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The History of Video Games in America

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Submitted By kdcat3384
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The console video game craze started off in November 1977, the year the Atari 2600 was released. It sold for 200 dollars and was an instant hit. The killer app for the system was the game Pong. This game consisted of a ball bouncing back and fourth on the screen, the player had to hit the ball with a paddle and the other player or computer would return the ball in the same manner. Atari offered many other games but none were as popular as Pong, until space invaders came along. Released in Japan in 1978 and 1979 in the US, Space Invaders became a world wide craze. According to an article found on http://retrogamer.merseyworld.com “kids stoppedlisting to music, playing sports or going to the movies, they played Space Invaders. Space Invaders Greatly increased the popularity of the Atari 2600, video gamesbecame the new hot thing. Everything was going great for Atari until 1984 when the Atari 5200 was released. The system was a flop and it seemed to kill the video game industry in the US.

While the US video game craze seemed like it was over, a new craze was starting in Japan. In 1983 a little company named Nintendo released a console named, Famicom. The system sold for 100 dollars in Japan and was very popular; however it was not released in the US due to the video game crash of 1984. In late 1985 The Famicom was released in the US as the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). By February 1986 the NES had already sold over 30 million. The original US set came with two controllers a light gun and a ROB (robotic action buddy) and two games; Duck Hunt and Gyromite. The original set was only out for a few months, and was replaced with a system that dropped Gyromite and the ROB, and added arguably the greatest game of all time; Super Mario Brothers. The NES was the most popular until the early ‘90s, and games were produced for it until 1994.

1989 began the 16-bit era

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