Essay on My Favorite Hobby (Video Games)

Video games are a hobby that is enjoyed by millions around the world. Video games can be played, collected, and resold. Video games can also give you a look into the past’s culture and technological development with games like Mario or Zelda evolving over time from 2D graphics to 3D graphics. That’s why video games are one of the world’s most popular hobbies.

Video games weren’t accessible until the most iconic game of all time, Pong, released. Pong is iconic because of the explosion of interest in video games it caused. A simple game where you would hit a ball to try and score against your opponent wouldn’t be interesting in today’s world compared to the realistic graphics and movie-like stories, however, Pong was a game your grandma could understand. This interest in games caused the evolution of arcade games and eventually lead to the development of home systems that you could play these games on. One company knew they had to capitalize on this boom being Atari.

Atari released the Atari 2600 and video games had reached a popularity not known with every kid’s Christmas list containing the 2600. It was understandable, the games were simple, fun, and competitive. However, this rise came to a screeching stop in 1983 as the quality control of games being released was at a bare minimum. After this recession of interest was over, a new competitor stepped up to bat, called Nintendo. Nintendo was a relatively small company that sold playing cards until the interest in arcades started. Nintendo had developed and published many popular arcade games such as Donkey Kong and Mario Bros, both games that would have a huge impact on the popularity of their new console.

In 1985, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), a system that would quickly become the next console on a kids Christmas list. A competitor known as SEGA would notice the popularity of the NES and release their own console known as the Master System. The Sega Master System didn’t do as well as the NES but it made the companies acknowledge the rivalry between the two. Sega released the Genesis in 1988 while Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1990. The war between Nintendo and Sega continued throughout the 90’s with many classic games and advertisements were released in a hope that a person would choose their system. The choice between two companies wouldn’t last much longer as Sony entered the race and revolutionized the way that games looked and played. The Sony PlayStation was released in 1994 with mind-blowing 3D graphics alongside great games such as Crash Bandicoot, Final Fantasy, and Metal Gear Solid throughout its lifespan. Nintendo was able to adapt to this releasing the Nintendo 64 in 1996 with the same 3D graphics. The N64 was home to many classics such as Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, GoldenEye 007, and many others. Sega, however, was not able to adapt which led to its console development to be stopped by the 2000’s.

Microsoft, a company mostly known for computers, decided that it was time for them to make video games. The Xbox was released in November 2001 with one of the most recognizable video games, Halo. Halo changed the way shooting games worked. Shooting games were mostly developed for computers as developers thought that shooter couldn’t control or succeed as well on consoles due to its lack of a mouse and keyboard. The Xbox had to compete with Nintendo’s GameCube, and Sony’s PlayStation 2. The Xbox and GameCube didn’t sell near as many systems as the PS2, selling over 158 million consoles. The graphics were slowly evolving, becoming more realistic compared to the Atari 2600 or NES. This generation had been easily won by Sony, but the next generation was fair game. The next generation of consoles were Nintendo’s Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and Sony’s PlayStation 3. This generation was mostly won by the Nintendo Wii, due to it being a system the entire family could play together.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 were regarded as the more serious gamers console. The Xbox 360 was regarded as the better system due to its price compared to the PS3 but both systems had hardware issues. The early models of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 would overheat and cause the systems unusable without difficult repairs. Later models of both systems fixed these issues and continued to release great exclusive games to each console but the PlayStation 3 eventually sold the most consoles. A leading factor behind the PS3’s huge sales is because of its ability to be a cheap Blu-Ray and streaming device. The price of Blu-Ray players before and during the PS3 lifespan was priced at $150-200 while the PS3 was $200-300 and it could do online streaming, play Blu-Rays, and play video games.

The next systems were released in 2012 with Nintendo releasing the Wii U, Microsoft releasing the Xbox One, and Sony releasing the PlayStation 4. The same thing happened in this generation of consoles however the Wii U was disregarded because of its low sales and lack of quality games compared to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The PlayStation 4 was the clear winner in this generation due to the number of high-quality games from Spiderman, God of War, The Last of Us, Ratchet and Clank, and many other titles compared to the Xbox One with only Halo, Forza, and other not as known games. However, Xbox was able to slowly recover over time due to its release of the Game Pass. The Game Pass included hundreds of games, games from well-known developers and games from small developers. The Game Pass gave every subscriber a chance to play some of the best games available on the Xbox platform.

Nintendo was able to come back from their failure releasing the Nintendo Switch in 2017. The Switch was revolutionary due to the it’s ability to play on the TV and on-the-go. Nintendo released some of the best games of the current generation in Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The only downside to the Switch were the graphics, compared to the PS4 and Xbox One the Switch was a slight downgrade. Sony and Xbox knew they had to release a new system in order to catch up to the computing power of the PC by 2020. Over years of speculation about what the next systems could do, Sony and Xbox announced and released their consoles in 2020. The PS5 and Xbox Series S and X both have great graphics, can run the latest games faster and at higher resolution compared to the PS4 and Xbox One, and load the games faster due to their fast storage devices. Nintendo has yet to release a new system since 2017, but details are slowly coming out with the new Switch getting a faster processor and better screen.

The world of video games has come a long way from two lines playing Ping Pong, to games with stories comparable to books and movies. The people who enjoy the hobby of video games have gone from the people who were called nerds for enjoying video games to the people who bullied the nerds enjoying video games. Video games are more than pixels on a screen, they have music that musicians can enjoy and stories an author can enjoy. That’s why video games are highly regarded by millions of people throughout the world.