The Video Game Crash of
1983 was brutal. In fact, so brutal that it nearly caused the
death of the video game industry.
Many video game companies went
bankrupt, and the popularity
of video games was rapidly
declining.
Most retailers
thought that home
computers would replace
video games and make
them
obsolete.
However, this
turned out to not
be the case, as
the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System
(NES) in 1985 quickly
revived the
industry.
The joysticks
which had been
used as the
controllers
for the older
game systems
such as the
atari had been
placed
by game pads-which
were simpler
versions of
the
controllers
used with video
games
today. This
generation
marked the debut
of some of
the most popular
gaming franchises
of all time,
including
Mario, Zelda,
and Final
Fantasy.
Also, in
1989, the
first popular
hanheld gaming
system-the
Nintendo
Game
Boy-was
released.
The
same
year the Game
Boy was
released, Sega
released
the
Genesis-which
quickly
gained popularity
due to its
advanced
graphics, and
the debut of
the Sonic the
Hedgehog series.
Although the system
was far more
advanced than
the NES,
Nintendo released
a new system-the
Super
Nintendo
(SNES) in
1991.
The system
featured technology on
par with
the Genesis,
which
it ended up
outselling.