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1980
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- Mattel's Intellivision. The console never beame a real success:
hardware upgrades were slow, only a few software titles, and Matell
marketed it badly.
- The first big virus-attack. On October 27 Arpanet, the
predecesser of Internet, comes to a "grinding halt" because of
an accidentally released "status-message" virus.
- The Japanese Toru Iwantani develops Pac-man, the best sold arcade game ever. The name
derives of the Japanese "paku-paku", which means "to eat".
The inventor created the figure of the round biter, because of the fact
that he had cut one slice out of a pizza.
- In this year the games Battlezone, Defender, Missile Command, and Tempest see the light of day.
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1981
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- Nintendo and Sega begin to export arcade games to the United
States.
- The first RSI-case has been reported by the New England
Journal of Medicine: a "Space Invaders wrist". Also the
first deadly casualty is reported: a man dies while playing Berserk.
- This year's releases are Frogger, and Centipede.
- On August 12, IBM launches a new computer: the IBM PC. It runs on
a 4,77 MHz Intel 8088 processor. As operating system the computers use
the first release of MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), which was
based on QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System).
- In the Arcade games business 5 milliard dollar goes round.
- Interactive Magic is a new software company, founded by former
Atari employees.
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1982
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- Coleco debutes and tries to take over part of Atari's market. The
ColecoVision had superior graphics, and came with an Atari
cartridge adapter, and the games Zaxxon and Donkey Kong. The owner of the King Kong rights,
Universal, claims and gets 35 % of all revenues on the Donkey Kong
game. This makes it impossible for Coleco to make a profit on the ColecoVision.
After the succesful process against Coleco by Universal, Nintendo also
demanded a part of the income, and won as well. This ment the end of the
ColecoVision.
- Introduction of the Atari 5200, which is unable to play the Atari
2600 cartridges.
- Milton Bradley introduces Vectrex, an Asteroids-style
tabletop mini-arcade.
- Electronic Games is the first magazine solely dedicated to videogames.
- New games this year are Q*bert, Dig Dug, and Tron.
- Due to bad expectations for Christmas, Wall Street traders sell
their video-game related investments as quick as possible.
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1983
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Second Videogame Crash (The Software Plague)
- Consumers were unable to distinguish between quality games and
trash because of the enormous amount of similar game cartridges. The
prices dropped at high speed, causing imense losses for the software
companies, with bankrupties as final result.
- Pole
Position, Punch-out and Dragon's Lair are the most important games of this year.
- Commodore introduces the Commodore 64, a cheap but for
that time powerfull computer, better than all at that time existing game
computers. The C64 as it is called, is popular for both business
use as for entertainment. It gives an impulse to the existence of
hundreds of new games.
- Apple starts to market the Apple MacIntosh. The famous commercial
campaign uses George Orwells' 1984, in which the role for Big-Brother
is cast with the IBM computer.
- The Japanese Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo develops Mario
Brothers. The game becomes a classic platform game. The chubby
carpenter (he was to become a plumber later) had already been introduced
in 1982 in Donkey Kong. The name Mario was taken from the name of
the landlord of Nintendo's New York office, Mario Segali.
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1984
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- Mattel sells off its electronic division, and Warner breaks up
with Atari.
- Nintendo introduces the 8-bit Famicom in Japan.
- Consumers buy home computers instead of game computers, as they
offer more possibilities. The Spectrum ZX81 and the Commodore
64 are the most popular, also because they are easy to program. All
circumstances are right for the uprise of the computer games.
- IBM introduces a new, more powerfull computer: the PC-AT,
better known as the 286-pc. For many this is the first computer on which
they can play a decent game.
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1985
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- The Home Videogame Industry in the United States has almost
completely died out.
- Microsoft releases Windows. This graphical interface is an
important step for the use of computers. DOS is still preferred by the
game developers as the environment for their games.
- The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is introduced in
Japan.
- In Moscow Aleksej Pajitinov develops the game Tetris. It is rapidly spread around Moscow . A year
later it reaches Hungary, where the Englishman Robert Stein sees it for
the first time. He releases the game in 1987 on the western market, and
it is give the subtitle "the first game from behind the Iron
Curtain".
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1986
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- The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super Mario
Bros. became an enormous succes in the United States.
- Sega understood the policy of Nintendo: quality and easy-to-use;
and followed the NES on the heels with its own Master System.
Both are 8-bit gamecomputers, later to be followed by their 16-bits
follow ups. Although technically better, because of bad marketing this
gamecomputer did not well.
- Intel introduces the 386-chip. Millions of people change their
286-pc for a 386-pc.
- Gauntlet is the most important video game of this year.
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1987
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- Acclaim is the first software house in the United States to make games
for Nintendo, and becomes a succesful manufacturer of games for the NES
and other similar platforms.
- Sega is taken over by Tonka Toys, known because of its toy cars.
In this way Sega hopes to benefit from Tonka's distribution network.
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1988
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- Nintendo's NES is the best selling toy in North America.
- Hudsonsoft releases the first Streetfighter (a so-called
"beat-'em-up") for the PC-Engine.
- On November 2, the Internet Worm-virus from Robert Morris, causes
1 out of every 10 servers for the Internet to crash, 6.000 in total.
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1989
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- Nintendo's Game Boy and the game Tetris changed the life of millions of adolescents.
- Sega releases the Megadrive, which was called Genesis
in the United States. NEC came with the Turbo-Grafx 16.
- The Atari Lynx, the Sega GameGear, and NEC TurboExpress portable
units compete unsuccesfully with Nintendo's cheaper (and less
sophisticated) Game Boy. The Gamegear was the first portable
gamecomputer with a colour screen, and the Lynx had in general the best
quality.
- The first 486-computers are sold.
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