A history of computer games, part two: 1980s - 1990s

Beginning of the 1980s was when game publishers really
started to grow, creating the likes of electronic arts that are still about
today. With these publishing houses came all sorts of interesting new types of
games, that were named genres. The genres developed were technically innovative
and were released fairly early within the 80's era of gaming. In most cases they combined different
elements of different genres to make, in a sense, a superior genre. For example
elements like puzzles, action and exploration would be combined to make it more
compelling and appealing. The legend of Zelda was a good early example of
this.
After the release of Microvision in 1979, Nintendo went
about developing the technology in handhelds in 1980. Nintendo improved LCD technology
so that battery life could be preserved for longer and increase their
reliability. Due to this improvement the handhelds would only need watch
batteries and could be made smaller.
As 1983 come to a close, the gaming industry experienced
losses more damaging than before. This
event was named the 'crash' of the gaming industry, causing bankruptcy and the
end of the second generation of console. A contributing factor to the 'crash'
was the development of poorly-designed games.
Between 1983 and 1985, the third generation of consoles
emerged, most popularly the Nintendo 8 bit Famicom. Multiple improvements were
made in the form of the controller. A joypad took over paddles and joysticks
with an 8 direction D-pad and with two
or more action buttons. This now became
the standard for consoles.
1990s, the decade of innovation, this is when the
development to 3D graphics occurred, creating the rise of the real-time
strategy and first-person shooter genres. Early 3D games contained flat shaded
graphics and simple texture maps. The gaming industry as a whole developed,
becoming more mainstream, teaming up with the music and film industry, bigger
budgets for games and larger development teams.
The top contenders were the sega saturn, nintendo 64 and playstation. It
was this point in console development when cartridges were beginning to become
a thing of the past after being taken over by CD's, however the Nintendo kept
the cartridge system, remaining one of the few in production at the time.
The sixth generation of consoles started with the
dreamcast in 1999and featured new aspects to consoles like internet gaming and
web browsing. The dreamcast was also the
first home console to display standard definition all the time.