Cool Facts and Short History

Video games have been around since the early 1970s. The first commercial arcade video game, Computer Space by Nutting Associates, was introduced in 1971. In 1972, Atari introduced Pong to the arcades. An interesting item to note is that Atari was formed by Nolan Bushnell, the man who developed Computer Space. He left Nutting Associates to found Atari, which then produced Pong, the first truly successful commercial arcade video game..
That same year, Magnavox offered the first home video game system. Dubbed the Odyssey, it did not even have a microprocessor! The core of the system was a board with about four-dozen transistors and diodes. The Odyssey was very limited – it could only produce very simple graphics, and required that custom plastic overlays be taped over the television screen. In 1975, Atari introduced a home version of its popular arcade game, Pong. The original home version of Pong was sold exclusively through Sears, and even carried the Sears logo. Pong was a phenomenal success, opening the door to the future of home video games.
Although the Fairchild Channel F, released in 1976, was the first true removable game system, Atari once again had the first such system to be a commercial success. Introduced in 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), the 2600 used removable cartridges, allowing a multitude of games to be played using the same hardware.
The hardware in the 2600 was quite sophisticated at the time, although it seems incredibly simple now. It consisted of:
MOS 6502 microprocessor
Stella, a custom graphics chip that controlled the synchronization to the TV and all other video processing tasks
128 bytes of RAM
4-kilobyte ROM-based game cartridges
The chips were attached to a small printed circuit board (PCB) that also connected to the joystick ports, cartridge connector, power supply and video output. Games consisted of software encoded on ROM chips and housed in plastic cartridges. The ROM was wired on a PCB that had a series of metal contacts along one edge. These contacts seated into a plug on the console's main board when a cartridge was plugged into the system. When power was supplied to the system, it would sense the presence of the ROM and load the game software into memory.
Systems like the Atari 2600, its descendant, the 5200, Coleco's ColecoVision and Mattel's IntelliVision helped to generate interest in home video games for a few years. But interest began to wane because the quality of the home product lagged far behind arcade standards. But in 1985, Nintendo introduced the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and everything changed.
The NES introduced three very important concepts to the video game system industry:
Using a pad controller instead of a joystick
Creating authentic reproductions of arcade video games for the home system
Using the hardware as a loss leader by aggressively pricing it, then making a profit on the games themselves
Nintendo's strategy paid off, and the NES sparked a revival in the home video game market that continues to thrive and expand even now. No longer were home video game systems looked upon as inferior imitations of arcade machines. New games that would have been impractical to create for commercial systems, such as Legend of Zelda, were developed for the home markets. These games enticed many people who had not thought about buying a home video game system before to purchase the NES.

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The Sega Dreamcast was the first console to implement online play over a phone line, calling the system Sega Net.

The Microsoft XBox is the first video game system to completely support HDTV.

Popular Science recognized the Sega Dreamcast as one of the most important and innovative products of 1999.

The Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972, contained 40 transistors and no microprocessor. The new Pentium 4 microprocessor contains 42 million transistors on the chip itself!

The PlayStation 2 is the first system to have graphics capability better than that of the leading-edge personal computer at the time of its release.

The Nintendo N64 marked the first time that computer graphics workstation manufacturer Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) developed game hardware technology.

While the original Atari Football game was first created in 1973, it wasn't released until 1978. It was delayed because the game couldn't scroll the screen – players couldn't move beyond the area shown on the monitor. When the game was finally released, it became the first game to utilize scrolling, a key part of many games today.

The Atari Pong video game console was the No. 1 selling item for the holiday season in 1975.

The first console to have games available in the form of add-on cartridges was the Fairchild Channel F console, introduced in August 1976.

The PlayStation 2 is the first video game system to use DVD technology.

On the original Magnavox Odyssey, players had to keep score themselves because the machine couldn't.

The Nintendo GameCube's proprietary disc can hold 1.5 gigabytes of data – 190 times more than what an N64 game cartridge can hold.

On the market from 1977 till 1990, the Atari 2600 lasted longer than any other game system in history.

The Sega Genesis featured a version of the same Motorola processor that powered the original Apple Macintosh computer.

Mattel's Intellivison system, introduced in 1980, featured an add-on called “PlayCable,” which delivered games by cable TV.

Nintendo's Game Boy is the most successful game system ever, with more than 100 million units sold worldwide.
The word atari comes from the ancient Japanese game of Go and means “you are about to be engulfed.” Technically, it is the word used by a player to inform his opponent that he is about to lose, similar to “check” in chess.

In the 1980s, a service called Gameline allowed users to download games to the Atari 2600 over regular phone lines. It was not a success, but did form part of the foundation for America Online, the world's largest Internet service provider.

The first color portable video game system was the Atari Lynx, introduced in 1989 and priced at $149.

Introduced in 1993, the 3DO was the first video game system to be based entirely on CD technology.

The Sony PlayStation was originally intended as a CD add-on to the Super Nintendo. When licensing problems and other issues arose, Sony decided to develop the PlayStation as a machine of its own

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