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episteme on 25 July 2014
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robzo100 said:
episteme said:
Well, computers were mass-produced since the 60's and became cheap enough to use them for entertainment in the 70's.

Don't forget the Atari 2600 and home computers.

Yeah, I think on the hardware side we can give a lot more credit to America with mass computer production and then also the "cabinet" platform used for Pinball machines, and then eventually arcades.  But software-wise it seems like Japan was where creativity struck the most.

Or is Japan singled out too much in home console gaming when really it was mainly just one company that really set the industry on fire back then?

Yeah, Williams Electronics (Defender, Joust) was a producer of pinball machines.

 

Japan (80's) and the USA (70's) dominated the micro chip industry. I think it's no coincidence that video games were established first in those countries.

 

Electro-mechanical games (mostly light-gun shooters and racing games) came from Japan in the late 60's (SEGA, Taito) and 70's (NAMCO, Nintendo, Konami). I probably forgot some companies... Companies like ATARI and Midway established them in the USA.

We have ATARI (home consoles and arcade machines) and the Magnavox Odyssey in the US in the early 70's with successful video games. Japanese companies like SEGA or Nintendo released their own hom console PONG clones a little later. SEGA also copied Magnavox games and created some new games. Well, there was a lot of copying from all sides...

Many of the Japanese companies that produced electro-mechanical games started to develop their own video games in the mid-late 70's/early 80's like Space Invaders, Galaxian, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong or Frogger. They also became very popular in the West and helped to establish a mass-market (Arcades + Atari 2600).