Elements of Game Technology, Part Three: Interaction Design

Interaction within video games is nothing new. There have been consoles which had a interaction factor back before the 2000's and on the retro and older retro consoles.

I'll be using some of Angry Video Game Nerds videos for reference because if it wasn't for him showing the past of games and consoles, probably wouldn't took any consideration in the past.

What he reviews is a lot of Pong Consoles and there were a lot. Even a simple game like Pong, the interaction was quite strange to see many different consoles having different joy pads, sticks and buttons commands to press.


For example the one of the left, how bizarre this is for a Pong console, yes there were some other games on there, you could say this was not a 'solely pong console' but it did have it. So even in the really early stages apart from the arcade Pong Machines, there were many variations that was developed for home console interaction.

In the 70's or 80's you could say was an age of the wooden 'finish' alot of console seemed to be having a wooden design to it. lol.

 The worlds first game console 

Another video review from AVGN.

Well the Magnavox Odyssey is the world's first commercial home video game console. It was first demonstrated in April 1972 and released in August of that year, predating the Atari Pong home consoles by three years.

The Odyssey was designed by Ralph Baer, who I remember researching a bout, from the Pong consoles blog back in year one, however  it began around 1966 and had a working prototype finished by 1968. This prototype, known as the Brown Box.

I am not going to go through all the old generation consoles from first to second etc. But there are a lot, really a lot. There are a few to blog a bout because they seemed relevant and even in the present, people may think this is 'new technology' but infact these interactions from video game consoles has already been developed and test years back even if it not to the standard of the technology advancement of today, it was the trial steps back then gave us what we have today.

I do find it  amazing how the competition has now narrow it self down to only a handful some companies, like Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo being the main big three for game consoles and interaction.

Massive list of older generations of consoles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_game_consoles

This is the virtual Boy a table-top video game console. It was developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was the first video game console, that was supposed to be capable of displaying "true 3D graphics" out of the box, in a form of virtual reality. You could say in hindsight this was a study, to see if something like this can work, the theme of virtual reality and the 3D graphics side (even though it's nothing like what we have these days) that just like the 3Ds from Nintendo having the feature of pushing the graphics in 3D.

Whereas most video games use monocular cues to achieve the illusion of the three dimensions on a two-dimensional screen. The Virtual Boy creates an illusion of depth through the effect know as parallax. In the manner  parallax. In a manner similar to using a head-mounted display, the user looks into an eyepiece made of neoprene on the front of the machine, and then an eyeglass-style projector allows viewing of the monochromatic (in this case, red) image.

This was released on July 21, 1995 in Japan and August `3, 1995 in North America. The price for this console was $180. It become a commercial failure and so it was not released in the PAL market. Nintendo discontinued it the following year.

The Nes Accessories

Here is another review from AVGN reviewing many accessories for the Nintendo Entertainment System!

Even on the older consoles with limitation, it's amazing how many variation of accessories you could get for consoles.

In this case NES and there were good relevant accessories and then some pointless ones, which makes you think, how did this get marketed and sold, yet most of them were pointless.  Begs the question did anyone tested the product before it got released.?

One that was heavenly market was the "Power Glove"

A clever idea but lacked wisdom. It reminds me of an spacesuit, at most times it didn't really work to well,

As you can see there were a motion sensor that you had to place either end of the television, you could say that this could be a step towards the Wii Motion sensor!

There was a movie that I bet it got all the children in that decade, crazy and excited!

It's called ' The Wizard' and in short it's  a 1989  movie About a  boy and his brother run away from home and hitch cross country with the help of a girl they meet to compete in the ultimate video game championship.

 In a way it was a chance to market and advertise a lot of products in a subliminal way. There were one big  gaming championship event at the end. For the first time that Super Mario Bro's 3 was shown before it was released. So a preview on the big screen, no wonder kids went wild and as well shown a few tips on how some parts of the game!

AVGN review of Super Mario Bro's 3 and The Wizard.

Nostalgia Critic - The Wizard movie review.