Video Games The Decade Of Decadence - 1116 Words

The 1980s were also known as the decade of decadence. Technology that had been introduced in the 1980s was not any different. Although most of the major technology began in the 1970s, the 1980s improved on the technology and made it more affordable and available for mass consumer consumption. The 1980s was truly the beginning of the personal electronic device revolution, making everything from computers to music and video games more available for personal use. Video games were around long before the 1980s. Programmers had been making video games for arcades as far back as the early 1960s (Kent 65). The late 1970s, however, brought video games into the home with gaming consoles. Nonetheless, these consoles remained quiet until a small†¦show more content†¦The system went on to sell out at almost all locations. The success of the NES System has been attributed to its impressive graphics and the speed and game control that the Nintendo developers had created. By 1991 more tha n 33 millions homes had an NES system (Kent 73). Nintendo lead the way in the home gaming console industry paving the way for such companies as Sony and Microsoft, which dominate the video game industry today. However, video games were not the only technology that made the leap to personal use. Computer technology was well in the works before the 1980s, yet, it was in the 1980s that the leap to home computing was made and thus launched the careers of two of the most famous men in the computing industry, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, and Steve Jobs, of the Apple Corporation. However, it was IBM that won the race to producing the first personal computer. IBM introduced the first personal computer PC in August of 1991 (History of the PC). â€Å"The first PC was good but not spectacular (History of the PC). However, IBM used many third party developers and companies, which helped, make the IBM the preferred PC. The first PC ran off of Microsoft Dos operating system. This made the IBM easier to add features to, but also made it easier for other companies to come up with their own versions of the PC. Microsoft was not exclusive to IBM allowing room for competitors. Competition came from all different kinds of computer