How console wars spurred the progress of consoles and video games

Since the consoles began to gain popularity and began to appear in homes around the world, they have taken a special place in the hearts of people. So big that the players began to identify themselves with their consoles. Therefore, when competitors appeared in their favorite consoles, this was perceived as a declaration of war. Disputes about which console is “better” began to arise; they continue to this day. And although it can be considered infantilism, it is still impressive how passionately people treat their consoles that influenced their lives. In this article, I will analyze and outline the history of consoles and console wars, and also tell you about how this story influenced the appearance of those consoles that we know today.



In order to analyze when the competition began, which led to these "console wars", it is best to start with how the consoles appeared.

The birth of a home console

At the beginning of the video game era, the idea of ​​purchasing game consoles for the house was far from the needs of American society. The more realistic idea of ​​a home gaming console first made computer games. The invention of games such as OXO British Professor A.S. Douglas (1952), Tennis for Two by William Higinbotham (1958) and Spacewars! Stephen Russell (1962) (the first game that could be played on several computers), became a catalyst for creating game consoles and video games in general.

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All of these games have become great steps for video games to the home consumer, but none of them have had such an impact as the Brown Box. Ralph Baer and his colleagues at Sanders Associates created a prototype of the world's first video game console, which was originally called “TV Game Unit # 7”. Brown Box had a wide range of games, including checkers, target shooting, a lot of sports, and ping-pong was the most popular. To start the game in Brown Box, switches and “program cards” (Program Cards) were used, which indicated the position of the switches for each game. Ralph Baer is often called the father of video games, because the innovative Brown Box was the first to implement functions that exist in modern consoles, for example, several controllers and the ability to run different games. Later, Ralph Baer sold a license to his Magnavox product and in 1972 Magnavox launched the very first home game console on the market, Magnavox Odyssey.





The first Brown Box prototype (left) and the Magnavox Odyssey home console (right).



Magnavox Odyssey was not as successful as the company had expected, but after the home console entered the market, the appearance of consoles from other companies was just a matter of time.



The first major player began the era of home consoles - the company Atari. After the success of the home version, Pong Atari released the Video Computer System created by Nolan Bushnell in 1977, which is better known to us by the name Atari 2600. It could be considered a competitor to Magnavox Odyssey, but there was no competition - Atari was far ahead of it in technology and sales, despite Magnavox attempts to release improved versions of Odyssey. In addition, Atari and Magnavox became a kind of partner - after a lawsuit against Atari about copyright infringement ( Pong was very reminiscent of Magnavox ping-pong ), the company decided to purchase a license for Odyssey: “if you can’t pay, join”. Atari 2600 was the starting point for a new generation of consoles, which caused real chaos in the video game industry, especially in the gaming console market. In turn, this led to the fact that the industry was open to a single system that received enormous prestige in the gaming industry.

The Great Video Game Crisis

After the intriguing success, many companies wanted to get their share of the profits. This led to the release of a huge number of consoles by different companies: Mattel, Colecon, Nintendo - this is only a small part of the list. However, this "gold rush" had terrible side effects for the home console industry. The congestion of the console market and the poor quality of the games eventually led to one of the most notorious crises in the history of video games. By 1983, there was confusion in the market for home consoles — a bunch of console options, but they were all of poor quality, not to mention the quality of their games. One of the saddest examples was the Atari video game ET , which is sometimes exaggeratedly called the only cause of the video game crisis. Be that as it may, it is believed that it was she who led to the Atari crash. This game was an excellent reflection of the way of thinking that prevailed in the gaming industry before the crisis: it was created in a hurry and was made in just six weeks (the publishers were in a hurry to release it by the approaching Christmas season). Today it is considered by many to be one of the worst games in history. This attitude, which at that time dominated game developers, led to a decline in the vast majority of companies in the home console market. At that moment, when all hopes for home consoles were at an all-time low, one company finally realized that people value quality just as much, and maybe more, than quantity.

Nintendo appears on the scene

It was then that Nintendo became a landmark franchise in the history of gaming consoles and console wars. Nintendo, which has already managed to closely examine the gaming industry in North America thanks to its hit from the Donkey Kong arcade machines, which first introduced America to the famous Mario, decided to get involved in a fight. The entry into the North American market of the Japanese console, Famicom (1985), better known in America under the name Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), was a smart and thoughtful process of seizing control of the US gaming market. At a time when US consumers were just feeling the collapse of the industry, Nintendo decided to develop a console that was unlike anything that had been seen by an American audience. In fact, Nintendo even avoided using the term “video game” in its first marketing materials because it could scare away consumers. That is why the console was called the "entertainment system" (entertainment system) - the company wanted it to be perceived as a more complex technological device. And she had that right: at that time, NES was the best and most modern 8-bit console on the market. This fact, as well as the various requirements of the company to the developers of games for its system, led to the fact that NES earned worldwide success. Success, which will be the birth of rivalry, which entered the history of video games as the first console war.





Released in 1985 by the Nintendo Entertainment System

First console war: Nintendo vs. Sega

In 1989, Nintendo was at the top of the gaming market. After the release of the GameBoy, it was hard to imagine how someone else would be able to compete with Nintendo for leadership in video games. In addition, Nintendo has released a lot of hit games that continue to be, for example, Mega Man , Super Mario Bros. , The Legend of Zelda and many others. However, it was 1989 that became the year when the first real competitor appeared - Sega and its 16-bit Sega Genesis console.



Sega did not succeed in rivaling NES with its previous consoles (Sega SG-100 1983, Sega Master System 1985), but finally found a way to interfere with NES leadership. Thanks to smart marketing, Sega has become a direct competitor to Nintendo, remembered for its loudest slogan "Genesis does what Nintendon't".





The famous advertising "Genesis does not Nintendon't."



In response to the success of Sega, Nintendo has released its own 16-bit SNES console (Super Nintendo Entertainment System). Thanks to the release for her Street Fighter 2 (then popular game-fighting game for arcade machines, developed by Capcom), this was enough to compete with Sega. Between them, the competition began: who will be able to release the best games. Both companies had fan-favorite characters - Sonic and Mario, the hedgehog, but sales promoted third-party games. In 1993, Mortal Kombat appeared on both consoles. To get a softer, “family” rating, the game became less cruel: on both consoles, blood was replaced with sweat and reduced the amount of fatality. However, on Sega, Mortal Kombat had a cheat code that allowed players to include blood and brutal graphic content, which gave Genesis an advantage in sales of this game and console.



Sega has become known for its defiant aggressiveness, it never missed an opportunity to trick Nintendo in advertising. Although the Super Nintendo equipment was more sophisticated, the console had many problems with computing power, which made some games slow. Accidentally or not, the expression “blast processing” (“explosive performance”) has become another famous slogan of Sega Genesis. The company cleverly used its beloved Sonic to emphasize the high speed and computational power of the console.





Sega uses the term Blast Processing, 1993, in its advertisements.



Sega not only tried to conquer the world of consoles, but also rushed into the portable gaming market. She tried to circumvent the sales of the famous GameBoy, presenting her own console Sega Game Gear. Not surprisingly, Sega showed everything in which Game Gear was better than Game Boy, for example, more convenient controls and a full-color screen. However, this battle was much less successful than in the case of Sega Genesis - thanks to the famous Tetris game, the GameBoy console managed to stay on top of sales.



Although Sega Genesis was successful in the United States, it never managed to compete with SNES in the international market, so overall, SNES and Nintendo continued to maintain excellence in the video game industry; worldwide, 49.1 million units were sold.



Nintendo managed to win this round of console wars, but the war only began when a new competitor appeared on the market. Progress in technology and games has led to the emergence of a new generation of consoles. In the gaming industry, the era of 3D and CD has come, and Sony PlayStation was at the forefront of this movement.

Console wars 2: a new challenger appears

After breaking the contract between Nintendo and Sony to create an additional device with a CD-Rom for SNES, Sony decided to create its own console. PlayStation was released in 1995, but it did not turn out to be the first console with innovative CD capabilities — Sega managed to launch its Sega Saturn system a couple of months before the Playstation, but in the end it was a failure and was the beginning of the end of Sega’s career in production consoles. Playstation, even though it was released a few months after Saturn, turned out to be $ 100 cheaper, which gave her a significant advantage. Along with price and revolutionary PlayStation 3D graphics, Sony has carefully studied Sega marketing, starting to advertise the strengths and sophistication of its console. A year later, Nintendo released its new Nintendo 64 console. The most notable changes in it were support for up to four controllers for a multiplayer game and a new joystick that simplified movement in 3D games. Despite the fact that, unlike competitors' devices, the N64 did not use CDs, but cartridges, the prefix proved much better than Sega Saturn, which suffered a terrible failure and sold only 9.5 million copies. But the 33 million devices sold Nintendo did not go to any comparison with the newcomer - PlayStation convincingly won this console war, becoming the first console, sales of which exceeded 100 million units. This crushing victory was primarily caused by a large assortment of games available on the console. Even though some of the most important and favorite gamers like Super Mario 64 and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time appeared on Nintendo 64, it could not compete with the huge third-party support received by PlayStation. In total, Sony managed to sell 102.49 million devices and this was a huge success for a newcomer to the gaming industry.





PlayStation ad appealing to the “coolness” of this console.

Console Wars 3: Sony continues to dominate

Sony has been able to extend its success in the next generation of consoles. PlayStation 2 was released in 2000 and became the best-selling console of all time - a total of 150 million devices were sold. Again, the main reasons for buying a console were games and innovations. PS2 was the first console with support for DVDs, which at the time were new technology. In addition, PS2 had support in the form of great games, including such exclusives as Grand Theft Auto and Gran Turismo , and again received tremendous support from third-party developers. Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft’s first console, dubbed the Xbox, were great consoles that drew their share to the audience, but over the entire lifespan, both companies managed to sell just over 20 million devices. This was not enough to remove the PlayStation from the throne, on which she sat down earlier.



Sega Dreamcast, released worldwide in 1999, became the latest Sega console, after which it became a game developer for third-party platforms. Despite the fact that thanks to innovations (for example, the Dreamcast was the first console connected to the Internet), she managed to win a loyal fan base that still exists today, Sega never managed to achieve previous success. Many believe that the main reason was the too frequent release of new consoles Sega; but be that as it may, the Dreamcast sold even less than Saturn, and on March 1, 2001, Sega stopped its production. Dreamcast is the last console released by Sega.

Further console wars

In the latest console wars, Nintendo saw the opportunity to return to the top again with the help of the Nintendo Wii. Microsoft and PlayStation fought in their own battle against each other: from a technological point of view, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 were comparable. However, the beginning of the console war for Sony turned out to be rather unpleasant - the initial price of $ 600 PS3 seemed too high, and marketing seemed unceremonious. The Xbox was successfully launched thanks to a cheaper console and excellent support for online features. Toward the end of the battle, Sony was able to turn the tide in its favor, lowering prices and creating an excellent line of games, the most notable of which was The Last of US . Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 have sold approximately 80 million consoles. You may wonder - what was happening with the Wii at this time? In this war, she has achieved serious sales and soared to the top. From the point of view of the "hardware" Wii was weak compared to its high-tech competitors, and one might think that this will affect its results, but everything turned out the opposite. It was the simplicity of the Wii that gave it an edge over its rivals. Simple but innovative gesture control was easy enough for anyone to play games. And in fact they all played - grandmothers, mothers and fathers; no console could attract such a variety of players. Despite the low popularity of the Wii among more hardcore gamers, its success was irrefutable; She made history by joining Sony at a club that sold more than 100 million consoles — 101.15 million devices were sold in the world.





First of all, the Nintendo Wii has been successful thanks to its simple but innovative management.



The current generation of consoles while shows that history repeats itself. The three titans of the console industry - Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo - are so ingrained in this industry that without them it is difficult to imagine a new generation of consoles. At the moment, Sony Playstation 4 is at the top due to a good start and reasonable pricing - the company has taken PS3 lessons into account. The situation has changed for Microsoft - initially Xbox One was sold at a higher price, and marketing basically positioned Xbox One as an entertainment, not a gaming system. The new generation of Nintendo consoles began with the Wii U, which was a failure and its success can not be compared with the Wii. Soon, Microsoft and Nintendo corrected their mistakes: Microsoft lowered prices, and the new Nintendo system called Nintendo Switch proved to be quite good.

The future of games and consoles

After announcing the release of new Sony and Microsoft consoles this year, it will be interesting to look back and see how far the consoles managed to go thanks to the rivalry. At first it was SNES and Sega Genesis, which not only made the games interesting, but also gave players a sense of community. Although these console wars took the form of rivalry, they created the necessary component for the development of video games - competitiveness. The same competitiveness showed the world on the example of the Sony PlayStation, what effect the console can have, and it also led to the end of Sega's competition in the console market. Whatever the outcome of these console wars, they allowed the gaming community to become what it is now, in the development process having affected millions of gamers. Gradually, mutual compatibility of games begins to appear, which allows people to play together with different consoles, but most often against each other. This is also like a war.



Note: it is possible to argue who became the winner in this or that war of consoles, comparing their games and "iron". But for the sake of simplicity, I just decided to take into account the number of devices sold.