1980 in video games
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1980 saw the release of a number of games with influential concepts, including Pac-Man, Battlezone, Crazy Climber, Mystery House, Missile Command, Phoenix, Rally-X, Space Panic, Stratovox, Zork, Adventure, and Olympic Decathlon. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, while the best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch. The Atari VCS (later called the Atari 2600) also grew in popularity with a port of Space Invaders and support from new third-party developer Activision.
Financial performance
- The arcade video game market in the US generates $2.81 billion in revenue[1] ($11 billion adjusted for inflation).
- Home video games sell $464 million ($1.81 billion adjusted for inflation) in the United States, with the Atari VCS leading the market with a 44% share.[2]
Highest-grossing arcade games
The following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games worldwide in 1980.
| Rank | Title | Gross revenue | Inflation | Cabinet sales | Developer | Distributor(s) | Genre | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pac-Man | $1,000,000,000 | $3,900,000,000 | 100,000 | Namco | Namco / Midway | Maze | [3][4][5] |
| 2 | Asteroids | $700,000,000 | $2,700,000,000 | 70,000 | Atari, Inc. | Atari, Inc. | Shoot 'em up | [6][7] |
| Galaxian | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Namco | Namco / Midway | Shoot 'em up | [8][9] | |
| Space Invaders | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Taito | Taito / Midway | Shoot 'em up | [10] |
Japan and United States
In Japan and the United States, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1980.
| Rank | Japan (Game Machine)[8][11] | United States | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title | #1 | #2 | #3 | Points | Cash Box[12] | Play Meter[9][13] | RePlay[14][15] | Cabinet sales | |
| 1 | Pac-Man | 62 | 46 | 17 | 295 | Asteroids | < 60,000[6] | ||
| 2 | Galaxian | 44 | 25 | 18 | 200 | Galaxian | < 40,000[16] | ||
| 3 | Crazy Climber | 14 | 19 | 30 | 110 | N/a | Space Invaders | < 12,000[17][18] | |
| 4 | Moon Cresta | 3 | 24 | 15 | 72 | N/a | Unknown | Missile Command | Unknown |
| 5 | Monaco GP | 11 | 4 | 11 | 52 | N/a | Unknown | Rip Off | Unknown |
| 6 | Rally-X | 1 | 6 | 3 | 18 | N/a | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| 7 | Heiankyo Alien (Digger) | 1 | 4 | 4 | 15 | ||||
| 8 | Pitch In | 0 | 1 | 5 | 7 | ||||
| 9 | Super Speed Race | 0 | 2 | 2 | 6 | ||||
| 10 | Sasuke vs. Commander | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | ||||
| Space Invaders | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 | |||||
| Missile Command | 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 | |||||
Best-selling home video games
The following titles were the best-selling home video games in 1980.
| Rank | Title | Platform | Developer | Publisher | Release year | Genre | Sales | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Space Invaders | Atari VCS | Taito | Atari, Inc. | 1980 | Shoot 'em up | 1,318,655 | [19][20] |
| 2 | Breakout | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1978 | Action | 256,265 | [20] | |
| 3 | Football | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1979 | Sports (American football) | 248,502 | ||
| 4 | Bowling | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1979 | Sports | 245,670 | ||
| 5 | Night Driver | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1980 | Racing | 161,352 | ||
| 6 | Air-Sea Battle | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1977 | Shooter | 160,093 | ||
| 7 | Circus Atari | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1980 | Action | 148,756 | ||
| 8 | Street Racer | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1977 | Racing | 89,269 | ||
| 9 | Video Olympics | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1977 | Sports | 36,028 | ||
Best-selling home systems
| Rank | System(s) | Manufacturer | Type | Generation | Sales | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Game & Watch | Nintendo | Handheld | N/a | 2,000,000+ | [21] |
| 2 | Atari Video Computer System (VCS) | Atari, Inc. | Console | Second | 1,250,000 | [22] |
| 3 | TRS-80 | Tandy Corporation | Computer | 8-bit | 290,000 | [23] |
| 4 | Intellivision | Mattel | Console | Second | 200,000 | [22][24] |
| 5 | Atari 400 / Atari 800 | Atari, Inc. | Computer | 8-bit | 200,000 | [23] |
| 6 | Commodore PET | Commodore International | Computer | 8-bit | 90,000 | [23] |
| 7 | Apple II | Apple Inc. | Computer | 8-bit | 79,500 | [25] |
| 8 | HP 9800 / HP Series 80 | Hewlett-Packard | Computer | 8-bit | 11,300 | [25] |
| 9 | North Star Horizon | North Star Computers | Computer | 8-bit | 8,200 | [25] |
| 10 | TI-99/4 | Texas Instruments | Computer | 16-bit | 8,100 | [25] |
Events
Awards
- Electronic Games hosts the first Arcade Awards, the first video game awards ceremony. It awards games released during 1978–1979, with Space Invaders winning the overall Game of the Year award.[26][27]
Business
- New companies: Broderbund, Bug-Byte, HAL Laboratory, Human Engineered Software, Mindscape, On-Line Systems, Sirius, Sir-Tech.
- Mattel creates the original five-programmer Intellivision game design team, later nicknamed the Blue Sky Rangers in 1982 in a TV Guide interview.
Notable releases
Games
- Arcade
- May 22 – Namco releases Pac-Man (originally Puckman in Japan). It becomes the highest-grossing game of all time.[28] It has the first gaming mascot character, established the maze chase genre, opened gaming to female audiences,[29] introduced power-ups,[30] and told a story through cutscenes.[31]
- May – Stratovox from Sun Electronics is the first game with voice synthesis.
- July – Atari, Inc. releases the cold-war-inspired Missile Command.
- October – Nichibutsu releases the vertically scrolling Crazy Climber, the first video game with a climbing mechanic and an objective of climbing to the top of the level.
- November 12 – Stern Electronics releases Berzerk, with designer Alan McNeil's signature on the monitor glass of each cabinet.
- November – Namco releases Rally-X, the first game with a bonus round. It also features multi-directional scrolling.
- November – Universal releases Space Panic, the first game with platforms and ladders. The term platform game was still several years in the future.
- November – Atari, Inc. releases first-person 3D tank shooter Battlezone.
- Cinematronics releases Star Castle. In 1982 the Atari 2600 port ends up as Yars' Revenge.[32][33]
- Midway's Wizard of Wor is released, allowing two players to fight simultaneously in monster-filled mazes.
- The multi-stage Phoenix sports one of the first video-game bosses: a purple alien in a mothership.
- Console
- Atari, Inc.'s port of Space Invaders becomes the killer app for the VCS and the first console title to sell a million copies.
- The first batch of games from Activision, all for the Atari VCS, hits stores: Dragster, Fishing Derby, Boxing, Bridge, and Checkers.
- Computer
- December – Infocom releases its first game, Zork (later called Zork I), which begins the Zork series.
- The mainframe game Rogue is written by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold, eventually spawning a crowded genre of Roguelike games.
- Edu-Ware releases The Prisoner for the Apple II, loosely based upon the 1960s TV series of the same name.
- Strategic Simulations releases its first game: Computer Bismarck for the TRS-80.
- Microsoft publishes Olympic Decathlon for the TRS-80, a track and field video game which precedes Konami's Track & Field and The Activision Decathlon by three years.
- On-Line Systems publishes its first title, the graphic adventure Mystery House for the Apple II.
- Handheld
- Nintendo releases the Game & Watch series of LCD handheld electronic games by Gunpei Yokoi.
Hardware
- Arcade
- December – Data East releases the DECO Cassette System, the first standardized arcade platform, for which many games are developed.
- Console
- Mattel releases the Intellivision home video game console.
- PPZ Ameprod releases the Ameprod TVG-10 dedicated home video game console in Poland.
- The BSS 01 dedicated home video game console is released only in Germany.
- Computer
- The Sinclair ZX80 and Acorn Atom are the first home computers to play games in the UK.
- Tandy releases the first version of the Tandy Color Computer.