Evolution of Video Games
The year 2000 saw the launch of the PlayStation 2. In its lifetime, it sold 155 million units, and it was a very long lifetime, as manufacturing only ended on the 4 January 2013. If you went and bought one in Australia on the launch day of 30 November 2000, you’d have paid AU$749.95 — AU$1060 in today’s money. That priced rapidly dropped, however, and by September 2001, you could get one for AU$499. A staggering 1.5 billion bits of software were sold for it. According to the Guiness Book of Records, GTA: San Andreas is the best selling PS2 game, with 17.3 million sold.
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The PlayStation 1 or, as it was known back then, just the plain old PlayStation. This bit of innovative hardware sold 102 million units in its life and 962 million games. The original PlayStation came out in 1994 if you were in Japan and on 15 November 1995 if you were Aussie. Locally, it cost AU$699.95, compared with its American price of US$299. Adjusting for inflation, that’s the equivalent of paying AU$1,087.88 today. The best selling title for the PlayStation was Gran Turismo, with 10.85 million copies shipped, but this is also the console that saw Crash Bandicoot, Resident Evil and Tomb Raider. Also, the original controller didn’t feature the thumb sticks that are the default these days — they arrived on the Dual Shock in
1997. Launched in 2006 in the US and Japan, it was 23 March 2007 when the PlayStation 3 arrived in Australia. Sony has said that 80 million consoles and 350 million games have been sold worldwide. Launch cost was AU$999.95 — just under AU$1150 if we once again adjust for inflation. A brand new 500GB version of the PS3 will now cost you AU$399, including a bonus controller and multiple games. It was the on the PS3, both in its original fat version and the later slim, that we saw the birth of the PlayStation Network, with 110 million registrations and nearly 2.6 billion content downloads.
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In 2002, Valve – a software company known for the critically acclaimed Half-Life series –announced a service called Steam. This is essentially an online store, digitally distributing games and software updates online – but it also serves as a social network for PC gamers, allowing them to set up multiplayer games over the Internet. The world of PC gaming, Steam is an absolute juggernaut: there are at least 6,000 titles available through the service, with more being added every day, and over 125 million active user accounts. What’s more, the overall revenue for paid games on the platform is estimated at a staggering $3.5 billion for 2015. With that in mind, the PC gaming industry seems much healthier than its presence in physical games shops seems to suggest! Steam’s near-legendary holiday sales see current titles reduced to bargain-bin prices and the entire catalogues of certain publishers sold for
In 1972, the first commercially available video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, had a light gun accessory, the Shooting Gallery. This was the first involvement of Nintendo in video games. According to Martin Picard in the International Journal of Computer Game Research: “in 1971, Nintendo had -- even before the marketing of the first home console in the United States -- an alliance with the American pioneer Magnavox to develop and produce optoelectronic guns for the Odys-
sey (released in 1972), since it was similar to what Nintendo was able to offer in the Japanese toy market in 1970s”. In 1973, its focus shifted to family entertainment venues with the Laser Clay Shooting System, using the same light gun technology used in Nintendo’s Kousenjuu series of toys, and set up in abandoned bowling alleys. Following some success, Nintendo developed several more light gun machines for the emerging arcade scene.
the price of a single title – so it’s understandable that many gamers are loyal to the service. Through Steam, Valve has offered considerable support for their titles in the form of free updates. One example of this is Team Fortress 2, where Valve has continued to release free content for the game since its release in 2007 – including new maps, new modes, additional weapons, achievements and new game mechanics. But despite Steam’s dominance, other PC-specific retailers continue to do well – notably GOG.com, or Good Old Games. Run by Polish games developer CD Projekt RED, this service specialises in rereleasing classic PC games that are either incredibly difficult to run on newer machines or simply poorly optimised for today’s technology. are able to run on later versions of windows.
Evolution of Mobile Phones Many of the early cell phones were considered to be “car phones,” as they were too large and cumbersome to carry around in a pocket or purse. However, in 1983, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x arrived on the market. Though huge by today’s standards, it was considered the first truly mobile phone because it was small enough to carry. The phone, though incredibly expensive, became a pop culture symbol, showing up on everyone from Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street, to high school heartbreaker, Zack Morris, in Saved by the Bell.“You always have the trendsetters who are not afraid of trying new things and then everyone else follows,” says Patricia Grullon,
an Industrial Design instructor at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. “These trendsetters are key to make any product popular.” However, cell phone use hadn’t spread to the general public yet. “They were primarily used in the sales and business world, but not often for personal use like you see today,” says Kreg Jones, an industrial designer and Industrial Design instructor at The Art Institute of Philadelphia.
Early cell phones were just for talking. Gradually, features like voicemail were added, but the main purpose was talk. Eventually, cell phone manufacturers began to realize that they could integrate other technologies into their phone and expand its features. The earliest smartphones let users access email, and use the phone as a fax machine, pager, and address book. In recent years, the purpose of the cell phone has shifted from a verbal commu-
Add to that an expanding capacity that can hold as much memory as a computer would just a few years ago, and you can see why it’s an exploding market,” Grullon says. The cell phones of today are also replacing our other gadgets, such as cameras and video cameras. When cameras were first introduced on phones, the images were low quality and the feature was considered to just be an extra. “Now, we’re seeing a very fast shift
nication tool to a multimedia tool, often adopting the name “mobile device” rather than being called a phone at all. We now use our cell phones more for surfing the web, checking email, snapping photos, and updating our social media status than actually placing calls. “Rapidly expanding software titles, better screen resolution, and constantly improved interface make cell phones easier to navigate, and more fun to use.
to where consumers don’t even bother carrying their point-and-shoot cameras anymore, and just use their cell phones,” says Jamie Lendino, a tech journalist and senior mobile analyst for PCMag. com. Modern day smartphones — the Apple iPhone in particular — changed everything that consumers expect from their phones. The app market has transformed the phone into a virtual toolbox with a solution for almost every need.