Video game history
A (much too long and sanity-reducing) research paper.
Videogames are a big part of today's world. It's rare you see a house with children 7 and up without some form of videogame console, whether it's the NES your dad had growing up, or the hip new console that came out last month, or even an old Wii that your parents got you for your birthday, since everyone else had a videogame console, and they didn't want to spend $300 on you, but $60 seemed reasonable. Whatever the case, if you're reading this, you probably own or owned a videogame console. This paper will describe the history of videogames and gaming.
The history of videogames is quite a deep one. In order to see the first videogame ever made, we need to go to the year 1958. William Higinbotham, who helped the U.S. government create the atomic bomb, is in the electronics department for the Manhattan Project, the classified scientific project to split the atom and turn it into a weapon. Now William is about to make the first videogame, Tennis for Two. Presented in 1958, this game was controlled by two controllers with turnable knobs that can hit the ball, represented by a green blip, back and forth. It was a hit, and it was presented at least one more time in 1959, after which the game was dismantled to use its parts for other purposes. After being dismantled, Tennis for two was largely forgotten by the public, but it is largely recognized now as the first videogame, even if people in the '60s didn't.
The next videogame to be made, in April of 1962, was Spacewar! This game was developed by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) on the Programmed Data Processor-1, (PDP-1) which could stimulate forces such as gravity. This game "(pitted) two spaceships-a needle and a wedge made of simple white lines on a black blackground-in a torpedo battle as they're dragged around in space by the gravity of a white star in the middle of the screen" One could move the spaceship with the controller provided, but it would also move on its own due to the previously mentioned gravity system.
In the interest of time and space, let's skip one or two more videogames that also weren't commercially available and go to the first commercially available videogame. A man named Nolan Bushnell had played Spacewar! and wanted the public to be able to play the game freely. The thing was, the cheapest computer at the time was still $4,000, and it couldn't update the graphics on screen fast enough for the game to keep moving smoothly. Saving his idea for later, Bushnell went to work as an engineer at a government contractor, Ampex Corporation, where he told all the techies about his idea. In 1971, he learned a company known as Nutting Associates was producing coin-operated electronic quiz machines, he left Ampex to join them and finish his game. Around the same time, two scholars at Stanford University in California, Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck, were working on their own version of an arcade space game. Like Bushnell, Pitts and Tuck had played Spacewar! at school and saw a way to make a game like it for the masses to play. Eventually Bushnell heard of their efforts, and they all met to see if they could join forces. Their ideas were nearly identical, but they couldn't agree on how to execute it properly, so they split up to chase their own ideas. It was a digital space race. The two sides had each created a very similar concept: a freestanding cabinet as tall as a person, with a computer inside and a TV mounted in the front, to install in, say, a bar, where customers could feed it coins and buy plays-the first two commercial video games. Pitts and Tuck created a game called Galaxy Game. This game was the first game of its kind, beating Bushnell to it. They installed their game at the student union on campus at Stanford in September of 1971, charging a dime for one game and a quarter for three. It was a huge hit with the students, who would line up for an hour just to play or try out this new game. The only problem was that the student union on campus wasn't exactly a public venue, and not many had the chance to play Galaxy Game. Nolan Bushnell, working at Nutting, took advantage of the company's existing connections to sell coin-operated entertainments and launched his own version of Spacewar! known as Computer Space, which he launched at the Dutch Goose Bar. (He simplified the game a bit to make it easier for people who had just drunk a glass of beer to get into the game.) Since he placed his machine in a bar rather than a college, he naturally got much more money from people playing the game, since there were more people to play the game. Bushnell had lost the race, but he ultimately won in the end.
While these two sides were battling to see who could make the first commercially available video game, another person was working on something much smaller, and in the end, much bigger. In 1969 nice, Ralf Henry Baer, born as Rudolf Heinrich Baer in Germany, (I'll cut out the stuff about his life before making the first gaming console in the interest of time and space,) finished a prototype gaming console known as the "Brown Box," (If you haven't noticed yet names back then were not very creative...) and in 1972, fully released the "Magnavox Odyssey" which came bundled with 12 games, including Ping-Pong.
Now that we have talked a bit about the first home console, I'll talk a bit more on some hit arcade games before going to the Atari 2600 and then the NES. For now, let's talk about Space Invaders and Pac-Man. You've likely heard of both of these hit arcade games, and if you haven't, what kind of rock were you hiding under for the past 30 years?!?!? Anyways, first, Space Invaders. The creator of the famous game-ous Space Invaders, Tomohiro Nishikado, was, as a child, a fan of the book The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, where tentacled Martians invaded Earth. He wanted to make a game where you shoot aliens with a spaceship, so he did, and he called it... You should know by now ;-;. Was it a success? Yes, it was, kind of to the point where it literally caused a 100-yen coin shortage for a while. (100-yen coins are the coins that are used to buy plays in arcades in Japan, like how us U.S. people U.S.E. Quarters for our arcades.) So you might be able to call it a hit. Now then, Pac-Man time! (Mario time comes soon, Mario.) Pac-Man as a game certainly made a lot of firsts, for example it was the first game to have a hero with a recognizable name, as opposed to the nameless, never-seen-before heroes of games like Space Invaders or Galaxian. Not only did the hero have a charming, recognizable name, but the bad guys - ghosts in this case - Inky, Pinky, Blinky, and Clyde, did too. Not to mention the music and the death sound, among other things. It was the first game to have numerous tie-in merchandise. T-Shirts, lunchboxes, mugs, you name it. It was even the first game to successfully appeal to girls, just by design. Toru Iwatani, the creator, knew his game would be a huge hit, due to the aforementioned stuff above, but even he was shocked at how much his game blew up. Arcades, which usually only saw bois boys inside of it, now had girls pouring through the doors. Suddenly, arcades were places where couples could go on dates! So many more arcades opened up after this game came to exist. Pac-Man also spawned many sequels and spin-offs, like Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Pac-Man's Pal, and Chomp-Chomp. This game was likely the biggest game of the decade, maybe even the century.
Anyways, I'm bored of talking about arcade games, (besides, no game could ever compete with Pac-Man... Right??) so let's go back a bit and talk about the Atari 2600. In the beginning, Atari partnered with Sears and started selling a home game called Home Pong, which plugged into your TV and came with two knob controllers. But it only had one game on it, so it did ok, but not exceptionally remarkable. So they started working on a project code-named Stella. (Which was the Atari 2600.) Nolan Bushnell knew they didn't have enough money for it to work, though, even though they were filthy rich from their previous arcade game sales. They had to sell their company to Warner Communications in 1976, which gave them $28 million and access to Warner's deep pockets, in order to go through with Project Stella. The console they finished in 1977 did not have games built into it, but the games were separate cartridges you had to buy, and the console would run. This was not the first console to do such, this honor belonged to the otherwise unremarkable Fairchild Channel F, but even though he came second in the race, he still won by launching a superior console and selling it better, just like he'd done with Computer Space six years earlier.
Before we move on to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), AKA the Family Computer (FC) in Japan, I would like to mention two things: the SG1000, and the ZX spectrum. The SG1000 was Sega's first attempt at making a home console, which failed, although Sega would learn from its mistakes and make a fortune off the Master System and even more of one with the Genesis. Why did I even mention this? It really might as well have not happened at all. Because... Shut up. My book mentioned it so I thought I would. The ZX Spectrum, however, was essentially the birth of PC gaming. When Clive Sinclair lost out on an opportunity to work at the Britain Broadcasting Corporation, he decided to beat them at their own game with a better, faster, stronger cheaper computer, which he did. When released in 1982, it was meant to be an all-purpose computer, but its true strength was its programmability, which caused game devs to create almost 1,500 Spectrum games in just two years and prompted more than 500 game designers to appear in the industry.
Now then, let us talk about the one, the only, Family Computer, or Famicom, made by the then-famous-now-infamous Nintendo. In 1984, Atari collapsed when Warner sold them off due to the 2600 dying, and the "New-and-Improved" 5200 (released in 1982) being a "dressed up version of the 2600, not new, barely improved, and had an all-too-complicated controller covered in numbered buttons." Needless to say, it barely sold. Why am I talking about Atari again when I just announced the Famicom? I think it has something to do with the throne to the gaming king being open now, Idk. When Nintendo's president, Hiroshi Yamauchi pitched Nintendo's own gaming console, the Famicom, to stores in Japan in 1983, he told them not to expect loads of cash on the expensive machine itself, but rather the games that are separate from the console. (This is known as the Guillette model.) Even so, the Family Computer would be a tough sell. The collapse of the gaming market hadn't really affected Japan, so Yamauchi saw an opportunity to "fill the vacuum" with the console Nintendo had been developing for years now. He still knew selling it in the U.S. would be quite difficult, though. One day, when Nintendo's talented tinkerer, Gunpei Yokoi, was assigned to chauffeur Yamauchi luxury car, the inventor told his boss about an idea he'd had-the Game & Watch, which was exactly what it sounded like. It was a portable game with an LCD screen that doubled as a clock. These could be made cheaply, run on a watch battery, and be sold as portable video games. The biggest thing about the Game & Watch was the D-Pad. Joysticks could easily be broken, especially on a cheap handheld device like Game & Watch. The D-Pad, however, was cheaper, easier to use, and more durable. Now, why am I talking about Game & Watch, when I just announced the Famicom as a huge thing?? Probably because the NES used the D-Pad, too. Also my book told this story in this order too, so I'm not weird. By the time Yamauchi decided making consoles would be a cool thing to do, he'd appointed Gunpei Yokoi to lead the company's first games research-and-development, called R&D1. By then, Yamauchi could see PC gaming being a big thing, even back then, and had R&D1 develop their console and games quietly. He knew the best way to do this would be careful planning and execution. Their console would need to be as well designed as possible, with many games available on release day. He also knew once retailers considered consoles poisonous,(? Idk that's what my book says.) he'd need to find another angle. The Famicom was made to look like a toy, which showed Nintendo's characteristic inventiveness. The player-2 controller came with a built-in mic, and the console had modem compatibility. What's more, Nintendo could very well have used a 16-bit microchip for the NES, making the graphics seem really slick and advanced, but they decided to stick with the 8-bit microchip to keep prices low for Nintendo to produce, and therefore customers to buy. The controller for this new revolution was envisioned to hold with two hands, rather than held with one hand and played with the other, like the Atari 2600 was. There was, however, one small problem with the NES version of the Famicom. The original Zelda game was too big to play in one sitting. (For most.) For Famicom users, this was not a problem, since the Famicom version had a built-in memory card, allowing players to save their game for the first time ever. The NES, however, had no such feature, meaning Americans would never be able to fully explore Hyrule. Nintendo, however, wouldn't let this happen, as they saw they had a huge hit on their hands, so they equipped the American version of the game with a memory card, just so NES users could save their game. That's Nintendo for you. They were the gaming king, now and for the foreseeable future.
Just because Nintendo was owning the gaming business unopposed, doesn't mean other companies wanted that throne. Sega was back at it again. They looked carefully at the Famicom, studying it to see how they could make a console that worked hard, better, faster, stronger. (Ok I'll stop now ;-;) The Sega Mark III, or the Master Drive in the U.S, released in 1985, wasn't entirely what one might call a hit, in fact it was but a blip in Nintendo rear-view mirror, but some players to this day say the Master Drive was better than the NES. Sega was learning, and they would come back a third time, working harder, better, faster, and stronger than ever. (I lied XD.)
Now that we are running in the 90's, cable TV is becoming a real thing that is popular and common. For ratings sake, TV shows were using all sorts of crap that would be considered inappropriate for kids today for shock value. (watevr tat menas.) Regardless, it was warfare, and videogames had to compete too. Old games of the past were boring now, and now people wanted high-action, intense games. Super Mario Bros. was still selling record numbers, but even it was ready for a shake-up, and it would get one soon. Nintendo had reached the absolute with the NES. If they wanted to evolve their games, they'd need to evolve their console now. 16-bit microchips were now much cheaper than when Nintendo had considered using them with the NES. It was time. The Super Famicom, or Super NES in America... was actually NOT the first 16-bit console! Sega had beaten them to it!
After the "paltry success" of the Master System in 1985, Sega shifted into maximum overdrive. (The memes are over 9000!) Hayao Nakayama, the president of Sega, wanted to be the first to make a 16-bit console, so he did. The Sega Master Drive, released in 1988 in Japan, sold better than the Master System, but still couldn't make a dent in Nintendo's uncontested popularity. They then made a choice that would be risky, but could most certainly pay off incredibly: move the fight from Japan to The United States of America. Tom Kalinske was an American toy executive with a gift for elevating washed up has-beens and also-rans to serious contenders. He turned Barbie from a struggling line of dolls, barely able to stay open, (that may be exaggerated idk) to a multi-billion dollar executive business. He turned Matchbox, a toy car company that had always lost out to Hot Wheels, to being rich in profits from their products. So you can imagine what Hayao Nakayama was thinking when he heard Tom was looking for another job. Nakayama recruited Tom as president and CEO of Sega of America. The job came with a simple mandate: Import the Master Drive to the U.S. and sell a million of them. Going up against the Nintendo wasn't gonna be easy, and certainly not simple, but Tom went straight to work. It was primarily a war waged through advertising and marketing. The Mega Drive, renamed the Genesis the U.S. for copyright reasons(?) was immediately marketed as a more adult offering than Nintendo's system. Tom put out the Genesis in limited release in New York and Los Angeles, packaged with games like Altered Beast and Golden Axe. The Genesis also boasted better sports games, like Tommy Lasorda Baseball and Joe Montana Football. Sega's U.S. advertising depicted Nintendo as "for kids," prompting the slogan "Sega does what Nintendon't." These marketing campaigns worked marvelously and, when the Genesis was completely released in America, they didn't just erode Nintendo's sales, they completely took them away. Even so, Sega still needed a face; a mascot. Hayao Nakayama challenged his team to come up with a Mario of their own and a game for the mascot to star in. They eventually came up with a blue hedgehog with an attitude named Sonic, and Tom Kalinske and everyone at Sega of America... hated it. So Nakayama was like, ! you, and did it anyway. You likely know how that went if you've ever seen a (good) Sonic game. (By "good," I mean... Well, just take a look at some of the later 3D Sonic games, like Sonic The Hedgehog, more commonly known as Sonic '06, or Sonic Forces.) If not, firstly, get out of that rock you've been hiding under for 25 years! Secondly, and more importantly, Sonic the Hedgehog was a smash hit. I could talk a bit more on how cool Sonic was, but I'm bored, so let's move on.
While Sonic was being eaten up by Sega fans, arcades were becoming a thing of the past. They were dying. If they were to keep up with the better quality 16-bit consoles, something would need to change, and soon. Street fighter had been a pretty popular arcade game, but it was overshadowed by its much more popular sequel, Street Fighter II. Released in 1991, the biggest thing about this game is how you can choose your character, each with different abilities and strengths and whatnot. Each character had their own moveset and combos, like down-down-forward-forward-punch = Hadouken. You can see how this game might be the new Pac-Man. Arcades that had almost been wiped out by consoles were now bustling places. There would be Street Fighter II tournaments that would be very competitive and gave the arcades more than enough money to stay in business. Yet, despite the fighting style of Street Fighter II, this game had no blood, no death, no gore, none of that. Street Fighter II was a cartoon. However, anyone who considers Mortal Kombat a cartoon is criminally insane. The other arcade game smash hit of the '90s, heck the best selling fighting game of the '90s, no, of all time, became a hit via pure shock value. Released in 1992, this game, like Street fighter II, also had signature moves and combos. What this arcade game had that no other arcade game had, however, was blood and gore - trucks of it. I'd talk a bit more on how bloody this game is, but I'd probably get demonetized, so just know that Mortal Kombat "inspired outrage, protests, parental boicots boycotts, (yes parents actually cared about violence back then, although I feel like parents have gotten more overprotective over the years... You know who I'm talking to!) and even a U.S. Senate inquiry into video game violence." Now, arcades had something home consoles could never have. Even when these two fighting games were ported to consoles, nothing could compare to that feeling of being watched by a crowd, trying to beat your opponent while being cheered by friends and strangers alike. These two games gave arcades an extended stay, but not for long. While places like Dave & Busters and Main Event still exist, the arcades of old were phasing out of existence.
Now, enough about arcades. What's going on in the Sega Vs. Nintendo war? Find out in the next episode of Dragon Ball Z! And we're back, giving you the latest report on the war between Nintendo and Sega. Right now things don't look very good for Sega; turmoil in their own company is making them lose sales on the Sega Genesis. Both Nintendo and Sega know that games on disc are a thing that is not just possible, but coming soon. A disc can hold much more than a simple old cartridge, and soon the time would come again to double down on processing power yet again, and switch to a 32-bit system. The Sega CD drive and Sega 32X add-ons were Sega's attempts to get ahead before even releasing their next console (they failed), named the Giga Drive. The Giga Drive would be a 32-bit machine with 3D rendering capability in exchange for the exorbitant price of $400. Sega's focus on the Giga Drive led them to neglect the Genesis. Even though sales were still holding up well, they slowed production, and didn't have enough consoles to sell for the 1995 holiday season. This allowed Nintendo to take back more of the market than they would've been able to otherwise, mainly with two surprise products. The creator of Game & Watch, Gunpei Yokoi, had an idea for a new console not unlike the Game & Watch, called the Game Boy.
The Game Boy is a handheld console that was made to be as inexpensive as possible; all components built for it were practically obsolete now. They could've made a full-color handheld console, (even though it was 1989,) like Sega did with the Game Gear and even Atari did with the Lynx, a companion for their (underperforming) Atari Jaguar, but that wasn't the point of the Game Boi Bwai Boy. The point was to make it as inexpensive as possible. It wasn't even black-and-white, either. It was just plain black on a green screen with no backlight, so it was near-impossible to play in the dark. Plus, all the audio came through one tinny little speaker. One good thing about it, however, was that it only took 4 AA batteries, and they lasted a good amount of time compared to the Sega Game Gear, which blazed through 6 AA batteries in a few hours. Even though the Game Gear was overall a better console, the Game Boy consistently outsold it and started an entire product line of portable consoles for Nintendo, selling over 200 million units, including models such as the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance.
In addition to this, their sales for the SNES and its games were doing phenomenal, with games like Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Super Metroid in particular doing especially well, A Link to the Past probably being the best SNES ga- no, the best ZELDA game... (*BotW fans' glare intensifies*) uhhh, pre-2010, at least. Not to mention Super Mario Kart being a new thing that really worked, and now has several sequels, the latest being Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. But there was one game that sold so well, and surprised everyone with how well it sold, including Nintendo. It was able to push the company not just past Sega, but also an unexpected future competitor, and bought time to make their next big launch. This game is Donkey Kong Country. I would talk about it in detail, but obviously if I did they would just take it down and give me another game. But I can summarize it for you. (If that made no sense, it’s because it’s a reference to a YTP. You get the idea though.) Back then, it seemed like 16-bit consoles couldn't process 3D graphics, until they could. Two people, Tim and Chris Stamper, wanted to understand how consoles worked, so they reverse-engineered a NES to find out how it worked, made a development studio called Rare, and became extremely popular. Then Nintendo found out they existed, and in the '90s, the Stampers were experimenting with 3D sprites rendered by expensive computers made by Silicon Graphics, wanting to make a boxing game. Some senior executives from Nintendo came down to see these kids and saw their early development, reporting it to Hiroshi Yamauchi. It seemed impossible for 16-bit machines to render 3D, yet here it was, before their eyes. The Stampers redesigned DK in a way that looked better, keeping the red necktie from the Game Boy version in 1994, and DKC came out and huge hit and yay I don't care, moving on. Despite all this, Nintendo was about to go from Nintendo to Sintendo with their next play, which, ultimately, was a mistake. Even the greatest of companies make mistakes, and this one would hurt not just them, but other companies, too.
Some may have heard of the Nintendo Playstation. If you haven't, that's fair. I won't tell you to get out of the rock you've been hiding under for 20 years. The Nintendo Playstation is extremely rare, only one is believed to exist, and it recently sold for about $350k, I think, I can't entirely remember. But why is this "Nintendo Playstation" so rare that only one exists? Well I'm gonna tell you all about this prototype console. (At least all that my source says about it.) Basically, Nintendo wanted to make a disc console, which would easily allow for 32-bit consoles. Discs are also more convenient than cartridges, even if they can get scratched up to the point of being unreadable. But Nintendo was too dum to no how 2 maik disk consls, so they asked Sony for help. They shared their game-design expertise with Sony, and Sony made a disc console for them. It was basically a Super NES with games on a CD-ROM and a 32-bit processor. They even collaborated as far as the prototype stage, calling their console the Nintendo Playstation. What happened next was Sintendo's first major sin that didn't just hurt Sony, it didn't even just hurt Sega, it ultimately hurt Sintendo as well. (I am fully aware I am saying Sintendo instead of Nintendo, that's the point. SIN-tendo.) What happened was Nintendo was stupid, and said, "Oh, we don't want to collab with you anymore Sony, have fun by yourself," and abandoned them the DAY AFTER ANNOUNCING the Nintendo Playstation. They decided that cartridges are still cool, and made another cartridge based console. So Sony was mad, and they were like, "F- you Nintendo, we don't need you," and built the new Sony Playstation anyways.
They unveiled the Sony Playstation, kicking off the race into 32-bit gaming. It would hit stores around the same time as the Sega Giga Drive project - which they renamed to the Sega Saturn by the way. The big thing here is that the Sony PS (That's what I'm calling it now) was $300, which was cheaper than the Saturn's $400. The PS was a better, cheaper console with more games available. Sony also offered better rates for third-party devs to make games on their console. Nintendo had very high costs and limited how many games a developer could put on their console per year, which was probably really their first sin, but back then, who were you gonna ask to put your game on their console, Atari? Sony had no such limits, and much lower prices. The first 100k PSes sold out instantly. Another 200k were then rushed out and sold out within months. The PS was the last nail in the coffin for the Sega Genesis and also finally defeated Nintendo, who had been unrivaled for years. Nintendo was not permanently dead, however, just knocked down. They would most certainly get back up again.
The Nintendo 64 was a console that was delayed quite a bit, as the company refused to launch it without a Mario game, which is fine, I certainly don't care, I wasn't alive in June 1996, when the console was released, but I'm bored, so I'll just say Super Mario 64 was a huge hit, but the console wasn't necessarily a huge atomic bomb explosion. The N64 only had, like, 400 games available to it, which was fewer than any of their other consoles, and fewer than the 1000 games from the PS1. Anyways, there was also a company called Microsoft that made computers and maybe computer games too I think. Computers didn't really pose a threat to outselling gaming consoles though, as not a lot of people had a computer in the '80s or much of the '90s, and those who did usually kept in a home office or a corner far from the TV. Also Sega's fifth and final console, the Dreamcast, was garbage and nobody got it, and Sega died forever, the end. (JK they partnered with Nintendo later and put some Sonic games onto the Wii and Wii U and Switch and stuff.) Also the Nintendo Gamecube is a thing now. It was just ok, my book I'm using for this paper, Video Game Creators, doesn't really go into it at all. So the PS2 gets announced, and Sony gets carried away with bragging, saying you'll never need a computer again or something like that, and Microsoft was mad, so they made the Xbox and stepped into the gaming world. The PS2 was released in 1999, and the Xbox was released in 2001, and it was SNES Vs. Sega Genesis all over again, except with two completely new companies, with Nintendo running a distant third, and Sega completely dead foreverer. If you know anything about gaming history, you may know that the PS2 was the best selling video game console ever, with over 150 million units sold as of today. The Xbox, however, had Halo. Halo was a big thing, and everyone loved Halo: Combat Evolved. Halo is just a series that makes Xbox, Xbox. Also Minecraft came out in 2009 and was bought by Microsoft in 2014, in case you were wondering. Then, the Nintendo Wii happened. In 2006, Nintendo changed everything forever.
The Nintendo Wii was a truly revolutionary console, but why am I saying that this console changed everything forever? Isn't 2006 a bit late for that? Well, even if that was true, Nintendo still changed everything with its Wii console. I'll give you two words to describe the Wii: Motion controls. The Wii came with a game called Wii Sports. Wii Sports was a collection of sports minigames, like baseball, golf, bowling, you know the like. At first glance, the graphics could easily be criticized; "hokey renderings of little plug-shaped figurines with bulbous, cartoon heads." But who cares about graphics when you have the Wiimote? The Wii came with a sensor to mount on your TV. Standing in the center of your gaming room, whether it's the living room or your bedroom, holding the Wii Remote, or Wiimote as some have nicknamed it, you could point it at your screen and a cursor would come up on screen. You would use it to select your minigame in Wii Sports - point at a minigame and press a button - or you could use a "Nunchuck" that came with the Wii and plugged into the Wiimote, giving it a joystick and two more buttons: a C button and a Z button. Then you'd play the game like one might IRL. Swing the Wiimote like a golf club IRL to swing your virtual golf club in the game, or if you're playing tennis, swing it like a tennis racket to deflect the ball back at your opponent. The Wii was a huge hit. It outsold the PS3 and Xbox 360 so much that both Sony and Xbox didn't even consider it competition. They insisted that they were only fighting each other. The Wii outsold the PS3 and Xbox 360, combined. Naturally, after this huge hit, Nintendo wanted more of that, so they released the Wii U.
By now, it's 2013, and the PS4 and Xbox One are out. The Wii U... was a fail. Idk why, I don't have anything against it. I got one so I could run my Wii games and play Super Mario Maker, because my old Wii stopped being able to read my Wii discs. They weren't even that scratched up, just a little, and the Wii U certainly ran my games. In my opinion, the Wii U is much better than the Wii, I just love the concept of the Wii U gamepad, being able to interact with game elements in Super Mario 3D World by tapping on them or blowing into the built-in microphone is just simply genius. I really don't know what went wrong here; making levels in Super Mario Maker is a lot easier on the Wii U gamepad than in TV mode on the Switch in Super Mario Maker 2. Not to mention the Wii U is (as you may have noticed) backwards compatible with Wii games, although not with Gamecube games like the Wii was, but my Wii wouldn't run Gamecube games either, so it didn't matter to me. My book, Video Game Creators, doesn't even mention the Wii U. It just goes from the Wii to the Switch, like the Wii U doesn't even exist. I mean, the Wii U had free online service. They discontinued it now, but they had free online service. I could go on about why the Wii U is good, but I am so ready to be done with this thing because 20 PARAGRAPHS IS WAY TOO MANY, so no.
There were rumors that Nintendo's next console would either be another home console or a handheld one. (How does that narrow down anything? Isn't it obvious it would either be a home console or a handheld??? Except maybe not, because...) As it turned out, it was both. The Nintendo Switch came out in 2017, and I'm going to do my best to describe it without my book. (Shouldn't be too hard, seeing that I own one.) The Nintendo Switch is a tablet-sort of device that comes with two "Joy-Cons" that can attach to a plastic thing that makes it easier to hold and play a 2D mario game or something. The plastic thing holds them together, and turns the two Joy-Cons into one controller. There are also two strap-things that can attach to each Joy-Con separately, so one Joy con can be held in one hand horizontally without being so small it gives your hand cramps to hold, and the other can be given to a friend. This could also be used to hold them each vertically and play a game like Super Mario Odyssey, which uses motion controls. These things mostly serve to add slightly to the size of the Joy-Con and add straps, so you don't accidentally throw one when trying to use motion controls. The Switch also comes with a dock that the tablet device can go into. With the proper cords, you can plug some certain cords into the dock, so that the Switch's battery charges, has wired internet, and appears on the TV if it's on. If the Switch's screen is on the TV, you are playing in TV mode. You can also attach the Joy-Cons to the Switch to charge them or take the Switch out of the dock (with the Joy-cons attached) and take it out with you to the store. (Unless you're driving, of course!) This is called Handheld mode. The Switch also has a kick-stand that you can pop out, take the Joy-Cons out of the Switch, set the Switch down on a flat surface, hand one Joy-Con to a friend or family member, and play Super Mario Maker 2 or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate together. This is called Tabletop mode. I think that summarizes the Nintendo Switch pretty well, so the only other thing I can say about it is that it was a big hit.
This brings us to today. As of 1/25/2021, the latest consoles for each of the three biggest gaming consoles is the PS5, the Xbox Series X, and the Nintendo Switch. The PS5 was a big enough hit to where people will buy several of them, wait for stores to sell out of them, and then sell them on Ebay or Amazon or whatever for thousands of dollars. So yeah, the PS5 was a pretty big hit. But this is the closing paragraph, not another body paragraph describing the success of the PS5 and the Xbox Series X (thankfully), so I will wrap this up by saying this took way too long. I mean if you look at the amount of paragraphs in this paper, you'll know what I'm talking about. But this paper should at least show that video games truly are a large part of today's world. So large, in fact, that I felt inclined to write, what was it, 22 paragraphs about it? Yeah, that seems about right. I've been told I am an overachiever at times, which isn't a bad thing. I enjoy 100%-ing games, possibly speedrunning them too, rather than just beat them once and call it a day. It applies in real life, too. I didn't need to make this paper 23 paragraphs long, but I did. I don't need to make my Undertale fangame on Scratch very polished and good, but that's what I'm trying to do. But sometimes, if you're an overachiever, you can go from trying to do the best you can to trying too hard and slowly start to lose it, just trying to do the absolute best you can. So please, if you write about the history of videogames, just do, like, pre-1990, or just VR games, or just PC games, or even the history of speedrunning, so you don't end up killing yourself in the process.
My main and really only source: A book called Video Game Creators. Link to see it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Awesome-Minds-Video-Game-Creators/dp/1947458221
Quick P.S: If you're wondering why I called Nintendo now-infamous in paragraph nine, I might make a paper on why Nintendo is Sintendo, but until then, Ceave Gaming made a video on Nintendo's biggest mistakes. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4TTEai4iNc