1980-1990's

During half of the 1980s arcade machines ruled well within shopping centers, restaurants and more after Space Invaders was created. Many companies were realizing the benefits and possible profit from investing into video games. It was also becoming more popular as a mainstream hobby.

 

Due to a war between Atari and Mattel plus the addition of many new and evolving home consoles, there came the "Great Video Game Crash" in 1983. Atari went bust after trying to take the credit away from their game designers and developers, as well as trying to sell off their consoles for cheap along with their games. The problem with this is that there are many other companies offering the same for a better price, also the fact that many of the designers left Atari to create their own companies (Activision being an example.)

 When 1983 came around Atari had managed half a billion dollars in loses, along with many other companies who were losing money due to there being too much competition. The huge loses (aprox. 3 billion down to 100 million according to Time Business) This pretty much killed off lots American gaming business for the next two years. It was then later picked up again when the Japanese introduced Nintendo, a console with greater memory capacity which meant better graphics and so more popular games! To this day Nintendo has been a dominant contender within the world of console and handheld gaming. Bet many of you didn't know that Nintendo was originally a playing-card company because I most certainly didn't. Anyway, the Nintendo Entertainment System swept the competition with its incredibly popular titles Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros and many others, along with a strict licencing policy.

                                                   

It was then Nintendos time to shine - again, after the release of the Game Boy in 1989. The first major handheld console which then further offered their version of Tetris, this sent sales sky high.

In 1990 the Neo-Geo console was born! Which had offered very highly detailed 2d graphics the likes of which beat the arcade machines and was available as a console to play on at home! Nothing could be better right? Wrong! The price of one of these machines was approximately $650 on its launch! (Around £450) then on top of that it cost a ridiculous $200 for the games. The problem with the pricing caused this poor little machine to never gain its full credit for how advanced it was. It's no good making something amazing if nobody can ever use it!

                                          

1995 Saw the release of the Play Station 1 console, which was also my very first console - Sorry, I am not that retro. This console offered a chance for cheaper games as each were based on discs rather than cartridges  The problem with this is that loading came around and memory cards were needed to save process which was not needed with cartridges  Along with its incredibly popular titles such as Resident Evil and Crash Bandicoot it soared up to the top along with Nintendo. PlayStation now being another of the "big three" consoles available.

The Nintendo 64 also became available during 1996 which still used the same bulky cartridges and had a much smaller range of games available, yet became incredibly popular due to the release of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time and Goldeneye, ushering the beginning of MMO and first person shooter gaming.

                                                      

Go on Link, try this in Skyrim. I dare you!