Economy and Technology

Technology in 1985• Aids Virus identified by French Immunologist• AT&T Broken Up • The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale• Sony and Philips introduce the first commercial CD Players• Sony makes the first 3 1/2" computer disk• The Space Shuttle Discovery has its maiden voyage• First Ever flight in Space by Human untethered using jet back

Packs• Genetic fingerprinting or DNA profiling was developed and is

now in wide by Forensic scientists when obtaining evidence in a crime

Video Game Crash

• The video game crash of 1983, also known as Atari shock in Japan, was a massive recession of the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985. Revenues that had peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983 fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash was a serious event that brought an abrupt end to what is considered the second generation of console in North America.

• The video game crash of 1983, also known as Atari shock in Japan, was a massive recession of the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985. Revenues that had peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983 fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash was a serious event that brought an abrupt end to what is considered the second generation of console in North America.

Summary

• There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was saturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality games which resulted in the loss of consumer confidence. The full effects of the industry crash would not be felt until 1985.

1984Political and Economical

The Miner’s Strike

The Brighton Hotel Bombing

Women’s Peace Camp

Games in 1984

First entertainment software to be exported from the USSR to the US.  

Most Ported game in History, appearing on in excess of 65 different platforms by 2011. 

Tetris has sold over 40 million copies worldwide

First adventure game to feature interactive game play and animations

created by a team of 7 developers which was unusual for time

ELITE

One of the first games to use 3d wireframe graphics with hidden line removal, the first truly open-ended game.

Contained 256 planets within 8 galaxies, this was possible by the levels being procedurally generated using a fixed algorithm, no extra memory is used storing these planets.

It was originally planned to contain a total of 282 trillion galaxies with 256 solar systems each.

The marketing for the game was also elaborate involving a launch party at Thorpe park which was unheard of for game releases.

Was rushed with only 6 weeks of development time so that it could be released for the Christmas season. 

 Millions of units were manufactured in anticipation of a major hit, ultimately the game was a major failure with only selling 1.5 million sold and between 2.5 and 3.5 million remaining unsold

Light Gun Shooters

Although originally created in 1936 it was never popular until the NES Zapper

Light guns would then go on to spawn popular franchises such as Time Crisis and House Of The Dead

Arcade Games

1942- Capcom’s first hit game, a vertically scrolling shoot em up set in the pacific theatre of world war II

Paperboy- by Atari, Famous for its Unique theme and its controls.

Punch-Out!!- boxing game by Nintendo, first in a successful series.

Considered to be the final year of the Golden Arcade Era

Over 20 million games were sold in America 1984

Produced 30,000,000 games between 1983 and 1985