1973 in video games

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of years in video games

Events[]

  • March 19 – Kagemasa Kōzuki establishes Konami Industry Co., Ltd.[1] Formerly the owner of a jukebox repair/rental business in Osaka, Japan, Kozuki launches Konami to manufacture amusement machines for video arcades.[2]
  • May – Hudson Soft Ltd. is established in Sapporo, Japan for the purpose of marketing telecommunications devices and art photographs.[3]
  • Taito, an electro-mechanical arcade game manufacturer, enters the video game industry and opens a North American branch.[4]
  • Sega, an electro-mechanical arcade game manufacturer, enters the video game industry with Pong clones.
  • Computer Space makes appearances in the films Soylent Green and Sleeper.
  • Empire versions I, II and III are developed for the PLATO system by John Daleske. Possibly the first team game ever, the first fifty-player game ever, and numerous other innovations.
  • Silas Warner takes over PLATO Empire version I and renames it Civilization.
  • Lemonade Stand is developed for the first time.
  • Maze War, an ancestor of the first-person shooter genre and an early network game, begins development for the Imlac PDS-1 computer.

Best-selling arcade video games in the United States[]

The following titles were the best-selling arcade video games of 1973 in the United States, according to annual arcade cabinet sales estimates provided by Ralph H. Baer.[5]

Rank Title Arcade cabinet sales Manufacturer Genre
1 Pong 8,000 Atari, Inc. Pong
2 Pro Tennis 7,000 Williams Electronics
Winner 7,000 Midway Manufacturing
4 Super Soccer 5,000 Allied Leisure
Tennis Tourney 5,000
TV Tennis 5,000 Chicago Coin
7 Gotcha 3,000 Atari, Inc. Maze
8 Asteroid (Space Race) 2,000 Midway Manufacturing Racing
9 Space Race 1,500 Atari, Inc.
10 Hockey 1,000 Ramtek Pong
TV Hockey 1,000 Chicago Coin
Volley 1,000 Ramtek

Notable releases[]

  • Midway Manufacturing Co. licenses Pong from Atari to produce Winner,[6] their first video game arcade game.[1]
  • Atari releases Gotcha, the first commercial maze game, to video arcades.[1]
  • Atari releases Pong Doubles to video arcades. A variation on the wildly successful Pong, Pong Doubles is the first video arcade game to include four-player gameplay.[7]
  • Atari releases Space Race, the first Arcade Racing game ever.
  • Williams Electronics releases , an unlicensed duplicate of Pong, as their first arcade game.[8]
  • BASIC Computer Games was first published. It included 101 games written in BASIC.

References[]

  1. ^ a b c Thomas, Donald A. Jr (2005). "-1973-". ICWhen.com. Archived from the original on October 26, 2002. Retrieved February 15, 2006.
  2. ^ "Corporate Info / Corporate History". Konami. Archived from the original on February 10, 2006. Retrieved February 15, 2006.
  3. ^ "Corporate Info. / History". Hudson. Archived from the original on November 24, 2005. Retrieved February 15, 2006.
  4. ^ "The Golden Age Arcade Historian: Video Game Firsts??". November 22, 2013.
  5. ^ Baer, Ralph H. (2005). Videogames: In the Beginning. Rolenta Press. pp. 10–3. ISBN 978-0-9643848-1-1.
  6. ^ "WINNER from Midway" (PDF). The International Arcade Museum. 1973. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
  7. ^ Winters, David. "Atari PONG –The first steps–". PONG-Story. Archived from the original on February 13, 2006. Retrieved February 15, 2006.
  8. ^ Kurtz, Bill (1997). Slot Machines and Coin-Op Games. New Jersey: Chartwell Books. p. 125. ISBN 978-1-55521-731-0.
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