A Brief History of Game Console Warfare 53
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a gallery on the history of console wars. Starting with the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey, all the way to the 2006 Wii. The details on the Magnavox Odyssey:
'This is where it all began. Game guru Ralph Baer's invention for Magnavox brought video gaming out of the arcades and into the living room. As the first home video game console, the Odyssey had no audio output and could only display black and white images. But the system came with translucent TV screen overlays to simulate full-color graphics in games like tennis and hockey. The Odyssey's sales were less than impressive: Magnavox had sold about 350,000 units by 1975.'"
Cotton Candy, get yer Cotton Candy! (Score:5, Informative)
I mean, how can you write an article *supposedly* about video game warfare, but so completely miss the Video Game Crash of '83/84?!? You're far better off checking out Wikipedia's article [wikipedia.org] on the same thing.
That being said, someone behind the scenes seemed to know what they were doing. the Tron Deadly Discs cartridge was a hilarious backslap at both Atari and this article.
A list of systems oddly missing:
All of those were supremely important to the history of video game "warfare". Yet not a one in sight. How odd.
*shakes head* (Score:2, Informative)
That was 2001 they were talking about... I remember having microsoft controllers for my PC prior to xbox. I distinctly remember having them in my apartment which was before November '01... Wait... did I just admit to having microsoft hardware on
"8-bit digital brain for enhanced power" (Score:3, Informative)
Er, so did the Atari 2600 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6507 [wikipedia.org]
A Real History Lesson (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cotton Candy, get yer Cotton Candy! (Score:4, Informative)
I could go on, thus revealing the nostalgic fanboy that I am -- eh, too late -- but suffice it to say that the Lynx was as far above the 2600 as the XBox is above the Super NES. Yeah, that's right, I said it! Let the flame wars begin!
Re:How ridiculous ... Intellivision game in the At (Score:2, Informative)
Though it did seem odd not to have a standard Atari cartridge in the slot. I don't know if the image came from some stock archive or done in-house, but you'd think there would be far more Atari cartridges around to make the photo with.