Nick Steinert DCI 271 Spring Term Origins of the Home Gaming Console

The first resemblance of a gaming device could be found on fairgrounds and at circuses. In the 1900s racing games and fortune tellers were automated so that they used electronics inside them, however still relied on material components as the forefront of the design of the game. These gaming “consoles” were relatively straightforward, which meant when they often broke down, they were easy to fix. As the twentieth century progressed, there was a movement towards fully automated gaming consoles, and then eventually to the home gaming console.

Nolan Bushnell was a student at the University of Utah in the 1690s, and during his summers he would in the aforementioned amusement parks as a repairman to the games that often broke down. Upon working so closely with these games, he noticed that such gaming consoles could be revolutionized, and began the process of trying to simplify what already existed. Bushnell’s biggest task was shrinking the mainframe computer, which required stripping unnecessary elements of the game.

Bushnell released his first arcade game Computer Space which was a relatively complicated single player game. The complicated nature of this game, and due to the only appeal coming from college campuses, Computer Space flopped. At this time Bushnell along with his partner Dabney started what would be known as Atari Inc. in 1972 and wanted to create something simpler for his new engineer in light of the failure of his relatively complicated game.

During the same timeframe as Bushnell, Ralph Baer was working towards a similar goal. in the early 60s Baer worked with a team to produce a gaming console which he would introduce as his “Brown Box.” The simplicity of the name reflects in its own how crude of a design the console was, but it did work as a fully electronic gaming system. It wasn’t until the company Magnavox agreed to a deal in 1971 and produced the Odyssey console which was a production quality version of the “Brown Box” Baer had created. The Odyssey was not able to output sound, had poor graphics, and players had to keep score while often make up their own rules for the simplistic tennis, football, and haunted house maze capabilities of the Odyssey.

Ironically, it wasn’t until Nolan Bushnell arrived at a Los Angeles Magnavox dealership in May of 1972 that he knew what his next game would be. After seeing the demo for the Odyssey’s Table Tennis, he immediately began working on his own spin off of the Odyssey’s game called Pong, which he intended to put in bars and arcades across the country. The two player game promoted re-matches and continued play, which in turn promoted people to staying in bars longer and ordering more food and drinks. According to Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System, Bushnell’s Pong “boasted considerable technical advances of the Odyssey, including an integrated circuit that contained most of the game’s logic on a single chip, on-screen scoring, and digital sound.” Pong solved the biggest problem of why Computer Space didn’t take off – ease of use. The game tapped into people’s competitive side which the automatic scoring drove further. Atari began developing the home version of Pong in 1973, which was already widely popular in bars across the country. The game was so popular that by 1974 there were 10,000 Pong machines built for bars and arcades. Atari agreed to let Sears exclusively sell their new home console, who ordered 150,000 units initially from Atari. In 1975 Sears released Atari’s home Pong in their stores.

Although the Odyssey was the first home gaming console, the Atari was the first widely popular one. It was small enough to store out of the way when not in use and built on its appearance that it had made for itself in bars and arcades early on. Upon being asked in an interview during Bloomberg Businessweek how he got into home gaming systems, Nolan Bushnell responded with:

“Bars and restaurants are one thing, but it was really very adult-oriented at that time. Kids couldn’t go into bars. Bowling alleys were not really a kid-friendly environment. I felt that games were good for you and everybody needed to play. Home gaming allowed a much broader dissemination of electronic game playing into the population. Kids, adults, everybody.”

By 1981 the Atari made up 75 percent of home videogame console sales. Although they were about a year behind Magnavox to the home videogame console market, they certainly had a major role to play in reshaping what it meant to play videogames.

Magnavox can be credited with producing the first home videogaming console because they did release the first portable gaming console in the Odyssey. However, Atari and Nolan Bushnell must be credited for the quality of console and the added features they released shortly after Magnavox’s Odyssey which allowed their product to explode to be recognized on a national level.

Bibliography

Loguidice, Bill, and Matt Barton. Vintage Game Consoles : an Inside Look at Apple, Atari, Commodore, Nintendo, and the Greatest Gaming Platforms of All Time . New York, [New York] ;: Focal Press, 2014.

Vintage Game Consoles is written by two critically acclaimed authors, both of which spend lots of time around console collections and games. This source should help me get a good understanding of the early stages of gaming consoles, especially the transition from carnival games to the electronic arcade systems.

Monfort, Nick, and Ian Bogost. Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System. MIT Press, 2009

Nick Monfort is a professor of digital media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is author to many books of computer-based literature. This book should give me in depth information about the company Atari and specifically the development of Pong.

Langshaw, Mark. Magnavox Odyssey retrospective: How console gaming was born. Digital Spy. 13.12.1014.

This article was published on Digital Spy, which is a popular British based website dedicated to entertainment and media news. This article should give me good information about the Odyssey console and what its benefits and drawbacks were.

Baer, Ralph. Genesis: How the Home Video Games Industry Began. Ralphbaer.com

This article was written by Ralph Baer himself, and should give me good insight into what he was thinking when he was developing the “Brown Box.” This is also a primary source which will give me direct insight into his life.

Geffen, Haley, and Brandon Lisy. “Atari.(Nolan Bushnell)(Interview).” Bloomberg Businessweek 4406 (2014)

This interview with Nolan Bushnell will give me a primary source that involves the founder of Atari and the Pong gaming system. This source will be useful because it will give good insight into why Bushnell thought the transition to the home gaming system was a good area to pursue.