History GenreTurningPoint / VideoGames

* What the Platform/Atari2600 did for gaming in TheSeventies and the Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem did for it in TheEighties, the Creator/{{Sony}} Platform/PlayStation did for it in TheNineties upon its release in Japan in December 1994, becoming the decade's defining home console and the one whose hardware enabled numerous changes to gaming as a whole.

** It also popularized a simple, rhythm-based style of melee combat in video games in which, instead of multiple buttons and combinations thereof for different attacks, players had just one or two buttons for attacks (in this case, one for the basic attack and another for a ranged attack) and another button to block, parry, dodge, or grab enemies depending on context. From there, combat turned almost into a RhythmGame, a control system that was easy to learn but was dependent on quick reflexes and a keen eye for when enemies were about to attack. It would soon be imitated and refined by other action games, especially open-world games, such as the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'', ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'', ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4'', and its sequels.

** Finally, 2005's ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedMostWanted'' reintroduced police chases to the series after they'd been absent after [[VideoGame/NeedForSpeedHotPursuit2 Hot Pursuit 2]]'', and in doing so, made them a fixture of street racing games by adding another element of chaos to the proceedings in the form of the long arm of the law. Now, just winning the race wasn't enough; you had to get past the cops too if you wanted to make it to the finish line, and then flee them after the race was over.

** Finally, 2005's ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedMostWanted'' reintroduced police chases to the series after they'd been absent since 1999's ''[[VideoGame/NeedForSpeedHighStakes High Stakes]]'', and in doing so, made them a fixture of street racing games by adding another element of chaos to the proceedings in the form of the long arm of the law. Now, just winning the race wasn't enough; you had to get past the cops too if you wanted to make it to the finish line, and then flee them after the race was over.

** It also popularized a simple, rhythm-based style of melee combat in video games in which, instead of multiple buttons and combinations thereof for different attacks, players had just one or two buttons for attacks and another button to block, parry, or dodge enemies. From there, combat turned almost into a RhythmGame, a control system that was easy to learn but was dependent on quick reflexes and a keen eye for when enemies were about to attack. It would soon be imitated and refined by other action games, especially open-world games, such as the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'', ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'', ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4'', and its sequels.

* The North American launch of the Platform/SegaGenesis in 1989 birthed the MediaNotes/ConsoleWars. While the makers of video games and consoles had long seen each other as competitors, Creator/{{Sega}} of America's marketing made Creator/{{Nintendo}} into their ''[[TheRival rival]]'' in a way that none of the companies before them had been. "Genesis Does What Nintendon't" was a [[CompetingProductPotshot direct shot across the bow]] that forced Nintendo to respond, the beginning of a fierce competition from TheNineties onward that other companies (most notably Creator/{{Sony}} and Creator/{{Microsoft}}) and [[UsefulNotes/PCVsConsole PC gamers]] would later join and which gave console manufacturers brand identities akin to sports teams, complete with the same kind of {{Fandom Rivalr|y}}ies. To this day, console gamers will still sometimes describe themselves as loyalists to one system or another, and fiercely debate which system has the best games.

** The most immediate impact was to raise the stakes in terms of the violence that video games could get away with. The UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 trope was born here, as blood went flying with each punch and kick and players could end each match with "fatalities", brutal {{finishing move}}s in which the loser was [[CruelAndUnusualDeath violently murdered and often dismembered]] in a mess of {{gorn}}. As [[https://uk.ign.com/articles/2011/05/05/the-history-of-mortal-kombat this article]] by Travis Fahs for ''IGN'' notes, after ''Mortal Kombat'' came out "waves of imitators began to flood the market, filling arcades with a sea of blood". In fact, ''Mortal Kombat'' was, together with ''VideoGame/NightTrap'', one of the games responsible for the creation of the UsefulNotes/EntertainmentSoftwareRatingBoard (or ESRB), North America's main MediaWatchdog for video games, as parental outrage over the game's graphic violence led to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_congressional_hearings_on_video_games Congressional hearings]] in 1993.

** It was not the first console to use [[UsefulNotes/CompactDisc CDs]] as opposed to cartridges for its games. Both the Platform/ThreeDOInteractiveMultiplayer and the Platform/PhilipsCDi predate it[[note]]So did the Platform/FMTowns Marty and the Platform/AmigaCD32, but [[Main/NoExportForYou neither one was released in the U.S.]][[/note]], the Platform/SegaGenesis, Platform/TurboGrafx16, and Platform/AtariJaguar had CD drive peripherals released during their lifetimes, and the Platform/SegaSaturn beat Sony to the punch by one month. It was the [=PlayStation=], however, whose combination of a CD drive and advanced graphical hardware showed just how much optical media could expand what gaming was capable of. Its audio capabilities especially caused the [=PlayStation=] to lead a revolution in sound design in gaming in the late '90s, particularly with the rise of voice acting and music, as it became possible to fit voice lines for every character and music that wasn't compressed into a MIDI format onto a single disc. The smaller size and lower cost of discs compared to large, proprietary cartridges, when combined with the [=PlayStation=]'s pioneering use of a memory card to store saved game data separately from the game itself, also allowed developers to make games that spanned multiple discs. The epic [[EasternRPG Japanese RPGs]] that the [=PlayStation=] became famous for couldn't have been made on the hardware from just one generation prior, a fact that [[Creator/SquareEnix Squaresoft]] realized when they ditched Nintendo (which still used cartridges for the Platform/Nintendo64) and made their games exclusive to Sony's console.

* The release of the [[UsefulNotes/IOSGames iPhone]] in 2007, and with it the attendant "smartphone revolution", changed society in general, but in gaming, one of its biggest impacts was how it remade handheld gaming and the CasualVideoGame in its image.

** 1997's ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' rewrote the rulebook for the JRPG genre, popularizing highly cinematic presentation enabled by CG rendering and the newly increased storage space of [=CDs=], and dynamic camera angles and movement in battles presented in 3D. It sparked a JRPG boom in the West as other Japanese developers brought their games across the Pacific and boosted their production values to match up with what Creator/{{Square|Enix}}soft had accomplished.

* ''IGN'', when [[https://www.ign.com/top-25-consoles/2.html listing]] the Platform/Atari2600 as the second-greatest video game console of all time (behind only the Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem), referred to it as "the console that our entire industry is built upon." While the Fairchild Channel F was the first video game console to use removable cartridges for games (before, home consoles like the Platform/MagnavoxOdyssey had only a few built-in games), the 2600, released the following year in 1977, was far more successful, defining what a video game console would be to this day. Many of America's biggest video game companies, most notably Creator/ElectronicArts and Creator/{{Activision}}, got their start making games for the 2600. Creator/{{Atari}} and the 2600 were also directly connected to UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983, when Atari's port of ''VideoGame/PacMan'' and their ''VideoGame/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' tie-in, which they hoped would be {{killer app}}s, instead served as {{the last straw}}s in an American gaming market bloated with subpar products and cash-ins -- all of them trying to grab a piece of the pie that Atari had baked -- and leaving the field wide open for Japanese companies led by Creator/{{Nintendo}} to rebuild the American video game industry in the latter half of TheEighties.
* ''VideoGame/SpaceInvaders'' in 1978 was the first UsefulNotes/ArcadeGame to truly take off as a pop culture phenomenon, and together with the Platform/Atari2600, it started what has been called UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfVideoGames. [[OneUp Extra lives]], high scores, progressive difficulty, the EndlessGame, rail shooters -- all of these and more can be traced back to this game. Other companies both Japanese and Western, including American {{pinball}} manufacturers like [[Creator/MidwayGames Bally/Midway]], Creator/{{Gottlieb}}, and Creator/WilliamsElectronics (who had just witnessed ''Space Invaders'' become the first electronic game to out-gross any of their pinball machines), saw Creator/{{Taito}}'s success and jumped into the arena with electronic games of their own, while game machines spread like wildfire across arcades (where they got their name), boardwalks, restaurants, theaters, bars, and grocery stores.

* When Creator/{{Nintendo}} exported the Family Computer (or Famicom) console to the US as the Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem in 1985, they reshaped the industry after it had [[UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 seemingly imploded two years prior]].
** In the '70s and early '80s, home console gaming would be a medium dominated by American companies like Creator/{{Atari}}, Platform/{{Coleco|vision}}, and Creator/{{Mattel}}, but the crash caused Western game development to shift to personal computers for many years afterward, leaving Japanese companies, largely unaffected by what they called the "Atari shock", alone to dominate the home console industry going forward. Nintendo famously put an Official Seal of Quality on every game released on the NES to denote that it would actually run properly on the machine without regularly crashing, helping to restore American consumer confidence in home console games after experiencing the glut of broken shovelware that killed the industry last time. Until Creator/{{Microsoft}} entered the fray in the early '00s, the UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars were an almost exclusively Japanese affair, with Nintendo, Creator/{{Sega}}, and later Creator/{{Sony}} as the dominant players while American companies were also-rans at best.

** In 1985, ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' defined the 2D platformer, and ensured the resurrection of the video game home console in the United States after UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 by serving as a KillerApp for the [[Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]] upon its introduction to the US market. Previous entries, such as ''VideoGame/{{Pitfall}}'' and Nintendo's own ''VideoGame/MarioBros'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'', took place on a single screen or series of screens. ''Super Mario Bros''[='=] innovative scrolling screen was so influential that even the ''name'' of the genre changed, being popularly known as "sidescrollers" until the [[VideoGame3DLeap leap to 3D]] -- a name that is still widely used for 2D platformers to distinguish them from their 3D brethren. More broadly speaking, the first ''Super Mario Bros'' marked the beginning of video games' shift away from arcade design sensibilities and into what we see them as today. Earlier video games were not designed with endings in mind, but to go on infinitely so as to encourage people to put more quarters in. If the games had an ending, it was usually [[KillScreen due to glitches]] and not intended or designed by the programmers, and reaching that point was rare due to the [[NintendoHard extreme difficulty]] of these games. ''Super Mario Bros.'', on the other hand, was innovative in that it was designed ''to be finished''. This then-novel concept of games having distinct beginnings, middles, and endings paved way for future developments such as difficulty curves, and, despite the original ''Super Mario Bros.'' having a simple ExcusePlot, more complicated narratives that turned video games into an effective story-telling medium.

* The North American launch of the Platform/SegaGenesis in 1989 birthed the UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars. While the makers of video games and consoles had long seen each other as competitors, Creator/{{Sega}} of America's marketing made Creator/{{Nintendo}} into their ''[[TheRival rival]]'' in a way that none of the companies before them had been. "Genesis Does What Nintendon't" was a [[CompetingProductPotshot direct shot across the bow]] that forced Nintendo to respond, the beginning of a fierce competition from TheNineties onward that other companies (most notably Creator/{{Sony}} and Creator/{{Microsoft}}) and [[UsefulNotes/PCVsConsole PC gamers]] would later join and which gave console manufacturers brand identities akin to sports teams, complete with the same kind of {{Fandom Rivalr|y}}ies. To this day, console gamers will still sometimes describe themselves as loyalists to one system or another, and fiercely debate which system has the best games.

* The ''VideoGame/TeamICOSeries'' were hugely influential on UsefulNotes/TheSixthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames, with their impact stretching to the present day:

** It made Microsoft the first American company since Creator/{{Atari}} to become a major player in the UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars, officially breaking the monopoly held by the Japanese since UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983. This was a major sign that the Great Crash's lingering aftereffects were gone for good.

** Finally, as the first home console with a built-in hard drive, it expanded the scope of what was possible with a home console game, much like the Platform/PlayStation's use of [=CDs=] versus cartridges. Developers could now make games that didn't have to fit onto a single disc, without relying on multiple discs that had to be swapped out during gameplay, enabling far more detailed graphics and bigger worlds than ever before. Ironically, it was the Xbox 360's competitor, the Platform/PlayStation3, that most fully realized the benefits of this arrangement, with every [=PS3=] shipping with a hard drive while the 360 had a budget model without one until 2010 (and afterwards, had a budget model with a paltry 4 GB until the end of its run). By the end of UsefulNotes/{{the Seventh Generation|OfConsoleVideoGames}}, as it became clear that the [=PS3=]'s standard hard drive was giving it the edge as 360 and multiplatform developers couldn't take storage space for granted, Microsoft learned its lesson and made a 500 GB hard drive standard on the Platform/XboxOne.

** It also opened up a vast market for low-budget, low-cost games. While handheld games had always been cheaper than comparable home console and PC games, "cheaper" is a relative term, and Platform/NintendoDS and Platform/PlayStationPortable games at the time still sold for $30-40 compared to the $60 that full-price console games went for in UsefulNotes/{{the Seventh Generation|OfConsoleVideoGames}}. The Apple App Store that came with the iPhone allowed people to instead download small {{Mobile Phone Game}}s for as little as one, two, or five dollars -- or ''zero'' dollars, as some developers eventually took to supporting their games with either ads or {{microtransactions}} instead of charging an up-front fee. Couple that with the ease of digital distribution compared to brick-and-mortar retailers (much as Steam had done with PC gaming), and the budget end of gaming quickly moved from handhelds to mobile phones.

* The release of the [[Platform/IOSGames iPhone]] in 2007, and with it the attendant "smartphone revolution", changed society in general, but in gaming, one of its biggest impacts was how it remade handheld gaming and the CasualVideoGame in its image.

** It also opened up a vast market for low-budget, low-cost games. While handheld games had always been cheaper than comparable home console and PC games, "cheaper" is a relative term, and Platform/NintendoDS and Platform/PlayStationPortable games at the time still sold for $30-40 compared to the $60 that full-price console games went for in UsefulNotes/{{the Seventh Generation|OfConsoleVideoGames}}. The Apple App Store that came with the iPhone allowed people to instead download small games for as little as one, two, or five dollars -- or ''zero'' dollars, as some developers eventually took to supporting their games with either ads or {{microtransactions}} instead of charging an up-front fee. Couple that with the ease of digital distribution compared to brick-and-mortar retailers (much as Steam had done with PC gaming), and the budget end of gaming quickly moved from handhelds to mobile phones.

** Its 2002 sequel ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'', meanwhile, revolutionized video game soundtracks. Before, music in video games was usually either specifically composed for the game, made up of a handful of more-or-less obscure/underground musicians, or composed of no more than about a dozen licensed tracks, usually from a single genre (such as ''VideoGame/TonyHawksProSkater''[='=]s PunkRock soundtrack).[[note]]''GTA III'' used a mix of all three. The {{reggae}}[=/=]dub station K-JAH had its playlist consist entirely of songs by the Jamaican musician Scientist, the '80s {{pop}} station Flashback FM had all its (five) songs taken from the soundtrack to ''Film/Scarface1983'', the ClassicalMusic station Double Clef FM used music that had been in the PublicDomain for decades, the modern pop stations Head Radio and Lips 106 saw Rockstar North (then DMA Design) hire in-house musicians to write and compose their own music, and Rise FM, Game Radio, and MSX FM respectively featured underground {{electronic|Music}}, HipHop, and DrumAndBass musicians.[[/note]] The Houser brothers, however, used their connections in the music industry to secure the rights to a soundtrack composed of over a hundred songs from some of the biggest pop and rock icons of TheEighties, contributing to the game's ''Series/MiamiVice''[=/=]''Film/{{Scarface|1983}}'' atmosphere like nothing else. ''Vice City''[='=]s [[CultSoundtrack soundtrack]] is still held up as one of the greatest ever seen in a video game, and it's been the norm for games to use licensed tracks from big-name artists ever since.

** In the realm of gaming journalism, meanwhile, ''[=BioShock=]''[='=]s exploration of the nature of video game narratives and tropes helped bring a new breed of more intellectual game critics and writers into the mainstream, as people picked apart the game's big twist and its presentation of the morals and political ideas at the center of its story. Those who criticized various aspects of the game and [[VideoGame/BioShock2 its]] [[VideoGame/BioShockInfinite sequels]] wound up birthing the term [[GameplayAndStorySegregation "ludonarrative dissonance"]] with their complaints about how they felt that the action-packed gameplay didn't match up with the themes running through the story. These criticisms would later give birth to the EnvironmentalNarrativeGame genre, which largely eschewed conventional competitive gameplay in favor of storytelling. Notably, ''VideoGame/GoneHome'', one of the more famous games of this type, was developed by a team whose founding members got their start on the Minerva's Den story expansion for ''VideoGame/BioShock2''.

** ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'' was a turning point in how video games were released, marketed, and perceived in the entertainment industry at large. Up until the early '90s, most video games didn't have strict release dates; instead, they followed a model used the the toy industry where they would trickling out to retailers over the course of a month or two, which reflected how games were viewed as toys at the time rather than media. With ''Sonic 2'', Sega instead created a huge marketing push around a definite release date of November 24, 1992, which they dubbed "Sonic [=2sday=]", generating enormous amounts of hype from people who couldn't wait to purchase the game on that day. While this huge launch presented logistical challenges to Sega and retailers, it paid off when ''Sonic 2'' became one of the fastest selling video games up to that point, with many comparing the launch to that of a new album from a major artist or a blockbuster film. It set a standard for definitive release dates for video games going forward (especially after Creator/{{Acclaim}} used Sega's blueprint the following year to hype up the release of the home version of ''VideoGame/{{Mortal Kombat|1992}}'' on "Mortal Monday"), and helped propel video games into becoming an important branch of the entertainment industry.

** The most immediate impact was to raise the stakes in terms of the violence that video games could get away with. The UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 trope was born here, as blood went flying with each punch and kick and players could end each match with "fatalities", brutal {{finishing move}}s in which the loser was [[CruelAndUnusualDeath violently murdered and often dismembered]] in a mess of {{gorn}}. As [[https://uk.ign.com/articles/2011/05/05/the-history-of-mortal-kombat this article]] by Travis Fahs for ''IGN'' notes, after ''Mortal Kombat'' came out "waves of imitators began to flood the market, filling arcades with a sea of blood". In fact, ''Mortal Kombat'' was, together with ''VideoGame/NightTrap'', one of the games responsible for the creation of the [[MediaWatchdog Electronic Software Ratings Board (ESRB)]], as parental outrage over the game's graphic violence led to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_congressional_hearings_on_video_games Congressional hearings]] in 1993.