A short story about computer games

In the 1980s, the most serious players could be found at the local arcade that put coins into arcade games like Outrun, Street Fighter and R-Type. At the same time, the first home computer games began to appear, first the Sinclair ZX-81 and later the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore C64.

These computers filled games from cassette tapes, but were cheap to buy, and many families could afford to have a gaming machine at home for the first time. Games were controlled either via the computer keyboard or using joysticks with a “fire” button that could be connected peripherally to the computer.

In the 1990s, many home users switched to 16-bit home computers such as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. Priced slightly higher than the older 8-bit machines, yet still affordable for most families, the Amiga and ST had more memory than their predecessors and loaded games from 3.5-inch floppy drives. This meant that users could enjoy much faster loading times for their games as well as significantly faster games with better graphics and โหลดเกมส์.

Around the same time, the first home consoles began to appear, with the Sega Master System and Nintendo 64 as the most popular. These were then replaced by 16-bit consoles, Sega Megadrive and Super Nintendo or SNES. The console games were stored on cartridges, meaning they were loaded almost instantly, but the games themselves were more expensive than comparable games for the Amiga and ST.

In the late 1990s, 16-bit home computers began to die out as more and more people were able to own a home PC that they could also use for gaming. At the same time, consoles took another step forward with the first Sony PlayStations released, offering enhanced graphics and levels of games that had never been seen before.

As PC ownership became more widespread, console manufacturers faced an ongoing challenge to make their machines popular. They have responded by producing increasingly advanced consoles. The Nintendo Wii is an example that introduced a new concept of wireless controllers that respond to human movement.

At the same time, the Internet began to play an important role in everyday life, and games have taken this as one might expect. Now players with consoles or PCs can participate in multiplayer distributed games with either their own friends or with perfect strangers found all over the world. It is no longer necessary to own a physical copy of the game being played, as was the case in the old days. Games can now be played completely online, in some cases for free.

Gaming has certainly come a long way since the days of ZX Spectrum, and one can only begin to wonder what changes will have taken place for another 30 years!