Thursday 26 December 2013

The 12 Generations of Gaming - Gen 1

On the 1st gen of gaming,
Magnavox sent to me,
The Magnavox Odyssey.

On the 1st gen of gaming,
Atari sent to me,
Tennis like Pixel-ls.

The First Generation – 1972-77

Consoles:
Magnavox Odyssey
Atari Pong

Popular Games:

Spacewar!
Pong

So then, the first gen of gaming saw the rise of many greats including Atari and their game Pong. Pong is largely considered to be the first commercially successful video game of all time, but it is not the first. That prestigious title goes to the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device in 1947. But to bring it back to the time of 1st gen (and something that resembles a video game) we'll cut down the competition to just coin operated systems which means the prestigious title would go to Computer Space in 1971. Although games like Spacewar! were released 10 years earlier.


So, the success of that paragraph: confusing you all and showing everyone how messed up the start of the video game industry was. Don't worry, it gets easier from here. 

Consoles:

Magnavox Odyssey: 
Released in August 1972 Magnavox Odyessy was the first home video game console released, pre-dating the Atari Pong Home Console by 3 years. Sadly, it didn't sell very well mostly due to bad advertising making people believe that the console would only work on Magnavox TVs. The console had 27 games in total on 12 separate cartridges.

Atari Pong:
Atari Pong (arcade) was released in 1972 and kick started the video game industry while becoming one of best video game classics of all time. Not bad for a few pixels, eh? And to think it all started when Allan Alcorn made the game for a training exercise. He based the idea of Pong on a Ping Pong game in the Magnavox Odyssey who then filed a lawsuit against Atari (well I can't find any similarities between the games at all...) In 1975 Atari released the home version of the revolutionary game.       

Goodbye for now, Harry

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong
And the blog's collective knowledge

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