VIDEO GAMES

HISTIORY OF VIDEO GAMES• 1958 - creation of "Ping pong" tennis on an oscilloscope screen by William Higinbotham at Brookhaven National

Laboratory.

• 1961 - development of Spacewar on a PDP-1 at MIT for the Science Open House.

• 1972 - the first commercially available home videogame for TV was launched, called Odyssey - complex, with many electronic components, and very expensive.

• 1972 - Nolan Bushnell forms Atari to develop games, and produces Pong, a simple tennis game for arcades.

• 1974 - Atari produce a home version of Pong.

• 1974 - Nintendo, a Japanese toy manufacturer produce an electronic version of the Japanese game "Go".

• 1978 - Space Invaders is released by Tatio, and two micro computers are released for commercial sale - the Commodore PET and the Atari.

• 1980 - Pacman is released in Japan, to be played on a micro home computer.

• 1983 - Nintendo release their first computer, and Mario is released at the same time.

• 1985 - Nintendo release the NES

• 1989 - First hand held machine from Nintendo, called "Game Boy". Tetris is produced for the Game Boy in Russia.

• 1989 - Sega releases the Sega Genesis

• 1991 - Sonic is produced by Sega in response to Nintendo's Mario.

• 1994 - Sony releases the Playstation in Japan

• 1996 - Nintendo releases the Nintendo 64

• 1999 - Dreamcast - 128 bit processor - is released in the UK.

• 2001 - Playstation 2 is released.

• 2001 - In September, Nintendo releases the Gamecube

• 2001 - In November, Microsoft enters the console market with the Xbox. Halo is released at launch, boosting sales.

• 2005 - In November, Microsoft releases the Xbox 360

• 2006 - In April, Nintendo releases the Wii

• 2006 - In November, Sony releases the Playstation 3

• 2011 - In March of 2011, Nintendo releases the Nintendo DSI

• 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.

THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF VIDEO GAMES

• POSITIVE EFFECTS• Video games give

your child’s brain a real workout. In many video games, the skills required to win involve abstract and high level thinking. These skills are not even taught at school.

• NEGATIVE EFECTS