similar to what began as a
not support external USB storage like the Wii U. common practice on the PS3, the PS4 quickly became
notorious for releasing updates of last generation titles
such as God of War III Remastered, Naughty Dog’s The
HEAD-TO-HEAD Last of Us Remastered, and Uncharted: The Nathan
To compare the performance between PS4 and Wii U Drake Collection.
games, check out these titles released on both systems: Naughty Dog continued to release new hits in the
Assassin’s Creed IV, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Child of Light, Uncharted series with Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and
LEGO City Undercover, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. The company is also working
Watchdogs.
on a sequel for The Last of Us at the time of this publi-
cation. Other key titles include a new God of War game
◾ KEY PLAYSTATION 4 TITLES and Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, Hideo Kojima’s
Death Stranding, Final Fantasy VII Remake, along
Thanks to its support of indie and digital-only titles, well with David Cage and Quantic Dream’s Detroit: Become
over 1000 games, including hundreds of exclusive titles Human.
FIGURE 15.11 Box art to five top PS4 titles: (a) The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt,(b) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,
(c) Uncharted 4: A Thief ’s End, (d) Persona 5, and (e)Horizon: Zero Dawn.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

HANDHELD SNAPSHOT: PLAYSTATION VITA FIGURE 15.12 PlayStation Vita.
The PlayStation Vita (Figure 15.12) launched in Japan

on December 11, 2011 and on February 22, 2012 in
many other regions. See Table 15.6 for specs. The stan-
dard Wi-Fi model cost $249 and an AT&T network 3G/
Wi-Fi model was available for $299.
The Vita abandoned UMDs (from PSP) in favor of PS
Vita Cards, which are more similar to the game cards on
Nintendo’s handhelds. Titles can also be downloaded
from the PlayStation Network. The original model fea-
tured a rear touchpad, plus a 5-inch OLED touchscreen
(which was replaced with a cheaper LCD screen on the
PS Vita 2000 model in 2014).
Despite a strong launch and more than 1000 titles
available, Sony has sold just over 15 million Vita units as
of spring 2017 (VGChartz, 2017). A large portion of Vita’s
best games have simply been updates or ports of games
available on other systems; however, the system is also
capable of streaming almost every PS4 game via Remote
Play. See Figure 15.13 for some top picks.
TABLE 15.6 PlayStation VitaTech Specs

Format: PS Vita Card/3.7 V 2210mAh lithium-ion battery (3–5 h)
Processors: Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 and Power VR SGX543MP4+ GPU
Performance: 17 million colors, 444 MHz CPU, 166 MHz GPU, 6.4 GFLOPS
Memory: 512 MB system RAM and 128 MB VRAM
Resolution: 960 × 544 qHD/OLED touchscreen (5" diagonal)
Sound: Built-in stereo speakers and microphone/3.5 mm headphones jack
FIGURE 15.13 Box art to five top PlayStation Vita games: (a) Gravity Rush, (b) LittleBigPlanet PS Vita, (c) WipEout 2048,
(d) Tearaway, and (e) Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

◾ XBOX ONE TABLE 15.7 Xbox One U.S. Launch Titles

∙ Angry Birds Star Wars ∙ Lego Marvel Super Heroes
Microsoft’s next system was often referred to by gamers
∙ Assassin’s Creed IV: ∙ LocoCycle
and journalists as the “Xbox 720” prior to its release— Black Flag ∙ Madden NFL 25
however, its actual codename was “Durango” (Dutton, ∙ NBA 2K14
∙ Battlefield 4
2012, p. 1). Following its official title, Xbox One (Figure ∙ Call of Duty: Ghosts ∙ NBA Live 14
15.14), the system underwent public scrutiny after the ∙ Crimson Dragon ∙ Need for Speed: Rivals
2013 E3 conference where many of Microsoft’s ∙ Dead Rising 3 ∙ Powerstar Golf
announcements left attendants unhappy. Among those ∙ FIFA 14 ∙ Ryse: Son of Rome
announcements, the new console would require the ∙ Fighter Within ∙ Skylanders: Swap Force
(once optional) Kinect sensor to function and would ∙ Forza Motorsport 5 ∙ Zoo Tycoon
need to connect to the Internet daily as part of a new (Figure 15.15a) ∙ Zumba Fitness:
digital rights management (DRM) system. The DRM ∙ Just Dance 2014 World Party
scheme would bind each purchased game to the user’s ∙ Killer Instinct
Xbox Live account, severely limiting the sharing or sale (Figure 15.15b)
of preowned games—essentially eradicating the concept
of renting physical titles (Bramwell, 2013, para. 5).
Microsoft quickly removed these restrictions after the more than 1 million units during the console’s first
public backlash from its E3 announcements and shortly 24 hours on store shelves (Xbox Wire, 2013, p. 1). See
thereafter, president of Microsoft’s Interactive Enter- Table 15.7 for launch titles.
tainment Business Don Mattrick announced he would The original bundle consisted of an Xbox One console
be leaving Microsoft to become CEO of social game with 500 GB hard drive, Kinect peripheral (shown in
developer Zynga. Although no longer required, the Figure 15.16), wireless controller with two AA batteries,
Kinect remained bundled with the Xbox One at launch, Xbox One Chat Headset with adapter, HDMI and
resulting in a $499 price tag when the console debuted in power cables, and a free 14-day trial of Xbox Live Gold.
North America and parts of Europe on November 22, The design of the new console, Kinect 2.0, and the
2013. The system would not reach Japan and many other controller was led by Carl Ledbetter. The system’s bulky
countries until September 2014. Despite the negative design (much larger than the original PS4) was stylized
press, Microsoft saw its biggest Xbox launch, selling to complement existing home entertainment products.
FIGURE 15.14 Xbox One console with original controller.

FIGURE 15.15 Screens of Xbox One launch titles (a) Forza Motorsport 5 and (b) Killer Instinct.
(a) (b)
The casing featured a two-tone color scheme (referred to side, the system was programmed to monitor its internal
by Ledbetter as “liquid black”) with each half measuring temperature and could increase fan speed or cycle down
16 × 9, consistent to the shape of a modern television its power usage to prevent overheating (Reisinger, 2013,
screen. A large air vent was implemented to help the para. 3).
system run more quietly but unlike the Xbox 360, the Ledbetter’s team made more than 40 improvements
original Xbox One had to sit horizontally for optimal to the controller, such as the micro-texture around the
airflow and venting (Goldfarb, 2013, p. 1). On the plus sides of the thumbsticks, refined d-pad, finish of the
FIGURE 15.16 Xbox One online ad (2013) featuring Kinect, console, and controller.
buttons, and streamlined battery pack. Even the triggers have also emphasized the console’s focus on being an all-
were given the royal treatment, featuring separate in-one entertainment system that can be integrated with
rumble motors called “impulse triggers” that can be television programming, streaming, and social media
programmed to vibrate separately or together depending applications. The console featured its own program
on the situation. Another unique and consistent feature guide called OneGuide and like the PlayStation Camera,
on all three major devices includes “the ‘white, magical’ players could use Kinect 2.0’s improved motion tracking
backlit Xbox logo on the console, Kinect and controller and voice recognition to navigate the system’s Dash-
that knows to dim when the room is dark and shine board interface using hand gestures and voice com-
brightly when it’s not” (Warnick, 2014). Like Sony (and mands. Also like PS4, Xbox One featured a greater
unknown to either of them at the time), Microsoft chose emphasis on cloud computing, live streaming, and
AMD to design its custom APU based on its “Jaguar” sharing screenshots or video clips of gameplay with the
architecture. Its eight-core CPU was clocked at GameDVR app.
1.75 GHz, complimented by an 853 MHz Radeon Similar to PS4’s Dynamic Menu, the original “Metro”
“Bonaire” GPU with 768 shaders, providing a peak style UI for the Xbox One displayed recently used pro-
theoretical power of 1.31 TFLOPS. grams and games upon boot up. However, the interface
was clearly made to utilize Kinect’s voice commands,
making navigation of the (often hidden) menus with the
DID YOU KNOW? controller or motion gestures somewhat cumbersome
(Rivington, 2017, p. 1). Microsoft completely overhauled
For the Xbox One hardware, “Ledbetter and his col-
leagues on the Xbox industrial design team sketched and
the UI with an all-new user interface called the “New
then 3D-printed … more than 75 iterations of the Xbox One Experience” as a system update on Novem-
console, 100 of Kinect, and more than 200 of the con- ber 12, 2015.
troller” and “more than 1,000 pairs of hands” went into The updated, Windows 10-based firmware added a
testing the various versions of the controller” (Warnick, plethora of new features, including a new layout with
2014).
more vertical navigation, a Snap overlay menu that can
be quickly accessed by double clicking the Xbox button,
The original Xbox One used DirectX 11.2 for its and the “Play Anywhere” ability to stream Xbox One
Application Programming Interface (API), along with console games remotely to any PC or other device
three operating systems (including Windows) to run running Windows 10 (Veloria, 2015). The new UI also
applications and games concurrently. This unique ability added backward compatibility with a number of Xbox
set the system apart from other consoles and is most 360 games where users can insert an Xbox 360 disc
apparent when using the system’s split-screen multi- into the Xbox One, which then authenticates the
tasking functions with different applications. The con- game and downloads a digital copy to the system’s
sole’s Snap feature, which it borrowed from Windows 8, hard drive. Another new feature of the New Xbox One
was similar to a more interactive version of picture-in- Experience is greater social integration with the new
picture (PiP). Snap provides the “ability to produce Xbox App (formerly Xbox One Smartglass), such as its
numerous visual ‘panes,’ which are full 1080p layers “Clubs” area where users can chat and play with other
generated independently and displayed one on top of the gamers in a public, private, or hidden (invitation-only)
other. These panes … allow a user to play full-fledged setting.
Xbox games while also seeing their fantasy football app While the new UI made many improvements and
or Skype chat updating in an overlaid Windows pane” additions to the console, it also removed hand gesture
(Sakr, 2013, para. 3). control. According to Director of Program Manage-
Microsoft’s prelaunch slogan for the Xbox One was ment for Xbox Mike Ybarra, the feature was removed
“All for one. Input one.” Subsequent advertisements because hardly anyone used it (Graham, 2015, para. 5).
In its place, a new voice assistant named Cortana was TABLE 15.8 Xbox One Tech Specs
added in 2016. Similar to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Manufacturer: Flextronics & Foxconn
Alexa, Cortana added improved voice command Launch Price: $499.99
functionality and better natural language recognition. Release Date: 11/22/13 (NA & EU), 09/04/14 (JP)
The Dashboard was updated further on March 29, Format: Blu-ray Disc (up to 50 GB), DVD,
2017, featuring “a new Home screen, improved Guide and Audio CDs
menu, the Beam streaming option, enhanced multi- Processors: 8-Core AMD Custom Microsoft
tasking and deeper Cortana integration” (Hall, 2017, CPU (1.75 GHz)
para. 1). AMD Radeon “Bonaire” GPU
Among the many traditional accessories for the (853 MHz) with 768 shaders
system, perhaps the most unique addition was the $150 Performance: Up to 1080p and 1.31 TFLOPS
Elite controller released in October 2015. The controller Memory: 8 GB DDR3 + 32 MB eSRAM and
added “four interchangeable paddles around back [to 500 GB hard drive
Sound: 7.1 Linear PCM and Bitstream
allow gamers to keep both thumbs on the thumbsticks at
(Dolby+DTS) with HDMI+Optical
all times], Hair Trigger Locks for precise control in
shooters, remappable buttons, and completely swappable
components” (Welch, 2015, para. 1). In addition to
releasing retail configurations of the Xbox One without at 1.75 GHz (Table 15.8) versus 1.6 GHz on the PS4.
the Kinect sensor, the Xbox One Elite (bundled with an Both GPUs are based on Graphics Core Next (GCN)
Elite controller and a 1 TB solid-state hybrid drive) was architecture with the Xbox One’s 853 MHz GPU
released in November 2015 for $499. clocking slightly higher than the 800 MHz GPU in the
This was followed by the 40% smaller, slightly faster PS4. Otherwise, Xbox One’s GPU contains just 12
Xbox One S in August 2016, which like the PS4 Pro, compute units (768 shaders) and a peak performance of
supports 4K video resolution and brings the console up 1.31 TFLOPS versus the PS4’s 18 compute units (1,152
to par with the original PS4’s HDR10 high-dynamic- shaders) and 1.84 TFLOPS of power—a 50% advantage.
range color. The new model contains an internal power That advantage is expanded even further with the
supply and can be positioned vertically with a stand— PS4’s 5500 MHz GDDR5 RAM, which is twice as fast as
however, the updated system requires a USB adapter to the 2133 MHz DDR3 RAM found in Xbox One.
attach the Kinect. Further enhancements to the S model “This leads to a massive bandwidth advantage in favor of
include Ultra HD Blu-ray and Bluetooth 4.0 support. the PS4. The PS4’s CPU and GPU have 176 GB/s of
Codenamed “Project Scorpio,” a third major iteration bandwidth to system RAM, while the Xbox One has just
released in late 2017 was Xbox One X with even faster 68.3 GB/s. In Microsoft’s favor, the Xbox One has
processors and 50% more memory and bandwidth than 32 MB of super-fast embedded SRAM (about 102 GB/
the Xbox One S. sec in each direction, for a total of 204 GB/sec of
bandwidth)” (Lendino, 2015, para. 8). When used
◾ CONSOLE COMPARISON: XBOX ONE appropriately, this extra RAM can narrow the speed
VERSUS PLAYSTATION 4 difference; however, cross-platform games have typically
run at higher resolutions or fps on the PS4.
For those not interested in Kinect or PlayStation In other comparisons, both consoles can download
Camera, the PS4 had the advantage at launch of being updates while in standby mode and all games for each
$100 cheaper and more powerful overall. Both systems system require installation—a process that has been
contain an x86-64 APU by AMD with CPUs that are shown to take longer on Xbox One (Rivington, 2017,
practically identical, other than Xbox One being clocked p. 2). Each console emphasizes social media, sharing clips
and screenshots, and can be connected to tablets and Each system features improved and more ergonomic
phones. While the PS4 can export the last 15 minutes of controllers but only Sony’s features a touchpad, speaker,
gameplay with its Share function, the Xbox One can only and motion controls. While a rechargeable battery pack
record the most recent 5 minutes of gameplay but can can be purchased, the Xbox One still requires two AA
export the last 30 seconds of gameplay on the fly with the batteries out of the box, compared to the built-in
Kinect voice command, “Xbox, record that” (Grubb, rechargeable lithium ion battery pack in the PS4 con-
2013, para. 3–7). troller. The PS4 controller is easier to charge with its
Microsoft’s 2015 firmware update provided some mini USB cable which can be charged while gaming,
notable perks for the Xbox One, including a growing list whereas the batteries tend to last around five times
of backward compatibility with Xbox 360 games. “Sony, longer in the Xbox One controller.
on the other hand, relies on its cloud gaming platform In line with its greater emphasis on multitasking, the
PlayStation Now to deliver playable PS3 games, but that is Xbox One is the only console reviewed in this chapter
a rental or subscription service that requires additional that can play audio CDs. Both systems eventually sup-
payment” (Henderson, 2015, para. 14). Furthermore, the ported MP3 format and DLNA (Digital Living
Xbox One’s ability to stream games to Windows 10 Network Alliance), which allows users to stream media
devices is arguably more desirable than PS4’s Remote Play from a computer to their home console. While the
integration with PlayStation Vita. Both systems charge for original Xbox One lacked the Bluetooth and HDR10
online gaming, with an annual subscription to Xbox Live high-dynamic-range color of the PS4, Microsoft added
Gold or PlayStation Plus running $59.99 in 2017. those features to the Xbox One S—which brings up an
important point. With the growing trend of firmware
updates and the release of more powerful iterations of
HEAD-TO-HEAD existing systems (such as the Xbox One S, PS4 Pro, and
There were a number of games that were released on Xbox One X), comparing consoles is becoming a con-
both the Xbox One and PS4. Compare the gameplay and stantly evolving process. Table 15.9 illustrates some of
graphics to each system’s version of Battlefield 1, Grand the key differences in performance among the many
Theft Auto V, Pro Evolution Soccer 2017, Resident Evil 7: models of current-generation hardware introduced by
Biohazard, and Titanfall 2. Sony and Microsoft this generation.
FIGURE 15.17 Box art to five Xbox One classics: (a) : Forza Horizon 3, (b) Fallout 4, (c) Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive
Edition, (d) Overwatch: Origins Edition, and (e) Rise of the Tomb Raider.
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

TABLE 15.9 Xbox One and PS4 Console Versions Compared (Walton, 2017)
PS4 Xbox One Xbox One S PS4 Pro Xbox One X
CPU 8 cores @ 8 cores @ 8 cores @ 8 cores @ 8 cores @
1.6 GHz 1.75 GHz 1.75 GHz 2.1 GHz 2.3 GHz
GPU 18 AMD GCN 12 GCN 12 GCN 36 AMD 40 custom
CUs @ compute units compute units GCN CUs @ compute units
800 Mhz @ 853 MHz @ 914 MHz 911 Mhz @ 1172 MHz
Memory 8 GB GDDR5 8 GB DDR3 8 GB DDR3 8 GB GDDR5 12 GB GDDR5
and 256 MB and 32 MB and 32 MB and 1 GB
DDR3 ESRAM ESRAM DDR3
Bandwidth 176 GB/s 68 and 68 and 218 GB/s 326 GB/s
204 GB/s 219 GB/s
Hard Drive 500 GB 1 TB/500 GB 1 TB/500 GB 1 TB 1 TB
Optical Blu-ray Blu-ray 4K UHD and Blu-ray 4 K UHD and
Drive Blu-ray Blu-ray
◾ KEY XBOX ONE TITLES making issues since release, leading developers 343
Industries to offer huge chunks of upcoming DLC
More than 1000 games have been released for the Xbox (including the entirety of Halo: ODST) as free
One, including a few dozen exclusive titles. New Xbox- downloads to placate disgruntled owners” (Rivington,
only titles include the hilariously fun Sunset Overdrive, 2017, para. 17). The game was so large that it took up
puzzle platformer Fru, massive Rare Replay compilation, nearly all 45 GB of its Blu-ray disc and required a 20 GB
and Remedy Entertainment’s follow-up to Alan Wake, day one patch to access its online multiplayer mode.
Quantum Break (also on PC). Returning first-party Other highly anticipated exclusives such as Phantom
exclusives include Gears of War 4 (now developed by Dust, Scalebound, and Fable Legends have been outright
Canadian studio The Coalition), several games from the canceled by Microsoft.
Forza series, and multiple Halo titles including Halo: On the bright side, Microsoft now owns the rights to
Spartan Assault, Halo Wars 2, and Halo: The Master Minecraft after purchasing publisher/developer Mojang
Chief Collection to name a few. in late 2014. Notable cross-platform games not already
Rise of the Tomb Raider (shown in Figure 15.17) was mentioned in this chapter include Playdead’s follow-up
released exclusively for Microsoft systems and did to Limbo called Inside, Dark Souls III, Rocket League,
not reach the PS4 for nearly a year later. Exclusives, Dishonored 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Batman: Arkham
however, have been an issue for the system. Halo: The Knight, Mortal Kombat X, Far Cry 4, plus first-person
Master Chief Collection, “which comprises Halos 1–4 shooters Battlefield 1, Doom, Overwatch, and Call of
remastered with updated single and multiplayer por- Duty: Infinite Warefare.
tions of the FPS classics, has been plagued by match-
HYBRID SNAPSHOT: NINTENDO SWITCH

Codenamed “NX,” the Nintendo Switch (Figure 15.18) was released worldwide on March 3, 2017 for $299. See Table
15.10 for launch titles. The Switch is a hybrid unit that doubles as a portable handheld system, as well as a home console
when inserted into its docking station and connected to a TV. Its unique detachable Joy-Con controllers allow for mul-
tiplayer gaming both at home and on the go. According to SuperData Research, the Switch sold over 1.5 million consoles
in its first two weeks, along with the strong attach rate of an estimated 89% of Switch owners purchasing The Legend of
Zelda: Breath of the Wild with the console (Dring, 2017, para. 1–4).
FIGURE 15.18 Nintendo Switch.
TABLE 15.10 Nintendo Switch U.S. Launch Titles (*digital-only)

∙ 1-2-Switch ∙ Shovel Knight : Specter of Torment*
∙ Fast RMX* ∙ Shovel Knight : Treasure Trove*
∙ I Am Setsuna* ∙ Skylanders : Imaginators
∙ Just Dance 2017 ∙ Snipperclips
∙ Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ∙ Super Bomberman R
With flash storage

With flash storage becoming
becoming larger
larger and
andmore
moreaffordable,
afford- Switch
Nintendo focuses on ato new
was able way optical
abandon of playing video
media games,
in favor of
able, Nintendo was able to abandon optical media in rather than the raw power of Microsoft
flash ROM cartridges as its main form of physical game media. Like its previous two consoles, the Nintendo Switchand Sony’s systems.
favor of on
focuses flash ROM
a new cartridges
way as video
of playing its main form rather
games, of physical
than the Refer to Table
raw power 15.11 to and
of Microsoft compare
Sony’sspecs.
systems. Refer to Table
game media. Like its
15.11 to compare specs. previous two consoles, the Nintendo
TABLE 15.11 Nintendo Switch Tech Specs

Format: Flash ROM cartridge/4310 mAh Li-ion battery (2.5–6 h)
Processors: Nvidia Custom Tegra X1 with four ARM Cortex A57 CPU cores
and four ARM Cortex A53 CPU cores (1.020 GHz)
GM20B Maxwell CUDA GPU with 256 cores (307.2–768 MHz)
Performance: Estimated more than 1 teraflop of (Takashi, 2016, para. 11)
Memory: 4 GB LPDDR4 RAM / 32 GB internal storage, expandable to 2 TB
Resolution: 1920 × 1080p docked and 1280 × 720p on 6.2" LCD screen
Sound: 5.1ch Linear PCM output/stereo speakers, with 3.5 mm jack
◾ MARKET SUMMARY Mark Cerny as the lead architect for both the PlayStation
Vita and PS4. Approaching the new hardware from a
The market saw many changes during this generation of game developer’s perspective was a way of correcting
video games. Console updates (i.e., PS4 Pro, Xbox One S some of the difficulties the company faced with the PS3.
and X) have become even more significant and are The PS4 got off to a strong start before it was even
extending the life cycles of consoles today. Along with released, thanks to Microsoft’s blunders at E3 2013
more digital games than ever being available for down- which Sony was able to capitalize on. Sony received a
load, manufacturing costs of physical games are being standing ovation at their E3 conference after confirming
cut by using game cases that use less plastic and most “the PlayStation 4 would fully support used games, allow
companies have discontinued including paper instruc- for easy lending and would have absolutely zero online
tion manuals. China became a new market for video requirements to play single player games” (Tassi, 2013,
game systems when it lifted its 14-year-old console ban para. 7).
in 2014 and eliminated all sales restrictions in 2015. The PS4’s $399 launch price was $100 less than an
After suffering one of its worst financial losses in Xbox One and the system took off as the forerunner for
2014, Nintendo had to face the mobile landscape as a the modern console generation. Just two years after its
possible option for its beloved intellectual properties launch, Sony announced that the PlayStation 4 had sold
(IPs). Following much hesitation by Nintendo presi- more than 30.2 million units, making it the fastest-
dent Satoru Iwata, Nintendo finally announced an selling PlayStation console in that time period (Smith,
alliance with Japanese mobile provider DeNA in 2015, para. 1). The console would maintain its lead in
March 2015 (Peckham, 2015, para. 3). The first titles to the years that followed, and by 2017 Sony had sold an
be launched under the new partnership were Miitomo estimated 53.4 million consoles (Sony Interactive
and Super Mario Run in 2016; however, a year before Entertainment, 2017, p. 1).
their release Iwata passed away from a bile duct growth Microsoft recovered from E3 2013 by retracting most
on July 11, 2015 (Plunkett, 2015, para. 1). He was of the features that led to its bad press, such as requiring
succeeded by Tatsumi Kimishima. the Kinect accessory, needing a daily online connection
As for the Wii U, perhaps one of Nintendo’s biggest to play offline games, and restricting the usage of
mistakes was with its marketing. “When the Wii U was preowned games. The system’s debut was the most
originally announced, [Nintendo] put a lot of emphasis successful launch for an Xbox console, although sales in
on the tablet controller, but near nothing was mentioned Japan continued to remain poor. “The Xbox One sold a
about the console itself” (Gittins, 2015, para. 4). It also total of 23,562 units during its launch week in Japan
didn’t help that the Wii U console looked just like a [while] PlayStation 4, in comparison, opened to 309,000
slightly larger, rounder Wii. Since the original Wii was sales, and Wii U to 308,000” (Romano, 2014, p. 1). Even
known for its many accessories, many consumers viewed the Xbox 360 fared better with 62,000 units sold in its
the Wii U Gamepad as an accessory for the original Wii first week when it debuted in Japan back in 2005.
and were not aware that the Wii U was a completely new Since around 2015, Microsoft essentially stopped
console. Third-party support eventually died out and releasing sales figures for the Xbox One, although external
Nintendo struggled to release a substantial number of sources such as SuperData Research, VGChartz, and
quality first-party games on a consistent basis. After just other resources have helped paint a picture of how the
4 years on the market, the Wii U became overshadowed console has sold over the years. A 2017 report from
by Nintendo’s marketing of the Switch, and the console SuperData Research claimed that the Xbox One reached
was officially discontinued on January 31, 2017 (Frank, 26 million units sold and Microsoft stated that December
2017, para. 1). 2016 was the company’s “biggest month ever for Xbox
Sony saw a major shift in its console development One sales in the U.S.” which was “the top-selling console
when president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios for SIE over the second half of 2016, following the announcement
Shuhei Yoshida approved American software designer of Xbox One S at E3” (Makuch, 2017, para. 3).
In one of the most widely separated sales comparisons Nintendo’s 3DS line has sold more than 70 million
(featuring such clear first, second, and third place sales units—four times the number of PS Vitas, which have
figures among systems), Microsoft found itself in a solid sold approximately 15.5 million units. Early sales of the
second place—selling more than twice as many Xbox Nintendo Switch have been quite strong, reaching close
Ones to Wii Us, but just around half of the number to the total number of Wii U units sold in its first year
of PS4s as shown in Figure 15.19. For handhelds, alone.
FIGURE 15.19 Modern generation console sales graph (as of early 2018).
Wii U Approx. 14 million
PlayStation 4 Over 73 million
Xbox One Over 36 million
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75
◾ MODERN GAMING BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS

There were many breakthroughs and trends that defined the modern era of video games. Here is a list of the top 10
features that defined the generation:
1. Console upgrades to extend the life cycle of existing game systems

2. 4K display resolutions (up to 3840 × 2160p) via HDMI 2.0
3. Stronger GPUs (with up to 4.2 TFLOPS on PS4 Pro and 6.0 on Xbox One X)
4. Greater RAM (up to 8 GB on standard systems and 12 GB on Xbox One X)
5. Deeper integration with more apps and electronic devices
6. More intuitive, voice-controlled user interfaces
7. Emphasis on recording and sharing videos or pictures on social media
8. Augmented and virtual reality
9. Cloud-based gaming
10. Hybrid handheld/console gaming with Nintendo Switch
◾ FINAL THOUGHTS
When the Wii U released in 2012, many journalists deemed it the start of the next generation. The PlayStation 4 and
Xbox One joined the market in the following year, and the two handhelds, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, were
retrospectively added to what is often called the “eighth generation.” In addition to revised models of the handheld
units, Sony and Microsoft released upgraded, 4K versions of their home systems in 2016 with the PS4 Pro and Xbox
One S and X. These were followed by Nintendo’s hybrid Switch console in 2017, at which point many historians
began to argue what generation it belonged in or whether the market had reached a point where it was no longer
appropriate to categorize game systems into generations.
There are even some historians who believe the concept of a game console may one day become obsolete. Since
game consoles are essentially computers and vice versa, along with the way convergence is going, it may only be a
matter of time when the two technologies become virtually indistinguishable. Regardless of how they are labeled or
delivered, one thing is for certain: video games are big business and they’re here to stay. For this edition of The Video
Games Textbook: Game Over!
Thanks for reading!
Dr. W
◾ ACTIVITY: 15 MINUTES OF FAME
Twitch and Ustream have become major platforms for live streaming of gameplay including complete
playthroughs of video game campaigns, multiplayer tournaments, eSports, and other webcasts. YouTube also
allows live streaming and remains a popular platform for posting videos of game reviews, tutorials, and similar
videos.
GUIDELINES
Create an account with one of the three major online video services listed above. Obtain a PlayStation 4 or Xbox
One console and create your own live stream or 5- to-15-minute prerecorded video production of a video game
review or other type of video using video game footage via the PS4 and Xbox One’s sharing capabilities. A
headset should be used to include a voiced commentary to accompany your video footage. Downloaded video
game demos may be used for this exercise.
QUESTIONS
1. What was the purpose of your video; what game did you select and why?
2. Describe the process of setting up an online account and any challenges you faced in setting up the game
console and streaming and/or capturing video footage.
3. How did the production go? Explain the pros and cons of the experience.
4. Has this experience opened new doors for how you will use video game technology? Elaborate on your
answer.
5. Where do you see this technology going in the future?
◾ CHAPTER 15 QUIZ 3. Which of the following was not a key feature of the
Nintendo Wii U GamePad?
1. What is helping keep most arcade venues afloat in a. Asymmetrical, multiplayer gaming
the United States? b. Ability to stream 3DS games
a. The rise of casual games c. Off-TV Play
b. Video redemption or “videmption” games d. NFC (near-field communication) reader/writer
c. Food and beverage service
d. All of the above 4. This handheld system featured an autostereoscopic
upper screen that could display stereoscopic 3D
2. Nintendo’s Wii U was originally codenamed: effects without 3D glasses:
a. Project Café a. Nintendo 2DS
b. Orbis b. Nintendo 3DS
c. Durango c. PlayStation Portable
d. NX d. PlayStation Vita
5. This console’s development was fronted by lead 11. The “New Xbox One Experience” user interface
architect and producer Mark Cerny: update added:
a. Wii U a. a new layout with more vertical navigation and a
b. PlayStation 4 Snap overlay menu
c. Xbox One b. backward compatibility with a number of Xbox
d. Nintendo Switch 360 games
c. “Play Anywhere” to stream Xbox One games to
6. This gamepad includes a clickable, two-point other Windows 10 devices
capacitive touchpad and LED light bar: d. all of the above
a. Wii U GamePad
b. DualShock 4 12. Even though more than half of its early titles had
c. Xbox One controller been released on other consoles, this system’s 34
d. Joy-Con launch titles were the most ever for a home console:
a. Wii U
7. The PlayStation 4 function that allows PlayStation b. PlayStation 4
Plus members to share gameplay clips or invite c. Xbox One
other members to play their games remotely: d. Nintendo Switch
a. Snap (PiP)
b. Play Anywhere 13. The first home console with a CPU that utilized
c. Remote Play OOE (Out of Order Execution):
d. Share Play a. Wii U
b. PlayStation 4
8. Which of the following was not one of the original c. Xbox One
plans for the Xbox One announced at the 2013 E3 d. Nintendo Switch
conference?
a. Kinect sensor required 14. Like Activision’s Skylanders series, __________
b. Daily Internet connection required developed its own series of figurines called “amiibo”
c. Xbox Live account required to play with certain games:
d. Digital rights management (DRM) restricted a. Microsoft
pre-owned game usage b. Nintendo
c. Sega
9. The design of the Xbox One console, Kinect 2.0, d. Sony
and Xbox One controller was led by:
a. Don Mattrick 15. Similar to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa,
b. Carl Ledbetter __________ on the Xbox One added improved
c. Mark Cerny voice command functionality and better natural
d. Tetsu Sumii language recognition:
a. Beam
10. Which was not a unique feature of the Xbox One b. Cortana
console or controller? c. Ybarra
a. Snap (PiP) d. None of the above
b. Separate rumble motors called “impulse trig-
gers”
c. OneGuide and GameDVR apps
d. Options and Share buttons
16. The only console that did not contain a graphics FIGURE 15.5 Box art to five Wii U hits including from: (a) Super Mario
processing unit (GPU) by AMD: 3D World, (b) Rayman Legends, (c) Super Smash Bros. for Wii U,
a. Wii U (d) Bayonetta 2, and (e) Mario Kart 8. (Super Mario 3D World courtesy
b. PlayStation 4 of Nintendo, 2013; Rayman Legends courtesy of Ubisoft Montpellier
/Ubisoft, 2013; Super Smash Bros. for Wii U courtesy of Bandai Namco
c. Xbox One
Games/Nintendo, 2014; Bayonetta 2 courtesy of Platinum Games
d. Nintendo Switch
/Nintendo, 2014; and Mario Kart 8 courtesy of Nintendo, 2014.)
True or False
FIGURE 15.6 Nintendo 3DS. (“A Nintendo 3DS in Aqua Blue, photo
17. Except for fighting games, the modern era of taken during the 3DS launch event in NYC.” By Evan-Amos - own
arcades implemented the business strategy of not work, public domain. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w
/index.php?curid=14719223. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org
porting arcade games to home consoles.
/wiki/Nintendo_3DS#/media/File:Nintendo-3DS-AquaOpen.png)
18. To run games more efficiently, the PS4 and Xbox

FIGURE 15.7 Five 3DS hits: (a) Super Mario 3D Land, (b)Pokémon
One require mandatory installation to the hard
Sun, (c)The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, (d) Fire
drive of all disc-based games.
Emblem: Awakening, and (e)Metroid: Samus Returns. (Super Mario
3D Land courtesy of Nintendo, 2011; Pokemon Sun courtesy of
19. The PlayStation Camera is required for the Game Freak/Nintendo, 2016; The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between
PlayStation VR unit to play VR games. Worlds courtesy of Nintendo, 2013; Fire Emblem: Awakening cour-
tesy of Intelligent Systems/Nintendo, 2013; and Metroid: Samus
20. The original Xbox One utilized a smaller air vent Returns courtesy of Mercury Steam/Nintendo, 2017.)
than the Xbox 360 to help the system run more
quietly and to allow the console to sit both hori- FIGURE 15.8 Sony PlayStation 4 with DualShock 4 controller.
zontally and vertically. (“The PlayStation 4 (PS4) gaming console made by Sony: Released on 11-
15-2013 in North America it is an eighth generation system and competes
◾ FIGURES with the Microsoft Xbox One and the Nintendo Wii U.” By Evan-Amos -
Media:PS4-Console-wDS4.jpg. Public domain. Available at https://
FIGURE 15.1 Screenshots of arcade hits (a) Terminator Salvation commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37808618. Retrieved from
and (b) Star Wars: Battle Pod. (Terminator Salvation courtesy of Raw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_4#/media/File:PS4-Console
Thrills, 2010; and Star Wars: Battle Pod courtesy of Bandai Namco -wDS4.png)
Games, 2014.)
FIGURE 15.9 Screenshots from PlayStation 4 launch titles (a) FIFA 14
FIGURE 15.2 Nintendo’s Wii U console with touchscreen-enabled and (b) Resogun. (FIFA 14 courtesy of EA Canada/EA Sports, 2013;
Wii U GamePad. (“Wii U Console and Gamepad transparent back- and Resogun courtesy of XDEV & Housemarque/SCEA, 2013.)
ground” By Takimata (edited by:Tokyoship) - File:Wii U Console
and Gamepad.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0. Available at https://commons. FIGURE 15.10 PS4 newspaper advertisement (2013) sponsoring
wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23214469. Retrieved from https:// the UEFA (soccer league). (“PS4 headed to Europe this year, according
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U#/media/File:Wii_U_Console_and to an advertisement.” By Dave Tach, May 24, 2013. Retrieved from
_Gamepad.png) http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/24/4362514/ps4-release-date
-europe-2013)
FIGURE 15.3 Wii U print advertisement showing Deluxe set
with black hardware (2012). (“Wii U Releases in North America FIGURE 15.11 Box art to five top PS4 titles: (a) The Witcher 3: Wild
November 18th.” Posted by Jason Nason, September 13, 2012. Hunt,(b) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, (c) Uncharted 4: A
Retrieved from http://www.darkainarts.com/gamers/wp-content Thief’s End, (d) Persona 5, and (e)Horizon: Zero Dawn. (The Witcher 3:
/uploads/2012/09/wii_u_8gb.jpg) Wild Hunt courtesy of CD Projekt Red Studio/Warner Bros. Inter-
active Entertainment, 2015; Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
FIGURE 15.4 Screens of Wii U launch titles (a) New Super Mario courtesy of Kojima Productions & Moby Dick Studio/Konami, 2015;
Bros. U and (b) Nintendo Land. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End courtesy of Naughty Dog/SCEA, 2016;
Persona 5 courtesy of Atlus, 2017; and Horizon: Zero Dawn courtesy of FIGURE 15.18 Nintendo Switch. (“A Nintendo Switch video game
Guerrilla/Sony Interactive Entertainment, 2017.) console shown in docked mode and Joy-Con controllers in grip config-
uration.” By Owen1962 - own work. Public domain. Available at https://
FIGURE 15.12 PlayStation Vita. (“The PlayStation Vita, a hand- commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56950688. Retrieved from
held gaming console by Sony released in 2012. The successor to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nintendo_Switch_Console.png)
PlayStation Portable (PSP), the Vita has numerous improvements
over the previous system.” By Evan-Amos - own work. Public domain. FIGURE 15.19 Modern generation console sales graph (as of early
Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid= 2018). (Designed by Wardyga using data from VGChartz. (2017).
45662069. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation Global Hardware Totals. Retrieved from http://www.vgchartz.com/)
_Vita#/media/File:PlayStation-Vita-1101-FL.png)
Pro File: Mark Cerny. Photo credit: By Katsura Cerny. Mark Cerny,
FIGURE 15.13 Box art to five top PlayStation Vita games: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid
(a) Gravity Rush, (b) LittleBigPlanet PS Vita, (c) WipEout 2048, =9902481.
(d) Tearaway, and (e) Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma. (Gravity
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Index
A Amiga, 500, 274, 275f Arcade games; see also specific names
Amiga, 1000, 274 decline and restructuring, 243, 243f
A1200, 274
Amiga CD32, 274 from Golden Age, 51–52, 52f
A4000, 274
Amiga computer, 188 rail shooters from, 2006:, 297, 297f
AC adapter, 6
Amiibo, 383 revenue from, 52
Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), 386
Ampex, 10 revival of, in fourth generation, 131, 131f
Accelerometer, 312, 353
Analog Devices, 312 update, seventh generation, 297, 297f
Acclaim, 171, 209
Analytics, 224 Arcade Racer steering wheel, 197
Achievements, 283, 299
Ancillary products, 370 Arcade scene, 109, 109f
Action oriented games, 154
Anderson, Craig A., 176 modern, 379
Action Replay, 166
Android, Inc., 364 Arcades games
Activision, 117, 172
Android Market, 364 in flux, 187, 187f
Activision Blizzard, 367
Andy Capp’s Tavern, 10 Area 51, 187f
ActRaiser, 143, 146
Angry Birds, 364f, 370 Armor Battle, 62f
Adam computer, 66
Antarctic Adventure, 68f Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf, 139, 140
Adobe Flash, 279
Anti-aliasing (edge smoothening) systems, Artificial intelligence (AI), 224
“Adult Only” video compact discs (VCDs),
206 Art mods, 167
165
ANTIC (Alphanumeric Television Interface Art of Fighting, 152
Adventure, 57f
Controller), 71, 93 ArtX, 255
After Burner, 109, 131
AO (Adults Only) sticker, 166 ASCII (American Standard Code for
Aircars, 195
Apple Computer Company, 85, 137, 273, Information Interchange)
Akio Morita, 200
282, 312 graphics, 37, 38f
Alcorn, Al, 10, 12
early computer sales, 101, 101f ASCII keyboard controller, 256
Alexa, 396
Apple I, 85, 86f ASIC (Application-specific integrated circuit)
Alex Kidd in Miracle World, 119f, 120
Apple II, 85, 87f chip, 90
Alien (movie), 137
magazine advertisement for, 88f Aspect ratio, 36
Alien Brigade, 123f
memory, 87 Asteroids, 37, 51
Alien Crush, 135
tech specs, 85, 87, 87t Astrosmash, 65f
Alien vs. Predator, 195, 195f
titles, 89, 89f, 90f Astro Studios, 299
Allard, J., 260, 299
vs. Atari 8-bit family, 92–93 Atari, 10–12, 19–20, 37, 51, 109, 109f, 110,
Allen, Paul, 260
vs. Atari VCS (2600), 85, 87, 87t 131, 188, 259, 273; see also Pong
Alphanumeric Television Interface
Apple II+, 90–92 early computer sales, 101, 101f
Controller (ANTIC), 71, 93
Apple IIc, 92 financial crisis, 110–111
Altered Beast, 139, 140, 140f
Apple IIe, 90 third-generation market summary, 123,
Amaya, Daisuke, 284
Apple IIGS, 92 124f
Amazon, 364
Apple III, 90 Atari, 400, 92, 92f, 92t
Amazon Prime, 307
Apple III Business BASIC, 90 Atari, 800, 92, 92f, 92t
AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) hardware,
Apple II successors, 90–92; see also Atari, 5200, 70–71, 70f–71f, 120
260
specific names automatic switchbox, 70
American Laser Games, 191
Apple Lisa, 90 360-degree joystick, 70
American Psychological Association, 176
Application programming interfaces (APIs), four controller ports, 70
American Standard Code for Information
279, 395 magazine advertisement for, 72f
Interchange (ASCII) graphics,
Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) numeric keypad, 70
37, 38f
chip, 90 overlays, 70
America’s Army, 330, 330f
App Store, 362 radio frequency (RF) switch, 70
Amiga, 273, 273f
409
410 ◾ Index
start, pause, and reset buttons, 70 vs. ColecoVision, 67–68 Betamax, 200
tech specs, 71, 73t vs. Fairchild Channel F, 57 Bethesda, 283
titles, 71–73, 73f vs. Magnavox odyssey, 59 Big Button Pad, 307
Trak-Ball controller, 71 vs. Mattel Intellivision, 64–65 Big Fish Games, 367
vs. ColecoVision, 71 vs. NES, 114, 114t Bikkuriman World, 131
Atari 8-bit family (400 and 800), 92, 92f, 92t ATI (Array Technology Inc.), 255 Binary code, 32–33, 33t
controller ports (jacks), 92 ATI Technologies, 282, 298 Bionic Commando, 109
evolution of, 95f Atomiswave, 297 Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, 210f
magazine advertisement for, 94f AT&T, 392 BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) chip,
tech specs, 92t Attach rate, 399 30–31, 31f
titles, 93, 93f, 95 Audio card (sound card), 31, 31f BioShock Infinite, 309f
vs. Apple II, 93 Augmented reality (AR), 368, 385 BioWare, 264, 281, 302
vs. Commodore, 64, 96, 98 Automatic switchbox, Atari, 5200, 70 Birdo, character, 167
65XE, 95f Autostereoscopic upper screen, 385 Bit (b), 32–33
130XE, 95f Avatars, 285 Bitmap, 38
XE Game System (XEGS), 95 Average cost, 230 Blackley, Seamus, 260
600XL, 95f Ax Battler: A Legend of Golden Axe, 150f “Blades,”, 300
800XL, 95f Blast processing, 146
1200XL, 95f Blazing Lazers, 135, 137f
B
Atari 8-bit successors, 95; see also specific names Blazing Star, 154
Atari Games, 123 Baca, Joe, 172 Blizzard Entertainment, 283
Atari Jaguar, 192–193, 193f Bachelor Party, 164 BlizzCon, 233
magazine advertisement for, 194f Bachus, Kevin, 260 Blue Lightning, 144f
tech specs, 193, 195, 195f Backward compatibility, 120 Blue Sky Rangers, 64
titles, 195–196, 195f Bad (album), 143 Bluetooth 2.0, 305
vs. 3DO, 193–195, 195t Baer, Ralph, 5, 9, 12 Bluetooth 4.0, 396
vs. Sega Saturn system, 198 Baffle Ball, 3, 3f Blum, Steve, 44f
Atari 2600 Jr., 120 Bagatelle, 3, 3f Blu-ray Disc, 200
Atari Lynx, 144, 144f Baker, Troy, 44f Bonaire, 395
tech specs, 144t Baldur’s Gate, 41 Bonk’s Adventure, 135, 137f
Atari MEGA STE, 274 The Ballad of Gay Tony, 168 Boon, Ed, 169
Atari Panther, 192 Bandai Namco, 379 Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, 168
Atari 7800 ProSystem, 111, 120–121, 120f, Banjo-Kazooie, 209f Boulder Dash, 93f
120t The Bard’s Tale, 90f Bounty Bob Strikes Back, 93f
8-bit 6502C “SALLY” processor, 121 Barlow, Sam, 367 Bradford, Ron, 58
comic book advertisement for, 122f Barr, Lance, 145 Bradley Trainer, 328, 328f
MARIA, chip, 121 Baseball, 8 Braid, 284f
POKEY audio chip, 121 Baseball Stars, 151 Brain development, 339, 339f
Proline controller, 120, 120f Baseball Stars Professional (NAM-1975), 151, Brain Wave, 8
tech specs, 121, 121t 152f, 154 Brennan, Martin, 192
titles, 123, 123f BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Broadband, 243
U.S. launch titles, 120t Instruction Code), 85, 111, 260 Broadband Adapter, 253
vs. NES, 121, 121t, 123 Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) chip, Bromberg, Irving, 116
Atari ST, 273, 273f 30–31, 31f Bromley, Eric, 67
Atari STE, 274 Batman: Arkham City, 309f Bromley, Martin, 116
Atari TT, 274 Battle Arena Toshinden, 201f Brown, Bob, 12
Atari Video Computer System (VCS) (2600), Battle.net World Championship Series, 235 Brown, rry, 175
52–55, 52t, 53f, 120, 163 Battlezone, 37, 38f Brownback, Sam, 172
color palette, 55 Beam, 396 “Brown Box,”, 5
4 colors per scan line, 55 Beat ‘Em & Eat ‘Em, 164 “Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass’n,”,
console comparison, 55–57, 55t, 56f Beat’em up style games, 41 175
features, 53, 53f Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Bugs, 225–226, 283
magazine advertisement for (1981), 56f Code (BASIC), 85, 111, 260 Bump mapping, 39
memory, 55 Bell & Howell, 90 Bump ‘n’ Jump, 65f
1.19 MHz 6507 processor, 55 Bennett, John, Dr., 4 Bundy, Willard, 276
tech specs, 55t Benton, Charles “Chuck,”, 163 Bundy Manufacturing Company, 276
titles, 57, 57t Berkes, Otto, 260 Bungie Studios, 262
U.S. launch titles, 52t Bertie the Brain, 4 BurgerTime, 65f
vs. Apple II, 85, 87, 87t Berzerk, 43, 73 Burnout 3: Takedown, 264f
Index ◾ 411
Bus, 31, 71 Closed-circuit television (CCTV), 172 Compact Disc (CD), 200
Bushnell, Nolan, 4, 10, 51, 52, 54, 55 Cloud gaming, 288, 387 Compaq, 276
Businessweek, 187 Club Nintendo, 383 Compile, 135
Buzz, 307 Clubs, 395 Composers, video game, 43, 443t
Byte (B), 32–33, 33t Coleco, 110 Composite cable, 34
Coleco Adam Computer, 110 CompUSA, 165
Coleco Telstar, 15–16, 15f, 16f–17f, 17t Computer-aided design (CAD), 282
C
cartridges, 16 Computer-controlled opponent, 53
Cache memory, 33 Combat!, 16, 17f Computer Gaming World, 289
CA Law AB 1793, 175 features, 16 Computer Intro!, 57
California bill AB1179, 175 magazine advertisement for, 18f Computer Space, 4–5, 5f
California Games, 144f market summary, 20 12 compute units, 396
Call of Duty, 41 Naval Battle, 16, 17f Connecticut Leather Company, 15
Call of Duty, 2, 299f Road Race, 16, 17f Connectors, video game, visual reference
Camouflage Combat, 16 series releases, 17t guide, 35t
Candy Crush Saga, 366f tech specs, 15t Console comparison; see also Console gaming,
Cannon, Tom, 234 Telstar Arcade, 16f modern
Capacitive touchpad, 387 ColecoVision, 65–67, 66f, 66t, 67f PlayStation 4 (PS4) vs. Wii U, 389–390,
Capcom, 109, 131, 139, 143 12-button numeric keypad, 66 389t
Capital and publishing layer, 221 Expansion Module #1, 66 WII U vs. XBOX 360 and PS3, 383–384,
Card readers, 379 Expansion Module #2, 66 383t
Carl Ledbetter, 393 Expansion Module #3, 66 Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4 (PS4), 396,
Carmack, John, 171 features, 66, 66f 396t, 397f, 398t
Cartridge slot, 16 Roller Controller, 67, 67f Console gaming, modern
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, 254f Super Action Controller Set, 67, 67f about modern console gaming, 379–380
Castlevania: Bloodlines, 143 tech specs, 67–68, 68t console comparison
Casual game/gaming, 379; two-page magazine advertisement for, PlayStation 4 (PS4) vs. Wii U,
see also Mobile game/gaming 69f 389–390, 389t
defined, 353 U.S. launch titles, 66t WII U vs. XBOX 360 and PS3,
market summary, 370, 370t vs. Atari VCS and Intellivision, 67–68 383–384, 383t
Catharsis theory, 176 Collins, Karen, 44 Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4 (PS4), 396,
Cathode ray tube (CRT), 4 Color 396t, 397f, 398t
Cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor, 36 layering, 146, 148 console timeline, 378
vector monitors, 37 overlays, 37 final thoughts, 401
Cavalier, 3 TV-Game series, 19, 19f, 19t, 109–110 market summary, 400–401, 401f
Cawthon, Scott, 367 Colossal Cave Adventure, 89f modern arcade scene, 379
CD-ROM, 30, 149; see also specific names Columbine High School, 171 modern gaming breakthroughs/trends,
background, 134–135 Combat!, 16, 16f 401
Cell Processor, 304 Comic book advertisement PlayStation 4 (PS4), 386–389, 386f–388f,
Centipede, 123 for Atari 7800 ProSystem, 122f 386t
Central processing unit (CPU), 30 Comlynx cables, 144 PlayStation 4 (PS4) titles, 390–392,
Chat Headset, 393 Commodore, 273 390f–392f
Chess, 10 Commodore, 16, 99 Wii U console, 380–383, 380f–382f, 382t
Chiller, 169 Commodore, 64, 95–96 Wii U titles, 384–385, 384f, 385f
Chip’s Challenge, 144f Amiga line, 99 Xbox One, 393–396, 393f, 393t, 394f
“Chiptune,”, 453 magazine advertisement for, 97f Xbox One titles, 398, 399f, 399t
Choplifter, 96, 99f titles, 98–99 Console timeline, 378
Chrono Trigger, 149f vs. Atari, 8-bit, 96, 98 “Console war,”, 62, 146
Chuck E. Cheese, 51, 55, 243 Commodore, 128, 99 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), 110,
Circuit boards, 3, 6 Commodore Amiga computer series, 274, 232–233, 232f
Circuits, 225 275f, 276t Contra, 114f
Civilization IV, 44 Commodore International, 95–96 Contra Hard Corps, 143
Civilization series, 100 early computer sales, 101, 101f Control boxes, 4
Clash of Clans, 366f Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Controller Pak, 206
Classic Controller, 314 Transactor), 96 Control Program/Monitor (CP/M)
Cliffe, Jess, 282 Commodore Plus/4, 99 operating system, 99
Clinton, Hillary, 175 Commodore 64 successors, 99; see also Control stick, NES, 112
Clock rate, 33 specific names Conventions, video game, 232–233, 232f, 233t
Clones, rise of, IBM and, 274, 276–278, 277f Community management, 224 Convergence, 369
Index ◾ 413
EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Exposure therapy, 334 First 16-bit home video game system, see
Calculator), 4 The Extra-Terrestrial, 73 Mattel Intellivision
Educator, 64, 99 EyeToy, 251, 301 First CD-ROM, 134
Edwards, Dan, 4 First generation, 1–20
Effect sound, 44 beginning, the, 3, 3f
F
Eisler, Craig, 279 breakthroughs and trends, 20
Electromechanical relays, 3 Fable, 168 Color TV-Game series, 19, 19f, 19t
Electronic Arts (EA), 89–90, 137, 140, 165, Facebook, 286 earliest interactive computer games, 4–18
188, 247 Fairchild Channel F, 52, 74 Coleco Telstar, 15–16, 15f, 16f–17f, 17t
Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Fairchild Semiconductor, 52 Computer Space, 4–5, 5f
Calculator (EDSAC), 4 Falcon, 274 Magnavox Odyssey, 5–10, 5f; see also
Electronic Entertainment Design and Family Entertainment Protection Act (FEPA), Magnavox Odyssey
Research (EEDAR), 228, 369 175 Pong, 10–14, 11f–14f
Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), 196, 233 Farmville, 286 Spacewar!, 4, 5f
Electronic Sports League (ESL), 234 Fatal Fury, 152 Tennis for Two, 4, 4f
Electrotennis, 13 Fatal Fury Special, 154f market summary, 19–20, 20f
Elite controller, 396 Fatalities, 155, 170 pinball, evolution of, 3, 3f
“Emotion Engine,”, 249 Feature phone, 353 timeline, 2
Endless runner, 365 Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 175 First-party (in-house) developers, 223
End-users, 221, 228–229, 229t, 230t FEPA, see Family Entertainment Protection First-person perspective, 40–41, 41f
“English control,”, 6 Act (FEPA) First-person shooter (FPS) games, 171, 278
Engstrom, Eric, 279 Ferguson, Christopher, 176 Doom and, 171–172, 174f
Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA), 276 Ferroni, Cameron, 260 First-person shooter (FPS) titles, 41
Enhancement chips, 148 Fifth-generation, 185–212 Flare Technology, 192
Enterbrain, 228 arcades in flux, 187, 187f Flash ROM cartridges, 399
Entertainment Software Association (ESA), Atari Jaguar, 192–193, 193f Flat panel monitors, 36
163, 171, 175, 228 titles, 195–196, 195f Flint, Charles Ranlett, 274, 276
Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), vs., 3DO, 193–195, 195t Flipper bumpers, 3
171 breakthroughs and trends, 212 “Flipper” graphics processor, 255
rating labels with icon, 172f 3D era, the, 187 Floating point operations per second (FLOPS),
regulation and, 171 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, 188–191, 39–40, 40t
video game ratings, 171t 188f, 188t, 189f Floating-point unit (FPU), 251
Entropia Universe, 285f console comparison, 191–192, 191t 3.5” floppy disks, 200
Epic Games, 281–282 titles, 191f, 192 FLOPS (floating point operations per second),
Episodic gaming, 284 vs. Atari Jaguar, 193–195, 195t 39–40, 40t, 380
Epoch, 13 Game Boy Color (GBC), 210, 210f Flurry Analytics, 228
‘Eroge’ games, 164 market summary, 211, 211f, 212, 212f FMV games, see Full Motion Video (FMV)
ESA, see Entertainment Software Association Nintendo 64 (N64), 205–208, 205f–207f games
(ESA) titles, 209, 209f Food Fight, 123f
ESports, 233–235, 234f, 281, 368 vs. Sony PlayStation, 208–209, 208t Football, 8
ESRB, see Entertainment Software Rating Sega Saturn system, 196–198, 196f, 197f, Football!, 59f
Board (ESRB) 197t Football Frenzy, 154
Eternal Darkness, 259f changes, 200 Forced progression games, 41–42
Ethernet, 253 titles, 198–200, 198f Forgotten Worlds, 139
EverQuest, 281, 282f vs. 3DO and Jaguar, 198, 198t Fourth-generation, 129–156
Evolution Championship Series (EVO), 234 vs. Sony PlayStation, 203, 204t arcade revival, 131, 131f
Exact copies, 151 Sega 32X, 196–198, 196f Atari Lynx, 144, 144f
Executive, 64, see SX-64 Sony PlayStation, 200–203, 200f–202f, breakthroughs and trends, 155–156
Exidy, 169 201t, 203f CD-ROM system, 149
Expansion cards, 31 titles, 204, 204f Game Boy, 138, 138f
Expansion Module #1, 66 vs. Nintendo 64 (N64), 208–209, 208t market summary, 154–155, 155f
Expansion Module #3, 66 vs. Sega Saturn, 203, 204t NEC PC Engine, 131–133, 133f
Expansion packs, 229 timeline, 186 Neo•Geo CD, 154
Expansion Pak, 206 Final Fantasy II, 146 sales graph, 155f
Expansion slots, 31 Final Fantasy III, 149f Sega Game Gear, 150, 150f
Explication de l’Arithmétique Binaire, 32 Final Fantasy VII, 204f Sega Genesis, 139–142, 139f–140f, 139t, 142t
Explicit sexuality; see also Sex/sexual themes, Final Fight, 41, 131, 155 magazine advertisement for, 141f
in video games Firemint, 364 titles, 143, 143f
game series known for, 166t Firmware, 249 vs. TurboGrafx-16, 142–143, 142t
414 ◾ Index
Sega Mega Drive, 137 Gamer card, 298 Graetz, Martin, 4

SNK Neo•Geo AES, 151–152, 151f, 152f GAMESbrief, 176 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, 168, 174f,
magazine advertisement for, 1991, 153f GameStop, 175, 227 175
titles, 154, 154f Game & Watch, 110, 111 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, 303f
vs. others, 152 GameWorks, 187 Grand Theft Auto III, 253f
Super Famicom (SFC), 145, 145f Garou: Mark of the Wolves, 154 Grand Theft Auto IV, 302f
Super Nintendo Entertainment System Garriott, Richard, 99, 279 Grand Theft Auto V, 309f
(SNES), 145–146, 145f, 146f, 146t Garry’s Mod (GMod), 284 Graphical adventure game, 89
titles, 149, 149f Gartner, 228, 366 Graphical MUDs, 89
vs. Genesis and TurboGrafx-16, 146, Gates, Bill, 260, 274 Graphical user interface (GUI), 273, 299
148, 148f, 148t Gathering, 165 Graphics (GFX)
timeline, 130 The Gathering, 233 ASCII, 37, 38f
TurboGrafx-16, 133–135, 133f–135f, 134t Gattis, Bill, 10 digitized, 169–170
magazine advertisement for, 136f Gauntlet, 109 polygon, 36–37, 36f, 37f
titles, 135, 137, 137f GCC, see General Consumer Corporation raster, 36–37, 36f
vs. NES, 135, 137f (GCC) rotation of, 146
vs. Sega Genesis, 142–143, 142t GD-ROM (Gigabyte Disc), 244 vector, 37, 38f
Fps (frames per second), 34 Gears of War, 167 Graphics card (video card), 31, 31f
FPS games, see First-person shooter (FPS) Gears of War, 2, 302f Graphics Core Next, 386
games GeForce, 256, 282 Graphics processing unit (GPU), 31, 208,
Fragmentation, 361 GeForce Now, 288 251, 282
Frame buffers, 67 “Gekko,”, 255 Graphic Television Interface Adaptor (GTIA),
Frame rate, 34 Gender 71
Frames per second (fps), 34 inequities in, 169 Greenberg, Arnold, 15
Franchise, 222 sex and violence in video games and, Greenberg, Maurice, 15
Franz, Martz, 196 167–169, 169f Griffiths, Mark D., 177
“Freemium”model, 231, 281 General Consumer Corporation (GCC), 120, Grizzard, Andrew, Dr., 177
Free progression games, 42 123 Grossman, Dave, 172
“Free-to-play” (F2P), 231, 281 General Electric, 10 GTA V, 168
Friday the 13th movies, 135 General Instrument AY-3-8500 chip, 15 GTIA, 93
Fries, Ed, 260 “Genesis does what Nintendon’t,”, 140 GTIA (Graphic Television Interface Adaptor),
Full Motion Video (FMV) games, 142, 163, Genlock, 273–274 71
278 Genre pioneers Guacamelee, 168
Full Spectrum Warrior (FSW), 330–331, 331f early PC gaming, 99–101 Guardian Heroes, 198f
Funding, video game industry, 221–222, 222t PC gaming (early 1990s), 278–279, 279f Guide button, 299
Fusajiro Yamauchi, 109 Gerard, Manny, 53 GunCon, 203
F-Zero, 145, 146, 146f Gex, 191f GunCon, 2, 251
Gface, 288 Gunpei Yokoi, 51, 112, 116, 138, 205
GFLOPS, 384 Gunstar Heroes, 143, 143f
G
Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, 139, 143 The Guy Game, 165–166, 166f
Galaxian, 51 Gigaflops, 249 Gyroscope, 315
Game Boy, 100, 112, 138, 138f, 144, 150 Gizmondo, 360–361, 361f
tech specs, 138t Glove Controller, 208
H
Game Boy Advance, 254, 254f Glu Mobile, 361
Game Boy Color (GBC), 210, 210f Go, 10 Hack, 167
tech specs, 210t God of War, 167, 253f Hair Trigger Locks, 396
Game Boy Player, 257 God of War: Ghost of Sparta, 303f Hale, Jennifer, 44f
Game Boy Pocket, 138 Golden Age, 20, 51–52, 51f, 52t, 109 Half-Life, 282, 282f
Game cards, 6 Golden Axe, 131 Halo, 3, 302f
Game.com, 210 Goldeneye 007, 209f Halo: Combat Evolved, 261f, 264f
GameCube, 34 GoldStar (LG) model, 188, 192f Hamill, Mark, 44f
GameCube-Game Boy Advance (GCN-GBA) Google, 364 Handball, 15
cable, 256–257 Google Play, 364 HandCircus, 362, 364f
Game Developers Choice Awards, 365 Goto, Teiyu, 304 Handler, Elliot, 61
GameDVR, 395 Gottlieb, David, 3 Hang-On, 109, 117, 117f
Game engine, 224 Gouraud shading, 203 Hard disk drive (HDD), 251
Gamegun, 191 Gourdin, Adam, 169 Hard Drivin, 131
GamePad, 380 GPU (graphics processing unit), 31 Hardware (or virtual machine/software
“Game paks,”, 113 Gradius III, 148 platform) layer, 223
Index ◾ 415
Harris, Eric, 171 I iPod, 282

Harrison, Bill, 5 iPod Touch, 362
IBM 5150, 276, 277f
Harrison, Phil, 201 Isao Okawa, 244
IBM (International Business Machines), 255,
Hase, Ted, 260 Isometric games, 41, 41f
298
Haunted House, 8f
OS/2 2.0, 279
Hawkins, Trip, 89, 90, 165, 188, 190
and rise of clones, 274, 276–278, 277f J
Hayao Nakayama, 139
IDSA, see Interactive Digital Software
HD Collection, 309 Jackbox Games, 369
Association (IDSA)
HDMI, see High-Definition Multimedia Jackson, Michael, 143
Id Software, 171, 278
Interface (HDMI) Jacobs, Jon, 285
IEEE, 1394, 249
HDR10 high-dynamic-range color, 390 JagLink for local area network (LAN), 195
IK+, 98f
HDTV (High Definition Television), 37 Jaguar CD, 195
Ikari Warriors, 151
HDV (High Definition Video), 37 James ‘Buster’ Douglas Knockout Boxing, 140
iMac computers, 282
Headphones jack, 189 Japanese role-playing game (JRPG), 120
Impossible Mission, 98f
Heads up displays (HUDs), 36 Jay, Miner, 52
Impulse triggers, 395
Herman, Ben, 155 Jenkins, Henry, Dr., 172, 176–177
Independent developers, 223
Hers Experimental Design Laboratory, Jensen, Peter, 5
Indie Fund, 224
299 Jet Grind Radio, 248f
Indie games, 283–284
Hertz (Hz), 33–34, 33t Jewel case packaging, 225, 225f
343 Industries, 398
Hertz, Heinrich, 33 Jobs, Steve, 85, 91, 274, 282, 363, 365
Inequities, in gender and race, 169
Hideki Sato, 137, 196, 244 Joe Montana Football, 140
Infogrames Entertainment (IESA), 289
Hideo Kojima, 309, 310 John Madden Football, 140
In-house (first-party) developers, 223
High-Definition Multimedia Interface John Taylor, 386
Input and output(I/O) devices, 85
(HDMI), 31 Joust, 121f, 123
Insomniac, 309
High Definition Television (HDTV), 37 Joy-Con, 399
Instant Game Collection, 307
High Definition Video (HDV), 37 Joystick controller, 53
Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) tournaments,
Higinbotham, William “Willy,”, 4, 36 Joysticks, 16
234–235
Hironobu Sakaguchi, 302 JTS, 289
Intellectual properties (IPs), 222, 400
Hiroshi Yamauchi, 110, 113, 259 Jumpman Junior, 68f
Intellivision II, 64; see also Mattel Intellivision
History, see Early PC gaming, see First Jump Pak, 247
Intellivision Inc. (later INTV Corporation), 75
generation, see Fourth-generation, Jungle Hunt, 52
Intellivoice, 64, 64f
see Second generation, see Third Just Cause, 168
“Intellivoice” adapter, 43
generation
Intel Pentium III processor, 260
Hitachi SH2 32-bit RISC CPUs, 196
Interactive component of video game, 177 K
Hitachi SH4 processor, 244
Interactive computer games, earliest, 4–18
Hochberg, Josh, 3 Kalinske, Tom, 140, 196, 232
Coleco Telstar, 15–16, 15f, 16f–17f, 17t
Hockey, 15 Karateka, 90f
Computer Space, 4–5, 5f
Hogan’sAlley, 112 Kassar, Ray, 53, 55, 110–111
Magnavox Odyssey, 5–10, 5f; see also
Hollerith, Herman, 276 Kates, Josef, Dr., 4
Magnavox Odyssey
Holt, Rod, 85 Katz, Michael, 66, 139–140
Pong, 10–14, 11f–14f
Home Arcade Systems, 191 Kawasaki, Eikichi, 151
Spacewar!, 4, 5f
Home video game; see also Magnavox K.C. Munchkin!, 61f
Tennis for Two, 4, 4f
Odyssey K.C.’s Krazy Chase!, 61f
Interactive Digital Software Association
evolution of, 5–6 Keep case (poly-box), 225
(IDSA), 171, 172, 233
Pong for Your Home TV, 12–13 Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, 134, 134f
Interactive entertainment industry, 221;
“Hot Coffee,”, 166, 167f Kenichiro Ashida, 255, 313
see also Video game industry
HTC, 288 Ken Kutaragi, 200, 249, 250, 304
Interactive Software Federation of Europe
HTC Dream, 364 Kent, Steve, 145
(ISFE), 228
HTC Vive VR headset, 288 Kernel, 31–32
Interchangeable games, 16
HuCards, 131, 133 Kickstarter, 221
Interface music, 44
vs. TurboChips, 135 Killer Bees!, 61f
Interlaced scan, 34–36, 34f
HUDs, see Heads up displays (HUDs) Kilobyte (KB), 33
The International, 235
Hudson Soft, 131 Kinect, 301, 301f
International System of Units (SI), 33
Hulu, 307 Kinect 2.0, 393
Internet, 32, 279
Humpert, James, 116 The King of Fighters, 152
iPad, 364
Humpty Dumpty, 3 The King of Fighters ‘98, 154f
iPhone, 361–364, 361f
Hyper-masculine character, 167, 168f King’s Quest, 89f
early games, 362–364, 364f
Hyper-masculinization of men, 167, 168f, Kirby’s Dream Land, 138f
platforms, 364–365
177 Klebold, Dylan, 171
412 ◾ Index
Cooling fan, 30 in-house (first-party), 223 Dragon Age, 168

Co-processors, 33 second-party, 223 Dragon Force, 200
Copy protection, 191 third-party, 223 Dragon’s Crown, 169
Copyrights, 5 Development, video game industry, Draw distance, 193
infringement, 12 222–224, 223t, 224t Dream Blaster, 247
Cordless Action Controller, 251 Development team, role of, 224t Dreamcast, 34
Cores (processing units), 33, 39–40 Dey, Alexander, 276 Dreameye, 247
Correlation, 176 2.5D games, 41 DreamHack, 233, 234f
Cortana, 396 Diamond Mine, 98 DreamWorks, 187
Cost(s), 230 Diegetic sound, 44 Driving Force GT steering wheel kit, 251
Counter-Strike, 282 Dietz, Tracy, 167 Dropzone, 98
CPU (central processing unit), 30 Dig Dug, 52 2D sprite-generated polygons, 197t
Crash ‘N Burn, 188 DiGiovanni, Sundance, 235 3DS XL, 385
Croft, Laura, 168 Digital Audio Tape (DAT), 200 DualShock, 3, 305
Crowdfunding, 221 Digital data pack (DDP) cassette, 66 DualShock, 4, 386
Crowther, Will, 89 Digital displays, 3 DualShock controller, 203
CRT, see Cathode ray tube (CRT) Digital distribution, 226 DualShock 2 controller, 249
Crunch time, 221 Digital downloads, 227 Duck Hunt, 112, 116, 117
Crystal Dynamics, 192 Digital joystick controller, 53 Duke Nukem, 166
Crystalis, 151 Digital-only games, 381 Dungeon Master, 274f
CTIA, 93 Digital Pictures, 165 Durango, 393
Curiosity Inc., 254 Digital rights management (DRM), 283, 393 DVD remote control, 251
Custer’s Revenge, 163–164, 164f Digital signal processor (DSP), 148 DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs), 248
Cyberathletes, 235 Digital signature, 120 Dvorak, Robert, 4
Cyber Lip, 152 Digitized graphics, 169–170 Dynamic Menu, 387
Cybermorph, 193, 193f Directional pad (“d-pad”), NES, 112
Direct Memory Access (DMA), 148
E
DirectX, 260, 279, 395
D
“DirectX Box,”, 260 Early PC gaming, 83–101; see also PC gaming
Dabney, Ted, 4, 10 Disgaea, 41 Apple I, 85, 86f
Daglow, Don, 65 Disk II, 85, 87f Apple II, 85, 87f
Daisy chain concept, 189 Disk operating system (DOS), 90, 278 magazine advertisement for, 88f
Dance Dance Revolution, 203, 243, 243f gaming in, 278 titles, 89, 89f, 90f
Dark Chambers, 123f Distribution, video game industry, 226–227, vs. Atari 8-bit family, 93
DARWARS, 331–333, 332f 226f vs. Atari VCS (2600), 85, 87, 87t
Dashboard, 299, 395 Distribution layer, 226 Apple II successors, 90–92
Data cassette storage, 85 Distributor, 221 Atari 8-bit family (400 and 800), 93, 93f, 95
Data research, 228, 229t DK Bongos, 256 evolution of, 95f
Dave & Buster’s, 243, 379 DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), 397 magazine advertisement for, 94f
Day one patch, 398 3DO Company, 188 titles, 93, 95f
Dead or Alive, 169 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, 165, 188–191, vs. Apple II, 93
Deathmatch, 278 188f, 188t, 189f vs. Commodore, 64, 96, 98
Death Race, violence and, 169, 170f console comparison, 191–192, 191t Atari 8-bit successors, 93
DeCamp, Whitney, 176 magazine advertisement for, 1819f Commodore, 64, 93, 95–96, 97f
Dedicated consoles, 10 tech specs, 191t magazine advertisement for, 97f
Dedicated hardware, 6 titles, 191f, 192 titles, 98–99
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency U.S. titles, 188t vs. Atari, 8-bit, 96, 98
(DARPA), 330 vs. Atari Jaguar, 193–195, 195t Commodore 64 successors, 99
360-degree joystick, Atari, 5200, 70 vs. Sega Saturn system, 198 Electronic Arts (EA), 89–90
Dell Streak, 364 Dominick, J. R., 169 genre pioneers, 99–101
Demo disc, 201 Donkey Kong, 43, 51, 52, 66, 70, 110, 114, 114f market summary, 101, 101f
Demographic data, video game players, 163 Donkey Kong Country, 149f overview, 85
Demon Attack, 75 Donkey Kong Junior, 68f, 110 timeline (Apple, Atari, and Commodore),
DeNA, 400 Don Mattrick, 393 84
Desensitization, 177 Doom, 195, 195f, 278 Early 1990s, PC gaming, 278–279, 279f
Destruction Derby, 201 DOS, see Disk operating system (DOS) Early war games, 327–328
Developer(s), 221, 222 Double Dragon, 41 Easter eggs, 57, 114
example, 223t Douglas, Alexander, Dr., 4 Eco-Box, 225, 226f
independent, 223 Downloadable content (DLC), 231 E3 conference, 393
416 ◾ Index
Kohl, Herb, 171 Live Vision Camera, 301 Magic Knight RayEarth, 200
Koji Kondo, 43 Llamas, Stephanie, 231 Magnavox, 5–6
Konami, 109, 139, 143, 146, 204, 243, 297 Lobb, Ken, 259 Magnavox Odyssey, 5–10, 5f, 12, 19
Konosuke Matsushita, 188 Local area networks (LANs), 32, 32f first generation
Kordek, Steve, 3 JagLink for, 195 magazine advertisement for (1973), 7f
Korean e-Sports Association (KeSPA), 234 Localization, 222 market summary, 19
Kotok, Alan, 4 Lock ‘N’ Chase, 65f series releases, 10t
KSuper Mario Bros, 113f, 114, 114f, 116, 120 Logg, Ed, 51 tech specs, 6t
Kung Fu, 113f Logitech, 191, 251 understanding games, 6–10, 6t, 7f, 8f
Kunihiko Iwadare, 131 “Longbox” keep case, 225, 225f U.S. launch titles, 6, 6t, 8, 8f
Lovell, Nicholas, 176 Odyssey 300 system, 15
Lowe, Al, 164 second generation, 57–58, 58f, 58t, 59f
L
Lowenstein, Doug, 228 64 built-in characters, 59
LAN adapter, 32 Lowenstein, Douglas, 171, 172, 173 color palette, 59
LAN parties, 233 Luigi’s Mansion, 256f display, 59
LANs, see Local area networks (LANs) Lukin, Jarid, 231 magazine advertisement for (1981),
The Last Blade, 154f Lumines, 303f 60f
The Last of Us, 309f Lynx II, 144 memory, 59
Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack, 62f party games, 58
Late 1990s, PC gaming, 279, 281–282, 282f tech specs, 59, 59t
M
LCD, see Liquid crystal display (LCD) titles, 61, 61f
League of Legends, 231, 232f Macintosh “Classic” series, 274 U.S. launch titles, 58t, 59f
League of Legends World Championship, Macintosh home computer, 273 vs. Atari VCS, 59
the, 235 Macintosh II, 274 vs. Mattel Intellivision, 64–65
Lee, Harold, 12 Macintosh 128 K, 90 Table Tennis, 10, 12f
The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, 146, 148f Macintosh Plus, 274 Major League Gaming Inc. (MLG), 235
The Legend of Zelda, 116 Mac OS X (Operating System X), 282 Mandatory installation, 387
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, 149f Mad Catz, 383 Manhunt, 172–175, 174f–175f
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, 138f Madden NFL 2002, 261f Manufacturers, 221, 225
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, 209f Magazine advertisement Manufacturing, 225–226, 225f–226f
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, 210f for Apple II, 1978, 88f Manufacturing plants, 225
The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap, 254f for Atari 5200, 72f Marble Madness, 109
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, 259f for Atari 800 computer, 1981, 94f MARIA, chip, 121
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, 313f, for Atari Jaguar, 194f Marine Doom, 329–330, 330f
317f for Atari Video Computer System (VCS) Mark Cerny, 386
Lehner, Steve, 58 (1981), 56f Market share, 149
Leibniz, Gottfried, 32 christmas catalog advertisement for Sears Market summary
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge “Tele-Games” label (Pong), 14f early PC gaming, 101, 101f
Lizards, 164–165, 164f for Coleco Telstar, 18f fifth-generation, 211, 211f, 212, 212f
Leland Yee, 175 for ColecoVision, 69f first generation video games, 19–20, 20f
Lemonade Stand, 89f for Commodore, 64, 1982, 97f fourth-generation, 154–155, 155f
Leong, Tim, 315f for 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, 1819f mobile and casual gaming, 370, 370t
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) for Magnavox Odyssey PC gaming, 288–289, 289f
community, 167 1973, 7f second generation video games, 74–75,
LG, 364 1981, 60f 75f
Licensed soundtracks, 192 for Mattel Intellivision, 1981, 63f seventh generation, 317–318, 318f
Licenses, 223 for N64, 207f sixth generation, 264–265, 265f
Licensing, 222 for Neo•Geo AES, 1991, 153f third generation, 123–124, 124f
policy, 113 for Nintendo GameCube, 258f Marks, Richard, 251
Lieberman, Joseph, 171 for Sega Dreamcast, 246f Martech, 164
Light bar, 387 for Sega Genesis, 141f Marvel vs. Capcom 2, 243f
Light-emitting diode (LED) displays, 36 for Sega Master System, 118f Masami Ishikawa, 137
Light gun, 15 for Sega Saturn system, 199f Masaru Ibuka, 200
Lincoln, Howard, 110, 255 for SNES, 1992, 147f Masayuki Uemura, 145
Linden Lab, 285 for Sony PlayStation, 202f Mascot Capsule, 361
Linux, 279 for Sony PlayStation, 2, 252f Mass Effect, 168, 168f
Lipkin, Gene, 12 for TG-16, 1992, 136f Mass Effect 3, 302f
Liquid crystal display (LCD), 36 Magical Drop, 154 Massively multiplayer online (MMO) games,
viewing angle, 36 Magician Lord, 152f 231
Index ◾ 417
“Massively Multiplayer Online Role- Microsoft’s Xbox, 360, 297–301, 298f, 298t, 299f Miller, Joe, 196
Playing Game” (MMORPG), console comparison, 301–302, 302t Millions of instructions per second (MIPS), 40
100, 279 tech specs, 301–302, 302t MineCon, 233
Massively multiplayer online worlds titles, 302, 302f Minecraft, 284f
(MMOWs), 285 U.S. launch titles, 298t Miner, Jay, 195
“Mass murder simulator,”, 172 versions, 300f, 300t Minh Le, 282
Master Gear Converter, 150 vs. PS3, 308–309, 309t Minoru Arakawa, 52, 110, 113, 259
Master Strategy trilogy, 58 vs. Wii, 315–316, 316t 60 Minutes, 169
Mastertronic, 117 Microsoft Xbox, 34, 260–263, 260f–262f, 261t MIPS (millions of instructions per second), 40
Matchmaking, 283 advertisement, 262f Missile Command, 74
Mathieson, John, 192 Tech Specs, 263, 263t MK-80100 controller, 197
Matson, Harold “Matt,”, 61 titles, 263–264, 264f Mobile game/gaming, 351–370; see also
Matsushita Electric Industrial, 255 U.S. launch titles, 261t Smartphone(s)
Mattel, 61, 140 vs. others, 263, 263t Apple iPhone, 361–364, 361f
Mattel Intellivision, 61–64, 62f–64f, 62t, 64t Xbox Games Store, 226 competition, 357–359
directional disk, 61 12-month game sales curve, 228f defined, 353
features, 61–62, 62f Microtransactions, 224, 231, 283, 299 Gizmondo, 360–361, 361f
Intellivision II, 64 MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital market summary, 370, 370t
Intellivoice, 64, 64f Interface)-like formats, 43, 273 milestones, 365–367
keyboard component, 64 Midnight Mutants, 123f new millennium of mobile and, 355, 355t
magazine advertisement for, 1981, 63f Mid-1990s, PC gaming and, 279, 280f–281f Nokia N-Gage, 355–360, 356f, 356t, 357f
numeric keypad, 61 Midway, 51, 209 origin, 354–355, 354f
overlays, 61 Midway Games, 169 other developments, 360, 360f
tech specs, 64–65, 64t “Mii,” character, 313 overview, 353
titles, 65, 65f Miiverse, 383 platforms, 364–365
vs. Atari VCS and Odyssey, 64–65 Mike Ybarra, 395 recent trends, 368–370
vs. ColecoVision, 67–68 Milestones (development stages), video game usage trends, 369–370, 369f
6 MB Jaguar cartridge, 195 development cycle, 221, 222t Mobile VR, 368
McCarthy, Dave, 166 Military, science, and education, 325–344 Modding, 278
McDonald, Joel, 367 America’s Army, 330, 330f “Mode 7,” SNES, 146, 148f
Meade, Barry, 366 Bradley Trainer, 328, 328f Modem, 32, 245
Megabyte (MB), 33 brain development, 339, 339f Modern arcade scene, 379
Mega Drive Systems Inc., 139 DARWARS, 331–333, 332f Modern console gaming, see Console gaming,
Mega Man 6, 41 early war games, 327–328 modern
Meier, Sid, 100 at ease (exposure therapy), 334 Modern gaming breakthroughs/trends, 401
Memory capacity, 33 Full Spectrum Warrior (FSW), 330–331, Mods, 167
Memory card, 203 331f Mojang, 284, 398
Memory Card Adaptor, 307 games with a purpose, 336–337, 337f Molyneux, Peter, 101
Memory controller, 30 Marine Doom, 329–330, 330f Monaural (mono) sound, 42
Memory mapping, 67 military simulation, 328, 328f Monetization, 224
Men Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator Monitors
as hyper-masculine character, 167, 168f (MACS), 329, 329f CRT monitor, 36
as video gamer, 163 negative side effects, 337–338 flat panel, 36
Menacer light gun, 142 overview, 327 Hertz rating, 33
Messenger Kit, 300 popular cots educational games, 341–342, LCD, 36
Metal Gear Solid, 204f, 210f 341f, 342t LED displays, 36
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, 303f positive impact, 338–339 OLED displays, 36
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, 253f schools specializing in gaming, 342–343, PDP, 36
Metal Slug, 154 343t refresh rate, 33–34
Metal Slug X, 154f from science to education, 339–341, 340f, types of, 36
Metroid, 116, 137 340t vector, 37, 74
Metroid: Zero Mission, 254f Serious games, 334–336, 334f, 335f Monochrome, 37
Metroid Prime, 259f Serious Games Showcase and Challenge, Montezuma’s Revenge, 73
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, 317f 336, 336t Monument Valley, 367f
Mical, R. J., 188 video game research, 337 Moore, Peter, 245, 299
Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, 140 video games in science, 334 Moppin, 367
Microsoft Corporation, 90, 175, 260, 367 virtual battlefields, 333–334, 333f Mortal Kombat, 131, 131f, 155, 167, 169–171,
Microsoft Office, 260 Military Madness, 135, 137f 170f
Microsoft’s DirectX technology, 260 Military simulation, 327–328, 328f Mosaic (scrambling blocks) effects, 146
418 ◾ Index
MOS Technology, 96 titles, 154, 154f Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), 109,
MOS Technology 6502, 52 U.S. launch titles, 151t 111–113, 111f–112f, 113f, 113t
MOS Technology MPS 7600-004 chip, 16 vs. others, 152 control stick, 112
Motherboard, 29, 29f Neo•Geo CD, 154 directional pad (“d-pad”), 112
Motion blur, 33 Neo•Geo MVS (Multi Video System), 151 market summary, 123–124, 124f
Motion controller, 307 Neo•Geo Pocket, 210 NES Zapper, 112, 112f
Motorola 68000, 137, 148, 152 NES, see Nintendo Entertainment System redesigned, 112–113
Motorola MC68000 RISC chip, 192–193 (NES) Robot Operating Buddy (R.O.B.), 112, 112f
M-rated games, 175 10NES, 113 tech specs, 114t
Ms. Pac-Man, 73 NES Zapper, 112, 112f titles, 114–116, 114f
MS-DOS, 260, 278, 278f Netflix, 307 U.S. launch titles, 113t
M.U.L.E., 93f NetFront, 387 vs. Atari 2600 (VCS), 114, 114t
Multicart, 117 Network adapter, 32, 251 vs. Atari 7800 ProSystem, 121, 121t, 123
Multi-color sprites, 96 Network card, 32 vs. Sega Master System, 119, 119t
Multicore chip, 298 Networking methods, 32; see also Local area vs. TurboGrafx-16, 135, 137t
Multicore processors, 40 networks (LAN); Wide area Nintendo eShop, 383
Multimedia messaging service (MMS), 362 networks (WAN) Nintendo Famicom, 109–110, 110f, 116
Multiplayer adaptor, 197 Network interface controller (NIC), 32 redesign of, 111, 111f
Multiplayer gaming, 278 Network Play service, PS2, 251 Nintendo GameCube, 255–257, 255f, 256f,
Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) Neutopia, 137f 256t, 312
game, 231, 283 Neverdie, 285 changes, 259–260
Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator Newman, Garry, 284 magazine advertisement for, 258f
(MACS), 329, 329f New millennium tech specs, 257, 257t
Multitap adaptors, 203 of mobile, 355, 355t titles, 257, 259, 259f
Multi-touch technology, 364 of PC gaming, 282–283, 283t U.S. launch titles, 256t
Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), 89, 99 New Nintendo 3DS, 385 vs. PlayStation 2, 257, 257t
Munday, Rod, 44 New Xbox One Experience, 395 Nintendo Koppai, 109
Music, 43–44 Newzoo, 228 Nintendo Network, 383
Musical Instrument Digital Interface NFC (near-field communication), 381 Nintendo Switch, 399
(MIDI)-like formats, 43, 273 NFL 2K1, 248f Nintendo TVii, 383
Myst, 279f NHL Hockey, 140 Nintendo Wii, 312–315, 312f–315f
Mystery House, 89f Nicolas, Gwénaël, 254 launch titles, 312t
Mystique, 163–164 Night Battle, 16 titles, 316–317, 317f
NiGHTS into Dreams, 198f vs. PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360, 315–316,
Night Stalker, 65f 316t
N
Night Trap, 165, 165f Wii Remote, 313
N64, see Nintendo 64 (N64) Nimoy, Leonard, 247 Nintendo World, 380
Namco, 51, 52 Nimrod, 4 Nippon Electric Company (NEC), 131, 205
NAOMI, 248, 297 Ninja Gaiden, 109 NIS America, 317
Naoto Ohshima, 143 Ninja Gaiden 3, 41 Nobuo Uematsu, 43
National Television Standards Committee Ninja Gaiden Black, 264f Nokia N-Gage, 355–357, 356f, 356t, 357f
(NTSC), 36 Ninja Golf, 123f advertisement for, 358f
Naughty Dog, 309 Nintendo 64 (N64), 205–208, 205f–207f competition, 357–359
Naval Battle, 16, 17f magazine advertisement for, 207f titles, 359–360
NBA 2K7, 305f NEC VR4300 processor, 208 Nomad, 210
NCsoft, 284 tech specs, 208–209, 208t Non-diegetic sound, 44
NEC, see Nippon Electric Company (NEC) titles, 209, 209f Non-playable characters (NPCs), 167
NEC PC Engine, 131–133, 133f; see also vs. Sony PlayStation, 208–209, 208t Norio Ohga, 201
TurboGrafx-16 (TG-16) Nintendo Advanced Video System (AVS), North, Nolan, 44f
and PI-PD001 controller, 133f 111, 111f North American Video Game Crash of, 1983,
redesigned, see TurboGrafx-16 Nintendo Color TV Game, 19 73–74, 74f, 109
tech specs, 135, 137t series releases, 19t Noughts and Crosses, 4
vs. TurboGrafx-16, 135, 137f Nintendo Co.,Ltd., 109, 368 NPCs (non-playable characters), 167
Need For Speed, the, 191f Game Boy, see Game Boy NPD Group, Inc., 228
Needle, Dave, 188 market summary, 123–124, 124f NTSC (National Television Standards
Negative side effects, 337–338 Super Famicom (SFC), 145, 145f Committee), 36
Neo•Geo AES (SNK), 151–152, 151f, 152f Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (64DD),v208 Nudity; see also Sex/sexual themes, in video
magazine advertisement for, 1991, 153f Nintendo DS, 297, 311, 311f games
tech specs, 152t Nintendo 3DS, 379 game series known for, 166t
Index ◾ 419
Nunchuk, 313–314 PC-compatible systems, 276 Pirated games, 191

Nutting Associates, 5 PC gaming, 271–289; see also Early PC gaming Pitcairn, 389
Nvidia, 282 DOS (disk operating system), 278, 278f Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, 57f
Nvidia graphics chip, 260 end of an era, 272–273, 272f–275f, 276t Pitrat, Julius E., 276
NXE (New Xbox Experience), 300 genre pioneers (early 1990s), 278–279, 279f Pixels, 33
IBM and rise of clones, 274, 276–278, 277f Plasma display panel (PDP), 36
indie games, 283–284 Plastic overlays, 6
O
late 1990s, 279, 281–282, 282f Platforms, mobiles, 364–365
Oculus Rift, 288 market summary, 288–289, 289f Play Anywhere, 395
Oculus VR, 288 new millennium of, 282–283, 283t Play Cable, 197
Odyssey, see Magnavox Odyssey overview, 273 Playdead, 398
Odyssey 300 system, 15 recent trends, 286–288 PlayLink, 369
Off-TV Play, 381 rise of, 271–289 Play Magazine, 52
OLED, see Organic light-emitting diode Steam, 283–284 Play Mechanix, 379
(OLED) timeline, 272 PlayStation 2, 34
OLED [organic light-emitting diode], 389 virtual online worlds, 285–286, 285f, 286t PlayStation 4 (PS4), 386–389, 386f–388f, 386t;
OneGuide, 395 Windows 95 and mid-1990s, 279, see also Console gaming, modern
Online social games, 286 280f–281f PlayStation Camera, 308, 389
On-Line Systems, 163 PCI (peripheral component interconnect), PlayStation Eye, 307
OnLive, 288 31–32, 32f PlayStation Home, 305, 307
OOE (Out of Order Execution), 383 PCM (pulse-code modulation), 43 PlayStation Move, 307, 389
OpenGL, 279 PCs, see Personal computers (PCs) PlayStation Network (PSN), 305
Open world games, 226 PDP, see Plasma display panel (PDP) PlayStation Now, 387
Operation Rainfall campaign, 317 PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) PlayStation Plus, 307, 387
Options, 387 computer, 4 PlayStation Portable (PSP), 297, 303, 303f
The Orange Box, 302f Penny Arcade Expo (PAX Prime), 233 PlayStation 4 Pro, 389
Orbis, 386 Perfect Dark, 209f PlayStation 2 Slim, 251
The Oregon Trail, 89f, 90f Peripheral component interconnect (PCI), PlayStation Store, 226, 307
Organic light-emitting diode (OLED), 36 31–32, 32f PlayStation 4 (PS4) titles, 390–392, 390f–392f
OTS (over-the-shoulder) perspective, 41 Personal computers (PCs), 27, 273 PlayStation Vita, 380
Out of Order Execution (OOE), 40 Personal digital assistants (PDAs), 353 PlayStation VR, 288, 389
OutRun, 109, 131 Perspective, 40–42, 41f, 42t PlayStation 4 (PS4) vs. Wii U, 389–390, 389t
Overhead games, 41 axis, 41 PlayStation 4 (PS4) vs. Xbox One, 396, 396t,
Oversexualization, of women, 167, 177 2.5D games, 41 397f, 398t
Over-the-shoulder (OTS) perspective, 41 first-person, 40–41, 41f Playtika, 369
OXO, 4 isometric games, 41, 41f PlayTV, 307
over-the-shoulder (OTS), 41 Plimpton, George, 62, 63f
RPGs, 41 Pober, Arthur, Dr., 171
P
scrolling, 41 Poison, character, 167
Packaging line, 225 S-3D video games, 41 Pokémon Crystal, 210f
Pack-in title, 100 second-person, 41 Pokémon Emerald, 254f
Pac-Man, 51, 73, 370 third-person, 41, 41f Pokémon GO, 368
Pajitnov, Alexey, 100, 138 Phantasmagoria, 165 Pokémon Yellow, 138
PAL (Phase Alternate Line), 36 Phantasy Star, 119–120, 119f, 143, 143f POKEY, 93
Panasonic, 188, 191; see also 3DO Interactive Phantasy Star II, 143, 143f POKEY (Pot Keyboard Integrated Circuit)
Multiplayer Phase Alternate Line (PAL), 36 sound chip, 71
Panasonic FZ-10, 192f Philips, 8, 75 Pole Position, 52
Panzer Dragoon, 197f, 198, 198f Philips CD-i, 155 Pole Position II, 121, 121f
Paperboy, 109 Philips N.V., 149 Poly-box (keep case), 225
Paradroid, 98f Pick Axe Pete!, 61f Polycarbonates, 225
Parallax scrolling, 41, 142 Picture-inpicture (PiP), 395 Polygon count, 39
Parallel processing, 40 Pierce, Kenneth M., 163 Polygon graphics, 36–37, 36f, 37f, 166
Parker Brothers, 117 Pilotwings, 146 3D, 131, 148, 187
Patches, 167, 226, 283 Pilotwings 64, 205, 206f Pong, 10–14, 11f–14f, 19
Patents, 5 Pinball, evolution of, 3, 3f market summary, 19–20
Pat Riley Basketball, 140 Pinball Construction Set, 90f Sears “Tele-Games” label, 12, 13f
Payment gateway, 283 Pioneer LaserActive, 155 christmas catalog advertisement for, 14f
“Pay-outs,”, 3 PI-PD001 controller, NEC PC Engine and, tech specs, 13t
“Pay-to-win” (P2W), 231 133f variations, 13
420 ◾ Index
vendor print advertisement for, 11f Radio frequency (RF) switch Role-playing game (RPG) Dungeons &
vs. Table Tennis, 12–13, 12f Atari 5200, 70 Dragons, 89
Pong Doubles, 13 Radio frequency (RF) switchbox, 6 Role-playing games (RPGs), 41
Pong for Your Home TV, 12–13 Rainbow Walker, 93f Roller Controller, ColecoVision, 67, 67f
Popeye, 52, 110 Rains, Lyle, 51 ROM (read-only memory), 30, 30f
Popular cots educational games, 341–343, RAM (random access memory), 30, 30f ROM BIOS, 30
341f, 342t Rapid Transit, 3 Romero, John, 171
Populous, 101 Raster graphics, 36–37, 36f Rosen, David, 200
Ports, 31, 31f, 120 Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, 253f Rosen Enterprises, 116
Positive impact, 338–339 Ratings of video games, ESRB, 171t Ross, Steve, 53
Postal, 172 Raven Software, 172 Rotation of graphics, 146
Pot Keyboard Integrated Circuit (POKEY) Raw Thrills, 379 Roulette, 8, 8f
audio chip, 121 Rayman, 195f Rovio Entertainment, 364
Power Base Converter, 139, 140f, 142 RCA, 52 Royalties, 12
PowerPC Tri-Core “Espresso,”, 383 Read-only memory (ROM), 30, 30f Royalty fees, 222
Pridham, Edwin, 5 “Reality” co-processor (RCP), 205 R-Type, 134, 134f
ProController, 193 Real-time lighting effects, 205 Rumble Pak, 206
Product and talent layer, 222 Real-time strategy (RTS) games, 278 Running With Scissors, 172
Production and tools layer, 224 Red, green, and blue (RGB) component Rusch, Bill, 5
Pro-gaming, 234 cables, 34 Russell, Kent, 151
Programmed Data Processor-1 (PDP-1) Redemption games, 243 Russell, Steve “Slug,”, 4, 5, 12, 36, 37
computer, 4 “Red Ring of Death”, 225, 299 Ryder, Jared, 315f
Progressive scan, 34–36, 34f, 244 Refresh rates, 37t R-Zone, 210
Project Café, 380 TVs and monitors, 33–34
Project Gotham Racing, 3, 299f Regional lockout components, 191
S
Project Scorpio, 396 Region-free systems, 191
Proline controller, 120, 120f Region protection, 135 Sadler, Matt, 165
Prosocial motive, 176 Regulation, ESRB and, 171 Safari Hunt, 117, 117f
Protagonists, 168 Remedy Entertainment’s, 398 SALLY, 71
Prototype, 149 Remote Play, 387 Samantha Fox Strip Poker, 164
Prototype 2, 168 Rescue on Fractalus!, 93f, 98 Sammy, 264
Prototypes, 5 Research, video game, 337 Sampson, Pete, 4
Prune, 367f “Reset” button, 6 Samsung, 364
PSone, 203, 203f Resident Evil, 204f Samsung Galaxy Tab, 364
PS4 Slim, 389 Resident Evil 4, 259f Samsung Gear VR, 288, 368
PS Vita 2000, 392 Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, 248f Samurai Shodown, 152, 154f
PS Vita Cards, 392 Resistance: Fall of Man, 305f Sandbox, 253
Psygnosis, 201 Retail, 227–228, 227f, 228f Sanders Associates, 5, 12
Publisher, 221 Retailers, 221, 227 Sanyo 3DO TRY, 188, 192f
Publishing, 222 Retro Gamer Magazine, 188 Satoru Iwata, 260, 353, 400
Pulse-code modulation (PCM), 43 The Revenge of Shinobi, 143 Satoru Okada, 138
Rhythm game genre, 243 Saunders, Robert, 4
Ridge Racer, 30, 187, 201f Sawyer, Ben, 221
Q
Ridiculous Fishing: A Tale of Redemption, Scale line blending, 148
Q*Bert, 52 367f Scaling (zooming), 146
Quad HD, 367 Ripcord Games, 172 Schmidt, Eric, 364
Quake, 281f River Raid, 57f Schools, specializing in gaming, 342–343, 343t
QuakeCon, 233 Road Race, 16, 17f Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 175
Quality assurance (QA) standards, 225 Road Rash, 191f Science, video games in, 334
Quinn, Tom, 12 Robinett, Warren, 57 games with a purpose, 336–337, 337f
Robot Battle, 16 Score, 44
Robot Operating Buddy (R.O.B.), 112, 112f Scoring reels, 3
R
Robotron: 2084, 52, 73 Screen burn-in, 36
Race Rocket Knight Adventures, 143 Screen resolution, 36
inequities in, 169 Rockstar Games, 166, 253 Scrolling, 41
sex and violence in video games and, and congressional bills, 172–175, 174f, 175f Sculptured Software, 171
167–169, 169f Manhunt, 172–175, 174f–175f ‘Seal of Quality,’, 113
violence and Death Race, 169, 170f Roebuck & Company, 12 Sears Quality Excellence Award, 19
Radeon graphics, 282 Rolando, 364f Sears Super Video Arcade, 61
Index ◾ 421
Sears “Tele-Games” label, 12, 13f, 52 market summary, 123, 124f Sony PlayStation, 3, 304–308, 304f–307f,
christmas catalog advertisement for, 14f R&D (Research and Development) team, 304t, 306t
Sears Video Arcade, 52 137 titles, 309, 309f
SECAM (Séquentiel Couleur à Mémoire), 36 Sega Genesis, 139–142, 139f–140f, 139t, vs. XBOX 360, 308–309, 308t
Second generation, 49–76 142t, 196 timeline, 296
Atari 5200, 70–71, 70f–71f “Genesis does what Nintendon’t,” 140 Xbox 360, 297–301, 298f, 298t, 299f
magazine advertisement for, 72f magazine advertisement for, 141f console comparison, 301–302, 302t
tech specs, 73t Power Base Converter, 139, 140f, 142 titles, 302, 302f
titles, 71–73, 73f Sega CD, 140f, 142 Sex/sexual themes, in video games; see also
vs. ColecoVision, 71 tech specs, 142–143, 142t Violence, in video games
Atari VCS (2600), 52–55, 52t, 53f titles, 143, 143f Custer’s Revenge, 163–164, 164f
console comparison, 55–57, 55t, 56f U.S. launch titles, 139t effects of, 177
titles, 57, 57t vs. SNES, 146, 148, 148f, 148t gender and race, 167–169, 169f
vs. ColecoVision, 67–68 vs. TurboGrafx-16, 142–143142t Grand Theft Auto series, 166–167, 167f
vs. Magnavox odyssey, 59 Segale, Mario, 52 The Guy Game, 165–166, 166f
vs. Mattel Intellivision, 64–65 Sega Mark III, 116, 116f highlighted games timeline, 162
breakthroughs and trends, 76 tech specs, 119, 119t Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the
ColecoVision, 65–67, 66f, 66t, 67f Sega Master System, 117, 117f–118f, 137 Lounge Lizards, 164–165, 164f
titles, 68–69, 68f magazine advertisement for, 118f Night Trap and other FMV games, 165,
two-page magazine advertisement for, tech specs, 119, 119t 165f, 166t
69f titles, 119–120, 120f overview, 163
vs. Atari VCS and Intellivision, 67–68 vs. NES, 119, 119t regulation and the ESRB, 171, 171t,
Golden Age, 51–52, 51f, 52t Sega Mega Drive, 137; see also Sega Genesis 172f
Magnavox odyssey, 57–58, 58f, 58t, 59f tech specs, 142–143, 142t Softporn Adventure, 163
magazine advertisement for (1981), SegaNet, 245 SFC, see Super Famicom (SFC)
60f Sega NetLink, 198 Shaders, 39–40, 39t, 40f
tech specs, 59t Sega Sammy Holdings Inc., 264 Shadow of the Colossus, 253f
titles, 61, 61f Sega Saturn system, 196–198, 196f, 197f, Shadows of the Damned, 168
vs. Atari VCS, 59 197t Shanghai, 131
vs. Mattel Intellivision, 64–65 changes, 200 “Share” button, 387
market summary, 74–75, 75f magazine advertisement for, 199f Share Play, 387
Mattel Intellivision, 61–64, 62f–64f, 62t, tech specs, 198 Shareware distribution method, 278
64t titles, 198–200, 198f Shigeru Miyamoto, 51, 114, 115, 116, 256,
titles, 65, 65f U.S. launch titles, 197t 313
vs. Atari VCS and Odyssey, 64–65 vs. 3DO and Jaguar, 198, 198t Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya, 150f
vs. ColecoVision, 67–68 vs. Sony PlayStation, 203, 204t Shining Force III, 198f
sales graph, 75f “SegaScope 3-D glasses,”, 117 Shin Nihon Kikaku (SNK) Corporation, 151,
timeline, 50 Sega SG-1000, 116, 116f 154
video game crash of, 1983, 73–74, 74f Sega Virtua Processor (SVP) chip, 142 Shinobi, 119f
Second Life, 285f Sega 32X, 196–198, 196f Shinobi II: The Silent Fury, 150f
Second-party developers, 223 Sengoku, 154 Shinobi III, 143f
Second-person perspective, 41 Sensor Bar, 313–314 Shoot’em ups, 41
Secret of Mana, 146 Sepso, Mike, 235 Shooting Gallery, 8
The Secret of Monkey Island, 274f Séquentiel Couleur à Mémoire (SECAM), 36 Short-term aggression, 176
Sega, 379 Serious games, 334–336, 334f, 335f Shovelware, 73
Sega Cards, 116 Serious Games Showcase and Challenge, Shuhei Yoshida, 387, 400
Sega CD, 31, 140f, 142 336, 336t SID 6581 (Sound Interface Device), 96t, 98
Sega Dreamcast, 244–247, 244f, 245t, 312 Service Games, 116 Side-scrolling “platformer” games, 116
console comparison, 247, 247t Seventh generation, 295–319 Sid Meier’s Pirates!, 100, 101f
magazine advertisement for, 246f arcade update, 297, 297f Sierra On-Line, 165
tech specs, 247, 247t breakthroughs and trends, 319 Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette, 243f
titles, 247–248, 248f market summary, 317–318, 318f Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), 205, 255, 279
U.S. launch titles, 245t Nintendo DS, 297, 311, 311f Silicon Knights, 259
vs. Sony PlayStation, 2, 251–253, 252t Nintendo Wii, 312–315, 312f–315f SimCity, 100, 101f
Sega Enterprises, 116, 139 titles, 316–317, 317f Simogo, 367
Sega Game Gear, 150, 150f vs. PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360, The Sims Online, 285f
tech specs, 150t 315–316, 316t Siri, 396
Sega Games Co., Ltd., 109, 116, 131, 146, 297 PlayStation Portable (PSP), 297, 303, Sixaxis controller, 305
changes at, 200 303f 16-bit Era, the, see Fourth-generation
422 ◾ Index
Sixth generation, 241–265 Sony PlayStation 2, 248–251, 248f, 249t, 251f Street date, 154
arcade decline and restructuring, 243, 243f Network Play service, 251 Street Fighter, 167
breakthroughs and trends, 265 Target stores magazine advertisement for, Street Fighter II’: Special Champion Edition,
Game Boy Advance, 254, 254f 252f 143
market summary, 264–265, 265f tech specs, 251–253, 252t Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, 131,
Microsoft Xbox, 260–263, 260f–262f, 261t titles, 253, 253f 131f, 142, 152
titles, 263–264, 264f U.S. launch titles, 249t StreetPass data systems, 385
vs. others, 263, 263t vs. Dreamcast, 251–253, 252t Streets of Rage, 143
Nintendo GameCube, 255–257, 255f, vs. GameCube, 257, 257t Streets of Rage 2, 143f
256f, 256t Sony PlayStation 3, 304–308, 304f–307f, Strider, 139
changes, 259–260 304t, 306t Strings, 33
titles, 257, 259, 259f titles, 309, 309f Stuart-Williams, Raymond, 4
vs. PlayStation, 2, 257, 257t U.S. launch titles, 304t Studio, 222
Sega Dreamcast, 244–247, 244f, 245t versions, 306t Studio II, 52
console comparison, 247, 247t vs. Wii, 315–316, 316t S.T.U.N. Runner, 144f
titles, 247–248, 248f vs. XBOX 360, 308–309, 308t Stunner light gun, 197
vs. Sony PlayStation, 2, 251–253, 252t Sony SPC700, 148 Stunt Race-FX, 148
Sony PlayStation, 2, 248–251, 248f, 249t, SoulCalibur, 245f, 248f Submarine, 8f
251f Soul Calibur series, 169 Sun Microsystems’ Java, 279
titles, 253, 253f Sound, 43–44 Super Action Controller Set, ColecoVision,
vs. Dreamcast, 251–253, 252t SoundBlaster, 278 67, 67f
timeline, 242 Sound card (audio card), 31, 31f Super Breakout, 70, 95
Ski, 8, 8f Sound channels, 42–43, 42f Super Castlevania IV, 146
Slow load times, 154 Sound theory, 44, 44t Supercell, 366
“Smart” devices, 353–354, 354f Space Dungeon, 73 Super Columns, 150f
Smartphone(s), 353 Space Harrier, 109 SuperData Research, Inc., 228, 370, 399
Snap, 395 Space Harrier II, 137, 140f Super Famicom (SFC), 145, 145f
SNES, see Super Nintendo Entertainment Space Invaders, 43, 51, 57f, 74 SuperFX chip, 148
System (SNES) Spacewar!, 4, 5f, 12, 36, 37 Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, 146
SNS-101, 315 Spectrum HoloByte, 100 SuperGrafx, 134, 135f
Soap opera effect (SOE), 33 Specular Interactive, 379 Super Hang-On, 139
Social games, online, 286, 365 Speedway!, 59f Super Mario 64, 205, 206f, 209f
Social network, 284 Splatterhouse, 135, 137f Super Mario Bros., 43, 113, 117, 121, 137
SOE (soap opera effect), 33 SpotPass data systems, 385 Super Mario Bros., 2, 167
Softporn Adventure, 163 Sprites, 38 Super Mario Bros., 3, 137
Soldier of Fortune, 172 Sprite technology, 38 Super Mario Galaxy, 317f
Sonic Adventure, 245f, 248f Spy Hunter, 98 Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, 138f
Sonic & Knuckles, 143 Squaresoft, 204 Super Mario World, 145, 146, 146f
Sonic Team, 200 S-SMP audio processing unit, 148 Supermassive Games, 369
Sonic the Hedgehog, 140, 143, 143f, 146, 148 SSX, 251f Super Metroid, 149f
Sonic the Hedgehog 2, 154 Standard Games, 116 Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Sonic The Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, 150f Star Control II, 191f (SNES), 145–146, 145f, 146f, 146t
Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball, 143 Star Fox, 148 color layering, 146, 148
“Sonic Tuesday,”, 154 Star Raiders, 93, 93f magazine advertisement for, 147f
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), 201 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, 264f “Mode 7,”, 146, 148f
Sony Corporation, 149, 200 Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II, tech specs, 146, 148, 148t
marketing strategy, 201 256f titles, 149, 149f
Sony Ericsson, 361 Static random-access memory (SRAM), 148 U.S. launch titles, 146t
Sony Online Entertainment, 281 Steam, 227, 283–284 vs. Genesis and TurboGrafx-16, 146, 148,
Sony PlayStation, 200–203, 200f–202f, 201t, Steam app, 369 148f, 148t
203f Stella, chip, 52 Super Pong, 13
magazine advertisement for, 202f Stereophonic (stereo) sound, 42 Super Scope (Nintendo), 142
12-month game sales curve, 228f Stereoscopic 3D technology, 39 Super Slim, 307
tech specs, 203, 204t Stereoscopic (S-3D) video games, 41 Super Smash Bros, 317f
titles, 204, 204f Stern Electronics, 43 Super Smash Bros. Melee, 259f
Underground disc series, 201 Stockburger, Axel, 44 Super Street Fighter II Turbo, 191f
U.S. launch titles, 201 Stockburger’s sound objects, 44, 44t Super Thunder Blade, 137
vs. Nintendo 64 (N64), 208–209, 208t Stolar, Bernie, 201, 244 Surround (multichannel) sound, 42–43
vs. Sega Saturn, 203, 204t Stream processors, 384 Suzuki, Yu, 109, 131, 132
Index ◾ 423
SX-64, 99 Telstar Ranger, 15 fourth-generation, 130

Sync generator, 10 Tempest 2000, 195f PC gaming, 272
System, 246, 297 Tempest 2000, 195 second generation, 50
System bus, 31, 31f Tennis, 15 seventh generation, 296
System Link cables, 262 Tennis for Two, 4, 4f, 36 sixth generation, 242
Syzygy Engineering, 4–5 Terabytes (TB), 382 “Time-to-solution,”, 40
Tetris, 100f, 138, 138f TMS9928A video display processor, 67
Tetsu Sumii, 387 Tobias, John, 169
T
Texas Instruments, 67 Todd’s Adventure in Slime World, 144f
Table Tennis, 10 SN76489AN sound card, 68 Toggle circuit, 85
vs. Pong, 12–13, 12f Texas Instruments SN76499N chip, 15 Tomb Raider, 167, 204f, 280f
Taito, 51, 52, 109, 187 Text adventure games, 89 Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, 264f
Takeshiro Maeda, 131 Texture mapping, 39, 39f Tommy Lasorda Baseball, 140
Tallarico, Tommy, 44 1.31 TFLOPS, 396 Tomohiro Nishikado, 51
TandyVision model, 61 1.84 TFLOPS, 389 Tonka, 124
Target stores magazine advertisement, for 4.2 TFLOPS, 389 Top-down games, 41
Sony PlayStation, 2, 252f TG-16, see TurboGrafx-16 (TG-16) Topheavy Studios, 165
Tatsumi Kimishima, 400 The Coalition, 398 Toru Iwatani, 51
Tatsuo Yamamoto, 244 The 7th Guest, 279f Toshiba, 249
Team Tap adapter, 195 Third generation; see also 8-bit era Touchscreen, 353
Tech Model Railroad Club, 4 arcade scene, 109, 109f Trak-Ball controller, Atari 5200, 71
Technology, 27–45 Atari 7800 ProSystem, 120–121, 120f, 120t Tramiel, Jack, 95–96, 120, 123
ASCII and vector graphics, 37, 38f comic book advertisement for, 122f Transfer Pak, 206
BIOS, 30–31, 31f titles, 123, 123f Transparency, 203
bits and bytes, 32–33, 33t vs. NES, 121, 121t Treasure, 209
CPU, 30 breakthroughs and trends, 124 Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy., 193,
graphics and sound cards, 31, 31f market summary, 123–124, 124f 193f
hertz and frame rate, 33–34, 33t Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Trophy system, 305
interlaced scan, 34–36, 34f 111–113, 111f–112f, 113f, 113t Trubshaw, Roy, 89
local area networks (LANs), 32, 32f titles, 114–116, 114f True 3D games, 41
monitors, types of, 36 vs. Atari 2600 (VCS), 114, 114t Turbo, 68f
motherboard, 29, 29f vs. Atari 7800 ProSystem, 121, 121t TurboChips, 133, 137
music and sound, 43–44, 44f vs. Sega Master System, 119, 119t vs. HuCards, 135
overview, 29 Nintendo Famicom, 109–110, 110f TurboDuo, 135
peripheral component interconnect, Sega Mark III, 116, 116f TurboExpress, 135
31–32, 32f Sega Master System, 117, 117f–118f TurboGrafx-16 (TG-16), 133–135, 133f–135f;
perspective, 40–42, 41f, 42t titles, 119–120, 120f see also NEC PC Engine
polygon graphics, 38–39, 38f, 39f vs. NES, 119, 119t 8-bit central processing unit (CPU), 135
ports, 31, 31f timeline, 108 16-bit graphics processing unit (GPU),
progressive scan, 34–36, 34f United States, 110–111, 111f 135
RAM and ROM, 30, 30f Third-party developers, 223 8-bit Hu6820 processor, 135
raster graphics, 38–39, 38f Third-person titles, 41, 41f localization, 134
shaders, flops, and cores, 39–40, 39t, Thompson, Jack, 176 magazine advertisement for, 136f
40f, 40t 3dfx, 244 tech specs, 135, 137t
sound channels, 42–43, 42f, 43t 3D accelerator cards, 279 titles, 135, 137, 137f
sound theory, 44, 44t 3D era, the, 187; see also Fifth generation TurboChips, 133
video formats, 36–37, 37t 3dfx Interactive’s Voodoo chipset, 279 TurboPad controller and, 133f, 134
wide area networks (WANs), 32, 32f 3D pad, 197 turbo switches, 134
Tecmo, 109 3D polygon graphics, 131, 148, 187 TurboTap, 134
Tectoy, 117 TIA (Television Interface Adaptor), 121 U.S. launch titles, 134t
Tekken, 187f Tilt mechanisms, 3 vs. NES, 135, 137f
Tekken, 3, 204f Time (magazine), 163, 164 vs. Sega Genesis, 142–143, 142t
Tekken Tag Tournament, 251f Time Crisis, 187 vs. SNES, 146, 148, 148f, 148t
Teleprinters, 85 Timeline TurboGrafx-CD, 31, 134–135, 135f
Television Interface Adaptor (TIA), 52, 121 console, 378 TurboPad controller, 133f, 134
Telltale Games, 284 early PC gaming, 84 Turbo switches, 134
Telstar Arcade, 16f 8-bit era, 108 TurboTap, 134
Telstar Colormatic, 15 fifth-generation, 186 Turtle Entertainment, 234
Telstar Gemini, 16 first generation, 2 Turtles!, 61f
424 ◾ Index
TV Control, 381 Video formats, 36–37 “The Voice,”, 58

TVs HDTV, 36 Voice actors, 44
Hertz rating, 33 HDV, 36 Voice Recognition Unit (VRU), 208
refresh rate, 33–34 NTSC, 36 Voice synthesis, 43
TV Tuner, 150 PAL, 36 Voodoo 3 card, 244
Twitch, 235, 286 SECAM, 36 VPDs, see Video display processors (VPDs)
Ultra HD/4K format, 37 VRAM bandwidth, 148
Video game crash of, 1983, 73–74, 74f, 109
U
Video game industry, 219–235
W
Ubisoft, 317 average cost of new game, 230
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, 90f as big business, 230–231, 231f, 231t–232t The Walking Dead, 168
Ultima Online, 281f conventions, 232–233, 232f, 233t Walkman, 200
Ultima series, 100, 100f data research, 228, 229t Wall, Jack, 44
Ultra HD Blu-ray, 396 development, 222–224, 223t, 224t Walton, Brett, 228
Ultra HD/4K format, 37 distribution, 226–227, 226f WAN card, 32
Ultra Pong, 13 end-users, 228–229, 229t, 230t WANs, see Wide area networks (WANs)
UMD (Universal Media Disc), 303 eSports, 233–235, 234f War games, early, 327–328
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, 309f funding, 221–222, 222t Wario Land 3, 210f
United States manufacturing, 225–226, 225f–226f WarioWare: Twisted!, 254f
NES in, 111–112 overview, 221 Warner Communications, 52, 53, 123
Nintendo Famicom in, 110–111, 111f publishing, 222 Warshaw, Howard Scott, 55, 57
Unity Technologies, 370 retail, 227–228, 227f, 228f WaveBird, 256
Universal Media Disc (UMD), 303 value chain, 221, 221f WebTV team, 298
Universal Serial Bus (USB), 31, 249 Video game players, demographic data, 163 Wei Yen, Dr., 255
Universal Studios, 187 Video game research, 337 Western Electric Company, 131
Unreal Engine, 281 Video Games Live (VGL), 44 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker, 243f
USB, see Universal Serial Bus (USB) Video Graphics Array (VGA), 278 Whitaker, Andrew, 195
User interfaces (UI), 224 VideoLogic PowerVR2 card, 244 Whyte, Ronald M., 175
Viewing angle, 36 Wide area networks (WANs), 32, 32f
Violence, in video games, 174t; see also Sex/ Wi-Fi, 298
V
sexual themes, in video games WIFI adapter, 32
Valeski, Terrence, 75 Death Race and, 169, 170f Wii, see Nintendo Wii
Value chain, game industry, 221, 221f Doom and FPS games, 171–172, 174f Wii Balance Board, 315
Valve, company, 227 effects of, 176–177, 177f Wii Family Edition, 315
Valve Corporation, 288 gender and race, 167–169, 169f Wii Menu, 313
Van Elferen, Isabella, 44 Grand Theft Auto series, 166–167, 167f Wii Mini, 315
Vanguard, 151 highlighted games timeline, 162 Wii MotionPlus, 315
VCR (Video Cassette Recorder), 111 Mortal Kombat, 169–171, 170f Wii Remote Plus, 315
Vector graphics, 37, 38f overview, 163 Wii Shop Channel, 313
Vector monitors, 37, 74 regulation and the ESRB, 171, 171t, 172f Wii Speak microphone, 315
Vector processing units (VPU0 and VPU1), Rockstar games and congressional bills, Wii Sports, 313f
251 172–175, 174f, 175f Wii U, 380–383, 380f–382f, 382t; see also
Vectrex, 37, 74 “Virtua,”, 131 Console gaming, modern
Venture, 68f Virtua Cop, 187 Wii U Pro Controller, 383
“Vertically scrolling” games, 41 Virtua Fighter, 131f, 197f Wii U titles, 384–385, 384f, 385f
VES, see Video Entertainment System (VES) Virtua Fighter, 2, 198f Wii U vs. PlayStation 4 (PS4), 389–390,
VGA (Video Graphics Array), 278 Virtual Boy, 205, 205f, 210 389t
VGA Box, 247 Virtual Console, 313, 383 WiiWare, 313
VGChartz, 228, 229t Virtual online worlds, 285–286, 285f, 286t Wii Wheel, 314
VIC-20 computer, 96 Virtual reality (VR), 288 Wii Zapper, 313
Videmption, 379 Virtua Racing, 142, 187, 187f Wild Gunman, 112
Video8, 200 VisiCalc, 101 Williams, Harry, 3
Video card (graphics card), 31, 31f Visual Concepts, 247 Williams, Ken, 89
Videocarts, 52 Visual Memory Unit (VMU), 245 Williams, Roberta, 89, 165
Video Cassette Recorder (VCR), 111 Visual reference guide, video game Williams Electronics, 52
Video compact discs (VCDs), 188 connectors, 35t Wilson, Barbara J., 176
“Adult Only,”, 165 Viva Group, 225 Windows, 260
Video display processors (VPDs), 197 Vivid Interactive, 165 Windows 3.0, 278
Video Entertainment System (VES), 74 Vocalization, 44 Windows 7, 289
Index ◾ 425
Windows 95, 279, 280f–281f X axis, 41 Xperia Z5 Premium, 367

mid-1990s and, 279, 280f–281f Xbox, see Microsoft Xbox XrossMediaBar (XMB), 305
Windows 10 Mobile, 367 Xbox App/Smartglass, 395 Xseed Games, 317
Windows 95 OS, 260 Xbox 360 E, 300
Windows Phone, 364 Xbox Live, 262, 298
Y
Windows Phone Store, 364 Xbox Live Gold, 393
Windows XP, 282 Xbox One, 393–396, 393f, 393t, 394f; see also Yamaha VDP graphics chip, 148
WipEout, 201 Console gaming, modern Yannes, Bob, 98
WipEout Pure, 303f Xbox One Elite, 396 Yars’ Revenge, 55, 57f
Wireless Gaming Receiver, 301 Xbox One S, 396 Y axis, 41
Wireless Keypad, 307 Xbox One titles, 398, 399f, 399t YouTube, 286, 313
Wireless Network Adapter, 298 Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4 (PS4), 396, 396t, Yuji Naka, 143, 200
Wolfenstein 3D, 171, 195, 195f, 278 397f, 398t Yuzo Koshiro, 43, 142–143
Women Xbox One X, 396
in game characters, 167 XBOX 360/PS3 vs. WII U, 383–384, 383t
Z
as oversexualized character, 167, 168f Xbox 360 S, 300
as sex objects in video games, 167 1X drive speed, 154 Z axis, 41
as video gamer, 163 65XE, 95f Zelda, 137
Wonder Boy in Monster World, 119f, 120 130XE, 95f Zillion, 119f, 120
WonderSwan, 210 XE Game System (XEGS), 95 Zilog Z80, 137
World Championship Soccer, 139 Xenoblade Chronicles, 317f Zilog Z80 CPU, 99
World Cyber Games (WCG), 234 Xenos, 298 Zone sound, 44
Worlds of Wonder, 113 X86-64 “Jaguar,”, 386 Zork I: The Great Underground Empire, 89f
World War II, 116 600XL, 95f Zynga, 286, 365, 393
Wozniak, Steve “Woz,”, 85, 91 800XL, 95f
Wright, Will, 100, 285, 287 1200XL, 95f

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History • Business • Technology

Dr. Brian J. Wardyga

© 2019 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

No claim to original U.S. Government works

Printed on acid-free paper

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-8153-9089-3 (Paperback)

Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at

and the CRC Press Web site at

CHAPTER 1 ◾ The First Video Games 1

CHAPTER 2 ◾ Behind the Technology 27

CHAPTER 3 ◾ The Second Generation 49

SECOND-GENERATION MARKET SUMMARY 73

CHAPTER 4 ◾ Early PC Gaming 83

CHAPTER 5 ◾ The 8-bit Era 107

ATARI 7800 PROSYSTEM 120

CHAPTER 6 ◾ The 16-bit Era 129

CHAPTER 7 ◾ Sex and Violence Take Center Stage 161

CUSTER’S REVENGE 163

CHAPTER 8 ◾ The 3D Era 185

CHAPTER 9 ◾ Video Games Become Big Business 219

CHAPTER 10 ◾ The Sixth Generation 241

SIXTH-GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS 265

CHAPTER 11 ◾ The Rise of PC Gaming 271

CHAPTER 12 ◾ The Seventh Generation 295

CHAPTER 13 ◾ Military, Science, and Education Climb Aboard 325

CHAPTER 14 ◾ Mobile and Casual Change the Game 351

KEY N-GAGE TITLES 359

CHAPTER 15 ◾ Modern Console Gaming 377

ESA Entertainment Software Association IBM International Business Machines

NFC Near-Field Communication R.O.B. Robot Operating Buddy

TV Television VPU Vector Processing Unit

his book was written ﬁrst and foremost for my

W elcome to The Video Games Textbook! I appreciate

The First Video Games

• Describe the types of games found in arcades before video games.

◾ KEY TERMS AND PEOPLE

◾ FIRST GENERATION TIMELINE

Tennis for Two Computer Space Home Pong

October 1958 November 1971 December 1975

February 1962 September 1972 19761977

Spacewar! Magnavox Odyssey Coleco Telstar series

(a) (b) (c)

One University of Utah undergraduate who became a

FIGURE 1.5 Magazine advertisement for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1973.

TABLE 1.3 Magnavox Odyssey Series Releases

FIGURE 1.8 Vendor print advertisement for Pong (1972).

◾ COLECO TELSTAR TABLE 1.5 Coleco Telstar Tech Specs

TABLE 1.6 Subsequent Coleco Telstar Series Releases

FIGURE 1.15 Magazine advertisement for the Telstar Marksman (1978).

TABLE 1.7 Nintendo Color TV Game Series Releases

FIGURE 1.17 First-generation console sales graph.

Console Approximate worldwide sales

Home Pong >550,000

Telstar series >1 million

◾ FIRST GENERATION BREAKTHROUGHS AND TRENDS

1. Discrete transistor-based digital game logic

◾ ACTIVITY: GAMER PROFILE

Favorite types of games (circle or check all that apply):

Action Fighting Racing Simulation

Ten favorite games that come to mind:

◾ CHAPTER 1 QUIZ 2. Often credited for developing the ﬁrst electronic

Bushnell, N. (2001). Interview by Steve Kent from The ultimate www.nytimes.com/1985/07/21/business/coleco-moves