Game Platforms

1.Important People who helped develop the arcade platform -

Nolan Bushnell

Nolan Bushnell was one of the main people who helped develop the arcade platforms. He formed Atari who made the first mainstream arcade game , Pong. This was made in 1972 and was a big hit with people who spent so much money to play they broke the machines overloading it with cash. Aswell as Nolan, Ted Dabney helped him form Atari. Also in 1972 the Magnavox Odyssey, the very first game console was made. One of the first video games was Spacewar! , which came out in 1961. This started the arcade platform as is inspired others to make games. Because Spacewar required a lot of space and needed a big computer. Spacewar was made by Steve Russell , Matin Graetz. To make the game Nolan and Ted hired Al Alcorn as their first design engineer.

Pong Arcade Machine

2.Critically comment why Atari was so influencial in the development of arcade machines.

Magnavox Odyssey

Atari was influential in the development of arcade machines because they set the standard for all games and made the first mainstream machine. As a result of making so much money from Pong , Atari made other games at the same high standard. When other people saw the success they were inspired to make arcade machines as-well . It shows how influential Atari was as they took four years to make their next two games.In this four years Taito made five games , Midway MFG made one and Sega made two games. All three of these companies were inspired by Atari and worked hard to make good games for the arcade machines which were getting more popular over the years. In 1978 Taito releases Space Invade the first blockbuster arcade video game. This was closely followed by Asteroids which is Atari's best selling game of all time. This exploded and inspired more companies to make more games. Other companies started making very popular games like Namco who released Pan-Man , their biggest selling game and also Pole Position one of the most popular racing games of all time.

3.Analyse why arcade machines declined in the 90's

In the early 90's arcade machines started to get less and less popular as better, more affordable home consoles are coming out and gaining popularity. Throughout the 70's and 80's many different consoles such as the Magnavox Odyssey and the NES were being sold to customers but were shadowed by arcade machines. As time went on the home consoles became more and more advanced and finally because better than the arcade machines. At the end of the 80's the Sega Mega Drive came out and was very popular as it had better graphics then arcade machines and worked out cheaper as it was a one time payment. The SNES , N64 and PS1 soon made it clear that home consoles was the way to go .

4.Games Nintendo and Sega
One of the main influential games was Sheriff by Nintendo which used dual stick controls. This soon influenced games like Robotron 2084 and Geometry Wars. Another game was Radar Scope also by Nintendo which introduced three-dimentonal third-person. This influenced Juno First and Beamrider. Sega released one of the most elaborate vector games ever. It featured five different controls, six different enemies and 40 different simulation levels. Another influential Sega title was Eliminator which was noted for being the only four player vector game.It also featured a colour vector display and a cooperative mode. It was one of the first games to have a competitive multiplayer which has influenced most of the multiplayer games today. A game that influential to arcade machines was Outrun by Sega in 1986. The main features was the choice to choose soundtrack as-well as a non-linear route. This influenced adding a variety of sounds in a game and giving the player a choice. The main thing which people were influenced by was the moving cabinet which made more immersive gameplay.