The history of the BIG 3

Currently, there are three major manufacturers of video game consoles, and if you look at the three, you’ll see a consistent pattern when you see WHY they actually entered the industry, and how they got so big.

Nintendo: The oldest of the three. Started making arcade games in the 70s. Donkey Kong was a huge hit. They become an arcade giant. Nintendo later develops the Color TV console in Japan then followed by the Famicom, where it becomes a huge hit. The video game crash hits the USA, and the video game industry is now in a rut. Here’s where Nintendo really gets big. They release the NES in America in 1985, and it slowly becomes a massive success, especially because of Super Mario Bros. They are regarded as having saved the video game industry, and still remain arguably the most iconic video game developer/publisher to this day, and definitely becomes the Disney of the video games industry. Sony: Consumer electronics company. They make literally everything under the sun, and in the late 80s, began to move into entertainment, especially with their acquisition of Columbia Pictures. Started making a peripheral with Nintendo, the SNES-CD. Didn’t exactly work out. Went to make their own console, the PlayStation. Uses CDs instead of cartridges, which have higher storage capacity and are cheaper to manufacture. Can also display FMVs. Publishers therefore want to work with them rather than Nintendo. Wins the console war that generation. Sony in the 90s in general was prized for innovation, even Steve Jobs was envious of them. They were also known for their interesting and sleek designs, which also plays a role in their products success, including the consoles (though the OG PlayStation looks quaint by today’s standards, later consoles, particularly the PS3 were very style-focused, almost TOO much) Microsoft: PC company. Was already practically responsible for the PC gaming boom, ESPECIALLY after the release of DirectX in 1996. They also published some PC games like Age of Empires, which were very popular and acclaimed. Wants to make a PC-like game console that uses x86 hardware. Also wants to focus on the internet, another area Microsoft is excelling in (Internet Explorer and MSN were actually relevant in these days). Releases the Xbox in 2001. Becomes a major success, especially with the release of Halo: Combat Evolved. Xbox Live is launched in 2002, providing another revenue stream for Microsoft, and revolutionizing online gaming, and also helping the Xbox become even more successful.

As you can see, all three companies have one thing in common, they NEVER started with the intention to make a game console. They all started from a preexisting industry. Nintendo has existed since 1889, and started as a playing card company, followed by a toy company. Sony has existed since the 40s and has been making successful consumer electronics for the States since the 50s. Microsoft, much like their consoles, was formed relatively recently in 1975, but they were literally one of the biggest corporations in the world already by the 90s, to the point it led to an anti-trust lawsuit. Sony and Microsoft were already huge before they made game consoles, and game consoles were just another thing they could add to their roster. Nintendo also obviously didn’t start as a video game company, but by the early 70s, that’s what they became known for, and they started with arcades and handhelds games (Game & Watch) before moving to home consoles, so they already had video game expertise before making game consoles. And they had a successful console in Japan, so they KNEW video gaming damn well already by 1985 when they entered the States. They weren’t newbies at all, we just perceived them that way. Sony and Microsoft also had expertise that helped them as well. Sony co-developed the CD format the PlayStation was advertised off of, whilst also being known for quality consumer electronics for decades. And Microsoft was a massive computer company, and video game consoles are essentially glorified gaming-oriented computers anyway, so it wasn’t that hard to adapt.

Everyone else who took a swing generally came from such a background. Atari was a preestablished video game company who practically INVENTED the video game industry with Pong in 1972, then developed a home version of Pong in 1975, as well as several more arcade games, before finally developing the Atari 2600 in 1977. Sega was another company that predates the video game industry, and originally manufactured mechanical arcade games, then actual electronic arcade games (many of which were praised for their innovation) before moving on to video game hardware. They only really succeeded by A. clever marketing and B. exploiting the fact that third-party publishers hated working for Nintendo, and that Sega was more lenient. Apple attempted to enter the video game industry with a similar online-focused game console called the Pippin in 1996, basically like the Xbox from 5 years later, although like many other Apple experiments from the mid-90s, it flopped, in fact, it may be the biggest flop in Apple history. One thing you’ll notice is whenever a company from another industry enters the video game industry, they typically exploit whatever they’re known for being good at to begin with. As previously mentioned, Microsoft dominated the internet industry, and practically powered nearly every x86-based computer, so of course their first console would be highly internet-focused and be x86-based. When the N-Gage came out in 2003, since Nokia made it, they wanted it to be like a cellphone as well. It also has a weird design, and if you know Nokia well, you’ll know that’s a Nokia trademark. Unfortunately, Nokia should stick to what they’re good with, because the N-Gage flopped. Mattel’s HyperScan was essentially treated like a toy for children, and only came with children-oriented games. The list goes on. Basically, you can’t really enter the video game console industry without having existed for years and already being successful, because a video game console is a HUGE gamble, that requires you to have to work with publishers to get games and then you have to market it and design the firmware/BIOS and all that other stuff. That’s why the Ouya flopped. They had NO experience with a game console at all, and if people really wanted to play crappy Android games on their TV, they’d just get a Roku or something and then wirelessly connect their phone to the TV. Nowadays, many companies, instead of making game consoles, instead focus on digital distribution. Steam, Origin, Uplay, Epic Games Store. They all provide a good revenue stream for the companies involved (Valve, EA, Ubisoft, and, well, Epic Games). To be fair, Valve has made a game console anyway (the Steam Machine, which as you can expect, is pretty much just a glorified PC, although it actually runs Linux…and it also didn’t do well, which is why you rarely hear about it today), but this is why companies as big as EA don’t make consoles, because they know damn well that digital distribution is where the industry is headed, and that it’s easier to invest in then making an entire console that’s likely to fail. Personally I am quite biased towards Nintendo as you can see based off of my photo at the beginning of this article but I do recognize the importance of all three companies and it's a good thing that they all are constantly pushing each other to do better.