Introduction to New
Media
ART 311
Dr. J. R. Parker
Art/Digital Media Lab
Lec 01 Fall 2014
New Media
This course will focus on the basic concepts
of new media.
At the end of this course you will have a
better understanding of the nature of
new media, and the materials used in its
construction.
2
Evaluation
There are many assignments that can be completed in this course.
Each one is worth a variable number of ‘points’.
This is like a game, and to win the game (complete a Minimum
number assignments) you need to complete 100 points worth.
I don't like exams, but in first year classes and those with no official
lab component there seems to be no reasonable alternative. Thus,
we have a midterm.
We have a final (term) project)
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Materials
You are responsible for materials used in
completing the assignments. You will
need access to computers, and may use
your own, the computers in the NUML
on the 6th floor, those in the
information commons, or any other one
you like.
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Instructor (ME)
Dr. Jim Parker
Specialty: Digital media, video games,
animation
Office: AB606
LAB: AB611
jparker@ucalgary.ca
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~jparker/311
5
What Is New Media?
It's a term for the many different
forms of electronic communication
that are made possible through the
use of computer technology.
The term is in relation to “old” media
forms, such as print newspapers and
magazines, that are static
representations of text and graphics.
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What Is New Media?
It's defined by the underlying use of
numbers (codes) to represent media
objects.
This use of codes enables computers to
do the work needed to have the media
be dynamic.
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What is New Media?
* Web sites (Flash)
* streaming audio and video (podcasts)
* chat rooms
* e-mail
* online communities
* Web advertising
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What is New Media?
* DVD and CD-ROM media
* virtual reality environments (Second
Life)
* integration of digital data with the
telephone, such as Internet telephony
(Cell phones)
* digital cameras
* mobile computing
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What is New Media?
* Digital animation
* video games
* web art
* network performance
* motion/position capture (GPS)
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Use of the term new media implies that
communication is happening between computers
and humans resulting in a medium for expression.
One needs to know about artistic creation and about
computer technologies.
We need to know about technology especially with
respect to its capabilities and the limits it imposes
on expression.
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Key Concepts
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Information
Network
Interface
Archive
Interactivity
Simulation
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Information
At a basic level Media consists of information.
Claude Shannon – information theory.
How communication takes place is technical; the
meaning is sociological or philosophical.
How can a communication system process
messages that are unknown to the designers?
He defined a measure of information (entropy)
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Information
For a text message to be sent, the system has
to understand the symbols used, so the
sender uses symbols from a specified set.
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Information
Parts of a communication system:
1. Source (person, EG)
2. Transmitter encodes the message for
transmission
3. Channel is the medium between
transmitter and receiver (wire?)
4. Receiver decodes the message
5. Destination – target of the message
6.
--- Noise --15
Information
Marshall McLuhan deals with messages as
content.
To Shannon there is only a signal, no
message (a message Is meaning attached
to the signal)
‘the medium is the message’: Information
can not be understood in isolation from the
technologies that created and
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transmitted it.
Information
Information in new media:
A new media object is a signal but is also
a message, and the way the message
is coded and transmitted affects the
way we understand it.
Is a TV show moving objects? Sound? A
sequence of still images?
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Techno-Art
• 1801 J. M. Jacquard – Loom (graphics)
• 1833 Charles Babbage – Analytical engine
• Aug 19, 1837 – Louis Daguerre (photography)
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Ada Augusta
Babbage's programmer:
“The analytical engine weaves
algebraical patterns just as the
Jacquard loom weaves flowers
and leaves.”
(Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815, London – 27
November 1852, Marylebone, London), born Augusta Ada Byron)
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1870-1930
• The first electric synthesizer was invented in 1876 by
Elisha Gray
• Development of motion pictures. First movie studio = 1893,
T Edison. Produced 20 second shorts.
• 1890 – US Census used electrical machines to tabulate the
data. Punched cards (like the loom):
1910 ........... Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Company
1911 ........... Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company
1924 .......... International Business Machines Corporation
• 1936 Alan Turing and computability.
• 1936 Conrad Zuse builds first digital computer using
discarded 35mm film as data tape.
Turing machine
Turing test
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Television
• On January 23, 1926, John Logie Baird
(of Scotland) gave the world's first
public demonstration of a mechanical
television apparatus to approximately 40
members of the Royal Institution at his
laboratory.
• NBC officially began regularly scheduled
television broadcasts in New York on
April 30, 1939 with a broadcast of the
opening of the 1939 New York World's
Fair.
• The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
(CBC) adopted the American NTSC 525line B/W 60 field per second system as
its broadcast standard. It began
television broadcasting in Canada in
September 1952
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TV 1937
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Television
• 1950s TV – Space Patrol. Note
the production methods.
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Television
• 1956 Range Roundup. Note video /sound quality.
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Next steps
• 1951 CSIRAC (Australia) publicly
plays the Colonel Bogey March
(computer music)
• 'Baby', Manchester England. Earliest
recorded computer music.
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1950s
• 1954 - Korean War vet David Rosen sees the popularity of
mechanical coin-op games on US military bases in Japan,
so he starts SErvice GAmes (SEGA)to export these games
to Japan.
•
1958 - In an effort to keep visitors to the Brookhaven National Laboratories
in New York from being bored, physicist Willy Higinbotham invents an
interactive table-tennis-like game that is displayed on an oscilloscope. (Pong)
In 1951, the first video tape recorder
(VTR) captured live images from
television cameras
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Tennis For Two
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Polaroid
The Model 95 was Polaroid's first camera, and it was
introduced in 1948.
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1950s
• Theremin, invented in 1928,
released as a kit from Moog.
• Minicomputers - CDC-160A
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Mixing Media
• TV Theme 'My Favorite Martian' uses a
theremin.
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1960s
• 1960 - PDP-1 minicomputer (and SpaceWar computer
game)
• October 17, 1969, George Smith and Willard Boyle
invented the charge-coupled device (CCD)
1963: Douglas Englebart – first mouse
1963 Ivan Sutherland – Sketchpad,
interactive CG system- pop-up menus
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1960s
• 1967 – First computer animation
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1960s
• 1968 - PDP-8
minicomputer
The first ARPANET link was established
between the University of California, Los
Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute on
22:30 hours on October 29, 1969.
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1970s
• Commercial video games
• First home computers
• Atari releases home Space Invaders
• VCR – although the first home vcr was the Sony
model CV-2000, it was $1000, monochrome, and
used reels.
• 1970 Philips developed a home videocassette
format.
• Betamax November 1975
• VHS format, introduced in Japan in September
1976
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1970s
1971 – Andromeda Strain. Short 3D
graphics segment.
1973: John Whitney. Jr. and Gary
Demos – “Westworld”, claims to be
first film with computer graphics.
• Apple I 1976 (a kit)
• The Apple II was
introduced on April 16,
1977
(VisiCalc
spreadsheet)
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1971 -Andromeda Strain
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1973 -Westworld
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Westworld
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1980s
•
SONY - 1981, the first prototype digital camera, the Mavica.
•
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•
570*490
50 still frames
floppy 3.5" disks
CCD sensor
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1980s
• In 1982, two events happened that eventually led to the
home camcorder boom: JVC introduced the VHS-C format,
and Sony released the first professional camcorder named
Betacam.
Cameramen did not welcome
Betacam, because before it,
carrying and operating the
VCR unit was the work of a
video engineer; after Betacam
they came to be required to
operate both video camera and
VCR.
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1981
IBM introduces the PC
with 64 kB of RAM and a single 5 1/4 inch floppy
drive and monitor sold for US $3,005, while
the cheapest configuration ($1,565) that had
no floppy drives, only 16KB RAM, and no
monitor (again, under the expectation that
users would connect their existing TV sets and
cassette recorders)
1983- When a civilian airplane of
the Korean Airline (Flight 007) was
shot down by Soviet fighters after it
had gone lost over Soviet territory,
GPS was declassified by President
Reagan. GPS moved from pure
military effort to public project: it
was decided to allow the civilian use
of the GPS system.
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1984
•Apple Macintosh
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A turning point
When computer power becomes easily
available to all, including artists and
musicians, then the convergence of
informatics and the arts really
begins.
There is a democratization that occurs
at about 1984.
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1980s
• Nintendo Introduces Monochrome
Game Boy
• Cell phones were first made available
to the public in 1984. (The first
actual cell phone was made in 1973
by Martin Cooper of Motorola and
other assisting inventors who used
the idea of the car phone)
• According to a former employee of
NASA, Edward Lantz, the first was
sent via a simple Motorola beeper in
1989 by Raina Forteni from New
York City to Melbourne Beach,
Florida using upside down numbers
that could be read as words and
sounds.
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1990s
• 1990 - WorldWideWeb. The first
web page address was
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/ThePro
ject.html
• 1992: Silicon Graphics – OpenGL specification
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1990s
• The first SMS typed on a GSM
phone, sent by Riku Pihkonen, an
engineer student at Nokia, in 1993.
• 1995 - Sony ships 32-bit
Playstation
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2000s
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The Most Important
Invention for New Media
The Analog to digital converter
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A/D Converter
Converts an analog (continuous) signal into numbers
(digits)
This enables a computer to store and manipulate any
electronic signal, including sound, video,
heartbeat, radio, etc etc by converting into
numbers and storing as such.
Inverse operation is digital to analog conversion.
Allows numbers to be played as music.
These devices are most often seen these days in CD
and DVD players, PC sound cards, cell phones..
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A/D
The ADC and DAC developed by Reeves deserves some further
discussion, since they represent one of the first all-electronic
data converters on record. The ADC technique basically uses
a sampling pulse to take a sample of the analog signal, set an
R/S flip-flop, and simultaneously start a controlled ramp
voltage. The ramp voltage is compared with the input, and
when they are equal, a pulse is generated that resets the R/S
flip-flop. The output of the flip-flop is a pulse whose width is
proportional to the analog signal at the sampling instant. This
pulse width modulated (PWM) pulse controls a gated oscillator,
and the number of pulses out of the gated oscillator represents
the quantized value of the analog signal. This pulse train can be
easily converted to a binary word by driving a counter. In
Reeves' system, a master clock of 600 kHz is used, and a
100:1 divider generates the 6-kHz sampling pulses. The system
uses a 5-bit counter, and 31 counts (out of the 100 counts
between sampling pulses) therefore represents a fullscale
signal.
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1986
• Commodore ships the Amiga as
computer system designed to support
games
• Sega ships Sega Master System as
console game
• Atari ships the 7800
• Nintendo is king (10 to 1)
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1987
• Electronic Arts releases their first in-house game: Skate or
Die
• Serious games released for IBM PC’s VGA and SVGA
graphics
• Tonka Distributes Sega Games
Toy-truck company Tonka purchases the US distribution
rights to the SMS and gets it into more stores than Sega
did, allowing it to better compete against the NES.
Galaga,Dig Dug; Robotron: 2084, Joust; Electronic Arts' Oneon-One Basketball, and Atari's own Asteroids and ;
Nintendo releases The Legend of Zelda ; Kid Icarus and
Metroid
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1988
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Atari Releases Games for the NES
Atari Games establishes Tengen, a subsidiary that produces games for
home consoles. Tengen begins as a licensed third-party developer of NEScompatible games. This role ends when Atari Games takes Nintendo to
court, claiming that Nintendo has an illegal monopoly on the video game
industry, achieved through illegal practices, such as fixing prices and using
computer-chip lockout technology to prohibit unlicensed development of
NES software.
Tengen Bypasses Nintendo "Lockout" Chip
Tengen discovers a way to produce NES-compatible games without
Nintendo's approval and announces that it will develop, manufacturer, and
distribute NES-compatible games without Nintendo's blessing.
Coleco Files for Bankruptcy
Unable to recover from the disastrous Adam, Coleco files for bankruptcy.
Most of its catalog goes to Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers.
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1989
• Tetris Troubles
Tengen acquires the home rights to Tetris and begins selling
the extremely popular game. However, it is quickly
discovered that Tengen bought the rights from Mirrorsoft,
which did not own the rights in the first place. Nintendo
quietly acquires the legitimate home rights to Tetris and
releases it under its own label. The Tengen version is
removed from the marketplace.
• Nintendo Introduces Monochrome Game Boy
Nintendo releases its handheld Game Boy ($109). The
system comes with Tetris, and despite a tiny monochrome
screen, it begins to build a historic sales record. A Game
Boy version of Super Mario (Super Mario Land), a Breakout
clone (Alleyway), and a baseball game are quickly released.
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1990
• Nintendo releases Super Mario 3
• Video Game Rental Dispute
Nintendo and Blockbuster go to court over video game
rentals, with Nintendo maintaining that the rentals are
destroying its sales. When the courts decide the games can
be rented, Nintendo strikes another blow by claiming that
Blockbuster illegally copied the copyrighted gameinstruction manuals. This time the courts side with
Nintendo.
• Sega Arcade Hits Continue to Come Home
Sega continues to turn out games to trade on its
established arcade successes.
• PC’s and consoles are major game platforms
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1991
• Nintendo launches Super-NES as 16-bit machine
• Sega Introduces Sonic
Sega unveils Sonic the Hedgehog
• Game Genie
Galoob Toys releases the Game Genie, which
infuriates Nintendo--the device lets players cheat
in NES games and win more easily. Nintendo sees
the Game Genie as a tool that reduces the longterm value of its games, and it attempts to
prevent Game Genie sales.
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1993
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Pentium chip launches
Sega and Nintendo consoles are 80% of game market
Genesis Software
Although they have contracts with Nintendo, Capcom and Konami talk
actively with Sega about development for the Genesis. They ultimately
release games but never devote their best teams to work on Sega
software. Sega hurriedly prepares Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for a holiday
release. The game sells like mad, and Sonic becomes a serious challenger to
Mario's future success.
Panasonic ships Real-3DO as 32-bit software product. 3DO, a new company
started by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, announces a new 32-bit
gaming console. 3DO receives major backing from Panasonic, Time Warner,
and MCA. 3DO does not plan to manufacturer any consoles itself. Hawkins'
dream is that the 3DO console will become the standard that will be
released by many different manufacturers.
Civilization released
Congress Notes Video Game Violence
Incensed by the violence in Mortal Kombat and Night Trap, Senators
Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut) and Herbert Kohl (Wisconsin) launch a
Senate "investigation" into video game violence, threaten to somehow
effect a ban on "violent" games, and eventually soften their demands and
concede to an industry-wide rating system.
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1994
• ESRB Is Established
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is
established to rate video games. Large letter icons appear
on game boxes to let consumers know the recommended age
of players for each game and whether the game is violent or
risqué.
• Atari ships 64-bit Jaguar$700 for console $100 for game titles
• DOOM released by Id
• Nintendo Releases Super Game Boy
Nintendo releases the Super Game Boy ($59), an adapter
that lets Game Boy cartridges play on the SNES with extra
features.
• New Japanese Consoles Are Released
The Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation are launched in
Japan. By year's end, critics are pointing to the PlayStation
as the superior machine.
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1995
• Sega ships 32-bit Saturn, Sony ships
32-bit Playstation
• Microsoft releases Win95 (DirectX)
Internet and WWW explode
• Nintendo VirtualBoy, N64
• Sega Saturn
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1996
• Console Prices Lowered
Sony drops the price of the PlayStation to $199
• Nintendo sells its billionth cartridge worldwide--an
announcement made as stores begin to dump stocks of 16bit cartridges at large losses.
• Multi-player gaming becomes serious.Modem, Network
companies, Internet
• Sony Success
Sony sales are said to top $12 million per day through the
Christmas shopping season, and the PlayStation holds on to
its worldwide place as the number-one next-generation
game console. The video game industry has a highly
profitable year, and software prices on 32-bit games begin
to show exceptional volatility.
60
1997
• New Nintendo Policies
Under new laws passed by the European Economic
Commission, Nintendo can no longer sell European software
companies the privilege to develop Nintendo-compatible
games. And developers of N64 games no longer have to
create games exclusively for the N64. Laws also prohibit
Nintendo from being the sole manufacturer of the
cartridges.
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1997
• Tamagotchi Fever
One simple theory explaining Bandai's failed engagement
with Sega is that the toy company no longer needed Sega to
help turn its sluggish sales around. In November 1996,
Bandai released the Tamagotchi in Japan, which fortified
the company's earnings all by itself. The Tamagotchi quickly
became a national obsession in Japan, selling for hundreds
of dollars, well above its original $16 price tag. Bandai
releases the Tamagotchi in the United States in May. F.A.O.
Schwartz, the first US store to offer it, sells out its initial
supply of 30,000 in just three days. Bandai announces PC
and Game Boy versions. Before long, other companies, such
as Tiger Electronics, release their own virtual pets.
• Pentium II’s with 200MHz processors introduced
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1998 Modern Age
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New Sega Console
Sega officially acknowledges its new 128-bit system. At the same time Sega discloses
that the new system will use a Microsoft Windows CE operating system, which will
mean easier game conversions to and from the PC. (Dreamcast)
Playstation is console king.
Nintendo releases The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the N64 on November
23. Sells 2.5 million copies of the game, grossing $150 million.
Pokémon Coming to America
Nintendo announces that Pokémon will be coming to the United States. A marketing
sensation in Japan, Pokémon (short for pocket monsters) receives worldwide attention
when a crossover cartoon causes epileptic seizures in more than 700 Japanese
viewers. The cartoons will be edited in the United States so they won't have the same
effect on viewers. When the games release for the Game Boy in two editions in
September, they become Nintendo's fastest-selling games ever.
Senators Praise Video Games
Herb Kohl, the Wisconsin senator who cosponsored the 1994 bill to rate all video
games, praises the video game industry for creating an arcade rating system and
advisory messages.
Banner Year for Video games
The IDSA (Interactive Digital Software Association) announces that 1998 was a
banner year for the electronic entertainment industry. During the first six months of
1998, sales were up 30 percent from all of 1997, which itself had been a record year.
Frogger
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1999
• Cellular Phone Games
Nintendo announces the Game Boy Advance, a 32bit color handheld system, which can be combined
with a cellular phone for Internet access.
Nintendo promises that the new unit will be
compatible with both Game Boy and Game Boy
Color software.
• Maximum Score for Pac-Man Achieved
Billy Mitchell achieves the highest possible score
for Pac-Man when he completes every board and
winds up with a score of 3,333,360.
• UM-Dearborn offers first game design course
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2000 New Era
PlayStation 2 Released in Japan
Sony launches the PlayStation 2 in Japan on March 4. In two days, the
company sells 1 million consoles--a new record. As is the case with all
Japanese launches, gamers begin lining up outside stores two days in
advance. Unfortunately, demand exceeds supply and not everybody gets a
console, including those who preordered. Robberies of PlayStation 2s are
reported.
Xbox Officially Announced
The world's worst-kept secret becomes public knowledge after the opening
of the Game Developers' Conference in March. Bill Gates delivers the
keynote address and officially announces the Xbox to the world.
PlayStation 2 Frenzy
The PlayStation 2 becomes the hot console of the year because it cannot
be found. New PlayStation 2s go for as high as $1,000 on eBay.
Dolphin out, GameCube In
Nintendo renames the Dolphin. First it becomes the Starcube, and then,
thankfully, it becomes the GameCube. The console, which is shown to the
press only during the first day of Space World, is literally a cube. Instead
of using CDs or DVDs as the storage medium for GameCube games,
Nintendo uses a proprietary optical disc based on Matsushita technology.
Nintendo predicts that this medium will eventually be a standard, as its
small size makes it attractive for future handhelds.
Diablo II, Sims
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2001
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Gamecube from Nintendo
Sega of America Releases First Online-Compatible RPG
Sega of America releases Phantasy Star Online for the
Dreamcast. Thousands of gamers can play together online at the
same time anywhere in the world. Icons and preselected text
translate between languages.
Video Games go to the Movies
Five years after the original game's debut, Lara Croft: Tomb
Raider is released into theaters on June 15. Starring Angelina
Jolie as Croft, the film grosses $48.2 million in its opening
weekend, the highest ever for a movie based on a video game.
Less than month later, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within makes
its debut on July 11 and earns just over $30 million in its entire
US theatrical run. Undeterred by the mixed box office
messages, movies based on Duke Nukem, Soul Calibur, and Crazy
Taxi go into production, joining Resident Evil as the major video
games receiving the Hollywood treatment.
Rogue Spear Becomes More than a Game
Following in the footsteps of the US Army's use of Battlezone in
the early '80s, the US Department of Defense licenses the
Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear game engine for tactical training
exercises.
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2001
• X Marks the Spot
On November 15, at an event in Times Square's Toys "R"
Us, Microsoft officially launches the Xbox. Based on PC
architecture, the $299 console comes equipped with a
733Mhz CPU, Nvidia GPU, 10GB hard drive, and built-in
Ethernet port. In less than a month, Microsoft ships 1.1
million units to retailers. The system's best-selling launch
title is Halo.
• The GameCube Debuts
Nintendo's GameCube is released in Japan on September
13 and North America on November 18. The diminutive
cube-shaped console uses propriety discs based on DVD
technology and is priced at $199, $100 less than the Xbox
and PS2. Nintendo reports that $98 million worth of
systems, games, and accessories were sold on the US
launch day, with more than 500,000 systems sold in the
first week. Luigi's Mansion is the best-selling launch title
for the console.
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2002
• PC Hardware Standard
– 300 MHz Pentium
– 64MB RAM
– 300-700 MB disk space
– CD ROM
– MS Windows 95/98/2000/XP
– DirectX
• Sims best selling game of all time
• Sega became a third-party developer and publisher for all
other current machines and the PC.
• Retro Studios develops Metroid Prime, popularizing the
first-person adventure genre.
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2003
• SIMS on-line,SIMS Superstar
• Star Wars Galaxies >275,000 registered users
• Nintendo released the improved Game Boy Advance SP in
March.
• Nokia entered the handheld market with its N-Gage gamephone hybrid on October 7.
• PS2 Linux Kit is launched.
– Warcraft III, Half Life 2,UT 2003
69
2004
• Serious games summit added to annual Game
Developer Conference
• Halo 2 was released in November, becoming the
largest entertainment release at the time. Within
5 days of release, Halo 2 becomes the best-selling
Xbox game.
• Half-Life 2 was released in mid-November, and
goes on to become one of the most critically
acclaimed games of all time, with almost universal
praise.
• Nokia releases a re-tooled N-Gage, the N-Gage
QD.
• Nintendo released the Nintendo DS in the U.S. on
November 21.
• Sony released the PlayStation Portable in Japan
on December 12.
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2005
Resident Evil 4 for Nintendo GameCube becomes the most critically
acclaimed game of the year.
November—Guitar Hero is released, with great reviews.
The Hot Coffee Mod is released for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto:
San Andreas which enables a previously disabled "sex minigame." Hacks to
enable this previously unavailable content on other platforms are quickly
created by the users. The game's rating is raised to AO in the US, which
removes it from virtually all mainstream stores. Rockstar Games rereleases the game without the hidden content, bringing it back to an M
rating—as well as a patch to remove the minigame from existing PC
versions.
Microsoft releases their second video game console, the Xbox 360 on
November 22, with a rare simultaneous release in both America and Japan.
It is well received in America, with resold units going for much higher than
MSRP on the secondary market but suffered in the Japanese market, with
many retailers having to go to extreme measures just to get them off the
shelves.[14] Although widely regarded as a superb console, stock shortages
as well as system instability or poorly manufactured systems have marred
this otherwise-successful launch.
The video game Spore is shown at the GDC, and is received well, due to its
procedural generation and massively single-player style.
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2007
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World of Warcraft: 200000 simultaneous players
Nintendo Wii best selling console
DS captures handheld market.
Serious Games Canada in Montreal.
Halo 3 is released by Microsoft and becomes the
fastest-selling video game in history, generating a
revenue of $170 million in North America during
its first 24 hours of release. In addition, it also
became the fastest-selling entertainment release
in history, beating the previous record holder, the
movie Spider-Man 3, by a significant margin.
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2006
• World of Warcraft generates $1B in on-line subscription
sales
• Hand-held and cell phone games gross $3.5B in single year
• releases the PlayStation 3 on November 17, chaos erupts at
several locations in the US due to high demand and
extremely limited retailer supply. Two men were shot, and
many others were injured.
• Nintendo launched the Wii on November 19 with an 800,000
unit launch across the United States. Sales surged for the
Wii and it eventually sold 2 million units by the end of
December, compared to the PlayStation 3's sales of less
than a million (800,000).
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