1975 in video gaming
Encyclopedia
Events
- In FallAutumnAutumn is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter usually in September or March when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier....
, MagnavoxMagnavoxMagnavox is a US electronics company founded by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen, who invented the moving-coil loudspeaker in 1915 at their lab in Napa, California. They formed Magnavox in 1917 in order to market their inventions....
discontinues the original OdysseyMagnavox OdysseyThe Magnavox Odyssey is the world's first home video game console. It was first demonstrated on May 24, 1972 and released in August of that year, predating the Atari Pong home consoles by three years....
video game consoleVideo game consoleA 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...
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Notable releases
- AtariAtariAtari 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...
and Tele-Games (a division of Sears, Roebuck and CompanySears Holdings CorporationSears Holdings Corporation is a retail conglomerate formed in 2005 by the merger of Sears, Roebuck and Co., of Hoffman Estates, Illinois, with Kmart Holdings Corporation, of Troy, Michigan...
) release the first official home version of PongPongPong 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...
through Sears department storeDepartment storeA department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
s. - Magnavox releases two new models of their Odyssey console: the Odyssey 100 and the Odyssey 200.
- February, Horror Games, founded by Nolan BushnellNolan BushnellNolan K. Bushnell is an American engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari, Inc and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain...
, publishes its only game, Shark JawsShark JawsShark Jaws is a 1 player arcade game by Atari Inc. under the name of Horror Games, originally released in 1975. An unlicensed tie-in to the movie Jaws, it was created to do a game about sharks eating people. Atari head Nolan Bushnell originally tried to license the Jaws name for the game, but was...
, intended to cash-in on the popularity of Steven SpielbergSteven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's film JawsJaws (film)Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
. - MidwayMidway GamesMidway 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...
releases Gun FightGun FightGun Fight, known as Western Gun in Japan and Europe, is a 1975 arcade shooter game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released by Taito in Japan and Europe and by Midway Games in the United States. It was a historically significant game, and a success in the arcades. It was later ported to the...
, the first microprocessorMicroprocessorA microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
-based video game. TaitoTaito CorporationThe is a Japanese publisher of video game software and arcade hardware wholly owned by publisher Square Enix. Taito has their headquarters in the Shinjuku Bunka Quint Building in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, sharing the facility with its parent company....
had developed the original Japanese version of the game, Western Gun, using TTL-basedTransistor-transistor logicTransistor–transistor logic is a class of digital circuits built from bipolar junction transistors and resistors. It is called transistor–transistor logic because both the logic gating function and the amplifying function are performed by transistors .TTL is notable for being a widespread...
hardware: Dave Nutting AssociatesDave Nutting AssociatesDavid Judd Nutting is a graduate of the Pratt Institute with a degree in industrial design. After leaving the Army Corps of Engineers, he joined the design firm of Brooks Stevens Associates. During his time there he was involved in a wide variety of projects, working on everything from Evinrude...
portedPortingIn computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
the game to the Intel 8080Intel 8080The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility...
microprocessor for its American release. - Don DaglowDon DaglowDon 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...
develops DungeonDungeon (computer game)Dungeon was one of the earliest computer role-playing games, running on PDP-10 mainframe computers manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation.-History:...
, an early computer role-playing game, for the PDP-10PDP-10The 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...
. - William CrowtherWilliam CrowtherWilliam Crowther is a computer programmer and caver. He is best known as the co-creator of Colossal Cave Adventure, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of game design and created a new game genre, text adventures.-Biography:During the early 1970s Crowther worked at defense...
develops AdventureColossal Cave AdventureColossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...
(also known as Colossal Cave and ADVENT), the first interactive fictionInteractive fictionInteractive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
game, for the PDP-10PDP-10The 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...
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- dndDnd (computer game)dnd is a computer role-playing game. The name dnd is derived from the abbreviation "DND" from the original role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which was first released in 1975....
, the first video game to include a bossBoss (video games)A boss is an enemy-based challenge which is found in video games. A fight with a boss character is commonly referred to as a boss battle or boss fight...
, and arguably the first computer role playing game, wrapped up initial development. Some sources list the game as 1974; it is unclear exactly when it became playable.
- Rusty Rutherford develops pedit5Pedit5pedit5 was perhaps the first dungeon crawl video game , written in 1975 by Rusty Rutherford for the PLATO system...
, the first dungeon crawlDungeon crawlA dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters, and looting any treasure they may find...
game, for the PLATO system.