Читать книгу The Ultimate Guide to Classic Game Consoles - Kevin Baker - Страница 18

The second generation of video game consoles is a very interesting one. It certainly is the one that opened the door for the way that things are now. Many innovations were made during this time, probably the most notable one being that game cartridges were used, as opposed to most of the previous generation one systems that had multiple games built into the actual hardware.

The console war was also fierce during this generation with over ten main popular consoles trying to find a place under people's television sets. Of course you would have to say that the real winner was Atari with their 2600 console, but the interesting thing about Atari, even when they were on top, is that if you really go back and look closely at some of the things they did and decisions that they made, you can clearly see that the start of their decline really happened when they were on top.

Another trend that started and died with this generation of video game consoles was the numeric pad on the controller, made popular by ColecoVision and the Intellivision. This style never really took off as most of the games at the time simply did not require that amount of buttons on a controller. Interestingly enough Atari would try and bring the numeric keypad back years later with their Atari Jaguar console.

One thing that gets overlooked in this generation is the importance of the pack-in-game. When the ColecoVision was released and it came with Donkey Kong this was probably the first time that a console had been released with a must own game. The fact that Donkey Kong was a pack-in-game made the system sell better than it probably would have with another game. The pack-in-game would go onto be important for a few more generations with games like Sonic The Hedgehog being used to sell the Sega Mega Drive and Super Mario Bros used to sell the Nintendo Entertainment System. Well you could argue that this strategy started here with Donkey Kong and the ColecoVision.

As well as numerous game consoles hitting store shelves, many great gaming franchises were also created during this era, some of which are still around to this day. Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Mario Bros all stared life during this console generation and that is just to name but a few.

The second generation of video game consoles is a very interesting one. This is the era in gaming that many people still to this day have a soft spot for.