Development of Games Technologies

Timeline for the creation of  Arcade games throughout time:

1. 1958 - the first game was created, Table-Tennis (Ping-Pong)

2. 1961 - the second interactive game was made using ASCII text characters for the graphics

3. 1966 – Development of using a television is thought of to display games

4. 1967 – Two interactive games on a television are created, Table-Tennis &  A chase game with the manipulation of light sensors on toy guns

5. 1970 – Magnavox licenses Baer’s game on a television

6. 1970 – Creation of an arcade version of space war commences

7. 1971 – Computer space is released however the game is too hard

8. 1972 – Magnavox’s first games console is showed ready for release

9. 1972 – Atari begin to program a game and name it pong, similar to the game ping-pong

10. 1973 – Taito designed and released Astro Race with the use of a four way joystick controller

11. 1974 – Taito release another game called Basketball using player characters and baskets

12. 1974 – Taito also release Speed race which was the first arcade driving game which included collision detection and sprite scrolling, users could use a steering wheel

13. 1975 – Taito then released Interceptor & Western Gun, interceptor being the 1^st released first person shooter and Western gun allowing multiple players in certain game modes

14. 1975 - Midway MFG. releases Gun Fight similar to Western Gun however incorporates the use of a microprocessor for smoother graphics processing

15. 1976 – Sega release Moto-cross which was an early motorbike game which included 3d perspective for the player & feedback for the controller to vibrate when there was a collision

16. 1976 – Sega also release another game called Road Race, an early forward scrolling first person racer

17. 1976 – Atari make two more games called Night Driver & Breakout, Night driver incorporating the first person scrolling perspective as well

18. 1977 – Sega releases another game called Bomber, side scrolling video game and a shooter game

19. 1978 - Taito releases Space Invaders, the first blockbuster arcade video game and started the golden years for gaming

20. 1978 - Sega releases Secret Base, a side-scrolling shooter, which allows two-player cooperative game play

Sega releases Space Ship, an early vector graphics space combat game.

21. 1979 - Atari releases Asteroids, a major hit in the United States and Atari's best selling game of all time.

22. 1979 - Namco releases Galaxian, which introduces levels and boss encounters, and is the first game to have its entire graphics in RGB colour.

23. 1979 - Nintendo releases Sheriff, a run & gun multi-directional shooter with dual-stick controls (one joystick for movement and other for aiming) and many enemies shooting many bullets, influencing dual-stick shooters like Robotron 2084 and Geometry Wars.

24. 1979 - Shigeru Miyamoto debuts with Radar Scope, which introduces a three-dimensional third-person perspective, imitated years later by shooters such as Konami's Juno First and Activision's Beamrider.

25. 1980 - Namco releases Pac-Man, its biggest-selling game. One of the most influential games, it had the first gaming mascot character, established the maze chase genre, opened gaming to female audiences, and introduced power-ups and cut scenes.

26. 1980 - Namco releases King & Balloon^, which is the first game to feature synthesized voices. It is also an early example of dual-core processing, using two Z80 microprocessors, the second to drive a DAC for speech.

27. 1980 - Namco releases Rally-X, the first game to feature background music, multi-directional scrolling, and radar to show the car's location on the map.

28. 1980 - DECO releases DECO Cassette System, the first standardized arcade platform, for which many games were made.

29. 1980 - Williams Electronics release Defender, a more challenging shoot-em-up space game with control configuration of five buttons and a joystick

30. 1981 – Nintendo created Donkey Kong which started the development of Mario

31. 1981 – Sega then released Eliminator, which was a multi-directional shooter

32. 1981 – Konami released two games called Scramble & Frogger both of them used multi-processing units and the AY-3-8910 sound chip

33. 1981 - Namco releases Bosconian, introducing a free-roaming style of game play where the player's ship freely moves across open space that scrolls in all directions and a radar that tracks player & enemy positions on the map

34. 1982 – Moon patrol was then created by Irem which was the first game to include parallax scrolling

35. 1982 – Namco released the game Pole Position, which become one of the most popular racing game at the time

36. 1982 – Sega then released Star Trek, which had multi combat scenarios, different control configurations and 40 simulated levels, and became one of the most complex game to date

37. 1982 – Konami released Time Pilot on the arcade machine which was on of the first sand box games released allowing users to free-roam in a plane where ever they wanted

38. 1982 – Atari released Quantum which made a break through in graphical and details by using a 16 bit 68000 CPU instead of the older models used in other machines

39. 1983 – I, Robot was released which was the first commercial game with the use of 3D polygonal shapes and objects

40. 1983 – Bally Midway now known as Midway, released the game Journey which was the first game to incorporate sprites which were digitalized

41. 1983 – Dragons Lair was then released which used cel-animation rather then CGI to get objects & images onto the screen

42. 1983 – Namco released Libble Rabble which was the first of their games to use a 16-bit processor similar to the one used by Atari

43. 1983 – Atari made a bigger break through with incorporating 3D vector graphic simulation to arcade machines, from the death star scene of the file, using samples from the movie for voice and sound

44. 1984 – 16 bit processors became the next best thing to use in arcade machines which allowed faster graphic processing and additional details

45. 1984 – Commonly known games as Marble Madness and Paperboy were released by Atari Games

46. 1984 – Namco released the game Pac-land which was a influential platform game which used side scrolling to play the game

47.  1985 – A variety of games were released, Gauntlet was released by Atari Games, Gradius was released by Konami and then they released a Japanese styled game called Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Space Harrier was then released by Sega in this year, Vs. Super Mario Bros was released as an arcade version of Super Mario Bros which was designed for the Nintendo Entertainment System

48. 1986 – Sega Releases the game called Out Run

49. 1986 – Chiller is then released by Exidy and shows an early use of blood and gore into games

Golden Years for Arcade Systems

50. 1987 – Namco release the game called Yokai Dochuki which in Europe and rest of the world was called Shadowland

51. 1987 – Double Dragon was released by a company called Technos Japan which became a major success and created the foundations for beat’em up games in arcades

52. 1988 – NARC is released with the use of a 32-bit processor, Rekai Douchi is released as a fighting game which uses both digitized graphics and Claymation, Namco releases the game called Assault which made huge developments into the use of sprites, allowing the use of sprite scaling and sprite rotation to change enemies and characters used in the game.

53. 1988 – Namco release a new arcade system called the Namco System 21 “Ploygonizer” which was the first system to designed for 3D polygonal graphics which then included the game Winning Run, Hard Drivin’ was then released using this system by Atari, Tetris is then released from a home console game to a arcade game, operated by coins

54. 1989 – Exterminator was the first game which was fully digitized graphics, making it the most detailed game on a arcade machine to date, until Mortal Kombat 2 was released

55. 1989 – Atari Games released the game STUN Runner which made use of high speed 3D Polygonal Graphics in their system

56. 1991 – Capcom makes a release with the game Street Fighter 2, which revolutionized competitive play in arcades and set the foundations for fighting games

57. 1992 – Midway Games release the game Mortal Kombat into arcades which features blood and fatalities

58. 1993 – Mortal Kombat 2 was then released making use of high quality digitized graphics and the best sound system to date making use of MP3 quality sounds, Sega then released two games Virtua Fighter which was the first 3D flying game & Daytona USA which was the most successful game to date

59. 1994 – Killer instinct is released which was one of the first games to come included with a hard disc, which allowed for a pre-rendering of graphics with the use of movie film background techniques

60. 1996 – A new company called SNK released the well known game metal slug which is a run and gun game which introduced hand drawn animation and a better multiplayer experience

61. 1998 – The massively popular game Dance Dance Revolution was released in arcades which used a different controller of four arrows on the floor where the person would press in coalition with the arrows on the screen to dance

62. 1999 – Rush 2049 was the last arcade game to be produced by Atari due to the movement to games consoles, and shuts down the coin operating machines in arcades