No Balls: The History of Video Games Four

The fourth era of video games marked the downfall of Nintendo, Atari, Sega, and the British Empire. Ineptitude and folly finally came to roost as video games became a multi-boobjillion dollar industry and the jokers who'd been running it up until that point were rightfully eaten alive like a clown-meat gyro. And thus we enter the cruel endgame of this rainbow-colored saga.

After forming a partnership with Sony to develop a CD-drive add-on for the Super Nintendo, Nintendo ultimately decided it would be a better idea to pull out at the last minute and piss-off the powerful and insanely proud Sony, a slumbering consumer electronics giant that needed only a perceived dishonor as an excuse to enter the video game market and kick an extra poophole out Nintendo's backside. Rolling in the good ideas like a pig in cologne, Nintendo opted to work with Dutch nice guys Philips instead, on a CD add-on drive that never came to fruition. Sony, in a scene likely moodily backlit and scored to weird Japanese gourd instruments, vowed to develop their own 32-bit system with which to crush Nintendo into sugar-coated boot grease. Hence the PlayStation was born.

Despite the gay-sounding name, the PlayStation took the world by storm in 1995. Considering that the only 32-bit competition on the market at the time was the Jaguar, which Atari claimed was a 64-bit console only because they had printed "64!" on the case, the PlayStation's success seems less than surprising. Panasonic released the technologically superior 3DO that same year, but the console's sales were limited by the system's embarrassing pack-in game, SmartFartz.

In response, Sega released the Saturn, a CD-based system which sucked like a circus seal in a popsicle factory. So completely misguided was the development of the Saturn that the system's surprise launch in 1995 was kept a secret even from game developers, and as a result the system's only software was an old Commodore64 Mah-Jongg game that came built into the motherboard. Sega had succeeded in surprising the crap out of the industry with the stealth Saturn release, but ultimately this proved to be a poor business strategy.

Around this time Atari went down in flames, announcing that their poor-selling Jaguar console was actually a magic flying dream machine that could make you big like in that Tom Hanks movie. Jaguar sales actually went down after the announcement, due to the bitter lesson about adulthood that audiences had learned from the Tom Hanks movie years before.

Rather than release their own 32-bit console to compete with Sony, Nintendo decided to throw the industry a curve in 1995 by releasing their VirtualBoy portable system instead, a weird goggle-based gaming system that induced nausea three times faster than trying to read a novel on a roller-coaster. After six months of terrible sales and numerous in-store vomitings, Nintendo announced that they were just kidding about the VirtualBoy.

Nintendo finally released their next home console, the Nintendo 64, in 1996. Despite the fact that only seven games were ever made for the system, the console sold quite well thanks to rampant rumors that the system's controllers tasted like strawberries. Nintendo's usual practice of succeeding despite doing everything wrong continued with the Nintendo 64, which kept second place warm behind the PlayStation despite a reliance on expensive, antiquated game cartridges, and the cannibalistic practice of shoehorning Mario into every game released for the system, including such unlikely titles as Star Wars: Battle for Naboo and Foxy Chix Strip Poker.

By 1998, Sega had sufficiently recovered from falling face-first in shit with the Saturn to release the Dreamcast, a 128-bit system so awesome gamers decided to wait until Sony put out something, anything, new instead of spending their money on Sega. Sony did not disappoint, releasing a poster with a picture of the upcoming PlayStation 2 later that year. Sony's poster outsold the Dreamcast 3-to-1 in America and Japan.

The PlayStation 2 was finally released in 2000, wowing gamers who already thought it was going to be awesome. Sega's Dreamcast faded quickly from near-obscurity into nearby total obscurity, and Nintendo's new GameCube console slid comfortably into the company's familiar spot in the back seat behind Sony, eagerly wondering if they were going to stop for ice cream. Once the king of a very inept hill, Nintendo was reduced to catering to small children and gamers with a thing for fat Italians.

Software giant Microsoft released their Xbox in 2001, a mammoth console roughly the size of a suitcase, which featured controllers larger than most other entire gaming systems. Giants and the obscenely-handed were pleased, making Microsoft a real competitor for Sony, and relegating Nintendo to the role of cute little pretend toy console maker.

Unbeknownst to the computer-illiterate, parallel to these home console wars, computer games were gathering steam as a way for adults to avoid doing their taxes and to kill time until the Internet was invented. Even adults who didn't know a Super Nintendo from a poop-covered shoe were playing Doom on their home PCs by 1993, making the gory first-person shooter a giant hit. While console gamers were farting around with Sonic the Hedgehog and Donkey Kong Country Music Seminar, bored accountants everywhere were blowing the shit out of Satan's housepets inside the labyrinths of Doom. That same year saw the release of Myst, a gorgeous first-person puzzler about losing your keys on a deserted island. Myst was a huge hit, finding an audience among millions of computer geeks who resonated with the game's storyline about wandering around alone with no friends.

Later, even more PC hits would follow, allowing PC gamers to enjoy superior graphics and sound for only thousands of dollars more than their console-gaming brethren. Whether it was ogling ass cheeks in Tomb Raider, blowing up Republicans in Quake, or gleefully ruining lives in The Sims, PC gaming was where it was at in the 90's.

The 2000's find video games more popular than ever, with new technology breathing life into console gaming, even as the list of competing consoles is mercilessly stomped into shortness. Computer games hang on to market share as the line between PCs, consoles, DVD players and cordless phones is blurred beyond recognition.

But where does the future of video games lie? What am I, Kreskin? You see a column around here titled "The Future of Video Games"? If you do, I sure as hell didn't write it, and I'd take whatever Rok Finger has to say on the subject with a grain of salt the size of Cincinnati. I've brought you up to date on video games, which is more than I set out to do, ingrates.

Ten years from now? We'll probably be hunting each other in the streets like deer, how's that for the future of gaming? Enjoy your first-person shooters while you've got 'em, Bambi.

Nintendo or Die: The History of Video Games Three
Last installment we ended with the great video game crash of 1982, which treated the world to visions of programmers heading west across the dust bowl in Calistoga wagons, embarrassing holes worn through their one-dollar pants. Entire landfills had... (1/17/05)

Go Home: The History of Video Games Two
The history of video games thus far can be neatly divided into three eras: the Arcade Era, which was covered in part one of this series, spanned the rise of video gaming up from the primordial, pixilated ooze. Second was the Console Era, when gamers... (12/20/04)

You Lose: The History of Video Games
Few can deny that video games have had a profound effect on our lives. Millions of hours that the youths of the past spent in idle whimsy, impregnating teenage girls, curing cancer or just farting around are now devoted to virtual carjacking, rape... (12/6/04)

Alexander the Good-Enough
If my inbox and the random uninformed street noise are any indication, interest in the ancient Macedonian king and conqueror Alexander the Great is at an all-time high right now, thanks in large part to the release of the Alexander the Great's... (11/15/04)

Damn, You Ugly: The History of Beauty
Throughout all of history, human beings have gone to excessive lengths in an effort to not be so damned ugly. Few have succeeded, but we humans have kept bravely banging our ugly heads against that wall in vain hopes of fooling others into letting... (10/18/04)