Week 9 Games technology

It is hard to believe just how developed and profitable the games industry has become. In less than 60 years the game industry has quickly developed to such a common everyday thing in our lives, in this day and age it is becoming the norm that every youth owns some sort of console one way or another.
The industry is extremely successful and therefore highly profitable with higher standard then ever before for game play and graphics. Lucky we are to be able to see such a fast improvement in both these areas over the past decade or so.

So let us have a look at the history of this technology,

The early 70’s were the launch of the video game console with the extremely successful game PONG placed a lot of attention upon the newly developing industry. It was only in the late 70’s that Atari would release its Atari 2600 VCS, which introduced cartridge based consoles. Although the industry was met with many hardships such as two crashes it would stabilise in the 80’s due to Nintendo and it’s NES.
Some of my earliest gaming memories were on the Atari and the NES, I was especially fond of Duck Hunt because of the gun however a lot of people can say the same thing.

The fifth generation of consoles consisted of Sony’s PlayStation One, the Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64.The jump in technology meant that both the PlayStation and the Saturn started to use CDs over the old technology of a cartridge. The Gaming industry would continue to use CDs over the years and then moved on to DVDs. The industry was booming and with growth of technology the acceptance of home based consoles was cemented.
In the next few years the industry would see the rise and fall of Sega’s Dreamcast which was the first internet ready console with built in modem, advances to computers and handheld consoles, the console wars and the information super highway.

However I don’t believe that the industry would where it is today without the use of the Internet. Microsoft has benefited with its Xbox online capabilities and it’s very successful Halo franchise. Although the PlayStation 2 also had online capabilities it wasn’t as well received as the Xbox with online play. This also applies to handheld consoles as the DS and PSP both allow for online play.
The next generation consoles (Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3) has seen an even further and higher advance of graphics and technology. All online enabled and the arrival of new wireless controllers that read via infrared and blue tooth.

As an industry the gaming market has realised its mass appeal and therefore has produced games towards different markets an example of this is the Nintendo DS lite in a pink version along with the game Nintendogs; targeted at younger females.


Not only has the industry jumped in leaps and bounds when it comes to technology (the 8-bit era seems almost primitive in comparison to today’s standards) it also has moved forward in terms of marketing and recognizing it’s mass appeal in modern society.