Action? Come on Mario... move!

Throughout the history of video games, the industry has had an inferiority complex when compared to Hollywood. (fastcompany.com). But why? Do video games not have the same technology as the movies do? The answer is yes. Totally. Nowadays, but not before the addition of CD-ROM to technology’s yearbook.

So I’ve decided to branch off for a segment and talk a little bit about graphics in other types of media, instead of just the movies. Ever see an old Atari (probably not) or Nintendo system? (The ones with the plug in cartridges). During the same time that Nintendo was running simple graphics, the movies were booming, with the sales of home video (VHS). Now some of you may wonder why there was such a difference in the qualities of the technologies up until recently, with the release of Halo 3 and the new Call of Duty series. The answer for that is quite simple. For interactive graphics, meaning something that is manipulated by the human playing the game, it requires a lot more power and technology behind it. Film running in front of a projector light is basic compared to the video games. The technology hadn’t yet been developed to create graphics that were realistic like film and still moveable by a controller.

In 1972, the first official video game, Pong was created by Atari, the company now widely known as being the father of video gaming. FairChild Channel F was the first company to release a cartridge based system, but again, Atari takes over, making the idea more popular, and selling more games in total than FCF. That was in 1977. In 1985... BAM! Nintendo releases the Nintendo Entertainment system (NES) effectively killing off the competition. Nintendo's graphics were more binary-based than Atari's, making the graphics more solid. After that, Sega and Sony came out with their own systems, Sony being the first to use a disc instead of a cartridge. Now we're getting somewhere... From there you can guess how all the new systems (Xbox, PS3, Wii – and even Alienware gaming computers) came into play. It’s just basic evolution. My point here is really not about the evolution of video game systems, but the technology behind them. See, the first Atari video game system only had 128 bytes of ram. Nowadays, Xbox 360 has 512 MB of ram... a helluva lot more than the originals, giving a faster gaming experience for those games such as Legend of Zelda or Halo 3 (droolworthy graphics) that rivet you to the seat. You don’t need lagging there.