Task 3

A huge leap in gaming from no virtual gaming to some in the 1950s, to bursts of technology up untill the 80s.
From the 80s onwards, games started to become what we know them to be today. The golden age of arcades was at its height and the transition to home entertrainment systems was begining to pick up.

In 1982 the Commodore 64 was released, which for its time was well marketed and well sold, this is one of the oldest consoles I have played and I cant belive it sold so well.
With the invention of the internet just coming in to swing, few online games were made, but it was a start which aloud many to play games through dile-up with each other, however it was usualy text based games around this time.
Although the arcade golden age was peaking, in 1983 the industry crashed for its second time. There are ofcorse many reasons for the crash, however its mostly blamed on over production of poor quality games, and never ending remakes of the same game (esentialy).  One of the great fallys of this crash was Atari's over production of Pac-man for the Atari 2600, upon which many cartrages were left unsold. Again Atari blundered by producing one of "the worst games ever" by latching onto the ET movie, and producing a giant shit to burry in the back garden, (Landfill in Mexico). Although this is not known as fact. 1983 is belived to be the end of the second generation of gaming consoles.

From the crash emerged the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which sold fucking well from 1985 to 1987, which began the third generation consoles. It was also when the gamepad took over from the joystick and keypads, which frankly were annoying and hard to use. From 1985 to 1995, many of the big title games we've known and loved were created.
In 1989, Nintendo released the GameBoy. My first hand held gaming system, I got it when I was five or six, either way, it was one of the greatest birthday presants I had ever recived. This is a segnifigant part as nintendo's hand held systems wouldnt have kicked off like they have today without the GameBoy and its success.

From 1990, games started to take a move towards 3D, high graphics and technology was blowing the compition out of the market.
In 1991, the sega mega drive kicked off with Sonic the Hedgehog, which was an imensly popular game which rivled Nintendo's Mario, although every Sonic game after 1994 (Sonic 3) has been shit. They shouldnt have made it a 3d game, way to rip the guts out of your mascot Sega.
Where as Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991, which had too many great games to go into detail, but it survived as a great console beyond the Sega Megadrive.
Adventures began to evolve and many of the structures for other genres of games were laied down, such as Alone in the Dark in 1992 and Dune 2.
In 1996 the game Quake became the first online first-person shooter, since online multiplayer capabilties have been a staple of all FPS games.

There was a breif 16-bit perioud, in the fourth generation of consoles. The only thing thats needed to know is that the Sega Genesis/megadrive and Super Nintendo Entertainment system were the main compeditors and became the most loved. Probably because the other two fourth generation consoles cost over $200. Which is why no one remembers them. It was mainly the Neo Geo which went to town with 16-bit. But it was really short lived and the next generation of consoles came next year. Yes 4th gen lasted one year.

In 1994, Sega Saturn and PlayStation hit the stage. PlayStation became a smash, outselling every other console and rivaling the SNES. From here, cartrages were replaced with disc.
In 1996, Nintendo created the Nintendo 64. Nintendos first 64-bit system. As I remember, there wasnt alot of good games for it. Golden Eye 007, Legend of Zelda..That was pretty much it. Pokemon Snap was the worst.

This perioud was the rise of some of the most popular game consoles, companys and game titles.