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Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Samuel N. Hart All Rights Reserved |
[ First Generation / Home / Geekcomix / Mail Sam ] - Next Stop - Video Game Industry Infrastructure Phenomenon, Part 1 During the First Generation (1972-1977) home video game systems relied heavily apon the established infrastructures of the television manufacturing and home electronics industries.3 The systems were distributed through television appliance stores and retail stores, transported along side television sets on their way to these stores, and were ordered through the same companies. However, those industries were not quite capable of supporting the video game demand that would soon be placed on them. Because of this, a specific infrastructure for video games was needed. This slowly developed during the First and Second Generations, aided by the machinations of the major players in the industry at this time: Atari, Magnavox, Fairchild, and Baily. What is interesting is that without a game specifc established infrastructure systems such as Atari Pong, Magnavox Oddyssey, and later Atari VCS/2600, were able to capture a very sizable piece of the overall consumer market. In 1981 alone, five billion dollars were spent on video machines in the arcades and another billion dollars more were spent on home video game systems. This is twice the amount reported that year by all of the casinos in Las Vegas combined.4
Video Game Industry Infrastructure Phenomenon, Part 2 Copyright (C) 1996-1997, Sam Hart, hart@geekcomix.com | |||||
