In the Beginning...

There was the word, and the word was Arcade. There had been a couple of video games around before this, such as Pong, space Invaders, and SpacWar, but it was not until the arcades were invented that video gaming became a commercial enterprise. This is where mainstream video gaming began, and if one was to travel back in time to the 1970s, one could find several modern day developers making good money in the arcades. However, there were also companies who felt it would be more profitable to take video gaming directly to the home.

Home video gaming really started off with two computers, the Commodore64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. These each supported quite a number of specific games, plus some shared ones, but it was also possible to access the code for each game. As a matter of fact, BASIC (the computer language they used) was the main subject of the C64 manual. Fiddling around with this allowed players to rewrite games to get extra lives or whatever, or occasionally create entirely new games of their own devising (Though probably not to the same standard as commercially produced games). It should be noted, however, that the C64 and Spectrum were computers and not consoles. This is where video gaming began, but other companies were now starting to move in with brand new, more powerful consoles.

The first home video game system was the Magnavox Odyssey. This was followed by the Atari 2600. Atari was the most successful at this time, but would come to be succeeded. These newbies were all more powerful than the C64 or Spectrum, but lacked the buitl-in coding abilities*. However, two more arcade manufacturers were about to get in on the increasingly lucrative home console market, and they were to go quite a way forward into shaping the games market that we know today: a former card manufacturer called Nintendo Koppai (the latter half of which was dropped)* and a long-time arcade manufacturer called Service Games (shortened to Sega).

After marketing a console called the Mitsubishi colour TV Game 6, Nintendo released its own, cheaper, more powerful, 8-bit cartridge based console called the N(intendo) E(ntertainment) S(ystem) (called Famicom in Japan) in 1983. Sega presently released its own 8-bit console, the Master System. However, due to the NES's head start, Sega had to adopt an "Anything you can do, I can do better" attitude. The great war between Nintendo and Sega had now begun.

Meanwhile, Atari was still in the game, and released a new console, the 5200, in 1983.

The Golden Age

Sega's attempts at overtaking Nintendo failed, however, and so, rather than trying to continue with the games approach, released a brand new console, the Mega Drive, in 1990. One of Sega's main problems up to now had been lack of a mascot. While Nintendo had Mario, Sega had nothing. For this reason, it decided on a brand new character, Sonic the Hedgehog, in 1991. The Mega Drive was a smash hit in America*, giving Nintendo the push to release its own new console, the S(uper) NES*. The war between Nintendo and Sega had now become a war between Mario and Sonic. While the Nintendo stayed on top in Japan, Sega ruled the roost in America, with the two consoles roughly equla in Europe. Atari also released a new console at this time, the Jaguar, in 1993, but it was a commercial flop. SNK also released a console called the Neo Geo in 1990, but it never attained the amount of success that Nintendo or Sega enjoyed.

The increased power of the SNES and Mega Drive allowed developes to create bigger and better games than were even conceivable about two years previously. Unfortunately for Sega, though, this was to lead to its downfall. The Mega Drive controller only had three buttons, which didn't matter much at first, until games started to appear that required a six-button pad. Sega did eventually release one, but by that time many gamers had switched to the SNES. In a desperate bid to retain earnings, Sega released various add-ons such as the Mega Drive 32X, though this allowed for little other than grainy FMV. Still, the Mega Drive made some money, which fuelled th competitive spirit between Sega and Nintendo, constantly forcing them and their developers to create bigger and better games. The graphics and sound on the two systems, however, were a far cry from what is taken for granted today, and so developers had to rely on challenge, innovation, and gameplay to keep the players interested. Many considered this the Golden Age of video gaming, a time when gameplay was the most important aspect and before developers started to sell games by graphics instead. However, a new force was about to change the face of video gaming forever, and it had a Sony logo.

A New Era

In the mid-90s, Sony approached Nintendo with the proposal for a CD-drive add-on for the SNES. However, Nintendo felt the market wasn't ready for CD technology, and the project was dropped. Sony, however, decided to release it anyway under the name of PlayStation in 1996. Sony had had some previous experience with video games, having worked as a publisher for companies such as Namco, but had never made its own console or game. However, it did have one thing that neither Nintendo nor Sega could compete with - advertising. Despite Nintendo and Sega actually having bigger advertising budgets, Sony managed its one better, and targeted the 18-25 year old age group, for 2 reasons. 1) They had more disposable income, and 2) the younger age bracket would look up to them for what was 'cool'. Also, despite being the physically least powerful of the three consoles, the PlayStation destroyed the Sega Saturn. The Nintendo64 (released 1997) would probably have beaten the PlayStation had it come earlier and cost less - you see, Nintendo were in a false sense of security, believing that people would buy its console no matter what. Though the Saturn and N64 did have a few flaws such as taking a bit longer to develop for, and sticking with expensive, 'uncool' cartridges (N64), what really defeated them was the advertising. This also gave rise to two new breeds of gamer; one, the sort who is more impressed by fancy(often FMV*) graphics, sex appeal (Lara Croft), and maturity (read: blood, guts, and gore) than enjoyable, innovative gameplay. The kind of guy who buys the most popular rather than the best, and two, the casual gamer, upon whom most profits of the industry depend. This is not to say that the PlayStation was bad, just technologically inferior. It is also not to say tht this was Sony's doing; given the technological advances being made by Nintendo and Sega at this time, casual gamers would likely have emerged anyway. The PlayStation did have one advantage though - fashionable 3rd party developers such as Squaresoft, Capcom, and Namco left Nintendo and Sega for Sony, giving it a developer advantage, since Sony offered much more developer support than either Nintendo or Sega. The PlayStation also changed the nature of the market. The gaming market was now a cut-throat world of advertising and aggression, and video games were now a highly fashionable accessory, rather than a slightly nerdish (in places) pastime.

The Next Generation

Nintendo and Sega decided at similar times to fight back by releasing next-generation consoles. There were a lot of rumours about Sega's up-and-coming Dreamcast, but the only consistent one was that it would use a Microsoft operating system *. However, it did include the promised modem. However, the public response was lukewarm. The initial ads for the Dreamcast promised a global gaming community of up to 6 billion players, but due to the scarcity (though not total absence) of such games, they were eventually forced to remove these ads from the airwaves. Sega then seemed to try and distance itself from this new product, referring to it not as Sega Dreamcast but simply as Dreamcast. However, even then Sega wasn't satisfied, and ceased saying Dreamcast, and its ads were just swirls. And it even tried to distance itself from this, and its ads became weird menageries of hurricanes, a guy with swirly eyes, etc. As a result, only the most die-hard Sega fans bought the Dreamcast. The others fell into two groups - those who had been burned by the death of the Saturn and were reluctant to buy another failure, and those who owned PlayStations. You know the type - thought that Sony could do no wrong, determined to wait for the PlayStation2 (PS2). Speaking of which, Sony must have been afraid of the Dreamcast, as they turned over to the Dark Side and employed enormous hype in order to sell the PS2. This ran the gamut from simple exaggerated technical stats to 3rd world leaders using them as missile guidance systems (which never happened)*. Basically Sony was making the Death Star and would have it out in time for Christmas. Sega only lost money on the Dreamcast, eventually ceasing production and becoming specifically a 3rd party developer. Game Over.

Things were looking better on the Nintendo front. Despite the failure of the N64, it had made a lot of money from the Game Boy in general and Pokémon in particular, making it rather easy to fund its next console, he GameCube. Microsoft, too, entered the console wars at this time with a new console, the XBox *. Through impressive claims and Microsoft's acquisition of Rare, an important Nintendo 2nd party developer, Microsoft is now seeking to monopolize the video game market as it has previously attempted with that of computer software. Though the Xbox claims repeatedly to be the most powerful console around, the GameCube is just as powerful if architecture is taken into account and stats placed in context* At the time of writing, Xbox has just lost its brief lead to Nintendo. In Japan, GameCube sales recently skyrocketed and it is now selling on a par with PS2, while both are outselling XBox by a ratio of 14:1. Though Microsoft believes it can survive on the American and European markets alone, as Sega demonstrated, this is a load of dingo's kidneys.

Appendix - Handhelds

While all this was going on, the various companies were also making portable, handheld consoles. The first major success was Nintendo's Game + Watch series, the first of which was released in 1980. After this came the Game Boy (1989) which, though it was the size of a brick and needed 4 AA batteries to run, was the first handheld to have interchangeable games. Other companies tried to mimic this, resulting in the Atari Lynx (which very few actually liked), the Sega Game Gear (considered better by many, but ate batteries much faster), and the Sony PocketStation (which came later and was really more an add-on for the PlayStation than an actual console). However, the Game Boy remained the market leader. It went from strength to strength, evolving along the way into the Game Boy Pocket (smaller, lighter, sharper screen, less batteries required), the Game Boy Colour, and, more recently, the Game Boy Advance (which is actually as powerful as a SNES!). The Game Boy is currently the biggest selling console of all time, and it will be a long time before anything overtakes it.

Mobile phones have exploded in popularity in recent years, and some of them are even able to play simple games. Though mobile phones probably outsell Game Boys at the moment, they don't qualify as handheld consoles since the games are merely an extra feature rather than the main function. Though the latest generation are actually being marketed as portable consoles they are unlikely to break Nintendo's stranglehold on the market.