History of Computer Games
John E. Laird EECS Department Updated 9/7/05
Derived from The Ultimate Game Developers Sourcebook The First Quarter: A 25 year history of video games, S.Kent and sources on the WWW

First games

TicTacToe: A.S.Douglas on a EDSAC vacuum-tube computer
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Tennis for Two:

Willy Higginbotham on an oscilloscope connected to analog Donner computer

1960s and Early 1970s

1961-1962 SpaceWar! developed at MIT using vector graphics on PDP-1 Sega releases Periscope:
electronic shooting game - first arcade game
1971-1974 Birth of Commercial Games

1971:

Nolan Bushnell [Nutting] develops Computer Space
First commercial arcade game Based on SpaceWar Vector graphics, but really cool real-time space game Too sophisticated for market. Fails

Bushnell starts Atari

Named after a move in GO
Odyssey by Magnavox Hockey
First home TV game analog not digital 100,000 sold - $100/console

Pong in Arcades by Atari

Sued by Magnavox A huge hit in bars, pinball arcades,

Kee releases Tank

Fake spinoff from Atari First game to use ROM

Atari:

First racing game (Trak 10) & maze chase game (Gotcha).

1972-1976

Adventure: The Colossal Cave
William Crowther and Don Woods First text-based adventure game Ran on DEC mainframes (PDP-10)

Late-70s: Atari Expands

1976: Bushnell sells Atari to Warner for $26 Million
Warner markets Pong to home as a single game Breakout designed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
1977: Atari introduces the 2600 VCS
First home game console with multiple games 2K ROM , 128 Bytes of RAM Very successful 6M sold by 1980
1977: Apple starts selling the Apple II 1978:
Adventure for Atari comes out
Sold 1M copies, first Easter Egg first action/adventure game
Space Invader developed by Taito in Japan
Activision is formed by Atari developers
Third party development houses start up
Atari 800 introduced - 8-bit First MUD by Trubshaw & Bartle
First online multiplayer game

1980-1981: Rise

1980:
Phillips Odyssey2 (1978) and Mattel Intellivision
Mattel had better graphics, but terrible controller

Namco has Pac-Man

>$1 billion ($2.3 in 1997 dollars) 300,000 arcade units sold since introduction

Atari doing $1 billion:

Asteroids & Battlezone released
Williams releases Defender Zork released by Infocom, Ultima released

1981:

Game industry > $6 billion in sales Nintendo: Donkey Kong [converted Radarscope] Galaxian, Centipede, Tempest, Ms. Pac-Man IBM introduces the IBM PC

1982: Clouds ahead

Atari sales down 50% -- starts to loses $$s
Releases 5200 But it still controlled 80% of the market Atari buys rights to ET for $22 Million Produced more PacMan cartridges than systems
Activision releases Pitfall ColecoVision gets Donkey Kong Game companies start just for home computers
Sierra On-Line, Broderbund, BudgeCo
Electronic Arts is formed

1983: Crash

Mattel losses $225 million from Intellivision
Doesnt ship the Aquarius Loses as much as it had made the four prior years.

Atari loses money

Market flooded with poor quality games: Fox, CBS, Quaker Oats, Chuck Wagon dog food

Coleco crashes

Saved by Cabbage Patch Kids
Commodore 64 - home computer

17-22 million total sold

Dragons Lair released
Laserdisk 6 years to make - Bluth Studios

Crash & Resurgence

1984:
Industry drops to below $800 M Apple introduces the Macintosh
Birth of modern computer: good resolution, sound Games not a priority 100,000 sold in first six months
Kings Quest is released by Sierra On-Line

1985:

Nintendo introduces Nintendo Entertainment System
Strict control on software
Lockout chip, and restricts companies to 5 games/year Nintendo sells cartridges to software distributors
Atari tries to come back with 16-bit 520ST

Computer and Game system

Carmen Sandiego released by Broderbund

Failed Competition

1986:
Commodore ships Amiga: cool but marketing kills it.
Computer system designed to support games 3D color Developed by Atari hardware engineer Jay Miner.
Sega ships Sega Master System console.
Technically superior to Nintendo, but it ignores third-party developers and fails because of lack of games (and maybe Nintendo pressure on developers).
Atari ships 7800 Nintendo outsells competitors 10 to 1

1987-1989

1987:
Electronic Arts releases their first in-house game:

Skate or Die.

Serious games start to show up for IBM PCs.

VGA and SVGA help

Tetris imported from Soviet Union Coleco files for bankruptcy

1989:

Sega Genesis is released: 16-bit
Attacks console market with EA sports titles Aggressive marketing at older market (> 13 year old)
Nintendo sticks with 8-bit

Releases Gameboy

Maxis releases SimCity

Console Wars

1990:
Nintendo releases Super Mario 3 - all-time best-seller 11M Amiga and Atari ST die out PCs and Consoles are major game platforms Electronic Arts starts to acquire other game publishers Nintendo launches Super-NES (16-bit) S3 introduces first single chip graphics accelerator for PC Capcom releases Street Fighter II for arcades big hit id releases Wolfenstein 3D

1991:

1992:
PC gaming explodes Nintendo has $7 billion in sales ($4.7B in U.S.)
Has higher profits than all U.S. movie and TV studios combined
Midway releases Mortal Kombat for arcades extreme violence

More Wars

1993:
Pentium chip is launched Consoles (Sega and Nintendo) are 80% of game market Panasonic ships Real-3DO: 32-bit (now out of business) Civilization published

1994:

Atari ships Jaguar: 64 bit
Very expensive for console ~$700, >$100/game Neither 3DO or Jaguar does particularly well
DOOM released by id MYST released
all time biggest selling PC game until 2002

32-bit Wars

1995:
Sega ships Saturn (32-bit) Sony ships Playstation (32-bit) Microsoft releases Window 95
Includes the Game SDK - Direct-X Bring major game performance to Windows
Internet and WWW expand Full-motion video becomes a part of games

7th Guest

Playstation
Launched in U.S., Sept. 1995 300,000 polygons/sec., 30MIPS processor, 4MB RAM, 2MB VRAM 400 U.S. Titles 20% penetration in U.S. homes Analysis:
Multi-platform games look worse on Playstation Playstation-only games look good, but grainy Cheap and lots of them for software developers

1996-1998

1996:

Nintendo ships Ultra 64

Originally promised for 1995
Multi-player gaming goes commercial
Via modem and internet and network companies

TEN, Mplayer,

1997:
3D acceleration starts to standardize on 3D-FX
Games start to assume 3D acceleration
Pentium IIs at 200Mhz make serious game machines Ultima Online launches first MMORPG in 3D

1998:

Lots of good PC games Playstation rules consoles

Nintendo 64

Launched in U.S., Sept 1996 93.75 MH 64 Bit CPU, 64-bit MIPS co-processor
over 500,000,000 16-bit operations/sec Built-in Pixel Drawing Processor (RDP)
4.5MB RAM, 150,000 polygons/sec Originally aimed at younger market Cartridge makes is very expensive Very dependent on software Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time generates more revenue in last 6 weeks of 1998 than any film

1999-2001

Dreamcast
Maximum Score for Pac-Man Achieved Billy Mitchell achieves the highest possible score for Pac-Man when he completes every board and winds up with a score of 3,333,360. EverQuest is launched
Development moves from PC to consoles Playstation II Diablo II sells 1 million units in 1 week SIMS sells 2.3 million units ($95M)
+ 1.4 mill. in expansions
Gamecube (Nintendo) Xbox (Microsoft)

Sega Dreamcast

Sept. 1999, $299 ($99 -> $49 -> $0), 128 bit Hitachi 200 MHz CPU, PowerVR 3D, 16MB RAM
But faster than a 400MHz Pentium II for 3D 3M polygons/sec Fast CD-ROM loads
Moderately successful in U.S.

But not in Japan

Sony Playstation 2
Launched May 4, 2000 in Japan

In U.S. on October 26, 2000: $Million sold world wide by 2005 [2 years < PS1]

Hardware

128 Bit 300MHz processor 3 Special purpose 150 MHz co-processors 32MB DRAM: 3.2 GB/sec DVD & CD MPEG2 hardware Dual Shock 2 analog controller Chip set will be available for other platforms 66M polygons/sec geometry 16M polygons/sec curved
Software development is tough

Nintendo GameCube

Launch in Japan, Fall 2001

U.S. Nov. 2001

IBM Gekko processor 405 MHz Geometry Engine Mini-DVD 6-12M polygons/sec (fully textured) 24MB Main memory 16MB A-memory
Emphasis on easier development
High memory bandwidth 3.2 GB/sec Fast frame buffers (5ns.)

Microsoft Xbox

November 2001 Software

Direct X API

Hardware
Pentium IV 733 Mhz Custom 3-D 300Mhz GPU 64MB Ram 6.4 GB/sec 8GB hard drive DVD 100 MBps Ethernet
150 million transformed and lit polygons per second 100+ million polygons per second sustained performance (shaded, textured) 300 million micropolygons/particles per second 4 simultaneous textures Full-scene anti-aliasing 1920x1080 maximum resolution HDTV support

Performance

PC 2002
Americas Army released as free game SIMS becomes the best-selling PC game of all time (March 2002)

PC 2003

SIMS continues to grow
Unleashed, Superstar But SIMS Online fails

Star Wars Galaxies

> 275,000 Registered Users Second biggest MMOG, fastest growing
WarCraft III, UT 2003, GTA, ports from console Second Life and There.com launch
Different approach to MMOG

EA grosses $2.5B in 2003

Games 2004
$7.3 B sales Madden sells 1.3M copies in one week Sequels rule: SIMS 2, Halo 2, Half-life 2, Doom Consoles: 2004
Stable of slow growth - lower prices 1,000,000 GBAs sold Nokia Ships >1,000,000 N-Gages

Nintendo Launches DS

>5 million units worldwide by March 2005 Ninetendogs 250K in one week best handheld?

Sony Launches PSP

5 million units shipped by July 2005 Where are the games Shifting away from PC (15% sales) to Consoles

Games 2005

World of Warcraft

4 Million Subscribers ($700M/year subscriptions)

EA rolls along:

Madden NFL 2006, sold 1.7M in first week
Gamestop and EB games merge Top selling games May
GBA Pokemon Emerald: 882,579 PS2 Starwars Episode II: Revenge of the Sith 490,670 XBX Starwars Episode II: Revenge of the Sith 378,195 XBX Forza Motorsport 184,595 PS2 Midnight Club 3 150,470 Battlefield 2 World of Warcraft Guild Wars The Sims 2: University The Sims 2
Top Selling PC Games: July 2005

Next Gen Consoles coming

Difficult software development Very expensive for development (teams twice size)

XBOX 360

Available: November 2005 Custom IBM PowerPC CPU
3 symmetrical cores: 3.2 GHz each 2 threads/core VMX-128 vector unit/core 1MB L2 cache CPU Game Math: 9.6B dot product/sec 10MB DRAM 48-way parallel floating point Unified shader architecture 500 million triangles per sec 16 gigasamples/sec 48 billion shader operations/sec Supports 16:9, 720p or 1080i HD output 22.4 GB/s interface bus bandwidth 256 GB/s memory bandwith to EDRAM 21.6 GB/s front-side bus
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
512 MB of 700MHz GDDR3 RAM unified memory architecture
Overall system floating-point: 1 teraflop Detachable and upgradeable 20GB harddrive 12x dual-layer DVD ROM

Playstation 3

8-9 (?) Cell processors 3.2 GHz each Graphics: Nvidia 550 Mhz GPU 1.8 TFlops
100 billion shader ops/sec 51 billion dot products/sec More powerful than Geforce 6800 Ultra?
Total 2.18 TFlops 512MB RAM
split between CPU and graphics
512KB L2 cache 7 AltiVec vector processing units Blu-ray DVD may make it very expensive
Dont be surprised by delay

Removable hard drive

Future?