The golden age of video games: the birth of a multi-billion dollar industry
2011; Association of College and Research Libraries; Volume: 49; Issue: 03 Linguagem: Inglês
10.5860/choice.49-1513
ISSN1943-5975
Autores Tópico(s)Digital Games and Media
ResumoA Brief History of Handheld DevieesInterestingly, the history of handheld electronic gaming devices is almost as long as that of their arcade and home counterparts.After a first experiment by Waco in 1972 with a tic-tac-toe game, it was Mattel in 1977 that seriously pushed into the market by releasing its first dedicated handheld game, Auto Race.This, followed by Football and other sports-based tides, was met with great success by the general public and proved that electronic and video games could be a viable product "on the go" and not only in homes or at the arcades.Coleco, Milton Bradley, and others soon followed Mattel and the handheld market started becoming a lively and growing segment in the gaming industry alongside the home sector.Milton Bradley, in particular, was responsible for the first cartridgebased handheld: the Microvision, released in 1979.Unfortunately, the Microvision was an extremely fragile device and both the system and games were prone to break very easily, seriously stiRing its chances of success.Mattel's Auto Race was the first fully electronic handheld game ever released and ran through a very simple LED display system and 512 bytes of memory.The Microvision-the first cartridge-based system having a display of only 16 x 16 pixels.It was released in October 1979, and th en discontinued in less than two years due ta its poor success.To hnd the next successful series of products, let's shift to Japan where, from 1980 onwards, Nintendo decided to follow up its early successes with a set of simple electronic games based on LCD screens-the Game & Watch series was born.Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, Game & Watch was a clear breakthrough for Nintendo and helped ta dehne many elements that became commonplace in later systems, both handheld and home based, like the D-Pad.Different series were produced till1991 and are now coveted collectar's items.Also in Japan, in 1984 Epoch tried to develop another cartridge-based handheld, named Game Pocket Computer.1his time, the screen had a resolution of 76 x 64 pixels but the technology of the time was not yet mature enough ta deliver complex experiences on the go.Donkey Kong in its Game & Watch incarnation dating back ta 1982.Note the O-Pad and the dual screen, which were later adopted in the NES and the Nintendo OS, respectively.
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