Sports game
Encyclopedia
A sports game is a computer
or video game that simulates the practice of traditional sport
s. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sport
s, athletics and extreme sport
s. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (such as the Madden NFL series), whilst others emphasize strategy and organization (such as Championship Manager
). Some, such as Arch Rivals
, satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games and is competitive, just like real-world sports. A number of game series features the names and characteristics of real teams and players, and are updated annually to reflect real-world changes.
Sports games sometimes make use of different mode
s for different parts of the game. This is especially true in games about American football
such as the Madden NFL
series, where executing a pass play requires six different gameplay modes in the span of approximately 45 seconds. Sometimes, other sports games offer a menu where players may select a strategy while play is temporarily suspended. Soccer video games sometimes shift gameplay modes when it is time for the player to attempt a penalty kick, where a single athlete tries to kick a goal passed the other team's goal keeper with no presence from other players. Some sports games also require players to shift roles between the athletes and the coach or manager. These mode switches are more intuitive than other game genres because they reflect actual sports.
Older 2D sports games sometimes used an unrealistic graphical scale, where athletes appeared to be quite large in order to be visible to the player. As sports games have evolved, players have come to expect a realistic graphical scale with a high degree of verisimilitude. Sports games often simplify the game physics for ease of play, and ignore factors such as a player's inertia. Games typically take place with a highly accurate time-scale, although they usually allow players to play quick sessions with shorter game quarters or periods.
Sports games sometimes treat button-pushes as continuous signals rather than discrete moves, in order to initiate and end a continuous action. For example, football games may distinguish between short and long passes based on how long the player holds a button. Golf games often initiate the backswing with one button-push, and the swing itself is initiated by a subsequent push.
In 1958, William Higinbotham
created a game called Tennis for Two
, a competitive two-player tennis
game played on an oscilloscope
. The players would select the angle at which to put their racket, and pressed a button to return it. Although this game was incredibly simple, it demonstrated how an action game
(rather than previous puzzles) could be played on a computer.
Computer games prior to the late 1970s were primarily played on university mainframe
computers under timesharing systems that supported multiple computer terminals on school campuses. The two dominant systems in this era were Digital Equipment Corporation's
PDP-10
and Control Data Corporation's
PLATO
. Both could only display text, and not graphics,originally printed on teleprinter
s and line printer
s, but later printed on single-color CRT
screens.
Around that time, electro-mechanical sports arcade game
s were being produced. Examples include Taito
's Crown Soccer Special (1967), Sega
's racing game
Grand Prix (1969), and Chicago Coin
's racing game Speedway (1969). In the 1970s, arcade video games began to appear, many of them centred around the sports genre, after it was popularized by the first commercially successful video game, Atari
's Pong
(1972).
In 1973, Taito released an early team sport
video game, Davis Cup, a tennis doubles game with similar ball-and-paddle gameplay but played in doubles, with both players controlling two paddles each. That year, Taito also released another early team sport video game, Soccer, based on association football; it was also a ball-and-paddle game, but with a green background to simulate a playfield, allowed each player to control both a forward and a goalkeeper, and let them adjust the size of the players who were represented as paddles on screen. Both Davis Cup and Soccer were designed by Tomohiro Nishikado of Space Invaders
fame. Early hockey
video games were also released in 1973: Sega's Hockey TV, and Taito's Pro Hockey, which had similar gameplay to Pong but with boundaries around the screen and only a small gap for the goal.
In 1974, Taito released Basketball, an early basketball
game. It was an early example of a video game that displayed sprite
images, both for the players and the baskets, and an early attempt at accurately simulating a team sport. Each player controlled two team members, a forward and a guard, both represented as sprite character
images. The ball could be dribbled and passed between team members before shooting, and the ball had to fall into the opposing team's basket to score a point. That same year, Sega released an association football game, Goal Kick, which was played like an early vertical ball-and-paddle game. The first driving video games were also released that year: Taito's Speed Race (1974) which introduced scrolling
graphics, and Atari's Gran Trak 10
. In 1976, the driving subgenre was extended into three dimensions
, with the forward-scrolling third-person perspective of Sega's motorbike racing game Moto-Cross
, soon re-branded as Fonz
that same year, and with the first-person
perspective of Sega's Road Race and Atari's Night Driver
.
In 1975, Universal Research Laboratories (URL) released an early four-player multiple-sports game, Video Action, which featured several different sporting minigame
s, including Pong-style variants of tennis, hockey, and association football, as well as an early volley ball game and a unique four-court tennis game. Video Action was also an early example of cooperative gameplay
, as each sport could be played in teams of two. That same year, Nintendo
released EVR-Race, an early horse racing
simulation game with support for up to six players. In 1976, Sega released an early combat sport
game, Heavyweight Champ
, based on boxing
and now considered the first fighting game
. In 1978 Atari released Atari Football
, which is considered to be the first video game to accurately emulate American football
. Taito also released an early bowling
game in 1978, Top Bowler, followed by an early baseball
game in 1979, Ball Park.
and Mattel's
Intellivision
waged a series of high-stakes TV advertising campaigns promoting their respective systems, marking the start of the first console wars
. Atari prevailed in arcade game
s and had a larger customer base due to its lower price, while Intellivision touted its visually superior sports games. Sports writer George Plimpton
was featured in the Intellivision ads, which showed the parallel games side by side. Both Atari and Intellivision fielded at least one game for baseball, American football, hockey, basketball, auto racing and association football.
In 1981, Taito released Alpine Ski
, an early extreme sport
game, based on winter sport
s. It was a vertical scrolling
game that involved maneuvering a skier
through multiple events: a downhill
ski course, a slalom
racing course, and a ski jumping
competition. That same year, Sega's Turbo
introduced a third-person perspective into the genre, with Namco
's Pole Position then popularizing the now common rear-view racer format and introducing AI
opponents the following year.
In 1982, Taito released an early golf
game, Birdie King
, Tehkan released an early swimming
game, Swimmer
, and Data East
released an early fishing
game, Angler Dangler. That same year, ZX Spectrum released the first association football management simulation, Football Manager
, while Konami
released an early athletics game, Track & Field, which featured multiple Olympic
track & field
events (including the 100-meter
dash, long jump
, javelin throw
, 110-meter hurdles
, hammer throw
, and high jump
) and allowed up to four players to compete. In 1983, EA
produced their first sports game Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One, which was also the first licensed sports game based on the names and likenesses of famous athletes.
Also in 1983, Mattel
released Intellivision World Series Baseball
(IWSB) by Don Daglow
and Eddie Dombrower
, the first game to use multiple camera angle
s to show the action in a manner resembling a television broadcast. Games prior to this had displayed the entire field on screen, or scrolled across static top-down fields to show the action. IWSB mimicked television baseball coverage by showing the batter from a modified "center field" camera, the baserunners in corner insets and defensive plays from a camera behind the batter. It was also one of the first sports games to introduce audibly-speaking players (as opposed to text) using the Mattel Intellivoice
module.
Another early sports game to show multiple camera angles in 1983 was Irem's MotoRace USA
, a motorbike racing game that switched between vertical-scrolling and third-person views depending on the player's location on the map, switching to third-person view when near a city and to a vertical-scrolling view when on country roads. Another early sports game to feature digitized voices from that year was Alpha Denshi
's Exciting Soccer
, an early influential soccer football game, which let one or two players choose from six teams, featured a control scheme where they could tackle, shoot
, short-pass
, and long-pass, featured an overhead view, and had realistic touches like corner kick
s, throw-in
s, penalty shots, and cheerleaders. Another early soccer football game from that same year was Data East's Pro Soccer. Two early water sport games, both based on waterskiing, were also released that year: Taito's Water Ski and Irem's Tropical Angel, the latter also featuring a female player character. That same year, Taito released Joshi Volleyball, an early volleyball
game, and they released Irem's 10-Yard Fight
, an American-football game that featured an early career mode
, where the player progresses from high school
, to college
, professional
, playoff, and Super Bowl
, as the difficulty increases with each step. Meanwhile, Kaneko
released Roller Aces, an early roller skating
game played from a third-person perspective. An early wrestling
game, Technōs Japan's Tag-Team Wrestling, was also released that year, and was followed by another wrestling game, Sega's Appoooh
, the year after.
In 1984, several early sports laserdisc video game
s were released, including Universal
's Top Gear which featured 3D animated race car driving, while Sega's GP World and Taito's Laser Grand Prix featured live-action footage. Sega also produced a unique bullfighting
game, Bull Fight, and a multiple-watersports game Water Match (published by Bally Midway), which included swimming, kayaking
and boat racing; while Taito released a fully third-person motorbike racing game Kick Start, an early female sports
game based on high-school track & field, The Undoukai, and an early dirt track racing
game Buggy Challenge, featuring a buggy
. Other early dirt racing games from that year were dirt bike games: Nintendo
's Excitebike
and SNK
's motocross
game Jumping Cross. Nintendo also released an early four-player racquet sport
game, Vs. Tennis (the Nintendo Vs. System version of Tennis
), while SNK released an early horse racing
game, Gladiator 1984.
That same year, early ice hockey
games were also released: Alpha Denshi's Bull Fighter and Data East's Fighting Ice Hockey. Data East also released a unique lawn sports
game Haro Gate Ball, based on croquet
, while Nichibutsu released a unique game based on roller derby
, Roller Jammer. Meanwhile, Technos Japan released a unique game based on sumo wrestling, Syusse Oozumou, and the first martial arts
combat-sport game, Karate Champ
, considered one of the most influential fighting games. That same year, game designer Scott Orr
founded GameStar
, a game publisher specializing in Commodore 64
sports games, and served as its lead designer. GameStar was the most successful sports computer game company of its era, until Orr sold the company to Activision
in 1986.
In 1985, Sega released Hang-On
, a popular early Grand Prix style rear-view motorbike racer, considered the first full-body-experience video game. That same year, Nintendo released an early arm wrestling
game, Arm Wrestling, while Konami released a table tennis
game that attempted to accurately reflect the sport, Konami's Ping Pong
. That year, Tehkan also released Tehkan World Cup
, the first multiplayer soccer football game featuring a trackball
controller, where a button was used for kicking the ball and the trackball used for the direciton and speed of the shot, with gameplay that was fairly realistic. In 1988, EA released Earl Weaver Baseball
again developed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower, which for the first time combined a highly accurate simulation game with high quality graphics. This was also the first game in which an actual baseball manager provided the computer AI
. In 1996 Computer Gaming World
named EWB the 25th of its Best 150 Games of All Time, the second highest ranking for any sports game in that 1981–1996 period (after FPS Football).
, as a wave of fourth generation video game consoles were created to handle more complex games and graphics.
In 1989 EA
producer Richard Hilleman
hired GameStar's Scott Orr to re-design John Madden Football for the fast-growing Sega Genesis. In 1990 Orr and Hilleman released the game that is still recognized today as Madden Football, the best-selling title in the history of games in North America. They focused on producing a head-to-head two-player game with an intuitive interface
and responsive controls.
Also in 1990, Taito released Football Champ
, an early soccer football game to allow up to four players in multiplayer mode, involving both competitive and cooperative gameplay
. It also let players perform a number of actions, including a back heel, power kick
, high kick, sliding tackle
, super shot, and fouling other players (kicking, punching, and pulling shirts), which the player can get away with if the referee isn't looking, but the referee will hand out a yellow or red penalty card
if he spots foul play.
Orr joined EA full-time in 1991 after the success of Madden on the Sega Genesis, and began a ten-year period of his career where he personally supervised the production of the Madden Football series. During this time EA formed EA Sports
, a brand name used for sports games they produced. EA Sports created several ongoing series, with a new version released each year to reflect the changes in the sport and its teams since the previous release.
Later in the 1990s began the 32 bit era
, with the release of Sony's PlayStation
and 3D graphics cards
for personal computers (PCs). These updated systems allowed sports games to be made in 3D
. The first game to exploit these updates was Gremlin Interactive's
Actua Soccer
, released in 1995 for the PlayStation.
Meanwhile, Sierra Online released Front Page Sports Football
in 1995 for the PC. The following year Computer Gaming World
named it twelfth of the Best 150 Games of All Time, the highest ranking sports game in the list.
At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, extreme sport
video games began to appear more frequently.
In 1996, two early snowboarding
games were released: Namco
's Alpine Surfer in the arcades, and the UEP Systems
game Cool Boarders
for the PlayStation console. The following year, Square
's popular role-playing video game
, Final Fantasy VII
, included a snowboarding minigame that was later released as an indepdendent snowboarding game, Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding, for mobile phones. In 2000, SSX
was released. Based around boardercross
, the game featured fast downhill races, avoiding various objects whilst using others to perform jumps and increase the player's speed.
In 1997, Sega released one of the first mainstream skateboarding
games, Top Skater
, in the arcades, where it introduced a skateboard
controller
interface. The following year saw the release of the console skateboarding game Street Sk8er
, developed by Atelier Double and published by Electronic Arts
. In 1999, the subgenre was further popularized by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
, an arcade-like skateboarding game where players were challenged to execute elaborate tricks or collect a series of elements hidden throughout the level.
began a string of deals that granted exclusive rights to several prominent sports organizations, starting with the NFL
. This was quickly followed with two deals in January 2005 securing rights to the AFL and ESPN
licenses. This was a particularly hard blow to Sega
, the previous holder of the ESPN license, who had already been affected by EA's NFL deal. As the market for football brands was being quickly taken by EA, Take-Two Interactive
responded by contacting the Major League Baseball Players Association
and signing a deal that granted exclusive third-party major-league baseball rights; a deal not as restrictive, as first-party projects were still allowed. The NBA
was then approached by several developers, but declined to enter into an exclusivity agreement, instead granting long-term licenses to Electronic Arts
, Take-Two Interactive
, Midway Games
, Sony
, and Atari
. In April 2005, EA furthered its hold on American football licensing by securing rights to all NCAA
brands.
game controller designed to respond to a player's body movements, for their Genesis console. The Activator was based on the Light Harp, a MIDI controller
invented by Assaf Gurner.
Like the Light Harp, the Activator is an octogonal frame that lies on the floor. Light-emitting diode
s (LEDs) on the frame vertically project thin, invisible beams of infrared
light. When something, such as a player's arm or leg, inerrupts a beam, the device reads the distance at which the interruption occurred, and interprets the signal as a command
. The device can also interpret signals from multiple beams simultaneously (i.e., chords
) as a distinct command.
Sega designed especial Activator motions for a few of their own game releases. By tailoring motion signals specifically for a game, Sega attempted to provide a more intuitive gaming experience. A player could, for example, compete in Greatest Heavyweights of the Ring
or Eternal Champions
by miming punches.
Despite these efforts, the Activator was a commercial failure. Like the Power Glove
of 1989, it was widely rejected for its "unwieldiness and inaccuracy".
In 2006, Nintendo released Wii Sports
, a Sports game for the Wii
console in which the player had to physically move their Wii Remote
to move their avatar
. The game contained five different sports—boxing
, bowling
, golf
, tennis
, and baseball
—which could all be played individually or with multiple players. Players could also track their skill progress through the game, as they became more proficient with at the different sports, and use the training mode to practice particular situations.
Wii Sports opened the way for other physically reactive sports-based video games, such as Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
, the first official title to feature both Mario
and Sonic the Hedgehog
, in which players used the Wii Remote to simulate running, jumping and other Olympic
sports. In 2008, Nintendo released Wii Fit
, which allowed players to do aerobic
and fitness exercises
using the Wii Balance Board
. In a similar light, 2008 saw the release of Mario Kart Wii
, a racing game
which allowed the player to use their remote with a Wii Wheel to act as a steering wheel, akin to those on traditional arcade racing games.
and 2K Sports
, who hold licenses to produce games based on official leagues. EA's franchises include the FIFA series
, the NBA Live series, the Madden Football series, the NHL series, and Tiger Woods
series. All of these games feature real leagues, competitions and players. These games continue to sell well today despite many of the product lines being over a decade old, and receive, for the most part, consistently good reviews.
With EA Sports' domination, the market has become very difficult to enter; competing games in any of the above genres, with the exception of racing games, tend to be unsuccessful. This has led to a sharp drop in sports-themed titles over recent years. One of the most notable exceptions is Konami
's Pro Evolution Soccer
series, which is often hailed as an alternative to the FIFA series, but does not contain as many licensed teams, players, kits, or competitions. Racing games, due to the variation that the sport can offer in terms of tracks, cars and styles, offer more room for competition and the selection of games on offer has been considerably greater. Sports management games, while not as popular as they used to be, live on through small and independent software development houses. Management titles today have transitioned to the very popular fantasy sports leagues, which are available through many websites such as Yahoo
.
Nintendo
has been able to make an impact upon the sports market by producing several Mario
-themed titles, such as Super Mario Strikers
and Mario Tennis
. These titles sell respectfully, but are only available on Nintendo's video game console
s, for example GameCube, Nintendo 64
, Nintendo DS
, and the Wii
.
s. The competitive nature of sports lends itself well to the arcades where the main objective is usually to obtain a high score. The arcade style of play is generally more unrealistic and focuses on a quicker gameplay experience. However the competitive nature of sports and being able to gain a high score while compete against friends for free online, has made online sports games very popular. Examples of this include the NFL Blitz
and NBA Jam
series.
. Whereas some games are played online against other players, management games usually pit the player against AI
controlled teams in the same league
. Players are expected to handle strategy, tactics, transfers, and financial issues. Various examples of these games can be found in this category.
focus on creating realistic commentary and camera-angles. Additionally, televised sports, namely American football
, have started to model some of their cameras on those seen in video games, further blurring the line between fantasy and reality.
Personal computer game
A PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...
or video game that simulates the practice of traditional sport
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
s. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sport
Team sport
A team sport includes any sport which involves players working together towards a shared objective. A team sport is an activity in which a group of individuals, on the same team, work together to accomplish an ultimate goal which is usually to win. This can be done in a number of ways such as...
s, athletics and extreme sport
Extreme sport
An extreme sport is a popular term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger...
s. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (such as the Madden NFL series), whilst others emphasize strategy and organization (such as Championship Manager
Championship Manager series
The Championship Manager series is a series of British football-management simulation computer games, the first of which was released in 1992.The Championship Manager brand and game was conceived by two brothers: Paul and Oliver Collyer...
). Some, such as Arch Rivals
Arch Rivals
Arch Rivals is a basketball arcade game created by Midway in 1989. The game billed itself as "A Basket Brawl." It was also included on Midway Arcade Treasures 2 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube and Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition for the PC...
, satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games and is competitive, just like real-world sports. A number of game series features the names and characteristics of real teams and players, and are updated annually to reflect real-world changes.
Game design
Sports games involve physical and tactical challenges, and test the player's precision and accuracy. Most sports games attempt to model the athletic characteristics required by that sport, including speed, strength, acceleration, accuracy, and so on. As with their respective sports, these games take place in a stadium or arena with clear boundaries. Sports games often provide play-by-play and color commentary through the use of recorded audio.Sports games sometimes make use of different mode
Mode (computer interface)
In user interface design, a mode is a distinct setting within a computer program or any physical machine interface, in which the same user input will produce perceived different results than it would in other settings....
s for different parts of the game. This is especially true in games about American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
such as the Madden NFL
Madden NFL
Madden NFL is an American football video game series developed by Electronic Arts Tiburon for EA Sports. The game series is named after Pro Football Hall of Famer John Madden, a well-known former Super Bowl-winning coach of the Oakland Raiders and color commentator...
series, where executing a pass play requires six different gameplay modes in the span of approximately 45 seconds. Sometimes, other sports games offer a menu where players may select a strategy while play is temporarily suspended. Soccer video games sometimes shift gameplay modes when it is time for the player to attempt a penalty kick, where a single athlete tries to kick a goal passed the other team's goal keeper with no presence from other players. Some sports games also require players to shift roles between the athletes and the coach or manager. These mode switches are more intuitive than other game genres because they reflect actual sports.
Older 2D sports games sometimes used an unrealistic graphical scale, where athletes appeared to be quite large in order to be visible to the player. As sports games have evolved, players have come to expect a realistic graphical scale with a high degree of verisimilitude. Sports games often simplify the game physics for ease of play, and ignore factors such as a player's inertia. Games typically take place with a highly accurate time-scale, although they usually allow players to play quick sessions with shorter game quarters or periods.
Sports games sometimes treat button-pushes as continuous signals rather than discrete moves, in order to initiate and end a continuous action. For example, football games may distinguish between short and long passes based on how long the player holds a button. Golf games often initiate the backswing with one button-push, and the swing itself is initiated by a subsequent push.
Beginnings of sports games
William Higinbotham
William A. Higginbotham , an American physicist, is credited with creating one of the first computer games, Tennis for Two. Like Pong, it is a portrait of a game of tennis or ping-pong, but featured very different game mechanics that have no resemblance to the later game...
created a game called Tennis for Two
Tennis for Two
Tennis for Two was a game developed in 1958 on an analog computer, which simulates a game of tennis or ping pong on an oscilloscope. Created by American physicist William Higinbotham, it is important in the history of video games as one of the first electronic games to use a graphical...
, a competitive two-player tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
game played on an oscilloscope
Oscilloscope
An oscilloscope is a type of electronic test instrument that allows observation of constantly varying signal voltages, usually as a two-dimensional graph of one or more electrical potential differences using the vertical or 'Y' axis, plotted as a function of time,...
. The players would select the angle at which to put their racket, and pressed a button to return it. Although this game was incredibly simple, it demonstrated how an action game
Action game
Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...
(rather than previous puzzles) could be played on a computer.
Computer games prior to the late 1970s were primarily played on university mainframe
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
computers under timesharing systems that supported multiple computer terminals on school campuses. The two dominant systems in this era were Digital Equipment Corporation's
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
PDP-10
PDP-10
The PDP-10 was a mainframe computer family manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation from the late 1960s on; the name stands for "Programmed Data Processor model 10". The first model was delivered in 1966...
and Control Data Corporation's
Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation was a supercomputer firm. For most of the 1960s, it built the fastest computers in the world by far, only losing that crown in the 1970s after Seymour Cray left the company to found Cray Research, Inc....
PLATO
PLATO
PLATO was the first generalized computer assisted instruction system, and, by the late 1970s, comprised several thousand terminals worldwide on nearly a dozen different networked mainframe computers...
. Both could only display text, and not graphics,originally printed on teleprinter
Teleprinter
A teleprinter is a electromechanical typewriter that can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point and point to multipoint over a variety of communication channels that range from a simple electrical connection, such as a pair of wires, to the use of radio and microwave as the...
s and line printer
Line printer
The line printer is a form of high speed impact printer in which one line of type is printed at a time. They are mostly associated with the early days of computing, but the technology is still in use...
s, but later printed on single-color CRT
Cathode ray tube
The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
screens.
Around that time, electro-mechanical sports arcade game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
s were being produced. Examples include Taito
Taito
Taito may mean:*Taito Corporation, a Japanese developer of video game software and arcade hardware*Taito, Tokyo, a special ward located in Tokyo, Japan*Taito, also known as matai, paramount chiefs according to Fa'a Samoa...
's Crown Soccer Special (1967), Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
's racing game
Racing game
A racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...
Grand Prix (1969), and Chicago Coin
Chicago Coin
Chicago Coin was one of the early major manufacturers of pinball tables. Chicago Coin, founded in 1931, would make pingames and modern pinball machines for over 45 years before being sold to the Stern family in 1977 and becoming Stern Electronics, Inc....
's racing game Speedway (1969). In the 1970s, arcade video games began to appear, many of them centred around the sports genre, after it was popularized by the first commercially successful video game, Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
's Pong
Pong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
(1972).
In 1973, Taito released an early team sport
Team sport
A team sport includes any sport which involves players working together towards a shared objective. A team sport is an activity in which a group of individuals, on the same team, work together to accomplish an ultimate goal which is usually to win. This can be done in a number of ways such as...
video game, Davis Cup, a tennis doubles game with similar ball-and-paddle gameplay but played in doubles, with both players controlling two paddles each. That year, Taito also released another early team sport video game, Soccer, based on association football; it was also a ball-and-paddle game, but with a green background to simulate a playfield, allowed each player to control both a forward and a goalkeeper, and let them adjust the size of the players who were represented as paddles on screen. Both Davis Cup and Soccer were designed by Tomohiro Nishikado of Space Invaders
Space Invaders
is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to...
fame. Early hockey
Hockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...
video games were also released in 1973: Sega's Hockey TV, and Taito's Pro Hockey, which had similar gameplay to Pong but with boundaries around the screen and only a small gap for the goal.
In 1974, Taito released Basketball, an early basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
game. It was an early example of a video game that displayed sprite
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
images, both for the players and the baskets, and an early attempt at accurately simulating a team sport. Each player controlled two team members, a forward and a guard, both represented as sprite character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
images. The ball could be dribbled and passed between team members before shooting, and the ball had to fall into the opposing team's basket to score a point. That same year, Sega released an association football game, Goal Kick, which was played like an early vertical ball-and-paddle game. The first driving video games were also released that year: Taito's Speed Race (1974) which introduced scrolling
Scrolling
In computer graphics, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display. "Scrolling", as such, does not change the layout of the text or pictures, or but incrementally moves the user's view across what is...
graphics, and Atari's Gran Trak 10
Gran Trak 10
Gran Trak 10 was a single-player racing arcade game released by Atari in 1974. The player raced against the clock, accumulating as many points as possible....
. In 1976, the driving subgenre was extended into three dimensions
2.5D
2.5D , 3/4 perspective and pseudo-3D are terms used to describe either:* 2D graphical projections and techniques which cause a series of images or scenes to fake or appear to be three-dimensional when in fact they are not, or* gameplay in an otherwise three-dimensional video game that is...
, with the forward-scrolling third-person perspective of Sega's motorbike racing game Moto-Cross
Fonz (arcade)
Fonz is a 1976 arcade racing video game developed by Sega and published by Sega-Gremlin. The game was based on the hit TV show Happy Days and the slogan was "TV's hottest name, Your hottest game." The game itself was simply a rebranded variant of Sega's earlier 1976 game Moto-Cross in a customized...
, soon re-branded as Fonz
Fonz (arcade)
Fonz is a 1976 arcade racing video game developed by Sega and published by Sega-Gremlin. The game was based on the hit TV show Happy Days and the slogan was "TV's hottest name, Your hottest game." The game itself was simply a rebranded variant of Sega's earlier 1976 game Moto-Cross in a customized...
that same year, and with the first-person
First person (video games)
In video games, first person refers to a graphical perspective rendered from the viewpoint of the player character. In many cases, this may be the viewpoint from the cockpit of a vehicle. Many different genres have made use of first-person perspectives, ranging from adventure games to flight...
perspective of Sega's Road Race and Atari's Night Driver
Night Driver
Night Driver is a 1976 arcade game by Atari Inc. It was one of the earliest first-person racing games, and is believed to be one of the first published games to display real-time first-person graphics....
.
In 1975, Universal Research Laboratories (URL) released an early four-player multiple-sports game, Video Action, which featured several different sporting minigame
Minigame
A minigame is a short video game often contained within another video game. A minigame is always smaller or more simplistic than the game in which it is contained. Minigames are sometimes also offered separately for free to promote the main game...
s, including Pong-style variants of tennis, hockey, and association football, as well as an early volley ball game and a unique four-court tennis game. Video Action was also an early example of cooperative gameplay
Cooperative gameplay
Cooperative gameplay is a feature in video games that allows players to work together as teammates. It is distinct from other multiplayer modes, such as competitive multiplayer modes like player versus player or deathmatch...
, as each sport could be played in teams of two. That same year, Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
released EVR-Race, an early horse racing
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
simulation game with support for up to six players. In 1976, Sega released an early combat sport
Combat sport
A Combat sport, also known as a Fighting sport, is a competitive contact sport where two combatants fight against each other using certain rules of engagement , typically with the aim of simulating parts of real hand to hand combat...
game, Heavyweight Champ
Heavyweight Champ
Heavyweight Champ is a boxing sports arcade game, released by Sega in 1976. The game featured black-and-white graphics with the controls inside a set of plastic boxing gloves attached to the arcade cabinet...
, based on boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
and now considered the first fighting game
Fighting game
Fighting game is a video game genre where the player controls an on-screen character and engages in close combat with an opponent. These characters tend to be of equal power and fight matches consisting of several rounds, which take place in an arena. Players must master techniques such as...
. In 1978 Atari released Atari Football
Atari Football
Atari Football is a 2-player 1978 arcade game. It was developed and published by Atari, Inc.. In this game, the sport of American football is accurately emulated, with players represented by Xs and Os. The game was one of the most popular arcade games in its day...
, which is considered to be the first video game to accurately emulate American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
. Taito also released an early bowling
Bowling
Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
game in 1978, Top Bowler, followed by an early baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
game in 1979, Ball Park.
1980s
Between 1980 and 1984, AtariAtari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
and Mattel's
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
Intellivision
Intellivision
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
waged a series of high-stakes TV advertising campaigns promoting their respective systems, marking the start of the first console wars
Console wars
"Console wars", also known as "System wars" is a term used to refer to periods of intense competition for market share between video game console manufacturers. The winners of these "wars" may be debated based on different standards: market penetration and financial success, or the fierce loyalty...
. Atari prevailed in arcade game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
s and had a larger customer base due to its lower price, while Intellivision touted its visually superior sports games. Sports writer George Plimpton
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.-Early life:...
was featured in the Intellivision ads, which showed the parallel games side by side. Both Atari and Intellivision fielded at least one game for baseball, American football, hockey, basketball, auto racing and association football.
- Activision TennisActivision TennisActivision Tennis is a 1981 Atari 2600 video game by Activision. It was one of a series of sports games by Activision, which also included 1980's Activision Boxing...
(1981) - Track & Field (1982)
- Pole PositionPole PositionPole Position is a racing video game released in 1982 by Namco. It was published by Namco in Japan and by Atari, Inc. in the United States...
(1982)
In 1981, Taito released Alpine Ski
Alpine Ski
Alpine Ski is an Alpine skiing arcade game, released by Taito in 1981.- Description :The player controls a skier, who can move left, right, or increase forward speed. The aim is to maneuver a skier through a downhill ski course, a slalom course, and a ski jumping competition in the shortest time...
, an early extreme sport
Extreme sport
An extreme sport is a popular term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger...
game, based on winter sport
Winter sport
A winter sport is a sport which is played on snow or ice. Most such sports are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding. Traditionally such sports were only played in cold areas during winter, but artificial snow and ice allow more flexibility...
s. It was a vertical scrolling
Scrolling
In computer graphics, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display. "Scrolling", as such, does not change the layout of the text or pictures, or but incrementally moves the user's view across what is...
game that involved maneuvering a skier
Skiing
Skiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....
through multiple events: a downhill
Downhill
Downhill is an alpine skiing discipline. The rules for the Downhill were originally developed by Sir Arnold Lunn for the 1921 British National Ski Championships....
ski course, a slalom
Slalom skiing
Slalom is an alpine skiing discipline, involving skiing between poles spaced much closer together than in Giant Slalom, Super-G or Downhill, thereby causing quicker and shorter turns.- Origins :...
racing course, and a ski jumping
Ski jumping
Ski jumping is a sport in which skiers go down a take-off ramp, jump and attempt to land as far as possible down the hill below. In addition to the length of the jump, judges give points for style. The skis used for ski jumping are wide and long...
competition. That same year, Sega's Turbo
Turbo (video game)
Turbo is a racing game released in 1981 by Sega. The game was brought into arcades in both the standard upright cabinet format, and a semi-enclosed sit-down version to better simulate driving a real car.. The cars in the game resemble Formula 1 race cars. It was the first game to feature the now...
introduced a third-person perspective into the genre, with Namco
Namco
is a Japanese corporation best known as a former video game developer and publisher. Following a merger with Bandai in September 2005, the two companies' game production assets were spun off into Namco Bandai Games on March 31, 2006. Namco Ltd. was re-established to continue domestic operation of...
's Pole Position then popularizing the now common rear-view racer format and introducing AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
opponents the following year.
In 1982, Taito released an early golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
game, Birdie King
Birdie King
Birdie King is a golf arcade game released in 1982 by Taito....
, Tehkan released an early swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
game, Swimmer
Swimmer (arcade game)
Swimmer is an arcade game developed in 1982 by Tehkan and published by Centuri. The comic gameplay involves swimming up a river while avoiding logs and various marine life. The player collects fruit to score points and power up to knock enemies out. Players could swim from side to side to avoid...
, and Data East
Data East
also abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game developer and publisher. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, when it declared bankruptcy...
released an early fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
game, Angler Dangler. That same year, ZX Spectrum released the first association football management simulation, Football Manager
Football Manager series (original)
Football Manager is a video game series published and developed by Addictive Games, the label set up by the game's creator Kevin Toms. The first game was released in 1982...
, while Konami
Konami
is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...
released an early athletics game, Track & Field, which featured multiple Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
track & field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
events (including the 100-meter
100 metres
The 100 metres, or 100-metre dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, it is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896...
dash, long jump
Long jump
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength, and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point...
, javelin throw
Javelin throw
The javelin throw is a track and field athletics throwing event where the object to be thrown is the javelin, a spear approximately 2.5 metres in length. Javelin is an event of both the men's decathlon and the women's heptathlon...
, 110-meter hurdles
110 metres hurdles
The 110 metres hurdles is a hurdling track and field event for men. It is incuded in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympic Games. The female counterpart is the 100 metre hurdles. As part of a racing event, ten hurdles of 1.067 metres in height are evenly spaced along a straight...
, hammer throw
Hammer throw
The modern or Olympic hammer throw is an athletic throwing event where the object is to throw a heavy metal ball attached to a wire and handle. The name "hammer throw" is derived from older competitions where an actual sledge hammer was thrown...
, and high jump
High jump
The high jump is a track and field athletics event in which competitors must jump over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without the aid of certain devices in its modern most practiced format; auxiliary weights and mounds have been used for assistance; rules have changed over the years....
) and allowed up to four players to compete. In 1983, EA
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
produced their first sports game Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One, which was also the first licensed sports game based on the names and likenesses of famous athletes.
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
released Intellivision World Series Baseball
Intellivision World Series Baseball
Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball is a baseball sports game , designed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower and published by Mattel for the Intellivision Entertainment Computer System. IWSB was the first video game of any kind to use multiple camera angles, and the first sports game...
(IWSB) by Don Daglow
Don Daglow
Don Daglow is an American computer game and video game designer, programmer and producer. He is best known for designing a series of pioneering simulation games and role-playing games, as well as the first computer baseball game and the first graphical MMORPG, all between 1971 and 1995...
and Eddie Dombrower
Eddie Dombrower
Eddie Dombrower is an American computer game and video game designer, programmer and producer. He is best known as the co-creator of the seminal baseball games Earl Weaver Baseball and Intellivision World Series Baseball...
, the first game to use multiple camera angle
Camera angle
The camera angle marks the specific location at which a camera is placed to take a shot. A scene may be shot from several camera angles. This will give different experience and sometimes emotion. the different camera angles will have different effects on the viewer and how they perceive the scene...
s to show the action in a manner resembling a television broadcast. Games prior to this had displayed the entire field on screen, or scrolled across static top-down fields to show the action. IWSB mimicked television baseball coverage by showing the batter from a modified "center field" camera, the baserunners in corner insets and defensive plays from a camera behind the batter. It was also one of the first sports games to introduce audibly-speaking players (as opposed to text) using the Mattel Intellivoice
Intellivoice
The Intellivoice Voice Synthesis Module was an adapter for the Intellivision, Mattel's home gaming console, that utilized a voice synthesizer to generate audible speech...
module.
Another early sports game to show multiple camera angles in 1983 was Irem's MotoRace USA
MotoRace USA
MotoRace USA is an arcade game released by Irem in 1983.-Gameplay:...
, a motorbike racing game that switched between vertical-scrolling and third-person views depending on the player's location on the map, switching to third-person view when near a city and to a vertical-scrolling view when on country roads. Another early sports game to feature digitized voices from that year was Alpha Denshi
ADK (company)
, also known as , was a Japanese video game production company founded sometime in July of 1980. "ADK" is an acronym for Alpha, Denshi, and the Japanese term for "corporation", Kabushiki kaisha...
's Exciting Soccer
Exciting Soccer
Exciting Soccer is an arcade game from Alpha Denshi, released in 1983. It is an association football game which includes penalty shootout if the game ends in a tie. If you win the game you move on to the next level, each time the opponent gets harder to beat. When you start playing you can choose...
, an early influential soccer football game, which let one or two players choose from six teams, featured a control scheme where they could tackle, shoot
Shooting (association football)
In association football, shooting is a specialized kicking technique mainly used by forwards. The purpose of shooting is to get the ball past the goal line , though some shots may be made in order to win corners or force the keeper to deflect the ball into the path of a teammate - this will only be...
, short-pass
Passing (association football)
Passing the ball is a key part of association football. The purpose of passing is to keep possession of the ball by maneuvering it on the ground between different players and to advance it up the playing field....
, and long-pass, featured an overhead view, and had realistic touches like corner kick
Corner kick
A corner kick is a method of restarting play in a game of association football. It was first devised in Sheffield under the Sheffield Rules 1867...
s, throw-in
Throw-in
A throw-in is a method of restarting play in a game of Association football.-Procedure:The throw-in is taken from the point where the ball crossed the touch-line. The throw-in is taken by the opponents of the player who last touched the ball when it crossed the touch-line, either on the ground or...
s, penalty shots, and cheerleaders. Another early soccer football game from that same year was Data East's Pro Soccer. Two early water sport games, both based on waterskiing, were also released that year: Taito's Water Ski and Irem's Tropical Angel, the latter also featuring a female player character. That same year, Taito released Joshi Volleyball, an early volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
game, and they released Irem's 10-Yard Fight
10-Yard Fight
is a American football arcade game that was developed and published in Japan by Irem and published in the United States by Taito and in Europe by Electrocoin. It is the first slightly realistic American football video game ever developed and released.-Gameplay:...
, an American-football game that featured an early career mode
Be-a-pro mode
The usage of be-a-pro mode is a repackaging of the player-lock feature with a primitive evaluation system added to rate the player's performance...
, where the player progresses from high school
High school football
High school football, in North America, refers to the game of football as it is played in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both of these nations....
, to college
College football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
, professional
Professional football
In the United States and Canada, the term professional football includes the professional forms of American and Canadian gridiron football. In common usage, it refers to former and existing major football leagues in either country...
, playoff, and Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
, as the difficulty increases with each step. Meanwhile, Kaneko
Kaneko
, also referred to as , was a Japanese video game publisher founded in Suginami, Tokyo, Japan by Hiroshi Kaneko. It published a number of games both under its brand and other companies, such as Air Buster, Nexzr, Shogun Warriors, DJ Boy, Guts'n, and the Gals Panic series...
released Roller Aces, an early roller skating
Roller skating
Roller skating is the traveling on smooth surfaces with roller skates. It is a form of recreation as well as a sport, and can also be a form of transportation. Skates generally come in two basic varieties: quad roller skates and inline skates or blades, though some have experimented with a...
game played from a third-person perspective. An early wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
game, Technōs Japan's Tag-Team Wrestling, was also released that year, and was followed by another wrestling game, Sega's Appoooh
Appoooh
Appoooh is a wrestling arcade game released by Sega in 1984 only in Japan.Each wrestler is a parody of a real-life wrestler:* G.Babu - Giant Baba* H.Hogen - Hulk Hogan* A.Inoke - Antonio Inoki* S.Hanson - Stan Hansen* Tigerman - Tiger Mask...
, the year after.
In 1984, several early sports laserdisc video game
Laserdisc video game
A laserdisc video game is an arcade game that uses pre-recorded video played from a laserdisc, either as the entirety of the graphics, or as part of the graphics.-History:...
s were released, including Universal
Aruze
, is a Japanese manufacturer of pachinko, slot machines, arcade games and other gaming products, and a publisher of video games. Aruze possesses licenses to both manufacture and distribute casino machines in the American states of Nevada, Mississippi and New Jersey. The company's corporate...
's Top Gear which featured 3D animated race car driving, while Sega's GP World and Taito's Laser Grand Prix featured live-action footage. Sega also produced a unique bullfighting
Bullfighting
Bullfighting is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, southern France and some Latin American countries , in which one or more bulls are baited in a bullring for sport and entertainment...
game, Bull Fight, and a multiple-watersports game Water Match (published by Bally Midway), which included swimming, kayaking
Kayaking
Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving across water. Kayaking and canoeing are also known as paddling. Kayaking is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle...
and boat racing; while Taito released a fully third-person motorbike racing game Kick Start, an early female sports
Women's sports
Women's sports include amateur and professional competitions in virtually all sports. Female participation in sports rose dramatically in the twentieth century, especially in the last quarter, reflecting changes in modern societies that emphasized gender parity...
game based on high-school track & field, The Undoukai, and an early dirt track racing
Dirt track racing
Dirt track racing is a type of auto racing performed on oval tracks. It began in the United States before World War I and became widespread during the 1920s and 30s. Two different types of racecars predominated—open wheel racers in the Northeast and West and stock cars in the South...
game Buggy Challenge, featuring a buggy
Dune buggy
A dune buggy is a recreational vehicle with large wheels, and wide tires, designed for use on sand dunes or beaches. The design is usually a modified vehicle and engine mounted on an open chassis. The modifications usually attempt to increase the power-to-weight ratio by either lightening the...
. Other early dirt racing games from that year were dirt bike games: Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
's Excitebike
Excitebike
is a motocross racing video game franchise made by Nintendo. It first debuted as a game for the Famicom in Japan in 1984 and as a launch title for the NES in 1985. It is the first game of the Excite series, succeeded by its direct sequel Excitebike 64, its spiritual successors Excite Truck and...
and SNK
SNK
SNK is a former name of SNK Playmore, a Japanese video game company . This may also refer to:* SNK European Democrats* SNK Union of Independents* Southeast Airlines ICAO code...
's motocross
Motocross
Motocross is a form of motorcycle sport or all-terrain vehicle racing held on enclosed off road circuits. It evolved from trials, and was called scrambles, and later motocross, combining the French moto with cross-country...
game Jumping Cross. Nintendo also released an early four-player racquet sport
Racquet sport
Racquet sports are those where players use racquets to hit a ball or other object.-List of racquet sports:* Badminton* Ball badminton* Basque pelota** Frontenis** Jai alai* Beach tennis** Matkot* Bilbocatch* Frescoball* Lacrosse...
game, Vs. Tennis (the Nintendo Vs. System version of Tennis
Tennis (video game)
Tennis is a sports game released in Japan for the Famicom in 1984, and in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. In North America, Tennis was one of 18 launch games for the NES.-Gameplay:...
), while SNK released an early horse racing
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
game, Gladiator 1984.
That same year, early ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
games were also released: Alpha Denshi's Bull Fighter and Data East's Fighting Ice Hockey. Data East also released a unique lawn sports
Lawn game
A lawn game is any outdoor game that can be played on a lawn. Many games that are traditionally played on a pitch are marketed as "lawn games" for home use in a front or back yard.Common lawn games include:*Horseshoes*Lawn darts*Croquet*Cornhole*Bocce...
game Haro Gate Ball, based on croquet
Croquet
Croquet is a lawn game, played both as a recreational pastime and as a competitive sport. It involves hitting plastic or wooden balls with a mallet through hoops embedded into the grass playing court.-History:...
, while Nichibutsu released a unique game based on roller derby
Roller derby
Roller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Game play consists of a series of short matchups in which both teams designate a scoring player who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team...
, Roller Jammer. Meanwhile, Technos Japan released a unique game based on sumo wrestling, Syusse Oozumou, and the first martial arts
Martial arts
Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....
combat-sport game, Karate Champ
Karate Champ
Karate Champ, known in Japan as is a arcade game developed by Technos Japan Corporation for Data East. It is one of the first fighting games, and has been believed to be the first to use today's common side-perspective...
, considered one of the most influential fighting games. That same year, game designer Scott Orr
Scott Orr
Scott Orr is an American computer game and video game designer best known as the original lead designer on the first video game console versions of the North American best-selling game, Madden NFL Football...
founded GameStar
GameStar
GameStar is a monthly released PC computer game magazine, published by the IDG Entertainment Media GmbH in Germany. In 2008 it had an average monthly circulation of 250,000 copies and is therefore the best sold PC computer game magazine in Europe. It is also being published in Hungary, the Czech...
, a game publisher specializing in Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
sports games, and served as its lead designer. GameStar was the most successful sports computer game company of its era, until Orr sold the company to Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
in 1986.
In 1985, Sega released Hang-On
Hang-On
Hang-On is an arcade game released by Sega in 1985. It is the world's first full-body-experience video game. In the game, the player controls a motorcycle against time and other computer-controlled bikes. It was one of the first arcade games to use 16-bit graphics and Sega's "Super Scaler"...
, a popular early Grand Prix style rear-view motorbike racer, considered the first full-body-experience video game. That same year, Nintendo released an early arm wrestling
Arm wrestling
Arm wrestling is a sport with two participants. Each participant places one arm on a surface with their elbows bent and touching the surface, and they grip each other's hand...
game, Arm Wrestling, while Konami released a table tennis
Table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight, hollow ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net...
game that attempted to accurately reflect the sport, Konami's Ping Pong
Konami's Ping Pong
Konami's Ping Pong is a sports arcade game created in 1985 by Konami. The game is noted as the first video game to accurately reflect the gameplay of table tennis, as opposed to earlier over-simplifications like Pong...
. That year, Tehkan also released Tehkan World Cup
Tehkan World Cup
Tehkan World Cup, aka. Tecmo Cup, is the first multi-player soccer game featuring a trackball controller. Programmed by Michishito Ishizuka it was released to arcades in 1985 by Tehkan, Ltd., the former name of Tecmo, Inc. Its arrival coincided with the buildup to the 1986 FIFA World Cup...
, the first multiplayer soccer football game featuring a trackball
Trackball
A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down mouse with an exposed protruding ball. The user rolls the ball with the thumb, fingers, or the palm of the hand to move a cursor...
controller, where a button was used for kicking the ball and the trackball used for the direciton and speed of the shot, with gameplay that was fairly realistic. In 1988, EA released Earl Weaver Baseball
Earl Weaver Baseball
Earl Weaver Baseball is a baseball computer game , designed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower and published by Electronic Arts. The artificial intelligence for the computer manager was provided by Baseball Hall of Fame member Earl Weaver, then manager of the Baltimore Orioles...
again developed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower, which for the first time combined a highly accurate simulation game with high quality graphics. This was also the first game in which an actual baseball manager provided the computer AI
Ai
AI, A.I., Ai, or ai may refer to:- Computers :* Artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science* Ad impression, in online advertising* .ai, the ISO Internet 2-letter country code for Anguilla...
. In 1996 Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
named EWB the 25th of its Best 150 Games of All Time, the second highest ranking for any sports game in that 1981–1996 period (after FPS Football).
1990s
The 1990s began in the 16 bit eraHistory of video game consoles (fourth generation)
In the history of computer and video games, the fourth generation began on October 30, 1987 with the Japanese release of Nippon Electric Company's PC Engine...
, as a wave of fourth generation video game consoles were created to handle more complex games and graphics.
In 1989 EA
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
producer Richard Hilleman
Richard Hilleman
Richard Hilleman is an American computer game and video game producer best known for his work creating the original Madden Football game for video game consoles for Electronic Arts. Apart from Madden, Hilleman was a key figure in building the massive EA Sports brand and has spent over 20 years...
hired GameStar's Scott Orr to re-design John Madden Football for the fast-growing Sega Genesis. In 1990 Orr and Hilleman released the game that is still recognized today as Madden Football, the best-selling title in the history of games in North America. They focused on producing a head-to-head two-player game with an intuitive interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
and responsive controls.
Also in 1990, Taito released Football Champ
Football Champ
Football Champ is an arcade-style football video game. The game was produced by Team Dogyan developers in Japan, and originally released in the arcades by Taito Corporation in 1990...
, an early soccer football game to allow up to four players in multiplayer mode, involving both competitive and cooperative gameplay
Cooperative gameplay
Cooperative gameplay is a feature in video games that allows players to work together as teammates. It is distinct from other multiplayer modes, such as competitive multiplayer modes like player versus player or deathmatch...
. It also let players perform a number of actions, including a back heel, power kick
Soccer kick
A soccer kick is a reference to a kick that is similar to kicks used in association football. For short distanced passes, the instep or the outside of the foot can be used...
, high kick, sliding tackle
Sliding tackle
A sliding tackle or slide tackle is a tackle in soccer in which a player attempts to take the ball away from an opposing player by deliberately leaving his feet and sliding along the ground with one leg extended to push the ball away from the opposing player.Sliding tackles can often be sources of...
, super shot, and fouling other players (kicking, punching, and pulling shirts), which the player can get away with if the referee isn't looking, but the referee will hand out a yellow or red penalty card
Penalty card
A penalty card is used in many sports as a means of warning, reprimanding or penalising a player, coach or team official. Penalty cards are most commonly used by referees or umpires to indicate that a player has committed an offense. The referee will hold the card above his or her head while...
if he spots foul play.
Orr joined EA full-time in 1991 after the success of Madden on the Sega Genesis, and began a ten-year period of his career where he personally supervised the production of the Madden Football series. During this time EA formed EA Sports
EA Sports
EA Sports is a brand of Electronic Arts that creates and develops sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to mimic real-life sports networks by calling themselves "EA Sports Network" with pictures or endorsements of real commentators such as John...
, a brand name used for sports games they produced. EA Sports created several ongoing series, with a new version released each year to reflect the changes in the sport and its teams since the previous release.
Later in the 1990s began the 32 bit era
History of video game consoles (fifth generation)
The fifth-generation era refers to the computer and video games, video game consoles, and video game handhelds available at stores...
, with the release of Sony's PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
and 3D graphics cards
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
for personal computers (PCs). These updated systems allowed sports games to be made in 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
. The first game to exploit these updates was Gremlin Interactive's
Gremlin Interactive
Gremlin Interactive was a British software house based in Sheffield and working mostly in the home computer market.- History :...
Actua Soccer
Actua Soccer
Actua Soccer is a football video game series that was developed by Gremlin Interactive as part of their Actua Sports series, and was the first football game to use full 3D graphics...
, released in 1995 for the PlayStation.
Meanwhile, Sierra Online released Front Page Sports Football
Front Page Sports Football
Front Page Sports Football , first released in 1992, was the first in a series of American football simulations released by Sierra Online. In 1996, Computer Gaming World magazine named it the 11th best computer game of all-time...
in 1995 for the PC. The following year Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
named it twelfth of the Best 150 Games of All Time, the highest ranking sports game in the list.
Extreme sports enters into the mainstream
Extreme sport
An extreme sport is a popular term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger...
video games began to appear more frequently.
In 1996, two early snowboarding
Snowboarding
Snowboarding is a sport that involves descending a slope that is covered with snow on a snowboard attached to a rider's feet using a special boot set onto mounted binding. The development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, sledding, surfing and skiing. It was developed in the U.S.A...
games were released: Namco
Namco
is a Japanese corporation best known as a former video game developer and publisher. Following a merger with Bandai in September 2005, the two companies' game production assets were spun off into Namco Bandai Games on March 31, 2006. Namco Ltd. was re-established to continue domestic operation of...
's Alpine Surfer in the arcades, and the UEP Systems
UEP Systems
UEP Systems was a Japan-based video game developer founded in 1985. They were best known for their PlayStation-era snowboarding games, though they also released titles for PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, Neo Geo Pocket, and arcades...
game Cool Boarders
Cool Boarders
Cool Boarders is a snowboarding video game developed by UEP Systems for the PlayStation. It was released in Japan in August 1996, in North America in December 1996, and in Europe in January 1997...
for the PlayStation console. The following year, Square
Square (company)
was a Japanese video game company founded in September 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. It merged with Enix in 2003 and became part of Square Enix...
's popular role-playing video game
Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
, Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII
is a role-playing video game developed by Square and published by Sony Computer Entertainment as the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series. It was originally released in 1997 for the Sony PlayStation and was re-released in 1998 for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers and in 2009...
, included a snowboarding minigame that was later released as an indepdendent snowboarding game, Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding, for mobile phones. In 2000, SSX
SSX
SSX is the first in the SSX series of snowboarding video games...
was released. Based around boardercross
Boardercross
Snowboard cross is a snowboard competition in which a group of snowboarders start simultaneously atop an inclined course, then race to reach the finish line first...
, the game featured fast downhill races, avoiding various objects whilst using others to perform jumps and increase the player's speed.
In 1997, Sega released one of the first mainstream skateboarding
Skateboarding
Skateboarding is an action sport which involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard.Skateboarding can be a recreational activity, an art form, a job, or a method of transportation. Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002 report...
games, Top Skater
Top Skater
Top Skater is an arcade game released by Sega in 1997, and built on the Sega Model 2 hardware. It was one of the first arcade games to feature a skateboard controller interface....
, in the arcades, where it introduced a skateboard
Skateboard
A skateboard is typically a specially designed plywood board combined with a polyurethane coating used for making smoother slides and stronger durability, used primarily for the activity of skateboarding. The first skateboards to reach public notice came out of the surfing craze of the early 1960s,...
controller
Game controller
A game controller is a device used with games or entertainment systems used to control a playable character or object, or otherwise provide input in a computer game. A controller is typically connected to a game console or computer by means of a wire, cord or nowadays, by means of wireless connection...
interface. The following year saw the release of the console skateboarding game Street Sk8er
Street Sk8er
Street Skater - sometimes spelled as "Street Sk8er" - is a skateboarding video game for the PlayStation. It was first released in Japan in 1998 under the name Street Boarders, then was licensed by Electronic Arts for distribution in America in 1999. It was re-released later in Japan as part of the...
, developed by Atelier Double and published by Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
. In 1999, the subgenre was further popularized by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
-Reception:The game was very well-received by most critics, scoring an outstanding 92 on Metacritic based on 18 reviews for the PS1 version. IGN gave the N64 version of the game a 9.1 out of 10 praising the gameplay for "genius control, combo system and design" despite little criticism with sound...
, an arcade-like skateboarding game where players were challenged to execute elaborate tricks or collect a series of elements hidden throughout the level.
Sports gaming becomes big business
On 13 December 2004, Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
began a string of deals that granted exclusive rights to several prominent sports organizations, starting with the NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
. This was quickly followed with two deals in January 2005 securing rights to the AFL and ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
licenses. This was a particularly hard blow to Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
, the previous holder of the ESPN license, who had already been affected by EA's NFL deal. As the market for football brands was being quickly taken by EA, Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a major American publisher, developer, and distributor of video games and video game peripherals. Take-Two wholly owns 2K Games and Rockstar Games. The company's headquarters are in New York City, with international headquarters in Windsor, United Kingdom...
responded by contacting the Major League Baseball Players Association
Major League Baseball Players Association
The Major League Baseball Players Association is the union of professional major-league baseball players.-History of MLBPA:The MLBPA was not the first attempt to unionize baseball players...
and signing a deal that granted exclusive third-party major-league baseball rights; a deal not as restrictive, as first-party projects were still allowed. The NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
was then approached by several developers, but declined to enter into an exclusivity agreement, instead granting long-term licenses to Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
, Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a major American publisher, developer, and distributor of video games and video game peripherals. Take-Two wholly owns 2K Games and Rockstar Games. The company's headquarters are in New York City, with international headquarters in Windsor, United Kingdom...
, Midway Games
Midway Games
Midway Games, Inc. is an American company that was formerly a major video game publisher. Following a bankruptcy filing in 2009, it is no longer active and is in the process of liquidating all of its assets. Midway's titles included Mortal Kombat, Ms.Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Tron, Rampage, the...
, Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, and Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
. In April 2005, EA furthered its hold on American football licensing by securing rights to all NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
brands.
Sega Activator: IR motion detection
In 1993, Sega released the Sega Activator, a motion detectionMotion detection
Motion detection is a process of confirming a change in position of an object relative to its surroundings or the change in the surroundings relative to an object. This detection can be achieved by both mechanical and electronic methods...
game controller designed to respond to a player's body movements, for their Genesis console. The Activator was based on the Light Harp, a MIDI controller
MIDI controller
MIDI controller is used in two senses.*In one sense, a controller is hardware or software which generates and transmits MIDI data to MIDI-enabled devices....
invented by Assaf Gurner.
Like the Light Harp, the Activator is an octogonal frame that lies on the floor. Light-emitting diode
Light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...
s (LEDs) on the frame vertically project thin, invisible beams of infrared
Infrared
Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...
light. When something, such as a player's arm or leg, inerrupts a beam, the device reads the distance at which the interruption occurred, and interprets the signal as a command
Command (computing)
In computing, a command is a directive to a computer program acting as an interpreter of some kind, in order to perform a specific task. Most commonly a command is a directive to some kind of command line interface, such as a shell....
. The device can also interpret signals from multiple beams simultaneously (i.e., chords
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
) as a distinct command.
Sega designed especial Activator motions for a few of their own game releases. By tailoring motion signals specifically for a game, Sega attempted to provide a more intuitive gaming experience. A player could, for example, compete in Greatest Heavyweights of the Ring
Greatest Heavyweights of the Ring
Greatest Heavyweights of the Ring is a boxing video game that was developed and published by Sega in 1993. It was released for the Sega Genesis console...
or Eternal Champions
Eternal Champions
Eternal Champions is a 2D fighting game originally conceived by Scott Berfield, produced by Mike Latham for Sega of America and was developed by the Sega Interactive Development Division....
by miming punches.
Despite these efforts, the Activator was a commercial failure. Like the Power Glove
Power Glove
The Power Glove is a controller accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the first peripheral interface controller to recreate human hand movements on a television or computer screen in real time. The Power Glove was not popular and was criticized for its imprecise and difficult-to-use...
of 1989, it was widely rejected for its "unwieldiness and inaccuracy".
Wii Remote: IR motion detection with acceleromatry
In 2006, Nintendo released Wii Sports
Wii Sports
is a sports game developed and published by Nintendo as a launch title for the Wii video game console , and part of the Touch! Generations. The game was first released in North America along with the Wii on November 19, 2006, and was released in Japan, Australia, and Europe the following month...
, a Sports game for the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
console in which the player had to physically move their Wii Remote
Wii Remote
The , also known as the Wiimote, is the primary controller for Nintendo's Wii console. A main feature of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with and manipulate items on screen via gesture recognition and pointing through the use of accelerometer and...
to move their avatar
Avatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
. The game contained five different sports—boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
, bowling
Bowling
Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
, golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, and baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
—which could all be played individually or with multiple players. Players could also track their skill progress through the game, as they became more proficient with at the different sports, and use the training mode to practice particular situations.
Wii Sports opened the way for other physically reactive sports-based video games, such as Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, known in Japan as , is a sports video game developed by the Sega Sports R&D Department of Sega Japan. It was published by Nintendo for Japan and by Sega for North America, Europe and all other regions. The game is officially licensed by the International Olympic...
, the first official title to feature both Mario
Mario
is a fictional character in his video game series, created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as Nintendo's mascot and the main protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation...
and Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog (character)
, trademarked Sonic The Hedgehog, is a video game character and the main protagonist of the Sonic video game series released by Sega, as well as in numerous spin-off comics, cartoons, and a feature film. The first game was released on June 23, 1991, to provide Sega with a mascot to rival Nintendo's...
, in which players used the Wii Remote to simulate running, jumping and other Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
sports. In 2008, Nintendo released Wii Fit
Wii Fit
is a video game developed by Nintendo for the company's home video game console, Wii, designed by Hiroshi Matsunaga. It is an exercise game consisting of activities using the Wii Balance Board peripheral...
, which allowed players to do aerobic
Aerobic exercise
Aerobic exercise is physical exercise of relatively low intensity that depends primarily on the aerobic energy-generating process. Aerobic literally means "living in air", and refers to the use of oxygen to adequately meet energy demands during exercise via aerobic metabolism...
and fitness exercises
Physical exercise
Physical exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. It is performed for various reasons including strengthening muscles and the cardiovascular system, honing athletic skills, weight loss or maintenance, as well as for the purpose of...
using the Wii Balance Board
Wii Balance Board
The Wii Balance Board is a balance board accessory for the Nintendo Wii video game console. Along with Wii Fit, it was introduced on July 11, 2007 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo...
. In a similar light, 2008 saw the release of Mario Kart Wii
Mario Kart Wii
is a racing video game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. It is the sixth installment in the Mario Kart series and the second Mario Kart title to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The game was released worldwide...
, a racing game
Racing game
A racing video game is a genre of video games, either in the first-person or third-person perspective, in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land, air, or sea vehicles. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings...
which allowed the player to use their remote with a Wii Wheel to act as a steering wheel, akin to those on traditional arcade racing games.
Sports games today
The sports genre is currently dominated by EA SportsEA Sports
EA Sports is a brand of Electronic Arts that creates and develops sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to mimic real-life sports networks by calling themselves "EA Sports Network" with pictures or endorsements of real commentators such as John...
and 2K Sports
2K Sports
2K Sports is a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. It comprises a single development studio, Visual Concepts, which was purchased from Sega in the year 2005. 2K Sports mainly develops and publishes American sports video games such as NBA 2K series...
, who hold licenses to produce games based on official leagues. EA's franchises include the FIFA series
FIFA Series
FIFA, also known as FIFA Football or FIFA Soccer, is a series of association football video games, released annually by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label...
, the NBA Live series, the Madden Football series, the NHL series, and Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No...
series. All of these games feature real leagues, competitions and players. These games continue to sell well today despite many of the product lines being over a decade old, and receive, for the most part, consistently good reviews.
With EA Sports' domination, the market has become very difficult to enter; competing games in any of the above genres, with the exception of racing games, tend to be unsuccessful. This has led to a sharp drop in sports-themed titles over recent years. One of the most notable exceptions is Konami
Konami
is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...
's Pro Evolution Soccer
Pro Evolution Soccer (series)
Pro Evolution Soccer is a series of football video game developed and published by Konami...
series, which is often hailed as an alternative to the FIFA series, but does not contain as many licensed teams, players, kits, or competitions. Racing games, due to the variation that the sport can offer in terms of tracks, cars and styles, offer more room for competition and the selection of games on offer has been considerably greater. Sports management games, while not as popular as they used to be, live on through small and independent software development houses. Management titles today have transitioned to the very popular fantasy sports leagues, which are available through many websites such as Yahoo
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
.
Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
has been able to make an impact upon the sports market by producing several Mario
Mario
is a fictional character in his video game series, created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as Nintendo's mascot and the main protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation...
-themed titles, such as Super Mario Strikers
Super Mario Strikers
Super Mario Strikers, known as Mario Smash Football in Europe and Australia, is a five-a-side football game developed by Next Level Games for the Nintendo GameCube. The game was released in Europe and North America in late 2005, and in Japan and Australia in 2006...
and Mario Tennis
Mario Tennis
Mario Tennis, known in Japan as , is a sports video game developed by Camelot and Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 video game console. The game was released in North America and Japan in the summer of 2000, and released in Europe later in November. It is the first tennis-based game starring Mario since...
. These titles sell respectfully, but are only available on Nintendo's video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
s, for example GameCube, Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
, Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, and the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
.
Arcade
Sports games have traditionally been very popular arcade gameArcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
s. The competitive nature of sports lends itself well to the arcades where the main objective is usually to obtain a high score. The arcade style of play is generally more unrealistic and focuses on a quicker gameplay experience. However the competitive nature of sports and being able to gain a high score while compete against friends for free online, has made online sports games very popular. Examples of this include the NFL Blitz
NFL Blitz
NFL Blitz is a series of American football themed video games by Midway featuring the teams of the National Football League. It began as a 1997 arcade game but was eventually ported to home consoles and spawned several sequels...
and NBA Jam
NBA Jam
NBA Jam is a basketball arcade game developed by Midway in 1993. It is the first entry in the NBA Jam series, and was written entirely in assembly language. The main designer and programmer for this game was Mark Turmell...
series.
Management/Simulation
Sports management games put players into the role of team managerCoach (sport)
In sports, a coach is an individual involved in the direction, instruction and training of the operations of a sports team or of individual sportspeople.-Staff:...
. Whereas some games are played online against other players, management games usually pit the player against AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
controlled teams in the same league
Sports league
League is a term commonly used to describe a group of sports teams or individual athletes that compete against each other in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on weekends; at its most complex, it can be an...
. Players are expected to handle strategy, tactics, transfers, and financial issues. Various examples of these games can be found in this category.
Games and televised sports
More and more, video sports games are starting to look and act like their TV counterparts as developersVideo game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...
focus on creating realistic commentary and camera-angles. Additionally, televised sports, namely American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
, have started to model some of their cameras on those seen in video games, further blurring the line between fantasy and reality.
See also
- Sports management games
- List of association football video games
- List of volleyball video games
External links
- "TecmoBowl-vs-RBI" An indepth look at strategy for the classic sports Nintendo games Tecmo Bowl and RBI Baseball
- Sports games at MobyGamesMobyGames-Platforms not yet included:- Further reading :* Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson, High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media; 2 edition , ISBN 0-07-223172-6...