Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

1973 in video games

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Remove ads

The year 1973 saw a substantial increase in the number of video games created and distributed. In coin-operated games, a craze for Pong-style games ignited the first fad for video games both in the United States and other countries such as Japan and the United Kingdom. Time-sharing networks saw greater proliferation of popular programs through type-in listings. The PLATO system located at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign played host to some of the earliest massively multiplayer games.

Remove ads

Events

  • January – Pong is licensed to Midway Mfg, subsidiary of Bally, for release as Winner.
  • March – Atari Inc. launches Pong nationally to distributors of coin-operated games across the United States.[1]
  • August 26–28 – The fourth U.S. American Computer Chess Championship is held in Atlanta, Georgia. It is won by Northwestern University's Chess 3.5 running on a CDC 6400 computer, successor to the undefeated champion from the prior three years.[2][3]
  • September – The Japanese Amusement Association show is held in Tokyo. The company Kansai Seiki displays the prototype game Playtron, among the first games utilizing color graphics – though it is never released.[4][5]
  • November 9–11 – The Music Operators of America show is held in Chicago, Illinois. Over a dozen companies exhibit video games at the show, almost all clones or variants of Pong.[6]
Remove ads

Financial performance

Summarize
Perspective

United States

Arcade

Total Video Game Cabinets: 50,000-70,000 units.[7][8]

Total Video Game Revenue (machine sales): $20 million-$77 million.[7][8]

More information Title, Arcade cabinet units (Lifetime) ...

Indicates a sales number given by official company sources.

Home consoles

Total Console Revenue (retail): $4.6 million.[15]

More information Title, Game console units (1973) ...

Indicates a sales number given by official company sources.

Remove ads

Publications

Notable releases

Thumb
Gotcha

Arcade games

  • March – Volly by Ramtek Corp, Rally by For-Play Manufacturing, and Paddle Battle by Allied Leisure are released in the United States, among the first clones of Pong.
  • April – Ping-Pong by Alca Electronics is released in the UK as the first European coin-op video game.[19]
  • July – Sega releases Pong-Tron and Taito releases Elepong, the first two video games produced for the coin-operated games market in Japan.[20]
  • August – Tennis Tourney by Allied Leisure is released, the first four-player variant of Pong.[22]
  • September – Gotcha is released by Atari, a game featuring characters in a maze.[23] The game is notable for its low-production variant, Color Gotcha, which may be the first commercially released video game utilizing color graphics.[24]
  • October – Elimination! is released by Kee Games, a ball-and-paddle game featuring up to four people in an elimination-style contest. Atari's version is released as Quadrapong.
  • December – Nutting Associates releases the ball-and-paddle game Wimbledon, among the first color games.[25]

Computer games

Console games

  • July – Magnavox releases the games Interplanetary Voyage, Basketball, W.I.N., and Brain Wave for the Odyssey at retail.[31] Previously they had provided the game Percepts to customers who returned their survey card, but these were the first commercial releases of console games separate from the hardware.[32]

Hardware

Consoles

  • Official test markets for the Odyssey console outside of North America begin.[33]
  • Several clones of the Odyssey appear in Europe, including Spain's Overkal.[34]
Remove ads

Business

  • March 19 – Konami Industry Co., Ltd. is formerly incorporated in Japan by Kagemasa Kōzuki, Yoshinobu Naka, and Tatsuo Miyasako.[35]
  • May – The company Hudson is established in Sapporo, Japan as the business arm of the radio shop CQ Hudson. The company later changes its name to Hudson Soft when it begins selling computers and associated software.[36][37]
  • August – Atari opens their Atari Japan subsidiary to import games for the domestic market.[38]
  • September 25 – Kee Games Inc. is founded in California. The company is majority owned by the principals of Atari but is presented as a competitor.[39]
  • October 19 – Exidy Inc. is founded by former Ramtek engineer Pete Kauffman and Samuel Hawes. Their first product was a Pong clone.
  • Taito Co Ltd. – in the business of coin-operated amusements as well as general import and export – opens its office Taito America in Illinois, the first Japanese company involved with video games to open an American office.[40]
  • The toy company Nintendo Co. Ltd. establishes the label Nintendo Leisure System to release coin-operated games, starting with the electro-mechanical Laser Clay Shooting Range.
  • Videomaster of the UK is established to distribute coin-operated Pong games throughout the nation.[41]
Remove ads

See also

Notes

  1. Ralph Baer's numbers compiled in April 1976 are mostly estimates without direct access to sales figures.
  2. Licensed version of Space Race.
  3. Released under both names.
  4. Atari's version of Elimination!.
  5. Ralph Baer's numbers for Odyssey units sold per year contradict those of official figures disclosed by Magnavox in 1974.

References

Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads