Zaxxon is a scrolling shooter developed and released by Sega as an arcade video game in 1982. The player pilots a ship through heavily defended space fortresses. Japanese electronics company Ikegami Tsushinki was also involved in the game's development.
1983 has seen many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Mario Bros. and Pole Position II, along with new titles such as Astron Belt, Champion Baseball, Dragon's Lair, Elevator Action, Spy Hunter and Track & Field. Major events include the video game crash of 1983 in North America, and the third generation of video game consoles beginning with the launch of Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) and Sega's SG-1000 in Japan. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pole Position, while the year's best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch for the third time since 1980.
Exidy, Inc. was a developer and manufacturer of coin-operated electro-mechanical and video games which operated from 1973 to 1999. They manufactured many notable titles including Death Race (1976), Circus (1978), Star Fire (1978), Venture (1981), Mouse Trap (1981), Crossbow (1983), and Chiller (1986). They were also the creators of the Exidy Sorcerer (1978) home computer platform.
Stern is the name of two different but related arcade gaming companies. Stern Electronics, Inc. manufactured arcade video games and pinball machines from 1977 until 1985, and was best known for Berzerk. Stern Pinball, Inc., founded in 1986 as Data East Pinball, is a manufacturer of pinball machines in North America.
The golden age of arcade video games was the period of rapid growth, technological development, and cultural influence of arcade video games from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The release of Space Invaders in 1978 led to a wave of shoot-'em-up games such as Galaxian and the vector graphics-based Asteroids in 1979, made possible by new computing technology that had greater power and lower costs. Arcade video games switched from black-and-white to color, with titles such as Frogger and Centipede taking advantage of the visual opportunities of bright palettes.
Cinematronics Incorporated was an arcade game developer that primarily released vector graphics games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While other companies released games based on raster displays, early in their history, Cinematronics and Atari, Inc. released vector-display games, which offered a distinctive look and a greater graphic capability, at the cost of being only black and white (initially). Cinematronics also published Dragon's Lair in 1983, the first major LaserDisc video game.
The following article is a broad timeline of arcade video games.
1982 was the peak year for the golden age of arcade video games as well as the second generation of video game consoles. Many games were released that would spawn franchises, or at least sequels, including Dig Dug, Pole Position, Mr. Do!, Zaxxon, Q*bert, Time Pilot and Pitfall! The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, for the third year in a row, while the year's best-selling home system was the Atari 2600. Additional video game consoles added to a crowded market, notably the ColecoVision and Atari 5200. Troubles at Atari late in the year triggered the video game crash of 1983.
Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade video games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Pac-Man was the highest grossing video game for the second year in a row. Nintendo's Donkey Kong defined the platform game genre, while Konami's Scramble established scrolling shooters. The lesser known Jump Bug combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include Defender, Frogger, and the Galaxian sequel Galaga.
Electronic Games was the first dedicated video game magazine published in the United States and ran from October 15, 1981, to 1997 under different titles. It was co-founded by Bill Kunkel, Joyce Worley, and Arnie Katz.
Centuri, formerly known as Allied Leisure, was an American arcade game manufacturer. They were based in Hialeah, Florida, and were one of the top six suppliers of coin-operated arcade video game machinery in the United States during the early 1980s. Centuri in its modern inception was formed when former Taito America president Ed Miller and his partner Bill Olliges took over Allied Leisure, Inc. They renamed it "Centuri" in 1980.
Sega Genesis Collection is a compilation of video games developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Sega for PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. The collection includes twenty-eight Sega Genesis games from a variety of genres, as well as unlockable classic Sega arcade games, with different sets of arcade games for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable versions. A sequel was released in 2009 called Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Moon Cresta is a fixed shooter video game released by Nichibutsu for arcades in 1980. In North America, it was licensed to Sega/Gremlin and Centuri, the latter releasing it in arcades as Eagle. Incentive Software published ports of Moon Cresta for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Dragon 32 and ZX Spectrum home computers. In 2022, the original arcade version will be included as part of the Sega Astro City Mini V, a vertically-oriented variant of the Sega Astro City mini console.
Monaco GP is an arcade racing game released by Sega in November 1979 in Japan, and January 1980 worldwide. An upgraded version, Pro Monaco GP, was released later in 1980. One of the last Sega games to use TTL chips instead of a microprocessor CPU, the game has players race against a clock and pass rival racers while attempting to earn points driving through five areas.
Head On is an arcade video game developed by Sega/Gremlin and released by Sega in 1979. It's the first maze game where the goal is to run over dots. Designed by Lane Hauck at Sega/Gremlin in the United States, it was the fourth highest-grossing arcade game of 1979 in both Japan and the US.
Nihon Bussan Co. Ltd. was a Japanese video game developer and publisher headquartered in Kita, Osaka. In the past they had also manufactured and sold yachts.
Zaccaria, was an Italian company of pinball and arcade machines that existed in Bologna from 1974 until 1990. The factory was sold to tecnoplay.
Taito of Brazil was a pinball and arcade manufacturer located in São Paulo, Brazil. The company originally started out as Clover Electronic Amusement in 1968, then became Taito of Brazil in 1972 by Abraham "Abba" Kogan, the son of the founder of the parent company Taito located in Japan. This subsidiary was originally an importer of existing U.S. and Japanese machine components to be assembled within the country. However, the taxation on imports had been growing steadily, and the government's belief that pinball is a game of chance and considered a gambling machine, led to strict import rules. By 1976, within rules created by the Electronic Processing Activities Coordinating Committee (CAPRE), it became illegal to import pinball machines. This created a problem, since the popularity of arcade games in Brazil had been growing exponentially for many years.
An arcade video game is an arcade game where the player's inputs from the game's controllers are processed through electronic or computerized components and displayed to a video device, typically a monitor, all contained within an enclosed arcade cabinet. Arcade video games are often installed alongside other arcade games such as pinball and redemption games at amusement arcades. Up until the late 1990s, arcade video games were the largest and most technologically advanced sector of the video game industry.
